76: What If Building Her Self Esteem Heals Mine Too

Raising a daughter can feel like the sweetest kind of time travel and the most intense kind of pressure. One minute we’re laughing at mismatched outfits and high fives for tiny wins, and the next we’re staring down the reality of sending our little girl into a world that can be harsh to girls and especially harsh to Black girls. That tension sits at the center of this solo conversation: how do we protect our kids without shrinking them, and how do we build confidence without pretending we’re never insecure?

We get personal about the unexpected ways motherhood brings up our own childhood memories. Watching a little girl sing her heart out, create, dance, and play can be healing, but it can also expose the parts of us that learned to quiet down. We talk about inner child healing, why patience and grace matter so much with “big feelings,” and how discipline starts to look different when the goal is emotional regulation with real boundaries. You’ll hear practical language we use at home, including the idea that kids can be mad while still learning to be respectful.

We also dig into modeling, because kids are watching everything: skincare routines, mirror moments, self talk, and the casual comments adults make about bodies and food. We share what we’re changing now to break cycles and build a foundation of self-esteem before the tough years hit. And with preschool around the corner, we talk through the nerves of trusting new adults, helping kids make friends, and using encouragement to grow bravery one small step at a time.

If any of this hits home, listen through and then share it with a parent who needs to feel less alone. 

Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what’s been the hardest or most healing part of raising your kids so far.

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Transcript

Welcome To Turn The Page

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to Turn the Page Podcast. Sisters, best friends, and brunch enthusiasts. With relatable episodes that feel like you're chatting with two of your closest friends or sisters. Join us as we turn the page to different topics about losing yourself in motherhood, adulthood, anyhood.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

And finding yourself again through meaningful friendships, shameless piles of unread library books, and endless Amazon package deliveries. Real, honest, and a little bit chaotic, and we talk about it all.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

So grab your favorite drink, put the kids to bed, lace up your sneaks or whatever you need to do and join us. We can't wait to connect with you.

Why Being A Girl Mom Hits

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I have a few near and dear girl moms, but I wanted to just kind of unpack and process the experience of being a girl mom because I am currently a mom of both, but I have not really been a boy mom for I mean, as he's been here for two months, right? And I haven't really experienced like what it is to be a boy mom yet. But I wanted to talk about being a girl mom because it's such a special and infuriating and unique experience to be the mom of a daughter. And sometimes it feels like only other moms of daughters understand like the exact nuances. Obviously, there's probably nuances that I don't understand of being a full, just legit boy mom. But there's something about raising a little girl in this woman-hating world, in this world where society is stacked against us in so many ways, especially if you're a black girl. Yeah, it's sensitive. And I just wanted to unpack it a little bit because I have been with my daughter for 10 weeks, 11 weeks since I've been on maternity leave pretty much every day. I would say like 99.99% of the time. She's had some, you know, visits with her grandparents and her cousins and things like that. But and the baby too, but again, he's like he eats peep eats poops and sleeps right now. Me and that little girl, we've been locked in for the past two months, going on three, and it's been really eye-opening for me. I've experienced parenting her in a different way, I would say. It's required a lot of patience. Okay. A lot of patience. It's required a lot of grace, it's required a lot of open communication with her, with my husband, with my therapist. It's been very eye-opening, okay. Something about raising a little girl and like watching what feels like a little version of yourself. And I don't mean to say it that way, and that like I'm not able to separate myself from my kids. I am obviously, but especially when that little girl looks like you, like, she is my twin, and I see

Seeing Yourself In Your Daughter

SPEAKER_01 4:00

so many parallels in her to the point where here's an example. There's one day she was just singing, she's always singing, always singing, but she was singing her little heart out. And Brandon looked at me like, record this, because you know, she might not always do this, like, you don't want to have this memory. And I'm recording her, just watching her in her element singing to it, it was an instrumental of a song that she loved, so she was singing all the words, and it was just the music playing, and I started tearing up because that used to be me. I feel like I used to be so unapologetic in a lot of ways, and just bad experiences, trauma, hurt, pain, grief, life has squashed a lot of that for me. And now the idea of just like singing my heart out in front of people. Are you kidding? Never, but it's something I'm able to do with my daughter and not care. So it's been very healing to be able to step back into things that I loved and maybe don't have time for or don't have like the confidence for anymore. Singing, dancing, arts and crafts, writing, like being silly, just play. It's been really healing to be able to watch her do it and to feel like I'm almost like healing my inner child alongside that process for her. Yes, she is absolutely her own person, and she is 50% her dad, let me tell you. Some days 75, maybe even 100. But we do have a lot in common, we do have a lot of similar personality traits from what I've seen so far. She's three and a half, but yeah, and I think that it's also been eye-opening in the sense of like discipline, for lack of better words, like how am I responding to behavior and choices that she's making? Is this something that I would have appreciated or been hurt by? Is this something that I would have received? Again, and not because she is a mini Shree, like she looks like me, but we are different. And I just want to reiterate, this is not me, like seeing myself in her so much that I think we are one and the same. That's not the case, but I'm thinking of it as like as a girl, as a girl with a lot of big feelings, and very sensitive, which is another thing, along with like the singing and the arts and crafts. Like, I used to be so sensitive and very emotional and very expressive about that, and just feedback that I've gotten, I think has pushed me to really like shove it down, and I'm much more subdued now. So when I see my daughter having these really big reactions that, yes, are aggravating sometimes. Like, why are you screaming because you wanted to pour the apple juice and I poured you the apple juice, you know? But to her, that meant everything, and she feels really largely monumentally about it. Being able to stop myself and like not judge it because I don't want her to feel like she can't express herself freely, or that if she does, like she'll get ridiculed or judged or shamed for having big feelings. So yeah, it's just been a very interesting experience to walk myself through, to walk through with my husband, to be able to provide a perspective as girl and to just watch her really come into her own, exploring new things, being really good at the new things that she's exploring. Like she just got a new bike, she's been riding her bike, she loves to spell right now. Like, she'll look at me and ask, not ask, but she'll she'll say the word she's trying to spell and just say like random letters, and then look to me to correct her, and then we'll spell it together the right way, and she'll like repeat it back. So she's memorizing, she knows how to spell like small words, not sight words. Just seeing her learn and want to explore and figure things out and being able to foster that environment for

Modeling Confidence And Self Talk

SPEAKER_01 8:40

her. Because the other thing, dear lord, as a mom, but as especially as a girl mom, they are watching everything. The way she wants to use my face wash, use my deodorant, use my body spray, my lotion, my smell goods, because she sees me doing it and she sees me enjoying it. And so now it's Seiji's turn. That's her motto. She wants to do everything that I'm doing, so it's I have to be really mindful of like how I'm talking to myself, how I'm looking at myself, how I'm acting. When I look in the mirror, like I am making a conscious effort to not say anything negative about myself out loud. And if I'm having a negative thought, I'm not like making a I'm not scrunching up my face at myself, right? Like I'm smiling at myself in the mirror so that she can look at herself and smile. She likes to pick out her clothes now, and she looks ridiculous half the time. She's adorable, but it's not about that. It's about fostering confidence and decision making. And yes, queen, wear that purple shirt and those green shorts and those pink socks. You look amazing. Just yeah, really hyping myself up, hyping her up, teaching what it means to love yourself and be confident because that is such an important buffer to have in this world. And if you don't have that foundation, it's really easy for your self-esteem to just be absolutely rocked and obliterated when you're growing up, but also when you're in the real world as an adult. Like there's been plenty of times, and plenty more times, I'm sure, we'll have to rebuild self-esteem because of how cruel this world can be. Makes me sad to think about sending my daughter out into it. But if I can, if we can at least equip her, you know, we did our job. So that's also coming with breaking cycles. Again, negative self-talk, sure, but I'm not talking to her about weight and body negative, but negativity. I'm not weighing myself in front of her. I'm not talking about what I'm eating in front of her. Yes, she's three and a half, but I don't know. I truly believe like it starts that young, maybe even younger. They might not have the language or the full capacity to grasp it, but it matters. And it matters for me to start these habits now so that I can be more consistent and in a positive place when she is able to receive it, when she is in middle school, and middle school absolutely rocks her world because sure as hell rocked mine, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. People are gonna have negative opinions, but if I can show her what it looks like to have a positive opinion about herself as a girl, like her dad's obviously doing it too in his own way, and that's also super important. You know, she can have that foundation, a little bit of a buffer

Preschool Anxiety And Letting Go

SPEAKER_01 11:55

to protect herself. Ugh, she's starting preschool this fall, so I think that's where a lot of this is coming from, too, with just like socializing and making friends and wanting her to be liked by everybody, which I know is not realistic, but yeah. This is definitely a big transition time for me because I just had a new baby, but I'm also about to release my first baby into the real world and trust people outside of our circle of like my parents, his parents, my sibling, you know, yeah, my sibling, my sister, of watching her and protecting her and taking care of her. I'm trusting somebody new to do it and trusting that the kids around her will be kind and accept her and that she will do the same. It is a lot. Again, healing my inner child and you know, just working on my self-esteem, keeping my confidence where it needs to be, so that I can model those behaviors. So it comes with a lot of praise right now. Like we're clapping and we're jumping up and down because you went to the potty by yourself, because you picked out a shirt and put it on by yourself, even if it's backwards, because you opened your apple juice and then put the top back on without spilling. Like things that feel so little to us because we're adults and we've been doing them for years at this point. She's still so new. So yeah, I'm jumping and I'm clapping and I'm screaming and I'm giving her a high five. That's her new thing right now. Like every little thing she wants a high five, and we'll say, nice work. Like she deserves to feel excited about accomplishing something and doing well at something, feeling proud of herself. And I'm seeing how that's paying off. We've done story time a couple of times where I have sat back and encouraged her, like, go sit with the other kids, you know. I'm here, I'm your safe base. You can come when you need me, but go. And she's gone and she's sat and she's been able to pay attention, you know, for the most part, but like sit amongst peers and share and not share sometimes and need to be intervened with, but she's trying. So seeing that she feels confident enough to even put herself out there, yeah. So I know all of these things apply to being a boy mom too, but I really just I think speaking from my experience, like being a girl can be really hard growing up. Being a black girl can be really hard always, but especially growing up. And I do think that a lot of these things were instilled in me, but just my own personality and experiences, like I still struggled. But that's not to say that my mom didn't build us up and do what she needed to do as a girl mom. I am just, it is my mission to beef this girl's self-esteem up to encourage her to explore new things. She's trying soccer, we're doing dance, like ballet, she's doing a summer camp at this little like social club where she's meeting people, and yeah, it's just it's cool to see, it's scary to let happen.

Big Feelings With Real Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 15:22

But I will say though, that the other thing that I am struggling with, I know I mentioned like how are we disciplining and reacting to the friggin' just absurd behavior at times. For example, before 7 a.m. the other day, we didn't even make it downstairs. This girl was running around slamming doors, screaming no, stomping, just having a full teenage moment at three and a half. How am I responding to that? Has been something that I'm trying to be mindful of. Yeah, and just encouraging communication. She loves to tell me she's angry, she'll find me sometimes and tell me she's sad, she'll let me know she's happy, you know, feelings verbalization, but also communicating. Like you can be mad, but you can't be disrespectful, you know. You can be angry right now, but you can't yell at mommy, you can't yell at daddy, you can't, you know, do whatever it is your little funky attitude's trying to do right now. And sometimes I do lose my cool. I lose my cool a lot, and probably a lot more than I think people realize. People tend to think that I'm very calm because, like I said, I'm very subdued, but people tend to think that I'm like always like everything's under control, and that's not the case. I present that way. I've learned to mask very well. Internally is a totally different story, and a lot of times she makes my blood boil. Like, I want to pull my hair out dealing with her attitude and choices sometimes. I'm just being real. That's I think like from what I've heard from the boy moms, like they can be a little bit more maybe physical and aggressive, and you know, my kid is more emotional and expressive in that way, and it is different. She can also be aggressive and physical, and boys can also be emotional and expressive, but what the particular cocktail of chaos that I'm dealing with is emotional, expressive, dramatic, for lack of better words, and yeah, just figuring out how to navigate and respond to that in a way that allows her to be who she is, but with boundaries and limitations. It's a lot of work being a parent and building someone from scratch. It's a lot of work, but I don't know. I guess you just do your best to surround yourself with like-minded moms and friends and people with kids, you know, that are raising their kids in a similar way, modeling the things that we want them to be able to do successfully, like making friends and accomplishing achieving a task, or accomplishing a goal, achieving a task. God, I said that backwards, accomplishing a task, achieving a goal, and like how you respond to yourself or react when things don't go well or don't go the way that you expected. Again, she's three and a half, so things aren't gonna go her way a lot of the times because her way is unsafe and just ridiculous at times, and she has big feelings about that. And I'm again by no means an expert. This is just like what's working for my particular brand of chaos. She is a fireball, she's our little Sagittarius, and she is a Sag through and through, except for we just said the other day, the fact that this girl can eat shells and cheese every day for dinner. I was like, that's not very Sagittarius of you, because my husband, who's also a Sagittarius, gets tired of things very quickly. Like, he won't eat leftovers because he just like gets sick of things. He needs change and new novelty and newness, spontaneity. She will eat shells and cheese every single day if we let her multiple times a day, if we let her, and that's not very Sagittarius of her. I don't I don't know what that is about, but yeah, that's also part of just like riding the wave and doing what we can with what we've got because at least she ate. So yeah, I'm rambling a little bit, but all of this is just like processing what it has been like to be a girl mom and want to protect her with everything. I want to protect all the kids around me, obviously, with everything, but knowing like how cruel the world can be to girls, to black girls, to black people, black kids, you know, I want my nephews to be safe and well and happy too. So it is a very interesting experience, and I'm sure I'll report back with more once she's in school and like doing more of the different phases because again, she's three and a half, so we have not even touched, I haven't even scratched the surface of like challenges. Being a mom of littles is challenging, but being a mom of like a school age kid, a middle schooler, a high schooler, a college kid, an adult, like those are all gonna bring its own challenges too. So I'm not saying that I have it figured out and that what I do always works because it doesn't. When I try to raise my voice, she raises it back. So I'm trying to figure out how to meet her where she is in a way that's still true to me, because that's important. If it doesn't feel true to me or authentic, I'm not gonna stick with it, and she'll know that it's not me too, because they're watching everything, they see everything, they like they really are paying attention, even when we think they aren't.

Protecting Girlhood In A Cruel World

SPEAKER_01 21:26

So that is the end of this ramble session. I want to hear more from girl moms and also from boy moms, like if you especially if you have both, how the experiences have been different for you. But boy moms, maybe I'll pick my sister's brain too, of just like maybe what feels nuanced or specific to being a mom of just boys. I hear boys love their moms, so that'll be a different experience for me because my girl loves her dad. I'm chopped liver. When daddy's around. So I'm interested to see, you know, the difference in the experiences. And that's something I really wanted. I wanted both so I can experience both because they are very different. And they have been very different already, even though my kids are both pretty new. But my son especially is brand brand brand spanking new. Okay. Yeah. Being a parent is an interesting experience, an interesting job, but I would not trade it for the world, even though it is really challenging. And when you have a kid like mine, or even just the age that she's at, maybe it's not her. It's just this age, like the pushing boundaries, testing limits, wanting to see how far they can take you. Like she's a professional rage baiter at this point in time. And that's a lot. That's a lot sometimes. Some days she's just her little sweetheart self and just wants to do everything to help with her brother and sing her songs and dance her dances and eat her shells and cheese, and it's fine. And then other days she wants to run away from me on the playground because she knows I'm pushing the stroller and I can't chase her. So I want to hear from seasoned moms. I want to hear from girl moms in particular. I want to hear from moms of both. I want to hear from boy moms too. But I make it a point to seek out girl moms for her to have girlfriends and experience girlhood because it is different. And eventually their interests are going to branch off. And say just my daughter is going to be having sleepovers and putting on fashion shows and doing concerts for us in the living room that we didn't ask for, and doing cooking shows with my seasonings in the cabinet, and you know, all the things that I remember doing as a little girl. Maybe boys do too. I don't know. I wasn't, I didn't grow up, you know, as a boy. I grew up as a girl. So girlhood, that's what I want for my girl. Because it is really so special and it's so fun and it's so important. This isn't you, yeah. I was about to like go on a tangent of how it's not about gender and you know, boys can like quote unquote girl things, and vice versa. I that's not what I'm alluding to, but like it does get different and it does get specific, and I want that to be positive and healthy and cushioned through the tough years. I'm rambling at this point, but hopefully some of this resonated with somebody. And if it did, let me know. If you want to add thoughts, let me know. If I missed anything, let me know. But yeah, just sharing some thoughts while I had a minute to sort through them and record. Thanks for listening. I hope you guys have been liking my solo episodes. I'm new to them, but I've been enjoying them. Obviously, I love podcasting with my sister, but sometimes it's nice to just like hop on and not have to like pre-arrange a time because we're moms and you know things need to be scheduled months in advance. It's nice to just hop on when I have a minute and like share something that's been on my mind or from the list of things that I want to discuss solo. Okay, I'm gonna wrap this up, and I will talk to you guys

Listener Thoughts And Closing

SPEAKER_01 25:44

soon. Thanks for hanging out. Like, listen, review, and subscribe. Love you, bye. All right, everyone. This was another episode of Turn the Page Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Thanks for hanging out. Don't forget to like, listen, and subscribe. And also don't forget to leave a review, please, and let us know what you thought about today's episode and all the other episodes. Thanks, guys. Talk to you soon. Bye.