Ep 326: Breaking Generational Parenting Cycles
Introduction to Talking to Teens
---
Andy Earle: You're listening to Talking to Teens, where we speak with leading experts from a variety of disciplines about the art and science of parenting teenagers. I'm your host, Andy Earle.
Breaking Generational Parenting Cycles
---
Andy Earle: We're talking today about breaking generational parenting cycles.
How can we be sure to raise our own teenagers in a way that doesn't perpetuate the same problems in the way that our parents dealt with us?
Everyone has issues with the way they were raised, some of us more than others, but how do we stop the cycle?
Meet Melanie Shankle
---
Andy Earle: Today's guest, Melanie Shankle, had a very complicated relationship with her own mom.
And we're talking with her today about how that influenced the way she raised her daughter.
Melanie is the author of seven books, including three New York Times bestsellers.
Melanie's New Book: Here Be Dragons
---
Andy Earle: And her newest book is called Here Be Dragons.
Melanie, thank you so much for coming on the Talking to Teens podcast.
Melanie Shankle: Andy, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Andy Earle: Yes, me too. And really looking forward to discussing your new book. It's your seventh book, but your first one in five years. So it's been a little while. You're getting back in the game here. Why now and why this book?
Melanie Shankle: It's funny.
The Impact of COVID on Melanie's Writing
---
Melanie Shankle: My last book was called On the Bright Side and we literally released it 2 weeks before the whole world shut down because of COVID.
So I'm going to tell you, if you don't know, that's a really terrible time to have a book come out. Especially a book called On the Bright Side. Because, it didn't really feel like there was a bright side in that moment. At that time, my daughter was a junior in high school.
She started her senior year. So 2021 was, you know, we were still kind of in the pandemic thing. So she was in school remote a lot of days. We were still dealing with quarantine stuff. All of my books are about real life. It felt like I had to get on the other side of the pandemic and live some life to have something to write about.
Caroline is my only daughter. She is now a senior at Texas A& M in college. But at this time, when I started thinking about this book, it was right when we were about to send her off to college. And so I thought, oh, I'm going to write a book about empty nesting and what that looks like, on this other side of motherhood after you get them through the high school years.
Navigating High School Drama
---
Melanie Shankle: But I also knew that she had gone through in high school, a lot of girl drama and mean girl things.
Whenever I would talk about that in different groups, I always had women that came up to me that they were like, I went through this. My daughter has gone through this. We're currently going through this. What do we do? And I thought this is a huge problem that nobody really feels the freedom to talk about.
And as moms, we're all really struggling to help our girls navigate it. That was when I began to think this is going to be the book that I'll write next.
Andy Earle: I love that. You go really deep into a lot of situations from your own childhood and your own life and also your daughter and getting into detail about these mean things that were happening in high school.
Super excited to dive into all that.
The Metaphor of 'Here Be Dragons'
---
Andy Earle: Talk to me about the title of the books called, Here Be Dragons. Why is that the name of the book?
Melanie Shankle: Years ago, I had read this story and it talked about how in ancient medieval times when people would set sail across the ocean in search of new lands or treasure or whatever they were looking for.
That ancient mapmakers would write when there were uncharted waters, when there were places that might be dangerous, when you didn't know what was ahead, in Latin, they would write, here be dragons. And it was just their way of letting people know, like, Hey, we don't know what's up ahead here. Nobody's been here before.
And that really stuck with me because I thought, isn't that. Life where we're all sailing into this uncharted territory. We don't know what's ahead. We don't know what's coming. And so you kind of always have to be prepared for what's ahead. And so I love that idea so much. When I started to think about this book, I was like, what are all the dragons that we have to fight along the way to be the best version of ourselves?
Andy Earle: Isn't that a metaphor for life? Just when you think you've got the area mapped, you're heading into new uncharted territory.
Melanie Shankle: That's it. And wouldn't it be so much nicer if life was more like Apple Maps, where it would say here are 3 stoplights that you're about to get to. It's going to take you 15 minutes to get to your destination.
Wouldn't that be an easier way to live? But we don't have that option except in our cars.
Andy Earle: Wow. Yeah. I love it. Even tells you what lane to get in. Now. It's so nice. Where is that for the rest of my life?
Melanie Shankle: Seriously.
Melanie's Relationship with Her Parents
---
Andy Earle: You talk a lot in the book also about your relationship with your mom. This complicated relationship with your father, where your mom was really driving a wedge between you and your dad for a number of years, 13 years or something like this. You have this line in your book that I found to be really interesting and powerful. You say, "dads are the lenses that young girls see themselves through."
Melanie Shankle: Yeah.
Andy Earle: And your mom's accusations were kind of chipping away at this image that you had of your dad.
Yeah. What do you mean by that? The lenses that young girls see themselves through and how did that play out in your relationship with your dad and your parents?
The Importance of a Father's Presence
---
Melanie Shankle: I think as I talked to grown women, the presence of a really loving doting father or the absence of that presence makes a huge difference in the way that a girl sees herself.
I feel like that's the 1st voices women that we hear telling us that we are valued and worth something and that we are loved. I see it in my own daughter. What do you expect from a romantic partner? From your friendships?
If you have a parent who has not poured those things into you and told you that you're valued. You talk to so many women, and I think men too, the voice in your head, that becomes the overriding narrator is usually the voice of a parent. Of what you were told as a child.
And I think especially something about that opposite sex parent really feeds into your future relationships and what you expect for yourself, what you want for yourself. And so that's what I mean by that. For me, my dad was present, even in spite of the divorce, but my mom did everything she could to cast him as a villain and I found out years later, falsely.
And so it became this thing of she wanted to paint him as this absentee dad, which never fit, but the way that that damages a young girl to feel like, well, your dad chose something else other than you, is really harmful
Andy Earle: What were some of those things that he did that maintained the connection? Or like positives?
Melanie Shankle: Here's the thing.
Lessons from Melanie's Dad
---
Melanie Shankle: My dad and I've talked about this over the years. I know he took the high road. Now, as an adult, you see how hard that was. I think he knew the things my mom was saying about him, but he wasn't going to become part of that narrative.
They divorced when I was 8 years old and I will say he made sure that he saw my sister and myself every single weekend. Even when it meant staying at his parents house. That's love to be like, I'll go spend the weekend with my parents so that I can see my kids.
He called me every night of my life. I mean, my dad called me every night of my life until I was probably out of college. Just to check in, just to say that I love you. He never quit showing up. And I think it would have been so easy for him to say, this is too hard. This is difficult. I'm going to quit. But I think there's something so important about staying present in your child's life, even when it's hard. Because I think sometimes that's what being a grownup is.
And he didn't know that at some point it was going to turn around. In my early twenties, that I was going to be able to see things really clearly. He just hung in there to hang in there. And I think that's a really difficult thing to do, but I think it's a really important thing to do.
Andy Earle: And having that faith that if I keep showing up and I keep really being there and making an effort that
Melanie Shankle: Yeah.
Andy Earle: It'll pay off someday. Yeah. You have a powerful line related to that in the book. You say, "I learned so much from my dad about what it means to take the high road, to know that the truth will prevail, and to do your best to protect your child where you can."
Melanie Shankle: Yeah, it's so true. And I think, whether that's a parent child relationship, whether that's a friendship, whether it's, you know, another kind of relationship, I think it's so hard sometimes when people are saying things about you that aren't true or a misconception. But sometimes the best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut and just let it play out.
Let the truth of who you are shine in a situation and know that at some point that's going to all come together. That's usually a long term plan, not a short term plan. But sometimes you can get so worried about defending yourself and it's like, just let your life speak for itself.
Let your actions speak for themselves. Let your character speak for itself.
Andy Earle: Yeah, you can get pulled into these arguments or trying to prove that you're not so bad. Or your kid gets to be mad at you for something and it feels like you're taking it personal. And am I doing the right thing or am I doing the wrong thing?
And there's something about being able to find that confidence in yourself that, I'm doing the right thing. I'm gonna keep showing up. Yeah, putting one foot in front of the other. And one day she'll get it. Or she'll realize that I was doing a harder thing.
Melanie Shankle: That's it. There's so many things that they don't understand. You're just mean. Why are you ruining their life? Why don't you want them to have fun? Like their friends have fun, you know, all of those things and later they'll look back and go, oh, it's because you were protecting me from this thing or that person or this situation.
Finding Your Voice in Relationships
---
Andy Earle: You talk in the book about giving some advice to your younger self in your marriage. You say that, "I wish I would have learned earlier on to be myself and express what mattered to me and how I actually felt about things. I didn't really know how to do that."
Melanie Shankle: Yeah.
Andy Earle: What do you mean by that? Why is that so important?
How did you learn to do that better?
Melanie Shankle: It was really that to me was one of the consequences of growing up with a mom that I grew up with where it's like my opinion was never valued. My voice was never heard. It never mattered if I voiced a complaint. I was usually dismissed as being overly dramatic or your life is so hard, a sarcastic, you know. So, I just kind of learn to try to keep everything down and just to not rock the boat and to make everybody happy.
I always say that was my childhood lesson was like, let's make magic happen with my own 2 hands. And so there wasn't room for my voice or my opinions or my feelings. Now I know because I've read the books that that's a hallmark of a narcissistic personality, which is what my mom was, but I didn't know that. And so I think I approached all my relationships, even my marriage, where I was like, I don't want to say what I really want or I don't know how to advocate for what I really want. Because I don't want to rock the boat. And I don't want to make this person unhappy.
And it was funny because in my marriage, I got married at 26. We've been married now almost 30 years, but it's funny because Perry, my husband would say like, I'm not a mind reader. You have to tell me how you feel. But I really didn't even know how to say how I felt. And a lot of times I didn't know how I felt because I just had so pushed that down.
And it really took me years of realizing, that I'm safe and that I'm loved. That it was okay to say, I don't like this, or I don't want to do this, or I want Mexican food for dinner. You know, there were so many things that you just learn to just, I just want to make everybody happy and not think about what was going to make me happy.
And I wish that I had learned that earlier, but I think that's part of the healing from a childhood like I had was learning: it's okay to advocate for yourself. It's okay to voice an opinion. It's okay to tell somebody how you feel about something. Because most people who really love you and care about you want to know those things.
Andy Earle: But after a lifetime and childhood of trying to make yourself smaller so that you won't rock the boat and living with someone so unpredictable it's hard to get in touch with that authenticity, with your true feelings, because you've gotten so good at stomping them down and making them not exist.
Melanie Shankle: That's it.
Andy Earle: There seems to be a theme in the book where oftentimes you are having a struggle or a situation that's being hard for you and then your mom kind of finds a way to make it about her. You had this big breakup and you're in your room for two days, just being distraught and being down.
And then your mom comes in and it's like, is she going to try to comfort you or help you or something? And then she wants to vent about her breakup. Her guy that she's dating that she broke up with. And it's interesting how so often it's like, there was a failure to really see you and your experience and what you're going through. And it trains you to not express anything, not have problems.
Melanie Shankle: And it's interesting because now that I have a daughter who's 21 and has been through breakups and friendship things and not making a team, all the normal things that you go through as a young girl and a teenager. It's like, my thing is, I always want to be emotionally available for her.
I'm the grown up in the room. So to let her process her feelings and her disappointment and her frustration and all of those things. And as a kid, she doesn't need to take on my stuff. That's not her job. That's what I have friends my own age for. That's what my husband's for, so that I can process and vent my adult problems with peers and with people, my own age, not with my child. But I think there again, I think because my mom now, I know was a narcissist and all that. That's a hallmark of that where it's like, everything becomes about them and everything is their situation and they're going to suck the air out of the room.
And that's 1 of the things my mom was infamous for doing is any event, any occasion, any hard time that came along. It immediately became all about how it was affecting her. To the expense of anybody else involved, it didn't matter. The focus was on her. And so it just teaches you.
Oh, I don't really have a voice here or she's not a safe place for me to go and to tell this stuff. She's not going to comfort me. She's not going to give me any advice. She's not going to be there to give me any wisdom or direct me. And as a teenager, especially you so need that parental voice.
Even sometimes when they roll their eyes and act like they're not listening to you, I still think something in the back of their brain is processing. Like, this is a good thing that I'm hearing. I will put this into use later.
Andy Earle: You wrote that "raising Caroline made me spend a lot of time wondering how different I might have been if I'd been allowed to use my voice more when I was growing up." What do you mean by that?
Raising a Strong Daughter
---
Melanie Shankle: The thing about Caroline is she is so strong. She is just a strong, independent, opinionated. We have always laughed. We said she's not sweet. She's kind, but she's not sweet. She's just a little salty. She's going to tell you what she thinks about something. She isn't afraid to voice an opinion, advocate for herself, or to stand up for herself. I watch her do that. And I'm like, Wow. She's had the benefit of growing up in a home with two parents who love her, who adore her, who have always poured into her, and told her that her voice has value. That she matters. And that it's okay to advocate for yourself. And that she needs to be exactly who she was created to be and not diminish that to make other people feel comfortable.
And I think for me, as a young girl, everything in my life told me exactly the opposite of that. I see now in places where I've learned to advocate for myself and to voice what I want and to stand up for myself. But it took me years to do that because I didn't grow up in a secure environment where I was told that that was okay.
What I was told is basically, keep quiet and go with the flow and don't rock the boat. So I think it shapes you.
Teenage Friendships and Competition
---
Andy Earle: What were your experiences as a teenager with friendships?
Melanie Shankle: I think this is the problem with so many teenage girls, especially. Because I think boys are different. Boys frontal lobe takes longer to develop. I also think you're quicker to just like, I'm gonna go punch somebody.
Whereas girls, there's a lot of emotional sabotage that I think comes out of emotional immaturity. We're not fully developed. And I think there's something in a teenage girl that really likes drama.
If you have a common enemy with a group of friends, it feels like a bond, even though that's a fake bond.
You really feel like you belong if you're part of a group that now has a common enemy. Because my mom was really the first mean girl in my life. I had watched her patterns and I watched the way she interacted with her peers. And I looked at the way she acted.
Where she really raised me to view my peers is my competition. Like, was there another girl who was prettier, who was smarter, who, you know, was getting more things. And it created in me, as a teenage girl, this, like, scarcity mindset of one girl's success somehow meant less possible success or things that I could achieve.
And so you start to look for ways to sabotage that. So, I mean, I went into my friendships with insecurity, feeling like they were my competitor and not my friend. And it took me... by the time I got to college, I had started to realize, like, these are not healthy patterns.
This isn't a good way to operate in the world. I wanted to be a kind, good person who, cheered my friends on and, and all of those things. but there again, you have to unlearn these behaviors that you grew up thinking were okay.
And I think that to me is the whole heart behind the book is the only way women we're going to be able to raise daughters to be better is we've got to be healthy ourselves. Because we've got to be the ones that show our girls. This is the better way to operate in your friendships, in your relationships, in your day to day life.
Andy Earle: That competitive nature that you talk about also shows up in your daughter.
You talk about she's three years old in a dance recital, and afterwards you're asking her, Hey, how did it go? And she's like, I think I beat those other girls. I think I won.
Melanie Shankle: She did. And that's why we put her in soccer because we were like, you know what? You need something where you can actually win.
Like, you need... Because the dance, that was not a competition. And you weren't that good on stage. I appreciate your self esteem... But I think you have to channel because there's nothing wrong with the competitive nature. I mean, that's what drives us and makes us better. You want to compete.
It just has to be within healthy parameters. You know, you compete to get better and you compete against yourself and you push yourself harder. And, you know, you do want to win, but not at the expense of somebody else's feelings. It's not a competition between each other.
It's a competition to make yourself better.
Controversial Views on Teenage Drinking
---
Andy Earle: There is a controversial opinion in the book here. You are writing about teenage drinking.
Melanie Shankle: Yeah.
Andy Earle: And you say, "I believe if kids are going to drink, they should at least do it without their parents knowledge, the way we all did it in the 80s. Find a seedy convenience store on the wrong side of town that will turn a blind eye to the purchase of a couple bottles of Zima.
As opposed to their parents supplying them with top shelf alcohol." Yeah. Wow. Okay.
Melanie Shankle: And let me say my husband, I mean, we drink alcohol. We do. I'm not opposed to drinking alcohol. My 21 year old daughter drinks alcohol. It's not about that, but it's sometimes I think you look and go, what cycle are you perpetuating?
And why as a parent are you going to enable behavior? Because I do think with teenagers, they're already dealing with so much and you pour alcohol on that. Is that a good decision? Is it helping them make good decisions? We live in a neighborhood where this is a problem.
The amount of alcohol that kids drink and the amount of things that happen in the party buses that parents pay for, filled with alcohol for the 16 year olds, I think we've got to do better as parents. Why are we enabling bad behavior? I get high school kids are going to drink.
They are. I mean, it's part of the culture. But I'm like, do we need to be enabling that behavior? Because, what are we setting them up for? And I think it's like any bad thing. Would we hand our kid a bunch of pornography and be like, here you go. You're going to look at it anyway. So here are these magazines that I'm going to go are these videos that I'm going to go ahead and give you.
You would never do that, but I think alcohol has become so socially acceptable. And I think it comes a time of what's the point of allowing that in our kids. And what I've seen in our community is you're perpetuating generational alcoholism where the grandparents had a drinking problem and the parents have a drinking problem.
And then now are you gonna let your kids have a drinking problem because you think they need to drink at 16 years old? I just think it's better served when you're older and able to handle the consequences of it.
Andy Earle: Yeah, there's enough messaging coming at them, normalizing teen drinking and making alcohol seem cool and like a good way to fit in with their peers.
They don't need more parental influence, further normalizing teen drinking and making them feel like it's an okay thing to do.
Melanie Shankle: Yeah. Most teenagers are not like, you know, what I would love is just a nice glass of wine to compliment the steak that I'm having for dinner.
Most teenagers, they're looking at it to either make themselves feel more secure in a situation where they feel insecure, or to just get totally wasted. Most of them are not just I'd like to have a margarita with my Mexican food. That's not really the mentality of teenage drinking for the most part.
Conclusion and Where to Find Melanie
---
Andy Earle: Melanie, thank you so much for coming on the show and speaking with us about this. I really enjoyed reading the book, Here Be Dragons: Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls, and Generational Trauma.
I hope people will pick up a copy and check it out, support the book. Can you talk a little bit about where people could go to find out more about what you're doing to get updates on what you're working on?
Melanie Shankle: Sure, the best place to find me these days is on Instagram. I'm Melanie Shankle, just like my name on Instagram.
I still have a blog that I rarely post on, but I will post updates and things on that. You can go to Melanie Shankle dot com. I have a podcast that I co host with my friend, Sophie Hudson, and we talk about life, and TV, and mascara, like two girlfriends.
It's called the Big Boo Cast. You can buy the book wherever books are sold. It's in all formats. So you can get your audio book. You can get an ebook. You can get a hardback book. Whatever you prefer.
Andy Earle: Excellent. Well, definitely encourage people to check it out and appreciate you coming on the show today. And congratulations on the new book.
Melanie Shankle: Thanks, Andy. I appreciate it.
Preview of the Second Half
---
Andy Earle: We're here today with Melanie Shankle talking about how we can avoid passing our own parenting trauma on to our teenagers. And we're not done yet. Here's a look at what's coming up in the second half of the show.
Melanie Shankle: When I was in high school, people could be mean to you at high school. They could maybe pass you a mean note in the halls. They could wrap your house on a Friday night if they didn't like you or whatever. they're all guilty. I mean, they're all going to, as soon as you say, my kid would never, here they come. There's a way to walk away from that friendship or to create distance without being cruel. If they come at you with physical violence, you hit them back and we'll meet you in the office. We're going to be on your side.
Andy Earle: I can deal with hard things. People can be mean to me, but I can find a way to deal with it and stand up for myself.
Melanie Shankle: If I can't do this with peace in my heart, where I wish you all the best, I bless and release you, but I cannot have you in my life and be the healthy, emotionally, spiritually, mentally healthy woman that I want to be. You love your parent because they're your parent. But I couldn't be in a relationship with her. There are certain situations where it's not grief for what you had, but it's the grief of what could have been.
Andy Earle: Want to hear the full interview? Sign up for a subscription today. It's completely affordable, and your membership supports the work we do here at Talking to Teens. You can now sign up directly through Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.
Creators and Guests
