What Matters Most in Parenting? I Asked My Adult Sons.

Introduction and Welcome

Britta Bushnell: A hello folks, and welcome to Transformed by Birth, a podcast about the rite of passage of pregnancy, birth, and new parenthood. I'm your host, Britta Bushnell, author, mythologist, childbirth educator, and an all-around deep diver with a side of goofball. I'm so glad you're here today. This is a particularly personal episode, as my guests today are my two sons. So, grab your comfy beverage of choice, and maybe some tissues. Okay, I've got my tissues, or take us along for a walk, as we connect with my boys, Kaden and Rumiah. Before we begin, we start the way we always do, by lighting a candle. If you want to join me, please do, or just take a breath as I light mine. Today's candle is in honor of vulnerability, because folks, I'm feeling vulnerable. I'll say this upfront today, tears are quite likely. I've already got them. I don't know if the boys are going to get teary, but folks, this feels teary to me, because my kids are joining me today, and I'm going to ask them about their childhood and what it was like to grow up in our family. It feels tender, vulnerable, and deeply meaningful to me. So, Kaden and Rumiah are both in their mid-20s, they're out of the house, they're building their own lives and relationships, and they're somewhere in that sort of special space between still closely remembering their childhood and beginning to see it with grown adult eyes. They agreed to come on and share some stories and reflections from that unique vantage point. Being a mom has been my greatest job, my highest honor, and my most humbling experience. My work with families was inspired in my pregnancy with Kaden. When I was pregnant with him is when I first started working with pregnant folks, and much of what has shaped my work with families in the decades since that time has come directly from the journey of mothering these two. They've had a front row seat to it all, and they're going to share some of what they saw and experienced here with you and with me. I think we're all in for a real treat. Kaden, Rue, welcome, and oh my god, thank you for being here. This feels so special, and I kind of can't believe I got my adult sons to agree to do this. Thanks for being here, guys.

Kaden: I'm excited. They normally say on podcasts, they're like, thank you for having us, but that feels like an insane thing to say in this situation.

Britta Bushnell: I'm the one supposed to be saying thank you for being here, and thank you for having me. Yeah, I did have you. I gave birth to both of you.

Kaden: Yeah.

Rumiah: So yeah, you wouldn't exist, guys.

Kaden: That's true. That might be the perfect thing to say. Actually.

Britta Bushnell: Exactly. I mean, it's like, I don't know, you're here. This makes a lot of sense. So, there's so many things I want to ask you, but I also want to keep in mind that we're talking to my audience, right, and they are people who are pregnant and or new parents, and I want to think about kind of what is it that new parents are curious about and interested about that is kind of that you have a vantage point of understanding having having been raised in in the way that you've been raised and now as adults but still close to remembering your childhoods kind of to some degree, so I want to start with, like, can you each give us a little bit, or collectively give us a snapshot into your childhood? Like, how do you describe your childhoods? Like, how were you raised? How do you even begin to explain that?

A Childhood of Adventure and Novelty: Growing Up Feral in Topanga, LA

Kaden: A very easy one that is a pretty common one that I used to describe is we grew up down the street from a mountain lion sanctuary on a dirt road 20 minutes outside of one of the largest cities on the planet, pretty much sums up — I think you can infer almost everything from that very low, limited description. Yeah, I use a similar one to like start the conversation, which is we had more horses and other animals on our street than people, and yet we also lived in Los Angeles. And I think our childhood — more so than other people's, or at least more so — I'm not going to make it like a grand statement, but more so than a lot of my friends — involved a lot of outdoor time and adventure and novelty, both at home in Los Angeles and also traveling and skiing. Like, so much of what we did was centered around adventure and novelty, and I think living in Topanga, where we grew up, was the start of that, because it was just a weird place to grow up, like getting evacuated from fires, and there was a five-year period where we had five rattlesnakes in the backyard, like back to back to back years.

Britta Bushnell: Oh, I — believe me, I remember those. I did not — that was not my favorite part of raising you guys there.

Kaden: So, I think both — I mean, what both of us were saying is that, like, the animals, the mountain lions, it's the adventure novelty thing. I think if I were to pick like two adjectives, like, though, that's what I would pick. Two words would be adventure and novelty.

Britta Bushnell: Adventure and novelty. Okay. I sometimes use the word feral because the two of you growing up where we were, you had a lot of like outdoor time that was kind of barefoot, and you know, building things and breaking things and trying to blow things up, there was a little bit of that. I mean, would you — does that characterize it accurately? Did you spend a lot of time doing things? Yeah, I mean, adventure is a tidy way of putting that, but there was a little bit of feral energy involved, wouldn't you say.

Rumiah: Given that one of the most common events of our childhood was every Wednesday, hanging out with our two best friends, with maybe one parent supervising, and entertaining ourselves for four hours, that would involve —

Britta Bushnell: Yes, there were a lot of go-karts built.

Kaden: Yeah, potato cannons, go-karts, compound bows shot through fences, throwing knives, like it was, yeah, throwing —

Britta Bushnell: Knives. There weren't — oh, you're talking about —

Kaden: There were lots of throwing knives.

Rumiah: Failed go-karts that became just tool sheds. Yeah.

Britta Bushnell: That one was really a high adventure. You guys had a lot of ambition with that particular go-kart that you wanted to be a go-kart bus, if I remember correctly. Yeah, the physics of that was just not going to work, so it didn't become a tool shed. Okay, what do you love most about how you were raised? Like, are these good memories, these things that you're talking about, and you know, being raised in kind of a rural setting adjacent to a giant city?

Kaden: Yes, yeah. I mean, I think these memories of the — you know, as you put it — being feral outside, the potato cannons, the playing around outside, digging mines, like that sort of thing, that was really, really fun, but I think the reason that I picked novelty is because that was part of our childhood, but then also the most formative experience, at least for me, was when we left for a year and traveled to 38 countries, I think, and were just like living on the road for an entire year of novelty. I mean, literally every 11 days or something on average, we were in a new country doing something new, experiencing something new, and that's crazy. Like, I have so many experiences to draw on from that time alone, and then also the time when we lived in Topanga. I have so many experiences to draw on that in some ways I feel as though I've lived like 10 more years than I actually have, because there was just so much novelty in our upbringing.

Britta Bushnell: Yes, there was an adventure. Sure. I mean, and before we did the trip around the world, we would spend two to three weeks every summer camping.

Rumiah: Yeah.

Britta Bushnell: And perusing around. I mean, we did our Oregon, Washington trip, we did our Northern California trip, we did our Utah trip, where we were camping, camping, camping, camping, camping for, you know, weeks on end, so we got you started pretty early with the adventure and novelty. Yeah.

Kaden: Yeah, backpacking.

Britta Bushnell: Yes. Why are you both giggling about backpacking?

Rumiah: KK's better reason.

Kaden: We — I use — you said, I think it was the first time that we as a family went or tried to go backpacking —

Britta Bushnell: Technically it was the second, but the first one —

Kaden: Yeah, the —

Britta Bushnell: The first one, Rumiah was a toddler, and you were, you know, what, three, four, and we backpacked about 100 yards from the car. I don't know that that counts.

Kaden: Yeah, it was in Utah, right? Yeah, it was in Utah, and we pulled off on sort of what seemed like the side of the road, like it was not a well-developed backpacking trail, and so we pull off on the side of the road, we get out, we get our like backpacks on, which are absurdly heavy because they are, whatever, probably 15 pounds, but we weigh like 60 pounds, yeah, and we're walking in and we get to the start of the like main trail, which was a —

Britta Bushnell: Legit backpacking trail. Okay, it was a —

Kaden: Legit backpacking trail. However, it did say like, this canyon is prone to flash floods. Please put your name, all of the names of the people in your party and ages on this sheet, and when you are going in, and when you plan on leaving, in case there's a flash flood, and we have to go find your bodies. And I remember that as — like, I don't know, probably it —

Britta Bushnell: Did not listen — or it did not say all those things, but it —

Kaden: It did say you had to write all — like, write all of this down, which implicitly says, this is in case we have to go searching for dead people in here, like, we need to know how many bodies we're looking for. And we, so we go in, and I was a little bit nervous, and we're going in, and I was like, this is not — this feels like a bad experience. We're walking in, and it felt like we had walked for like six miles, but in actuality was probably not that far, and it starts pouring rain, and we're in this box canyon, this tiny little canyon, and I remember Mom and Dad talking about like where to put the tent, so that in case the water level started like really rising, we'd have enough time before it swept the tent away. And I just remember thinking, like, this is insane. What are we doing? What are we talking about? And then we decided to call it and go back to the car, which was —

Britta Bushnell: — all good, was definitely the right decision. And I will say it was my decision, as feral as I think we did raise you guys. I did have a safety gene in me that tried to keep you, keep you safe, apparently. Sometimes it short-circuited, but I really did try. Rumiah, we made it out. What you made it, we made it out, Rumiah. What do you love most about how you were raised? Because that kind of was dovetail off of what Kaden's response was.

Having Space, Having a Say: What Rumiah Loved Most About Growing Up

Rumiah: Yeah, I mean, I think I would probably describe it as having space — both physically and emotionally. Like, my favorite thing about growing up in Topanga was the space, was that we weren't crowded by people. We weren't — like, I would wake up and the thing that I would hear was the peacock decided to land directly over my head, waking me up, not whatever car honking outside. And then also having the space like — you were comfortable with us being outside as little kids and walking around and like looking for things, and like there wasn't a big scary highway that, like, we — it would take a lot of effort, and we almost would have earned it if we managed to find a highway. Yeah, I mean, but there —

Britta Bushnell: There were rattlesnakes, which —

Rumiah: Yeah, but I mean, you —

Britta Bushnell: Did learn how to watch for them.

Rumiah: Yeah. And, like, when you reach into wood, like, is there a snake, is there a black widow? Those are things that you learn. But then also actually in the way we were raised as well, in having space as kids — not being just the, oh yeah, you go that way, you do that, you're doing this — like we got to be like, oh yeah, I want to build a go-kart, or I want this, or like, we had a say and had space within the home, which I think was very formative, and was probably my favorite part about my childhood.

Britta Bushnell: Having space and having a say.

Rumiah: Yeah.

Britta Bushnell: I love that, because I mean, those were both things that — I mean, you're both speaking about things that were very much a part of the value structure that Dad and I tried to instill, was giving you — having you having a voice, you know. Even the way that we did dinnertime conversations was very much about making sure everybody had a voice and had a say and had space in the conversation. What do you remember about dinnertime conversations?

Rituals of Connection: Dinner, Song, Councils, and Thanksgiving

Rumiah: Intentionally leaving space for certain members of the family was extremely necessary if they were going to get to say something at dinner.

Kaden: Yeah, you talking about yourself?

Kaden: I think that the thing — and it's something that I want to continue on with in my — I currently do it in my relationship, and with a future family, I want to continue — it is the highs, lows, service, gratitude that we would do. Where the highs were, what were your — the highs of your day? The lows, what were the bad parts of your day? And there always had to be more highs than lows. Service — what's like some service you did for someone else, like holding the door open. I mean, it could be really small, like holding the door open, or it could be really big, like my entire day was at a soup kitchen, or whatever. And gratitude — like, it's just something you're grateful for. And you sort of think that those things will come up naturally in a dinnertime conversation, but if you don't actively make space for them and like set an intention for each person to do it, you might get to some of them for some people at the table, but you're definitely not going to get to all of them for everyone at the table. And we did that every single night growing up, for — I mean, I think into high school.

Britta Bushnell: Oh yeah. I mean, four-way dinner conversations became less common in high school because you all had busy lives and schedules and events and things of that sort. But when we were together at dinner, we absolutely did highs, lows, service, and gratitude. We didn't sing, you know, our opening welcome song in high school, but we did it. We did it when you were in elementary school and preschool.

Kaden: Yeah.

Britta Bushnell: You know, Earth, who gives to us this food? I bet you, you can sing it right now.

Rumiah: No. I think I could really, yeah. Earth, who gives us the food? Sun, who makes it ripe and good. Dear Earth, dear Sun. Thank you for what you have done. And wow, I — for the longest time of my childhood, thought Sun was the S-O-N, not S-U-N, and for some reason in my brain that didn't refer to me, that referred to K.K. And so I was convinced, I was like, why are we always thanking K.K. for all this stuff he did, like, it's really funny.

Britta Bushnell: You forgot the most important part of that whole song. How does it end? Yeah, we added that. I think you added it, Rumiah. Actually, at the end, yeah.

Rumiah: Who knows?

Britta Bushnell: But yeah, we, those were rituals of connection, and really important to me in particular. I got that from my mom, from Granny, instilling ritual and practices that create kind of an equal space and equal voice around the table. As — as you know — how does your memory of ritual in your childhood land? Like, are you — you brought that one up through, just, you know, here, but are there — are there others that you connect with that you think of? Like, oh yeah, like, did you know your mom was a ritual geek?

Rumiah: I don't think I realized, yeah, not like consciously. I think that probably the most formative one, in terms of day to day, was 100% the dinner conversations. And the —

Britta Bushnell: What about much —

Rumiah: Oh yeah, okay, every single night, the way we would go to sleep — we had a bunk bed for most of our childhood. I was in the bottom bunk, K.K. was in the top bunk, for some reason. He would come down to my bunk, and one of our parents — Mom or Dad — would read to us some chapter book. K.K. would fall asleep within 30 seconds. Then the parent would start falling asleep. I would get annoyed at the parent for falling asleep while they're reading to me my book, and I'd wake them up to turn the page, and they'd just start up on the next page, having no idea what happened on the last page.

Britta Bushnell: Well, you did become a very avid reader, in order to continue to read the page that we were sleeping through, so —

Rumiah: I loved it. The only part that was bad about that is that you guys would eventually give up and go to sleep. Yeah, there were — there were a lot of little things like that that were important. But I mean, also I think — I think it is illustrative that probably the most important holiday for us was the one we had just completely kind of fabricated the way we celebrated it, and that's Thanksgiving, and it was all of the family, the community that we had built, coming together and just having the ritual of a question that everyone shares — that are all these people that are my family that I'm blood-related to an eighth of them — and everyone having that centered, focused conversation that it's really rare. It's not common to have a focused conversation at dinner.

Kaden: The focused conversation is — there would be a question about something centered around gratitude, generally speaking, and then every person at the table would say whatever it is that they were grateful for, answer the prompt in some way, and everyone else would remain silent during the presenting — or not the presenting — responding.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah.

Kaden: And there wasn't a whole lot of like back and forth, very similar to the highs, lows, service, gratitude.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, so you guys grew up understanding — allowing yourself to sit and listen and receive what somebody was saying, like that — that never seemed like a real hardship for you, because it was woven into how we did dinner every night, was oh, right now we're listening to Kaden, right now we're listening to Rumiah, and if we're listening to them, you need to be having your mouth shut, because you're in the process of listening. And so you guys grew up kind of knowing to do that, so Thanksgiving was no different.

Kaden: Yeah, except — I mean, arguably the most important example of — or at least I think one of the most important examples of this sort of thing that we're talking about — is the councils that we would have around conflict. The way that conflict was handled, like real, real conflict, not day-to-day stuff in our family, was a literal council circle, where everyone is sitting — for the most part sitting on the floor — and then we'd have a talking piece that would be in the center of the circle, and whoever had the talking piece, that person was the only person talking, and everyone else needed to listen. And then when they put it back, someone else could respond. And it was a very different way — or I think it was a very different way — of dealing with conflict, compared to what the stories I've heard from other people.

Rumiah: And this wasn't just like when we were in high school, this was from a very, very young age, like I want to say, before the trip, like before we were — for sure you were doing this, like for sure, I was probably like six —

Britta Bushnell: Oh yeah, earlier, younger —

Rumiah: The earliest one I can think of, like yeah, it was younger, it didn't matter whether we were properly able to describe what we were feeling, we —

Britta Bushnell: Probably started — you were a toddler, where you started getting involved. I mean, Dad and I had been doing council since before we got married, so it was really about when we invited you all in.

Kaden: Yeah, and anyone — anyone could call. I called one about something that I thought was very important, and was just ridiculous, but you know, anyone could call one. And that was sort of a similar level of agency, like Ru was talking about at the beginning, around like space — it was providing a space for us to be heard when we wanted to be heard, and that is really special.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, yeah. I love that. So, parenting in general is really hard. You guys may not know this, you're not yet parents yourself, but it is really hard, and one of the things that makes parenting really challenging is that we have to create boundaries and rules and kind of hold the container of what is allowed and acceptable in our home, and often our kids, when we're doing that, don't like us very much, like they're kind of, kind of pissed off when we're holding a boundary or container or creating a rule. And I'm curious — is there something that you now feel grateful for, or something that you're kind of glad that we did, even if you hated it when you were kids.

Rules, Boundaries, and the Power of Being Heard

Rumiah: I don't have a specific one I can think of right off the bat, but the thing I can think of is the way you handled it when we were annoyed about it in the moment when we didn't like the rule that was being set.

Britta Bushnell: Tell, do tell.

Rumiah: How did we do that? We were allowed to complain, we were allowed to be like, I don't like this rule, and oftentimes that would result in a slightly different rule, or a slightly restructured — the way it was decided what we were allowed or not allowed to do — and maybe at the end of it we were happy, but more likely we were still annoyed by the rule, but it had been — the reason we were annoyed by it was allowed to be communicated and thought on. And that was very, very — being, even if you don't like what you were allowed to do, being heard in your complaints about that completely restructures the way it feels, at least to me.

Britta Bushnell: Wow, that's really, yeah, okay. So you were validated in your upset and not liking and heard in that.

Rumiah: Yeah, you would, you would still sometimes say, like, no, and sorry.

Rumiah: Yeah, but, like, that's okay, like, I — I can't — yeah, that's a good one.

Britta Bushnell: That's a really good one, right. Thank you.

Kaden: I think to your earlier point, Mom — you know, you're — what's the thing that you always say? You're the best parent that you'll ever be before you have children.

Britta Bushnell: Yes, I have said that once or twice.

Kaden: Yeah, so with that caveat, I think that the thing that I — the rule that I didn't like as a little kid that I'm now really grateful for — is the screen time restrictions that you guys placed on us. Until — I was trying to remember, while Ru was talking, I was trying to remember what the actual rule was, and I think it was we got four hours of screen time to spread out over like Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, up until high school, and that was like, it was a real rule. So there was no screen time Monday through Thursday, other than school-related screen time, and that facilitated — more so than living in Topanga, more so than like any other factor — I think that is what facilitated us going out and building go-karts, and us like doing kind of crazy stuff outside and developing our imaginations and creativity. There's something that I can't remember — you say this, Mom, or someone says this — but it's, you know, boredom is the single most important thing for creativity and imagination. And now as an adult I have moments where I can just, you know, sort of like go into my own mind and be — I have a very active imagination — and I think that's because it was intentionally cultivated by that screen time rule, because we didn't have the option to just sort of go on YouTube or play video games for the vast majority of the weekend. Even on the weekends, it means four hours over three days, it's not very much time. The vast majority of the time on the weekend is also just being outside and having a fun time making up games.

Rumiah: That four hours started when we were older. When we were younger, it was less to nothing for a long time.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, but always Friday to Sunday — you were not — you weren't — it was, yeah, nothing Monday through Friday — I mean, through Friday after school hours. Yeah, yeah, no. And, and you know, phones was a thing that you know — I mean, granted your age puts you at a time when smartphones weren't a huge part of early childhood, but you didn't get phones super early. Yeah.

Rumiah: We — I think we actually got them earlier than some of our people.

Britta Bushnell: Well, you did, because we did not, Kaden, but you did Ru, because we wanted you to have a phone for the trip —

Kaden: Because they're — traveling —

Britta Bushnell: While we were traveling. It felt important for you to have to have a phone.

Rumiah: I got it before the trip for skiing.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, but it wasn't — it wasn't a smartphone.

Rumiah: Oh, yeah, no, it was a flip —

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, I mean, you guys had flip phones first. Yeah, we're like, flip phones are fine, and, and, yeah, because we needed to be able to — yeah, it became a safety thing, like we needed you to be able to reach us for, for safety things, because we did let you be a little roamy.

Kaden: We skied freely in Mammoth by ourselves from very young, from like nine, maybe even younger. I mean, just like genuinely, just we were off on our own, skiing wherever we wanted.

Britta Bushnell: Well, I mean, to be fair, you were both really good skiers — skier, snowboarder — but yes, you were, you were pretty — and you know, it's a contained mountain. It's not huge, it's giant, it is Mammoth. I know the name seems to —

Kaden: Suggest otherwise.

Britta Bushnell: Fair, fair. Okay? On that, like, what — what values do you think you got just by being part of this family? Like, like, you know, we didn't sit down and say these are our values, but were there — do you feel like we instilled certain values into you through the way that you were raised that that matter to you and carry into your adulthood.

Values That Stuck: Honesty, Trustworthiness, and Active Listening

Rumiah: No.

Britta Bushnell: Okay. Fair. Okay. What values, though?

Kaden: Yeah.

Kaden: I think one that I really valued was honesty. Like, I think one of the — not so much a rule, but a sort of something that you guys did — was like, no matter what you have done or like might do, it is most important that you are honest with us about it, and like, no matter what it is, like, the punishment is going to be much worse if you lie about it than if you are honest. And I think that — in as an adult — that emphasis on being trustworthy, and I mean, generally, but especially in those close relationships, being brutally honest with each other about, like, yourself, what you have done, but then also building that trust with another person — that is a value that I probably hold in the highest esteem from childhood and from what you guys passed on to us.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah. Yeah, that was very — it still is really important to us, like transparency. Well, honesty — like, like, just — you don't have to tell us everything. Yeah, but what you tell us has to be legit, has to be connected to truth. You can choose what — what you — I mean, as adults, you can choose what you want to tell us, and not tell us. As kids, it was, we want you to — yeah.

Kaden: Yeah. I think it's the trustworthiness. It's —

Britta Bushnell: Trustworthy, yes, the trustworthiness.

Britta Bushnell: It's your word —

Kaden: — is, is it matters, yeah. Yeah, you don't necessarily have to share everything, but what you share, you have to — it has to be true.

Britta Bushnell: True. Yeah, yeah. I love that you got that, Rue. Do you have anything that comes to mind?

Rumiah: Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of the values have been shared in the rituals and things that we grew up with, in the way — like in the conversation already, like in the sharing, how council worked, how the value of when someone else is sharing it is your duty to listen and not — like, what — one of the things — it's a skill and a value, I think, of active listening, of actually wanting to hear what the other person is saying, and also separately what they're trying to share, which I think can be different things. And I do think that is — it goes hand in hand with the honesty part, but it was the other side of the honesty — of what was your role when in a conversation and listening to someone — that I think is very important in relationships in life, and is one of those foundational things that I think I got from my childhood. I'm not sure if it's a value, but it feels like —

Britta Bushnell: It doesn't matter. It was a great answer. So values kind of makes me think also about siblings, because we had some rules and some values around how we wanted the two of you to be in relationship with each other. And I — I hear a lot — like, I can remember a story from a wedding I went to years ago, where the best man told a story about the childhood that he'd had with the groom, where they were constantly fighting and constantly beating each other up, and had to kind of move into a relationship where they liked each other. And you two have kind of always had a deeply respectful, loving relationship that — that, from at least my vantage point — hasn't had a ton of sibling rivalry. So, first I want to ask, is that true? And, like, how do you see your relationship with each other, and, and what do you think helped support that?

The Sibling Bond: Roughhousing, the Code Word, and Growing Up Best Friends

Rumiah: One thing is, I think saying that we had a loving relationship and loved each other is 100% not contradictory with having a sibling rival. Yeah, both can be true. I know if it's — how most — I think one of the most important things in my childhood when playing games or anything was I needed to be — I am a very competitive person. Yeah, but like beating, beating, and like there's — I —

Kaden: I don't know, there's a difference between competition and, you know, I don't know, like aggressive competition.

Rumiah: Yeah.

Kaden: Yeah, we didn't really — I could, I could probably count on one hand, maybe two hands, the number of times that we got in, like, real, you know, yelling fights or whatever.

Rumiah: Yeah, we roughhoused, but conventionally.

Britta Bushnell: You roughhoused, but you had ways of stopping the roughhousing if it got to an edge that was uncomfortable for one of you. Yeah.

Kaden: Yeah. I mean, I also think that, especially up until high school — when you know, on sort of different developmental paths — but up until high school, all of our time with friends was together with those friends, and was like, we were part of the same friend group. And I think that that is — I mean, it's a major reason why we are best friends, and we have, like, such a deep relationship, is because we have so much shared experience outside of just the family context of, like, actually being friends growing up. And then also I think, you know, not to go back to the trip around the world, but there was an 11-month period where the only person anywhere near to my age was Ru, and like, so that really deepened the relationship. So yeah, not to — you know, Ru is giving the best man speech at my wedding, and a little bit, and I don't imagine his stories will not be similar to the one that you witnessed, or at least I hope they won't be.

Britta Bushnell: Okay, and now I'm really curious. Yeah, but I mean, there's — for the people who are listening who are like, well, I can't take a trip around the world for a year — there, there were things. I mean, yes, having some of the same friend group was was key, you did rough house, how did you make sure that you didn't go over from roughhousing into beating each other up, which is so common, especially between brothers. Like, like, how — what did you — what were the ways that you made sure that you were safe with each other?

Kaden: We had a code word. Yeah, like a word, when — and it was really, what do you mean?

Rumiah: I was just trying to think about — I remember what it was. Ice cream.

Kaden: You don't remember — ice cream? Yeah, you know, initially it was important for Ru, because I was much bigger than him, and then he got his black belt in taekwondo, and was bigger than I, and so it became very important for me.

Rumiah: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna be honest, thinking back, the only memory I can have of ice cream was trying to stop being tickled by screaming ice cream.

Rumiah: It's the only memory I have, but did it work after a little bit?

Britta Bushnell: Yes. Well, I'm thinking also the two of you have some different interests, right? I mean, we have a skier, we have a snowboarder, we have taekwondo, we have — you know — not taekwondo.

Britta Bushnell: So, there was — I'm wondering, was it helpful that we didn't kind of put you in a track that says our children do these things? You guys each kind of went on your own paths down things.

Rumiah: Yeah, yeah.

Britta Bushnell: It's my fishing, I'm fishing folks here. This is a really — I'm baiting the hook.

Kaden: Yeah, I mean, I think it's true, like even — I mean, even through college, high school, like, Ru was much more STEM-focused, and I was much more humanities-focused. And — I would say — the only time that we had any sort of, like, real overlap would be in high school with swim and debate team, but it was — I mean, it was for one year, it was one year. Debate was not overlapped. Swim levels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, didn't you do debate though for one year, Ru?

Britta Bushnell: I did debate. He's putting it in air quotes. Yeah, like —

Kaden: I did taekwondo for about a year as well. Yeah.

Britta Bushnell: Fair, fair, fair.

Discovering Mom Beyond Motherhood: Identity, Passions, and Being Seen

Britta Bushnell: All right, so I want to ask you both a little bit directly about me, and — you know — because it's my podcast, folks, and you know these people who are listening have been hearing me for a while, so I want you to — yeah — share a little bit about me. And I think it's common for moms to be seen by their kids, but to not necessarily really see them, like you see me, but do you — do you really get me? Do you know me? And I'm kind of curious about that, and thinking, like, was there — when did I — did I go, or do you have a memory of me going from being mom to being like a person in the world, and like having something, you know, a passion outside of motherhood? Or did I always seem to you like I had passions outside of motherhood?

Kaden: You always seemed to have passions outside of motherhood, so like, it wasn't so much a like something where it was like, oh, mom is just mom and now she has passions elsewhere. I think the moment that I realized like, oh, mom's like cool outside of being mom, was at your graduation from your master's program — before our trip around the world, before you wrote your dissertation. I think you took a year or two years before the dissertation.

Britta Bushnell: I took — I mean, I took one year off, which happened to coincide with our trip around the world, and then I had two years of dissertation writing. Yeah.

Kaden: Right. But at your — there was a dinner. I mean, I'm remembering this from when I was like 11 or something, but there was a dinner where a bunch of people — you included — were graduating from the master's program, or like finishing the master's coursework before that —

Britta Bushnell: That was — I know exactly what dinner you're talking about, and you were nine years old, and it was my first year of grad school.

Kaden: Oh, it wasn't even graduation, it was —

Britta Bushnell: My — it was the summer, like, banquet. Other people were graduating, but I wasn't, I wasn't. And you two, I invited you to be my guests at that dinner, and I — we have pictures of it, you guys are little, you're so little.

Kaden: That one was cool, because then, like, we met the cohort people who knew you completely outside of your relationship to our family, and had, like, we're very impressed with you in an academic setting. And it was so different from the way I had seen you. And seeing that, and the — you know — celebration of the work that you had done, that — I guess that first — I thought it was a graduation, but that first year, that was a moment that sort of sticks in my mind as, like, oh, mom's cool outside of being mom.

Britta Bushnell: And was — did that feel important to find that out?

Kaden: I thought it was really cool. I don't know, I mean, important is hard when you're nine, but important is a hard standard, but it felt cool. I was like, oh, mom's cool, and so, yeah. I mean, to that extent, yes, important.

Rumiah: Yeah. And I think — I think I agree with Keke that there wasn't a moment, and I think it was like there wasn't a moment that you transitioned into not having interests outside. There was a moment as well — and that where you were like, oh, wow, mom's cool, mom's like this — but I think that was mainly because you did classes at the guest house, and so, like, for my entire childhood I would remember days where it was like, okay, yeah, don't go backyard today, because mom's teaching. And so, like, I always knew of your life — or like, a part of your life — that had nothing to do — well, not nothing to do with me, you were teaching childbirth classes — but nothing to do with me.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, although you did — you did like it when I taught, because the snacks for the weeks after were always so much better.

Kaden: So much better.

Britta Bushnell: Leftover snacks following my childbirth classes. Yes, you guys liked that.

What It Was Like Being Raised by a Childbirth Educator

Britta Bushnell: Kaden, I've heard you compare me to the Meet the Fockers character, Roz, played by Barbra Streisand. You know, she's a sex therapist, I'm a childbirth educator. She talks about societally inappropriate things — I tend to do that as well. What was it like to be raised by a childbirth educator or a Roz Focker type?

Kaden: I mean, I think you know that's — that's hard because, you know, I was raised by one mom, you know, so it's a hard thing to be like, I wonder what it would be like to not have this. But I think it almost goes back to some of the like trustworthiness that we were talking about before, because there were — in our relationship there were virtually not — I'm struggling right now to think of any areas that were actually off limits in terms of like things that we could talk about, in particular in the car, like driving places. We had so many conversations about like important milestones and things, and like I genuinely sought out your advice, or you elicited it — I, you know, as a kid, it felt like I was the one doing the work, but I'm sure it was mostly you. So in that way, you made it a safe place to talk about anything. And then there's also — you know — you can kind of see them behind you in this podcast — but when friends would come over to the house, there were statues and paintings and things that definitely weren't super common in other people's houses, and you know, anatomically correct diagrams and stuff, and you know, it's an experience.

Rumiah: During Covid, you had to be very careful about what face masks you grabbed when you're going outside, because there was an anatomically correct vagina on one and boobs on another.

Britta Bushnell: During Covid — you mean during Covid?

Rumiah: Yes, you had to be very careful about what face masks —

Britta Bushnell: — during Covid, the masks over your face. Yeah, I had, I had a couple of very labia-centric —

Rumiah: Yeah.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah. Okay, that's fair. And — and my most of those things were kept in the guest house, where I taught my classes. They weren't necessarily in the house, but you all did like using the guest house for sock hockey. Yeah, I mean —

Kaden: Sock hockey, wooden floors, big open space. Yeah, I mean socks, socks sliding around, accidentally knocking over statues of Artemis. Yeah, one —

Britta Bushnell: One of these statues is cracked because of a sock hockey tournament.

Rumiah: But also going back to what KK was originally sharing — I cannot think of a time I got in trouble for sharing something I had chosen to volunteer and share, like I think that it felt like that was off limits, like that was the thing that was off limits, was getting in trouble for sharing something.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, I love that. So, Ru, I want to ask you the question. You know, what was it like being raised by a childbirth educator? Because I know you've got a story. I got a great story.

Rumiah: Sometimes the classes would not be at — in the guest house, sometimes they were in —

Britta Bushnell: Pasadena.

Rumiah: In Pasadena. Yeah, and we would — Mom would come home, Mom's home, the center of my world is home. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go out and say hi, I'm gonna go help unload the car, like that — that's what you do. So, going to help you unload the car — oh, hey, Mom, you dropped your uterus. Like, these are the things you say, these are the normal things that happen in life, is you drop your uterus.

Rumiah: It was a placenta. I'm so stupid for my six-year-old self not understanding that.

Britta Bushnell: But your six-year-old self did know the word uterus, which is something —

Rumiah: I mean, for raising two boys, we were very aware of —

Britta Bushnell: Anatomy.

Rumiah: Yeah, yeah. Like, it was. It was a normal part of life.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I — one of the things that cracks me up, Ru, is wasn't it during Covid, during quarantine days, when I was teaching an online childbirth class, and I started doing a fake contraction, and you came running down the stairs.

Rumiah: To be clear, I am asleep, and I wake up, and I'm like in that state of — I don't know what woke me up. Normally Mom shares when she's going to be teaching a class on a weekend, so we're aware of these things. This had not been communicated, so I'm like, okay, I know no one else is in the house, and then I hear a like loud moan of pain. It sounded like from downstairs. I'm like, what, what, what the hell was that? Is everyone okay? And again, and again, yeah, I'm gonna go run down and see if my mom is like, have fell down the stairs and broken her leg, that's what I thought was happening. Yeah.

Britta Bushnell: That was a funny moment. You came running down the stairs, opened the door. I'm on Zoom with an entire class of people. Yeah, there were those.

Kaden: You remember during your dissertation defense, you did modeling contractions or something?

Britta Bushnell: Mock contraction, yeah.

Kaden: Mock, yeah. And you know, I had heard it before, but the rest of our family was also there, and one of your brothers turned to me at the end of it and was like, wow, I was not expecting that.

Britta Bushnell: Yeah, it was normal for the two of you to hear it, but for my brother it was like, wait, what?

Chosen Family and the Meaning of Belonging

Britta Bushnell: I want to, I want to ask you something that Kaden, you touched on when we were talking about Thanksgiving, and it made me realize I wanted to ask you about it, which is about chosen family. And we're talking about my brother, but also — we've had a lot of chosen family, and in some ways we're missing one of my children on here, and I'm curious — what — what is — what has chosen family — like, that's a — that's like, we had chosen family that were fellow Topangans and neighbors, and we also had Alexa. Like, what — what did you learn about chosen family growing up in this family?

Kaden: I think Ru was the one who was actually talking about that. So, do you want to talk about it, Ru?

Britta Bushnell: Oh, was it? Sorry.

Rumiah: Yeah, I mean — it was — I mean, I think that the fact that Thanksgiving was maybe an eighth of it was actual blood relatives was illustrative, like, that family was who you loved and who you respected and who was involved in your life, not necessarily whoever random cousin. I mean, we're quite close with our actual blood family as well, but it was — I mean, my sister, I have no blood relation to her, she was the third person to hold me after I was born. Our neighbors were both sides — like, that sister was one side, the other side — I'm not going to share their names, I don't know if they're comfortable with that — but like, that — those were the most important relationships in our lives. It feels like were those chosen family people —

Britta Bushnell: Wednesday afternoon friends too?

Rumiah: Yeah.

Kaden: I think a lot of it goes back to — I mean, you would be able to speak to this better than I can, obviously. I think a lot of it goes back to your experience of doing some of middle school and high school in Hawaii, and the way that a lot of other cultures, including Hawaiian culture, deals with family — like what it means to be family, and it's not just blood, it's not just who you are given as family by the birth lottery, but it is who is there and who is part of your life. It had to have been intentional on your part, and I think it was probably informed by your time away from your family of origin in Hawaii, developing your own meaning of family with your HPA friends.

Britta Bushnell: I think that's probably accurate without being necessarily conscious of it, but I think it's true.

How Growing Up in This Family Has Shaped How They Want to Parent

Britta Bushnell: I know we need to start wrapping up, but I want to ask — how has watching me as a mom, or Dad as a dad, shaped how you imagine you want to be as a parent, if you want to be a parent at all. I mean, now you're in your, you know, adult phase, and kind of looking into your future, like what kind of parent do you want to be, if you want to be one.

Rumiah: I think the easiest example of that is me begging you to please write a parenting book, because I need an instruction manual. Yeah, I mean, I think I've had conversations with both you — I'm not near the parented stage of life yet — but I think I've had conversations with both of you talking about how grateful I am of the way I was raised, and how fearful I am in my ability to reproduce the effects and the methods that were involved in my childhood. And I don't remember what the question was.

Britta Bushnell: You did it, and made me cry, so it's all good.

Kaden: I think it goes back to what Ru was saying at the beginning — one of the things that I really valued is the amount of agency that we had in growing up, and the fact that, you know, we were part of decisions around parenting. And I sort of — I shared this with you on Mother's Day very recently — I realized that you were learning how to be a mom, along with me learning how to be a kid, because there wasn't — there was no one before, and so when I was one, you were a one-year-old parent. When I was 12, you were a 12-year-old parent. And the humility with which you approached parenting, in terms of involving us in the decisions, and like almost an understanding of the fact that we might have some insights that were actually useful in parenting us — that was really special. And that's something that I absolutely want to continue with my family.

Rumiah: Yeah.

Britta Bushnell: Okay.

Rumiah: 100%.

Britta Bushnell: I — that's a great place to end. And so I — you know, as we start to wrap this up, I ask all of my guests, and I guess now I'm asking my sons the final question at the end, which is what's one thing that you feel passionately, or feel that is important, that you want new and expectant parents to see, hear, feel, or know about this profound period of their lives? Like, what do you think a new parent or a pregnant parent might want to know from your vantage point? I know you're both kind of snickering and being like, what do we know, having —

Closing Question: What New Parents Most Need to Know

Rumiah: — never been a parent —

Kaden: But —

Rumiah: — not currently —

Britta Bushnell: From your vantage point, what — what feels important.

Rumiah: I think I want to reiterate what kind of has been the message of multiple of the stories and things shared here, and what KK just shared, is that parenting is a multi-person relationship. It is the parents and the kids, and including the kids in the decisions in how things are decided — which is the same things, decisions — is incredibly important and means a world to the kids, even if the end decision is still what the parents wanted and the kid didn't want. Including them in the decision, including them in getting to share and actually express how they are feeling makes a massive difference. Yeah.

Kaden: I think — you know, back to the thing that I said a while ago, you're the best parent before you're a parent — but you know, but with that caveat, I think that one thing that I want to keep for myself when I'm in that position, and I think everyone should know or feel, is that it's going to be okay. Like, we as humans have done this so many times, and in so many different circumstances, and with so many different challenges, that we are really adaptable. Like, kids are really adaptable, parents are really adaptable, and you don't really have to plan it all perfectly, and in fact, if you do, it's probably going to be a bigger problem than if you just like adapt as you go. But it's going to be okay. We are really adaptable and resilient. It'll be okay.

Rumiah: Yeah.

Outro

Britta Bushnell: Okay. Boys, I'm so grateful. Thank you so much for being here, for sharing your words, your hearts, and thank you for being my boys. Truly, being your mom has been the privilege of my life, and I'm so grateful that you guys are my kids, so grateful. Okay, and thank you, listeners, for sharing this time with us. If something shared today impacted, supported, or moved you, please share this episode with a friend. I produced this podcast myself, and your support makes it possible. To show a little love for the podcast and these conversations, please follow, rate, and review. If you'd like to continue the conversation, please join us on Instagram at Transformed by Birth. I look forward to being with you again on the next episode of Transformed by Birth. And now let's gather what we want to take away from this episode. In an inhale and with an exhale, blow out the candle. Until next time, bye, friends. Bye.