Humanity of Fame

Epigenetics and the Modern Family: Insights from Brenda Wollenberg

August 20, 2024 • Kali Girl • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Brenda Wollenberg is a mother of five adult children, an experienced social worker, a co-leader of a faith community, and a certified nutritionist. She specializes in personalized holistic wellness programs through genetic profile analysis, with a focus on epigenetics. Brenda is the author of Overweight Kids in a Toothpick World and Metabolic Health Roadmap, where she addresses the impact of epigenetics on health and wellness.

In this episode of "The Humanity of Fame Show," host Kali unraveles the concept of epigenetics with guest Brenda Wollenberg, exploring how it shapes family dynamics and the roles of stay-at-home parents. The discussion covers the societal judgments faced by homemakers, the influence of epigenetics on behavior and stress management, and how understanding these genetic factors can lead to more compassionate and effective family relationships.


Key Topics:

  • Understanding Epigenetics: A deep dive into how epigenetics—how genes are expressed and influenced by environmental factors—affects our daily lives and family dynamics.
  • Epigenetics and Parenting: How genetic predispositions can influence parenting styles, stress management, and the division of household responsibilities.
  • Societal Judgments: The role of epigenetics in understanding and mitigating the societal pressure and criticism faced by stay-at-home parents.
  • Breaking Gender Norms: How families can use epigenetic insights to tailor roles and responsibilities that best suit their genetic profiles, leading to a more harmonious and balanced household.


Potential Listener Questions:

  1. How can understanding your genetic profile through epigenetics improve family dynamics and parenting styles?
  2. What role does epigenetics play in managing stress and household responsibilities?
  3. How can families use epigenetics to break free from traditional gender roles and create a more balanced home environment?
  4. How does epigenetic knowledge help in responding to societal judgments about stay-at-home parents?


References and Links:

Find out more about Kali and the show HERE: https://humanityoffame.com/

You know what? You should probably ask her. Don't ask me. Here at Humanity of Fame, I take the topics out of the headlines where the news tries to divide us and I highlight how we are more alike than we are different. Okay, so speaking of how we are more alike than we are different, recently, former NFL player Jason Kelsey, he received some criticism about his wife being a homemaker or being assumed that she was a homemaker and she keeps a messy home. Okay. It was a little less than tidy. So let's get to the article so I can show you guys and we can take a look. Okay. So according to ABC7, it says Jason Kelsey is clarifying his family dynamic after an online troll called his wife Kelsey a homemaker. Okay. And in quotes, it says, and your wife is a homemaker whose home is a mess. Sorry, but it is dirty and messy on television. Okay. So he felt he had to come back and of course defend his wife as he should. And he said in response, I don't think of Kylie as a homemaker. I think of her as my wife. I think of her as a mother. She has an occupation as I do. And we keep our house as best we can. Our marriage is a partnership. We are equals who are figuring it out on the daily. All right. So we're going to talk about breaking the mold. Okay. Breaking the mold beyond role and tradition of homemakers, AKA stay at home moms and dads. All right. And we're also going to include how epigenetics might also play a role. Okay. So I want to make sure that I bring in my fabulous guests that we have today, uh, joining us. All right. So today we have, uh, Brenda Wallenberg and she is a proud mother of five adult children with decades of experience as a social worker, a co-leader of a faith community. And she's also a nutritionist. In addition, she designs personalized, holistic wellness programs through genetic profile analysis. And in addition, she is an author of overweight kids in a toothpick world, addressing childhood obesity, as well as a step-by-step epigenetic guide titled metabolic health roadmap. All right. So let me just start off by saying thank you so much, Brenda, for joining me on this topic. Oh, you're so welcome. Thanks for having me. I'm really looking forward to unpacking this with you. I am as well. How are you today? I'm good. Thank you. Very good. Yeah. A little hot. So if you hear the fan in the background is to keep me from passing out. Okay. No problem. No problem. So let's get started so quickly. Can you, if you can quickly, can you give us a definition of what, what exactly is epigenetics? Sure. Let's dive right in. So basically epi comes from the Greek word over or above, and that means the kinds of things that we do both internally, say how we eat, how we self-regulate, what time we choose to turn off our screens at night, and then externally, things like parabens, pesticides, herbicides, et cetera, how that impacts gene expression. So we think about, you know, we have these genes, single strand of DNA from a mom and from a biological dad, and they're just like carved in stone. And I mean, they are, they don't change as far as their coding, but we have a huge amount of impact and how those express themselves by how we do things in our life. So that's kind of cool. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Okay. So we're going to talk about how we incorporate that with the whole breaking the tradition, stay at home, moms and dads, and how society still views those type of family dynamics. Okay. So let's dive right in. Why do you think stay at home moms and dads are still mocked or undervalued today? I think we value certain things in society and I'm generalizing here, obviously people are different. Okay. But typically I feel like we value big, we value glitzy, we value income generating, wealth generating, flashy kinds of things. And let's face it, stay at home parents don't really fit any of those categories. So I think that's one reason. I think the other reason is that historically we have really undervalued children. I mean, I'm obviously a generation, you know, ahead of you here, but it was always, you know, children seen and not heard. I mean, children were chattel property. And so the kinds of things like if your main role in life is raising children, whether that is your own or your daycare worker or early childhood educator, for example, you're not regarded well, you're not paid well. It is starting to change with work of, you know, people like Wormate and psychiatrists who are recognizing the, you know, things that happen with the ACEs, you know, the childhood events, people are starting to realize, oh my goodness, we really, this role needs to be more valued. I think it's a combination of a poor value of the role and a poor value of the primary people you're taking care of during that role. With you being a proud mom of five adult children, can you explain how you and, well, let me first ask, were you a stay-at-home mom during that time when you were raising your children? Yes and no. Okay. So started off, I went right back to social work right away after our first child was born and after the Canadian kind of maternity leave and did that for another year, year and a half or so. And then with subsequent kids, I ended up, it was kind of like Mark and my, that's my husband, our discussion was, okay, so one of us probably should be spending more time at home. That was our choice. Not everyone does that. Since I was a big proponent of breastfeeding, it made way more sense for me to be that person. So I actually gave up the higher paying job and stayed at home and then worked part-time, either like co-leading the church or writing or whatever. But it was definitely the predominant homemaker caregiver for about, I would say, 10 to 12 years. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Okay. So then that leads to my next question then. Can you explain how you and your husband, how did you guys navigate societal expectations while ensuring your family's wellbeing remained a priority? Because you said you were working and then it made more sense to stay home and you did that for about 10 to 12 years. How did you guys navigate expectations of society with that? I think we had already started doing that before we had kids. So we were married for six plus years before we had kids. I was a social worker trained in the broad burning feminist era. Okay. My poor husband, I don't think he knew quite what the heck he was getting into with. He was a conservatively raised guy, but we just hit it off and we started having these conversations and conversations like, hey, how come when we go home, and to his amazing parents house, lovely people, both passed now, but lovely people. I said, but you revert to a four-year-old and your mama serves your hand and foot. Like, hello, where does that come from? So we had lots of conversations around that before we even had kids. Conversations like, babe, you can watch football if you want, but if we both get up our butts and clean house quicker, we're going to have time for more sex. That was always a great, great. He was okay with compromise with that type of comment. So we just, in, I think a humorous way, a, and he's a really great guy. So it was like the blind, the biases and the paradigms came off and he was like, yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Like we both putting each other through university or master's degree, whatever, like, no, we should both be working here. So we already had established, I would say a lot of ground and had already put up with some flack, like from other personers kind of like, where's your, where's your wife today? Oh, actually she's on a racquetball tournament. She plays competitive rock. Why isn't she here? Mark would just say, you know what? You should probably ask her. Don't ask me. So we, we already, and then I think a nice way, we already laid some groundwork for when, um, you know, when, uh, when I stayed home and, you know, hang out with old social worker buddies, like, how's it working for you? You know, I'm going, you know what? We made this decision and probably I'm my own worst enemy someday as I'm scrubbing toilets and cleaning baby puke off my shirt, go to school. Why did I do all this kind of stuff? We bonded together. Mark and I did a unified front, supported each other in this. And, uh, he still was like picking up a ton of stuff at home. Yeah. Parented equally. So it wasn't like I just ran everything and he showed up at six o'clock for supper. Like, no, no. So we really worked on that a lot to get that sorted out. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So let's, let's talk a little bit about epigenetics. Okay. So how can understanding epigenetics help us become more compassionate towards others, especially those in the roles of say a stay at home parent? How does that play into that? It's, it's like life changing. Like once you understand that, first off genetically, so many differences, people more wired for independence. Some people were wired for needing connection. Some people more wired for handling stress, maybe more poorly, ending up getting stuck in like sympathetic mode more. You start to understand a number one, that yours is not the only way of seeing the world. Okay. But number two, I think it's a lot of empathy that begins to be developed because you realize that sometimes the way that people are responding is because of genetics. They, and I'm not saying I'm blaming that for poor behavior or anything. I'm just saying we often act unknowingly out of expression of our genes. And we don't understand that we can change those. If we get off the sugar, we aren't going to have so much blood sugar regulation, then we're going to be less irritable and we're going to be whatever. So the more we understand about it, I think our tolerance level, I don't just mean tolerance, like I can tolerate you. Yeah. Really, really acceptance and recognition of the different giftings that different people have, man, that goes a long way to breaking down biases and paradigms and you know, all that, all that kind of stuff. So, wow. Let's talk a little bit about the article. Let's touch back on that. So Jason Kelsey's wife, she faced criticism about having a messy home or what someone considered was a messy home. When it comes to being a stay-at-home parent, some people believe that the home should always be tidy. Did you face anything like that? I mean, it doesn't sound like it based on what you already expressed as far as you and your husband sort of having a partnership, but you said your husband received flack. Did you ever receive flack from say your female friends who maybe were chasing their career or stayed at home, but always make sure their home was tidy and supper was ready? I would have been one of those people that you just mentioned having a little bit of a judgmental attitude because I am pretty type A. I'm very sympathetic, dominant in my genetics. And so for me, I function better in neatness. Like if there's a lot of messiness, it's overwhelmed. Okay. So I would have been the one that would have been pre-epigenetics, more judgmental of other people who tended to be maybe more rest and recuperative. And so their way of filing their kitchen cabinets might've been different than me. And I think sometimes the reason, well, the children weren't planned other than our last bonus. She called herself, buy four, get one free baby. Okay. But I think that part of the reason why I was gifted with so many kids was to help tone that down. I remember Saturday morning, all the kids lined up cause everybody had chores and we had all these responsibilities that they were to do. And I outlined everything that was supposed to happen on our oldest Matt. He said to me, just let me get this straight, mom. He said, so we're going to go off and do these because you want the house to look like no kids live here. You know, the mouths of babes. I was like, Oh yeah. So I think that helped me with managing my ex. We still had a tidy house, but we had a tiny house, five kids. It was not so, so you just to keep sheer organization. So they knew where the homework was. We had to do that, but I got better and better at being able to relax and see the, see the, again, the other side where, you know, we had really good friends. She homeschooled her kids and people at their house. And our kids just loved going over there because I won't say her name, but auntie was so fun and whatever. And I would be going, yeah, but I had to clean the kitchen before we could eat supper because there wasn't a dishes. It was like, it was like, Oh my goodness, I need to be more like her. And she has told me to my face, she needs to be more like me. Like, just kind of appreciate that someone that's different than you has some things they're bringing to the world and you might learn something from them, you know? Very true. Very true. And I think it's so easy for, um, like this experience was with an online troll, but, um, you know, I'm sure there were other comments as well that were saying, Oh, your house is messy with the assumption of you're at home. So let me make sure when I'm speaking, um, put your information up here and your contact information, but some people will assume you're at home. Okay. So the last thing that should be happening is that your house is messy. Right. And, um, people can be so judgmental. Okay. So maybe you caught the house where it was in disarray. Two hours later, it might be spick and span. You know, we catch people in chapters, you know, but the page is always turned. Yeah. And it also has to do with, you know, really I have another friend. She just has been pounding this message into my head over the last 25 years, people over projects, people over projects. I do. I want my kids to grow up. And the biggest takeaway from our time together was that our house was immaculate. Or do I want them to remember the soccer games and the fun games nights and traveling 10 weeks across Canada and us and a cramped camper van. That's what I want them to take away. So I've gradually loosened up on the, how tidy everything is. And grandkids will blow that out of the water too. Like now my kids are like, mom, you're so chill with the grandkids. I'm like, yeah, I had like 40 years of work. Let's take it back to epigenetics, but I want to talk about stay at home dads. Okay. So regarding our men, what, what do you think the impacts would be if there are any, when it comes to the perception of gender roles and responsibilities for our male homemakers? I think that it like epigenetics really is about everything. So it's, it's about, yeah, like I said, what you put in your mouth and when you go to bed and stuff, but it, we're impacted culturally as well. Like if we are someone that is wired to, you know, care more about what people think, then our culture and whatever the predominant cultural view is at any time is going to make it more easy or hard for us to be able to break out of some of those patterns, you know? So I actually think that what this trend that I'm seeing now, again, not so much in my generation, but in the next generation, I think it's a really good trend because it is saying your family can decide what works best for them. Like what provides the income you need, what provides the home. You know, if you've got someone that's wired again to be a very linear thinker, they're really good at analysis and they have a great job at that. And you've got a partner, male or female, that is much more laid back, easy going with kids, able to tolerate mess. Like you've got to look at those two and go, which one of us would be probably a better fit for hanging out with the chaos of raising children at home? You know, not excusing the other one and not saying they get to come home and just watch TV, but just like in our personalities and our earning power and all these different things, our goals, desires we'd like to have. Which one of us is a better fit for staying home that time? And sometimes that will change. Like one of our sons took paternity leave. He's a special ed teacher working with challenged teens and he took the maternity leave with their first kid, paternity leave actually. So his wife, she was finishing up her law degree. So when they did the time management, the whole nine yards, who would better be able to do this? It wasn't a gender issue. It was for our family, what works best? Now with their second kid, it's mama who's staying home, you know? But I think that is so wise when families today have the conversation about, you know, to heck with what culture is saying, whatever we think is best for us, you know? Right, right, right. I agree because I don't know if you would call it modern family, contemporary family, but we, I think it's ineffective to live based on, when it comes to certain things, to live just solely based on tradition when it comes to relationships, right? And I also think that you have to sometimes experience something to get a different perception, a different view, because I can bet, I don't know the troll who made the comment about the messy home, but I can imagine nobody's home is immaculate 24-7. That's why there's such thing called clean up. I thought the same thing, Callie, when I read the comment, I thought, okay, so do you have kids? Like, do you ever care for the kids? It's like, this is an uninformed opinion. This is a not bound, you know, ground in reality opinion. You have lost, Mike, any credibility you might have had. Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, I think that with the epigenetics and then just understanding that, hey, everybody is different. What works for this family doesn't work for that family. And based on what you grew up seeing, because that also impacts how we view others and their households, right? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. It's like, if you haven't been exposed to different ways of things being done, it, number one, is understandable that you start off thinking that that's the way things are done. And I think that's one of the best things about education, about having a diverse group of friends, about, you know, really paying attention to what's going on in the world, reading and whatever. And, you know, there's an amazing book, a little book written by a gentleman by the name of Brian McLaren, that looks all at paradigms and biases and where they come from. And, oh my goodness, you read that and you go, yeah, that's me. I'm stuck here. And partly, it is the natural course of aging and maturing that you begin to examine some of those and you go, okay, well, that's not really serving me well right now. It was, well, mother does everything, you know, crazy thing to uphold. This is like killing me, killing my ability to parent well. Like I remember sitting out, we were building a house and I was, we had an architect and a general contractor, but I was mainly overseeing a lot of that stuff. I had one kid still at home, the rest were in school. We were living in a one-bedroom basement suite with all five kids while we were building this house. And I remember having a meltdown, a complete meltdown one morning and, you know, Mark and I were arguing, teaching the children that your parents don't always have to get a lot. And I just said, babe, pick something. I dropped an F-bomb, which my children never heard me say. I said, just pick something. I don't care what it is. I don't want to have to think about it ever again. And that would be maybe 25 years ago. I've not touched laundry since then. She's freaking out. I'll pick a laundry. I'll do laundry, you know, correct to saying he epigenetically helped you with your stress management. Is that right? Yes, that's, that's exactly right. Him by taking something off of my external environment allowed it, allowed me to, you know, better practice my self-regulation. So we both could get better parent and partner. So yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Interesting. Interesting. Obviously communication is very important when it comes to breaking the mold because, and I also think that social media, where it can be a blessing and or curse, seeing things like this can create the discussion to educate, you know, and, and, and help others to understand that you need to be empathetic and understand that everybody is different. Their situation, family dynamics, what works for them, so on and so forth. It may not work for you, but it's, it's not your life. It's not your home. It's not your partnership. And that's the thing, keyword partnership, right? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I agree. And I think as we continue to be willing to look at places that we've got a bit stuck, places we've been, my sister talked to me this weekend through the arrogant word at me, places where I've gotten a bit arrogant and, you know, intolerant. Those are really good places to look, even though it's hard, because it means you might have to change. And it means you might have been wrong about something. When you do that, oh my goodness, the potential for depth of relationship, the depth of communication, for being able to change and be less ego driven and be more cognizant of the kinds of situations that people have had happen in their life, where they're doing the best they can with what they've got. So I totally agree. All those things I think are so essential for our own growth, but also for our way of managing life in general, you know? Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. So we're coming to a close. So I just want to ask you in 30 seconds, if you can tell me, looking back over your journey, what has been the most rewarding aspects of navigating and defining your own family dynamics and roles? Easy, easy answer to that is to be able to sit with my family now. Now you mentioned the beginning, Proud Mama, five adult kids. They've got five amazing partners. We have six grandkids so far. We come together for a very loud and raucous meal. Four of the five inherited my genetic deafness, so it's always very loud, okay? And I sit there, and when everybody goes home that night, my husband will say to me, is your tank full? Is your heart happy? Seeing all the work that Mark and I did and all the things that we did wrong, and seeing these people who are joyful, cheerful, giving, generous, kind, accepting people, like hands down. I love my careers. I love my careers. I love what I'm doing, but that's what fills my heart and makes it all worthwhile. I'm a sucker for that. I'm a sucker for family. No problem with that. No problem with that. Thank you so much, Brenda, for joining me. All right, and you can follow her at Facebook at the link here below. Thank you again for joining me, Brenda. Thank you all for joining me. Again, I'm Kali with Humanity of Fame. You all take care and have a good rest of your day. Peace and blessings.