Renée Imbrogio | Personal blog

Renée Imbrogio

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24.01.2022 Throughout our years together I have had guilt around my husband being the main bread winner. I have sat in guilt and anxiety around the thoughts, we could hav...e more if I went to work, there would be less pressure on him if I contributed financially. I have even sat in unworthiness and questioned myself around am I lazy for not working? Could I be contributing more to my family, others and society? Don’t get me wrong I have had part time gigs and earn pocket money over the years, even returning to earn decent part time wages for periods of time, but my main focus since our children were born was being a Mum. I was pretty much a full time Mum for the first 10 years of my girls life. This was a high value for both my husband and I. However it didn’t stop the critical voices in my head around this decision and the often negative feelings about myself that it brought up. These feelings still occur when I wonder if I, we, will look back and wish we had of had a double income throughout those years. Will he blame me or resent me for not working when we don’t have as much as others, who made a different choice than ours? Then I have to remind myself why we chose to value raising our daughters this way rather than dollars. We had decided before they were born to forgo the extras like expensive holidays, bigger house, fancier cars or expensive clothes and focus on being more present for them. We chose to budget and be frugal going without materially in a lot of ways to have the family experience that we chose and made sense to us. It was our choice we made together, however if it wasn’t me second guessing this decision, aspects of society could make me feel bad about this choice too. There is always that question, So what do you do? I do remember saying in my younger years just a say at home Mum. My now Renee would love to either slap that me or hug her and say there is no such thing as JUST a stay at home Mum!!! It is a full time job without any of the support or benefits you would get from a paid job like supervision visits, HR support, lunch breaks, paid holidays, sick days and lets not forget the independence of earning your own money. I even had a coach ask me in a session one day what would your perfect day look like, I explained that I would have cleaned the house so it felt fresh and homely. I would have a fire going, a roast in the oven ready for the kids and hubby to walk through the door after their day in the world. It wasn’t my imagination that she had looked at me strange because she proceeded to ask me, Are you sure this would be the most perfect day you could think of? This actually was my dream day and totally for filled me, it made my heart sing just imagining it but for some reason this isn’t enough. I have even felt guilty for the luxury of being a stay at home Mum, especially when I meet single Mums that do not have the choice to stay home or Mums that need to work because their husband aren’t being paid enough to support all the families needs. When I think about the pressure it put on my husband to be the only provider and all the hard work he has to do to keep us afloat, I have to remind myself how much pressure he would have been under if I worked. He would have been doing the same work plus also needing to contribute to helping me more with the household and the girls. I remember my Mum when she had to work part time and how her mental health was really stretched. This really impacted on our mother daughter relationship and created pressure between her and my dad. I guess this experience made me very mindful of my mental health and whether I would cope with providing what I wanted as a mother and working too. I take my hat of to those mums that can but for me it would take a conscious effort to keep the balance and not loose my sht. It sucks that even I have to justify to myself that I work just as hard as my husband and without me playing this part in the team how much would the team suffer. I have had to override all my own judgements around being a SAHM. I am not a women who is taken care of financially, I earn every dollar and more by supporting my husband, who works long hours just as I do, we are beside each other equal in building this family. I feel us if Mums are damned if we do and damned if don’t work so no judgement here for either I am pro choice. So for all those working Mums out there you are supper women to me, all those SAHM’s so are you and remember your job is just as important as any other. To all Mums never undervalue the work you do in raising your little ones. Because it is not only the toughest job in the world but the most important, make sure you stay mindful around your mental health and emotional wellbeing whichever road you choose.

08.01.2022 New group I have started to support Mums/ women around prioritising the Mother role and mental/emotional health.

08.01.2022 My plea to you don’t raise people pleasers, please!! People pleasers start of as parent pleasers, ouch that hurts!! I don’t know a child that doesn’t beam prou...dly when a proud parent rewards great behaviour right. People-pleasing behaviours evolve as a way to maintain connection and closeness with parents who are inconsistently available to their children. So right here if you are consumed by the busyness of everyday life or are just surviving yourself in staying emotionally or mentally well you are not going to be able to be consistently present for your child. But this is the nature of modern life no wonder we are at high risk of raising people pleasers. So at what cost to the individual? Sacrificing self to co dependant relationships by making self indispensable to others needs, blending or editing self to fit in, forgoing connection to personal needs and dreams to fulfill others and loss of true identity. How this can present is low self-esteem, overachievement, strong need for control, type A personality style or perfectionism. You can tell how much a person may be people pleasing by how much they are afraid of being rejected or abandoned. If they are preoccupied about what others think and feel, fearful of saying no, setting limits, or seeming mean, need approval of others, stuck in relationships where they feel they give more than they get, overworked because of an overdeveloped sense of personal responsibility, neglectful of their own needs, often feel exhausted, overbooked and burned out trying to take care of others. The bottom line is that the fear of rejection or abandonment fuels this behaviour and the belief that I’m not worthy of love or connection. We have to support ourselves and our children in being more self motivated by what’s happening inside us rather than focussed on external rewards. The feelings that happen when we people please if we really become aware, make us feel terrible inside and ultimately we are rejecting self in the process. We have to tip the scales the other way and begin to stop abandoning self or rejecting self love for the love of others. This is how we grow in worthiness, when we believe we are worthy from the inside out. I have come along way in my recovery of people pleasing which I definitely know was developed in my childhood. I now can check myself and choose to support self instead, which actually supports others greater than if I was still people pleasing. It totally is a win, win as I am now able to be more authentic which allows others to be this too. This has reduce high expectations and allowed acceptance to come into to all my relationships, it is the way to unconditional love. I am also practicing greater self responsibility which empowers me to feel more self reliant, filling from within to fill others. Of course becoming what you want your children to be is the best way to achieve this but there are a couple of others things you can practice too. Always try to get your child to be internally focussed and reduce their external focus. For example, when they are wanting to do their best in a situation ask them, How is this important to you? You would be looking for them to say if it was supporting a friend for instance, I would feel happy because I had helped and that would make my heart feel full. Instead of because they need me to help them otherwise they will feel sad, or because that would make my friend happy. Secondly rather than offering external praise in situations, get the child to explore how they feel and can praise themselves. You can ask things like,How did that make you feel that you did, What did you learn about yourself in doing.. Some may argue to be a nice citizen, a good friend or partner we need to raise people pleasers but people pleasing is not genuine caring, kindness or giving as it is based on expectations. If I do this you will not reject me, I will be more valuable to you and you will have to love me. I argue we need to raise people who do for others because they want to without any underlying conditions. This is how we will have unconditional love and connection with others. I know this isn’t the norm as most see not people pleasing as being selfish and people pleasing in society makes for a nice person. But the costs to the individual and relationships are to high to ignore. Something needs to change and as Mums we have the power to do this.

06.01.2022 I have written this blog post to encourage Mums, actually all women to claim their right to self care!!

05.01.2022 My latest blog post for a bit of leisure reading over this wet winter weekend