ResEdChat Ep 45: Jess Robinson on Being a Working Parent in Residence Life

Dustin Ramsdell

All right everybody. Welcome back to Roompact’s Res Ed Chat podcast. I’m your host, Dustin Ramsdell. And if you are new to the show, this is a podcast series focusing on a variety of topics of interest of higher ed professionals who work in and with college and university housing, residential education, all the names under the sun. And this episode in particular today is really interesting to me personally because I’m a parent, I have a three-year-old daughter, and I’ve never really talked about it at length within the context of working in higher education. And certainly residence life brings its own unique challenges and opportunities of working as a parent and everything. So I imagine maybe this could be the first of many episodes. It’s a very complex and nuance topic, so we’ll cover as much as we can here today. Maybe just starting from the more general lens, but Jess, you are joining us here to talk all about this, but before we get to anything else, if you can introduce yourself briefly and give a quick elevator pitch style version of your professional background and then we’ll get onto our topic.

Jess Robinson

Awesome. Thank you so much, Dustin. Hi everyone. My name is Jess Robinson. I use she, her pronouns. I currently serve as the associate director at San Francisco State University within residential life, but I’ve been working in residential life since the mid to early 2000s. Started my career back in the Midwest, been in Michigan, Indiana, been out here now in California. I’m just starting my seventh year. But more importantly to this, I am the proud parent to a four-year-old little girl. Also a single parent and I work in residential life. And because I live in California and in San Francisco, I actually live on campus as well. So I do not only am I an administrator within residential life, I also live on campus with a child. So I’m excited to share my experiences and connect with y’all.

Dustin Ramsdell

Yeah, I guess it’s good just to have a couple of those footnotes around, your own experience because as much as parenting is just a challenge and title and responsibility that’s shared by so many, there’s always the nuances of the context that any of us parent in. So I’m sure that’ll interweave into our conversation today of living on a campus, being a single parent, and certainly something that we share of parenting through the pandemic over the past few years. And I guess because you’ve been at San Francisco State University for the past several years, so my connecting the dots, at least you had your child while you were there. So that at least has been one constant through prior to her being born and since she’s been born. So I guess we’ll start there, I guess. We’ll start big, just the general experience of being a parent at Res Life. So that’s been all there at San Francisco State University and just what has that experience been like for you?

Jess Robinson

To be honest, it’s been for the most part, very positive. So I mentioned earlier I’m a single mom. I did that by choice, which means I used an anonymous donor. So it’s just her and I. And from the minute I started thinking about this, I’ve been extremely supported by my department, my division, the institution. I think one of the things that’s really important to mention is I probably wouldn’t have been able to take this journey if I was still working in higher education in other places in the country. California is a very open accepting state. Our health insurance and our healthcare allowed me to take this journey, which I don’t know if I would’ve been able to do that had I lived in Indiana or even Michigan, which are the other places that I’ve worked.

Dustin Ramsdell

Yeah, because I guess that’s a very important point and we can sit with that for a minute. So I guess how long this was on your mind, was that just literally part of the decision making process of just you’re putting it off? And I guess not even you moved there purely to do that, but after you moved you realized that wow, this could actually be more possible.

Jess Robinson

Yeah, I think to be very honest, I’ve always wanted to be a mom, my entire life. I’m the oldest daughter, I’m the oldest kid, oldest cousin. Anybody that has worked for me will tell you that I have that mama bear energy. So that has always been something in my to-do list. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t think it was possible before I moved here. So it wasn’t part of my active choice to moving to the state, but it was moving here and the experiences that I had here that made me realize, oh, I can actually be a single parent. Prior to that, I’ll be honest, the intensity of residential life, the expectations of residential life, I did not think that I could be a parent on my own because of what was required of me as a woman working in higher education, being in leadership positions in higher education, the standards and the expectations. I, to be honest, wouldn’t have probably done this if I had not taken this job up here and experienced what I had out here.

Dustin Ramsdell

And I think that’s something that I want to bold, underline, circle, highlight is any institutional leader listening to this, I think it’s an important takeaway of the subtext or implication of what you said is, one just the area that you lived in, I’m sure it’s just like, yeah, I could see raising a kid here, but then just the institutional culture, the perks and benefits and all that. It’s like, I think it might be that weird thing where you don’t even realize that if you are the leader of an organization or people start to be like, wow, everybody’s having kids and doing all this. It’s like, yeah, because you’re probably doing the right things if people feel like great, great parental leave, I’ve got great health insurance, I feel like I’m not so burnt out. I can’t even think about even trying or planning or anything like that.
So how important it is to build that really good supportive culture just with the nuts and bolts of just stuff you can quantify of what kind of leave policy do we have, what kind of other perks and benefits and insurance things do we provide and all that kind of stuff. So that’s really powerful. Yeah, it’s a tragedy that that is a story shared by so many people of they just, because I’ve heard stories of just even, for other goals that people have had in life where they’re like, I live in New York City and all this other stuff, I just thought X, Y or Z goal just was not possible. It would not happen. And then I went and moved out to Iowa or something, found a community that I really like and I’m now able to open up that coffee shop I always wanted to, whatever.
It could be, whatever it is. And just that idea of changing context and how many people were putting off or just thinking that certain goals of theirs weren’t possible because of the context that they’re working or living in or whatever else. That’s really profound as well. And just great that you found a place where you were able to realize over time, wow, maybe I don’t need to perpetually put this off. And that’s really awesome. And I think even just the next part of it, because I think part of it is the quantifiable policies and those things, but even just working relationships.
And it sounds like you at least felt comfortable bringing it up to people, but I guess just talking about that interpersonal piece of just norming that you were interested, that you were planning, that you’re pregnant, I guess because that’s even that idea of you have to work within those policies and that culture with people and as good as everybody’s aspirations or intentions are, that’s obviously probably where maybe some of the bumps come in of just presumptions that people have, good, bad or otherwise. So I guess… Because I know the way I framed the question when we were prepping was what do you wish other people knew about regarding this experience? So I guess just talk a little bit about that.

Jess Robinson

Yeah, I think something you said earlier really resonated me is I have to adjust the other things that I want to be able to accommodate this dream. And I think that that for me, or I had to get out of residential life, I hear a lot of people say I couldn’t be a parent in Res Life, so I’m going to look through other aspects of higher education work. I’ll be honest, I’m a Res Life generalist. I don’t have any desire to do anything but residential life. I think it’s fantastic that people have other aspirations, but I like what I do. I don’t want to do anything besides residential life. And so for me, one of the things that was really helpful in this whole process was understanding that one, my supervisor was leading a shift in a change of how we look at residential life and really honing in on not everybody has to be there all the time for crisis or to do all the work, they were like, take your vacation.
So for instance, we just actually had the conversation with our team of our hope and unwritten expectation because we’re not going to force you to, but our hope is that you take 10 days off in the fall semester and at least five of those should be in a row, because we want to make sure that you are creating that wellness. And that time away and that attitude is not anything that I had ever experienced before. And so that was something that was really important. I think the other aspect of it was once I started to I think get comfortable with the idea myself that I was going to go down this path, I was the only parent in residential life. Nobody else in my department has any kids, and my boss was very much like, I’m not a parent. I have never supervised a parent, so you just tell me what you need and I’m going to accept that as the truth.
And so we had to establish that trust that I knew he was willing to listen when I was like, I need something different. And he knew me well enough to know that maybe wasn’t always going to ask. So a great example is he took me off the duty rotation about two months before I gave birth and was like, you’re not going to be on duty for at least the two months after you come back from maternity leave. And so we just worked it out and made sure that I frontloaded some of those responsibilities or backloaded some of those responsibilities. But he was very open to making some adjustments, figuring out how we do things a little bit differently in a way that we hadn’t done before.
And so his openness was really helpful. I think as well, the rest of the departmental leadership was super helpful around adjusting and making room for the fact that we now had a parent in our group. And so, one of the things that was really great for me when having those conversations is I didn’t feel like I had to hide what my desires were, what I needed, how this was going to change, how I approached the work that I was doing. I think another thing that was super helpful, obviously I have a private office and I’ll be probably another topic for a podcast. We had one heck of a fall semester when I came back from maternity leave. It was the fall of 2019. We had a student leader protest. We had a lost master key then COVID hit in that next semester.
And so I brought my daughter to work with me quite often because she was little. When they’re little, when they’re two to four months, they’re pretty easy to just sit on a bouncer on my desk and I can work on different things. And so my daughter came to work with me pretty often in those first few months.

Dustin Ramsdell

Yeah, something that’s resonating with me is the idea that you considering and becoming pregnant and giving birth to your child seemed like it introduced maybe this variable that had to be interfaced with of just reckoning with work-life balance or any of those obligations that are just standard operating procedures for residents life. And it’s refreshing that the fact that they were even making those changes, because I think some places might’ve been like, oh, well we’re talking about this or that, we’re considering whatever, and that it’s like you make the rules, you can choose to change or bend them or whatever. So this is not natural law that we’re dealing with here about duty rotations or whatever else. So that’s really, really great that they were so receptive to that.
I guess as a clarifying question too, do you feel like it was on the spectrum of you had to ask for things and they were just like again, that idea of, well, you tell me what you need and we’ll try to make it happen. And on the other side that they were suggesting things that you didn’t even necessarily consider that you feel like it was a good mix that you were both active in the process and being actively supported?

Jess Robinson

Yeah, I think it was a combination of both. And for me, I have a hard time asking for help, I think, and I feel guilty sometimes asking for help. And so it was really wonderful when people would suggest, Hey, have you thought about doing this or what about doing this? I think the other aspect of it that adds to that guilt is I’m one of the only, at that time, I was the only female leadership team member in our department. I’m still the only female director within our department. And so at times that felt like I wasn’t maybe pulling as much weight as anybody else. And so my colleagues were super supportive of like, no, Jess, we’ve got this. You hang out with your daughter, jump in when you can. I think that was really helpful, especially at the start of the pandemic of me trying to figure out, even the small childcare that I had figured out pre-pandemic went away and I was trying to figure out how do I balance all of this?
My daughter is now six to 10 months old and she’s now mobile, and that’s not as easy. It’s not as easy to work from home. And we were still on campus, all of us live on campus, all of us work on campus and we still had residents here and how do we manage the duty situation? And I didn’t even have to ask my colleagues like, we will take care of duty until you can get back to campus with us. And so I moved two and a half hours away to my parents’ house and zoomed in to work every day, and I didn’t have to worry about duty for three months because they were really willing to just say, we’re going to do this. And I was able to then take on extra things around some of the COVID planning and some of the other aspects and allowed them to manage that. So it was honestly 50/50.

Dustin Ramsdell

Which I feel that’s what I wanted to hear, that idea of that they were engaged in the process and were also receptive to you probably just being assertive with maybe just very niche that was not at that time an experience that they had some familiarity with. So they would need to rely on you to maybe be mindful of particular things. But yeah, it presents this challenge and opportunity to put into work a lot of things I think we espouse as conceptual values or whatever else. Yeah, it just really can be that variable to reexamine what expectations we put on which people, and even just broadly, why do we even do that or something, and then it just can maybe have other ripple effects, but even just the fact that it tells me they valued you enough to do what they needed to do to support you and that you were in kind more than willing to do what you could do, like you said, other duties to support the team and everything.
So I think, yeah, me looking at this question now as the interpersonal, it’s that idea of wishing other people knew that they can be much more of an active support, because I assume most people would probably say the thing of just, you tell me what you need and we’ll do whatever, but then they’re almost too passive. They would just pull back so much and it’s on you entirely to ask every single time, could you maybe do this? Could you maybe do that? And you would hope that people will… Because that’s even the idea that they could suggest something and you’d be like, actually, no, I don’t want that. And that could be where you are negotiating or something because I think that could be the slippery slope that I imagine many people in higher ed Res Life may not make, but that they would be overly accommodated.
They’d put you in a bubble and be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, don’t do anything. Just put your feet up and whatever else. It’s like, no, I like doing this work. I like being here. I want to contribute, so don’t coddle me. So yeah, you would not want them to be overly suggestive about how about we all just take care of everything that you have to do, and you just realize… It’s like, no, no, no, come on. So yeah, I think that it’s really, really helpful to explore that of how you were interacting with your colleagues. And now I’m just thinking of a good follow-up question. How did you interact with students and student leaders around this? Because I guess just the idea of you had to make maybe pivots every once in a while or different things about expectations. So any anecdotes I guess, about how you were engaging with the students that you’re supporting?

Jess Robinson

Well, the funny thing is, is that I was very open about my process of trying to get pregnant, and I even blogged during my time of trying to get pregnant, and some of our student leaders had found my blog. So before I even made an announcement, they were super stealthy, because they were like, oh, I found Jess on Instagram and she put in her blog, and so now I’m going to read it. So most of them already knew that I was pregnant before I even announced that I was pregnant. And so they were super excited for me, those that I had good relationships with. And I think I don’t do as much in my role. I don’t have as much student interaction as some of my other team members. And I think when it came to working with students, to be honest, now, a lot of our students are like, I just need a mom hug.
So it definitely humanized me in my role as the associate director, as a person that manages appeals for terminations and all that fun stuff. I think that it very much has humanized who I am as an individual to these students because they are like, oh, Jess understands the parenting thing. And I’ll be very honest a lot of times, even with my campus colleagues who are not parents and they’re talking to a parent, sometimes they’re like, maybe we just need to send Jess in as the parent. Sometimes that is a labor on me, but also it is helpful because it does humanize me as an administrator, as somebody who’s making tough decisions, and I think that’s been really helpful. I think for those of you that are more directly working with students in that day-to-day operations, I think it’s just being honest.
I think our students and our student leaders have high expectations of response and availability, especially for our live-in team members. And so it’s being clear about your boundaries, like going back to Brene Brown, clear as kind, it is about being clear. And I think also managing your own guilt for being clear. That has been, I knew to expect the mom guilt, but I think it has taken a lot more of a toll on me than I ever anticipated around the guilt of prioritizing my role as a parent over my role as a residential life professional.

Dustin Ramsdell

Yeah, yeah, parental guilt, especially mom guilt, I would say, because I think that has maybe the combo multiplier of this little person that I created. Yeah, because that idea of the clear is kind I think is another just great takeaway. You can apply it in a lot of circumstances, because I think people, just like you said, knowing that you are a parent is going to change the way I think that people empathize or sympathize, but then just also being clear of, Hey, I am running late from drop-off or pickup or my kid got sick. Just being clear about that versus canceling with no reason or rescheduling something, whatever. People just know that it in and of itself, of being a parent introduces its own variable and chaos of not knowing what might happen one day to the next. So yeah, just that simple thing and just, yeah, putting clear boundaries around availability and stuff I think is definitely really important. And I guess, yeah, I don’t know if you have a follow-up, because I had one clarifying thing too, but…

Jess Robinson

I would say, I think when I think about parental guilt, I think so many people think parental guilt is, I feel guilty for maybe not giving my child as much or I’m taking time away from my child. And I definitely anticipated that. What I didn’t anticipate was feeling guilty because I felt like I wasn’t doing as much work as I had been before, or that I was choosing my child over the importance of something with work. And that was the thing that I was not anticipating, was I sometimes feel guilty when I need to manage a meeting and last minute I get a call from daycare saying, or her preschool saying she needs to be picked up and then I have to shift and ask somebody else to take care of that meeting for me. And that to me, that was something that was super surprising and wasn’t something that I had expected.

Dustin Ramsdell

Yeah, there’s two sides of that coin for sure. It’s like you get taken away from a work thing because again it’s like, I like my job, I like all those details I get where it’s just being taken away from that or the other side where it’s like, yeah, I wish I could spend more time with my kid, and I think that’s something all parents are going to share. So yeah, because I wanted to ask too, just because you had mentioned some key newborn early anecdotes and stuff, anything from as your daughter was getting older of how you negotiated things? So obviously there’s depending, you can send kids to daycare at various points in their life, but I imagine that was something that maybe was this inflection point where you’re like, okay, I think I need to consider this as an option to better be able to balance things. So just talking through that a little bit.

Jess Robinson

Yeah, definitely the flexibility to adjust hours I think is really important. I’m salaried so I have more flexibility within my schedule, but knowing that if I drop her off at eight, then I work an extra hour because our hour work hours are nine to six on my campus. I work that extra hour, but I have the flexibility to then pick her up early so I can take her to dance class. And so having that flexibility within the toddler years is, toddler and even on is easy, is not easy, but is important because they’re not as easily agreeable, I guess. They have their own personalities, they have their own attitudes.
I think that that is definitely something that is really important to be thinking through. I think also the flexibility to work from home when you need to. I’ll be honest, I don’t like working from home. I don’t think I’m as productive when I work from home, but it’s nice to have, I do have one work from home day, do Zoom meetings and just manage through cleaning the house or doing laundry. That is super helpful. The flexibility that we’ve had post, and I say post pandemic because we’re still in it, but the flexibility that we’ve continued to have within our department has been very, very helpful.

Dustin Ramsdell

Yeah, and that’s even just the reality that I think people need to accept about remote jobs, hybrid, whatever, is that sometimes being home is that idea of I just have a little bit more bandwidth to just do all the chores and exist as a human and not feel like I’m perpetually behind or whatever else. There’s value in that, especially when it’s just you rethink the idea of a job is as long as you are producing the outcomes that you should be, we’re good. Because I think it’s that idea of if you’re just burning the midnight oil, there’s going to be diminishing returns. So it’s like, please don’t do that. I don’t want garbage works that I have to review and edit, or just that idea of, yeah, if I’m working from home, it’s like I do have the ability to throw some dishes in the dishwasher and do some…
And that’s okay so that I can take X amount of minutes from my day to set that up and have it going in the background and just mosey around in between meetings and stuff, or I need to take a break from this monotonous task. I’ll just do whatever. So yeah, I’m thankful that more institutions and more teams are at least acknowledging that that is something to introduce and make it available to people I guess as they see fit, to fit in work from home day or something to have that better balance, especially for parents since on the weekends it’s like, well, I’ve got the little one running around. It’s a lot harder to do all the things just on those two days or just on nights or something. It’s like, I just want to eat dinner and hang out and go to bed because I got to do this again tomorrow. I got to work again and everything.

Jess Robinson

I don’t think too, it’s like when you get home, normally pre kid, I was like, okay, I get home, I can vacuum today or I can do things to keep my house tidy, but at the end of the day, I’ve been spending an entire day managing other people’s emotions and managing other people, and then I still have to manage another tiny human. And so it’s like by the time she goes to sleep, I just want to sit and do absolutely nothing. And so knowing that I have the ability to do that while then I can focus and prioritize doing some of those house things while I work from home has been super wonderful.

Dustin Ramsdell

Yeah, absolutely. And I think as we wind down, I think you’ve already given some amazing quotes or tidbits of advice to live by and we’ll have a portion for resources for sure. But just advice, because I think sometimes for me it’s those little anecdotes or little quotes or whatever it’s, it is what rattles around in your head when you’re trying to interface with things. So just any advice?

Jess Robinson

Yeah, I think for me, you had said the word work-life balance, and even pre kids, it was one of the things I was like, balance means things are equal. I really think of it as a work-life wellness. So what do I need to do within my work world and within my home world to keep myself healthy, to keep myself well, to feel like I am a human and a thriving human? I think those are the things that I really focus in on. So it is really about how do I prioritize, how do I set that flexibility for myself? I’ve never been one to thrive in high structure, but even now as a parent, if you are somebody who thrives in high structure, then figure out that structure for you. If you’re somebody who needs to be flexible, figure out ways to increase the ability to be flexible.
I think that is a really important thing, especially while working within housing, because things happen in unpredictable ways, whether it be on-call responsibilities, whether it be crisis or emergency situations. Those are things that you need to either figure out the structure that works for you or the mindset of flexibility that allows you to do that. I think another thing for me is really going back to that clarity and being clear and being direct and being honest. So there are days that I’m just like, I’ll be honest with you, I can’t handle people right now because my toddler just threw a 30 minute freak out about the fact that her sock is pink and not purple. And so really being honest with my team, with my staff, with my supervisor, I can’t people today, so I’m going to arrange some meetings and move forward, or I know I’m supposed to leave this meeting, I don’t have the capacity to deal with it, so can somebody else do it, asking for what I need. And even if when I ask, I feel like people are judging me for it, I don’t care anymore.
Creating that thick skin for myself of not that I don’t care, because I do care, but creating that thick skin of I am doing this for the betterment of not only myself and my child, but also because then I can show up better as a professional. And I think that’s the… So asking for what you need or what you want, but also understanding the impact that that has on another person. So if I’m asking you to take over this responsibility, what am I taking from you? What am I helping you with? And that’s really important. I’m just trying to think of other things. If you are thinking about, oh my gosh, can I be a parent in residential life? I think it’s yes, but you have to be mindful of your environment. And sometimes you have to make a hard choice. I came from an environment that I would never have been able to do this. Things were not great, and so I made the choice. I know I can’t change what’s above me, so I have to make the choice to get myself to a place that’s different.
And so I think those are the things too is, is anytime you have those decisions to make, sometimes you have to make the choice that seems harder, but actually ends up being easier in the long run.

Dustin Ramsdell

Because transitions are hard. So there’s going to be some sort of, the inertia to stay where you are and the resistance to be pulled towards what you want. But yeah, I think it’s all very sound advice, because I think, yeah, the tough skin to judgment and not caring what people think it is just that idea of the confidence in exactly what you said is where that disregard for people’s judgments or whatever. It’s like, Hey, you know what? None of us would be happy if I were to be doing this right now. I’d be a little crabby or whatever. And it’s like even exactly you said too. It’s like, okay, if you can just do this weekly team meeting thing or whatever else, I’ll do X, Y or Z, whatever. And that’s just a very good way to navigate that. But yeah, I guess because you, the work-life wellness versus balance, and I just had this thought where I’m like, whoever coined the term work-life balance, it is so ingrained even though it’s not the greatest term.
So we’ve just now been fighting for years to be like, well, actually, I don’t know. I think of it as a pendulum or whatever else. But yeah, I think what you’re saying is where my mind went with that notion is how you have to take each day as it comes, calibrate, check in with yourself, how are you feeling? What do you need and all that versus being too highly structured. I definitely agree with you on that point where it’s a day-to-day thing and going with the flow in that regard of where it’s like, you know what? I think I need to just go take a walk, or actually maybe I need this or that or the other thing. You just are a consistent calibration to your present state.

Jess Robinson

Oh, I have another one. I think to be very honest, if it’s possible and you can get your child into the daycare or preschool that is closest to campus or on campus, that has been a game changer for me. My daughter’s preschool is literally across the sidewalk from my office and down some steps, and it’s being able to have access to childcare on campus is huge. So I think that’s one thing, a piece of advice, but also a challenge for people who have the ability to make decisions if you can prioritize, especially those of us that are working maybe not so traditional hours, having that childcare, I’m not going to lie, it’s not cheap, but it’s still is super helpful to be able to have her just right there. So I walk to work every morning and we drop off our stuff here, and then I take her to school, which is really nice. So that’s another point, tip/ challenge for people above us.

Dustin Ramsdell

It’s awesome because office buildings and cities do that kind of thing to incentivize people, and then yeah, it’s just the very crunchy notion where it’s like, you know what? Should we all be so lucky to be able to live in the environment of on campus with all these cool things to do at a daycare and all that? That’s very… Yeah. So it’s that idea of, yeah, so many people would think the opposite of, oh my God, I would never do that, and it’s certainly not going to be the best fit for everybody. But when you think about the details, it’s like, yeah, there is definitely a lot of appeals to getting things set up that way. Yeah, all great advice, and you’ll wrap up though, if there’s any resources or books or articles or podcasts or anything else that you’d want to name drop that we could include in the show notes.

Jess Robinson

Yeah, I think, to be honest, when I was going through this, I utilized a lot Google searches, but for higher ed specifically, there’s the student affairs moms group, which is fantastic. And granted, it’s geared towards people who identify as mom or who feel that way in terms of their identity. That has been really helpful. I’ve utilized the student affairs moms group on Facebook pretty regularly. Finding other parents within housing residential life or within student affairs has been really helpful to me. I don’t have a lot around books, I’ll be honest. My sister’s an early childhood specialist. I talk to her a lot about things, and her husband is in admissions. So, those are things that I really look through. If you’re thinking single mom journey or single parent journey, there’s a lot of really great resources, and Facebook communities that are helpful for families or parents.
And then I think it’s really just tapping into people that can help support you. That has been a great thing for me. I, to be very honest, don’t have any books or articles or anything of that nature that I have really honed in on, but I can probably do a little bit of research and find some to provide later.

Dustin Ramsdell

Yeah, yeah. No worries. Yeah. Well, because I think it’s just the idea too of being a parent, you have much less time to consume content as you previously did. So it’s unfortunate casualty. But yeah, and I think it’s that everybody navigates their own way, I think through research about becoming a parent beforehand and during it where it’s like, yeah, it is sometimes the random Google searches and you might find a certain publications that you found yourself to rely on, or I have a couple just almost like comedy podcasts that normalize the trials and tribulations of parenthood, and that’s what I honestly find the most helpful versus getting academic research or whatever. But I think that’s the idea is that you’ll find the people in your life that maybe do work in or around early childhood stuff that can be helpful, or just the folks who are just really good friends or family members that are more than willing to chip in and help out and babysit or whatever else, or any of that kind of stuff.
So I think even just the idea of try to chart your own path with your support network and your resources, because I think with parenting, there is this notion or idea that there’s just the one, right, only way if you just read this book, then you’ll be fine or whatever. My one piece of advice that I’ve always told people as a lot of people I know have started to become parents is, trust your instincts. You’re probably going to be a lot better parent than you think you will. And you could read all the books in the world and all that, but you got that screaming baby in front of you, whatever else, or it’s like trust your instincts and there’s going to be a lot to learn still and going to be a lot of growth that happens for you as you go through all the stages of parenthood and everything. But that’s been very reassuring to me. So I thought I would capture it here and share it with other people.

Jess Robinson

I think one thing that I always remind myself, and this sounds really bad, but it’s when I’m going through those tough times, what do I need to do to make sure that I am not the parent that I have to interact with on a daily basis? Or what do I need to do to make sure that my child is not the one causing problems later on? That is always what’s going through my head as we’re having conversations about why it’s important to acknowledge when people say hi to you. And thinking through all the experience that we have in working with students and working with parents. And I find myself pretty frequently going, okay, how do I make sure that I’m not that mom in 15 years or that parent in 15 years?

Dustin Ramsdell

Well, yeah, it’s playing a long game and being able to zoom out a little bit where it’s like, okay, hold on. Let me not be that way. Yeah, because I think it’s always aspiring towards, yeah, resting your head at night being like, did my best. I did the best that I could. I did my best to try to steer him in the right direction, be the best version of myself, the best parent that I can be and all that, versus expecting perfection out of your child or yourself or anything else. But yeah, so it’s a great conversation that we’ve had here. I think just a lot of great advice, and I appreciate you so much for taking the time and sharing all these dispatches from your parenting journey so far, and we’ll certainly have ways to connect with you and the resources that we might have for this episode down in the show notes. But yeah, this is great. It’s really great to talk about this with you.

Jess Robinson

Nice to talk to a fellow parent.