Amy S - The Journey from Stepparent to Bioparent

This week, Amy and I are exploring the complexities of stepparenting and the unique challenges it presents. Amy discusses her journey from being a stepparent to a biological parent, addressing the stigma of stepparenting and the significance of communication in blended families. She underscores the importance of support networks while candidly addressing the realities of early motherhood, revealing the complex blend of joy and frustration.

To learn more about Amy, visit her Website or Instagram account.

Takeaways

• Stepparenting is often stigmatized and misunderstood.
• Communication is key in blended families.
• It's important to honor existing parental roles.
• Finding joy in small moments is crucial.
• Support networks are essential for parents.
• The transition to bioparenting can be complex.
• Happiness is not solely tied to family structure.
• Pay attention to the flashes of goodness in parenting.
• Be cautious about the advice you receive.
• Parenting is a journey of learning and adaptation.

Sound Bites

"I was the default adult in our house."
"Be careful who you ask for information."
"Pay attention to the flashes of goodness."

Transcript

Chelsea (00:01)
Welcome to Quiet Connection, a podcast dedicated to ending the stigma around postpartum mental health. I'm Chelsea. Being a stepparent comes with its own challenges and misconceptions. My guest today, Amy, knows all about this. She's smashing the stigma by sharing her firsthand experience as a stepparent and biological parent.

to give us an insider's perspective and offer solidarity to others who may feel unseen in this particular realm of parenting. Here's Amy.

Chelsea (00:36)
Today I'm here with Amy. Amy, how are you?

Amy Stone (00:40)
I'm doing really well. Thanks so much, Chelsea.

Chelsea (00:43)
that's awesome to hear. I'm so Usually, usually either on a Monday or a Friday recording, I'm like, I'm a little fried or I'm a little tired. But to hear that you're doing great, that's, that makes me feel So Amy, I have a whole list of things about you, but I love it if my guests can sort of introduce themselves. So if you would like to tell us a little bit about who you are and

who you were before you became a parent.

Amy Stone (01:10)
Okay, very good. All right. So my name is Amy. Amy Stone is my name. I am talking to you today Chelsea from sunny Miami, Florida. It might not actually be this is our rainy season. So officially, it's probably a little gray outside but you know, Florida is known for its sunshine. I've lived in Florida and Miami most of my adult life. so as I come to like so that's who I am today and I run a business.

Chelsea (01:20)
Ooh!

Amy Stone (01:36)
where I empower adults and families that are in the process. And one of the groups of people that I support that I'm really, really, really passionate about is step parents because I am a parent. I've got two kids, the last of which is very close to launching one more year of high school. And before I became a parent, I was a step parent. So I've got two step kids. So those came before...

my parenting. So my first kid was my husband's third kid. That's an important part of my story because that's like a different kind of entry level. And the crazy thing about step parenting, in my opinion, is that everyone knows somebody who is either a step kid or a step parent or has been a step parent or some variety of that. And yet, bizarrely, it is still crazily unsupported.

It's like an experience where you just end up on your own. that's so before I was a parent, I was a step parent. And I as I speak to you today, I will turn 51 October and I have the beautiful wisdom highlights to show And so that's that's who I am. That's where I am in this phase of life. And I'm happy to talk about all the different parts of that.

Chelsea (02:56)
I'm excited. The wisdom highlights, I like that you framed it that way because I most certainly have them as well. I'm hiding them in my braids right now, but think I'm just gonna let them out. think I'm just like, yeah. I think my mom's generation was the cover them up and don't see them. And I'm just like, you know what? I went straight to white. They're not even gray. It's white.

Amy Stone (03:20)
So,

yeah, if I was going straight to white, I would love that. I have colored my hair since I was about 12 or 13. Like I started messing around with the color of my hair. My natural hair color, which you can kind of see, is just this sort of medium brown, and it tends to be not super exciting. And so I've always colored my hair. And so I straddle both sides of the is it okay to go gray kind of thing, which is that yes, I love it. I absolutely embrace it.

Chelsea (03:29)
Woo!

Amy Stone (03:49)
And also, I will probably be dyeing my hair in some version until I'm, you know, 105. My mother -in -law is in her mid -80s and she absolutely falls into that category of people who dyed their hair their entire midlife age, right? And so I knew her, we dyed hair all the time and then she moved to an active adult community in Florida, which is something we specialize in, you probably know that.

Chelsea (04:17)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (04:17)
It's

like, it's like, you know, it's like, it's one thing we specialize, we're not good at a lot of things, but the Active Adult Communities Florida is very, very, very good at. And so and we would go to be with them in their community type events. And it was hilarious because, you know, they moved there when they were 65. And you'd go and there was a sea of people who were 60, 70, 80, 90 and above.

Chelsea (04:26)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (04:43)
All of the women had these beautiful blonde heads of hair. I would think there's nobody thinks that anybody in this room actually is natural blonde hair. And I remember my grandmother having that crazy pinkish purple blue coif that she would do at the beauty salon. So I suppose, know, that it was an entertaining thing. But within the last 18 months, my mother and I stopped dying her hair because

it just got to the point where it was perpetual, just immediately. And she looks so fabulous with her white hair and she's really embracing it. But kinda like I'm saying, the texture of her hair, she has fine hair and when she stopped coloring it, she lost that boost in the texture. And so what's driving her crazy now is that she likes the color but it's like, boop, you know, so.

Chelsea (05:15)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. hair. hair. so yeah, so one of the reasons that I really wanted to hear your story was because it was coming from a perspective of this duality in terms of parenting, like you started as a stepparent, and then transition into

Amy Stone (05:39)
hair.

Chelsea (05:56)
I guess we would call it bioparenting, like, And I think just as you said, it's really not a topic that's talked about a whole heck of a lot. So I would love to know your journey into step parenting, like when you met your partner and how that all unfolded.

Amy Stone (05:58)
That is the word that we use. Yeah. I don't even think it's a real word, but that is what we call it.

Okay, so I'm definitely going tell you that, but I wrote this down. I want to touch on why it's important that we talk about this. Because this is like what I talk about all day. This is me climbing onto my step box, right? My soap box. We say standing on the soap box. It's important to talk about the experience that people are going through when it's stigmatized or not normalized. Because other people are going through similar situations who might feel alone and isolated.

Chelsea (06:28)
Okay. Okay.

Ha ha ha ha!

Amy Stone (06:53)
They're not, they feel, and when you feel alone and isolated and you don't hear somebody else's story, one of the ways that shows up is that it opens this like, and this is a visual metaphor, but it opens this chasm where a bunch of misinformation and yucky stuff can come into. So if nobody talks about this, you're just gonna make it up and it is a space where you can blame yourself and think you're really, really doing something wrong.

And I have spent several years talking to step parents who feel like there's something wrong with their family and something wrong with their relationship or they're really pressuring themselves about how, and this is one of ways it shows up, you know, this is my first kid, but it's not my partner's first kid. And therefore, my experience as a parent is somehow devalued and not good enough. And that is...

That is not actually something that I pushed myself through. And so and that's one of the reasons I love to talk about it, because I'm like, wow, I have this totally other perspective of this, because I was super happy. I was wrong about all of these things, by the way. But I was like, my husband knew what he was doing. And he had the proof because he had these other people. And my gosh, this is going to be so much better for me. That turned out to be.

and misunderstanding of his experience, but that was where I went through. So I didn't have I didn't shame myself about that, but it was definitely a different experience. Right. I remember at the first pediatrician appointment, right, that you go to with a little tiny baby and first time parents are often told, you know, isolate and stay home and shelter the baby from the germs, which is a great advice. And my pediatrician was like, that boat has sailed because you have these older kids that are going to bring all this stuff into your house like.

like, you know, let's talk about cleaning. you know, so I mean, it was just a completely different experience. I met my husband, we worked in the same company. So it is, you know, that very modern, regular thing, like it was like we were in a similar space. Like, so you, you you either meet your partner through like social connections or through school connections. And mine was through work connections.

Chelsea (08:45)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Okay.

Amy Stone (09:12)
So that was how we met. I tell people all the time, it was, I had broken off a serious relationship and was in this like deeply committed point of like, am not dating anyone for a while. And that was great. so I went to happy hour with him and like, he and then he was like, okay, I don't think I want to do this. And I was like, fine. Like, I mean, I was the furthest. I mean, I wasn't like,

I was like, okay, that's great. See you later. And then he came back and he's like, maybe we should date. And I was like, okay. And then he's like, I'm not sure that I'm ready for a serious relationship. And I was like, also fine. I'm like totally off doing my own thing. and then we went from there. But it was, he, if you have kids and anybody who's listening who has kids, his perspective was so different from mine, because I was just socializing and dating and he

Chelsea (09:41)
Yeah. Okay, cool.

Amy Stone (10:05)
had already been through this and he knew what the, he had a different understanding of the stakes and what he was interested in doing. So I think back to that fondly about how he was trying to like be very serious and gentle. And I was like, I don't care. Happy hour, date, don't date, I don't care. I'm fine with all of it. I was in a different perspective. And then it became more serious and then we went from there.

Chelsea (10:32)
Throughout that process, because you're in this place of like, okay, whatever happens, happens, I guess. when and how was the subject of his kids brought up and how was that received?

Amy Stone (10:45)
Okay, so that's good. That's a really good question. So I did not meet the kids. I mean, I always knew about them. It was never a secret. His relationship was never a secret. And so when we were first getting to know each other socially and dating, he was only available certain amounts of time, right, because of his custody schedule. And so that was, that's a weird thing about dating someone who has partial custody, right?

So one weekend, you know, we could go out and, you know, and be single. And the next weekend, I would like wouldn't see him. I would like travel or do like friend things as friends, which was OK, right? Because I was dating. I was just living my life. And then it was a pretty intentional conversation. It was like he was not going to introduce me to his kids until he was pretty confident that it was a very, very serious relationship. Now.

He was really direct with me about that and I would have said then that I understood what he was talking about. And I listened and I did understand the words, but I do want to say that I would have to have a completely different understanding of it today. Because, you know, it's my assertion that this is very hard to understand until you're kind of in it. And that's one of the pain points that people go through. like, it's a very whiplashy feeling. It's like...

It's very similar to the transition of not being a mom to being a mom. It's like you know, it's not a secret how hard that is. But the realization of what it's actually like to be a fully responsible person for a totally helpless newborn is gobsmackingly tough. In the beginning, it's like, they this is what they meant when they said I wasn't going to sleep. you know, everybody tells you. But then when you're in it, you're like, my God. Like this is so it's

Chelsea (12:10)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Stone (12:31)
So that part of it is also true. So he was very outspoken about it and very direct because the kids adding the kids to the mix is a natural intensifier. The kids get attached to adults sometimes very, very quickly. And it shifted the dynamic completely of what we did together. So we I went from being someone who dated another adult, right?

to then when the kids were involved, we would do things like go to an amusement park. You know, like that's, mean, not that you can't go to an amusement park as adults, but you know, like it's like, let's go to the children's museum. I was not gonna do that by myself, you know, like, yeah.

Chelsea (13:12)
Right.

Yeah. How old were the kids when you made that transition? Four and eight. Okay. So they were like, they were pretty well established in their routine with dad. And you sort of alluded to it a little bit earlier, but maybe like for a little more clarification, like

Amy Stone (13:18)
four and eight.

Chelsea (13:32)
When things started to get more serious, what sort of went through your head and like, okay, now I am going to be a permanent fixture in these kids' lives?

Amy Stone (13:42)
That you know what I should think more about exactly when I had that thought because I was late to that awareness. I was I was late to that awareness. My lived experience, you know, there's those phrases like, when you're too close to the trees, it's hard to see the forest. When you're inside the bottle, it's hard to read the label. I feel like my actual experience of this was very much like I was going from day to day, like living my life and and then would realize like, wow.

Chelsea (13:49)
Bye.

Yeah.

Amy Stone (14:11)
you know, this is a bigger commitment. And so we moved in together in a house, which was a much bigger commitment than I realized. And my general sort of attitude at this time was like, I'm nice, he's nice, the kids are cute. What could go wrong? This is fun. And then there was a major shift when we moved in together when I was part time.

Chelsea (14:31)
Ha ha!

Amy Stone (14:38)
with the kids, which was a major shift and adjustment. But I was able to manage that in a different way then because I didn't have my kids of my own with their dad. And so I could like, you know, take off for a weekend. I could go out for a day on my own. You know, was untethered. And so there was that. And so but it is hard to live.

Chelsea (14:59)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (15:05)
with other people. It is hard to live with small children, especially if you're not used to it. It wasn't totally smooth sailing. I'm not going to pretend that it was. But then we got married and then very quickly I began to add kids to this family. And I love children. I must preface what I'm about to say by saying that I love all of my children. I got to tell you, adding more kids to any situation does not simplify anything, is my experience.

even the easiest, calmest, greatest child in the world adds complexity to a situation. And so it just ratcheted up everything and it completely shifted my experience because where I had been able to, the words we use to detach, right? Where I had been really able to detach from the way some things in my family were happening, the way some things in my house were happening.

when I added kids that were mine, I was not able to. So to give some concrete examples, people who are listening who have kids, was like, I'm an easygoing person, but when it came to bedtime routine, I was like a Swiss train engineer. was like, it is 5 .15 and we are doing this, and it is 5 .16 and we are doing this. And before I had kids, I really did not have a strong opinion about what

Chelsea (16:17)
Ha ha ha!

Amy Stone (16:29)
the stepkids were doing on their weekends with their dad, right? Like I would just go into my own room and be like, whatever, call me if you need me. And once I had kids, so I was not able to do that. I was like, no, no, no, the house needs to be quiet when the other kids are going to sleep. It was a completely different role for me. that took some help. That was a thing because there were all these other people. So not only did I have

Chelsea (16:36)
Yeah

Yeah.

Amy Stone (16:58)
no idea what diaper rash looked like or you know how to tell whether or not a newborn diaper is wet like seriously who can tell and you know all of the 900 questions that you ask yourself as a brand new parent i also had this other busy family that was going you know that was that was going on all the time so yeah

Chelsea (17:17)
Yeah. How much of a role did you play with the other kids? I'm just trying to sort of get a picture of those early days. Like, were you stepmom, like, dropping off at school, going to functions, or?

Amy Stone (17:35)
So

sometimes I'm very, very lucky that we don't have any of the larger issues that can make blended family life overly complicated. both of my stepkids have two engaged parents, right? So my husband is engaged in their life, their mom is engaged. She had gotten married before. There was no drama about me joining the family. was no like...

No incarceration, no substance abuse. No none of that stuff that can really be tough in big families and so I'm very lucky about that and People don't get divorced because they're best friends and you know, everything is rosy So there were but my husband and his ex have always been Communicating communicable between the two of them and highly highly motivated to be in the lives of their kids. So Was I doing things for this step? It sure like going to school performances

Chelsea (18:04)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (18:28)
Being there every once in a while. I would be drafted to Do some carpool thing there. I actually was when I was home with young kids. This was a point of point of conflict so I Like many step parents I did want to be helpful and I did want to be involved I was desperate to be included in the like sort of I'm good at what I do adult club of the family And so when I was home with young kids At one point there was hey, can you go pick up?

Chelsea (18:50)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (18:57)
the kids from middle school and I was like, yes. And what I didn't fully understand then is the reality that in a big family, a complicated family, there's so much work that needs to be done that anytime anybody offers to help, it's like, yes, here, you do it, do it all of the time. And my one offer became like slid into maybe this could be Amy's responsibility.

And I had to walk that back. I had to be like, OK, stop, stop. Like, I am not a taxi service for everybody in this family. can't. That's not what I want to do. And at the time, I made that mean a lot more than it really does, because what it actually meant was we have so many people to be ferrying around all the time that we, anybody who offers to help is welcome to help, please.

Chelsea (19:50)
Yeah.

so yeah, this is also really an interesting perspective.

for me as well because I am a stepchild. have, yeah, I have a stepmom who came into my life much later and like I was 14. So very well established. And I have a stepfather who didn't come into my life until I was well into my thirties. So it's an interesting, yeah.

Amy Stone (19:59)
Okay, yes.

Yes.

yeah, that's so that's

really so yeah, I tell people I talk to people all the time who are stepping in when the kids are teenagers and my I'm sure I shared this with you at some point. My first piece of guidance is to like remember that, you know, think back to yourself as a teenager, because when I was 14, I was not looking for any more adults to hop into my life. And, you know, just, you know, you know, just keep that in mind as you try and build a relationship with.

Chelsea (20:35)
No.

Amy Stone (20:45)
these young people like because if you come in and you're like hey let me be your let me be your mom you're gonna be like whoa whoa whoa hold the phone because no. Right that is I mean yeah I mean and one of the weird things about that is that even if the actual biological mom is not actually in the picture that role is still filled right that that role is still filled and and I learned this

Chelsea (20:54)
Yeah, like I've got one of those things,

Mm -hmm.

Amy Stone (21:14)
from adoption and foster parent resources was the academic stuff that I studied with this, even though it vibes very well with my personal view. When my stepdaughter was like, you're not my mom, was like, yeah, I know. Yeah, right. That's right. respect, I use the words honor and respect when I talk about this. That role is filled. That rule is filled. And as a stepparent, the way I

treated it was that it was like, that I honor and I know that and part of my job as an extra adult in this package is to help you protect that relationship. You know, whether your mom is not here today because she's in another house or whether she's unable to fill the role of the mom you want because of whatever's going on or maybe in or even and even if a parent is deceased, that's still the parent. Right. And so anybody else who comes in is like,

Chelsea (21:49)
Mm.

Mm -hmm. Yep.

Amy Stone (22:12)
extra. Sometimes people call it bonus parent because they want to make it like a prize. you know, yeah, yeah.

Chelsea (22:16)
Mm -hmm. Yeah,

My stepsister calls my mom, bonus mom, her mom passed away. So yeah, yeah. And we were very intentional too with like, again, we were adults entering into this and we're like, mother is your mother and she's still a part of this family and all that stuff. But that's a tangent. But yeah, it's just, it's interesting to me.

Amy Stone (22:25)
There you go. Yeah. Yeah.

Chelsea (22:47)
because it's the flip side of the coin for me. It's a perspective that I don't Was adding to your family always sort of the intention with your partner?

Amy Stone (22:49)
Yes.

It was we negotiated it like it was so it was a very distinct and intentional negotiation like he wanted to create he wanted to marry somebody who wanted more kids. So if I had not wanted kids, I would not have been a candidate for the open role of life with him. And and and he was very specific about like only two. So if I had if I had wanted five kids, that would have been off the table. And then

Chelsea (23:17)
You

Amy Stone (23:27)
funny story, this is very funny. So, or cute, let's say cute. So right after I had my second kid, I was wishy washy in the way, hormonally with cute little babies you can be about, we add more kids to this, right? And my husband though, he was further along down the line of experience with this. We had a teenager who was pushing our buttons and that, which I was tuned out because I was in baby land.

Chelsea (23:40)
Mmm.

Amy Stone (23:57)
And I was like, I don't know, maybe one more. And he's like, hey, you know, we talked about it two and two. And I was like, I know, but I was sort of given a little gentle push, like maybe could I persuade you. And he like called and made an appointment with a doctor for a vasectomy like totally without me and then called his dad and was like, can you take me to this appointment? He was finished. I was like, I was like, okay.

Chelsea (24:17)
my gosh.

Amy Stone (24:23)
my girlfriends were like, were you upset about that? I was like, no, because it really truly was the deal. This is not like a surprise. you know, like this is what we talked about. And it was not unclear anything. I was like, but it was funny to watch it as I was like, was like, he's not kidding.

Chelsea (24:37)
No, he really made that, he made that pretty clear. Yeah.

Amy Stone (24:40)
Yeah, and it is

a good idea. I do think, I it's a good idea, I would say, as someone who's old and wise like I am, for people to talk about their goals with how big a family they want at any time. But I do think it's especially important for people who are looking at doing stepfamilies and blended families to have that really honest conversation from the get go. And one of the hard parts about that can be really believing people when they tell you what they want.

Chelsea (25:09)
Mm.

Amy Stone (25:10)
Because sometimes we want to see things that aren't there. So like if you're dating someone and they're like, well, don't think I want any more kids, you know, or I'm not sure that I want to get married again because I had this horrible divorce. Sometimes we want to like sort of soften that in our mind and think that it's not going to happen. And if possible, it's really good to be brutally honest with yourself and really accept people for where they are, because that's a that's a painful thing.

Chelsea (25:39)
Yeah, yeah. I really like that though, too, because it applies in really all aspects of life. Believe, believe people when they're telling you things, even if they're cushioning it and you're trying to cushion it. yeah, that's...

Amy Stone (25:50)
Yep.

It

is hard, think, especially in the courtship phase, because we see what we want to see. people, also when we're in the courtship phase, we don't show, we don't lead with our worst features most of the time, right? We're not like, hey, let me tell you how cranky I am if I don't eat. We show each other the best version of ourselves, and sometimes we show each other what we think they want to see. And that has

Chelsea (25:59)
Mm -hmm.

Right?

Ha ha!

Mm -hmm.

Amy Stone (26:21)
When I say that, I don't mean it all in judgment. I think this is the natural version of courtship. We get dressed up nicely to go on dates, right? And that opens up, though, the potential for the need to really communicate about values and desired futures as we go. Otherwise, you can be moving in two different directions and not realize it.

Chelsea (26:46)
Yeah, definitely,

So you sort of talked about this a little bit when we first started chatting, but as you were making that transition into starting your own family, like having your kids, you had it in your mind sort of, you're like, my partner's been through this. Like, this will be cool. But what was that like for you? Did you have any sort of preconceived notions about yourself or what motherhood would be like based on your experience?

Amy Stone (27:06)
Yes.

Chelsea (27:17)
Thanks

Amy Stone (27:19)
I mean, I think I did. had a lot of concerns, uncertain, uncertainty, because I come from a very small family. I don't have a lot of sisters or cousins who had gone through it before. I did have some girlfriends. but I did, I did not, one of the big surprises was how, how much of a solo job the first, let's say six years.

of motherhood is, even if you're surrounded by other people. So it is this weird experience where you're never, ever, ever alone. And yet you are the primary doer of many, many things. And the pressure of that, relentless never ending pressure of that was an eye opener for me.

Chelsea (27:54)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Stone (28:12)
You know, standing in my kids' room at three in the morning, changing a diaper, desperately wishing that there was someone else who was going to swoop in and do it. That was a big thing. So that was a really, really, really big awareness. And then the other thing that is super hard at that phase, and we did have bigger kids, so there was that, is that within a family... So before you have...

kids and before you're in a family you can I had an idea sort of that there was an easier choice when you didn't want to do something right that I was like well I mean I thought I thought I was gonna be well dressed and show up with kids with matching outfits and you know all of these things were going on right and the reality was not quite like that I'm not I'm really not sure why I thought I was gonna be like the matching outfits because I've never been that type of person but the

Chelsea (28:56)
You

Amy Stone (29:08)
The truth is that when there are so many things in a busy family that just actually need to get done. And so the I mean, I would have no math on this, right? But I wouldn't be surprised if it was millions of decisions, which the way I actually end up making the decision is like, I know I don't want to do this. I would never want to do this, but I need it to be done. And so I have to do it.

I have to do it. And before I lived through that experience, I think I thought that there was another option which was more like negotiating, this shouldn't be my job. And so there is that choice. And I lay that out there because I do think that there's a sort of an expert level tone of things that people are like, well, sit down and talk about who's going to do these things and how you're going to break up this labor in your house, which is great and fabulous, right?

when the sink is overflowing with dishes and your husband is out at a sporting event with the kids so that he can be there and you you've got 85 things to do that you know it's like there's nobody to talk about with right it's like you know the two -year -old is not going to do the dishes and so if you want an empty sink and a clean kitchen the only choice is to actually clean it right and so if you're doing that and

Chelsea (30:17)
No. Mm -hmm. No.

Amy Stone (30:32)
telling yourself the story that there should be some other way, you might be making yourself feel crappy when the reality is, you know, that's the way you get it done. And I had a little sign hung over my sink that said something like bless this mess, you know, with the idea that it's like, be thankful for the mess because you know, that means you have this big family and stuff like that. And that is true, right? That is true. I can be thankful for that. But I will also say that F the mess, like I don't like the mess.

Chelsea (30:58)
Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Amy Stone (31:01)
Right? Like repeating

that mantra to me myself 200 million times did not make me any happier about the never ending dishes. One of the lies of adulthood is that there's a point where you don't have to do dishes and don't have to do laundry. I've never had that happen. It's always dishes, always laundry.

Chelsea (31:18)
That's why they call it the laundry cycle or the dishwasher cycle because it's

Amy Stone (31:22)
Very good point. I never heard that. That's so funny.

Chelsea (31:25)
it's a never -ending cycle. No. And with kids, it's amplified. Yeah, yeah. And highlighting what you just touched on, this is a big thing that we talk about a lot, is the duality.

Amy Stone (31:26)
It never ends. It never ever ever ends.

Right, that's the thing. Yes.

Yes.

Chelsea (31:45)
the when

you bless this mess but also F this mess like yes you're thankful for it you're thankful for the family that you have in the home that you have and this that and the other thing but you also can be really really really frustrated with the weight yeah

Amy Stone (31:50)
Right.

just downright angry, just downright angry.

And not everybody is like this. But one of the things is that I think that if you do not have a way, if a person does not have a way to safely, effectively vent the frustration and the rage, just does this sort of like transmogrification and just morphs into like horrible stuff, right? Because, you know, it doesn't work to pretend that you love something you don't love.

Chelsea (32:23)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (32:28)
There's not a version of my life where I love cleaning bathrooms. It doesn't exist, right? And if I pretend that way, it doesn't do it. And the two things are actually unrelated. I love my family, right? I am annoyed by the mess that is created with, you know, at one point six people, four of them pretty young, living all in the same house, which it was like constant, you know? those two things happen all at the same time.

Chelsea (32:32)
You

Amy Stone (32:58)
And when I was a new mom and new step -parent, the mistake I made was directing that rage and that frustration to my partner, because he was the only other adult around. And the learning that I needed to do was that I needed a different way to be able to express it constructively, because he has the same thing going on, right? He has the same thing going on.

Chelsea (33:25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Stone (33:28)
And so there's a million different ways to do that, right? Because you should be able to express rage in the direction of your partner, but there are ways to do it together where you're not attacking. I did not know that at first. In fact, so therapists will tell you use I statements when you're talking to your partner, right? And my early I statements were, I think that you should be doing this. think.

Chelsea (33:46)
Yes. Yep.

Mm -hmm.

Amy Stone (33:56)
that this is a problem and I think your kids are messy and the therapist was like, that's not what we mean by I statements. was like, hmm.

Chelsea (34:00)
You

It comes with experience. mean, that's it. And it's, it's, it's a lived learned thing in any relationship and relationships with your kids and relationships with your partners. And I say this, like I've mastered it. I absolutely have not. I mean, no, it's, you learn, you learn as you go. That kind of though, something that you said sort of helps me transition into

Amy Stone (34:22)
No.

Chelsea (34:32)
one of my next thoughts or my next questions when you said like I think that your kids are messy and I I wonder

Was there a dynamic shift in the house once you had your kids? It's like, okay, these are your kids and these are our kids. Or was it like, these are all our kids?

Amy Stone (34:56)
So they are all his kids and they have always been. And so they've always just kind of been the kids. But there definitely were shifts. like almost every divorced person, my husband has some guilt about his role in the relationship. And one of the beliefs I have is that I'm very against divorce shaming, right? And I'm very against.

Chelsea (34:59)
Okay.

the kids.

Yeah.

Mm.

Amy Stone (35:26)
targeting the divorce as the explanation for anything because it's just a thing and it can't actually It's a bypass right you can blame everything on the divorce But that doesn't change anything that's actually happening And so if you do that you can do that forever and never move through it is the problem so He had some thinking going on when we were early together that was he really did not want he had such little time with his Kids that he didn't want to give them responsibilities

when they were at our house. It was a really, really big problem because the result was that I was living in chaos, right? Because it wasn't like he was cleaning up after them. He was just letting their mess sit. And so that was a big thing for us. And I was told by marriage counselors and advisors that it was inappropriate for me to get involved because I wasn't a parent. That's a very common piece of advice, which is let the parents parent.

Chelsea (35:57)
Okay.

Yeah.

Amy Stone (36:25)
And this in our house, this came to a showdown where I was like, listen, this is not parenting. This is me saying what I should have a say in the standard of living that I'm experiencing, right? I don't actually care who cleans up the toys. I don't think I'm not interested in making the rule about whether or not the kids need to clean it up. What I care about is like the condition of the house, generally speaking. And so that's kind of how we that's how we worked through it. Slowly it was.

Chelsea (36:48)
Right.

Amy Stone (36:54)
Definitely like we had to learn as we go kind of thing because you you do that's the only option here There is no there is no magical download of how to do this Just you know you figure it out as you go even if you have a team of advisors you're still gonna be figuring it out as you go and And so and then it did change When we had other kids, I don't think that it was It was more complex because the big kids go back and forth between the house and there were four adults

involved in their life instead of two But it's the same kind of thing. So at one point we had a teenager and toddlers. So my stepdaughter was very interested in arts and crafts and she was a super creative person, is a wonderful part of her personality, but she was leaving Xacto knives out where the kids could get them. so I was cleaning them up and figuring out, and in my mind, right, I was trying to figure out.

Chelsea (37:34)
Mm -hmm.

Mmm.

Amy Stone (37:52)
The question I had in my mind was, my God, we have to figure out a way that she can do this and the small kids are not at risk. Like that was the thought in my head. She came home and saw that I had moved her things and got really, really upset. Like I wasn't there to have a conversation with her, right? And she went to her mom and was like, Amy did this and she cleaned it up and she doesn't want me to do crafts. just by, you know, miraculous stuff, her mom was like, I am.

Chelsea (38:08)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (38:21)
I don't think that that's why Amy would do that. Like, let's get old of Amy and talk about it. And we had a chance to come together. was like, no, I want you to be able to do this. But also, your little brother and sister are not old enough to know that they can't touch these things. like, we have to really brainstorm how these things can all happen in the same space. And so that's an actual situation where all the different adults were involved and there were some really high emotions.

Chelsea (38:23)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (38:50)
The emotions are really downplayed now when I tell this story, but just try and put a hormonal teenager in there, right? Right, exactly. Yeah, exactly. yeah, and she, but you know, and did the fact that I was a stepmom make it slightly more complicated? Of course, but could that same story have played out in a family where there was just a big age range? And I think so. You know, I think it could. I think that most of the things...

Chelsea (38:55)
I could... Well, a hormonal teenager and a new mom! Like, you've got toddlers! Yeah!

Amy Stone (39:18)
that happen in blended families also happen in families where there's no blood.

Chelsea (39:23)
Yeah, for sure I can attest to the fact my kids, I have a big age gap between my two kids. My oldest is just about to turn nine and my youngest just turned two. And we have the same conversation, like you cannot leave your scissors on the craft table. You cannot leave your Legos on the floor. Yeah, she really likes Legos. Luckily, they both like magnetiles, which, yeah.

Amy Stone (39:40)
my god, Legos.

Lego's on the

Chelsea (39:52)
They weren't really a thing when I was a kid, but anyway, off the point. I think what speaks to the strength and dynamic in your situation is that all parties involved were able to communicate and get the problem solved, which isn't always the case in a lot of blended families.

Amy Stone (40:11)
It's not the case and most people really don't know how to do this kind of communication. And when I say that, I want to offer that I didn't either. Right. But it takes practice and leadership. Like you need somebody to lead you through it like education to learn how to have these conversations and not have them and actually fight about the things that

Chelsea (40:25)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (40:41)
need fighting about and not the things that aren't right. we talked about fight like I was upset about the mess in the house. Well, we fought about the mess for a long time before I was able to realize that what I really needed to do was talk about how can we shift this so that I get what I need. Right. And so how and then it becomes like because otherwise it's just blaming and fighting and I'm angry and it shouldn't be this way. And and

Chelsea (41:00)
Right.

Amy Stone (41:11)
And there's no, it's a process. It's a process. What is the actual issue here? Is there actually a solution? What would there be that would make it better? Because this is also one of the secrets, unpleasant secrets that nobody talks about in family. Sometimes, when I was younger, a couple of things. First of all, I thought the adults that were around in my life knew what they were doing. I now realize that nobody ever knows, right? It's like the biggest fake out. Like I think about how much time, no one knows. Anyway, the other thing is that I thought,

Chelsea (41:28)
No. Yes.

Amy Stone (41:40)
that there would be clear and obvious good and bad choices and that it would be easy to make them. And so often there's just not, like it's not clear. There's no good choice. And you find yourself and you're I'm pissed and I hate the way this is. I'm really angry and I'm hurt. And also I don't have a way to change this. Right. There's no way to change it. And there's no superhero around the corner who can sweep in and change it either. And so what are we going to do?

Chelsea (41:45)
Mm.

Amy Stone (42:10)
You know, what are we gonna do?

Chelsea (42:10)
Yeah.

Yeah. it's so a lot of what you're describing to me too, sounds so much like we use the term now like default parent. You were the default parent and maybe not necessarily for your stepkids, but you were the default adult in the house.

Amy Stone (42:21)
yeah yeah.

I was the default,

I was a default adult in our house. was a decision that was made semi intentionally by me, given the choices. There's not a great choice for professional women in America with small kids, to tell you the truth, right? Like.

Chelsea (42:47)
Mm -hmm. Mm

-hmm.

Amy Stone (42:49)
School options don't actually line up with work options. As far as I know, there's no six figure job that is open between 10 and like 1130 when kids go to preschool, you know. And so I did make the choice. was like, this vision of my life where I, know, do I hire three full time people to watch my kids while I go back to work or do I stay home? I like I made that choice and I did it on purpose and my husband loved it. Right. My husband absolutely loved it.

And so I call this the slippery slope, right? Because I did make the choice. We did dive into this, but over time, right, it did become more and more. Everything was on my shoulders. And then there hit a point where, you know, the kids do eventually learn how to drink out of their own juice boxes. And then they do eventually age up into not actually needing you as much. And then

Chelsea (43:39)
Yes.

Amy Stone (43:46)
It's a conversation where it's like, hey, you know, I don't have to do this stuff anymore. Now, my kids are almost all grown, right? And about two years ago, everybody was out of town and doing their living their best life. And my husband was like, hey, what are you making for dinner? And I was like, hey, newsflash, you can make your own dinner.

Chelsea (43:55)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, imagine that.

Amy Stone (44:09)
Right. was like, was like, make yourself a sandwich because this is not actually and and you know, and he was like, what? You know, like and and it's been it's been it's been a process like sort of stepping back into that vision of myself because becoming the default parent is very easy when you have small children around who really, really need you. They really because that's the thing, right? They really they cannot do stuff without an adult. They really, really, really need someone. And

And that's the reality. More than one people, more than one person. Like it's like there's a team of people that it takes to bring all these things together. then, but then they don't after a while and you have to be ready to reinvent that. I think the words we use today are called re -centering. It's like re -centering your life back around yourself because when they're small, that's the joke, right? Like you put a two year old in the room and everything is about them.

Chelsea (45:05)
Yes.

Amy Stone (45:06)
And you know, right, but you know, a 16 year old, don't want everybody looking at them. They don't want anybody looking at them. But you have to see what they're doing, right? You're not allowed to look at them, but you have to know and honor everything they're doing. That's the hard part about teenagers.

Chelsea (45:11)
didn't want anybody looking at them at all.

Mm -mm. Mm -hmm.

They want, yes, I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet, but I'm getting close. I'm in the preteen years. It's hard enough.

Amy Stone (45:31)
It is a funny thing about the teen things though, is that pre -teen, like you know you're there and you know it's coming. And it's one of those funny things that it is almost like an overnight thing. It's like all of sudden something will happen. It's different in every family. Like, but you know, something will happen and you're like, wow. wow, there we are. Here we are. And so my stepdaughter, when she was 13, we had like a family event.

And she had like one of those things, it was a thing, like you have to be here, your grandparents are here, it's a family event, blah, blah, blah. And she wanted to do something else, anything else, have a phone call with her friend, like whatever, right? She had one of those very typical teen things, you're ruining my life, you hate me, everything is over, right? Both of her parents were like, gosh, we don't know what happened, who is this kid? And I was like, so was still, you know, I'm like a newbie to the thing. And I was like, what do mean what happened? She's 13.

Chelsea (46:06)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (46:26)
like, are you not seeing what I'm seeing? this is, and they were like, what do you mean? And I was like, no, she's, this is like normal teen stuff. Do you not remember?

Chelsea (46:29)
Yeah.

That's so cool, you were able to have that like outsider's perspective like, yo guys!

Amy Stone (46:38)
Right.

It's one of the things that can be really nice about the step -parent relationship is that you do bring a fresh eye, which can be nice sometimes, not all the time, but every once in a while. it can be, we have four five of those from my family where it was like, was able, because I did have that slightly outsider perspective. And one of the things I help people with is how to introduce that without looking at your husband and being like, you're doing this wrong, you know?

Chelsea (46:46)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, that's a delicate line to tread, I'm sure. Sort of winding the clock back a little bit, you had talked about, so let's bring us back to the very, very early days of you having your babies.

Amy Stone (47:24)
very, very early

days.

Chelsea (47:26)
And you had said earlier, it's like, you're never alone. You're never actually alone, but you feel so isolated and alone because you're doing everything. Did you have any sort of support system during that time? Okay.

Amy Stone (47:30)
Never.

lot of support actually. Part

of that because we did have these other kids. like we had help already in the house for helping us clean. I had my parents and my husband's parents who don't live super nearby but were close enough. When my daughter was a newborn I was trying to figure out if she was starving or if I nursing I was trying to figure out, could not figure out if she was getting any food or if the diaper, I mean it was just like beyond, I was totally overwrought.

Right? They send you home from the hospital like, congratulations, you're a parent. You're like, does anybody know what to do with this thing? And I, my dad, I called my dad and he was crying and he like came running over and he went to a, like I, this is, this is in early 2000s. So really not a lot of internet, some internet stuff, but not as much. And so like what I thought I wanted was a book. Like I had it in my mind that there was this book that was going to answer all of my questions about breastfeeding. So he very diligently went to the bookstore and brought me the book and sat.

Chelsea (48:12)
Yeah.

Exactly!

Amy Stone (48:41)
on the bed next to me, like a little couch bed that we had in the living room and rubbed my back while I sat there and cried. Like, don't think she's eating. And he was like, she is. I'm confident and I'm going to sit here with you till you feel confident about it. You know, so I did have support, right? I did have support. And at the same time, also, you know, early days when they do those cluster feedings.

Chelsea (49:05)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Stone (49:05)
and like

they're a couple of weeks old, you know, and or a couple of months old and they just decide that they're just going to be up for 24 hours a day pushing all of your buttons. know, three o 'clock in the morning, you know, do you need it's like you're by yourself. Whether it's like unless you're going to make your other parent get up and do it. Also, you know, you're by yourself and and you're tired and, you know, yeah.

Chelsea (49:30)
Yeah, I totally lost my train of thought there. cause it's cause I have a two year old. So I'm very tired.

Amy Stone (49:35)
That's right, yeah, you're tired too, yeah.

Chelsea (49:38)
Yeah, support system. that's kind of important to note too. We talk a lot about building a community, building a support network. If you don't have one already, you have to create one. You had one and...

Amy Stone (49:44)
Yes.

Chelsea (49:55)
it was still challenging. like for listeners who are listening right now, whether you are step parenting or bio parenting or adoptive parenting or whatever parenting, it's hard and it feels hard because it's freaking hard. Yeah, you can have all the support in the world. Excuse

Amy Stone (49:57)
Yes.

Right. Because it is hard. Yeah. Yeah. Because it is hard.

No, that's one of the things I like to tell people. The reason it feels hard is it's hard. it's not to celebrate the hardness of it. It's not like, yay, it's hard. acknowledging that it's hard is, I think, one of the pass through to the next step. It's like, OK, so this is hard. Now what? OK, I'm very, very tired. Now what? My second kid had reflux. And so he really...

Chelsea (50:23)
Ha ha!

Mm

Amy Stone (50:43)
really didn't sleep those first couple months until we got, you know, like things sorted out. like I remember I like was sitting outside preschool one time and I like was like about to fall asleep on the bench. I hadn't realized, you know, it's like there's not a lot of sleep in the beginning. And one of the other moms at the preschool was like, hey, how old is your kid? And I was I forget what it was. And I told him, she's like, something is wrong. And I was like, what do mean? She's like, no, he should be sleeping more at this point. I was like, well, he has reflux And she's like, yeah.

You need to now go to the doctor. You need to push this. You know, because like if he's still waking up, he's too uncomfortable. And I was like, I think so. I think so. And I was like, OK, you know, I'll do that. But yeah, that it sounds so easy to create the village, the network, the support circle, but it's hard. And I will be honest, I think that it's harder today than it was 20 years ago. And.

Chelsea (51:38)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Stone (51:40)
I think that some of the things that were really well established that existed when I had new kids sort of disappeared during lockdown, unfortunately. like I was able to, and they are coming back, they are coming back, but people need to, should look for them, ask for them and push this process along if you're not finding these. I was able to find new mom support groups at the hospitals where I had the baby. So like there was this...

amazing nurse and she had a new baby thing that anybody with a baby under one years old could come once a week and sit in these beanbag chairs for an hour every Tuesday morning, I think it was, right? And that kind of stuff, that's how I did that, you know, like, and so it is harder to find stuff like MOPs, which was Moms of Preschoolers, right, which has gone through a rebrand because everything totally shifted during lockdown. So it's called different things.

Chelsea (52:28)
Yes.

Amy Stone (52:35)
And so this is awareness and just stating it, not putting blame. So if you're having trouble finding these things, it's because there's not right now as much of it as there was, say, 10 years ago. I think it is coming back, and I think it will come back. But the cycles were broken when we shut everything down. And one of the things to highlight how this happened is a couple of years ago,

Chelsea (52:58)
Mm

Amy Stone (53:05)
I was talking to a friend of mine and she's like, I'm still PTA president for the middle school. And I was like, why? You don't have any middle schoolers anymore. And she's like, yeah, but there's no, there was no like PTA for like two years because they were doing remote. And so there was no, she's like, what I'm doing is rebuilding it, going out and finding people and reintroducing it because it didn't exist. And so that kind of thing happened overall. And so, you know, we need more mommy and me stuff.

Chelsea (53:17)
Yeah.

Amy Stone (53:34)
Right. Because that's how you build that circle is through Mommy and me massage and Mommy and me swimming and Mommy and me music and group and Mommy and me playtime and Gymboree circles. Although not Gymboree because do do Gymboree, but it is called Germboree for a reason. It's like go on Thursday and have a runny nose on Sunday. They do everything they can to keep it clean. This is not a statement on Gymboree or any shared play space, but it's a thing about bringing small children together. It is like a Petri dish. Yes.

Chelsea (54:01)
It's absolutely I

100 % agree and it's super interesting to hear you so you are only my second guest out of we are now into with this recording season four who has talked about mops and I had never heard of it before and

Amy Stone (54:20)
It has a new name

now, actually.

Chelsea (54:22)
I

so the last guest that talked about it was probably a year ago and it was called Mops when she was using it. yeah, so we can give an accurate name.

Amy Stone (54:28)
Yeah.

Let me look up what it's called now.

Momco. Momco. Yeah, she like and right. like anybody who had a preschool kid sort of aged out. And so it was a good time to to transition, but it's it's a it is affiliated with churches, which sometimes, you know, like the truth is a lot of stuff for small kids is run through faith based organizations. Right. So like it's if you're not a faith based person, you just kind of got a

Chelsea (54:37)
Momco. Okay. So,

Yeah.

Yes.

Amy Stone (55:05)
Chuck it up and understand that that's where a lot of that stuff is for the first six years of their life and go with it. yeah, it's groups for preschoolers. Moms of preschoolers is what Mops stood for. And I think it extends up. She's got bigger groups now for bigger kids. But it's really nice because they're organized groups and they'll do playtime and they'll bring in speakers and things like that.

Chelsea (55:28)
Yeah, and I think it's important to, like when we're saying build your village, like it's important to know where to look. yes, and you can, a good resource is always your pediatrician. Your pediatrician should have a list of even just those mommy and me groups. We need more and more of the parent support groups, but.

Amy Stone (55:35)
Yes, that's the reason I mentioned that that's where those things are exactly.

Yes.

Chelsea (55:55)
the like the swim lessons and the music classes and things like that. To sort of bring us back around to what you speak about often and what you are so passionate about, what do you think is one of the most misunderstood things about being a step -parent?

Amy Stone (55:57)
Yes.

What do I think is one of the most, so one of the big challenges of being a stepparent is, I mean the word people use for it is stigma, which is true, right? There is an enormous, so there's a misunderstanding that it's a modern thing, right, when stepparents have been around for forever. And there's a frequent assumption that the stepparent is a sign of an unhealthy dysfunctional.

Chelsea (56:24)
Mm

Right.

Amy Stone (56:42)
family. And that is almost always not the case, which is really interesting. the, and you know, so the wicked stepmom is the trope. That's the character that everybody knows. That's the thing that everybody's afraid about being. And that's the thing that everybody affiliates with it. I've been married to my husband over 25 years. And last year, so within the last calendar year,

Chelsea (56:54)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Stone (57:09)
We were at a social event where a person made an assumption and said it out loud using her grownup voice in public that I had been his mistress and had broken up his original marriage. This is the first time we met this person. And I know and this kind of stuff happens all the time. People make this kind of assumption. Sometimes this person said it out loud, you know, and we were able to confront it. A lot of people don't. And so

Chelsea (57:25)
my gosh.

Yeah.

Amy Stone (57:39)
there is this reality of the fact that you are moving through the world and people are... This is always true. This is one of the challenges of living in a social community, right? People are making assumptions of you and drawing conclusions about your life without actually knowing you, right? And so as a step -parent, if you also have a version of that talk going on in your head, it's even worse. Like it's even worse. So it's that alignment of dropping any, you know, being willing to drop any pretext.

of the illusions you had about what your family is or that there's a right way to put a family together, right? So if you were trying to be a stepmom but you think that a good family only looks like first mom and first dad, that's a hard thing to make it line up because you don't fit in that picture. And so that's kind of the thing that is misunderstood about it is that, you know, that sort of thing. There's feedback from other people that's real. There's your perception of what you think people are thinking. And then there's the story you're telling yourself.

Chelsea (58:13)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Stone (58:37)
that is also causing those problems. so bringing it all together so that you can build a family that you love and is in alignment with what you're going to do is the work that it takes to be happy in it. We talked about blaming divorce early, which is a thing I'm against. But the other thing I talk a lot about that I think is a bigger framework that I think is a really powerful shift is the idea that your happiness is not as connected.

to the way your family is constructed as you might think it is. So if you have a step -parent, you can still be happy, right? If you're divorced, you can still be happy. We know people who are divorced who are happy and people who are divorced who are miserable. We know people who are single who are happy and people who single who are miserable. We know people who are married who are happy, married who are miserable. These things are just not always one -to -one connected. But think about all the times we blame how we're feeling about ourselves on

Chelsea (59:09)
Mm.

Amy Stone (59:35)
whether we're married by the time we're 30, whether we have kids by the time we're this age, whether we get a divorce, whether we're widowed. These are things that we can blame because they're arbitrary and they're not real. And so it's a perfect target. It can't talk back. You can have that argument with yourself all day long. can be like, the reason I'm unhappy is because I'm a stepparent. It's not possible to be happy as a stepparent. It's just an impossible situation. And there's no off ramp there. That's a circular argument that there's no solution.

Chelsea (59:50)
Mm -hmm.

Right.

Amy Stone (1:00:04)
The process of figuring out what you're going to do and how you can be happier, contenter, fulfiller, is partly saying, well, you know what? Maybe it's not as connected to that as I thought it was.

Chelsea (1:00:17)
Yeah. that was so much good information in such a like concise little nutshell. It's almost like you talk about this all the time.

Amy Stone (1:00:26)
I do

a lot of talking about it, but it started with like, you know, you're doing these podcasts and you're talking about this and it started with I had this life experience. I had my own lived experience. I had all these things. had, you know, it's a rule that when you get to midlife, you learn how to be a coach on something. Right. So I all these coaching certificates and and then it was the work of figuring out, you know, did I actually have something that would help people and what were the things that I did?

that may have made a difference and then talking about it over and over again and looking at things that you know did or didn't work and I did as much as anybody does and there's no way to avoid it looking for what is the magic sauce that will change this what's the one thing what's the best color for my website what what shoes do I need to buy my stepkids so that they'll like me you know what's the way to connect I did a lot of that and and I don't and it's important to do all of those things but

The bigger shift was when I was like, what do I want my life to look like? What do I want my home to feel like? What kind of family do I want to make? how, what pieces do I have and what I don't have? And letting all the other stuff drift away with a very big, very big dose of be careful who you ask for information. And the reason I say that is that there are so many people in the parenting space.

who offer advice, really, really well worded advice, and they may never have been parents. They have degrees from very fancy places. And or if they're parents, they may never have been moms, right? Or if they're moms, they may never have been divorced moms. And we do devalue and dismiss.

Chelsea (1:01:59)
Right?

Amy Stone (1:02:15)
the quality of information that comes from people who have lived experience, right? So we tend to want to ask teachers and doctors and therapists, right? And they can be really, really helpful. This is not saying that they cannot be really helpful, but if they don't have actual experience, they may not have the answers that you need. Once upon a time, I asked a pediatrician.

how to give a baby medicine. And they gave me a suggestion, which I blocked from my memory because it did not work. And the medicine ended up all over the kitchen. And the pharmacist would not refill the prescription. I had to go back and get a new one to do it. And when I did, I talked to the nurse and I was like, hey, I asked her how to do this and give it to the baby and it didn't work. And she was like, what did they tell you? And I told her, and she laughed hilariously because she was like, yeah.

Chelsea (1:02:49)
Ha ha!

Amy Stone (1:03:08)
they are a good doctor, but they don't actually have any kids, probably never actually tried this. And then she gave me a different solution. And I had just trusted that because they were a doctor, they knew. And they do know lots of things. They just didn't know that thing. And so I call this the hill I might die on, which is that no matter how important a person appears from the outside, ask what their experience is. you know, ask what their experience is. if you have, you know,

Chelsea (1:03:19)
Mm -hmm.

Amy Stone (1:03:37)
any experience. If you have a special needs kid and you you're looking for advice, people who know nothing will give you advice. And then and the way you avoid that is you say, you know did you try this? What happened when you tried it? And if they're like, well you know I read a magazine online or I saw a movie one time about this, then you're like, thank you. Next. Right exactly. Drive through please.

Chelsea (1:03:46)
Mm -hmm.

You just told me everything I need to know.

Yes. You have made my job as a host so easy. you all of my bullet points, you've hit them all on your own. And usually I do a wrap up question.

But you literally just answered my wrap up question without me having to ask it. And it was multifaceted. usually what I'll say is like, what do you want others to take away? Or what do you hope that other people know? I'll still give you that opportunity. I feel like you just did an incredibly beautiful job of summing up so much of what you feel about this experience. But I guess, yeah, if...

If there was one thing, if you had to pick one little nugget for listeners to walk away with, what would you hope that would be?

Amy Stone (1:04:56)
So I think we've talked a lot about how hard things are, and they are. But one of the tricks of making it through the hard stuff is learning to pay attention to the stuff that goes well. And in motherhood, especially early motherhood, these are like flashes. This is a moment of calm with a kid snuggling with you on the couch before you get a knee to the belly.

Chelsea (1:04:59)
Mm

Amy Stone (1:05:23)
kiss from a toddler that's only slightly sticky, know, you know, but paying attention to those teeny tiny flashes of goodness because it's hard, right? It's hard to train yourself, especially, and this is hardest for high functioning driven people who are achievers because we're very quick to move on to the real thing and we have a very high standard of what we expect from ourselves and from others. And so,

Chelsea (1:05:27)
Hahaha, yeah.

Amy Stone (1:05:50)
Part of the way of feeling good about ourselves as we move through these tough seasons of life, these very demanding seasons of life, is learning to pay attention to those really nice moments. And they're short. They're very, short.

Chelsea (1:06:05)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, we call them glimmers. Yeah.

Amy Stone (1:06:10)
Yeah, yeah, the glimmer. The glimmer for me is more like I think of glimmers forward looking. It's like, this is going to be OK. But yeah, like the little flash of that was nice, you know, and and I was the queen of today was horrible. And as a coach, I remember one time I was coaching somebody and she was like, this kid cries all day long. And she was distraught. And I was like, all right, is that for real all day long? Because it's possible, right? It could definitely happen.

Chelsea (1:06:18)
yeah.

Yeah.

Amy Stone (1:06:38)
And let's go through like, what did you do today? Did you really cry all day long? And then, you know, the truth is, cried a lot. It was really, really hard, but there were other things in there. And it's like learning to pick those out and use them as footholds is helpful.

Chelsea (1:06:50)
Yeah,

absolutely. Amy, thank you so much for, I mean, for sharing your story, for sharing your insight, for sharing your lived experience. Where can my listeners find you if they want to learn more about you?

Amy Stone (1:06:55)
You're welcome.

Okay, so my name is Amy and the name of my company is Amy Says So. If you're a stepparent, I have a stepparent specific website which I call a Stepparent Success School. And you can find coaching and I have a standalone course there. And I'm in the process of launching a more general course which I call, or this website which I call Imperfect Adulting, the art of imperfect adulting. So those are the three places people can find me. I'm not

I am on the socials, but I'm not really on the socials. There's more like a Yellow Pages of how to get to those websites.

Chelsea (1:07:42)
Yeah.

Okay, perfect. And we will be sure to link all of your websites and all of your stuff in the show notes. But yeah, thank you. This has been really cool for me on a personal level to sort of get a different perspective on what my step parents may have experienced. And I think it's a really, really important topic that needs to be talked about because you guys are parents too. And you are...

Amy Stone (1:08:11)
That's right.

Chelsea (1:08:11)
going through this life with us and we are all going through this life together. So thank you for sharing your story with me.

Amy Stone (1:08:18)
Thank you for having me as a guest. I've enjoyed it.

Chelsea (1:08:23)
Amy, thank you for sharing your story with me. This is a perspective that I truly hadn't thought to explore prior to meeting you, but one that should be talked about so much more. I appreciated your insight and the connection it will create with other stepparents who may feel alone in their journey. But I also really benefited from hearing your perspective coming from my own experience as a stepchild. Listeners, be sure to check the show notes in order to learn more about the resources Amy has to offer.

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