Bigger nests: Managing family expansion in midlife

In this episode of Midlife Spotlight, Kate and Sara explore the expanding families during the midlife phase. 

Having connected and enjoyable interactions with your family can be a source of great pleasure. But with growing families, you’re continually adding people that come from their own families and backgrounds. It can feel very stressful when no one seems to have read the manual on how you think things should be done!

As such, our growing families bring all kinds of new opportunities for growth and invite us to consider how we can be more inclusive.

We suggest that getting clear on the differences between boundaries, house rules and preferences are also key for navigating so many relationships. Understanding the core purpose of family events can also help when it comes to expectations of others and ourselves.

Growing families are amazing and stressful as you integrate new members into your existing family activities and traditions. This is also an opportunity to have even more fun and connection and try new things. The more inclusive you are with new members, the more value they can bring.

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Disclaimer: This podcast, along with associated websites and social media materials, are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The views expressed are that of Sara Garska and Kate Campion, and that of our guests, respectively. It is for informational purposes only. Please consult your healthcare professional for medical questions.

Transcript

Kate: Welcome to the Midlife Spotlight podcast. I’m Kate Campion -
Sara: and I’m Sara Garska -
Kate: and we’re certified life coaches obsessed with helping you find joy in this next act of your life. Whether it’s reviving your midlife marriage, losing weight, or scratching that “what next” itch, we’re here to share our experience and expertise with you.
This podcast is a weekly dose of YOU time, where you get the tools and tricks to improve your health and happiness. Talking to you is so much fun, so thanks for tuning in. Let’s get started.

Kate: Hello and welcome to Midlife Spotlight, the show that helps you enjoy your next act. I'm Kate Campion. 

Sara: And I'm Sara Garska.

Kate: And in today's episode, we'll be talking about expanding families in midlife.

Sara: All right. So this is a topic that came up with a client a couple of months ago and they gave me the idea about it. We were talking about growing families and I am on, I have a growing family, and when I talk about growing families, I really do mean it in the broad sense of the word. Family means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. In my case, I was married for 30 years and I have three grown children. And so that’s my perspective and that’s my context that I;m talking about a lot of this. 
And Kate, you’ve been married, you have children, but you don;t have grandchildren, you’re in a little bit of a different situation and some people have no children. I was talking to a different client today that doesn’t have children but her family, they’re part of an extended familywhere her husband has nieces and nephews they do things with and she has her family and her nephews. So family can mean whatever it means to you. But in midlife, our families often look different han what they looked like, say, in our 20s or 30s.In my 20s, I had three children, a husband, and there were five of us. Over the years, all my children are in their 30s, two are married, one is with a long-term partner, there's three grandchildren and there's lots of granddoggies. 

In addition, since we've moved to Texas, there are friends that feel like family that come to our family gatherings. And sometimes we have my son-in-law, daughter-in-law, they have parents, brothers, sometimes they join us. And my ex-husband has a new wife and sometimes they're part of our get-togethers. 

So we have a lot of moving parts to our family. We can have anywhere from 11 to, you know, 20-some people at a gathering. And so while I'm using gatherings as kind of a place to explore this topic, it really applies to everything. We all grew up in some kind of family unit. So we have things that are normal to us, things that we want to do, our traditions. And if we've gotten married and started a family, we've created traditions and the way we like to do things. Then, this strange thing happens. Our children grow up. So I'm going to tell you the first thing that throws you off is your children becoming adults. And as you're smiling, so I know you can relate to that.

Our little darlings grow up and they have their own ideas. They get their own homes. They have their own way of doing things. And so that's our first, like, experience of our growing family. It's just our children growing older. And then to make things worse, they go get their own homes, they get new people, they get spouses or partners, they might have children, and all of a sudden we have these new people. And you know what? They did not get the instruction manual of how to be a Garska. I should have one printed out. But I think a lot of us expect these new parts of our family to just get how it's supposed to be done. And what brought this up for me was I was working with a client and she was distressed about how some of her new family members were behaving. They weren't like them. They were different. And what else could they be? And so our work around that was just normalizing it. Of course they're going to be different. You didn't raise them. But what we have to realize is if our children chose them,and our children love them, then that's good enough for us to create an inclusive environment for our growing family. And so that's kind of where I'm going. 

So in the course of this, I'm going to talk about the difference between being inclusive and exclusive. I'm going to talk about preferences, rules, house rules, and boundaries, and the difference between those three. And I'm sure I'm talking about other stuff, but I can't remember it at the moment. It'll be in my notes in a minute. 

Kate: Love it. I

Sara: So when we add additions to our family, it causes ripples. Even, you know, I think about it because I've had three grandchildren now and they're eagerly awaited. They are, you know, they're wonderful. I love it. But they do create ripples. They create things that you can't even imagine you're going to worry about. And it's unrealistic to expect everyone to just fit in the way you want them to. And I think you had an example, Kate, about your brother's kids.

Kate: So when we're talking about this topic, I don't have grandchildren yet, but our family has... It's definitely changed and grown and probably in the last 10 years and it is quite interesting because you know my dad married again and he had two children after, so there was a three of us in the first family and then he had two other children. And there is a significant age gap or at least it felt significant when we were young between us and my half-brother and sister. So I'm 49 and I'm going to say that my brother's 35, I think I was 12 or 13 when he was born. I was 15 when my half-sister was born. And then of course I went and had children really young. Like I was 19 when I had my son, I was 22 I think, 23, when I had my daughter. So my kids did not change the family dynamic much because the family was, if you say the family was sort of control, know, Dad was the patriarch, me having children didn't actually shift that much because he was still very much actively parenting, right? 

Okay. then when my brother had kids, he lives in Australia. So again, that didn't shift things hugely because we weren't interacting with them as frequently. When my half brother and sister had children, that's when it felt like everything changed about how we used to do things. And that was an interesting experience for me because things had been the same for so long, for 40 years of my life kind of thing. So that was my first sort of soft intro. I'm going to say the soft intro into managing this space because, yeah, the priority, the focus, know, and I mean a classic example. I think you might talk about this a little bit later, but I felt like my children had to fit in with what was going on. Whereas now I feel like things are organized for the children. And so even that is like huge. And I mean obviously I don't have young children anymore. So it's a, my husband doesn't have kids. So it's like, yeah, a different space. So that was a very long waffle on how I experienced it.

Sara: Yeah. Yeah. what it reminded me, and I don't go a lot into how strong our feelings can be. But I picked up a little bit like, oh, my kids had to fit in, but now the newer kids, things are made special for them or something like that. So even though I don't go strongly into the feelings, everything I'm talking about today has been learned the hard way by either me or someone I know who had strong feelings? But families take a lot of work and we know that. Like I said, my kids are all in their 30s, so they've been in adulthood, 10 plus years. And so they definitely have their own lives. when they've married and the new spouses bring in their own things. 

The main thing that I really always try to hold on to is that we want connected and enjoyable interactions with our family. This is what we all want. But the problem is, we think it has to be a certain way. And so the purpose of this episode is just to introduce these ideas that maybe your way was wonderful at one time, but it might not be the perfect fit to this, you know, whatever your new your family looks like now. And I think in a funny way this is perfect on the tail end of last week's episode of how sometimes we hang on to things that don't fit us anymore. And I see family interactions and traditions can sometimes be that way. We want to hold on to how it was when, you know, our grandma was hosting something or, you know, our parents did. But the new people coming into our life and our family, that might not just, that might not be their thing. And so if we just keep our eye on what our result that we want is we want to be connected. We want to feel connected. We want to enjoy and love our family. And so as our family grows and more people come into it, and sometimes people leave, you know, sometimes, you know, I've had boyfriends that were part of the family. Okay, I had a boyfriend that kind of almost made it into the family. the big holidays and stuff. And a few weeks ago, like one of my kids was, you know, my kids all said, oh yeah, we kind of missed him. And so, you know, it's kind of sad when people leave two.

Kate: But then you just made a little pang because I mean I had step, you know, I had step children for seven years that I still keep in touch with the wife of one of them.But yeah, it's yeah, same, yeah, people do leave as well and that needs an adjustment period too. 

Sara: Right, right. But for today we're talking about bringing people in and how to make that work. All right. Because our growing families do bring all kinds of new opportunities for growth. You know, when we talk about getting together, who's going to host? And another thing, who's doing something with other people, like that doesn't seem like, oh, let me explain. So when I hear my kids are doing something with, say, my ex-husband, I'm fully supportive intellectually.

But there's a part of me that feels really left out. Even though he's so not feasible, he has a new wife and they get to have their own relationship with my children. Our children. It’s still a little pang. And even now my children are taking vacations and I’m like, you;re taking vacations without me? Your mom? It sounds almost ridiculous, but our emotions don't always have the same intellect that our brains do. And so, or another thing is like I mentioned, there's other grandparents. And when they do things with the grandkids, sometimes it can feel like, am I getting enough time? Am I as special? Should I start doing the things this other grandparent does? it can seem like a competition and it just doesn't need to be. And so that's what I would just want to just introduce is there's a lot of feelings that come up around every family situation.
On today's episode, we are going to discuss how normal it is to experience this stress as your family changes and grows. And it's stressful, but it really also can be wonderful. And I'm going to give you some suggestions for making your family more inclusive, connected, and fun. And I'm also going to share some ways to avoid some of the common pitfalls. So the first thing I really want to talk about is the idea of being inclusive versus exclusive. And what I mean by this is you can think you're being inclusive by inviting everybody. But let's say what you're going to make something up. This isn't true. But let's say my daughter's husband is a vegetarian. Is he going to feel like part of the family if I haven't done anything to show that I'm aware of how he eats and what his preferences are? No. And of course he can bring something. But we're talking about being inclusive versus exclusive. And so when we're being inclusive, we think about the people that are coming and we want to have things that are available to them that let them know they're part of the family. Because I guarantee you, if it was one of my children that was vegetarian, there would be five different things on the menu. Well, my daughter doesn't eat dairy. you know, holidays I'm making dairy-free stuff for her. And so we want to extend what we would do for our children to the other people. And that's what being inclusive is about. 

Kate: Nice.

Sara: And also think about this idea of we sometimes think, of there's us and them. And that can be your original family. That's the us. And them can be all the new, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, different people. And I just don't think that's super helpful. I like to think of it as us, all of us. Sometimes I hear parents say, but I just want to be with my kid.I just want to be, you know, time with my child. Well, you might. But I was thinking about it. know, like my oldest daughter. I rarely see her alone. just, she has a husband, she has children, she has a lot of responsibilities. And it's okay. It doesn't have to be just me and her. Our family's bigger. And my heart's big enough to see her in the middle of her family and love it just as much as if it was just she and I.

Kate: That's so funny because when we come down to talking about some strategies for dealing with this, I'm going to say something that pretty much contradicts, which is great. We can offer two different perspectives.

Sara: Absolutely, because I do that to you all the time. Fair play. But I do believe that one of the ways that you can mess things up with new additions to the family is to have that us versus them thing. Because when people feel like they're not part of the family, they will sort of get their defenses up. And you can feel it. And our family has gone through that so many times. And so we actively work to keep our family inclusive and to try to make everyone feel as welcome as possible. And it's tricky at times. I get that. 

16 mins Kate: Yeah, I'm just thinking about it because I think the fundamental thing about a family is that people really want to feel like they belong. You know, mean, belonging is just such a human driver. Our family is the way in which most of us initially experience that feeling of belonging or not. It's a very emotionally fraught space and there's huge potential to go back to the childhood self if you feel like your needs weren't met, for example, you don't feel as though you belonged in a family, being in that family can trigger those feelings again, I think, more easily than just about anything in the world. So when we're talking about being inclusive, it really is how can everyone, all these people that I'm now navigating relationships with, how can I make sure that they feel a sense of belonging in my family, in our family and what do I need to do to make them feel that sense of belonging? Yeah.

Sara: Yeah. As you were saying that, I was wondering where this came from and it just came to me, I pictured my ex husband's parents and they were so inclusive Everybody was welcome. their children got married, the new spouses were part of the family. If a step child came with a new partner, they were part of the family. They never showed any favoritism with the grandchildren. They really showed me how to include people and when friends would come by, they were treated like family.It was a really good example for me going forward. I'm not perfect, but really that's one of the things in this stage of my life, I really want more of this inclusiveness with the family. why I feel very strongly about it at the moment.
 
Kate: And it’s funny you say that as well because my second marriage was awful, but his parents were exactly like you just described your ex-husband's parents. I came to that marriage with two children and they were very, very even in the way that they treated all the kids.

And even like they used to give us money for our birthdays. They would give me and my ex the same amount of money. Do you know what I mean? So it was like exactly the same. Hilariously,, my most beloved husband's parents, we've been together for my 12 years. They don't even know where my birthday is. Which is kind of hilarious but weird at the same time. But you know, so again, having those role models of people and just the feeling that you get when you experience that really does at home, know, you how valuable it is to try and be as even and fair and inclusive as you can when you are dealing with others.

Sara: Yeah. I was a little prickly at times and they still were wonderful to me and I will be forever grateful to them. Okay, so I'm going to go back to inclusive again. So I'm going to give some ideas so that and you don't have to do everything. It's the spirit. But these are some of the ways that we've done it. 

One is if we're doing something with food, have favorite foods. So this was in a funny way. I'm going to go in the US. We have Thanksgiving, which has a certain menu and I grew up with a certain menu, which I continued with when I got married with my children. So I literally had the same menu for 50 years. And then I got a new son-in-law. And my son-in-law is a cook, a chef. He loves to cook and experiment. And he was just like, can I bring... He always wanted to make other stuff. And we were resistant to it. We saw no need for it. No, we do not need potatoes made a different way. We do not need anything made a different way.

He questioned our inclusion of broccoli casserole. And I'm like, it is not a holiday if there's not broccoli, my sister's broccoli casserole. And for years, it was a little bit of a stressful situation. Not because of him. Not because of him, because of me, and my resistance. And then finally, it was just who cares? We have so many people, so many mouths to feed, yes. And then it just opened the way to have new traditions and to find new foods that we like. Instead of having, I don't know, five main dishes. Now we have 20. And so it's been a wonderful thing. No, I was so bad. I apologize, Matt. 

All right. Another thing is, when and how you celebrate.Who's going to host? That's a huge thing because people have different homes. Some people want to host, people don't want to host, some people don't for a long time I have apartments and so people that have had houses had to host and then I got a house. And so you have to collaborate. This isn't, I might be the oldest one, but that doesn't mean that I'm the one that makes all the decisions about what we do. And just because I birthed these children doesn't mean it's my show to call every holiday. And so it requires a lot of communication and collaboration to come up with what we're going to do, where we're going to do it, who's going to do what. But it's also way to make everyone feel involved because once something gets to be a lot of people, there's no sense of one person doing it. so if you can hand over some of the control, you're going to have a better, better outcome. 

Who to include when you do things? And what's I'm just going to say when in doubt, invite. Don’t think how we can’t, think how we can Because a lot of times, like, I think it was the last week we alluded to my lack of dining room table. But I was expected to host a holiday dinner and I said I would, but I didn't find a table. And so I kind of said, I can't do this. But instead, I was like, how can I? And I bumped tables from friends and folding chairs and made it work. I get some tablecloths from home goods and it looked gorgeous. right, so that's inclusive. 

Now we're going talk about the fun part. Boundaries, health rules and preferences and the difference between these. Okay, so at this time amongst my family, there's five different households and each have their own rules and preferences. And so we're going to talk, and because this can be stressful, and I think you have an example that's going to play into this. Yep. But I'll set the tone. So we can all have preferences about how we want things to go. We can want things, but that doesn't mean we insist on it. So there's a difference between what we want and what we're going to draw line in the sand about. And so I like the idea of thinking about house rules, and whoever's house gets to make up the rules. And sometimes we don't like them. So one of my rules, it's not my rule, but my daughter, one of their rules is you take your shoes off when you come in the house. Which I don't like doing. I don't like taking my shoes off in a house. I do it in my house. But I don't, so what I do is I bring an extra pair of socks so that I have socks that I wear in their house. But I take off too. It's just my weirdness. That being said, that's their rule, so we all respect it whether we agree with it or don't agree with it. It's their house, no big deal. 

Another rule might be I'm going to start dinner on time. If I say dinner's going to be at six, we're going to start at six. If you come later, you can join where we are, but we're not going to hold off dinner. So those are rules. They’re house rules and everybody can respect those. But sometimes people mix up rules with boundaries. And so I want to spend a little bit of time with boundaries because I think boundaries are one of the most misunderstood things. And all the boundary is when you say, if you do this, this is what I'm going to do. And an example might be, try and think of one. I don't know. if somebody's over drinking or I'm not going to use that one. If someone's acting in a certain way, that's just not nice or they're belligerent or they're trying to start a fight. I have asked people to leave if they act like that. That's a boundary. If you act like that, I will ask you to leave. Or if somebody over and over doesn't respect the house rules, you might say, I'm not going to invite you if you can't respect our home. And so that's a boundary. And so that's how it's different from your house rules. Does that make sense? 

Kate: Yeah, totally.

Sara: Am I explaining it correctly - or not correctly, but in a way you can understand.

Kate: I also think that a boundary doesn't always have to be clearly communicated to the person to whom you're directing the boundary at either if you choose to. When so many people are involved in families, sometimes managing your own self and managing your own environment is easier than maybe like hashing things out with someone that you don’t actually always interact with that much... I think for me to loop back a little bit to something that actually works with house rules and the boundaries has been the part that our motorhome has played in really making these kinds of situations much more easy to deal with. So my parents have a motorhome. We have a motorhome. A lot of family functions that we've had. In the last few years our motorhomes have been involved. So we've taken, so let's say for example Christmas last year, we took up our motorhome and we stayed in that. So a lot of other people stayed in the house but we were in the driveway in our motorhome and my dad and my stepmother were in their motorhome. And what that actually did was it created our own, I don't want to say safe space because it wasn't an unsafe space that we were in. But it created our own space. And actually being able to dip into the family things, I do love my nieces and stuff, but I'm just not used to that level of noise and things like that anymore. I actually do like my peace and quiet and stuff. So to be able to go back to my motorhome at the end of the day or whatever is really, really nice and it just helps to create a bit of distance so that you just feel more comfortable. But the other thing is none of my dad's side of the family are into animals. And so navigate, we love our fur babies, especially my husband, they’re like our children.

So navigating that situation, in fact, one of my nieces is petrified of dogs. So it does not work well to have the dogs there. So we have to actually make a decision before we do something. Are we going to take our dogs or... We're actually going to put our dogs, we have a house sitter, a pet sitter in, and just not take them because that's going to be easier to make sure that our furbabies feel safe, people feel comfortable. In the Christmas that I was talking about because we were in our motorhome we did actually take our dogs with us and it was really cute.
Even the niece that was scared of dogs ended up giving little Maisy a little bath, we bought the dogs a swimming pool for their Christmas present. Because it's summer in New Zealand of course. 

That's a long convoluted way of saying that basically having your own space can be really useful in these situations. In some ways it's like I'll create the environment or I'll create my own way of being in this space that I know that I can be comfortable because I think it's when you start feeling uncomfortable that that's where the tensions can kind of like click up as well.
Sara: And that reminded me, I'm sure I was going to have it later on about pets, but since you brought up pets, pets are a, they become part of the family. And when I say pets are a major part of each of my children, each of my children have pets, and each of them have dogs, and they're all very important. And so in general, they don't bring them And their dogs to my house, because I'm not a dog person in that way at this point in my life. That being said, my daughter did bring dogs over with permission, and it was fun, it was fine and everything. So where I'm going with this is, but that is another place. But I've been to holiday get togethers where everyone brings their own pets. And then there's like all these dogs walking around and like, I hate it. That being said, it's not my house. I don't get to make the room. It's one of those, and it wasn't my family either, but we have at times people will ask if they can bring their dogs to certain things, and we just make decisions on a case-by-case, because animals are important. like you said, they are part of growing families, and you have to decide when are you going to include them, when are you not? Will they get along with the other animals? Yeah. So thank you for bringing that up. That's a really good one. 

Kate: Yeah. So I think when you're saying that, part of making sure that works is really making sure everyone knows a heat of time, what your expectations are.

Sara: Yes, correct. And in some families, it's just not assumed, not assumed, but you just expected. Everyone's that has a dog is bringing their dog, and they're as excited for the dogs to get together as for the kids to get together.

 And I'm not like that.But so I'm sorry kids. I’m sorry, your dog are amazing.

I want to talk about one other thing in this house rules, boundaries, and preferences. Preferences are things that you would prefer, but it doesn't mean you have to have them. But I think sometimes we get mixed up about our preferences. We believe that we have to have them for us to have a good time. Some of the examples that I was thinking of is we've started having games as part of any time we get together. A preference would be everyone would play and have fun, but the truth is not everyone loves to play games. It's got to be okay for the people that don't want to, to not play. Another preference would be for everyone to help with some part of the dinner, cleaning up. That just doesn't happen either. so it's nice that some people will do it and I will take whatever kind of help I get, I will offer help But. I'm not going to sit there and get mad because other people are not doing that. Then another one, which is kind of funny, but it does happen is expecting people to eat things. I made this. You need to eat it.
 
People might say that to me. I made that. Here. Have some. A lot of times I don't want it. Maybe I've already had dinner. I don't want cake or something. It's got to be okay to let people eat what they want and not eat what they want. It's just your preference. If you made something, of course you want people to eat it. Anyway, those are some basic, not super exciting ones, but they give you the gist of it. You can want things, but it doesn't have to happen for you to have a good time.

Kate: I think that idea of actually making sure you're clear on what's preference, what's a rule, what's a boundary. Can just help make things a lot easier.

Sara: Thank you, Kate.You can tell. Which one of us has been a teacher because she pulls it all together for me. There's a couple more things I want to do to get to before we wrap up. One is how to increase connection for everyone and then also addressing a little bit of the messy stuff that comes up. When we're talking about creating connection for everyone, you want to look for more ways to get more people involved. The way we've done that is we also have to think multi-generational activities because the youngest is five, oldest is 70. So we have a lot of different ages. We do like to plan things that everyone will like. There's meals. We think about the food. We think about activities. I will usually have, you know when you were talking about space, I usually create a space where people can just draw or paint or color. If they need to get away from the noise or other things, they can just go over there. 

And then we do like games. We always have some games which are not mandatory. And then we also communicate about what's going on. So if we're having something together, we will discuss how we're going to handle whatever's coming up in the future, kind of to get an idea who's going to do what and where and everything. And so that's really helpful. 

Now the fun part. Messy stuff. Messy stuff/ Because there's no such thing as a family without messy parts. 

Kate: That's so true. 

Sara: And if you don't have them, I think you're faking it. That's just my personal thought. All right. One, I've already talked about and that's the feeling of not feeling included when other people are doing things. You know, it's just not realistic that 11 people are always going to do the same things all the time. Sometimes two of my children will do something and the third won't be doing it. Sometimes my kids will do something I'm not included. Sometimes I will do something with one child but not two. I mean that's just how life is. We all do things with different people. But it really is natural sometimes to just be, feel left out. And you just recognize that that's just a feeling. . Doesn't mean anything bad is happening. doesn't mean people don't love you. It doesn't mean anything bad. I like to look at it when I'm in my right frame of mind. It's like, I love that my kids love each other. I love that they love their dad. I love that they're doing these things. Even though there's a part of me that's, I wish I could do everything with them all the time. So anyway, that's normal. I also, you know, a lot of parents with grown children feel like they do not have enough time with their own children. That's, you probably don't. You don't have the level of time with your children that you want. And you just have to realize they have, they are usually in the middle of their careers, they're growing their own families, they have a social life. And so I'm just always grateful for any time I do get with them. And they’re really good about if I say, hey, I need some time with you, we’lll plan ahead. It's sort of like, yeah, okay, what would you like to do? whatever. And then we can put it on our schedules and we do it. 
Jealousy over other grandparents. I don't have a lot of this because one, their grandfather lives out of town. So I do not have begrudge him a second that he gets. And their other grandmother lives part time with them. So she's there, she gets her time, and then there's me and so we just kind support each other with that as well. But I do hear from clients and things, friends, they do get jealous sometimes of if another grandparent, like they're clogging it sometimes.

Kate: Yeah, that happens.

Sara: Not helpful. All right. Okay, so I also want to talk about things like alcohol use, swearing, even smoking. So these things come up in our family because we have people that drink, and I'm not saying drinking is bad or anything because I do drink. I know you don't. And we have people in our family that do not drink. So this falls under boundaries and house rules sometimes. So in the family that doesn't drink, sometimes they'll serve alcohol, but when they're having a children, a child centered function like a birthday, they don't serve alcohol. And it's like, which is fine. Sometimes they do, but we just respect. The household does. If it's a household that serves alcohol, there's alcohol. If it's a household that doesn't, people don't make a big, big, stinky deal about it. 

Cigarettes, think all of us pretty smoking in the house, but I have smokers in the family, so I have a smoking section in the balcony. You can call it what you want, but I just put a little table out there with an ashtray and a chair, and that's all. I don't even make a big, I don't think about it otherwise. And then things like swearing, I have sometimes been known to swear and sometimes in front of children. That's what I'm recommending. But that being said, I do try to be respectful of the audience. But if there is somebody that's being inappropriate in front of the children, we do say something. Sometimes people are there and they're not used to being around young children and they'll behave in a certain way and sometimes you just have to address it. So those are my three messy situations I came up with. Okay, so I know you have something to say about.

Kate: Well, I was just thinking about it with a growing family and earlier on when you mentioned about trying to do things where everyone's included, I've actually found that one strategy is to sometimes not do things with everyone and have separate vacations. And I think what it comes down to is a couple of things. One is the purpose of the event. So, you know, let's say for example, Christmas, you know, the purpose of the event is for the family to all come together, there might be times where you planned things where the purpose of the event is to spend some time with your parents. And I guess for us, it's quite interesting. Like I said, because of the age I, because my dad was 20 when I was born and because I was 19 when I had my kids, you know, I'm the same age between me and my stepmother as I am between me and my half sister and I don't have kids in the house. And so in some ways I feel like I've gone from being the child to being the parent to almost back to being the child again when it comes to having the time to spend with my parents. I'm not having those competing things like my children or my career. I actually enjoy getting to spend one and one time with them because I don't know, you know, how much longer I'm going to have. And so for me to have a holiday with them on their own is something that we do that I really, really value. Being able to go away in our motorhomes together and do things where it's just us and the kind of activities that we're doing can be more tailored to where we're at. It's something I really enjoy. So having separate things and vacations can sometimes be important. And the same way, they will go off with the grandkids and their children and do things there as well. 

Sara: That is such a good point, I want to say. Even though I want everybody together around me, I do appreciate that idea that, oh yeah, you might have more, more I would say sometimes more meaningful connection when you have a smaller group.

Kate: Yeah, I mean, we've tried to do things where we've invited other members of the family and just the attention shifts. And that's when I was going back a little bit to the purpose of things, like I'm thinking, when you were talking about preferences, rules and boundaries, sometimes it can also be useful to think about the nature of the event that's being held. So, like let's say if it's a child's birthday party, that's quite different an experience than- I can't think of another one, but you know what I mean? It's like actually what is the main purpose of this activity that the family is coming together? Whose needs are the most important in this situation? If it's a child's birthday party, well, the needs of the child is the most important because they've got to have a good time, right? So you might put aside some of your preferences and wants because it's actually about them. I've been thinking very seriously about my 50th coming up and what I want to do and how I'm going to make sure I get the things that I find interesting and spend the time with my family and kind of manage all that. So in my head at the moment, I've got about five different things happening that are going to like target every family dynamic. It's quite interesting.

But the other thing, and I'd just love to know maybe for another episode, know, you talked about how when you're not in charge anymore and how people need to communicate, but we have really struggled with that this year and I'm going to blame my dad. I don't know if my stepmother listens to this. I don't know if she'll be listening to this episode. we, you know, for years my dad was the person that just said this is what's happening and when it's happening and you will have it here and you bring this and you do that. And he's really taken a back step. But we're kind of like a bit of floundering without the leader now and there's a lot of like, oh, we do this? we do this? Should we do this? And no one's kind of stepping up to make the decision. So that has been, that has really been noticeable this year. I'm blaming dad retiring because he's just kind of done that step back. And now it's like, where's our alpha? Like who's the person telling us what to do?
 
And so again, I was literally thinking about how this gets managed. And I think it actually goes back to what I was saying is what is the purpose of the event. Like next weekend my brother and his wife and kids are coming over from Australia. And it's been a little bit of that. Yeah. What are we going to do? Who's in charge of this? Blah, blah, blah. And now I'm thinking about this and I'm thinking, well, the other one coming, the event is about them. So in some ways they need to be the alpha of that event. They need to say, well, this is what we'd like to do. What do you guys think?
Same with my 50th birthday. I need to say, it's my birthday. This is what I want to have happen. yeah, when the patriarch of the family steps down from the role and you're suddenly competing with all these different things, that can be a really messy, interesting space. And yeah, we've certainly found that this year. So that's my plan going forward. I'm going to say whoever's organizing the event or whoever it's really around, they need to take the lead.

Sara: Yeah. And I think you brought up or you phrased it in such a way that I think it's going be super helpful. And that's to focus on what is the purpose of the event. Who, for example, you know, like you said, if it's someone's birthday or somebody's visiting, there's different reasons we get together and it's important to keep those in mind. Not a one size fits all for everything.

And you're thinking about your 50th birthday. I thought about my 60th birthday was, it's been a whole year. No, actually, no. Yes, it has been over a year. For my 61st birthday, I had so much fun because I planned every bit of it. And my kids are such good sports. We had a photo shoot. I was like, we're going to have a photo because my kids don't take pictures. They don't like to. I was like, we're to have a photo shoot of everybody and we're going to do it in an urban place. My whole family came out and went to this urban mural and we did pictures. then we went to a restaurant that I picked. And so it was wonderful because it was the people I love doing the things I want. And I got to take charge, but everyone pitched in on the stuff.

Kate: Awesome.

Sara: I know it was fun. So go with that.Okay, so I have somewhere in my, I have this in my notes and I don't know if you've addressed it, but I don't, but you wrote, honesty is not always the best policy.

Kate: So that’s a bit about what I was saying before, I think you’ve just got to keep your mouth shut if there’s a situation where maybe you do feel left out because you see a picture of other family members with your parents and you weren’t even invited and it’s like oh, okay. Is that going to be useful to say anything? Sometimes not. Like it’s actually taking a little bit of a step back and thinking, can I actually process this my own self,is this really reflective of the situation going on or is this old triggers coming up , what do I actually want as an outcome from this, rather than necessarily going and saying , Hey, you didn’t invite me - you know? 

Sara: Yeah, I love that. love the way that you didn't. Okay, so there's a couple different ways people go with that. So sometimes that situation could happen that you see on Facebook, people got together and you feel left out. And in your version, you process it yourself in a healthy way. You ask yourself some questions and you make some decisions based on it. However, not everyone does that. Some people will see that and they will get pissed off.
And they will be like, well, I'm not inviting them. I'm not calling them. I can't believethey did that.
 
And so if you're not going to say anything to the person, I'm going to recommend you do it, Kate's way. And don't and don't stew on it. If that makes sense. Yeah, no, I know it makes sens, because when we stew on things, it's going to come out later in a not helpful way. That was a really good one. All right. So as you are, I'll be. So as we're wrapping this up, I was thinking about as you're describing your family and how, was it your dad or your Yeah, your dad isn't taking the lead on setting things up.

Kate: He's not the alpha.

Sara: So your family is going to be creating new ways of doing things. And that's an opportunity because we can create, know, as our families change. So maybe like, I was using our family's grow, which they are, but they also change.

And so when our families change, we have this opportunity to create new traditions. And in some cases, as you might find out, it's even better. In our case, here's some of the things that have worked. So our alpha for a long time, and it was because I didn't have a house, but my son-in-law hosted everything. He took, he planted a menu, he hosted. They did the heavy lifting for a few years. And finally, he said, Okay, love you guys, but other people need to step up. And so we began doing things in different homes. But what's really neat about that is it just makes every get together a little different. And I think it makes it more fun. It makes it a little fresher. Not that there was anything wrong. Nothing wrong. They were doing a great job. But it gives other people chance to host and have that feeling of giving and planning new activities. So one of the things that we do, and I've mentioned is we do have activities. The home I grew up in, the activity we loved the most was sitting around and talking. So we didn't have to plan activities. We loved just sitting and talking. But in my current version of my family, we love to do things. So a lot of times we'll play games. We'll have activities. I said, I will have painting set up. I will have something like that set up. A craft. Or we will encourage people to tell stories and something we did this year and it was my daughter-in-law's idea because I have a bigger house than she does. I don't know, they might be about equal, but for whatever reason she didn't want to host. But she asked if she could host at my house and she volunteered to cook all the food and do all the prep if she could use my house. And we did that and it was great. I loved it because I got to have it at my house and I didn't have to do the work. So that worked out.
 
Kate: Great idea.

Sara: Sometimes when you're doing these new things, you come up with just things you wouldn't have thought of before, but they make everything better.

Kate: Very cool.

Sara: Yes. to wrap up, do you have anything else to add before I do our wrap up? So I just want you to realize like if you're feeling stress, it's totally normal. It is just really normal. That being said, you don't have to live with the stress. I don't know. I think it's kind of like an exciting. exciting amusement park ride. It's like there's going to be scary parts, bumpy parts, and then there's going to be exhilarating parts. It's going to be great. And so remember your key thing is you're trying to create connection. And like Kate said, remember why you're doing this. You're not, you know, this isn't a chore. This isn't something like, oh my God, we have to stick to, you know, this tradition we've had for 50 years. Not, you can let some of that go. You can keep the parts that are important. But remember the part, the part that we most want is connection with other people, especially the people we love. And as we wrap up, I just want to remind you, if you haven't already, follow the podcast. you go to wherever you listen, there's usually a follow button, plus sign. If you follow, it's there every week waiting for you. we look forward to seeing you every Sunday. Talk to you later.
Kate: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you loved what you heard, you can leave a review on iTunes so we know to keep more of it coming. You can also visit our website at midlifespotlight.com and learn a little bit more about us. We love connecting with you and can't wait to see you next week.