Einat Nathan, MY EVERYTHING: The Parent I Want to Be, The Children I Hope to Raise
[0:01]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:05]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:07]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[0:12]Check it out, and you'll hear from 49 authors about all sorts of things
[0:16]Moms Don't Have Time to Do. All the authors have been on this podcast.
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[0:28]And of course, my new publishing company called Sivi Books.
[0:32]And now back to our daily author interview site and a quick hello from some of my kids.
[0:37]Hi, hi, hello.
[0:38]Enjoy the show.
[0:41]If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[0:47]Here's a little snippet by one of the authors from the anthology.
[0:50]Hi, my name is Art and Marine, and I am thrilled to have contributed to Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[0:58]My essay is called, I Am the Writer.
[1:02]And what I really don't have time for is sleep, which is a drag because I love to sleep,
[1:09]but there's just so many things that I have to get done in the day and that I am enjoying doing right now.
[1:16]So I hope you guys get some sleep and I can't wait for you to read this amazing book, Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids.
[1:24]My not Nathan is the author of My Everything, the parent I want to be, the children I hope to raise.
[1:29]I not is a parenting expert, public speaker, and best-selling author certified by the Adler Institute and the Ministry of Education for parental instruction and group instruction.
[1:38]She also holds a bachelor's degree in law from Tel Aviv University.
[1:41]She is currently married and the mother of two boys and three daughters.
[1:45]Welcome, you nod.
[1:46]Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss My Everything.
[1:50]The parents I want to be, the children I hope to raise.
[1:53]Thank you. I'm so excited to talk to you.
[1:56]Oh, this book was so beautiful.
[1:59]I know it's already been such a massive best-seller, but the things that you revealed about your experience and writing from the heart and your losses and oh my gosh, I was like crying with you.
[2:11]I was and then like in it and like every example you have with your kids and like oh my gosh, I have a child.
[2:18]So it was really personally exciting for me. I have kids of all ages and you have five kids. I have four kids.
[2:24]No.
[2:25]Anyway, it was like yeah, I feel like there's enough experience in it afternoon.
[2:30]Thank you so much.
[2:32]You know, I always wonder because English is not my native language and I always wondered if it can cross the ocean.
[2:41]If it can resonate or reach mothers or parents' hearts and it's so overwhelming to find out that parenting is universal.
[2:52]Yes.
[2:53]Yeah. Doesn't matter where you do that.
[2:55]No.
[2:56]I mean, this could have been written by somebody across the hall.
[2:59]You know, because also everybody brings different backgrounds to most people here come from somewhere else anyway.
[3:05]You know, so, but the way you write about love and oh my gosh, I'm so sorry for the way you wrote about the still birds.
[3:12]Oh my gosh.
[3:13]And I'm so sorry. I'm just so sorry that that happened and thank you.
[3:18]You know, we debated about the opening of the book and I insisted that this loss was the beginning of my journey as a parent.
[3:32]I mean, this loss was such a gift in a way, you know, for the mother I was going to be and I didn't know I was going to be.
[3:42]I could only talk about it in retrospect of course, but, but it is the beginning of the journey and I struggled whether to open the book with this loss, but it felt right.
[3:56]It was, I mean, not to turn the horrors of your life into what works for a book, but from a book perspective.
[4:04]I mean, you're immediately rooting for you, right?
[4:08]You like you're immediately drawn in and then you want to know what like what do you have to say?
[4:13]How did you get over this and even the way and you're writing is so beautiful.
[4:17]Come on, let me see.
[4:18]Oh my God.
[4:19]I told you I dugured all this.
[4:20]I didn't land to cry in the first five minutes.
[4:23]Oh no, I'm sorry.
[4:25]No, no, no, no.
[4:28]Even just, I'm just going to read a couple of these passages, but you say more than 10 years separate the mother I am today from that girl mother I was back then.
[4:36]And now looking through photos.
[4:38]My eyes are flooded with tears of sorrow, sorrow for my old self so young, exhausted, blind to the beauty of magical moments enduring through a mess of laundry and toy parts functional but far from happy and above all anxious.
[4:53]The old me looks back at me from the photos me and the loneliness being a mother to small children.
[5:00]Right.
[5:01]Oh my gosh, you just captured that so well.
[5:04]I mean, I have these like home movies and I see myself so stressed and so like why why is that woman right?
[5:12]Yeah, it was hard.
[5:15]But you know, I just had this thought today because my oldest son just finished two and a half years of service in the army.
[5:25]And everything is very emotional and exciting of course and I had this thought, what if I would look back 10 years from now at the mother that I am now.
[5:40]And I would think something like that as well, you know, so we don't know, but it does change it does change the struggles change.
[5:51]Well, I do think there's something uniquely sort of I mean, I don't want to say anything too negative, but there's something unique about parenting really small kids because it's a totally different skill set than most people have in their back pocket.
[6:05]Whereas I think parenting teens and older kids like you're having conversations you might have with other adults.
[6:12]You might not get the same responses, but you know, it's at least it's not so like physical and immersive or here like on the floor.
[6:23]We camp right.
[6:25]Yeah.
[6:26]So I think there's something more at least physically exhausting when they're tiny sometimes now it's completely like psychologically exhausting.
[6:34]I feel like there's nothing I did better to prepare myself for being a mom than majoring in psychology.
[6:40]I use that stuff every day.
[6:43]Definitely.
[6:45]I think that kids in general are the best psychotherapy we can get right so true.
[6:52]You know, in go through that journey before becoming parents, they take us they take us there.
[7:00]I just want to read a few more of these beautiful passages because even talking about the loss of your own mother.
[7:05]You said when I parted with my mother, I was already a grown up.
[7:08]I had two children, a husband, a life of my own.
[7:10]The parting took place in stages as is the case with severe illness.
[7:14]It prepares us the hover of death lingering in the air for years, dispersing a sense of longing, even while everyone is still around.
[7:23]I just love that too.
[7:25]Sorry.
[7:26]But then you have your whole section on all of these goodbyes.
[7:29]Hold on.
[7:30]Is there one more I wanted to read for now?
[7:32]If not, we can just.
[7:33]Well, anyway, let's just keep talking and I can quote again later.
[7:36]But what was the experience of writing this book like for you?
[7:39]How long did this whole thing take?
[7:41]I mean, there's so much here and it's really well done.
[7:45]Oh my god, the broken cell phone that was really funny too.
[7:47]I'm like skimming through this again, the crack of the cell phone.
[7:50]Even your chapter time losing control doesn't have to be a loss.
[7:54]Oh my gosh.
[7:55]Okay.
[7:56]Anyway, oh my gosh, and the Weight Watchers part with your son.
[7:59]I love that.
[8:00]I actually was a Weight Watchers leader for a short stint in my 20s.
[8:03]I know it's like one of these things.
[8:05]Yes.
[8:06]Yes, I know.
[8:07]That was very interesting.
[8:08]But anyway, the horror that he had and how you like don't micro manage with weight and then like let him come around to it himself.
[8:16]Tell me about that about that specifically or whatever, you know, writing about it.
[8:21]But sorry, I'm all over the place because I'm like talk about everything.
[8:25]I love that your podcast is mom don't have time to read books.
[8:32]So mom don't have to write books.
[8:35]Don't have time to write books as well.
[8:37]So the whole book was written on the notes in my iPhone.
[8:42]Oh my gosh.
[8:44]Like, you know, in between waiting for my daughter to finish ballet in the toilet.
[8:51]Like every time I had five minutes, I was just writing and sending pieces and bits and pieces of it to my email and it accumulated with time.
[9:04]And I think it began.
[9:07]I've been a parenting expert counselor for the last 19 almost 20 years and I always found that, you know, the know it all experts, the ones with a perfect picture and the how to's and the manuals.
[9:27]They always made me feel as a mom like there was something wrong with me or something wrong with my children.
[9:36]And it's kind of like, you know, every product that is selling, we're going to tell you what your problem is.
[9:43]And then we're going to tell you what you need to do in order to fix it.
[9:49]So it worked. And then I thought, what if there is a different way to give parents, you know, information accessible information.
[10:00]can actually use without letting them feel like there was
[10:05]something wrong with them or with their children.
[10:09]And the decision was to take my professional mask off
[10:15]and to put in all my vulnerabilities and my struggles
[10:20]and my imperfect five children.
[10:25]And my journey, of course, I combined it
[10:28]with all of my professional knowledge.
[10:30]But it's kind of like an emotional journey holding
[10:37]hands with an expert, quote, unquote.
[10:41]But I think that the most common feedback that I get,
[10:47]I think that a one of three, it's, oh my god, I feel normal.
[10:52]Or oh my god, now I understand my children's viewpoint.
[10:58]And I actually want to wake them up and hug them.
[11:02]Or you touched my heart and I know what to do now.
[11:06]And this was the most exciting thing for me,
[11:10]to kind of bring parents back to trusting themselves
[11:16]and to letting go of the ego.
[11:19]And we can't let go of the ego if we're worried
[11:25]there's something wrong.
[11:28]It's there.
[11:28]So this was the journey.
[11:31]And about the second part that you asked,
[11:34]I was talking about my children's weight.
[11:39]But in general, I think that we jump too fast
[11:45]in order to fix them or to take away their pain
[11:51]or to make their life easier.
[11:53]And we all do that with good intentions.
[11:56]But eventually, it's kind of wrong.
[12:00]Because we don't trust nature's way of maturing.
[12:06]And we don't trust enough their mechanism
[12:12]of wanting to succeed.
[12:15]We don't trust enough their encounter with life.
[12:19]We don't trust enough, even that the values that we hold
[12:25]as a family will be inside them.
[12:29]So we start correcting them.
[12:32]And we start reprimanding them.
[12:34]And we start giving them smart advice from the future.
[12:39]But when we let go, when we lean back, I promise you,
[12:44]they grab the wheel.
[12:46]And it might not be what we expected, but it's theirs.
[12:51]Or the car crashes.
[12:53]They were they grabbed the wheel and we
[12:54]go right into a tree or something.
[12:56]That's what I'm talking about.
[12:58]Let's talk about it, because this is the fear, right?
[13:02]What does a car crash look like in parenting?
[13:05]What are we afraid of that they don't get
[13:08]to Ivy League schools that they don't look the way we accepted
[13:16]them behave, the way we accepted them represent us?
[13:19]Our greatness in the world of social network,
[13:24]in the world of our children being trophies or snowflakes
[13:29]or whatever.
[13:30]What is this car crash that we're so afraid of?
[13:35]I don't know.
[13:36]I mean, I actually meant like an actual car crash.
[13:38]But yes, I mean, I think it's different for different people.
[13:43]I think it's the fear that every decision
[13:46]means so much to someone's development.
[13:49]And then what if you don't teach them?
[13:52]I mean, but maybe this is my own bias.
[13:54]What if you don't teach them how to be resilient?
[13:56]What if they always quit everything, for instance?
[13:58]But you're if you, I don't know.
[14:02]Is it OK to take one piano lesson and then say, I don't like it?
[14:05]Or do you have to do years of piano?
[14:08]And practice five times a day, right?
[14:10]I'm more of the like, OK, you're not into cello.
[14:13]Forget it, like moving on.
[14:15]There are 8,000 instruments, you know?
[14:16]But other people that might not be the,
[14:18]not that that's the train wreck of parenting.
[14:21]But I don't know.
[14:22]I guess it's, but I can tell you that I've done a small research
[14:26]in my 19 years of, you know, practicing.
[14:31]And when you ask adults, it turns out
[14:35]that 50% will say too bad they didn't force us to play piano.
[14:43]And the other 50% will say it destroyed my life
[14:48]that they forced me to play piano.
[14:51]So do we want to take part of this experiment?
[14:56]I'm not sure.
[14:58]I mean, ruining your life 50%.
[15:00]Yeah.
[15:01]And I think I think the question we should ask ourselves
[15:04]is because sometimes we hide behind the story
[15:08]that you're going to thank me in the future, right?
[15:12]Or I'm a parent.
[15:14]I know it is good for you.
[15:17]And I'm telling you right now that this is how it's going to play.
[15:22]And most of the times, I don't know what about you,
[15:26]but I could never profit from advice from the future
[15:34]or someone else's experience.
[15:37]Or we all know that the way to learn or the way to develop
[15:42]or the way to even develop resilience or grit
[15:46]or whatever, you know, we wish for our children
[15:50]is to meet these struggles without the external mechanism
[15:56]of, you know, punishment or carrot or stick.
[16:04]And I think that we lack the patience.
[16:10]I think that we are a bit spoiled because the human cub,
[16:14]you know, it takes 25 years for our brain
[16:20]to finish its development.
[16:22]And if he's acting out at the age of five,
[16:28]we need to do something about it.
[16:31]And if he struggles at school at the age of, I don't know,
[16:36]10, we need to take private lessons
[16:39]or we need to bring in the experts.
[16:42]And on the way, I think that what we lose or worst
[16:47]what they internalize is that there's something
[16:51]broken in them.
[16:53]And I don't believe it is broken.
[16:56]I think it's our ability to be the positive narrators
[17:03]for them of their story, you know, just being
[17:07]that safe space in this crazy world
[17:12]that they can come back to after adversity,
[17:16]failing struggles and just be who they are.
[17:21]And we know that, you know, if you have a teenager,
[17:26]we know how important it is to be that safe space.
[17:30]We really want to be their first phone call
[17:34]if something goes wrong.
[17:36]But we need to start proving that in the minute they're born,
[17:40]you know?
[17:41]So does this mean don't make them do gymnastics
[17:45]or just like, where do we net out?
[17:48]Because these are the big decisions in my life.
[17:51]I think that what it means, first of all,
[17:54]is when they do mess up, when they do fail,
[17:59]the last thing that they need to get from us
[18:02]is our agenda or our worries
[18:07]or anything in that direction.
[18:11]Because our agenda, you know,
[18:14]we can talk agenda all day long.
[18:17]I mean, you know, my kids know what I think about
[18:21]drinking alcohol because they grow up in my home
[18:26]because when they're free and they ask about the beer
[18:30]that I'm holding at the barbecue
[18:33]and when they grow up and we watch the news
[18:37]about a car accident and I tell them about the kid
[18:41]of my friend that a police knocked on the door
[18:44]in the middle of the night.
[18:46]And, you know, we talk our agenda.
[18:49]But if one of them comes back after a night out
[18:54]and I smell alcohol, he will get a big hug
[18:59]and a big kiss and a dialogue.
[19:02]And I would say, welcome home honey, go to sleep.
[19:06]We'll talk about it in the morning.
[19:08]Because if I let my agenda go out in that minute,
[19:13]if I get, you know, if I say to him
[19:17]what I wanna say to him, there's a chance that next time
[19:22]he won't come home, there's a chance that next time
[19:26]he'll be, I don't know, lying in a ditch somewhere
[19:29]or calling his friends or, you know,
[19:33]just making up a story.
[19:35]And this is the main concern, I think,
[19:37]of how we define that safe space.
[19:42]Wow.
[19:42]And the gymnastic question, I think that when we talk
[19:47]about, you know, values, it's all about who we are.
[19:52]I mean, you know, they're watching us from the minute
[19:56]they're born.
[19:57]So if we love to do...
[20:00]sports, they will get that. If we love our jobs, they will get that. The apple doesn't fall
[20:07]far from the tree existing English as well. Yes, it does. Okay, that's, that's a point where I
[20:14]should say that I swear to God that in Hebrew, I sound smart. I swear to God, you sound
[20:23]smart in English too. I can't speak Hebrew in a, I mean, I could barely like get through my
[20:27]apartments. So, you know, so I want every parent to just take a deep breath and know that who we are,
[20:38]these are the values. I don't have to worry about, you know, raising stingy or cheap children. If I
[20:48]have this big heart, I don't have to worry that my kids would be sociopath, even if they act like
[20:56]ones, by the way, I'm talking for experience. If I'm, you know, kind to strangers and, you know, this is
[21:06]the air they breathe and we give so much weight to our speeches and to the words that we say and we
[21:15]neglect, you know, the small atoms of the atmosphere, the family atmosphere, the air that they breathe,
[21:24]the, I don't know, the sense of humor, the anxieties, the relationship between me and my partner,
[21:32]how we talk, how we fight, how we have fun, you know, the small rituals, the way we share our
[21:42]imperfections with them. This is what's important. Think that parent today are overthinking everything
[21:52]and it's so hard. Well, this is like the dose of parenting advice that is the most welcome of all
[21:59]because it means you don't have to really worry and you can just be yourself and your kids will
[22:05]soak it up and, you know, that there's going to worry. I'm not going to take it from you.
[22:10]No, but don't let it be the GPS that leads your, if we're in cars, don't, don't. I love it.
[22:22]Having written this book, what would your advice be for aspiring authors? Oh, wow, I'm going to make
[22:27]you laugh. Okay, please, I don't consider myself an author. Do you get what I'm trying to say?
[22:34]Was that when I was supposed to laugh? Yeah, because I mean, I have, by the way, the second book
[22:43]just came out in Israel. It's about teenagers. It's an overwhelming bestseller and I don't see myself
[22:54]as an author. I'm just, I'm just writing a journal about the thing that I care about, you know,
[23:02]the most. And maybe my advice would be if you do write and when you write, you feel this
[23:15]flow where, you know, time stops and you're just drawn into this craft like something took over you,
[23:26]just keep doing that. I love that. I love it. Well, this has been so fun. And I feel like we've
[23:32]barely scratched the surface. I know that's really 30 minutes. I know. I know. That's all people
[23:39]just don't listen. If you like, give them too much of anything, you know, people are so busy.
[23:44]Yeah, you don't have time. So I keep my podcast to 30 minutes so that people can, you know,
[23:51]I know I listen to your podcast, but the 30 minutes with. I know it was by so fast. I know.
[23:59]And you're so like chic. I want to just like, I feel like, you know, you should be like this.
[24:04]Oh, thank you. You gave me, no, you just gave me the excuse to put on a lipstick and a dress and
[24:10]no, you look amazing. I'm like, literally, I'm thinking to myself as you're talking like, what is
[24:14]her skincare routine? How is she? What is she doing? No, she's just she put on a costume. No, I swear
[24:23]to God. Well, yeah, an hour ago again. So thank you. Well, I don't know if you ever traveled to
[24:33]New York or whatever, but would love to meet you in person. I'm waiting for, I'm waiting for
[24:39]COVID to, I don't know. All my book tour was canceled due to COVID and we're just waiting for the
[24:47]world to wake up again. Yes. I'm all packed and ready to go. Well, I'm so happy to connect with you.
[24:58]I can't wait to read your team back now. I really need that one. Yes. So and this was so great. And
[25:05]it's just so nice to have like down to earth advice coming from a place on high that everybody
[25:11]needs to hear them. Thank you for making a personal dream come true. I really, it was a dream for
[25:19]me to talk to you. Oh, that's really, no, you should see me when I got the mail. I was just
[25:28]Oh, I was just jumping all around the house. You know, when I got a good review on the New
[25:36]York Times, I wasn't screaming like that. That is so sweet. Oh my gosh. Well, I didn't disappoint you.
[25:44]No, no, we were incredible. But the half an hour disappointed me. I know. I'm sorry
[25:52]We'll be launching New York. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, you can come on and talk about your team
[25:58]book when it comes out in New York. And then we'll do our second. I would love to do that.
[26:03]I can't wait. Okay. All right. Thank you. It's a terrific day. You too. Bye bye.
[26:10]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[26:15]follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign
[26:20]up for my newsletter at zebi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[26:24]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the
[26:29]Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[26:34]now trim music.