Sarah Levin
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[00:00:00]
Kelly Duggan: Welcome to The Love What You Do podcast. I'm Kelly Dugan, former HR executive turned career coach, and I'm here each episode sharing stories and strategies to help you build a career you love. All right. Welcome back to the podcast everyone. I have Sarah Levin with me today as our podcast guest. Sarah is a chiropractor, she is a clinical reviewer.
She is a mom, she is a active in her community. Sarah, you have so many things to be able to share with us today about all things working motherhood, and really doing it all, um, in, in your career, and I'm so excited to welcome you to the podcast. Thanks for being here.
Sarah Levin: Thank you so much for having me.
Kelly Duggan: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, um, as you may have seen in some of our podcast episodes, I start most of our episodes with our guests with the same question, which is tell me a little bit about your career and how you got where you are today.
Just kind of give us that overview SparkNotes version, because one of my favorite things of talking to podcast guests is [00:01:00] understanding. How they got to where they are. Um, because careers generally only make sense retroactively. So I love hearing your story. Let me hear it.
Sarah Levin: I think I always knew I wanted to go into a healthcare profession and I came from a really traditional, uh, medicine family with lots of scientists and researchers in my family.
Kelly Duggan: that's so
Sarah Levin: And when I was in college, I shadowed a chiropractor. Um, I shadowed a dentist. I shadowed, I shadow a lot of different.
Healthcare professions and I just really fell in love with the way the doctor I shadowed, um, approached healthcare from a more holistic perspective. And I ended up in chiropractic school and a few offices, and I've been at my current office for over 16 years.
Kelly Duggan: Wow. So what is it that you love about Chiropracticing?
Sarah Levin: Um, I love that I'm able to. Help my patients in a, with a little bit of a [00:02:00] perspective shift. Um, we get a lot of the overlapping education to the beginning of traditional medical education and then we sort of go off in a different direction. And I've learned a lot, you know, in school we learn a lot about nutrition, a lot about exercise science, and a lot about how all of those things together sort of traditional.
Medical problems intersect with, um, you know, things like nutrition and things like activity. And I love that I'm able to help people say like, yes, your condition is best managed by your primary care doctor, but you also should see if you can get a nutrition consult or, you know, here's what you can do as far as activity level goes.
And I can give people a little bit more of a, of a whole body perspective for a lot of problems.
Kelly Duggan: I absolutely love that. I feel like I'm a new mom right now and I just having this little person and thinking of like, okay, she's got a rash. is that because [00:03:00] we gave her something different? Was it the formula? Was it something that I ate? Was it something that, I find myself like doing these, connecting the dots of this whole full body experience and I'm like, you know what?
This is probably how we should be approaching our own health too. Like
Sarah Levin: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah. Is we definitely don't do that nearly as often as we should. Yeah.
Sarah Levin: Yeah, I agree.
Kelly Duggan: So. did being a chiropractor kind of affect your way of being a mom? Like I I, because we can talk about that through being a working mom, but also just that very specific profession. How did that come into the way that you were momming with your kids when they were growing up?
Sarah Levin: Um, you know, I, I think that it's helped me to. Pump a little, pump the brakes a little bit and to think for a second, like let, we can calm down and we can think about what's going on. Like you said, all these different things that we're introducing. And also I've also learned, you know, learning [00:04:00] about development and like.
You know, this is, the baby's only been breathing ever in their life for 30 days. Like we can calm down and maybe respiration isn't perfect right now, but there's no warning signs, so we can just pump the brakes. And through each stage of my kid's development, I'm able to like, this is the first time they've ever been a teenager.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: been 13 before. And these hormones racing through their body, it's the first time it's ever happened. So let's just pump the brakes and think about what's going on and sort of think it through before we rush to worst case scenarios.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah, I think that's so important. That's a lesson that I absolutely need. Um, ri literally had a, like, what, I think it was a heat rash on her stomach yesterday, and I was like, it's scarlet fever. Like, I don't know what we, we need to go to the hospital. What is going on?
Sarah Levin: Yeah.
Kelly Duggan: I'm sure having that medical perspective really helps. Yeah.
Sarah Levin: Yeah, definitely. And I think a lot of new moms and experienced moms going through anything for the first time, um, have a very similar, like, [00:05:00] first the panic you, we've never been responsible for a whole person before,
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: and this panic of of having to do everything right by this, by this baby is, is real.
Kelly Duggan: Oh my gosh, it's so real. And I, I think that's honestly like a perfect segue because. Wanting to do everything right is I think what a lot of working moms struggle with the most because you want to be able to show up in your work, you wanna be able to show up as a mom. And to your point, you've never done this before. So you are at a point now in your career and your family's life where your kids are a little bit older. Um, but talk me through like how has it been having a really. Really demanding professional career while raising a family through all of these different stages. What was that experience like for you?
Sarah Levin: You know, I have three kids. I have a, an 18-year-old son, a 14-year-old daughter, and then a 12-year-old son, and. [00:06:00] I still very, very clearly remember those early days of, of working motherhood. I nursed all three kids and none of them slept through the night until they were two and a half years old. Um, and.
Kelly Duggan: so much better because we, we don't sleep through the night and I feel like everybody else does.
Sarah Levin: Yeah. And, and my, and my, my children went to daycare, but my middle child never took a bottle, ever.
Kelly Duggan: Wow.
Sarah Levin: So she nursed the entire time we were together, which meant all night for years.
Kelly Duggan: Wow.
Sarah Levin: um, I felt. Like I was stuck in a loop of, of being mom or Dr. Sarah or wife, but I really had a hard time finding time to just be like me, to be Sarah for a lot of years.
Um, but by being a working, working mom, by default, my kids grew up to be much more independent young kids and now older kids. And honestly, it's been one of the [00:07:00] best things about working motherhood. Um. Our children have always known that my husband and I can't do it ourselves. We can't run a house and do the stuff we do, the volunteering and the cooking and cleaning by ourselves.
And they've always known that they've had to help out with like age appropriate tasks. And, and they do and it's wonderful and I still have to remind them, but man does it help knowing that they are, are there to help us. Um. But I've always been in the office with pretty strict set times. Different than a lot of my friends, especially since COVID, when many of my friends transitioned to either part-time at home or full-time at home.
And you know, for many years my vacation time was spent with. Sick kid days. Um, so now that they're older, you know, we have a lot less of those sick kid days and more family vacation times. [00:08:00] And, um, I can see, you know, the, the transition from having little kids in it, in the thick of it to now that independence they got, having a working mom, I, I cannot put a value on how great it is.
Kelly Duggan: Oh my gosh. That's amazing. Do you, is there any decisions that you intentionally made to help build that independence? Or was it more of something that just evolved out of the circumstance?
Sarah Levin: I won't forget. I, I have a pretty clear, um, memory of sitting with a friend of mine as she was holding her second child and her, her little kid and my oldest were running around and I was pregnant with my second, and she said, start now. She said, package snacks in. Containers that, that your older one can open at shelves level that they can get on their own and in the morning make sippy cups of water and milk and put them on a low shelf in the fridge.
And so when they ask you for a snack. Don't feel guilty, just [00:09:00] tell them they can go pick one of the snacks or pick a drink or, and I remember she's like, you're going to be in it. And I feel like throughout my career and throughout my life, I've had these moments with people a little bit more experienced than me, that have given me these little tidbits that have stuck with me and really made a difference.
And it's like one of the reasons why I was so excited to talk to you, because I love being able to give these tidbits back because those things, through these sort of. In it early motherhood or many kid, you know, working motherhood stages are what got me through.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah. First of all, I, I am making a mental note as soon as RI is able to walk around. Like that is such a brilliant idea it feels simple, but it's something I never would've thought of, of just like making things accessible for her to be able to
Sarah Levin: Yes.
Kelly Duggan: that independence even when you are there. And her to really be able to play that role, I think that's, that is incredible. You know?
Sarah Levin: I feel, [00:10:00] yeah, the, um, in the confidence it gave them just those little independence. You know, these are the four ch snacks that I've all picked are appropriate for you,
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: but you have to pick which one you want Translated later on into dressing yourself, you know? I always picked very intentional shopping, neutral bottoms, printed tops.
Anything works. So go ahead, wear whatever you want to school. I know it's all gonna work. And then, you know, so my kids picked out their clothes. It was a little bit of, you know. I, you know, negotiated that in advance. So I knew whatever they did was fine, and then they got that independence and it's continued to translate all the way through to my, you know, young adult son having this independence of, of knowing that their, their choices are gonna be okay, has given them some confidence in, you know, really leaning into that independence.
Kelly Duggan: I absolutely love that because you might wanna wear [00:11:00] your princess crown and dress to school, but it, that's, you know, maybe we keep that in the dress up closet instead of the regular closet. Right? It's like how do you build the, the scaffolding to allow kids to make these decisions? And that's something like even with a six month old, I'm already thinking about that 'cause. One of, one of the, the things that I feel really passionate about is just. I feel like I was raised with a great ability to kind of figure things out and just as you described, make decisions. But all of a sudden when the shoe's on, like for me, I'm like, oh, that just happened by accident. But when you think about it, it's like, no, that happened because of parenting and the world that I was brought up into.
And you don't really realize that till you're on the other side of it now shaping this reality for this other little person. again, another tip I'm going to take with me is. Yeah. Like, just make sure all of the outfits look good together so we don't have to have the argument of like, no, no, you can't wear neon green pants.
And you [00:12:00] know, a, I don't know, I feel like everything could go with neon green pants, but you go, you, you get what I'm saying? You don't need to have that argument at six o'clock in the morning.
Sarah Levin: Yeah, definitely.
Kelly Duggan: That's really awesome. Um, what were some of the, other tips or other things that you incorporated that helped kind of. Breathe that independence and confidence that also made your life slightly easier.
Sarah Levin: Yeah, so the, some of the biggest ones is, um, learning. And it was a learning process to give myself just some grace. Everybody out there could use a little bit of grace, and I feel like by showing, um, my husband and I both showing the kids that we mess up. Made it okay for them to mess up because everybody messes up.
You know, we used when the, especially when the kids were little, the phrase we used was everybody poops. Like there's, it's okay everybody. It's something that everybody does. And if you recognize that, everybody messes up. It's to sort of stop
Kelly Duggan: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Levin: okay, this wasn't the [00:13:00] best decision. Whatever it is.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: Let's how to, with whatever support you need, or maybe I need from them or my husband, you know, what, what I need, or they need, we can figure out a way to take any decision that didn't work or that didn't lead to the best outcome and turn it around. There are very, very few decisions in this world that you can't come back from.
And even the ones that feel that way in the moment, um. And so by just recognizing that I mess up and my husband messes up and when they mess up, it's okay. That's really led us as a family to, to not have this sort of, um, you know, there's no, no, we're not hiding things or, or doing things in a way that sometimes kids do, right.
They'll hide, you know, if they color it on the wall. Push a little chair in front of it and instead we say, you know what wasn't the right answer, but we can clean this. And next time what, what's the better answer?
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: as they've gotten older, the, you [00:14:00] know, the little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems.
So even with the big problems, we've talked through ways that we can right the ship if it's gone sideways. Um, but I think that by giving yourself the grace to say, I messed up. I know that my family that loves me is going to support me in fixing this has translated to a family and kids that know that they can mess up and we can help them get through it.
Kelly Duggan: How did you keep that mindset in the thick of it? Like, is I, that that is not easy, right? Like I, and I love hearing about the benefits of this 'cause I, I truly do. Believe that our kids mirror what we are, but I already find myself in the moments of being, like having to walk away to not show my frustration of like, oh my gosh, there's a million things happening and I have to keep my cool here.
Like what were the mindsets you employed? Like how, how [00:15:00] did you do it?
Sarah Levin: So when my oldest went to, um. Preschool. He left daycare and went to preschool when he was three. It was a threes and fours program. I'll never forget, we got a book home in his backpack from the teacher. It was a parenting book, and she said, um, this is what we use in the class and I think it might be helpful if you read it and employed it at home
Kelly Duggan: Oh my
Sarah Levin: and at the, and I was mortified, like, oh my gosh, my kid is misbehaving and this teacher thinks we need help and.
I, I, I was mortified for probably longer than I remember, but then I read the book and it was this, this book that I recommend to all parents. It's 1, 2, 3 magic,
Kelly Duggan: 1,
Sarah Levin: and it's,
Kelly Duggan: you said
Sarah Levin: it's 1, 2, 3 magic. And the whole premise of this book is really what shaped me as a parent. And it's this idea that, um. You know, the idea of the book is that kids act out for attention, and that if you give them attention when they act out, [00:16:00] they continue to act out.
Kelly Duggan: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Levin: But if you give them attention for positive things and put yourself in timeout when you're angry at their bad things, that they'll stop doing them. And it really led to the idea that, um, I need to just pump the brakes and stop and take a breath. And then work on fixing a situation. And I, I think I've pulled that through.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah. That is huge. I, and a theme that's coming up already, right? Like from, this is the second time we've mentioned that, like pumping the brakes. And I, I do think that is really critical, especially when you're a working mom. Especially when you're moving at. A million miles an hour, trying to be everything for everyone. Sometimes forgetting who you are to yourself and just kind of taking that minute, tagging in your spouse, tagging in whoever you have to, you know, just to, to, to take a breath, um, [00:17:00] before reacting, I think is, is really huge.
Sarah Levin: Yeah, definitely.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
Sarah Levin: Okay.
Kelly Duggan: No. Yeah, take your time. All good. All right. I'll just do a pause so that we, he knows where to edit. So how do you think being a mom has made you better at your job and vice versa?
Sarah Levin: Uh, definitely has helped me. You know, like I said, I do talk with my patients a lot about things [00:18:00] like activity and nutrition and, um, really the, the core to wellness, being through your, you know, through everything, everything is better. You know, the studies out there show that risks of almost all cancers go down with exercise.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: But when you're talking to someone who's 40 or 50 or 60 who's never exercised a day in their life, it's, it's often something I have to repeat frequently.
Kelly Duggan: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Levin: So I think that, um, being a mom has helped me to give sort of. Firm advice without being critical or mean, or things like that to my patients, and then vice versa.
You know, I use that also, you know, I've learned how to help to steer my children in directions that I think are the right answer without, um, being authoritarian or, or demeaning. You know, I just, I've, I've learned both ways. The kids have taught me how to talk to my patients and my patients teach me how to talk to [00:19:00] my kids about.
Making the right decisions on your own. And that's really been a, a, a help to me, both professionally and, um, personally. But I mean, the biggest, biggest thing that being, you know, my job has, has helped me is I can't give this advice if I don't live it. And if I live that, like if I'm going to live by an example, I, my kids are gonna do that too.
So our family is just ver they ev all the kids know, you know, how important it is now that they're all in sports. We talk about, you know, fueling their athlete bodies and how important it's to put the right type of gas in your tank by eating the right things and by moving your body regularly, how it's not just, but you do it for your whole life.
Kelly Duggan: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Levin: These are things that, that, uh, you know, are both, they go back and forth between work and home because I just, I can't tell my patients [00:20:00] and I can't tell my kids to do these things unless I'm living it. And so we live as a family and then I can say to my patients, I'm not gonna give you advice that I won't do myself,
Kelly Duggan: Right?
Sarah Levin: want, I do this also.
Kelly Duggan: Mm-hmm. So what, what are some of those things that you have put into help promote activity in your family? You know, again, probably a little easier now that the, the kids are older and in sports and, and on the move, but how, how has that culture grown in your family?
Sarah Levin: Um, my, our whole family is very active. We often, on a Saturday or a Sunday morning, we'll go on a, a family run or walk, whatever you wanna do, run, walk, we'll drive to a trail and people do whatever they want. And because they are independent kids, you know, even when they were much younger, I would pick a same thing.
The same thing like the clothes I'd pick a location where I knew they'd be safe. And then we just do our own thing. We'll go to a high school track where pretty much everyone is contained in a fence,
Kelly Duggan: yeah.
Sarah Levin: husband and I would run and maybe [00:21:00] the kids are playing tag and maybe the kids are rolling around on the field, but we're not inside and we're not in front of screens and we're breathing fresh air and we're moving our bodies.
And it doesn't really matter how. It just matters that we're doing it.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: Um.
Kelly Duggan: to go for a run. Yeah.
Sarah Levin: I, we get to go for a run and between, you know, I starting on different ends of the track, we sort of always have eyes on the kids,
Kelly Duggan: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Levin: like that. Even going to parks and walking around. I make a lot of decisions in my life to get what I think is the right answer without low stress.
I, I. Frequently tell people about when we were fixing the cabinets in our kitchen, the cabinet maker said, oh, let's put these beautiful glass doors on either side of the sink. And I said, no, 'cause the kids are gonna close, slam them, they're gonna break, and I'm gonna get mad and I don't wanna get mad. So we're not gonna do glass doors.
And I think a lot of my whole life is making these choices so that [00:22:00] I know that no matter what happens, it's all gonna be okay.
Kelly Duggan: Oh
Sarah Levin: You know? Go, like going to a track that's all fenced in or going to, there's one playground near us that I know has a fence all the way around. So if I just wanna sit on a bench and let them figure out how to play, they're not gonna escape into the parking lot.
Kelly Duggan: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Levin: Um, giving them that independence within the confines of what's gonna be okay.
Kelly Duggan: I absolutely love that. And I think that goes back to what we were just talking about too, like how do you keep your cool and give yourself that time? It starts with setting up your environment, like build an environment that is intentionally making decisions that your future self from stress. I think. That.
Sarah Levin: I get to it. The, the, the three kids all play, um, lacrosse. Everyone plays lacrosse. And up until last year we had three kids on six teams and my husband and I helped coach two of the separate [00:23:00] teams. And um, I am involved on the executive board for the high school leadership, high school lacrosse team and the town youth team.
And so we're busy. We're a busy, busy family. But knowing, um, that we're supporting the kids in sort of everything they do has helped them to know that they need to support us too, um, by helping out around the house and stuff like that.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah. And so we gotta dive into this a little more because you're working full-time. You, you're a clinical reviewer on the side. You are involved in boards, you're involved in your community, six teams across three kids at one point. How do you do all of this? Like you must have the most incredible time management system or priority management system going on in your life.
Sarah Levin: I love lists. I live and die by my lists. I love them. Um, I, but to that, I, I really, truly think it all does go back to we're a really strong family unit. My, um. You [00:24:00] know, we make meals on sun, meal plans on Sundays, and I grocery shop for the ingredients. And then I have a chalkboard in the kitchen with a list of the meals.
'cause I don't wanna hear what's for dinner tonight. So I write it all out on Sunday. Um, but then that leads to the kids can say, oh, tonight we're having pasta. When I set the table I need to put bowls out instead of plates. And so there's a lot of this, um. You know, teaching and my husband and every morning, okay, I see we're having chicken tonight.
Want me to pull some chicken outta the freezer? Like we, you know, it's a lot of, um, thinking about the way the whole week is gonna work or sometimes the whole month is gonna work
Kelly Duggan: Hmm.
Sarah Levin: figuring out how to make it work the best. Um. I think it's a lot of too, like I said earlier, having older moms and moms with older kids passed down their tidbits about the things that really helped them in trying it and seeing if it helps and if it doesn't, you know, move on.
But if it does it, creating it, [00:25:00] um,
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: we had a meal system for a while and things like that.
Kelly Duggan: Oh, so what was your meal system?
Sarah Levin: Uh, we sat down one night with all the kids and had everyone, you know, write out what they like to eat, and we figured out meals that everyone liked to eat or some version thereof. You know, some kid wanted plain pasta and someone wanted sauce, but I could bake pasta and everyone was happy.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Sarah Levin: And we put on index cards and on the front was the meal and the back was all the ingredients.
And we put 'em in a, a, a file box. And then Sunday everyone went through and picked out a meal they wanted to eat that week, and they pulled out. They would go flip through the, the index cards and pick something out they wanted to eat. And then I had a full meal, a full week's meal plan, and the ingredients for everything that I was making.
Kelly Duggan: Oh
Sarah Levin: Um. Then everyone was happy and they all knew they got to pick one night for sure, but everyone was okay with everything in the box. So [00:26:00] things like that, um, have always helped us. Our, all of our kids start doing their own laundry in fifth grade and, you know, wash, dry fold put away. And I always made this one, I always made the older kids read to the younger kids
Kelly Duggan: Oh,
Sarah Levin: night,
Kelly Duggan: yeah.
Sarah Levin: Doing things like this. 'cause then they worked on their literary, literary fluency, which is reading out loud. So the older fluency, while the next one would get a story read to them. And I could deal with at that, you know, one point the baby,
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: the older two reading to each other. And then I was dealing with the baby and then now the, then the middle one started reading to the younger one.
And, um, lots of things like this or giving it up a little bit, giving, giving up a little bit of control.
Kelly Duggan: Hmm.
Sarah Levin: Two, and maybe it wasn't done perfectly, and maybe they would roll around and end up, you know, giggling or throwing toys at each other. But knowing it got done without me in control was another big theme [00:27:00] through everything still is that helps me manage the time, uh, of my life here.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah, one of the things I'm loving from this conversation, like it's so hard to imagine right now being a mom of one baby. That like we're building a family that is going to grow up and go through all of these stages, and I think like when you're in any given stage, it's so hard to imagine Things change, but at the same time, you can't even get used to what's happening. 'cause it changes so quickly. Like as soon as you're getting acclimated, you're, you're on to the next stage. And what I'm absolutely loving about some of these tips that you share it like they're so, I mean you used the word like multi-generational, but it's all one generation.
But like you're, it's appropriate for a family that is spread across different ages. Um. That is the, just, I just want you to know as a new mom, like that's been, this has been really, uh, beneficial for me to [00:28:00] hear all of these things because it's like, yeah. How can you, what decisions can I make now that are going to help when we're not just parents of a baby, but we're a family?
Sarah Levin: And, and then if, if we're, if this is my favorite one, my favorite thing that we ever did was, um, we call, I mean we, the, the name of it is a little bit, you know, tongue in cheek, but parent yourself Fridays, once the kids were old enough.
Kelly Duggan: huh.
Sarah Levin: Where I would make a pot of pasta. There would be pasta and a thing of sauce and the kids could eat whenever they wanted, as long as they cleaned themselves.
And if they wanted dessert, it was okay, but they had to clean up, including, you know, the older ones when they were older, wash the dishes and put them away and. If you wanted to be put to bed on Friday night, it had to be at your regular bedtime. But if you wanted to stay up late, then there was no story time, just like a tuck in and a kiss.
And my husband and I would order what we called secret [00:29:00] takeout and we would get takeout for us and sit in another room on those nights when we years. When we had too many kids to get a babysitter every weekend or and didn't want to. 'cause we both work, you know, full time. We didn't wanna be separated from kids, but we also needed a little bit of us time.
'cause I think when talking about families, it's all comes from the root of a strong couple and parents. So we made it work that we had a date night every Friday night and the kids helped to manage each other and themselves from another part of the house. We were there obviously supervising.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah.
Sarah Levin: But we got this couple time every Friday night.
And I, I think that if we had not done that from an early age,
Kelly Duggan: Mm-hmm.
Sarah Levin: from, you know, young, it would be very hard to be on the same page moving forward with all these big life changes, these big decisions. Um, if we weren't so connected, it.
Kelly Duggan: I, that is something I need to start figuring out [00:30:00] how to do. 'cause you know, we, my husband and I are in, uh, far from our families, um, and you know, with the baby that we're not ready to,
Sarah Levin: Yeah.
Kelly Duggan: But we've been trying to, after bedtimes on Saturday evenings, it's like, okay, this cannot feel like every other night.
Like we have to get to, like, you have to do something that, that feels different, right? At at least one night a week, um, to feel special. And it's shocking how just being in the the other room eating takeout can feel like you're at a five star restaurant. Isn't it crazy?
Sarah Levin: Yes, I, you know, I think that, uh, the kids always knew, like they couldn't walk past the threshold if they needed us. They had to come to the door and ask us. Um, and, and that was like our little space. It didn't matter where it was, if it didn't matter what room it was, but just the fact that we weren't parenting for even just.
An hour while we ate.
Kelly Duggan: yeah.
Sarah Levin: Um, it really had made a difference in those years when we were just in it.
Kelly Duggan: Wow. And [00:31:00] so how does that play out today, now that your kids are older? Is that, are no parent or parent yourself Friday still happening or they look a little bit different?
Sarah Levin: We kind of are, but by default we're alone on Friday nights now. Um. Uh, you know, with my son off at college and my daughter, a freshman in high school, she is leaning into high school. She is out every Friday night, um, usually high school football games. And my younger one, um, has taken to a new love of fishing and so he's out fishing with his friends, night fishing all as often as he can, and often on Friday nights.
Kelly Duggan: my gosh, that's, I didn't even know night fishing was a thing. That's awesome.
Sarah Levin: Um, maybe it's just a middle school boy thing,
Kelly Duggan: could be.
Sarah Levin: uh, they, you know, and, and I, again, again, this all circles back though to the theme of having a little bit of independence in the kids that I know that they can go out [00:32:00] and make the right decisions. Um, and so I'm okay with a bunch of middle school boys fishing at night on a Friday night in our, you know, right down the street in our town, because I know that he's gonna make.
Most of the time, the right decisions. Um, and if it's not the right decision, we can always figure out how to pedal back. But, so now we're alone on Friday nights and loving it and, you know, loving our Friday nights on the couch with a movie because it's been what we've been doing for now 18 years.
Kelly Duggan: Yeah, you built it with all of these intentional decisions the whole time.
Sarah Levin: Yeah. Uhhuh.
Kelly Duggan: So got one more question for you, Sarah, if you know. other final pieces of advice do you have for moms who are like me, right? In that very early stages who are looking at the moms like you and thinking like, ugh, like that's what I'm doing all of this for, you know? Um, what advice do you have for moms that are in the, these early stages who are working and, and trying to, to figure it all out?[00:33:00]
Sarah Levin: That even though every decision feels like it has the weight of the world on it, you know, um, from the earliest, you know, breast or bottle feed, stay at home or daycare.
Kelly Duggan: Yes.
Sarah Levin: the way up through what activities do I put my kids in? Like there's so many decisions that all feel like everything is dependent on this one decision, um, is that you can't do it all.
And that you can always walk back from decisions, but by allowing people around you to help out, um, whether it's, you know, letting your partner make the pediatrician appointment and take the baby to the physical and maybe you won't hear everything the doctor said, but knowing it doesn't all have to be you
Kelly Duggan: Hmm.
Sarah Levin: you know, allowing the kid to.
To clean the bathroom and it's not gonna be clean, but they're learning how to help and contribute, giving up all of that control. 'cause each [00:34:00] decision doesn't, it feels like it means a lot, but it doesn't always mean as much as it might feel in the moment. And that looking back sometimes in three or six months, you'll forget it was even a choice.
Kelly Duggan: Wow.
Sarah Levin: Um, and if you give up the, the need to. To be an integral part of every one of the decisions that you're giving up. A little bit of that mental energy, a little bit of that mental space to maybe focus on yourself just a little bit or maybe, um, let someone else make that decision and realize why you would may not have done it that way.
Kelly Duggan: Hmm.
Sarah Levin: And here's why you do it the way you do it. Um, or maybe you find a new way to do it that's better than your way, and it's such a hard thing to say. Give up all of that control. But at the end, it leads to having a much bigger support system, even within your own home, between your partner and your kids and knowing that you don't have to do it all for it to all turn out to be [00:35:00] okay.
Kelly Duggan: Oh my gosh, Sarah. True words. I so appreciate that and that that's the advice I need to hear right now because I'm on the precipice of trying to figure out how to give this baby solids and all of a sudden you feel like you need a degree and baby led weaning and everything else, and you, that really speaks to me of just in a few months. That you're gonna forget that was even a choice. Um, and I'm think, I'm really new at this motherhood thing, but I already am. I've already forgotten those newborn choices and you haven't really stopped to be able to realize that. So I think there are a lot of new moms out there who probably need to hear that. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Sarah. This has been an awesome conversation. You are just such an impressive mom and professional, and I really appreciate you taking the time because you don't have a lot of it. So thank you so much for being here today.
Sarah Levin: Thank you so much for having me. It was wonderful.
Kelly Duggan: All right, I'll talk soon.
Sarah Levin: Okay.
