A Therapist’s Toolkit for Surviving the Holidays

Many of us want the holiday season to be a time of connection and celebration, but this time of year can also be complicated. Family gatherings can come with unspoken tension, old dynamics resurface, expectations rise, and the pressure to “keep the peace” can collide with our deep desire to protect and affirm our kids. And for some, this season can bring loneliness, depression, or grief—not warmth. We know you’re navigating all of that. And you don’t have to do it alone. Today In the Den, Sara is joined by therapist David Zealy-Wright to talk honestly about what the holidays can stir up, how to prepare for tough conversations, how to set boundaries with love, how to care for ourselves while caring for our kids, and how to find moments of joy and grounding even in challenging spaces.

Special Guest: David Zealy-Wright

David is a Licensed Professional Counselor (Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor), a Licensed Clinical Addictions Specialist, and a Clinical Supervisor Intern(Certified Clinical Supervisor). He graduated from Catawba Valley Community College in 2005 earning an Associate in Arts, Lenoir-Rhyne University in 2008 earning a BA in Psychology, and in 2010 an MA in Agency Counseling. He enjoys working with diverse populations, but specifically has experience with teens, adults and couples. His specialty areas include addiction, depression, anxiety, life changes, men’s issues, relationships, and LGBTQIA issues. As an addictions specialist, he believes that addiction is a disorder, not a moral failing. David is a native of Greensboro, North Carolina, but has lived in Hickory for over 23 years with his spouse. 

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Transcript

SARA: Hi everyone. Welcome to In the Den with Mama Dragons. A podcast and community to support, educate, and empower parents on the journey of raising happy and healthy LGBTQ+ humans. I’m your host, Sara Lawall. I’m a Mama Dragon myself and an advocate for our queer community. And I’m so glad to be part of this wild and wonderful parenting journey with all of you. Thanks for joining us. We’re so glad you’re here.

We are in the midst of the holiday season, which means family dinners and holiday parties and cooking and cleaning and decorating and wrapping all the things, not to mention the day-to-day needs of our kids, the challenges of parenting, the challenges of this moment that we are in. For many of us, we want the holiday season to be a time of connection and celebration. But this time of year can also be really complicated. Family gatherings can come with some unspoken tension, old dynamics resurface, expectations rise, the pressure to keep the peace just can get in the way of our deep desire to protect and affirm our queer kids. And for some, the season brings some loneliness and depression and grief. We know you're navigating all of that. We all are. And you don't have to do it alone. Today, we're talking with a therapist. We're joined by David Zealy-Wright, who's been on the podcast before. David is also an addiction specialist who has supported many queer and trans youth, adults, and their families. And so we're going to have an honest conversation about all that the holidays can stir up and how we can prepare ourselves for tough conversations, set some boundaries with love, and also how we care for ourselves while caring for our kids. David, welcome back to In the Den. Thank you so much for joining us for this important conversation. 

DAVID: Sarah, thank you so much for having me. It's my pleasure and privilege to be here. 

SARA: I want to just start by kind of talking a little bit about this reality of the moment that we are in. This has just been a really rough and painful year for so many of us and our families. The political environment and all those issues and the ongoing attacks by the administration and many of us by our state legislatures. And we're just consumed with worry about accessing healthcare and wondering if it's time to relocate, and how to tend to our own and our kids' mental health, and it's exhausting. And so many of us – I know I hear it so often in our communities – feel on the brink of burnout. We're just feeling really depleted and exhausted. And so I'm curious if you could just speak into that moment, what wisdom do you have for all of us. Because I know you're feeling it too, and we all are, and there isn't a best answer. But I'm hoping you might have something we can take away. 

DAVID: Sure, absolutely. No. Listen, so my husband and I, we have a 12-year-old son and we have that additional layer of we're two dads raising what I suspect may be a hopelessly heterosexual child. So it's an interesting reverse dynamic, if you will. But the thing that I think that is a common thread for people is the desire to keep their children safe. But that's going to be through our lens of what we perceive as harmful. And sometimes, I think, in moments like we are in right now, how do we best filter something that we can't do anything about. 

SARA: Yeah, that's good. Tell us. 

DAVID: You know, I think of the Serenity Prayer, what you got control over, what you don't. Because ultimately, as a parent, you ARE in control over the environment of your home. For now, anyways, until Big Brother, you know, whatever. So even with all of the scary things happening in politics, we also know as queer people, we know we have been here before, and we survived it. You know, the HIV and AIDS epidemic, where the Reagan administration did not speak about it until near the end of his administration, after lots of people had died, and it had found its way into the blood supply. You know, we have seen these fears, these worries, these anxieties, and there are some things that are worse with this episode. I hear that. I see that. But even in the midst of that, we can continue to keep our home as a sanctuary, as a safe place for us and our kids. 

SARA: That's beautiful. I'm noticing that a lot of the fear that is being stirred up in this moment, even though we don't have control over a lot of it, is kind of infiltrating into our own kids and their psyches, and of any age, right? It infiltrates us adults, our grown kids, our young kids. And I want to talk about, coupled with here we are at the time of the year when we see an uptick in depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation. It's like a perfect storm, in a way. It's that seasonal thing on top of the climate that we're in. And so, I'm curious if you can first share with us what signs can we look for in our loved ones that they might be suffering or in trouble and might need some support and intervention? And then what kinds of interventions might be helpful? 

DAVID: Absolutely. Now, this is going to be a long answer, okay? 

SARA: That's okay. 

DAVID: So the first thing that I'm going to say is we first have to realize – and this is hard for those of us that are either Gen X or millennial, basically anyone that had lived a childhood in an analog world and then had to transition to a technological world – we're the last of our kind. We are what's called digital migrants, okay? And by that, I mean we successfully navigated to a technological world. Boomers – you know you can think the caps lock posts on Facebook – often struggled a little bit more with that transition. So we will be the last that remembers an analog childhood versus a digital adulthood. Our children are all digital natives. They have only ever existed in a world where access was via electronics, the internet, constantly being plugged in, relationships kind of being reduced to emojis and text interaction, etcetera. And we can't relate to that. There's not been this big of a gap since the Industrial Revolution when we went from horse and buggy to cars. This is a massive shift. So that's where we’ve got to start is understanding that our experience of childhood and adolescence is not our children's experience. And we have to be able to speak to that if we want them to not shut down, okay, as far as having open dialogue and communication. As far as signs to notice, and this can be challenging for when, like, a lot of our digital kids aren't necessarily always as communicative or interactive as we might have been. But noticing more withdrawal, noticing a change in clothing that could be to conceal self-harm, noticing any unusual marks, noticing changes in eating, or real big changes in behavior, or sudden new friends, or a huge uptick in face in the phone messaging, what have you. I personally am not really an advocate for kids being on social media, maybe until 16? Even then, I'm not crazy about it because our bullies stopped at the bus stop. Now it's 24-7. And there's access to all information that's ever existed, including the bad kind on the internet. And so, we’re combating with, you know, when we're trying to have critical thought or evidence-based conversations with our kids, we're contending with their bad information as well. 

SARA: Yeah, well, I'm curious about some coaching on how to intervene, how to have that conversation with our kids, and what kinds of interventions might be helpful. 

DAVID: So, this is going to be from a personal experience. We play Uno. Like, I mean, literal, intentional quality time that is not surrounding the idea of mental health? Like, you know that you're trying to connect and engage and interact with your kid. So, even if that means I'm going to go play Mario Kart with my kid. Engaging them within play where they are. We're the only species, we’re the only mammal, that tells our children you're supposed to stop playing when you get to be a big person. And we don't see that anywhere else in the animal kingdom because it's not accurate, and not particularly healthy. So, I think intentionally having – even when you have the teenager that rolls their eyes, and like, “Oh my god, I don’t wanna do that.” “You know, well, what would you like to do? We are going to do something to connect as a family.” I think is really helpful, because it's not something they get a lot of. 

SARA: I love the idea of play as an intervention. I mean, what a beautiful idea. For all of us, like, I know how that will work on my mental health. As well. 

DAVID: Mm-hmm. And I think when we as parents, again, this comes back to that safety piece. When we get in that headspace of “What clinical thing can I do?” It feels fake. And that nothing will shut a teenager down faster than an adult being fake, versus being able to say, “I just want to play with you and spend some time with you.” And in that process is usually where a teen is going to tell you something hard. 

SARA: Mm, yeah. 

DAVID: That's when they're going to disclose, is not when you're intentionally trying to have this serious conversation that like, “What?” You know, they're just going to often shut down versus facilitating an environment that feels like it's safe and fun, and they're connecting. That's when it's going to feel safer for them to disclose things to you that are hard. Listen, I get it, it is so hard. We have this conversation on the regular about how do we raise a technologically literate child, because this is going to be a part of the world, that's the way it is while also having the appropriate boundaries that parents need to have because we are our kids’ substitute frontal lobe, the part of the CEO of the brain not fully developed to your early 20s. So we are those temporary breaks and trying to interact with technology and simultaneously keep our kids safe, I have found it's also really valuable for those listening that might have tweens to start having that conversation in tweendom, when you can still kind of get under that – like, 10, 11, 12 – when you can still get under that adolescent's radar about, “I'm your substitute frontal lobe. I'm going to help you when you can't pump the brakes or put a good boundary up because you're not sure how. That's my job.” I think that's a really valuable way to have that conversation because I think a way a lot of adults have that conversation is through the lens of moral failing, like good children do this, bad children do that. And that just inevitably can unfortunately cause some unintentional harm. 

SARA: That is really helpful. And I'm curious about our older children – and this might be a little bit of a personal question, but I know it's applicable to a lot of our families – because I have a 20-year-old who went to college for the first time this fall. And she struggled. This is my trans daughter. So how can we support our kids long distance, those kids who are in college or starting a brand new job in a new city, or something like that? What are some tricks we can use there? Tools. Maybe not tricks, tools. 

DAVID: Sure, tools. Well, first, the first thing that I want to say about being a parent of an adult trans child, you are the parent of a child that has had an experience you will never be able to understand. And that is so difficult and so native to this experience specifically that your child has walked through the world in a way that you, yourself, have not, and other family members have not. And cis women, in dealing with the patriarchy, misogyny is difficult. For trans women, it's like times 10, because there is nothing more treasonous than for a man to be feminine in this kind of a culture. And someone born male to be feminine. And then, likewise, a lot of trans women experience a lot of objectification because there are a lot more heterosexually identified men that are trans-attracted than will admit. So you've got so many layers of complex things that you're trying to navigate as a young trans woman, that your parents would have a hard time understanding and might not feel comfortable talking about it. So I think a good place to start is being able to speak on what their personal experience is, and being receptive to that, and things that are native, often, to that experience. The other thing, too, I'm a big fan of FaceTime. Like, have FaceTime dates with your kid. Maybe they're in their dorm room, like, “I'd like to eat dinner with you tonight,” and put the phone on FaceTime and eat. It's weird for us, normal for them. Weird for us, normal for them. It's like, you can have mama in the room with you, and we can chat about what we're watching on Netflix thanks to modern technology. 

SARA: I'm just laughing because I'm like, oh my god, I had not even considered this. It’s brilliant. 

DAVID: Yeah, like being able to be present with her when she's talking about dealing with transphobia, sexism. And a lot of the things are going to be native to your experience as a cis woman. But some of them are going to be very niche, like a very curved experience or perspective. My younger sister is a woman of trans experience. And I am constantly learning from her. And let me just tell you, taking that opportunity with your queer child to be teachable, it is so powerful, because this is also one of the, I think, the neatest things about the experience of being the parent of a queer child is, in that respect, it is often reversed, role-wise. That you are not the person that actually has the wisdom or the lived experience or understanding. Your kid is. So being teachable and being willing to listen and read things they ask you to, watch videos they ask you to, makes those kids feel so seen. Because they know you don't know. They know you don't get it, but it's so powerful for them that you are willing to try, to learn.

SARA: Yeah. I'm really seeing this as stretching across relationships of any age. As I'm listening to you, I am remembering listening to Jen Hatmaker on a podcast where she confessed that her therapist told her when she was talking about parenting, “less control, more connection.” And the idea of being teachable to any of our kids, I mean, I think it's parental instinct to want to fix and make it better, and really to be a receptacle for whatever it is they're feeling without trying to fix it can be more powerful. 

DAVID: Well, but I want to – to that point about control – I want to bring back up again the concept of safety because and really relationships in general. When someone we love dearly is struggling or in pain, we want to fix it. And so, I want to offer this tool. It's my favorite to use in session. The three H's. You ask that person that you love when they are venting, “Do you need my help? Do you need me to hear you, or do you need a hug or a combination of those three things?” What you have done right there is you have answered your own question of what do I need to do to “fix”, to be useful to this person I love. What you've done for the person that's talking or venting is you've given them permission to say, “I'm not interested in your help or insight. I just want to bitch about it. Or I really need some answers or solutions. Or I just need to hug and cry on your shoulder,” or a combination therein. It is the easiest way to ask in any relationship, parent-child, spouse, whatever, what do they feel like they need from you in that moment to feel seen? 

SARA: Oh, bless you, thank you. I'd never heard that before. I'm going to take that. That's wonderful. So that's, “Do you need my help? Do you need me to hear you . . . 

DAVID: Or a hug. 

SARA: . . . or need a hug.” Oh, I love that. That's so helpful. 

DAVID: Because remember, the safety piece is listen, I don't know about you, but I'm straight up a mama bear. Like, if I think somebody's hurting my baby, it's about to be on like Donkey Kong And I have to remember that that is a natural human instinct. That is a fight-or-flight experience. For any of us, whether we have more maternal or paternal instincts, because I believe they can exist in both, and we have to be able to recognize that sometimes our effort for our bodies to feel safe because our children feel safe, can feel like control. And we've got to be able to step back and go, “Okay, I need to regulate,” because the parenting cake is baked by adolescents. You have parented that kid. And at that point, it is now a consulting gig. That's how the brain changes, too. So, like, once we get to adolescence and definitely early 20s, we become relegated to consultants. 

SARA: Oh, that's sad, but yes, but so true. 

DAVID: But also healthy, because we want our kids to be able to not live in our basements the rest of their lives. 

SARA: That is true, and we want them to be happy and healthy. And I know that sometimes even our missteps at least come from that place of dearly wanting our children to be happy, healthy adults. 

DAVID: Yes, so much that. And helping our kids understand. Like be willing to say, “I'm so sorry. This was my intention.” Another thing I always talk about in therapy is intention versus perception. The only thing we have control over is intention. Perception is out of our control. But what we can do if someone feels safe communicating how they perceived us, and that it may have felt hurtful to them, is being able to be open about what our intention was, and accepting the need to apologize and correct, because ultimately, our children – because they're not robots. They're individual humans with their own personality traits and lived experiences – they're going to receive us through their lens. And so sometimes that means they perceive something very differently than what we meant. 

SARA: Yeah, that's a really great reminder. So now I want to turn this directly into the experience of the holiday season and navigating all of the additional dynamics that come with this time of year. And maybe you can help us understand a little contextually why the holidays, which we hope, we wish, are supposed to be – some of us live in that kind of expectation world, joyful – can be so emotionally intense for so many queer youth and their families. 

DAVID: Let's just do a quick little visual exercise, if that's okay. Do you remember all of the Norman Rockwell paintings of, like, Thanksgiving, Christmas under the tree, all of that. 

SARA: Oh, yes. 

DAVID: Yes? And imagine, like, all of the Charlie Brown specials and that they all had little morals tied up in a neat bow. And they had very curated imagery of what American family was and looked like. 

SARA: In my world, it's Hallmark Christmas movies. 

DAVID: Yes, yes. 

SARA: Everything, you know, a little bit of conflict, and it's all okay in the end. 

DAVID: And I think what we have to realize first, we have to stop with a conversation about family, that over 90% of families are actually, by definition, dysfunctional. Like, functional, that's something that we were taught via television like Nick At Night? That's where that particular brand of socialization came from. It's not based in reality. There is going to be conflict, there is going to be. . . It doesn't mean you don't love your family. It doesn't mean that you're not able to connect and enjoy time and space and all of that just because you aren't looking like a Hallmark movie because none of that's reality. Okay? Humans are messy. Humans are complicated. I do think that it is extremely valuable for the person that has the most power in the family, that may be a matriarch, patriarch combination therein, to have very, very clear communication that there is to be no discussion of religion or politics. Period. In this time, it's creating a bubble: these are both unacceptable topics in this setting. And if you cannot observe that then – particularly when you've got people of varying ages, generations, etcetera. And I'm not saying don't say grace. I'm saying, let's not have Uncle Tom, Uncle Bill's crap opinions about who the Bible likes and doesn't. Like, NO. I just think having that as an understood boundary. Now, the hard part is, is that when you have the person that has that power is unwilling to do that or they want to take a position that the need for that boundary is wrong or not okay. That's when we have to make hard decisions, that your leverage is your time. And I'll give an example. My husband's family, they live in a very small mountain town. They're very loving people, but they have a lot of ideas, beliefs, views that are kind of around the late 70s, early 80s if that makes sense. And so we had to have a really hard conversation, that if us and our kid are going to be there, these things are not going to be okay conversations because we don't want to teach our son XYZ. And also, we don't want our son to have a perception of you that is harmful. Like, we want you to have your connection with your grandchild. And we're teaching him this is okay. If you are going against that, their perception is going to be that you're not okay, not that what we believe or are teaching is not okay, because children tend to be more attached to their parents' views, feelings, beliefs, etcetera, unless of course, we're talking about where there's a fundamental difference in the child's natural identity which happens with queer kids. 

SARA: Yeah. Well, and I'm curious specifically to talk about our trans kids, where parents are trying to navigate or anticipate misgendering, deadnaming, or even for those on the cusp of coming out and all of the different ways with different parts of the family just kind of overall tension or dismissal. And what are some ways that we can prepare ourselves and our child ahead of time? 

DAVID: Oh my gosh, this is so hard, because I've seen it and lived it being done not well. 

SARA: Yeah, I think many of us have, live in, and the experience of it being not good. 

DAVID: But right, no. Like my sister, she's 46 now, in the earlier years of her transition, it was just not good. Like, deadnaming, all of that. And you know, we're talking in the 90s, late 90s, early 2000s and at that point, I think this is the – when we're talking about a teen, we're responsible for keeping them safe, protecting them, holding boundaries for and with them. When they're young adults, we are now actively disrespecting them by not observing their wishes and desires. So if you have a 20-year-old kid that's trans, that’s, you know, was assigned male at birth, uses she, her pronouns, has changed their name, all of those things, made those things clear to you. It is an act of disrespect to not observe those. It is not, in my opinion, a situation of agree to disagree. We have now entered a territory where you are comfortable actively disrespecting me and not trying to respect me and my wishes and desires, so this is not a safe, this is not a place where I choose to be. And that's the choice that most trans people are going to make. They're going to say, “I'm not going to be in that space.”

SARA: Yeah. That's a hard space. Talk to me about how parents can support kids and family when our kids don't want to attend gatherings because they feel unsafe. So I think what I'm speaking to is what I hear described as that tension of like, okay, as the parent, I can actually be okay and support my kid. You don't want to go. You don't feel safe. We've gotten to the place where I'm like, that's fine. But I'm going to go. But then now I am going to be the receptacle for the fallout, the consequences, the tension from my child not being there. 

DAVID: I love that. Thank you so much for clarifying it in that way, because let's talk about what we're actually talking about. We're actually talking about how we're perceived. We're talking about a fear and an anxiety of being perceived in such a way because we are against something that someone else is for, or vice versa. Is that fair? 

SARA: Yeah, I think so. Well, and I think it’s fair, and it's also interconnected with that family dynamic, right? So now I am going to my parents. So, I'm reverting into my childhood self, because I have to interact with my parents. 

DAVID: Yes, balance of power is off or feels off anytime with parents, because they're fundamental to our foundation. But the thing about those environments, two things that I want to mention. I'm going to reference back to the digital native conversation that how this is also affecting digital migrants. Interestingly, not necessarily so much the digital natives. But digital migrants, because we grew up in a world where the news came on twice a day and where we could trust these larger organizations or talking heads of power, that they were critically thinking and vetting information before it was delivered to us. It's now all just a free-for-all. And so people are able to selectively edit what information comes into their space to only be information that confirms a bias. And so, when a machine like the political machine decides, trans people are the enemy –less than 1% of the population, but somehow they're this big, scary group. That message is received by people that have filtered their information coming in that way. So, I think you have to have that in your mind first, that we're not going to be having a conversation sometimes that is about agree to disagree, because you're talking about people living in completely different realities because of the way they have filtered their stream of information. It is different realities. So I think in that situation, the most helpful way to handle that is that it's a boundary. That when there is the “Why did (Deadname) your child not come for the holidays? blah blah blah?” “Because they feel disrespected by your decision not to call them their preferred name and pronouns and I support them in doing what they need to do to feel okay, and not have to endure that.” It's, we shift the monkey right off of our shoulder onto them. This onus, it is not on you to make your parents feel okay about it. It's not. 

SARA: Right? Yeah. 

DAVID: The conflict is actually within that family member that they are unwilling to be teachable, listen, be patient. They're not willing. It is more important to confirm whatever their bias or belief is. And I want you to think about this. It is so important to them that it does not matter if it feels hurtful or harmful to the other loved one. Like, we need to really, really sit with that, that it's so important that they aren't willing to even listen or entertain the very real emotional pain that this other loved one is experiencing. Is that someone we even want to make our kid be around? 

SARA: Yeah, that's a good question. That's a really hard question, I think, for parents especially at this time of year, a really, really tricky place to navigate. As you're talking and I'm thinking about these various scenarios, and you mentioned this earlier, I know that I often struggle to stay calm and regulated when these really tense conflicted moments come out and the mama bear activation happens, right? So, very often, I notice I'm choosing not to do things because I know this about myself. But I'm hoping you can help talk with us about some ways that we parents can help ourselves stay regulated and maybe also help our kids, too, who are maybe feeling that their own sense of dysregulation in our stress or in the dynamic of the dinner table. 

DAVID: Well, I mean, let's talk about what regulation is just from that vantage point. I'm telling you, if I had a dollar for every person that asked me to help them control their emotions, I could retire right now. But the thing about it is, is that the emotional experience is a natural one. It's not gendered. In fact, men have more emotionally reactive brains than women. Women just have more social permission to express feelings, which is the reason why men, so often it comes out as anger because that's the one they have permission to express. So emotional experiences are natural. What we have control over is behavior. And that's what we're trying to learn. When we're trying to learn regulation, we are trying to deal with an emotional response in a different way because we don't like certain behaviors that have happened perhaps in the past because of an emotional experience. So, in this setting, you're literally in a space where the balance of power feels off, because it was a place where you were the child. You're in a space, it's not unusual for adult children wanting to be pleasing, or encouraging, or to connect with their adult parents. And feeling that tension and anxiety because they're making you feel uncomfortable in your role as the parent to your child. But flipside, your parent feels uncomfortable and unsafe because things you're doing or believing, perhaps they feel, “I'm not going to see my child in the afterlife.” Or “My child's going to hurt my grandchild.” They're also, like we’ve got to bring that to the table. They're also often struggling with what they see. I think the holidays is a terrible time to try to fix that. So I think the best conversation to have is, “You know what? You're worried about me and my safety and your grandchild's safety. I'm worried about my kids' safety and well-being, and that is going to be a conversation that's not going to be good for us, because we want to connect and enjoy each other right now. Can we just agree not to talk about this, this, and this?” I've even suggested because I have an aunt that's extremely conservative. And the place where we've gotten to is we refer to my sister as my sibling. She flat refuses to use the correct name, correct pronouns, etcetera. So I will not deadname her or use incorrect pronouns to my aunt. But it is respectful, in my opinion both ways, that she can say sibling. 

SARA: Wow. 

DAVID: You know, so I've negotiated, she's negotiated, we both still feel safe. And we are able to interact in love because we do love each other. We do want to still connect and share space. So I think we have to be able to realize that when we're coming to this table, we've got multiple fight-or-flight systems interacting, trying to vie for safety and regulation, and we’ve got to own that. And sometimes that's as simple as, “Let's go play Twister. Let's go bake something. Let's go sing some Christmas carols.” Or even if it's like maybe gamifying somewhat with pronouns, what have you, like, let's play Gender Twister or let's all wear silly costumes and lip-sync. Like, maybe try to take some of the serious out a little bit to make it feel safe for everybody to interact. 

SARA: Oh, I love that. That is great. That speaks to this question that I had for later about for families without affirming relatives, what are some traditions or rituals that can be fun on their own terms? And I love the invitation even with complicated family, to invite some playfulness, something, change direction completely. 

DAVID: Yes. And I will say this, too, about non-affirming families. I want to be really clear about something. My presumption in this conversation is that the family does at least have a healthy desire to connect and love that other human. That is not always the case. And in environments where they are just hell-bent on being right, in control, forcing certain dialogues or narratives, those are not safe environments. And those usually are going to come with making the very hard decision to say we're not coming. 

SARA: Thank you for naming that. 

DAVID: You are more than welcome. 

SARA: Those two realities are very true, very strong. 

DAVID: Yes, we have to be able to have the insight that this environment, if it is an environment that requires you to completely perform and thus –I'm trying to think of the right word to use here because the first word that comes to mind is bully – bully our child into performing, if everybody has to perform in this environment to maintain stability, there's no real connection happening at all. None. There is no real connection. If everybody's emotionally exhausted after that experience, and “Oh, thank God we're home and we can just be ourselves,” you're not connecting there. You're all performing. And in those environments, that means that sincere connection is not valued And I don't think that those are healthy places to be in for anyone, any of us, for any circumstance. And it's okay to give yourself permission to say, “I'm not going to be in this setting because of how it negatively impacts me.” You're dealing with a narcissistic or borderline parent, you're going to have fireworks. 

SARA: I appreciate that. That's such important clarity for folks to think about, and also to be able to hear from someone that permission, that it's okay to not have to try so hard, or perform, or force something that isn't possible. 

DAVID: Well, there's two things that I always say in regards to parenting, because first of all, all of us need to be saving for therapy, because we're all going to do something that our kid wants to talk about on a couch someday. That's just reality. There's no such thing as a perfect parent. But there's two things that I always try to remember and that I always try to share with clients that are parents. And it is that the first thing that you’ve got to be committed to is loving your kid unconditionally. And that's hard, because they're going to do and be stuff you don't agree with. It's easy to talk about, and as though it's so simple. But, no. They're not robots. They are individuals. They're going to do and be and say stuff that you're like – currently, we're all dealing with the 6-7 trend, those of us with tweens. Y'all out there, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And we are rolling our eyeballs out of our heads – But the other one is, if you always think about what you're doing, if you always think about it in terms of, “What am I teaching?” If you always start there, be it punishment, consequence, behavior, whatever, it will inform how you interact in ways that nothing else will. So, for example, this environment where it's a narcissistic, or really just cruel, family member that you are forcing your child to be there for performance. You are teaching that child that they should compromise themselves for unkind and cruel people for the sake of performance and appearance. Is that a lesson you want to teach your child? 

SARA: That's really helpful. I think that's a really good way to approach these times. 

DAVID: Yes. 

SARA: In a situation where, I hear this kind of scenario a lot. The young people, the youth, the tweens and teens, out of affection for the grandparents and the extended family, want to try. Right? They're the ones that are like, “No”. I hear this reverse where parents are like, “We don't have to. We'll stay home. We'll do our own thing.” And the kids are like, “No, I want to try. We can try. It's okay.” Like they're actually, in some ways offer a little bit more grace, maybe, than some of us parents in those situations. 

DAVID: Uh-huh, uh-huh. 

SARA: Which is beautiful, and they teach us a lot, and also those situations can be really fraught, and there can be some disconnection and some conflict that arises, even if they've given themselves permission to be in that space. So how can parents then help our kids repair emotionally after an incident, after a conflict, a gathering where the kid has put themselves out there and something didn't go well? 

DAVID: So this is another very multi-layered. So let me try to kind of take this in sections. For one, we have to be able to identify, is the problem with the family member our problem or the kid's problem? Because if we're trying to deal with our problem through the kid, that's going to be an issue. 

SARA: Yep. 

DAVID: Because it might not be a problem for the kid. I will tell you, like my sister with our grandmother who lived to be 86, it was 100%, “I don't care what you call me. You're my nana. I love you. It's fine.” So me getting bent out of shape as the older brother and she's like, “Would you chill? Like, I'm good. She's 86. Pick our battles here. We're going to go eat fruitcake, and whatever, and spend time on the Christmas tree.” Like I think it's really important for us to be able to disconnect, is it our issue, or is it our kids' issue? Now, when our kid comes to us and says, like when it's a real, it is a concern, we know this is an environment where there's going to be things that are said or done that are emotionally hurtful to our kids. And we don't want to go there, we don't want to do that, and our kid is really insistent, like, “No, I want to go spend time with this family member.” Um, I think we have to have the “start” conversation. I'm very much an advocate about being proactive versus reactive. Start the conversation with, “I think this is beautiful. I think this is wonderful, you want to extend this grace. Let's talk through right now what it's going to be like for you if they use the wrong pronoun, the wrong name, if they start talking about political things that make you uncomfortable or upset. How do you want to handle that? How can I show up for you and support you in that because you want to try to maintain this connection with this family member?” And as they talk through it, well, one, they may go, “You know what, uh, never mind.” Or they may have some really insightful things to say and talk about about it. And then afterwards, you are able to have a conversation from the vantage point of what worked, what didn't versus, let me try to pack my child's heart back into their body that's just been ripped out like a pit bull on a front porch. Have a conversation before. Be real. And then afterwards, have a download about it. “Well, how do you think that went? How did that feel? And what would you want to do different if you did it again next time?” Does that make sense? 

SARA: Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think that's lovely, and I think you've really given some really concrete support when I hear a lot of parents navigating these kinds of complicated situations with their kids. That's beautiful. 

DAVID: And I also want to encourage all the parents out there, there is no harm in encouraging your children about critical thought. So, for example, you have a family member say something that is just wacko nutso. And it really hurts the child. It really upsets them, wounds them. Like saying something like, “Gender identity is not real.” When we know you can walk into Target and see the psychological experience of gender playing out on every aisle. Barbie's not biological. Being able to invite your kid to investigate the belief of the other person, to look it up together, look for things that are factual sources instead of reacting to it, or being upset or afraid. Go ahead and lean into, “Well, let's explore it together.” And see if they knew what they were talking about. You give permission and you're teaching your kid, not to take other people's word for things. 

SARA: And I'm having this vision going back to how we started this conversation of the young people pulling out their cell phone, like, “Come on, Grandma, let's look that up together.” 

DAVID: Uh-huh. Literally, we have – critical thought used to be something that was taught in college. And it's so funny, because the whole term “woke” is an academic term that got snatched and redirected as a political one. And I'm like, I ask my classes, “Do you know what that word means?” No clue. “It's a word for a liberal.” “No, it means Aware. It means aware of the past and how it affected things from a psychological and sociological vantage point.“ Oh.” So I think because there isn't someone at the helm doing the critical thinking for any of us, the more we can model and teach that for our children, and what will happen is when they hear something that's just absurd it has a little less of an emotional impact, because you can immediately identify, “They don't know what they're talking about.” 

SARA: That's great. 

DAVID: And sometimes it's better to have peace than to be right. 

SARA: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, this is the whole structure of that conversation, is just being able to tease that out. When is it peace? When is it harm? Right? 

DAVID: Right. 

SARA: When are we overreacting or underreacting? Like, I think all of that are things we’re navigating in ways so many of us never anticipated. 

DAVID: Absolutely. And you don't have to have all the answers. Sarah, you don't have to have all the answers. You can literally turn to your kid and say, “That felt weird to me. How was it for you?” 

SARA: Yeah, that's great. 

DAVID: Give yourself permission to check in with your kiddos even in the moment because you know what? They might surprise you. They might be like,” Memaw’s 93. We good.” 

SARA: That's right. That's right. That's very helpful, I love that, too. We don't have to have all the answers, that's one I’ve got to remind myself of every day. 

DAVID: Same! 

SARA: Like, I think I do. Like, I know I don't. But somehow, as the parent, I'm like, “oh.” 

DAVID: We want to, though. Sarah, we want to. We want to be able to, again, safety, we want to be able to know in our bones that we can keep our baby safe. And it is such a bizarre environment to feel like we can't keep them safe in a place where we felt safe growing up. It's such a like [makes sound]. It's such a mind meld kind of a thing. And so, I just think, the consistently checking in, having really clear boundaries and expectations that are not about anything personal, just that “This is the best thing for us to be able to enjoy ourselves, that we just don't talk about these things.” I just think it's valuable because anything that's a major family issue, instead of trying to navigate that or solve that around the Christmas tree or the Thanksgiving turkey, how about we go to family therapy? 

SARA: Oh my god, that's a good idea! Yeah. Well, and you know what, I really appreciate, like, perhaps the holiday gathering of everybody maybe is not the place to have to have the harder conversation. Like, we can bypass that and schedule a time to have that later one-on-one. 

DAVID: Well and to pursue peace up to a limit. Like, I really think that we – I think of the counseling norm that our number one goal is to do no harm. 

SARA: Yeah. 

DAVID: And if it is apparent that the intention is to do harm – and that happens. There are those jerk, usually, male family members, but not always, sometimes it's female family members – that are saying something because they know it will get a response, or rile somebody up, or upset someone. Those are the situations that, for me, are a very hard, “That was not okay.” Like that, to me, is a situation of a call you out immediately of “What you're trying to do and set that example for my kid that what just happened was not appropriate. It's not okay to be intentionally hurtful to someone like that.” Doing that in real time, I'm totally down for that. But those are very – honestly, most people think that they're being helpful, or trying to be encouraging or healing, or however. Most people don't think they're the villain. 

SARA: Right. Right. 

DAVID: They think that they're doing the right thing at the time. So navigating from understanding where somebody is operating from is really helpful, too. 

SARA: So I want to talk about when it's all over, and thinking about recovering from the holidays. And I want to ask this question on behalf of our community, which is mostly moms. And I'm going to name that I'm going to ask it in a really stereotypically gendered way, which may not be true for everyone but probably is true for a lot of people, which is that moms tend to take on much more labor in the family, particularly in the holiday time. And lots of work. They're doing the cooking, and the cleaning, and the wrapping, and the gifts, and like tying up all the bows and loose ends, and navigating the family dynamics, and all of that. So speak to us about when it's all over, what can we do for ourselves to help maybe release a little stress, re-ground, like, find some reconnection with ourselves that can get lost at this time?

DAVID: Absolutely. So, I actually want to speak to a labor that you did not mention, and that is emotional labor. Of course, because I'm going to just go ahead and say, female or female-minded persons, in relationship and family tend to be doing the bulk of the emotional labor because that is their perception of what their socialized role is and what's acceptable. And often more masculine or male-minded people, their perception is, “My role is to provide, build the things, set the thing on fire, make sure there's money.” And of course, these are based off stereotypes, but some of it is also based off some biological impulses, what have you. And the reason I want to focus on the emotional labor is because it is exhausting in a way that physical labor isn't. And the majority of the emotional laboring around the holidays goes even into the physical labor. Why do we want things to look pretty? Because it makes people feel happy. It makes people feel the spirit of the Christmas and the holidays. Why do we want to put out our grandmother's nativity set? Because it feels sentimental to us. It means something to us. Why do we want to get gifts that our children enjoy and are excited about? Because we feel that excitement vicariously. There's all of this emotional labor that often feels unappreciated or not seen or ignored, which then makes us feel a little like crap. 

SARA: Yeah. 

DAVID: So I think, one, having a pre-conversation before the holidays about equitable division of labor, emotional and otherwise. And the way to ask that question is, “So this is what has to be done, what are you handling?” to your partner. Not asking permission like, how are we dividing this equitably? So that also means giving yourself permission to let go of certain things. But then after it is all said and done, ideally, I would think we could arrive at a place where it's all said and done, and we feel a sense of peace and gratitude for a positive experience. But I also know that this is the reality that we live in. And that's just not the case. A lot of the time, particularly the more children you add to the mix. And to me, that's give yourself permission to Not People. “I'm getting ready to go lock myself in my room with the book and my Netflix, bother me at your own peril.”

SARA: Yeah, yeah. 

DAVID: Because what we have to think about with emotional labor is that it's like a cell phone battery. It has limits. We know instinctively that physical labor has limits. But we don't think about the fact that emotional labor actually does as well. And so we need to be able to recharge and rest that emotional battery just like we would our physical body. And give ourselves permission that when all is said and done, and we are drained in every way, shape, form possible, that it is completely okay to say, I need downtime. 

SARA: That is fantastic. Thank you for that reminder. I think it gets lost even when we know it, especially when things get busy. And I really appreciate you naming emotional labor. We could have, and maybe should have, a whole episode really dedicated to that because that is a real truth that I think I'm only just noticing the social conversation. It's coming into more and more social conversation and relationships. 

DAVID: Because it's been so assumed and native to females and moms. Like, that's the presumption. look at every television program in the 1950s and 60s. Dad's emotional labor revolved more around doing things that were focused on making Dad proud. 

SARA: Yeah. 

DAVID: Moms were solely tasked with any kind of, like, emotional, psychological stability when children were crying or upset, or learning about faith traditions, what have you. It's a real thing.  And it's why probably a lot of the mothers in the 1950s and 60s were medicated. 

SARA: Yeah. And disentangling ourselves from the idea that we need to make everyone else's experience good, happy, pleasant, joyful, that it's okay for it all to be a little messy, which is, I feel like has come out of this conversation a little bit. This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you. I feel like I feel more prepared to go into the height of this holiday time. And I hope that our mama dragons feel the same. Before I let you go, though, David, we have two final questions that we like to ask all of our guests at the end of every episode. And the first question has to do with the Mama Dragons name, which came about out of a sense of fierceness and fierce protection for our kids, so we like to ask our guests, what is it you are fierce about? 

DAVID: Oh, I am fiercely protective of queer children, fiercely, fiercely protective. I operate from a headspace of that it is not a matter of these children just randomly wake up and choose who they're going to be. These children are who they are. And we either greet them with a sense of a gardener of nurturing and encouraging them or we try to be a carpenter and build them in the direction that they want to go. And the only time that that works out well is if the child is already growing in the direction that you're trying to build. And so it's, in the nature-nurture conversation, I think that it's 50-50. I think you have biology that absolutely influences things and the nurture part is how we are helping them observe their own lived experience and learn how to interact with that. 

SARA: Lovely. Thank you. And my final question that I want to end with is, what is bringing you joy right now? And recognizing that in this political climate and in this holiday season, we need to hold on and find that joy. So, where are you finding it? 

DAVID: I find that joy in the moments when it's me, my husband, our son, sitting in our game room. My husband's playing video games. My kid's playing video games. I'm playing games on my tablet, like very 21st century family. But we're talking to each other back and forth about different things. And we're just in the space. Our dogs are there. And none of the insanity out in the world or on the internet matters at all because in those moments and in that space, it's just us. And nobody is stopping us from having that. No one can stop us from doing those things and being those things for each other. And there is such a beauty in that, that as much fear and insanity is out there in the world, we don't actually have to always let it into our space. 

SARA: Brilliant. Beautiful. Gorgeous wisdom to end on. David, thanks again. Thanks for all you do. Thanks for your fierceness, and thanks for this really powerful and helpful conversation. 

DAVID: Absolutely, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much, Sarah.

SARA: Thanks so much for joining us here In the Den. Did you know that Mama Dragons offers an eLearning program called Parachute? This is an interactive learning platform where you can learn more about how to affirm, support, and celebrate the LGBTQ+ people in your life. Learn more at Mamadragons.org/parachute or find the link in the episode show notes under links.

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