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In this episode:
Listen in as I share a personal narrative, starting with my mom’s unwavering lunch routine that travels from Brooklyn to Costa Rica, and how it serves as a launchpad for a larger conversation on inherited beliefs. I tackle the importance of questioning the doctrines passed down by our mothers and consider the influence of societal structures like patriarchy on these generational patterns. The discussion expands to embrace insights from Kelly McDaniel’s “Mother Hunger,” providing a framework for adult daughters to understand and heal from the absence of nurturance, protection, and guidance.
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Transcript:
00:19 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Hey everyone. So for today’s episode we’re going to talk about moms Specifically. What we’re going to talk about are the beliefs and teachings that we get from our moms and the value of stopping to examine those beliefs to see if they resonate with us. So I originally recorded this little anecdote at the end of the episode and then I realized that it makes more sense to just open with it, just so that you can see what I’m talking about. So here, here it goes.
00:48
My mom has a habit. I’ll share a funny story with her. Well, I don’t know how funny it is, but my mom has a tendency of always, no matter like, she has certain habits and routines. Like, she only eats lunch at 2 PM Eastern standard time. She used to eat lunch at 2 PM Eastern standard time the like 30 something years that she had a botanica in Brooklyn, and then a botanica. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a store that sells things like candles and little statues. You know, it’s a very Afro-Caribbean kind of spiritual store. Anyway, she moves to Costa Rica. Costa Rica is usually on central time or sometimes it’s on mountain time, depending on daylight savings, et cetera. Now that she lives in Costa Rica, she insists on eating either at one o’clock her time or 12 o’clock her time, depending on when it’s 2 PM Eastern standard time.
01:39
And I’ve been like but mommy, like, why, why don’t you eat when you’re hungry? And this is what she says. She’ll say well, my mother always taught me to just eat on a schedule. Obviously, she says this in Spanish, right? And I’m like okay, so just because your mom said that, so you’re just going to do it. And and literally like for her, her response is, of course, and I’m just like nah, I cannot live that way. I’m sorry, I don’t care who you are. Just because you’re doing something some way, I’m not going to automatically by default, like copy it, not anymore, old Jess, you know old drinking Jess, sure, but I’m sober. You’re probably sober or you’re working on your sobriety if you’re listening to this, and we don’t have to just automatically do things just because they were told to us. Right, so I will eat when I’m hungry, not on some rigid schedule. No, thank you, I am done with that life. I’ve left that life of like strictly managing what I eat about a year and a half ago. But again, my mom right, who I learned that from. Clearly we see that she was influenced by her mother right, and so who knows what was going on with my grandmother to put my mother on this strict eating schedule that she’s still following at the age of 84 years old. I’m not doing that, y’all. I’m 39 years old. When I’m 84, if I make it to 84, I wanna eat whatever the hell I want to, whenever the hell I want to, and that’s that. I’m not looking at the clock.
03:05
So anyway, I’ve been facilitating this book study for the book Mother Hunger by Kelly McDaniel. The full title of the book is Mother Hunger how Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance, protection and Guidance. Right, and she has been in chapter five. She does a really excellent job of reminding the reader of how we’re literally basically like swimming in patriarchy and how patriarchy, which is basically, in layman’s terms, the belief that men are better than women how that underlying belief can impact the way that a grandmother treats the mother, which in turn then treats the daughter right, and we don’t even realize it right. I’ll pull this quote, which is actually so.
03:51
The author, kelly McDaniel, quotes Anjali Dial in her book and I’m reading Anjali Dial’s words here, but just to kind of give you a sense of how pervasive patriarchy is right. And so she wrote patriarchy is evident in the everyday violence against women. It is reflected in the battlements we use or we build to protect ourselves, the little accommodations, the things you do reflexively to keep yourself from being hurt while you walk around, all the subtle ways you protect yourself from being alone with some men in offices and other men in cars and all unknown men in large, empty buildings. Every time you’ve ignored the lewd comment from a man on the street or at a bar or at a party, because who knows what he’ll do if you lash out the quick scan of a subway car when the train pulls into the station to ensure that there are enough people so you won’t be alone if someone threatens you, but not so many people that you’ll get groped without being able to place the hands.
04:46
A thousand transgressions so small and so regular that you never named them to anyone because that’s just the way life is right. And that’s that last part. A thousand transgressions so small and so regular that you never named them because that’s the way life is right. And she compares the way that we are like literally swimming in patriarchy, right, like swimming in these ideas that we’ve been taught without thinking, to the idea of two fish who are just swimming in water and if, like, an older fish tells that little fish like, hey, how’s the water? They’re going to be like what water? Because they don’t stop to think about that. That’s their environment. That’s a quote pulled from John Foster Wallace’s graduation speech.
05:29
So, anyway, the point being that our mothers can often be influenced by, of course, their own mothers, but a lot of times there’s beliefs that they’re carrying that are again embedded into them by patriarchy and other systems. Right, to give you an opportunity to look at those beliefs with a closer lens, examine where might they be coming from and then decide if they are still true for you or if they’re not still true for you, right? So I’m going to pull this specific quote from page 79 of Kelly McDaniel’s Mother Hunger, where she wrote we don’t consciously wake up one day and decide to devalue ourselves, right? It’s much more insidious. We simply swim in feminine constructs that tell us how to behave, how to look and who to love as we grow and develop, and sometimes we learn this from our mothers, right. And again, when we talk about just layman’s terms, right, misogyny, patriarchy, you know, patriarchy is essentially the belief that men, men should lead, or men are better than women, right? And misogyny that hatred of women. And so, again, a lot of what we’ve been taught comes from these basic constructs, right? So, with that being said, kelly McDaniel says that we’ve learned from our mothers, right, how to behave, how to look and who to love as we grow and develop, and so I want to take a moment right To to reflect on that, and so I have a worksheet that goes along with this kind of thought process. So, again, check the links in the resources to this episode in the show notes. You can pull up this worksheet here as well. If you’re on my email list, you’re going to get this email to you as well, obviously, if you’re, if you subscribed or you’re listening to this like after April 14th of 2024, then, yeah, you’re going to definitely just need to look on the show notes.
07:46
But let me get back to the point here. So what I want you to do is I want you to first look at the things you’ve learned from your mother? Slash mother figure, right. But I want you to break it down First, what have you learned from her in terms of how to behave? And, if you’re a man who’s listening to this, what have you learned about how women should behave? Right, number two what have you learned about how to look, with regard to appearance, from your mother, or mother figure? And, again, if you’re a man and you’re listening to this, what have you learned about how women should look? Then, the third one is what have you learned about who to love, or how to love from your mother? Slash mother figure, right? I’ll share, from my perspective, just to kind of give you some examples. So, with regard to my own mother, things that I’ve learned about how to behave I’ve learned to be quiet. I’ve learned to not talk about any of my problems right, and those are two really big ones to be quiet and not talk about my problems.
08:57
If I go to the next column, where did this belief come from? In the first place, from my mother. She was definitely taught that women should be quiet, right. She was definitely taught that women should not be taking up space at all. And I’ll add the added cultural factor, too, that my mom is a Latino woman and she was an undocumented immigrant when she first came to the United States, so she also had that added layer of you really don’t want to be speaking and rocking the boat because you don’t wanna get caught and get in trouble and get sent back home.
09:32
Now the third column of this exercise asks do you still believe this to be true? Why or why not? I don’t believe this to be true. I don’t believe that I still need to be quiet and not talk about my issues. I think that it’s courageous to speak up. I think that it’s important to take up space and for me, it’s worth taking some risks of not being accepted and not having people’s approval by speaking up. So thankfully, I’m not still attached to that belief, but there’s others that I’ve struggled with detaching myself from. So I’m going to move to the next one. Right?
10:09
So for how to look, things that I’ve learned from my mother slash mother figure about how to look include that I should be thin, that I should have straight hair, that I should only have dark hair, that I should be light-skinned. So I would say those are the general things that I would say that I’ve learned. Now, in terms of where did these beliefs come from in the first place? So, being thin, I think that in many cultures, right, being thin, has been a common expectation, and I feel like, again, when we’re talking about, say, white supremacy. Right, my mother? Again, she comes from people who were colonized by Europeans, and so the straight hair was an ideal trait to have, because that made you less of color. The dark straight hair also dark hair in terms of, like, trying to look youthful right, my mother has. She only stopped dyeing her hair about two, three years ago, when she’s 84. So my mom refused to let herself go gray because of this idea that you can’t look old. Right?
11:19
What was the other thing? I should have written these down, of course, I’m just talking through the worksheet, but I didn’t write this one down. I had taken these notes the other day. The other belief being light skin. Going back to, again, my mom comes from generations of colonized people, right. So, again, for colonized people, the wider you looked, the more likely your life was going to be easier and less challenging.
11:42
And so you know, for me, I did come out with brown skin after my father, who was a black Cuban, and I have lots of memories of my mom telling me to get out of the sun when I was a kid because I would get darker and darker and darker and that was not okay for her. I understand now, you know obviously it wasn’t helpful then, but she thought she was being helpful, she thought she was protecting me. Obviously that was not at all what she was doing, but you know, that’s kind of like the logic there. And even then, with the whole, the whole skinny thing, right, like there was a lot of fat shaming that I went through as a child when I struggled with my weight, and my mom’s intention behind that was she was trying to quote unquote protect me so that I could be desirable when I was older and attract a husband and like not be alone for the rest of my life. Right, like you know, these are these wild outcomes that she was trying to make sure that she was manipulating and controlling, um, and at the end of the day, no, she did a lot of damage, of course, like I.
12:38
I, moving into the third column, do I still believe this to be true? Why, or why not, I would say only in the last year and a half have I finally released this desire to be quote unquote, to be skinny, right, and that’s because I’ve had to do a lot of work as to where did this really come from and is this something that really resonates with me? Because, again, I have spent my entire life on some sort of a diet for the sake of being skinny, because my mom said I was supposed to, and so I think that, again, it’s so important to look at these things, look at where they’re coming from, and do they really resonate with us. So then, the last column, I mean the last row of this chart again, when you have the worksheet in front of you, it will come together right Is things that you’ve learned from your mother slash mother figure about who or how to love.
13:27
For me, specifically on how to love, I’ve been taught to cook and clean that’s how you show love and to be quiet and accept any and all bad behaviors. Right? I’ve also been told, in terms of who to love, that I should be with someone who has a lot of money, and my mom has told me that I would be better off with a white person, right? And so, again, where did these beliefs come from in the first place, in terms of the money and the white right? Like a white male with a lot of money. That is totally coming from a colonized perspective, like, well, the closer that you can get to them, to the people who have the power, the more protected you would be right. So that’s totally coming from that. That’s coming absolutely also from like internalized white supremacist ideas.
14:15
However, in terms of how to show love, right, Like the cooking and the cleaning and things like that, I mean, that’s totally just what also has been said so prevalently in Latin America that women’s role is to cook and clean and really that the men should be going out there and, you know, making the money, bringing home and providing. Now, what’s important you know I had a great conversation in the book study about this piece right is that sometimes we do want to cook and sometimes we do want to clean and we do want to take care of the home for our significant other. And I think the important thing to consider here is your power of choice If you’re cooking and cleaning because you feel that the cooking and cleaning is going to keep your partner with you, as opposed to cooking and cleaning because you’re wanting to contribute to your household. There’s a totally different dynamic there, right, if you’re coming at it from a space of obligation and that you must do it. That’s totally different from I want to do this. This is how I’m contributing into the home, and so I think that that’s really important to consider when you’re looking at things like cooking and cleaning. Right, or is it like that only you can cook and clean? I think that’s also important to consider and look at, right.
15:34
But anyway, to move over into that last question with regard to the beliefs, do I still believe this to be true? Why, or why not? I don’t believe that I show my love through cooking and cleaning. Not at all. Thankfully, I have been released from that belief. I really do think that for me, I appreciate a partner who can take on some of that load, because there’s a lot to do for me as a professional woman. I have a nine to five job and I run a small business, right, there’s a lot that I’m juggling, so I don’t want to be doing all the cooking and cleaning. I just don’t. And so to me, it’s love when someone can take some of that off my load, right?
16:17
And then, in terms of who to love, I am not looking for a rich white man to marry to much to my mother’s disappointment. Right Like, at this point, I’m looking for someone who is helping me. I mean, my current partner fits the bill, right, like I’m looking for someone who is going to help me just tap into myself and be genuine and authentic. I don’t need a financial provider because I provide for myself and so also, I don’t need a white person. Like, I’ve dated them, right. My ex-husband was, and Ian, who you all have heard about if you’ve listened to previous episodes, he was also a white person. But at this point, I’m not looking at you because of the color of your skin as a way to like make my life easier or not, right, like, that’s not how I’m looking for my partner, and my current partner is a black American. So, again, it’s just like that. I’m not going after, like, what my mother prescribed to be like the best ways to date. I’m not at all Definitely not taking my dating advice from my mother.
17:12
But anyway, moving forward, the next part of this worksheet right that I want you to reflect on, too, is this is like my favorite part of this activity, which is to pick one of the beliefs that your mother or mother figure passed on to you and rewrite it into a belief that resonates more with you, that you can pass on, right? Like, let this be a belief that you would want others to someday put on a worksheet that they learned from you, right? Something that you’d be proud of people saying, yeah, I learned this from so-and-so. This might be something like, if you’re listening and you’re a parent, maybe this is something that you do want to pass on to your children, right? What’s a belief that you want your children to have that you carry. But really, if you don’t like, for example, I don’t have children of my own, so I just think about who do I influence and who would I want to get this thought from me, right? So you know, I’m an educator, so I think about the students I work with. I also have nieces. I have my partner’s son, right? So, like, what would I want them to take away from me? That’s a belief, right? Something that a future generation could learn from you. So take a moment and sit with that and reflect on that.
18:25
But anyway, thank you all so much for your time with me. I’m looking forward to seeing what you all come up with. Feel free to reach out and share anything that you do with this worksheet. Thanks y’all. Hey, if you are enjoying what you are listening to, I invite you to subscribe and share the podcast. But also go to my website, bottomlisttosobercom, and find out other opportunities to work with me, from free workshops to writing classes to one-to-one life coaching opportunities. You can schedule a free consultation for that. Everything is available at bottomlesstosober.com. See you then.
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