Hi, this is Janet Lansbury, welcome to Unruffled. I guess today is a person who could be hugely intimidating if she weren't so kind and down to Earth. Lauren Brance, she's an uber talented young mom of two children who's also an author and illustrator. She was a builder and designer at Jim Henson's workshop creating props and puppets for PBS and Sesame Street, and for the latter she won two Emmy Awards for outstanding achievement in costume design and styling.
She's also created successful web comics and a series of delightful board books for children that I've been collecting from my future grandchildren. Lauren joined me on the podcast a couple of years ago for the episode, It Had to Be You, The Struggles and Joys of Raising a Child with Disabilities, where we discussed the unique challenges she was facing parenting her first child. And Lauren's latest work is Poems of Parenting, which is a book of short, insightful, amusing, incredibly relatable poems, and it's at the top of my gift recommendations for Mother's Day or Father's Day or any day. We're going to talk all about why the perspectives in this book resonate and how they can help us to rise out of the everyday doldrums and frustrations, let's be honest, of raising kids.
So here she is. Hi there, Lauren. Hi. I had so much fun with you the last time.
And first of all, we're going to talk about your book and I mean, I've always been a fan of you, but this book is really, really special. I also wanted to find out what it's like now with two children, two children with different challenges or maybe one has less challenges than the other. How do you manage that? How are you managing that?
How am I managing it? I'm pretty tired, but I'm good. It has been different having a second child with very different needs. Actually, I'm sorry I can hear them right now.
I thought I'd have a quiet place to do this. Well, you should bring them on. Like if they want to be in this, they want to be on it probably. I love that.
I think I have children in the podcast. Well, actually I had planned this like a timing so that we live in pretty small apartments. So no one really gets to do anything alone. And I planned this because I thought my son wakes up and I usually need to hold him for a while if he knows I'm there and this or that.
And I can kind of pass him off to my mom or husband, but he hasn't woken up from his nap yet. So he's going to wake up and I'm not going to be available. So we have this whole plan with like pretzels and we'll see how it goes and see if he's okay with me now. He gets up for a little bit.
The pretzel plan. Well, if it doesn't work, feel free to bring him in. I'm serious because I can talk to him and how old is he now? He's two and a half and he is very chatty.
Wow. Yeah, he's very sweet. And I think some kids, you have the amount of more kids and other kids are easier and my daughter's like maybe having five kids at once and my son is like having half a kid because he's just so easy. So it's like having five and a half kids.
Five and a half. That's a good number. I don't want anymore. I'm all done.
Okay. Well, somebody said to me once these parents that had, they were like my age, but they had, I think already five kids or something. And I didn't have any kids yet or maybe I had one. And I remember the dad was saying, I said, well, how do you do it?
You know, with all those kids. Well, you know, one child takes up every minute of your time and energy. Two children take up every minute of your time and energy. You get the point.
It's like, well, it's still going to take up every bit of your time and energy, whether you have one or five. So I thought that was an interesting perspective. True, true. So your book, let's talk a little about how it came about.
I mean, I just have to say it's so impressive. I don't know how you managed to do all of those things, these wonderful illustrations, your poetry. Did you say you did it during down times or when you were exhausted or in the middle of the night? What was the story again?
It was kind of like an explosion out of me at this book. It was cool because I can remember like exactly when I thought of it. My whole family, we were all sick. We all had terrible colds, flues, whatever.
Nobody was sleeping. I was, you know, working a lot too. So totally delirious, stretched away too thin. And I had finally gotten my son to sleep or so I got.
And I went to my room and got to bed and I was like, oh, finally I take some night quill. I was like, I was ready to rest. And I started scrolling looking at photos of him, you know, as one does because he's so cute and Dahlia. Then I heard him cry, you know, out for me.
And my first instinct was like, oh my gosh, you know, shut up. I shut your baby face. I can't do this right now. And that's when I thought of the first poem, photos of you.
And I didn't go and get him. I actually wrote the poem. I mean, he resettled himself, which was nice. And that night I thought of like 50 poems.
I just couldn't stop writing them from there. I just, I honestly couldn't, I couldn't focus on thinking of so many poems all the time. And I can focus in meetings and I decided, you know, it's time to really take a step back from everything else and try to follow my dream of being a full-time writer and focus on this book and parenting. And that's what I did.
Wow. Well, you're doing an amazing job of it. I wonder if maybe I should take night quill while I'm writing. I was screaming from the judges in my head, you know, they're going to get away.
You know, I was thinking that when I heard a little of your story, I was thinking, gosh, maybe there is, there's a freedom in being totally at your wisdom, you know, so exhausted. There is kind of this emancipation from the bosses in our head or, you know, whatever the voice is telling us that we have to do this and we have to do that. And it's got to be right and it's got to be good. And you really took advantage of that energy.
I agree. I feel like when you're just so exhausted, you know, with like meditation, anything that gets you away from the voice in your head and more in your seat of consciousness, if you will. Yeah. So I'm just going to bring up, because I thought it would be a really good helpful message for everybody is that there are these different themes in your poems that I found.
I always like to look at things and kind of make connections between one thing and another. And I notice that there's these wonderful uplifting messages that you offer. And there's three categories that I like that I feel, even if somebody didn't read your book, they could benefit from these uplifting ways of being and thinking. The first one is we talk so much about self-compassion.
And that's such an important thing that we try to give that to ourselves. I know I struggle with that. But it's sort of conceptual self-compassion, I feel. And the way I'm translating it based on your poems inspiring this thought of me is giving ourselves permission.
Giving ourselves permission is something that's kind of in the here and now that we can consider doing. For example, in your book, it's giving yourself permission to break the routine and celebrate. I'm going to read one of the poems that reminds me of that. It's called Tiny Bestie.
Let's cancel our plans and put small toys in a line. Let's cancel our plans and stretch out some slime. Let's cancel our plans and go to our local bakery. Ice Coffee for me, Cake Pop for you, me and my fave, Tiny Bestie.
I just love that thought of seizing the moment to celebrate and just give ourselves permission to let go of all these shits that we have going for us. Yeah, that poem's definitely inspired by my daughter. I mean, it just specifically slowed me down in a lot of ways, even just physically, because it took a long time to walk and she had the walker and everything. And I think any toddler will slow you down.
When we go down the street, we just really take it all in and all these little moments become so special and we live near Starbucks. You know? I get the Cake Pop, I get the ice coffee. It's such a special mommy daughter date and we can do it anytime, you know?
Yes, so do you both benefit from the celebration of it? Just like, we're going to just do this because we want to and why not? And you also have one about letting yourself be flabby and just a floppy flabby mom. Oh, I'm going to read it.
Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
The second one I have three, the second one I wanted to bring up is this idea of time traveling into the future. Now, a lot of times we might tend to do that in this worry fashion. Like, oh my gosh, am I just going to be like this because they're doing this right now and they're never going to share anything with anyone or, you know, they're going to be hitting people or all of those scary things. So, I definitely don't recommend doing it when it's coming from a fear place.
But this idea that this too shall pass, which of course can help us get through a lot of things because it really does pass even though it feels like it's never going to pass and we're never going to be free. Well, we're never going to be free. I have adult children. We're never going to be free completely, but we're going to be a lot freer.
But this way that you have in your writing of like zooming ahead and looking back at the silliness of this moment, I feel like it's really helpful for us to do. Like the poem that you have, for example, about breastfeeding. You say sometimes when I breastfeed, I look down and think, wow, this will be a full grown adult someday. That's really, really, really weird.
It's called really, really, really weird. And you drew a picture of an adult sitting on your lap, not breastfeeding, but sitting on your lap. That was one of my favorite ones. I was going to be the cover.
That's how the show was like, no, that's really too weird. Yeah, it's funny though. That ability to do that, that you could kind of leave your body and look back on your life, that can be very healing. I feel just very important about getting that perspective.
There's another one where you're, there's all the baby clothes and you're saying, I'm with all these baby clothes. I'm stacking all these little tiny clothes. What is that going to be like looking back on that? I think it's really important.
Yeah. I'm really, really into mindfulness and meditation and being as present as I can. And I think the more present you are, the more you know how fleeting everything is. And I think that brings a lot to these poems being mindful of what's going on for parenting.
Yes, you're mindful. And then in these instances, you're also looking at yourself from the future though. It's interesting or looking at your future, but not in a scary way, in an interested wonder kind of way. I feel like, I mean, this might all get edited out, but it's definitely opening a can of where I'm talking about time travel with me.
Because I'm like very interested in it. You know, I meditate a lot and something I realized when I was doing that was a feeling, just an intuition I had was that, I mean, I know time isn't linear, but I think when you meditate a lot, you feel that more. And I ended up getting really into reading about Einstein and physics and block universe theory and health. Everything that exists already exists.
You're just, you know, as a human, we only experience, we experience like nothing. We experience 0.002% of what's happening. So time is like a, it's like a building and we're like elevators experiencing it as we go, but really it's all already there, which is the way a lot of theories are. And that's the feeling I get.
And that's just something I feel really in tune to the presence of all time, which, you know, probably sounds a little bananas, but not to me. I'm totally with you. And I've had very compelling things happen that I won't get into here where I know that I, quote, predicted the future in that room that I was in that happened, you know, seven, eight years later. I mean, something pretty traumatic, but in a way there was comfort in that idea of, oh, gosh, you know, it's not linear time.
I mean, I feel like that's the opposite of linear, what you're saying. And what I believe is that it's all there all the time. My baby book, it had to be you. I feel like that feeling of it had to be your child.
And when things feel like it's meant to be, it's because it kind of already exists and you're just experiencing it as you are in a linear way. But that's kind of I think where that feeling comes from. Yeah. The reason I picked up on it and said this is because it does come through in what you're writing that you see that way.
And I feel it is comforting for me. Sometimes I feel like because I'm a bit older than you, I sometimes think, oh gosh, I look really old in the mirror. I think this actually isn't comforting. But then I think, well, I'm going to look back and think how great I look.
It's true. That is true. Every year I try to tell myself that. And I'm like, you know, gosh, like the most women I had eating disorders in my early 20s, teenage years.
I'm almost 40 and I finally get it. I'm enjoying aging. I think it's great. I feel very lucky.
That's great. Yeah. I mean, I enjoy many aspects of it. The self acceptance, feeling my place in the world, feeling comfortable with who I am, like in ways that I never did, you know, but they're just some other physical boring things, like having sleep be hard.
Yeah. Those kinds of things that I miss. But yeah, it is what it is. And I just love this idea that we can zoom all around, you know, with our children.
And I mean, this is the third thing I was going to mention. Seeing the humor in all the ridiculousness and the irony of this time when our children are little and that you really, really capture in this book, the first one that you wrote for this photos of you late at night. I look at photos of my kids. They're so cute, so precious, so pure.
I hear a cry in the dark and I think, oh, I'm G shut up. I'm trying to look at photos of you. It reminds me of when I finally had someone to help me with my first baby and I could get out of the house and do something. I would find myself in some baby shop looking at baby clothes, you know?
Yeah. Oh my gosh. I know every time since I've had kids, if I have a minute to shop for myself, which is never I'm like, wait, look at the gift section. Look at that little sparkly skirt.
It's so hard. You just can't get them out of your head and so even you're relaxing time when you're away, you're not away. You're enjoying that. Yeah.
I'm glad you said that because there's definitely something I'm hoping this book brings to people is seeing as much humor as they can. And the chaos that is having small kids, I mean, sometimes things get so chaotic. We're just trying to leave the house and one kid's tantrumine, another kid's doing who know what. I mean, my husband would just look at each other and start laughing and I'm like, what is even happening?
We're both really gentle, calm people. And our kids will be going off the wall both of them screaming about something and you can't help but laugh because what is even happening right now? There's so many moments like that where you're just like, is this really happening? And again, it's getting that perspective, which you're so good at.
Stepping back and going, like, where are houses become this other thing? This is it. This is it. That's something I say to myself whenever everything's however it is.
I just like to myself, like, this is it, baby. Like, this is it. Like, this is your life. Good bad, however, this is it.
You have a poem about Mother's Day that to me has so many layers in it and I totally related to it. And just again, it's an example of the honesty in this book. I never knew when I served breakfast in bed what was really going on in my mother's head. Now I know better.
Now that I'm mom, the crumbly toast and spilling juice is actually kind of stressful. But she was still happy even if it wasn't really so restful. I have such fond memories of bringing my mom breakfast in bed on Mother's Day. It was, you know, we did it every year.
She had this little, like, table thing and we'd all climb on the bed and she'd, like, try to eat. And I really had no idea what it was like till I was, I mean, this poem, exactly that. But you know, my kids bring me breakfast in bed now and like, it's not relaxing at all. It's really adorable.
But oh my gosh, they get in the bed. They're like eating it with juices like spilling, that bounces those crumbs everywhere. And I'm like, thank you so much. I love this relaxing treat of not making breakfast.
It is really sweet. But different than I imagined it from my mom's perspective as a kid. Yes. And can't we all just eat down in the kitchen?
Yeah, maybe a restaurant. Yeah. But the effort is so sweet. And like I said, you just want to kind of be performative and make them all work for them.
Wait, who is this for? Here's a really honest message to give our friends and family about parenting. It's called weekends. Do not tell me you hope my weekend is restful.
Do not tell me you hope I recharge. Tell me you hope I survive. Yeah, weekends are brutal. You know, we leave work on Friday and everyone's like, kind of restful weekend.
And you're like, I'm going to be getting up at 5 a.m. Both days. And it's going to be nonstop. I feel like Sunday late afternoon is the hardest.
We put on movies now. But when my kids were little or when Dolly was little and you know, we didn't have movie time and we're just pushing through, you know, it is hard. It definitely needs to be rebranded when we have children. You know, like, if you're like, you know, I can't have a family time.
And you just have to go to school and you're like, oh, it's like the most relaxing part of your week. For sure. And there's no shame in that at all. Obviously.
I feel it's obvious. But maybe it isn't to some people that they feel that way. Yeah, I should probably feel more. No, you shouldn't.
I love them so much there. It's clear that you love them so much and this and I mean, this is actually what I wanted to say that the main reason I love this book that I think it's so unique and special is that somehow you managed to do this really incredible thing. and I can't honestly recall anyone else being able to manage this. And that is sharing so honestly about how difficult children can be, bluntly and with humor, but without in any way demeaning them, without laughing at them at their expense, this is so rare.
I mean, maybe you know what's out there. You capture how impossible kids can be, but there's always this love for them underneath. So I'm applauding here quietly. I really do, I respect my kids a lot.
So I just wouldn't come out that way. They're little people and I love them. I think they go down so proud of them and everything they do, you know, tell you and glad that comes through the middle. It totally does and, you know, again, it's a really hard, I think, line.
It seems to be hard because other people that are being funny about children and parenting tend to go over that line into something that doesn't seem disrespectful to me. Then I'm accused of not having sense of humor, but that's why I love your book because you really capture the actual humor with the love that's there and never disrespecting them because they are a vulnerable population. They can't talk back to all these things that we say. And besides that, I feel like it's not helpful to us as parents when we get into that thing of othering our children or receiving them as drunk and adults or whatever those comparisons can be that are for humor.
It doesn't help us. It makes it harder for us to join and connect with them in the ways they need us to when they are having those screaming fits or they're doing other things that we don't want them to do or just exhausting us. So we're not doing ourselves any favors. Yeah, true.
I mean, I always remind myself, you know, me and my husband, we're on the same team. We're on the same team and everything's crazy. And you and your child are on the same team too. Like, they don't want to be having a tantrum.
They're so innately good. And whenever there's crazy dysregulated behavior that's for that, especially with my daughter's disabilities, she has a lot of emotional dysregulation and impulse control issues. And I know she doesn't want to do that and be like that. And we have to work together to get her out of that and to have her grow out of that.
And she's getting there. She's growing and learning. And it's not like she's trying to hurt me or the family. She's just dysregulated in a toddler or kid.
And maybe that's a little easier for you to recognize when you know that she has disabilities and maybe that makes it easier. I don't know. Yeah, I think that does make a difference. And she's also like very clever and all these things.
So sometimes I forget that she has a disability and I have to remind myself. There's a range with all children. And there's always, it may be harder to see with a totally developing child, but there's always a reason. And the reason is never that they want to be doing that and they're trying to get out of this or hurt us in any way or offend us.
I mean, that's the last thing that any child would do. I mean, my son, he's two and a half and he has these tantrums. But he just wants to be able to do stuff himself and can't yet. Or he wants some sort of control over his life.
But she doesn't have much of right now. And I see ways coming from him to sort of like, if they're from through it, I don't know, just get through it. He's a little kind of adorable. How does he handle the tendency to get dysregulated that his sister has?
Does he come up? He is like a very happy kid. And one of the first things he started saying a lot was, sister is angry. Sister is angry.
And we're like, yes. And it is hard because we want him to grow up in a calm household. So we usually try to move him away from the situation. But it is really hard.
He doesn't seem to react to it that much right now, other than pointing out that he's angry. And he's a little. He'll just kind of like laugh. He doesn't seem to be really understanding that he'll have a big reaction.
One time, she took my phone and threw it. And he was like, Mommy's phone. And I was like, what's so upset? I was like, it's OK.
I don't know. It's something we're learning as we go. And they have a lot of sweet moments too. But yeah, it's hard.
We try to kind of protect him from it. Yeah. And I think also the empathy that you have for your daughter around it, that's what he's picking up on, that you're not too dysregulated. That's what he's facing his sense of safety on.
Yeah, he seems to feel very safe. Yeah, I'm sure he does. He's all good too. Yeah, you're doing a wonderful job.
OK, I have a couple more that I just wanted to read. This one that I really relate to. And it comes into all three of those categories that I was talking about, giving ourselves permission, the time traveling, and seeing humor in the ridiculous and the irony of things. So it's Mom Fashion.
Crocs and socks, baggy jumper, hair and knots. No regrets. You still look hot. Mom Fashion is just fine.
Take that picture, aged like wine. If you don't, you will regret not having photos from this time. I really need to take more pictures, because I look back and there's barely any. I'm always the one taking the picture, of course.
And then the pictures of me, I'm like, wow, I look like a district. But I will look back on it, fondly. And you've got to take those pictures. Kind of like what we were talking about.
It's sort of recognizing that every age you are is, you're going to look back and be like, wow, I look really good then. Yeah. I appreciate it. That's right.
OK, and for one more, I want to read this. I feel this so much. I mean, it could maybe cry right now, thinking about it. This feeling of how excited we are for our kids to just spread their wings and how exciting that is.
And the second is another thing about trying to be mindful and enjoy what's right now, because we get so excited about them, doing the next thing. And of course, we want to be a part of that. And then there's this thing called preschool, where we really want to be a fly on the wall. Or I did.
But anyway, this is what you said, your days, the little photos I get during the day featuring you, excited for bits of string, ripped paper and things, circle time sitting, singing and snacks, dancing, backpacks are the best thing I've ever, ever seen. Yeah, those pictures are everything. Oh, we got a child. My just one.
Not yet. Do you want to come say hi? Come say hi and then go back. Well, let's play.
I'm Janet. I'm having a nice talk with your mom about all the sweet work she does. And those pictures she draws, what do you think of those? They're pretty good, right?
Yeah. Valia actually loves to draw, too. Lovely to meet you, Dahlia. OK, I'll zoom in.
Come on, OK? Yeah, we're going to sign up. Thank you for letting us talk. Well, here comes another one.
OK, I'll be out soon. Well, I'm going to let you go. I just want to say that I picture many more volumes of this book. Thank you.
I'm working on the second one. I'm just going to grab Ronan. You can sit up. OK, great.
Yeah, I love it. The more there. I just wanted to say about that one poem that you just read. It was inspired by a photo from Dahlia's class where they had put like netting on the wall.
And all it gets a little bit to string and they were putting it through the holes. And they all look like so excited. And it's just the cutest thing I've ever seen. It's just like little bits of string and like fabric.
But you know, the world is new. Everything feels so magical for them. And I just love I love pictures from school. I've seen them be independent.
Oh, yeah. And just wondering what it feels like to be them right there. And all the things that are going on, because they're not going to come home and report, unfortunately. Well, we did that.
They're OK. And then they come home and just blast us. Yeah, little bit. My daughter is the queen of what's called a constraint collapse.
You know, she's really, really great at school and really keeps it together. And it's hard on her. And then she comes home and just lets loose. It makes sense.
And I think the more we can kind of welcome that and put it in perspective for ourselves, the easier it's all going to be. Like, just like her go for it. But it's tough. Well, thank you so much for everything, Lauren.
Thank you for having me. And everybody should buy your book, especially for maybe Mother's Day gift or Father's Day gift, because it really captures all these moments that even as a parent of adults, you can resonate with and make you feel we're not alone. These feelings are something that we all share as parents. That is something I'm hoping people get from this book too.
You're not alone. It is so hard. Yeah. It's magical, but so hard.
And it's OK to feel whatever you feel about it. I love that. OK, thank you so much, Lauren. And we'll talk again soon.
I hope it in the meantime. I hope you're enjoying all the success and giving yourself lots of permission. Thank you. Bye.
Bye.