Summary

The Parent Rap is back, and our first new episode (live in your feed now!!) is with Olivia Scobie, a clinical social worker in Toronto and author of the upcoming book 'Impossible Parenting: Creating a New Culture of Mental Health for Parents'.⁠ We’ve linked to Olivia’s online presence, her book, and her work in the resources below.

We talk about the culture surrounding parenting, who gets to think of themselves as a good parent and what that means for us as we go about living in the world, and touch on some of the trials we've faced as we try to navigate the whole new challenge of making choices through the pandemic lens.

Resources & Information

Olivia Scobie

Impossible Parenting: A New Culture of Mental Health for Parents at Another Story Bookshop

Impossible Parenting: A New Culture of Mental Health for Parents at Dundurn Press

Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Trainings

Postpartum Support Toronto

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior

Becoming the Parent You Want To Be by Laura Davis and Janis Keyser

The Nap Ministry

Gabrielle Griffith

We also mention the work of Linda Clark Amankwaa on postpartum mental health

Food is the worst. Helping our kids not have weird issues with food is really complicated and difficult and frustrating. Things that have helped: Having a quality “safe food” alongside the “challenge foods” Trying to make sure the foods we have available are foods we’re comfortable with; Giving the kids as much control as we can over which things they choose to eat. from the selection we provide; Trying to model exposures: touching, smelling, tasting, biting things we’re not sure we’re ready to eat.

Summary

Note: we have merch!

Most members of our cohort of parents are constantly battling with their anger. Being a parent is frustrating, and kids push every one of our buttons and drag up all of our baggage, even the stuff we thought we’d handled a long time ago. Adding the close quarters and extra anxiety of our current moment only exacerbates the problem, and we all need a little bit of touching up on our anger management muscles.

For us, that means:

Remembering that there are no bad feelings, only bad actions,

Working to make our actions something we’ve chosen, not just something that happens,

Accepting that the feeling is normal (even the urge to hurt),

Taking responsibility for the choices we make about those feelings,

Making sure we don’t hurt ourselves or anyone else,

Naming our feelings and working to identify and resolve triggers.