159 - Raising Daughters with Shay Cochrane, Part 2

- May is for Mamas -

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Show Notes:

Welcome to May is for Mamas, when every episode in the month of May on the Work and Play Podcast is dedicated to all you mamas listening.

Today, I am continuing my conversation with my dear friend, Shay Cochrane. She's a wife, a momma of two girls. We tackle all kinds of topics and I just couldn't leave anything out so I decided to split it up into two episodes.

I hope you enjoy the rest of our conversation.

For the full episode, hit play above or read through it below.


 
 

Nancy: Let's talk about some other topics—raising your girls, you know, it's 2022 we're facing a unique set of challenges. So first I'm going to ask you just the ways you're being intentional about instilling confidence and style, while also not falling into the trap of the world, saying, you have to have the perfect body, you have to show this much skin, you have to have the most amazing clothing and brands, you have to wear this style, you have to have this haircut, you have to be on Tik Tok, you need to do all these things. It's like all of these things feed into our daughter's perception of themselves. So what are some ways that you're doing that might be a little different than the rest of the world?

Shay: Oh man. Well, I wonder if every mom in every generation is like, this is the hardest time to raise a child. I mean, right? I'm sure raising a child in a war time is probably like one of the hardest times to raise a child. So it's probably not a fair statement, but it does feel like in 2022, it is very hard to raise a child and especially a girl.

The reasons are really obvious. So to your first point about confidence and style and looks and beauty and what is beauty and how are we defining beauty? Just, let me say first—I don't know. I don't know the answer.

I don't know what I'm doing. I recently found a woman who has grown children and she has grandchildren who are my age and I literally begged her to let me regularly call her so that I could ask her questions. Like, what do I do about this? What about crop top shirts? What about phones?

I don't know the answers, the good news is I am at least a little smidge bit farther along than you are and maybe some of the audience. So I have at least a few years, even though my children aren't grown yet, so the proof will be in the pudding. I don't really know that what I'm doing is working yet, but a few things that we are doing differently are—we have not let our oldest have a cell phone yet. So she's like I said, almost 13 and we have kept them off of tech and social media as much as possible. We are entertaining the phone conversation here for her 13th year of life, but it will be like a text, call, photos type of situation and not an internet or social media situation.

Nancy: How many of her friends have phones?

Shay: All of them.

Nancy: She doesn’t have one friend that doesn't have a phone?

Shay: At her school, everyone in her class, except for one other person apparently has a phone. It poses enormous challenges because she goes to birthday parties and everyone is on their phone. Like if I'm picking her up from dance, everyone is sitting there on their phone except for her. Again, at birthday parties, on the bus for a field trip, everyone is on their phone except for her. So it is, it is a very real challenge and constant conversation in our house.

But, we have felt very resolute about keeping her off of social media, Tik Tok, Instagram, all of the social media platforms, except for Pinterest. I let her on Pinterest a bit as much as possible for as long as possible so that she's able to develop enough internally, emotionally, spiritually in her heart and mind with discernment and wisdom and decision-making before she's exposed to all that.

So the goal is not at all to shelter her from all of that forever, but the goal is to enable her to be free and innocent for as long as possible and not carry the weight that comes with those things. And then also to just like really prepare her so that when she is exposed to all of that, she has really deep roots in her identity and who she is and all of those specifics, like beauty. What is beautiful, you know?

That's just one thing, that's how we're handling technology, navigating technology in our home I guess I should say. Another thing, I try to be very, very careful about how I talk about myself. I try not to really say anything negative about my looks or my clothes and what I want to kind of distinguish there is what I'll hear some people say is “I try not to talk negative about myself in front of my kids”, meaning it's totally okay for me to speak negatively about my body to my husband, to my friends, to myself in my head.

I am just like you are, probably every day fighting to be reminded of what is important and good and true about beauty and dealing with the weight and the pressure that the world puts on women to look a certain way. Like your eyebrows aren't good enough, your cheekbones aren't good enough, your skin tone isn't good enough. You know, like everything isn't good enough, right? Like your gray hairs coming in aren't good enough, everything is not good enough.

So I'm constantly battling that for mysel and it starts with me choosing how I'm going to talk about beauty and body image and my body internally and in general, like as an individual, and then that spills over to how I talk about it in front of the girls. Then that also spills over into, I really try not to speak negatively about their clothing choices, hair, skin, you know, nothing like that.

Meaning, very often—I'm sorry for my kids when they listen to this later in life, but very often my children look like they're homeless, especially when they were young. I mean, now not so much, but when they were little, I just wanted them to have a say and some autonomy and I wanted to not overemphasize that they needed to look put together because the honest answer is why do we do that? We do that for us.

We do that so that other moms think highly of us and think we have our lives together and think that, you know, our kids have cute outfits. My kids have never been the kids that looked like little fashion models or had matching outfits or even any outfit that matched is really likewhere we're at.

Nancy: Let me just say you were in good company here. If you could only see what my kids wore to school today.

Shay: Do I want to say something? Yes. Do I want my kids to go together, like they know how to match clothing? Yes. But more than that, I want them to not be overly concerned with how they look, because I know at some point they will, right?

Like I know at some point it will come, so I just try to find the good like we're in a season right now with one of my daughters. I won't name any names, but one of them is very experimental with their hairstyles and I just try to go with it and applaud them and be like, that is so creative.

I love how creative you are with your different hairstyles each day. I love how you paired sneakers with whatever. Chloe is older, so she's very aware of fashion and brands and the other day I noticed like all of it, she very much wants to fit in.

So like I'm not raising these amazing spiritual rebels, she very much wants to look cool. She's very trendy, she's way more trendy than I am. She knows name brands, she knows what's popular, but the other day all of her friends were going somewhere like a birthday party or something and they were all coordinating outfits.

You remember that? Except now it's all done by a text, everyone's coordinating their outfits and everyone's wearing these little like skirt shirt combos and Chloe was like, “I don't really want to wear that, I just want to wear jeans.” And I just took a moment, like looked her in the eye was like, “Chloe, I am so proud of you that even though I'm sure it was kind of hard and you probably wanted to just wear what everybody else was wearing, you decided to wear what you felt good in and felt comfortable with. I know that's not easy and I just love that about you. Like, I love that you're just going to do what you want to do and feel confident and not just what everybody else is doing.”

So any chance I can get to see and elevate what is good about the way that they're making decisions about how they look, how they dress, I really do try to do that. So within like certain parameters of being appropriate, like we definitely have rules. Chloe's not going to be one of the kids in crop top shirts out in public. We definitely have some rules about modesty or that kind of thing, but beyond that, I really try to give them a lot of autonomy and just like find the good and not overemphasize that they need to look a certain way. I also really try to elevate anything that's like naturally beautiful about them.

There's a girl who works for me, who has teenagers and she gave me a great tip. She said, “I always try to compliment my daughters.” So she's talking about teen daughters specifically when they get out of the shower, meaning like hair's not done, makeup's not done, it's just their like full natural self—that's when I will make sure that I say like, “Your eyes look so beautiful, you are so lovely.” You know, like when they're at their most natural, right? Isn't that just a helpful takeaway.

So I really try to think about that cause it's very tempting to be like, oh my gosh, your outfit looks so cute. It's not that I don't do that, but I really do try to emphasize in any way, the things that are natural about them and not reliant on makeup and mascara, like we're getting into makeup with our almost 13 year old. So, you know, I don't know, that's a thing that I'm trying to do negatively.

And the other thing I'll say, and then I'll stop talking about this point because I could probably go on here forever. We really try to just talk about everything with our kids. Graham and I are talkers, you know, Vera was joking on us the other day she was like, “Mom, I feel like you and dad could just keep talking for like six hours and you don't even take a breath, you'll think of one thing and then that goes to the next thing.”

She was like, just dogging on us because we were just talkers. So we also really try to talk to our kids about everything. So for example, we might see someone who's wearing something, you know, specific and I might ask the girls, “Why do you think that that person chose to dress that way?” And it is not to judge them—I want the girls to be actually thinking like pros and cons or, what are all the possible angles here? Why did that person choose to wear that?

When we see someone, like a girl that has a ton of makeup on. Someone that is just super, super, super, super made up, not to judge them, we're not saying like that's wrong and bad. Like, there's a lot of reasons why someone might be wearing a lot of makeup, but I at least engage with the girls. “What do you think about that? Did you personally like that? Would you want to do that? Why do you think the person did that? What are the pros and cons of that? What's good about it? What might be hard about it?”

We just talk about everything—we talk about filters on social media, we talk about magazine covers and Photoshop, we talk about, you know, we just talk about whatever it is.

We just bring it up and talk about it and that's true for money, that's true for how we're navigating choices being made in culture. I mean, we just engage our kids on it. “What do you think about that?” That could be all, that could be the entirety of the conversation is you asking that one question. What do you think about that? And just getting them to think about it, it doesn't mean that you have to have an answer and it doesn't mean that you're judging the situation.

You're really just trying to engage their mind in the choices that they are making and the choices that they see other people making. What do you think? What do you think about that? What's good about it? What's hard about it? So I feel like that has been helpful for me to just, engage it. When it comes up, engage the conversation.

Nancy: There's such power in just asking a question too, not influencing the answer, but just giving them a safe place to process thoughts that they're having but putting words to it and helping them navigate, huh, there's more to this than, you know, than just what I see.

Or maybe they're having these thoughts in the background on their mind, but they're never processing it with anyone and then forming a set of beliefs about things that might be unhealthy, or, you know, I just think that's so important just to realize, like, just ask questions, just let your home be an environment for conversation about all things in life.

Shay: And that can be true when you see, like, for us, we'll see a table full of teenagers on their phone at a restaurant, and we'll be like, guys, “What do you think about that? Like, just tell me your thoughts. Like what might be good about the situation? What might be not good about the situation when you see someone taking selfies, you know, we'll see, you know, influencers in the wild, like, what do you think is going on there? What do you think about that? What might she be doing? What might be the good, what might be the, the bad or hard?”

So, yeah, just engaging the conversation, not needing to have the answers, but really getting them to think critically from both sides.

My kids can usually come up with a very valid, great reason to support what might be happening. And then also, like what's a challenge about it or what might be hard about it, or what might be hurtful or negative about it. So, just engage the conversation.

Nancy: I love all the things you've said about technology too. I feel like we could have a whole podcast just about technology because it's just a whole thing and it is consuming our children at such a rapid pace. No other generation has faced this before, and it is wild, but I'm with you like Will and I've talked about it. It's a big reason why we've chosen the school we've chosen is because they have such a de-emphasis on technology and the other school we were looking at, which is a wonderful private Christian school, had such an emphasis on technology.

You know kids, they're gonna learn it. There's no doubt, they're going to learn what it looks like. We're all adults and we all learned it kind of as adults because that's when the iPhone came out, when I was in college. We've clearly learned it just fine, they're going to be just fine.

But I so agree with what you said that just giving them the space to mature foundationally as kids and thoughtfully and spiritually and relationally, because we're robbing them of even forming relationships. Like if we put these devices in their hands too early, because then they'll never really learn, I could talk all about this.

Shay: I know, and there's so much to it. There's just a lot about how you navigate that and steps and I'm learning from both sides. So yeah, when you want to have that conversation, I'm there because there's a lot there. There's a lot that goes into how you navigate it and I don't have all the answers, but there is a lot behind that—depression rates, suicide rates. I mean there's just so much there.

Nancy: But it ties in with body image, beauty, confidence, style. I mean they're getting so many messages just from their devices about those things. So I think, yeah we could talk about that for hours.

Okay. I'm going to get a pivot and ask about money. This is another topic that's really important in our home and I mean, our kids are so little, my oldest is six. So, you know, we're just starting the whole like chores and you get paid for these chores. As they get older, I would just love to hear money conversations you and Graham have with your kids. I know, I remember, gosh, this was probably a few years ago, you posted about teaching them how to invest and they got their first stock.

Shay: She’s so discouraged right now because Disney stock is down.

Nancy: So yeah, just how to teach them about that from a young age and then so that they understand that, money is a tool. Anyway, I'm gonna let you talk because I've got all these thoughts in my head, but what are just some conversations you've had with them to help train them and how to manage and steward money well?

Shay: You know, for better, for worse, we talk about money a lot in our house. So I don't know if that's a good thing or if it's not a good thing because most families don't.

Nancy: I think it’s a good thing, it leaves a lot of kids feeling helpless when they leave and they have to do the money thing on their own.

Shay: Yeah, I think some basics. So we do talk about money a lot and I'll kind of expand on some of the contexts there, but they do get an amount of money weekly, a small amount of money weekly, and the baseline principle is we have a few things we're trying to do.

One. We are trying to communicate with them that money comes from work, right? So you've already talked about that. We think that's important because when they get older, they're going to want to have money for a variety of things and they're going to need to know where it comes from. It doesn't just magically appear out of the sky via mommy and daddy's bank account.

So we're trying to give them small amounts of money to manage, because they're not going to learn about money management if you don't give them money to manage. We're trying to help them learn that money comes from work. Now we have vacillated between tying money to chores and you do chores because you're just a contributing member of the household and we've kind of experimented with a lot of different things there.

So, I don't have like a definitive answer one side or the other, but we are trying to instill that money comes from work. And then when you get money, there's three things that we're teaching them to do with it. We're teaching them to give it, we're teaching them to save it and we're teaching them to spend it.

And that comes from, I know you and I are both Dave Ramsey fans and he has some education and resources for children. He has like kind of a whole like kit of things that help teach your kids about money, including envelope system, and a chore chart, and some children's books that correspond with managing money. So we have done that with them in some way, shape or form, but the principal is like, we're giving them some money to manage a small amount and we're asking, we're teaching them and modeling for them how to give some of it, save some of it and also spend some of it.

In terms of how we model how to relate to money. We're very open about how much things cost. We talk often about how much things cost my children are for again, for better, for worse. They are growing up far more privileged than I was. I grew up, I was in a military family. There was a bout of time when we were on food stamps, like my dad was not a high ranking military official.

We lived in base housing, my mom stayed at home, sometimes she worked at the library. I mean, we were normal, I would say like a normal American family. So my kids are growing up with an enormous amount of privilege that I did not have and so we're trying to really help them to understand what is not normal about our lives so that they can identify that this is not how the whole world lives.

Also where we fit on a global scale. So there's a great resource for that called Dollar Street. Have you ever heard of dollar street? I heard about it in a Ted talk, so Dollar Street is a website, I don't want to take too much time explaining what it is, but definitely go check it out.

But basically you could like input your family's salary and you're going to see on a global scale where you fit if you were to line up all the families in the whole world from like $0 a year of revenue income to you know, the most, and then you can see where you fit and your family fits.

And how much of the world, visually on a line, how much of the world is to the left of you and to the right of you. Because social media and Pinterest and magazines are going to tell our kids that everyone has lots of money and this is really normal and these are the clothes that you buy, and this is where you shop at, and this is how your home looks.

But the reality that we know is that we are an extreme outlier, we are not the norm and then it also shows them visually. So you can look up, what's cool about that resource is it’s actually very leveling and that's kind of the point. Your kids can look up a toothbrush and you're gonna see that a toothbrush owned by a family that makes multiple six figures looks exactly the same as like the child in Uganda growing up in the slums. A toothbrush looks the same, or in some cases it doesn't look the same, but it also kind of like helps them to see like, oh, wow, like this is what a toilet looks like at all income levels.

Like I'm not that different from my friends and peers who are in other countries or who are at other, you know, revenue levels. Then there's some ways that I'm very, very different and this is not normative. So we really try to give our kids like a context for where they fit globally so that they know without a shadow of a doubt, how should I think about this and what unique position am I put in? What unique responsibility am I given then because of the position that we're put in.

A funny story is that we were at Payless or RackRoom Shoes or something and I told Chloe that she could pick out one pair of shoes, this was like maybe five years ago. She could pick out one pair of shoes and she really wanted like two pairs or three pairs of shoes, of course. And we're in line checking out and I'm like, “Chloe, you can have one pair of shoes, not two.” and she was so frustrated that she couldn't have the second pair and out loud—there's like people in line in front of us, people in line behind us, we're almost to the register and out loud, she goes, “Mom, but I thought you said we were rich.” My face turned a hundred shades of red and I was like, ah, this is not what I meant. This is not what I was trying to do. And then in whispered voice, I'm like, “And how do you think you get rich kid? It's not from buying two pairs of shoes, it’s from buying one pair of RackRoom Shoes.”

So it backfires at times, trying to help our kids understand, they think everyone has more than them, you know? And so that's like constantly the battle, but also just functionally we buy them the necessities, but otherwise I feel like we try to be generous at birthdays and Christmas.

I love buying stuff for my kids, but I really only do it at like a birthday or Christmas and pretty much the rest of the year if they want something, they have to save up for it. So we will buy the necessities for them, but we're really never buying them like toys or other additional stuff, unless it's really a need or like a very random gift so that they understand like, oh wow, that costs $20. It's gonna take me multiple weeks to get to $20 of my allowance. Do I really want this? How am I going to make decisions based on that? How am I going to take care of it after the fact? Because I paid for it with my own money. So yeah, those are just a few principles for kind of how we approach money in our house.

Nancy: I love all of that so much and it's just, you know, it's one of those things. It's tricky, not every family does it the same. That's not like good or bad, that's fine. One thing that, I'll just go back and say it again, I just love that you're talking about it so much because personal finance is not taught in school.

It's not going to be taught, maybe you could take a college class about it, I never did. It's the kind of thing that people just assume, oh, you're an adult now, good luck. But then what are they getting? They're getting inundated with messages about credit cards and you can have whatever you want and you should buy this house because you deserve it.

But the reality is when you're out of college, you're starting off with not a lot of money. You need to know how to handle it, you need to know the value of a dollar. I feel like it's just so important to have those conversations with your kids often.

I have some friends and they were like, you know what? Our kids know how much our mortgage is, how much we pay for it every month.

Shay: Same, we try to tell them whatever we can to help give them context for how much things cost. Like, even to the extent that the other day I was like, “Chloe, I think one thing we might start doing, because you're eating a lot of candy and stuff at school that we don't get to see, candy and juice and chips. You're going to have to pay for like half of every cavity that you get and they cost about this much. So we'll split that with you because I can't control what you're eating anymore cause you're at school all day. So just like, just be ready.”

But trying to help our kids understand what it takes, what things cost is very, very important and making it real for them via them having to spend their own money on it just kind of helps solidify those concepts of oh, wow, okay.

Nancy: That is a great natural consequence, you eat all the sugar kid you're going to have to pay for your cavity and fillings.

Shay: She thinks I'm just the worst mom ever. But I mean, we have to do what we can to help her understand.

Nancy: Oh, that's too funny. Okay, any final words of encouragement to mamas out there? Just trying to do their best to be good moms, to raise their kids, you know, to be Godly kids and eventually Godly men and women who love the Lord, moms who are wanting to make an impact. Do you have any final words of encouragement?

Shay: Such a great question. Such a caring question. I think moms today are under so much pressure and so I probably want to speak to that. Like the pressure that moms feel. Parenting is a long game ,right? You have to keep the big picture front of mind. You're not going to be able to instill all of this in your six year old, for example, you know, when they're three, it might seem like they are a selfish person, you're not failing. Like you have a long time of parenting to instill these things slowly, slowly, slowly, and as it's developmentally appropriate.

So for the mom out there, that's like, I want to be like this and how do I communicate all this to my two year old? Just, you gotta have have like a big picture, long game perspective about what parenting looks like and what is important right now. When they're two and three and one, you're kind of just trying to make sure that they understand to respect authority and that when you say no, it means no, because you can't have them running out into traffic.

They have to know that when you say “No, stop!” they will absolutely have to submit to that because their life is on the line. You might not be able to instill in them a concept of, you know, financial responsibility or generosity at that age. So I think simplifying it, like what is the most important thing that I need to teach them right now? And just focusing on that and then knowing that there's a lot of time in different seasons where you're focusing on all of those other things.

And then just another thing for the mom that feels like I have to do all the things and be all the things and throw the Pinterest parties, and have the kids that look put together, and have them in all the sports, and I need to financially contribute to the household. If you are a believer listening to this, I would challenge you to ask yourself, “What is God really asking you to do?” Because your list for yourself might be 150 items long, God's list for you of what He's asking you to do is very beautifully short. It's going to be like three or four things that really matter to God about who you are and what you're doing as a mom.

So just check your list of what you need to do and has to be done with God's list and focus on like, what is really important there. So that's kind of just my encouragement for moms. It's hard to be a mom right now. It's just hard, it's really hard. So that probably, hopefully speaks a little bit of life.

Nancy: You spoke life to me, I'll take it. So thank you, that's so good. Especially because you're a few years ahead, you know, you're a few years ahead and having different conversations, dealing with different parenting challenges than I am right now. So it was just so encouraging. Thank you.

All right. We're going to close with three fun questions. This can just be whatever comes to your mind, current likes and loves in your life. What is a book that you're loving?

Shay: Three different books come to mind in three different areas of life. One in business would be The Coaching Habit by Michael Stanier. The Coaching Habit has been helpful as like a leadership business book. The Creator in You is a children's book that I am a loving, it's by Jordan Raynor, a friend of ours, such a great kid's book. If you haven't ordered it yet, you will especially love it because you are like a business owner and entrepreneur. That's called The Creator in You, it's a kid's book, great book for a family, especially a young family.

And then with parenting slightly older girls, teen and preteen, the Lies Girls Believe study, I'm doing that with the girls right now. There's also a Lies Women Believe, I haven't read that book, but they did one that's for kind of teen and preteen girls called Lies Girls Believe by Dannah Gresh and that is like really highly recommended if you're a mom and there might be one for boy moms also. But I just know about the girl mom version.

Nancy: So good, I'm going to be finding all of these. Okay, a product that you're loving.

Shay: So random, but you know how people have kind of gotten into electrolyte drink mixes? There's like Liquid I.V. that’s popular, so I found an electrolyte drink mix called LMNT and it is like a no sugar electrolyte drink mix and you just put it in your water bottle.

So if you're trying to drink more water, it’s great and they have all these different flavors and it's so yummy and delicious. So, so random but I am like all about this.

Nancy: What's your favorite flavor?

Shay: I like all of the fruit flavors. I don't like any of the weird flavors, like they have a chocolate flavor and a jalapeno mango or something. But I love like the watermelon, the raspberry, the orange. I think I've tried all of them, they have like 15 different flavors.

Nancy: Can you get it on Amazon?

Shay: I don't know, I'll send you a link. I'll send you a link to all this stuff, it's so great.

Nancy: So good because I need something to keep me super hydrated this summer, while breastfeeding and that sounds perfect. I'll put all these links that Shay's mentioned today in the show notes.

Shay: One packet can totally flavor like 32 ounce water bottle. So it's really great if you're just trying to make sure you're drinking enough water. I'll send you the link after this.

Nancy: If there's anything that moms forget to do, it's drink water and go to the bathroom. Why, why are these basic things so difficult? But they are, I literally am like, oh, I haven't had anything to drink since like 6:00 AM and it's like 3:00 PM, you know?

Okay, final question. How do you maintain a healthy soul and a fulfilling life?

Shay: I would say fighting for times of silence and solitude. Obviously that is easier in my season because my kids are both in school, but some of what that looks like is being up early in the morning, you know, 5:30 in the morning to read my Bible and pray before the kids get up.

Right now, I'm experimenting with trying to carve out some Sabbath time for myself in the week where my family's not present because obviously like Sabbath, when you're a mom is oftentimes, you're still cooking or cleaning or parenting so it's just not quite the same.

I'm actually carving out some time for myself on Wednesdays while the kids are at school where I just have nothing on my calendar and I can do activities that are life-giving to me like gardening or, you know, just taking some time to sit outside in stillness. So that's helpful and easier said than done in general. Also easier in my season with kids in school, so I just feel for you in the season that you're at, it will not be like that forever. You will have more free time eventually, one day it will happen.

Another thing I think is delegating to my kids. I think as moms, we can have a little bit of a savior complex and want to be the superhero and just exhaust ourselves and we’ll be the martyr, you know instead of delegating? So I'm really trying to instill in my kids, like, why don't you do that? You can do that.

How about you set out in the vitamins for everyone for today? How about you clean up the kitchen and do the dishes? Like, what are things that I can delegate to them instead of just killing myself, trying to do everything. Then they think that, oh, that's what a mom does. Moms just do everything.

Then the last thing, I would say, Graham and I really fight for a lot of time together, like sitting outside, talking after work, when we both come home and this was true even when the kids were little.

We really tried to be like, okay, this is mommy and daddy's time. When we both kind of get home, we'll go sit outside almost every day and the kids, when they were little we could play pen them in the area or we could say that they had to stay in their room for a certain amount of time or just, they know not to like interrupt mommy and daddy. This is mommy and daddy's catch-up time and that's so life-giving to me.

Obviously having a healthy marriage is a make or break for having a healthy soul and fulfilling life. So we're investing in it constantly just through time together, date nights. Fighting for a date night, fighting for time to catch up and be together and then marriage counseling. Just getting counseling, trying to stay healthy, inviting other people to speak into our marriage.

So those are all pretty important components for me.

Nancy: Those are so good, I love it. Thank you, Shay. So much wisdom from our conversation today. I personally am so grateful for your voice in my life and I know every person listening is grateful for the things that you've shared so thank you so much for joining us on the Work and Play Podcast.

Shay: Thank you, Nancy.

I hope you enjoyed part two of the conversation I had with Shay, she has so much wisdom to give and it's so sweet to have moms, entrepreneurs, friends who are just a little bit ahead of me speaking life into me and I hope you felt the same way today.

If you haven't had time to check out her business over at Social Squares, you absolutely should. If you have any kind of online presence or you're an entrepreneur and you need images for your brand, this is what I use and I love, it's beautiful. She's giving my listeners 20% off your first payment, which is so generous and awesome and the 20% off applies to monthly or quarterly or annual payments. So you can save even more money. Social Squares is an image membership site that provides gorgeous images, stock photos that you can use anywhere and you don't have to include any kind of logo or brand, you just use them and it saves you so much time. It's wonderful, I'm an affiliate, I believe in them. Head to socialsquares.com/WorkandPlay and be sure to use the code Work and Play at checkout.

I'm going to close with words from John Eldridge, I love this quote. He says

“The balancing act we parents attempt is convincing our children—one, you are loved more than you can imagine and two, the world does not revolve around you.”

Isn't that so true? Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time for the next May is for Mama's episode.


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