Exploring the Possibilities with Lisa Canning, author, designer, and mother of 8!

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, a practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and fifty four. We're going to be interviewing Lisa Canning, who is a fascinating woman. She is a designer, author, mom of eight. We are always interested to hear how people make it work with large families. So, speaking of large families, in a certain series called The Babysitters Club, there was also a family with eight children, I believe, Oh yes, yes, the Mallory family. Can you name all till all eight? I probably could at some point, because I think there could right now. We're both of the age where we were obsessed with this. It was very important to our ten year old selves. So, Sarah tell us about The Babysitters Club, your new favorite TV show. Yeah, that show is amazing and if you haven't checked it out on Netflix, you absolutely should, particularly if you were born sometime in the late seventies or eighties and enjoyed the books when you were growing up, because man, they did an amazing job translating those books, keeping so many of the elements, but also modernizing it. I mean, I just hats off to the team that did this adaptation. I am in love because it's not like an nineteen eighty eight period piece. It's like actually, and it could have been, and that would have been fun, but it's even better the way they did it. Now, well, how did that because I mean, thirteen year old girls don't really babysit anymore. Well they do on the show. They do on the show. Okay, I would hire these girls in a heartbeat. I mean, the very response they it seems like they do a lot of like short daytime jobs for like kids that aren't that young. I mean that part's a little You're right, it's not as common anymore, but I don't know. I buy it. And they bring such they bring they just did such a great job. They brought diversity elements, all different kinds of diversity elements into the show in really like cute and poignant ways. Just I don't want to give away any spoilers, but I just watched episode four last night and was like, yes, it's just great. So it was. It's such a great business idea though, I mean, this is the babysitters Club. If you think about it, you know, it's you could find any sinner, like if you had a you know, Friday night and instead of calling to six people you have I mean, this is less of a sort of thing. I guess now you can group text them all. But it's uh back with our technology that we had at the time, you know, once oh one hundred. I mean I actually think, yeah, it was a it was a good ideas. There weren't more actual copycut well. Chris ste Thomas was a good little entrepreneur and she you know, made it work, made it work. I was obsessed with the books. You read like a lot of them, right you, Oh yeah, Like I mean until they got to triple digits and I kind of outgrew it. I read all of them and like many times each I recall I had a I had some of them. I don't know. I somehow didn't have the ability to buy them or get them or whatever, but I would sometimes I would spend the night at a friend's house who had all of them. I don't know, somehow she had gotten all of them, and I would always like read one, like she'd go to sleep and I'd read one, and they're like, ooh, forbidden fruit, Dan and m Martin. I wasn't forbidden. It was just I didn't have all of them or whatever, and she did, so it was it was like I could always find the new one there. So that was that was really cool. But yes, well you should check it out and let us know about your Babysitters Club reading memories if like Sarah and me, you are somewhere between the ages, and I'll mention that if you have a child between the ages of I don't know, it's seven and twelve, seven and eleven something like that, they may really enjoy watching with you. Because I had Annabelle joined me last night and I actually I was a mean mom and I didn't let her start at the beginning. She didn't care like I had already watched episodes one through three and I was like, do you want to watch episode four? And she was like okay, and she loved it, and it like sparked good conversations and it did feel quite age appropriate. So there you go. All right, we'll check it out now, onto Lisa. Well, we are delighted to welcome Lisa Canning to the program. She is the author of the book The Possibility Mom. She is also a designer. You may have seen her on HGTV in the past. She is also the mom of eight kids. Her youngest was born right around the same time that Henry was, so just at the beginning of twenty e twenty. So Lisa, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk to you. Well, we're excited to have you as well. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your career journey, because I know you've had a lot of different iterations and I would love to hear about how this has gone. Yeah, for ten years, I was an interior designer in my hometown of Toronto, Canada, and I got my start in front of the camera hosting a show on HGTV, which was a very unique and super fun experience, and then that led me to working behind the scenes on several productions in the HDTV world. So I worked with the Property Brothers for many years, and I worked behind the scenes on lots of different lifestyle television shows. And at the same time as building this television and interior design career, I had like a whole bunch of babies. So basically every other year I popped a child out of my body. And as the demands and the excitement and the fun and the fame grew in my business, just as rapidly I was raising a whole bunch of kids and navigating not only how to be a good parent, but like how to do both of these things well, how to work and how to be a good mother, how to be a you know, a good leader of a team, and be a good wife. And basically it just became increasingly and increasingly increasingly more difficult, and everything for me hit the absolute fan when I had my fourth baby, so my fourth baby in five years, and I basically convinced myself just seven days postpartum, that I should like bring her to a messy construction site. And I just remember that day, sitting in my minivan that was like my my come to Jesus moment, so to speak. Where I was like, if I continue down this route of constantly putting work and constantly putting other people first ahead of everything, to be very frank with you, my health, my marriage, my relationship with my kids, like it was not going to be not only sustainable for my health, but it just was not going to lead to good relationships. And so where I pivoted after that was getting to know and learn everything I could about time management and eventually develop my own sort of philosophy and methodology. And that's what I'll got turned into my book, The Possibility Mom, And now I coach moms who also want to pursue their dreams but not at the expense of their priorities. Well that's what we do here. We try to have the best of both worlds. And Lisa, I just have to ask, because I'm mildly obsessed with how are Drew and Jonathan in person? Oh, it's such a great question. They are exactly as you would imagine. I have never seen to be very frank with you, like I think I'm a hard worker. These guys are so hardworking. They bend over backwards for their fans. They are incredibly dedicated and loyal and honestly just genuinely nice guys. Yeah, it sounds like they are from their personality. It's so wonderful to hear that that's exactly true in life as well. Lisa, how old are your kids currently? Are you ready? Are you ready? Eight? Okay, we already lift them up. I have an eleven year old boy, a nine year old girl, an eight year old boy, a six year old girl, a five year old boy, a three year old boy, a two year old girl, and then baby Colleen is six months. Yeah, that's you know what, if you combine Laura's family and my family and you put him into one, we'd pretty much get your family. It's true, it's true. But that is amazing. I love the fun part when you have enough kids, like their birthdays change often enough that you it's like you have to really think through it, like where are we in the year? And doing school forms for me is like you need a bottle of wine and you need like six pens. Like I'm just like okay, and here we go again, and here we go again. Oh my goodness. Well, and I'm sure with you guys made a huge move this past fall from Canada to Florida. So I'm sure there was a ton of stuff associated with that. Yeah, you know, we lived a very I loved our life in Toronto. I loved our friends, My family is all still there. But we really, with eight children, were desiring a more quiet pace of life, and we did consider staying more locally, like maybe just moving out of the city, moving to you know whatever, just like out moving out a little bit. But ultimately we had we had vacationed in Florida quite a bit, and the particular community that we found, I just we fell in love. We fell in love with the proximity. We fell in love with the simplicity. I live in a town that doesn't even have a stop light, y'all. And I was I was in Toronto, which was like I couldn't. It took me like fifteen minutes just to get a bag of milk, you know what I mean. To remove some of the kind of hassles, obstacles like you know, again winter, oh my gosh, boots and hats and mits and all the things for eight children, Like, just removing some of that has been hugely helpful for our you know, mental physical health, and of course proximity to sunshine. Just really want in the ocean. So yeah, that was that was very much why why we decided to make the very ginormous move for a slower pace of life for our family, for a large family. Well, switching countries is certainly you know, welcome to America. Great time to be here, Florida. No less so. But I totally get that. You know, eight pairs of flip flops totally beats eight pairs of hats, you know, gloves, boots, coats, scarves, et cetera that are necessary for the northern climates. Did you did you know that you were Did you always think you'd have a big family as this, you know? No, no, my god, Oh it's so funny. And I have you know, like I've got groups of friends who knew me, you know, sort of in a different time, and then groups of friends who know me now so to speak. And there's a group of friends who still when we get together, you know once in a while, who are like they just are like this is what happened, like not in a bad way, but just meaning I was never a trajectory that I ever ever imagine. I really I remember this so this group of friends that I'm talking about. They were when I was younger, so more high school kind of group, and it was like, you're you know, I basically was just like, I'm going to be a CEO by the time I'm thirty, and so that's there's no room for kids and babies until I'm thirty, like like like at the minimum, Like I really had hardwired in me when I was younger that success only looked like that. And so yeah, so it is quite the hilarious, you know, I it is it truly when I think about it, if I were to go back in time to a younger Lisa, like a high school age Lisa, so like my late teens, and said, yeah, you know, by the time you are thirty six years old, you're gonna have eight children, I just would have been like, there's no frickin' way, how is that even possible? But guess what, everybody, it is? Is it your Was it your partner's influence in part? Like was your husband like let's have more, let's have more, let's have more, or was it just kind of like we just kind of take it one baby at a time. I'll be very frank with you, like I true. And you know, people when I was younger, like meeting younger and as a mother, like when I just had a few children, people would be like, are you trying to like compete with like the duggers? Are you like, is it some kind of contest like? And I was like, no, I don't not any babies in any kind of contest, like come on, but yeah, but just very truthfully like the experience of having children with such a blessed and positive one for me, My faith also informs some of my decisions around being open to a large family. And to be honest with you, I just I really like babies. I love I love the dynamic of my large family. I was always very intimidated by it. I didn't have very many models of large families where I grew up in Toronto. There were only a few I could chump them on my hand, and so I just never even thought it was a possibility. But you know, just as we continue to go on, and as my work our careers evolved, we just sort of roll, you know, just continued groling with it. So one baby at a time, though, one baby to time, and they're all amazing. We're going to take a short ad break and we will be right back. We're here interviewing Lisa Canning, who is a designer the author of the book The Possibility Mom, a mom of eight children between the ages of eleven and a baby. So, you guys moved to Florida and you know here you are a designer, So tell us about your process of making your house into a good, big family home now that you're there, Like, what did you prioritize getting first, any any sort of tips for people who are really you know, what should I spend money on? What should I not spend money on? As I'm trying to make my home nice and functional for my family. You know, I think we're such an unprecedented time and history of course, where everybody now who has spent so much time at home is realizing, oh my gosh, like like either I think I feel like, you know, the the ugly things or the non functional things are coming to the surface for people. And so what I would say is that a home should help a family thrive, and thriving is going to look different to everybody. This is what I unpack in the coaching that I do with moms. What does it look like for your unique family for you as a person to thrive, and so for me, I love to entertain. I love to create experiences. I you know, my deep desire for my home is that it is the place where everyone feels welcome, where everyone feels like they belong and that they can come. You know. I I purposefully like make extra food so that if one of my kids friends like wants to stay for dinner, there's there's always a place at our table. And so that requires planning to accommodate that. So for example, if I always want somebody to have a place my table, well I better have a big enough table, you know what I mean. If I want my home to be the kind of place where my kids' friends like to like, you know, lounge around, like to do the things that they enjoyed, then I better have it enough like you know, comfortable seating or the games or the things that they can do together. The pieces of furniture that we place in a room significantly then dictate the function of that space. So you know, I just did my master bedroom. You can go on my blog Lisa Canning and on my Instagram at Lisacanning to see the transformation. I deeply desired my bedroom to be the place where my husband and I could just recharge. I got a bolt, like literally there is a bolt, Like it's the kind of lock you need an external key because my little children, my toddlers went like, you know, it's take a diggadator, like just like just they broke the lock, and so I was like, gosh, darn it, we're getting a bolt. So it's the kind of place where truly we bolt the door and it's just it's quiet, it's serenity, and it's a place for us to recharge. Personal sanctuary or something. The children are trying to see that they won't be a ninth child. I guess that's a different lobby for there. But yeah, you guys definitely check out Lisa's Instagram page and her blog and you can see her designs and how she's been making her house look beautiful as you might imagine that she would do so. So one of the things, you know, with you guys having your sanctuary there, I'm sure part of this is, you know, with quarantine, it's less possible to go out and do stuff. But when I interviewed you a few months ago for something else, you mentioned that you and your husband had been able to prioritize a weekly date night even with all those children. So how have you made that work? What does that look like for your dido before quarantine? Yeah, so before quarantine, it was just a non negotiable that our available funds would go to babysitting once a week at the minimum for the ability to go out and to date each other. And you know, and this is the thing I talk about often in the moms that I coach, Like when you were wooing your spouse or whatever, like you did you showed up for those dates, you know what I mean. You didn't wear sweatpants, or maybe you did, but you know what I'm saying, Like you put effort. When we're first dating our spouse. This there's a lot of effort made, and that all just kind of goes downhill when we get married. But why why does that hook have to go downhill? And so I just think that that same intention, that same feeling of like I want to still date you, is very much why we prioritize this. Mental illness is a thing in our marriage. My husband suffers from He suffered from depression very seriously in the past, and anxiety is a constant thing for us, and I just have found that the ability to step away, to lower the court is all level, to just connect and be present to each other is just instrumental for are both of our health. You don't need to be diagnosed with something to have practices in place to ensure that you're thriving, and so yeah, it's a real big non negotiable for us. So before quarantine, there was always a babysitter, and to be honest, we just kept it very simple. We would just go locally to some kind of you know, restaurant. We're not very it's not necessary for us to do some kind of grand experience. We really just like to sit and talk and be present. And then during quarantine, when babysitting wasn't really an option, we would just try to make like the meal we had fancy. So I would make like the same kind of a cheeseboard and like fancy wine glasses, the same kind of thing that we might experience at a restaurant. I would try to emulate that at home. We would like set a table like on the on the front porch, like all that kind of thing, So trying to still make it special regardless of the circumstances. Yeah, such a good idea. In home date nights are great. When they out of the home date nights can't work, although as you've noticed, it still can interrupt you. Yeah, dead bowl, I have a dead bowl. Take the cheeseboard into the bedroom. Well, I'm curious since you know this phone call features two extremely amazing time management experts, Laura and Lisa. Lisa, I know all about Laura's tips, having worked with her for more than one hundred and fifty episodes at this point. But Lisa, I'm excited for your book and tell me and Laura, like, what are your favorite time management like what is your If you had to have like one or two big takeaways from the Possibility Mom, what would they be? Time management is actually about priority management. I think Laura and I are so aligned. I just love everything that you know Laura produces in regards to time management, and I know we're very aligned on this. You can do all the things, like you can create the Google spreadsheets, you can buy all the apps, you can you know, get the calendar, you can get all the things, But if you're not putting the correct things in your day timer, like if you're not doing things that are truly going to move forward your ability to thrive in life. To me, it doesn't matter how fast or fishing you are doing things. So let me just unpack this practically, when I was pre my minivan meltdown, that's my affectionate term for that period where I was bringing my baby to you know, a job site, and when I had my big like you know, come to Jesus moment in terms of how I was living my life prior to that, if you had asked me, oh, do you put your family first, like above you know, your work, I would have been like, oh, yeah, of course I do. But if you had open, you know, my agenda, if you had seen how I actually spent my time, like actually, get went through the exercise of like, how do you actually spend your time? I was basically working all of my waking hours. If I wasn't actually physically working, I was thinking about working. I was distracted. I was always on my phone, so I'd be at a playd aid even you know, in front of other mothers, and I'd be like, it's secretly in the corner, like texting or doing work. And I think the first real big realization we have to have is that there are activities and actions that you can tie to your priorities that will make that priority continue to be important. So if you want to be a person who is healthy, you've got to do things that a healthy person would do, like run, like meditate, like eat good food. If you want to be remembered as a mother who was present and engaged, well what are some of those activities that actually have to be in your calendar, like, for example, put your phone away for an hour every single day. And I think that's the big like the piece for me that I will like die on the hill or whatever. The expression is is that if we don't correctly identify our priorities, all is lost and the activities must be in our calendars that will make those priorities remain important ones. How we live our hours is how we live our lives. Right, So love it, love it, love it Now. That was excellent. So we're going to do a few big family hacks because this is a can you had interest of mine all the time. So for our listeners, what do you drive, Lisa? What can you can? You? Guys fit all of you in a vehicle. We are in a ten seat for transit. And for those of you who don't know what that looks like, it is a very common airport shuttle. Yep, she drives an airport shuttle, only it doesn't have the hotel name on it. You put your name on it. The cannon van, the canning bus. Honestly socks, laundry and socks. Socks I all white, no patterned, no nonsense. I I have some moms of large families who do the same size sock. I have not done that. So I do have like toddler size, like you know, medium size, but it's all white, no patterns, and good luck if somebody gives me pattern socks. I'm like, yeah, good luck with that. I think we had one parent who did like a color for each child. I thought that was interesting of a large family, but yeah, one color is even even simpler that way. If you get your brother's sock, it's okay, all good, all good, favorite big family meal. Anything on my trigger smoker, So you guys, I just got a smoker, and I am like, what is this so Florida? Oh but I'm like I am, I am a conor genius all of a sudden, like the thing makes me look like I went to like, you know, the court on blow like it's ridiculous. So anything, any big hunk of meat, literally, just give me a big hunk of meat, put it on a smoker. That's my favorite big family meal, all right. My uncle used to smoke the Thanksgiving turkey every year and outdoor, big outdoor smoker. So not just Florida, Laura, It's right, I'm awesome. And how many kids are in each bedroom in your house? And how do you have them sort of stacked in there? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, so my So part of the reason why we moved to Florida also was because the real estate here was a little bit more favorable for us, and so we were able to get a substantially sized home for the size of my family. So I've got my two older boys share room, my two younger boys share room, my two girls share room, and then the babies are sort of like in like, okay, this is is this case scandalous? I'm gonna tell you, but I feel like I'm gonna get letters. People are going to be like, oh my gosh, you're the worst mother. My toddler, the two year old is in our walking closet, but everybody my walking closet. And this is I'm not trying to brag or whatever, but it's the walking closet. Here is the size of my bedroom back in Toronto, Like just the real estate is just so different in this where I am and so the two babies are a bit closer to us down in our bedroom. We had that experience when we moved from New York City out to the suburbs of Philadelphia, where like we can buy whole blocks for like the price our apartment in New York, which wasn't huge. So it's yes, now, I totally get that Toronto's a crazy real estate market as well. So and Florida's true, you can get a lot of space as long as you're not in very specific areas. You can have a lot of kids and give space. So, Lisa, our listeners love the kind of day in the life thing. And I'm especially when you've had sort of quarantine kids home, lack of childcare. How has daily life looked in your household? Right? Yes, it has been a lot of juggling, like like literal like past the baton, So and I coached quite a this has been the theme of my coaching for the last four months or how many months we've been in this crazy time. But essentially to really look at so for me, I had to look at what is essential that only I can do truly, and I had to be ruthless with Okay, I can do those things, and they're going to I have a two hour block in the morning, and I'm only going to do those unique things. And for me, it's things like this, like only I can record an interview, only I can create content. And so my husband and I re simply just sat down and was like we were like, okay, there's certain aspects of my job that I need solute, like dead bolted door for and quiet for. That's going to be my morning two hour block, and then you're going to get the afternoon block for whatever it is that you need to do. That is absolutely like behind the closed door. I have blocks in my day where I do work that is I call it like passive work, so I can be in it for a moment, but if a child asked me a question, I can easily pivot, and then I can pivot back without getting frustrated. I think the key thing here for working parents is that we can't spend our entire day juggling. I think that would just be so exhausting and so so. And you know, there's been lots of things written about the impact of mothers and career and all the things. It's a challenging time, but I don't think it has to be the death of us, like this is the thing. You know, there was a New York Times article I feel like you probably both read it right recently that coronavirus I'm paraphrasing, but that coronavirus is like negatively impact of women's ability to continue her career. And I wanted to I literally I remember reading it. I was shaking my computer basically. I was just like, it doesn't have to be this way, Like, yes, it's hard. I'm not trying to say that the things that have been asked of working mothers in the last four months have been difficult, but it does not have to be doomsday. And I think what I just expressed is a really big key component of it is that can you figure out what really only you can do, how much time do you really need for that? What can you then negotiate with older children or with your partner or whoever, so that you can get that time, and then can you be strategic about how you use all the rest of the time, like, for example, like literally give your children specific activities, whether that's screen time or other things, so that you can get that other little chunk of what I call sort of like passive admin. But I truly think there's an approach to work that is like maybe perhaps because I'm an entrepreneur and because I'm a mother of so many, I've had to think about these things in this context, like what can I do with kids? What can I do without? Because truly, if I worked my whole day without like like meaning I could work for hours and hours and hours without without children, but then I would never see my children, you know what I mean? Like I had to get a sense of like, if I want to spend some quality time with my children today, I've got to figure out a way to do my work, either like a faster or I've got to say what can only I do and then what can I hand off to some young millennial who doesn't have children who would love to do these tasks. But I truly think that, like again referencing this recent article, like I just truly think that we aren't always approaching work with the strategy of the things that I've just talked about, like that we don't have to do everything outsourcing. It's always good at work and at home. So a common theme here. So Lisa, we always end with our love of the week. So this is something that is exciting for us this particular week or whatever. Uh, it's something you're enjoying. Sarah can go first, since she thinks about this ahead of time and I often do not. So Sarah, you start, I will not repeat my intro. Love Well, I'm gonna be don't forget to check out The Babysitters Club because it's amazing. But also I just finished The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas. It was marketed as YA, but it really crosses all genres. So timely, so powerful. I highly recommend, and it goes fast. It's the fun read. So I have been reading a ton of decorating books while I've been at the beach. It's just something that, you know, I like looking at pictures of pretty houses and it's calming, and I have not had the bandwidth to tackle anything like you know, toll Stoy, So I am reading books you can Usually the kindle versions are very cheap, you know, it's not quite as good an experience of reading, like a coffee table design book. But I don't have I don't want to stack up books at home after I've looked at them anyway, So read down my kindle, get them from the library if I can. And I've just been doing that, Lisa, how about you? So does it have to be a book? No? No, you can be Oh my gosh, Hamilton the musical, Oh yeah, I have. Like, I think my family is absolutely sick of me singing it around the house because I've just been like, which song are you singing the most? Well? I do? I do? I do? I do? Like constant, I'm just I'm My kids are like I hear my toddlers being like I do I do? I do? I do? I really need to find another thing to sing because I have been singing that constantly. But that is a piece of art, you know, like just a piece of I was. I was slow to the Hamilton Bandwagon, like I I got into it when it first came out, but I was definitely slow, and I was slow to get onto this the new movie as well. All my girlfriends were all tech saying like did you watch it? I'm like no, they all watch it like literally when immediately came out anyway, So but it's it is a beautiful piece of art. Hamilton is awesome. I've been singing the King George stuff. My kids like to sing that song. Yeah, exactly. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for joining us. To tell our listeners where they can find you. Yeah, on Instagram at Lisa Canning and then my website to Lisa Canning dot ca. All right, thanks for joining us. Well that was great. We are back with our question, our listener question. So I can go ahead and read it and Sarah can give her response and they'll give mine. So this listener writes that I'm currently feeling very burned out in my position. I'm in the medical field, not dealing with COVID patients, but I am the primary breadwinner for our family. I want to go down to part times that my job feels meaningful again, but I can't afford to lose my family's healthcare. Mostly, I do not want to expose my kids to the disease. Even though it's low risk, there's still a risk. What should I do layer unpack on this question? I mean my first thought and this person's medical so maybe they kind of know this, but they're just not processing it in a way. But I just want to reiterate, like, we do know that this this disease is much more risky for adults than for children. So the ending statement where she doesn't want to expose her kiss to the disease, like that part is such a slightly odd ending to me, because really she should be worried about worried about like leaving them an orphan or something, which is still not super super likely, but is more likely than some risk of the children getting it. Yes, children do get sick from COVID, but it is quite rare. So that part was just that was my science slash evidence based note. And I do wonder whether there's like a cultural undercurrent of like it feels better to say you want to protect your children than that I am scared of this unknown and this uncertainty, and I don't want any of us to come up harm, which is okay too, I mean I'm not discounting that, okay, So that was my first thought. My second sort of practical thought is I don't know how part time you were thinking of going, and I know Laura is going to say, don't do it in general, but I was able to maintain my full insurance package at eighty percent. I'm currently at ninety percent. So you may be able to work some degree of part time, Like if this is just a matter of like you like your job but the volume is just killing you and you need a day off every week or every other week or something to recharge, you may be able to do that and preserve your health care because you mentioned that that was a concern. And I guess my third thing before I let Laura take over the answer because I feel like she's going to have more useful things to say, But like, I really feel like you need to take a deep dive into what is making you feel burnt out, Like it's just a volume thing, a tired thing, a like I'm like just sort of a fatigue of the uncertainty, which I totally understand. Like I feel that all the time. Are there aspects of your job that you still love that you could expand And is there anybody superior to you that you could kind of dissect this with and talk about your feelings, because my guess is they probably don't want you to disappear. And you know, in the medical field at least there's at least some effort to work on combating physician burnout or nurse burnout or whatever your position may be, and so there may be help out there for you. Yeah, it was sort of hard to There are a lot of issues in this question. I mean, yes, as you said, it's more that she would be at risk than her kids would at risk. I think a lot of people are feeling like we need to They want to protect their kids in a crisis situation, and that's a way that we can express our fears, like oh, I'm protecting my kids, when maybe that is not the actual case here. I was also curious why her thought that going part time so her job would feel meaningful. Again, like if the job doesn't feel meaningful, I'm not sure why it would feel meaningful at fifty percent versus meaningful at one hundred percent. Those are different questions, like the volume of ours is not what makes something feel meaningful or not, and in in some cases, like it's hard to get to the point of meeting when you're not full in So I just I feel what may be going on here is she talked about being a breadwinner, and a lot of female breadwinners that I have studied over the years go through a feeling of being trapped at different times. Every job has ups and down. That's the nature of work. When you are the soul or major breadwinner, you have less of an ability to take the actions to deal with that that many women wind up doing, which is that they opt out for a bit, like they take a year or two to be home with the kids, they go part time for a while, they switch to a job that's more flexible, or you know, something along those lines, because it's not their money that's keeping the roof over their heads. And if you are the breadwinner, you don't have the ability to do that. And I think we could pause in this situation and say, hey, that's interesting because men have dealt with this for a long time. Maybe there's many men who would like to switch jobs, go part time, take a year off, and feel they can't because their families would be out on the street. So we can pause appreciate that. But we can also say, okay, well, let's deal with the issue of why are you unhappy? Do you like your job in general? If so, what are the things that would make it feel more doable? If you hate your job? What else could you do that would be of a similar level of income that would also provide benefits. Are there ways you could transition to that over time? If you need a little bit of time off, maybe there is some way you can take some leave, right Like people get burned out and haven't taken all their vacation days, Like, don't be that person. Take your vacation days or any you know, sabbatical that might be available to you, either non paid time off. If you can keep your benefits, you might be able to swing it to not work for a couple weeks if that's an option in your place. You know, just focus on what would make you feel better and go with that understanding that yes, all jobs have ups and downs, and a lot of people feel at this time like it's a crisis, but we will get through it. And you don't want to do anything that's going to cut off options for the rest of your life because of a rough couple. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds talking with Lisa Canning and about the Babysitters Club. We will be back next week with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.