Darlynn: [00:00:03]
Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host, Darlynn Childress, and today I'm going to start the episode a little differently — I'm just going to pop you right into a conversation I had with a colleague of mine named Mary Skinner. I'll properly introduce her in a second, but I wanted you to hear the beginning of our conversation first because it's so juicy and it really sets the stage for what we're going to talk about.
"Curious — what's on your mind these days?"
Mary: [00:00:33]
My kids have been gone for a month at my in-laws, which is so fun. They go, and it is so wonderful, and I always feel so guilty the first couple of days — like, oh my gosh, guilty that my kids were gone, that I was supposed to be this mom who loves spending every second with them. And I do, and I don't. I also work, and I'm busy, and I realize how overstimulated I am when I'm home with my kids a lot.
Darlynn: [00:01:10]
That is Mary Skinner. She's a birth doula, the mother of three children, a yoga instructor, and just an all-around amazing mom and person. In this conversation we're talking about guilt, mom judgment, and why we feel so bad — and how to stop feeling so bad. We also get into the problems with gentle parenting, why it's important to set boundaries, and our own journeys figuring out how to become the leaders in our home and drop the guilt.
There are so many nuggets of wisdom in this episode that you're going to want to write things down and listen back to. So please enjoy this conversation with Mary Skinner.
Welcome, Mary, to the podcast. In the intro I played the part about guilt, feeling overstimulated, and feeling guilty when you're relieved or happy to have a break from your kids. Tell us about your work and your business, and how you like your life a little bit — give some context. Then I want to talk about how to cope with that guilt feeling when you do get a break, because I think that happens to moms a lot.
Mary: [00:02:38]
So I'm a birth and postpartum doula — a holistic birth and postpartum doula. I own Lotus Doula Tribe, which is a tribe of moms supporting moms. Early on in my doula work I realized I couldn't do it all. I have three kids, I hybrid-homeschool, and there's just no way I could be at every birth and do it all myself.
So I started the tribe a couple of years ago and found other like-minded mothers — some newer doulas, some who'd been around a while but weren't super busy — and we all value the same things. It's just a beautiful tribe that we have.
Darlynn: [00:03:22]
Can you tell the audience what a doula is? Because not everybody knows.
Mary: [00:03:30]
I didn't even know, at first.
Darlynn: [00:03:31]
I know.
Mary: [00:03:32]
So in Latin, doula means "woman servant." It started hundreds of years ago with women coming to support other women having babies — that maternal wisdom we all have — just being there to hold space and witness women as they go through a very transformative journey.
Darlynn: [00:03:55]
Oh, I love that. So beautiful. What a gift, to have a doula as part of the journey into motherhood, or into welcoming a new child into your life. I love that.
Mary: [00:04:10]
So beautiful.
Darlynn: [00:04:12]
So you're juggling this business, and births come when they come, right? You need to be available, and it's so good that you have a team now — it's not all on you. What does that actually look like in your life with your kids? Is your partner around? I ask because I think it's very hard for women to have a career when they're the default parent — the person who has to be home when the kids are sick, or wants to be at the field trips. It can make women not want to stay in their field or participate in the work they're drawn to. So what have you done to balance that?
Mary: [00:05:17]
I think just being an entrepreneur, being self-employed, gives so much freedom — being your own boss, making your own hours. That's been really helpful for me as a mom. But I'll say, years ago I owned a student loan consolidation company. That was really overwhelming. My heart wasn't in it — I was stressed, financially fine, but it wasn't worth my soul. I did that for a couple of years and it was really hard. I lost myself. I was unhappy, snapping at my children, and then feeling so much guilt for taking it out on them because I was so overstimulated — and not doing anything I loved.
So I ended up quitting everything, closing the business down, and just became a mom. I still taught yoga, which has been such a beautiful, therapeutic grace for me. I was so focused on my kids, and it was a relief — they really needed me in those little years. I had a real budget for the first time in my life: no more pedicures, massages, car washes, eating out — because being a mom was so important to me and I needed to make it work.
I did that for about eight years in Southern California, but I kept hearing this little voice — "Mary, you love to work, you love to do stuff" — so I knew I'd eventually get back to it. I really wanted to savor that little window while my kids were small. As soon as they got older and more independent, that was key. I've taught them to cook for themselves, pick up after themselves, be self-starters — things I don't have to always do for them. That's how I've been able to build my business back up. My husband's amazing too — he's self-employed, so he has flexibility. My daughter's 14 now; she was about 11 when I started really getting into this, and she's super mature.
Darlynn: [00:08:05]
I love that — that's not everyone's reality, for sure. But it does sound like some of the key components are making sure you have the capacity, and if you don't, recognizing the tax that takes on you. You made a big choice to say, "I have to take a break from this," while also teaching your children to become more independent so you could build a lifestyle that would let you start working again. I wonder if there was a kind of wisdom in that — knowing these kids would need to be independent while you went back to work.
Mary: [00:08:49]
Yeah.
Darlynn: [00:08:50]
There's evidence that when a primary parent works, kids actually grow up more self-reliant and independent. So I think the guilt we feel often comes from believing we're not doing something right — not giving our kids what they deserve. But actually it's the opposite. Your kids being away with their grandparents this summer, for example — they're growing so much in becoming independent, being exposed to new adults, and problem-solving on their own without relying on their parents. That's the value of camps, after-school programs, even school itself. It's not necessarily "the answer," but it is an opportunity.
We don't feel guilty when we send our kids to school, because we have an internal belief that school is safe and good for them. So if we can help ourselves understand that something is good for our kids, we'll feel less guilt. It's so easy to think, "I feel bad, I should be with my children" — but why do you think you should be with them all the time? That concept itself can hurt their development. They should have time away from you in order to grow into whoever they're supposed to become.
Mary: [00:10:18]
So many thoughts came to mind as you were talking, because I've been on both sides of this. I've homeschooled — I did that for three years, not working, all day with my kids. It was beautiful, and it was really hard, especially with my middle child, who was probably undiagnosed ADHD. I was trying to homeschool him with a certain expectation of how he should learn, and it was so challenging.
Being in the homeschool crew, there was a lot of judgment — of moms who send their kids to school, of working moms. And now I'm on the other side: I've put my kids in homeschool pods so I can work, and there's judgment there too, working moms toward stay-at-home moms.
Darlynn: [00:11:16]
We're all judging each other.
Mary: [00:11:17]
Yes, I think so.
Darlynn: [00:11:19]
Let's talk about that, because I think it's really interesting. Why do we do that?
Mary: [00:11:27]
I think it's a whole projection — a whole insecurity. We project what we're insecure about, and it has nothing to do with the actual reality that everyone has to do what's best for them. There's no perfect way to raise or educate your children — you just have to do what works for you and your family, and stop judging everyone. We're all doing the best we can for this season of our life.
There was a season where I worked, a season where I didn't, a season I homeschooled, and a season I didn't. I found myself judging that in the past, and now I'm on the other side thinking, I can't believe how much judgment I did — and how much other people still do. We just have to stop. We're all doing what we can.
Darlynn: [00:12:18]
I think it's actually bigger than individual judgment or insecurity. There's a generalized, false expectation placed on mothers about what their children's outcomes are supposed to be — how much influence we actually have over the course of our children's lives, and whether we should even have that much power.
I think all of us feel, in general, like we're not doing it right. There's this undercurrent of "it's so hard for me," and then we see someone else sending their kid to childcare and feel almost jealous, like that's the easy way out — but that person is choosing a hard way too, because it's just hard. It's hard to raise kids.
Mary: [00:13:29]
Yeah. So we don't need anyone judging us, including ourselves. One of my mantras — I preach it every week in my prenatal yoga, candlelight yoga, and mommy-and-me classes — is, "I am doing the best that I can."
Darlynn: [00:13:49]
And it's enough.
Mary: [00:13:50]
And it's enough.
Darlynn: [00:13:52]
I love that. Sometimes "I'm doing the best that I can" can feel like I'd do more if I could. But I really think — I am doing enough. Everything I'm doing is more than enough. I could do less and still be killing it. I feel so strongly about this because I'm so tired of moms feeling burned out from crazy-high expectations —
Mary: [00:14:20]
— feeling like there's more they could be doing, comparing themselves to reels on Insta and TikTok.
Darlynn: [00:14:27]
Right, that comparison.
Mary: [00:14:27]
And it's not even real, first of all. Who cares what they're doing? Focus on you, your family, and what your needs are.
Darlynn: [00:14:41]
Yes. And helping your children be continuously challenged in a supportive way — if we can get our kids the right fit of challenge. Your daughter's done such a great job finding the right fit for herself, whether it's learning to cook or doing this camp. It's challenging, but it's in the right scope for her, so it's not overly taxing, and she has your emotional support. I think we can all look at our kids and ask, what's their best challenge, and how can I emotionally support them instead of removing challenges?
Mary: [00:15:31]
Because removing challenges just makes them weaker. That's another big thing — how can we make our kids' lives easier? But when you make it easier, they become softer and less resilient. I actually sometimes try to make things harder for my kids on purpose, because I want them to figure it out. I don't want to problem-solve for them or buy things for them. I want them to value working, to value the dollar, so they can save up and buy things themselves — and then they actually respect those things instead of trashing them or being ungrateful.
Darlynn: [00:16:19]
It's so true. I think that's one of the things we're seeing — and it comes from a good place — but we're almost creating kids who don't have emotional resilience, because we think our job is to make everything pain-free. We want to raise kids in this idyllic environment, bulldozing away every problem, creating beauty and joy and ease. I want that too, of course. But if we're doing that, we burn ourselves out trying so hard — and then we end up yelling at them because we're so taxed, which isn't idyllic at all. And it hurts their opportunity to struggle and grow. I think it's because we have a misconception of what our job actually is.
Mary: [00:17:18]
Totally.
Darlynn: [00:17:19]
Yeah.
Mary: [00:17:19]
It's about wanting to protect them. I hear a lot of parents say, "I want to give my kids a life better than I had." Part of me thinks, yes and no. Definitely more emotionally intelligent, because some parents from the generation before us weren't.
I'm honestly not a big fan of gentle parenting — I tried it, and I failed. I was yelling and very stressed out. So I had to find how to lead with leadership and love. Being a leader in the home was a huge shift for me, and I think that's probably what you teach too.
Darlynn: [00:18:10]
Yes. If a parenting model is based only on emotional validation — that's what gentle parenting is trying to say: let's raise emotionally intelligent kids by validating them and giving them support. That's the intention. But what's happened is it becomes boundaryless, because the goal turns into trying to make everyone happy. And that's the problem — you lose the opportunity to teach your kids how to struggle, find a boundary, push against it, fail, and experience the impact of that failure.
It's funny — when I started teaching parenting fifteen years ago, I had to teach "feelings matter." Now, fifteen years later, I have to teach "rules matter." We've swung too far, and I actually worry there will be a backlash against feelings mattering at all. So I say feelings first, behavior second. This isn't a feelings-only model — it's okay for your kids to be unhappy. It's okay for them to be sad that you left, or that you're not at the school event because you're traveling for work or taking care of a sick grandparent. Adult life is as important as children's lives — maybe more.
I love what you said about leadership. How do you define that? It's something I try to talk about on the podcast a lot, but I'd love to hear your take.
Mary: [00:20:18]
I was so "feelings matter" — my oldest daughter was the guinea pig for all of it. I once heard someone say a kid hears the word "no" 300 times a day, and that totally struck me. I didn't want to say no — I was going to be a "yes mom." That backfired a lot. I'd always try to find a way to say yes, and it totally backfired in how she reacted.
Darlynn: [00:21:00]
At that point the child probably feels confused, because you've created an emotional dynamic where your job is to say yes, to make sure they're happy, to create ease — and then sometimes you can't, because there are real boundaries in the world. Bedtime exists. Learning to use the bathroom exists. Brushing your teeth exists.
Mary: [00:21:33]
Going to school exists.
Darlynn: [00:21:35]
Exactly. There are actual boundaries in the world, and if we're communicating that our job is to make sure our kids are happy and never in any emotional pain —
Mary: [00:21:49]
Yeah.
Darlynn: [00:21:50]
— there are just going to be things that are uncomfortable. All kids want to do is play all day. That's it. And they can't.
Mary: [00:22:01]
Right. I remember feeling guilty for making them do things — being quiet at church, going to school — like I was so sorry. It was a whole shift for me. Before I knew you, I hired another parenting coach who helped me realize: no, you're the leader, you make the rules. These are your family's expectations. This is the game, and they've got to play it.
Darlynn: [00:22:36]
And that's okay.
Mary: [00:22:36]
Yeah.
Darlynn: [00:22:37]
I love teaching this: kids know, deep down, that they're little. They know they're not adults — they know they don't understand time or money, they don't know how to drive a car. They instinctively know they're not supposed to be in charge, and when they are, something feels wrong to them. It's scary. When we hand our leadership over to them and their emotions, that's a dangerous idea.
Mary: [00:23:17]
Right.
Darlynn: [00:23:18]
When we give up our leadership, we think we might be serving the child, but we're actually hurting them — creating more anxiety and insecurity about whether they're safe. It's funny — when parents really understand that children are looking for leadership, it makes the kids feel good.
Mary: [00:23:52]
Yeah, yeah.
Darlynn: [00:23:53]
And then we won't feel so much guilt.
Mary: [00:23:56]
A hundred percent. I used to cry myself to sleep every night, rehashing the day, how I'd lost my temper, how frustrated I was, how I couldn't stay calm or regulate my emotions because they couldn't regulate theirs. It was a vicious cycle. Learning to shift was really uncomfortable at first — it took several months. But once it became more natural, the difference in our home was beautiful: more peace, less fighting among the kids, more respect and listening. There had been a whole phase where they just wouldn't listen.
Darlynn: [00:24:37]
Well, they didn't have any reason to.
Mary: [00:24:39]
Yeah.
Darlynn: [00:24:40]
Right.
Mary: [00:24:40]
So it's just night and day. I'm so, so grateful.
Darlynn: [00:24:44]
That's what I see in my practice too. When you've created a dynamic where a child believes they're supposed to be happy all the time, that it's your job to make them happy again when they're not, and that they're not responsible for managing their own emotions or disappointment — that's when boundaries need to come in. I still teach emotional coaching: I'm going to coach you through that big feeling, but I'm not going to try to stop it or change the circumstance just so you can get over it.
When you first hold that boundary, the behavior tends to escalate — kids push harder because you're supposed to do the thing that usually makes them feel better, and now you're not. It's like a wave: it crests, and then they come out the other side and realize, "Oh, this is how it is now."
Mary: [00:25:46]
Yes. It gets worse before it gets better. It really does.
Darlynn: [00:25:51]
Exactly. It takes a lot of emotional regulation on our part — but I think that regulation often comes from changing our own perspective.
Mary: [00:26:00]
Yeah.
Darlynn: [00:26:01]
That it's okay if they're unhappy.
Mary: [00:26:03]
Totally. Being able to sit with them in that discomfort. A lot of parents just want to say, "Stop crying, okay?" and rush to fix it.
Darlynn: [00:26:12]
Right — "we'll get you another ice cream, don't worry about it."
Mary: [00:26:14]
Exactly. And there's also judgment if you're in public — judgment from other parents. I remember feeling that so heavy, thinking about how other people were judging my parenting and my kid's reaction, when I really should have just been focused on the child in front of me who needed my support.
Darlynn: [00:26:35]
You can reframe it, too — thinking, my kid's so lucky they have big feelings and I'm allowing them, letting them work through it. In the middle of a public meltdown, it can feel like —
Mary: [00:26:49]
— look at how lucky this kid is.
Darlynn: [00:26:50]
Right, instead of thinking something's gone wrong, it's actually, "I'm a good mom because I let my kid cry a little." That's healthy. There's no judgment of the emotion — just acceptance of it.
Mary: [00:27:09]
It's —
Darlynn: [00:27:09]
It's here. It's present. It'll pass.
Mary: [00:27:12]
It's sad. I get it.
Darlynn: [00:27:13]
I wanted to ask you about this, because I know you recently added nanny services to your business — and I was thinking about the guilt piece for this conversation. How do people feel when they're hiring a babysitter or getting help in their home? What comes up for them? Obviously it's a privileged place to be able to afford help. But even leaving your kid with grandparents while you go to work, I think there's just so much guilt people feel about leaving their child with someone else for care.
Mary: [00:27:57]
I've actually heard some of my doula clients talk about how their own parents shame them, saying things like, "I never had a doula, I never needed that, I never had a nanny, I could handle all of it." It's not helpful. There's a real stigma around hiring out.
Darlynn: [00:28:23]
There's two sides to it.
Mary: [00:28:24]
Hiring out gets read as "you need help," and somehow that makes you less of a person — when really, we all need help. Think back to when we grew up in villages, with generations of grandparents and aunts around to help out. We forget that. Now we live in a society that's so isolated, and that's not normal. That's not how it was ever meant to be — we're supposed to be in communities, supposed to be helping each other.
Darlynn: [00:28:52]
Right — humans are social primates, wired for groups of about a hundred.
Mary: [00:28:58]
I love that. And then there's also this feeling among moms of "I don't deserve this."
Darlynn: [00:29:08]
Right.
Mary: [00:29:09]
There's this judgment that if you get help — hire a nanny, or aren't working and just want to go to the gym or do some self-care — it's selfish. But it's actually the least selfish thing you can do. What's actually selfish is not doing self-care, and then blowing up at your family because you're overstimulated and never take a break.
There's so much selflessness in being mindful about taking that break — getting a massage, going to a class you love, whether it's painting, pottery, or dancing. Carving out that time, maybe hiring a nanny or sitter for it, or talking with your partner. And then there's a whole other layer: we need more date nights, because date nights are cheaper than divorce. It's expensive to hire a sitter, but it's way cheaper than a divorce.
Parents need to be connected — that's the healthiest foundation for a family, for kids to see their parents connected. But when you're so busy with work, kids, and home stuff, it gets really hard. My kids have been gone for a month with their grandparents, and my husband and I have had all this time to go grocery shopping together, cook together, go to the gym together — it's like we're dating again. I've fallen back in love with him, remembering how much I actually love him, without the stress of the kids — are they in bed, is the house clean, did they read today. When you take that out of it and it's just the two of you, it's so different.
Darlynn: [00:31:07]
Yeah, I think about that a lot lately — I'm empty-nest now. My kids are 20 and 22; the youngest has been out of high school for two years, so I haven't been actively parenting for two years. That first year, I spent a lot of time by myself, painted, did a lot of puzzles — I was in a zone. When I came out of that period, I recognized I'd been in a chronic state of activated nervous system, chronic stress, for twenty years of raising kids. Even though I took good care of myself, it's still a tax on you.
We do need breaks from stressors — periods of time when we're not in the stressful situation, which is where we reset our nervous system. If you're constantly with your children or at work, and both of those are demanding, when do you reset? When do you bring that cortisol back down? You can't really do it while you're in the middle of the stressful thing — you're just managing the load.
So having those breaks — literally like a "brake," like stopping so you're not staying activated in that stress — matters. Having a month away is amazing, but even a couple of hours with your partner, or alone, is amazing too. We kind of need that.
Mary: [00:33:14]
Yes, it's vital.
Darlynn: [00:33:16]
Yeah.
Mary: [00:33:17]
A break once a week, you know — just on their own, with their partner, or even on their own.
Darlynn: [00:33:24]
I used to do a lot of stand-up paddleboarding — we live near the ocean in the LA area — and I haven't had the desire to do that for the last few years. It sounds like a lot of effort now: loading the board on the car, driving over, carrying it. And I think, who was I, that I used to do that all the time?
It's because I desperately needed that period of time when I was unavailable — out in the ocean, nobody could reach me, I wasn't on my phone, I was just outside of time and space. I don't need that anymore, because I'm not in chronic stress. I can get that kind of experience whenever I want now, outside of my job. I just want to normalize that for moms: when you're in it, you are in it. It's a stress load you're carrying, and you're going to need to put it down sometimes in order to be able to pick it back up. Put it down, pick it up.
Mary: [00:34:48]
And what a beautiful thing, that you have that now — it gives us all hope that there's light at the end of the tunnel, that our nervous system will be regulated again someday.
Darlynn: [00:35:01]
One day. Motherhood ends — it's a season of your life. I'm still a mom to my two children, still have a relationship with them, still very present in their lives, but I'm not in the active role of mothering anymore.
Mary: [00:35:27]
Yeah.
Darlynn: [00:35:27]
I'm not in the season of motherhood anymore. Someone asked me on a podcast what I call this season now — I said I don't know, maybe "Darlynn-hood," or "me-hood," "me-season." I'm going back to myself, to whoever I was before, and how this has changed me — it's a new opportunity for discovery. I'm just not stressed anymore.
Mary: [00:35:53]
Yeah, that's great.
Darlynn: [00:35:55]
I don't have to think about what anybody's eating, ever.
Mary: [00:36:00]
Amazing.
Darlynn: [00:36:02]
Amazing.
Mary: [00:36:03]
I look forward to that one day — just thinking, what do I actually want to do today? Not what does work need, what do my clients need, what does my family need. One day I'll get to ask, what do I feel like doing today?
Darlynn: [00:36:21]
So yes, there's lots of hope for all the moms listening — but enjoy it while you're in it, take your breaks, and don't feel so guilty when you need them. It's not your job to make sure your kids are never in pain, and it's not because you've done anything wrong. Just drop the guilt and the judgment.
Mary: [00:36:39]
Do you ever think about how, later on, there will be moms who say they miss it so much — "what I would give to go back to that" — always telling us young moms to cherish every second? But we're all in it right now, and we're not cherishing every second. There are some really hard seconds.
Darlynn: [00:37:04]
I don't miss it, honestly. I miss parts of my kids being little — their bodies, their smell, bedtime, the closeness and sweetness, the naivete they had. But I wouldn't go back. It was so tiring, so exhausting. I don't have rose-colored glasses about it, probably because I talk to moms about this every day — I'm still in it, in that sense.
Mary: [00:37:45]
My mom always says raising us was the best years of her life, and speaks so highly of it. And I think, this is really hard, though.
Darlynn: [00:37:58]
I do think it's been the best years of my life, up until now, because it was so deeply satisfying — relationally, there's so much purpose and meaning in raising children. It's like a life's work. It feels really good, and it's hard.
I've been grieving the end of it as I've retired from that role, figuring out how I want to spend my time now — it's confusing to spend so long doing one thing and then not need to do it anymore. I miss the closeness. But I find it hard when women tell each other to "savor it." I understand why they say it, because something real will be lost when the kids are grown — but that's the nature of growth.
Mary: [00:38:50]
Yeah, right.
Darlynn: [00:38:51]
There's always an end. It's all okay.
Mary: [00:38:55]
Yeah, it's so true.
Darlynn: [00:38:57]
Well, thanks for being on the podcast.
Mary: [00:38:59]
You're so welcome. Thank you for asking.
Darlynn: [00:39:02]
Yeah, I knew we'd have a good conversation.
Mary: [00:39:06]
I met you a couple of years ago and I knew right away — this lady. Very good lady.
Darlynn: [00:39:13]
Same, I felt the same. What you're doing in the world is so important — we all appreciate it.
Mary: [00:39:19]
So are you. Your work changed my whole parenting life and perspective. So grateful for women like you.
Mary: [00:39:29]
Us moms need it so bad. There was no handbook, you know?
Darlynn: [00:39:36]
All right, thank you.
