Episode 20 I am as Happy as My Saddest Child

In this heart-wrenching and honest podcast, Allison Kenney and Pam Shipley delve into the profound emotional journey of parenthood and midlife challenges. This conversation revolves around a quote that struck a chord with Allison: "I'm as happy as my saddest child." The wisdom of this quote becomes profoundly clear as Allison and Pam share their personal experiences and insights.

Allison starts by reflecting on how her understanding of this quote evolved as her own children became adults. It's not just about having adult children but seeing them go through the trials of life and feeling their anguish as your own. The physical and emotional connections between a mother and her child are explored as they recount experiences like hearing a newborn cry and having a let-down reflex during breastfeeding.

The podcast's focus soon shifts to the real-life nightmare faced by Pam as a mother, whose daughter found herself in a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv due to escalating conflicts. Her firsthand account of the emotional turmoil and fear that gripped her when she received the news is both chilling and touching. The conversation delves into the complexities of supporting an adult child during a life-threatening situation, where logic often clashes with raw emotions.

The dialogue resonates with parents who have experienced similar challenges, whether their children face life-threatening situations, grapple with mental health issues, or confront relationships and abuse. Allison and Pam's deep friendship and shared experiences add a layer of authenticity to the conversation. Their candid exploration of the universal theme of midlife parenting challenges, combined with Pam's unique experience, makes for a compelling and emotional podcast.

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Transcript

Allison Kenney: So I'm gonna start us off today.

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Allison Kenney:  and I know I've said this before. And I've said this many times in it in this quote that my mother would always say to me, only started to resonate with me with as my children became adults.

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Allison Kenney: because she would tell me this while I was growing up. But I'd be like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a that's nice to say. But until you have adult children. and

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Allison Kenney: you are going. They're going through their trials of life.

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Allison Kenney: You will never understand

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Allison Kenney: the anguish that my parents went through as well watching

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Allison Kenney: me go through my trials. But my mom would always say, and people would say, How are you today? Soon

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Allison Kenney: I'm as happy as my saddest child.

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Allison Kenney: She's right. It's really sums up, doesn't it?

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Allison Kenney: Yes.

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Allison Kenney: when you go on a roller coaster ride with your children?

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Allison Kenney:  as women and mothers, and we feel it. Remember when that newborn baby would cry, and I'll get ready to cry, feel it in your in your

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Allison Kenney: your body, your the nerve endings, or when.

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Allison Kenney: or or the let down of your milk. I remember we're doing that. And I wanted to take this time. If it's okay with you.

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Allison Kenney: We have been back and forth on the phone.

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Allison Kenney: Once again. We've been best friends since we're 14 years old, and we've been through so many trials with ourselves as well with our children. But right now I have

Allison Kenney: watched with anguish.

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Allison Kenney: is my best friend, and her family

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Allison Kenney: are going through one of the largest trials.

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Allison Kenney: That they've encountered. I think that this is probably probably tops although we go through a lot, but it's scary as hell.

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Allison Kenney: So I just wanna start us off by saying that

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Allison Kenney:  this is not going to be a not a political message. This is it going to be a right or wrong. This is a mother

Allison Kenney: sharing her anguish.
Allison Kenney: About her child.

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Allison Kenney: And this is normal life experiences in midlife. And you know what

Allison Kenney: we're not supposed to talk about it, especially on social media. We're not supposed to say, you know what this is really, really crappy.

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Allison Kenney: We're supposed to. Everything's wonderful. Everything's great. But it's not always that. So, Pam, if you can Pam Shipley: let me also say that first of all, my my child is safe.

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Pam Shipley: So I know parents who are continuing to live anguish and nightmares. I know parents whose children have been taken

Pam Shipley: hostage

Pam Shipley: so, and my nightmare yes.

Pam Shipley: my nightmares

is different.

Pam Shipley: The nightmare on the list, because it's a it's a different nightmare, and it's on a different level. But I was awoken Friday at 2 Am. Saturday morning at 2 Am.

Pam Shipley: by a phone call that, said my daughter is in a bomb shelter.

Pam Shipley: Cause she's in Tel Aviv. She's in Tel Aviv, and she had been there for all of 6 days as she's getting ready for her Law school semester to start

Pam Shipley: taking a semester over there. So

absolutely bolted up in bed. Obviously

turn in, the news texted furiously. And

Pam Shipley: and you know, just down to the next.

Pam Shipley: I can't imagine 3 days cycling through going into bond shelters, coming out of bond shelters

talking to her like, you know, obviously, text that you never expect to hear from your children. Mom, there's rockets, mom, do you think that's the iron dome? Or do you think that's a hit?

Pam Shipley:  Daddy, Daddy? There's rockets

Pam Shipley: and the fear of sleeping that she talked about because she wanna sleep through a siren, because the first morning they slept to the siren was 6 30 in the morning there.



Allison Kenney: right. And then how can you help your adult child

who is going through turmoil.

Allison Kenney: And they're stuck

We can't shelter them. We can't fix it. We can't, we can't do anything. What do you do?

As a parent?



but as a parent to have your adult child making decisions that are life-threatening
Pam Shipley: and risky

 Right. So you try and support your child, and you try to be logical with your children. Your children aren't still logical like. It's an emotional situation. It's not a logical situation. We're all emotional about it. And as Jews we are, and I know as

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Pam Shipley: you're not Jewish, but you understand it.

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Pam Shipley: and you get it, and you you get it at a different level. I think part of it is because you're a mom and you, we have pores in our body that we feel feel what our children feel.

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Allison Kenney: You know, II wanna first continue on that path. I wanna ask more questions. But I also wanna stop and say, you know, this isn't just about

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Allison Kenney: your child being Intel to be in the middle of a war. This is also about

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Allison Kenney: every parent in mid life when you have adult children that are making decisions on their own, whether they're good for them. Is it bad for them?

we have limited amount of things that we can do. We can't force them, we can't ground them. We can't do those things, and we know what's best we really do. We know if they do A, B and C, this is gonna happen.

we have enough life experience that we know the path that they're on.

Allison Kenney: about it as a parent, and whether your child is making good decisions.

or bad decisions, battling mental illness, battling depression.

battling relationships.

Abuse. There's so many pieces right

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Allison Kenney: that as a parent and as a therapist.

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Allison Kenney: and I know right now you can't give yourself therapy. But what can you tell other

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Allison Kenney: women

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Allison Kenney: who are struggling with this?

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Pam Shipley: Well, I told my child that I was just gonna get her and Bubble wrap her.

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Pam Shipley: leave her locked upstairs in her bedroom. No, but truly, as a therapist, I actually been thinking so much about. This is, I think, the important thing is that we first of all take a deep breath as parents, and we become.

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Pam Shipley: and we talk to our children in a calm manner, because when we raise our levels, they raise their levels right? So we have to start by meeting them in a very calm place and say, Okay, I hear what you're saying, because they need to be heard, they need to be heard.

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Pam Shipley: So we talk to them

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Pam Shipley: from a calm place, and we say, I hear, I hear, how you're feeling.

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Pam Shipley: Let's talk about the logical part of it. Alright. So let's write down

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Pam Shipley: the logical part. If you do this.

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Pam Shipley: this will. Let's talk about what the implications, are we? We in our house? We call we whiteboard it out right? Because these are big decisions. And that's what you tell them. These are big decisions, and nobody should have to make big decisions alone.

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Pam Shipley:  so

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Allison Kenney: I love that, I, want you to talk to me, I love that.

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Pam Shipley: yeah,

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Pam Shipley: so we say you trust me, and I trust you. And so let's let's talk about the real logistics of it, the real logic of it, and take the emotion out.

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Pam Shipley: And he.

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Pam Shipley: you know, that's all we can do is we can. We can put it out there and hope that when they see it it it starts to resonate, and then we have to give them the space

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Allison Kenney: right and also come there and make the decisions. whether it's still the path on the whiteboard that we want them to go to, because. you know, we all

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Allison Kenney: a and this is what I can't keep coming back to for myself with my children is that

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Allison Kenney: I have had my trials.

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Allison Kenney: or I'm continually having my trials. But my major hurdles in life I did on my own, and I'm proud.

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Allison Kenney: and it made me who I am, that I alright made the pivots when I needed to, or didn't, and learn from that.

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Allison Kenney: and we can't take that away from our children.

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Allison Kenney: but can't take their growth.

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Pam Shipley: And they're not always going to be the decisions that we want them to make like. There isn't one

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Allison Kenney: mother who wants their child to go off to war. No.

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Pam Shipley: right? We we understand it. We. We get the logic of it. It's fighting for whatever it is that they're fighting for. But E, even in the United States, when somebody, unless it's done with great turmoil.

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Pam Shipley: So

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Pam Shipley: the parent, as moms, we are going to feel the turmoil. But we also we need to give them the space. We need to put out the logical

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Pam Shipley: discussion. I wanna say arguments. But it's really the logical points, the positions, and allow them the space to come to a conclusion

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Pam Shipley: without forcing. So part of that is also us. Once we once we white forward it out, there is for us to be silent.

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Allison Kenney: Yeah, that's the hard part.

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Allison Kenney: Yes, that is hard is the hard part.

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Allison Kenney: and we have to take our emotions out, because

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Allison Kenney: when I'm crying, and in turmoil. and sad and scary

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Allison Kenney: that raises the anxiety for my children.

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Allison Kenney: Yes, it does. Yes, it does, and it makes the harder for them as well.

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Pam Shipley: Right? So I'm fine. If that's why you make your decision because you want me to stop crying Great! Make sure that I stop crying, but the truth is that they really do have to come to that place on their own.

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and

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Pam Shipley: we have to support them. Look if they're doing something that's

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Pam Shipley: you know, self harm. Right? If they're talking about taking drugs. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about major life pivots that we don't necessarily agree with.

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Pam Shipley: but we know that they

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Pam Shipley: feel strongly about. So it's

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and

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Pam Shipley: it it's hard to have our adult children on paths that we don't necessarily want them on. I always. We talked in. My kids were in high school, and I had friends whose kids went off to college. They were like, Yeah, we you know, we love having strong, independent children until they're strong, independent. We got

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Pam Shipley: there's no control anymore. That exactly. Yeah.

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Allison Kenney: yes. So we did. We. We raised strong independence, dammit. So let's go back to where

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Allison Kenney: your daughter is. So you said that she's out. But could you give us a little bit of a background of how that happened.

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Allison Kenney: what what she was going through, and what you guys were doing, and how you were able to support

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Allison Kenney: in this effort.

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Pam Shipley: You know, II

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Pam Shipley: I don't want to make this a, an Israel podcast that Israel has the most incredible, supportive.

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Pam Shipley: amazing people. And it is a country that truly comes together.

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Pam Shipley: When the world is falling apart. So

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Pam Shipley: Our kids. after the first day of bombing our kids.

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Pam Shipley: We had a contact in in Israel, a woman whose family had taken my husband, and when he moved there from nice Jewish boy from Cleveland, who moved to Israel, and he was 20, and started going to Tel Aviv University, and the Lebanese war broke out.

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Pam Shipley: and this family, her. Her parents adopted my husband, and so she is sorry age and she was a kid. And there's this 20 year old Guy, who's, you know, staying at their house and

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Pam Shipley: So she reached out to me. She's a doctor, and she's married to a wonderful man, and they have 3 amazing daughters, and she reached out to me when she heard that Danny was in the country, and said, I,

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Pam Shipley: I will go and get her and I will bring her to my house, where she's safe, and I said, we're safer, at least out of Tel Aviv City Central and I said. I said, Thank you so so so much. But she has 2 roommates, and so they're just gonna stay together and they'll be fine. And she said, I will pick them all up, and they will all come to my home

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Pam Shipley: right. And, mind you, she has 3 children who are 1820 and 23, who's also, who are also in the army, and who's live for?

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Pam Shipley: And so they right. So they were in the midst. Their whole world was falling apart, and they reached out, and they, you know, snatched up our kids and brought them to their home and gave them safety, and a little nurturing and chicken and potatoes

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Pam Shipley: they were. They were flying to Cyprus on Sunday morning for 3 days of vacation before school started. Not that they hadn't just had 6 days vacation, but you know whatever. So they brought them home, and you know it was

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Pam Shipley: it. That's just the way that country is, is you just you help. And so their family, their daughter.

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Pam Shipley: was called up. One of their 2 of their daughters were already called up, and the third, I'm sure, is already now.

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Pam Shipley: and within they were getting 30 min updates on

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Pam Shipley: on their unit. And the daughter that was there who hadn't yet been called up, found out that within an hour, an hour of meeting my daughter

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Pam Shipley: and and her.

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Pam Shipley: you know, having chatting with her, she lost 4 friends.

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Allison Kenney: First day

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lost 4 friends within an hour.

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Pam Shipley: So that's how their lives are.

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So

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as much as I

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Pam Shipley: felt that Danny was safe, or you know, people would say, Oh, I'm glad she's safe. I'm glad she's safe. Nobody is safe there, and it was safe to the moment, and until the sirens come to that town, and they ended up coming to that town which

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you know, everybody has a bomb shelter, and so everybody goes to the bomb shelter. And so it it was a lot of back and forth, and a lot of turmoil and they ended up.

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Pam Shipley: We had booked them all that the moms obviously were pulling them on card, and while they were sleeping we had booked them all flights to get out of the country. So one mom booked a flight, for you know, Wednesday, one month, flight for Thursday, one month for Friday, whatever we got them on the first flights that we could. And

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Pam Shipley: we can we? We pull the card. I don't even know what day it was. Monday, Tuesday, and they went to the airport

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Pam Shipley: with tears, heavy hearts. They left half of their stuff there, because their belief was that they firmly were going back and they they

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left half of their stuff in Israel and just took a suitcase with them.

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Pam Shipley: and they

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Pam Shipley: got to the airport. They were there, for

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Pam Shipley: I think they were there 5 h early, and they flight got cancelled. And so it went from being told that they had to leave

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Pam Shipley: to not having a choice about leaving, and they had to figure out at 10'clock in the morning. They had to go back to their apartment. I wasn't having them go back to our friends house. It was one in the morning. I it was she had already arranged for them to get safe passage to the airport, which is in and of itself was a nightmare.

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Pam Shipley: Yeah. So they ended up. The next day

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Pam Shipley: she said. Look, I can come back to. I'm gonna go get them. They'll come back to me. But let me see if my husband can help get them on a plane.

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And he did, and he got them on a plane that left. I don't know. 6 h later.

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Pam Shipley: and she got them safe passage to the airport. They were on the airplane. They were in the middle boarding, and they were. I guess they board from the back of the plane first, and my, our kids were on the back of the plane, and the sirens went off

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Pam Shipley: and they stopped boarding, and they said, Pilot came on and said, protocol is that we stay here. We're not taking you off the plane. We're just gonna stay here and wait. That's what the airport is getting on.

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Allison Kenney: Missiles, rockets are. And yeah.

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yeah. And you know.

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Pam Shipley: I for the first time was like breathing. Okay, she's getting on a plane and she's leaving.

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Pam Shipley: And the the airport, hadn't. It had been pretty quiet.

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Pam Shipley: and then Tel Aviv was being hit, and where they were a little further north at my friend's house was being was being hit, and you know she, by the grace of God, they, you know they waited out until there's a window.

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Pam Shipley: Let them let let them finish boarding and taking off. And then

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Pam Shipley: the airport closed for hours. After that, because it was a barrage, so yes, she safe passage,

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Allison Kenney: but she's out and she went to they got to Germany.

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Allison Kenney: which was a struggle for her, too.

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Pam Shipley: which you know, to be honest, I know that they're incredibly

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Pam Shipley: incredibly helpful to Jews, and anti-semitism is apparently illegal there. But

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Pam Shipley: right it, yeah. It was a struggle, and they had a safe harbor, and they were wonderful. Germany was

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Pam Shipley: a safe place, and then they are coming back to the States

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Allison Kenney: right up

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Pam Shipley: where, by the way, doesn't seem safe for it for Jews, either, because I can tell you that there's so much that's happening in New York. That is horrendous. The Long Island.

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Pam Shipley: yeah, the the LIE.

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Pam Shipley: Had a there was a stop traffic. There was a pro-palestinian

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Pam Shipley:  that just started doing circles and raising the flag. And like, I, I'll send you the. It's all been crazy. Yeah, crazy things are happening.

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Pam Shipley: No, no anti-semitism that's up 488% or 500. Now.

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Allison Kenney: Well, that's that's the whole thing about this is, it's not over. And our children aren't done. You know. They're now as as young adults. They're now, you know, having to make this big decisions and

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Allison Kenney: you know your family is. can continue in his struggle because you also have a sister marvel as a neutral.

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Allison Kenney: and you have friends, and Danny has friends that have had to right called up, and so it's not over and I wish I can take the

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Allison Kenney: this away. But just like. You can't take it away, either, so we can't. But I wanted to say, Thank you so much for sharing your story. This is not a pop, this is not a political message. This is a message from a

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Allison Kenney: mom. that is going through some really scary stuff. And I felt like it was really appropriate to share that, because we all

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Allison Kenney: have our scary stuff, that as we watch our children grow.

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Pam Shipley: and they are going to make missteps. Yes, they will make missteps, and we are. We are here to support them and to love them, and it is hard to watch our children make steps that we don't necessarily agree with.

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Pam Shipley: but we, but we love them and and we feel it. We feel it in our. And it doesn't matter if they're 6 years old, 16 years old, you know. I every time my kids used to go out of the house, I used to say to them.

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Pam Shipley: make good decisions. That was that you know it wasn't, you know. Don't drink, don't drive, you know. All of those things. Just make a decision.

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Allison Kenney: Yeah. And those are those are tough ones to have, but it has a different connotation as a young adult make good decisions and be like.

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Allison Kenney: so anyway, yeah, thank you. Thank you Pam, so much, and I just wanted to tell everybody that.

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Allison Kenney: You know

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Allison Kenney: this is a

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Allison Kenney: a

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Allison Kenney: very tense time.

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Allison Kenney: And there's going to be ups and downs with the world for all of us. But, we're right there with you, you know, we're sharing our story work because we all have story, and we're right there with you, and we hope that you continue to turn us on and listen, and that you were able to find some solace

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Allison Kenney: during our struggles. Alright until next week.

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Allison Kenney: Thank you, guys. Bye, bye.