Silencing Shame & Enjoying your Kids with Sharon Johnson

Shame is a universal human experience no one is immune to, especially in motherhood where it feels like there’s a right and a wrong way to do everything, yet no matter what you do, you can’t win!

How do you break free from the shame cycle?

My guest today, Sharon Johnson, is a mother to six who creates social media content focusing on motherhood, mental health, getting older and finding oneself, and healing after years of trauma and crisis. 

Sharon kicked motherhood off by being absolutely swallowed by shame - so much so she didn’t even realize it.

Tune in to hear her story of deconstruction and leaving the LDS church, adopting her niece and nephew, managing her bipolar and depression, and the true pride she’s able to feel now in saying she in fact IS the parent her kids need.

IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVERED...

• The viral post of hers where the internet called her a bad parent, horrible mother, and threatened to call CPS
• How Sharon's relationship with shame has evolved and what mattered most
• The importance of building open and honest relationships with teens so we can discuss difficult topics and build trust

DON'T MISS-

• How much more she actually enjoys motherhood and her kids now and why

// MENTIONED IN THE EPISODE //

Rhett McLaughlin's (of Rhett and Link) house analogy clip from their podcast, Ear Biscuits

Rhett's Spiritual Deconstruction - full episode 226 of Ear Biscuits (2/3/2020)

// CONNECT WITH SHARON //
Podcast: Wake Her Up

Tiktok: @Sharon.a.life

I believe in you + I'm cheering you on.
Come say hi!  I'm @parent_wholeheartedly on Insta.
Apply to work together: parentingwholeheartedly.com/Apply

Transcript

Sharon Johnson  0:00  
So my situation with how we ended up having six kids is a little bit different. We had three kids. We were in a weird situation. My husband had been laid off. We had to move cross country. We were homeless, although I was pregnant with my third and my husband's looking for a job, and we're like mooching off of all of our family members who absolutely saved us during that period, my husband's sister was going through a bunch of crises, and we decided to adopt her two children, when my third was in the PICU for respiratory failure and put on life support. And during that time of figuring out, like, if he was gonna actually die or not. We decide to adopt my niece and my nephew. So I went from having two kids to five kids in six months, and I got pregnant while I was consistently on birth control, and I got pregnant with my sixth. So our situation was just coping. We weren't trying to heal. We were just trying to figure out how to survive, just adapt and make sure that everyone's like, basic needs were met, and I think that that allowed for me to learn how to give up on shame and to let it go. I didn't have any room for it. We literally were doing the best that we could with the information that we had, and I was also able to completely recognize that, like I was failing my kids in certain ways.

Danielle Bettmann  1:39  
Ever feel like you suck at this job? Motherhood. I mean. Have too much anxiety, not enough patience? Too much yelling, not enough play? There's no manual, no village, no guarantees. The stakes are high. We want so badly to get it right, but this is survival mode. We're just trying to make it to bedtime. So if you're full of mom guilt, your temper scares you, you feel like you're screwing everything up, and you're afraid to admit any of those things out loud. This podcast is for you. This is Failing Motherhood. I'm Danielle Bettmann, and each week we'll chat with a mom ready to be real, showing her insecurities, her fears, her failures, and her wins. We do not have it all figured out. That's not the goal. The goal is to remind you that you are the mom your kids need. They need what you have. You are good enough, and you're not alone. I hope you pop in earbuds, somehow sneak away and get ready to hear some hope from the trenches. You belong here, friend, we're so glad you're here.

Danielle Bettmann  2:53  
Hey, it's Danielle. Shame is a universal human experience. No one is immune to, especially in motherhood, where it feels like there's a right and a wrong way to do everything, yet, no matter what you do, you can't win. So what happens when the way you grew up and the community that you're in perpetuates a level of maximizing that leads you to feel so stuck? How do you break free from this shame cycle? My guest today, Sharon Johnson is a mother to six who are 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, and 14, who creates social media content focusing on motherhood, mental health, getting older and finding oneself and healing after years of trauma and crisis. She recently started a podcast with her older sister called Wake Her Up, and she's currently focusing her work on helping women find access to mental and hormonal health care. Now I originally found Sharon's page on TikTok when a piece of her advice went super viral for all the wrong reasons, as she describes toward the end of this episode, the internet collectively lost their mind in calling her a bad parent, a horrible mother threatening to call CPS on her. And isn't that secretly our worst fear that our insecurities would be brought to light with evidence that seemingly proves we really are bad at this and are failing our kids? So Sharon kicked motherhood off by being absolutely swallowed by shame, so much that she didn't even realize it, and throughout our conversation, she shares the way that her relationship with shame has evolved, how she was not only able to navigate that viral moment, but how much more she actually enjoys motherhood and her kids now and why. So tune into this episode to hear her story of deconstruction and leaving the LDS church, adapting her niece and nephew, managing her bipolar and depression and the true pride that she's able to feel now in saying that she is, in fact, the parent her kids need. 

Danielle Bettmann  5:02  
Welcome to Failing Motherhood. My name is Danielle Bettmann, and on today's episode, I am joined by Sharon Johnson. Thank you so much for being here.

Sharon Johnson  5:11  
Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad we finally made this happen.

Danielle Bettmann  5:14  
Yes, months and months in the making, but then you know, it's gonna be good. It's gonna be good, and we're both like dealing with family upstairs. The show must go on, motherhood in real life right now. We are super excited to have you and dive into your story. Before we do that, give us a quick disclaimer. Have you ever felt like you were failing motherhood? 

Sharon Johnson  5:40  
Absolutely. I've been a mom for 14, almost 15 years now, and I think the first 12, maybe 13 years of my life, of my motherhood, life, was just living in constant shame, constant shame. I didn't even know it. That's how constant it was. I didn't know it until I left it. I lived and breathed it every single second. And what that looks like is sitting on the couch with my kids reading a story. And not just sitting and reading them a story, but thinking about, oh, am I using the right like tone of voice? Am I making this educational for them? Am I making this fun? Am I connecting with them? Am I focused? Am I thinking about dinner? Am I thinking about all these different things and just all of these? Am I doing it right? Am I doing it the way that I'm supposed to be doing? And the answer is inevitably always no, because there is no one right way to do motherhood. So yeah, I lived in that constantly for probably 12 years.

Danielle Bettmann  6:44  
Well, that's a perfect intro to diving into your story. So take us back. Who were you when you first became a mom?

Sharon Johnson  6:50  
I was 24 when I first became a mom, I was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons. I had only been married a year and a half, which is not very long to start having kids. I got pregnant when we'd been married, about nine months, and I mean, I was just a little kid, really. I was young, I was naive. I didn't even know how to do, like, be a wife and be in a marriage, let alone be a mom. It wasn't even planned, really. It was one of those, like, oh, you have to take birth control, like, every day, type of situations, like, and once again, I grew up as sex education was not something like, big in my world. So yeah, and that's just what you did. I was surrounded by people who got married and had babies, that's what you did. And so that's what I did. I had no idea what I was walking into.  It feels like it wasn't even a choice that we kind of made. It's just something that happened and something that you did. 

Danielle Bettmann  6:55  
It was the track handed to you. Here's the road you go down.

Sharon Johnson  8:08  
That was, I was raised that being a mother is the most important thing that you will ever do. And I'm not even arguing that sentiment, because I believe it's a very big thing, but that was the only thing for you to do that was the most important end all, you do it as soon as possible, and that is your life's calling. That's what gives you worth and purpose and meaning, and everything else is just extra. It's not even extra, it's less than.

Danielle Bettmann  8:40  
So did you have any career aspirations at the time?

Sharon Johnson  8:43  
I was a photographer. At the time I had been, I think, right when I got pregnant, I was still a flight attendant, and I absolutely loved being a flight attendant. It was magical and wonderful. And then I got pregnant, and I was so sick, and I quit, because even when I started being a flight attendant, I was like, oh, when I get married and have kids, I'll quit because you don't have a job when you're a mom, of course, you are a stay at home mom. That's what you do. And I was a photographer. That was a great one. I had a thriving business, and I was really, really good at it, and I really, really loved it. But you know, I was a stay at home mom at that point. I needed to give that up. So I slowly did.

Danielle Bettmann  9:27  
So take us through the first few years of motherhood, were they cupcakes and rainbows?

Sharon Johnson  9:33  
So, I mean, like you said, we were still young. We were still in college. When we had my first child, we lived in my parents' basement for a few months, and then we moved. We were living in Utah at the time. We moved to Washington. I got pregnant and had my second when I was third. And so I'm bipolar, and I'm bipolar 2, which means I experience more depression than I do manic phases and bi post partum with my second was just. Absolutely horrific. And we were in Washington, Seattle, all by ourselves. My husband, going to grad school, never saw him, never saw anyone. It was dark, it was cold, it was lonely, and it was rough. It was rough doing it by myself. And I will say at that time, like the LDS community absolutely saved me. I think that's like, one great thing about church, the one thing that they do really, really well, is community, right? And so we moved to Seattle, and you just instantly have a family, you instantly have this group of people to hold on to. That was really lovely to be able to have the support of those wonderful people that we went to church with. But we moved to Alaska soon after that, mental health was once again awful. Motherhood, it was just constant. And I think that in Seattle, I went through my first phase of questioning the church, questioning motherhood, questioning my existence as a mother and a wife, and I was so angry, I was so full of rage, because it dawned on me I am stuck. If I ever want to leave, whether it's because I don't want this kind of life or I don't want to be with my husband or whatever, I can't. I have no education, I have no career, I have no money. I'm stuck. And then the second realization is like, oh, I never chose this. I didn't get to choose my life. This was laid out for me, and I just did what I was supposed to do. And I got to a point there where I realized, like, no, you're not stuck. You're allowed to leave, I know it sounds crazy, because, like, I'm not condoning leaving your children as a mother, right? Not doing that by any means. But I had this realization of like, oh, you can leave. Like, people do right? People leave their families, people do it. And then that was like, okay, well, I was able to give myself the choice suddenly of, like, you can leave. Do you want to?  No, I don't want to leave. So then what do you want to do? You can go get a job. Plenty of moms have jobs, and I think maybe just moving to Seattle and being exposed to different people, because I lived in Utah, which is a very Mormon-centered state, it's all I ever knew. But moving to Seattle gave me this glimpse of other people's lives, and I was like, oh,  I can go get a job if I want to. That is a possibility. So it was just nice. My life didn't change a whole lot after that. I still was a stay at home mom, husband still works, still very like traditional gender roles, but it changed for me, because I suddenly felt like I had a choice, and I got to choose waking up and being a stay at home mom every single day, and that made a huge difference, at least for kind of like, my rage and to that victimization that I was doing to myself, of like you're stuck here and you're a victim of this.

Danielle Bettmann  13:18  
Yeah, well, and the conditioning runs so deep at the same time as having those thoughts and that anger, did you turn on yourself at the same time thinking, how can you think these things, that's so selfish, you know? Like, did you have any type of that shame coming back at you at the same time?

Sharon Johnson  13:39  
I'm sure I did, but I think at that point I started questioning a lot of church doctrine, a lot of church rhetoric. And luckily, even in my church in Seattle, you have a lot more liberal thinking in the church, and the kind of rhetoric that was going on in church was a lot different than the rhetoric like in Utah. So people are questioning, people talking about history. I had never been taught, you know, about the church, and so I didn't have a lot of shame. I got really lucky that I was there in Seattle with these people that I went to church with, that allowed me room to question and not shame me for that. It was welcomed. So that definitely was a wonderful kind of stepping point for me where, yeah, I didn't really have to feel that a whole lot. Do you feel like that a lot? Where that conditioning of just like am I a bad person? You have to, like, check yourself and be like, no, we don't do that anymore. 

Danielle Bettmann  14:36  
Yeah, yeah, we were connecting before we hit record on this common theme. You know, I was never an LDS, but I did leave religion, the religion I was grown up with about five or six years now, and I was really deep. I was on staff. I had gone on missions, international missions. I was in. And so my family of origin is still very tied to those beliefs and systems, to the point where my brother got married and they did not attend his wedding because they didn't agree with, you know, the terms and things. And so it's been a very big thing, and I think there's always going to be a voice in my head that thinks, like, because of all the apologetics training that I've been through, and because of all the conversations and sermons and things like, who's right and who's wrong, you know, or like, am I off base? Have I just been exposed to these other, you know, worldly views that are tainting my opinion so that I'm not able to see clearly, or, you know, I've walked away from the truth kind of thing. And that was like the first year, because when I left staff, I didn't choose to leave the church, I just never went back. And that was then another, like, two years, I think, of really reckoning through, what do I believe anymore? What do I replace that with? Completely lost community, so much community. And that happened also at the overlap of the pandemic too, when we moved, so, you know, there's just no rebuilding from that. It feels like, at least in person. So there's a lot that I think I have not truly, like verbalized through all of that, and I'm still processing it, because it kind of happens almost subconsciously and very much over years, of kind of processing, you know, letting go of things and each one thing at a time. You know, hearing for me, TikTok was huge for that, because I was able to find deconstruction TikTok, where people are sharing their own stories, and the ways that their story is related to mine, and the things that I was able to see from a different lens. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to put the name of who it is in the show notes, because I'm blanking on it right now, but like the analogy they shared of like being in a house, and then all of a sudden you walk out of the house, and you can see the outside of the house, and it's like a completely different worldview shift that didn't even feel imaginable or possible, or like you even knew the house was there before. 

Danielle Bettmann  15:53  
You thought the house was the universe.

Sharon Johnson  17:26  
And then you walk out of it, there is nothing outside the house. 

Sharon Johnson  17:29  
It's really lovely talking to other people who have deconstructed from different religions. It's so validating. It's so incredibly validating, and it just makes me feel so much less alone, like to hear the exact same experience like in a totally different view. I think what messes with me a lot is that when the Church tells you that if you do X, Y, and Z, right, if you start questioning, if you are starting to do these things, then you are going to fall astray. You are going to, like, be taken away by the devil. And I think what's so hard about that is, like, that's true, like, it's objectively, like, you step back and you're like, oh, that is what happened to me, that it is all of the things the church told me were going to happen did. And what's so frustrating, it's the base. It's the lie at the bottom of it is because you're moving away from truth when actually you're moving towards it, and the result is gonna look the same, and it messes with your head, so thank you. That's good to hear.

Danielle Bettmann  18:40  
Yes. For me, the biggest kind of stone that like set it all up was it felt like I could finally see that organized religion andspirituality and other things completely aside, or the specific organized religion I was in created the problem and then sold you the solution and what I finally realized is like there wasn't ever a problem to begin with. That was wild, because I feel like there was a lot of othering, a lot of like fear mongering, a lot of just like intense isolation inside the community of like these people that are trying to place their worldly views on you, and then you get outside and you're like, no, actually, that's what we're doing, it's the opposite. It's so trippy. 

Sharon Johnson  19:40  
It really is, and it's like, whenever I feel like I'm good, and I get to a place like, okay, we don't need to talk about that. We don't need to think about it, we can move on, I stay there for a few months, and then something happens, and it feels like everything falls apart again, like I get back into this, like having to reconcile things. Things to deal with, things that something else pops up of like, oh, this is actually from the church too. This also hurt you. This also stems from all of those issues. 

Danielle Bettmann  20:11  
I feel like I've spent the last five years trying to parse apart what problems in my day-to-day life are related to early attachment trauma versus mental health, and finding out I'm ADHD and also being raised in the church.

Sharon Johnson  20:29  
I'm in the exact same boat, exact same boat. I mean, this shame that we're talking about it stems. I mean, I think we all experience it, whether you grow up religious or not, especially in motherhood, like mom guilt and mom shame is absolutely real. It's very universal. But I think that it's just it hits so much harder when you grew up in like this kind of strict religious environment, or with, you know, parameters from your your family like that, expectations from your family like that, because there's this constant battle of what you should be doing and what is right and what is wrong. Or even in my religion, they have a saying that they say, like, I can't even remember. That's actually a relief that I can't remember right now. It's something that good, better, best. So it's not even like, what's good? It's like you're sitting there snuggling with your kids, and you're not thinking, oh, this is a good moment that I'm sharing with my kids right now. You're thinking, is this the best thing that I could be doing right now? Should I be teaching them to, like, read these words? Should I be pointing out pictures? Should I bring up, like, memories from our past? Maybe I should be talking about grandma right now. Maybe I should, like, point out how dad's a good dad, and there's a good dad in this book, like just to a psychotic level of overthinking. And I know that, you know, different people approach religion and are affected by religion in different ways. This is how it affected me. And I just, I honestly, thought that this was me being a good person, and how could you learn to be a better person if you weren't constantly being self critical and analyzing how you could be better? But it was the opposite. It was slowly killing me, and it was not allowing me to feel like joy or presence or just be able to enjoy motherhood for myself. My job was to give a good mom to my kids. Yeah, it wasn't about me enjoying motherhood. It wasn't about me enjoying this experience and what I could get from it, and shifting that recently. So like, I said, I'm bipolar. I suffer really big stints of deep depression. I recently, in May, finished a treatment called TMS that has put my depression into remission. It has been huge. It's huge. It has also been, like the total mind fuck. If I can say that.  It's also kind of on that terms of, like deconstruction and like learning how I don't have to live this way, and learning how to live differently, and it's allowed me, I think that, paired with leaving the church and learning about shame and what it has done to me, has allowed me to really let go of, kind of like being the victim of motherhood, which I think a lot of us because we are, we are the victim of motherhood. 

Danielle Bettmann  23:28  
Objectively, there is a lot on our shoulders with no support system to speak of.

Sharon Johnson 23:33  
Yes, absolutely, that is completely validated 100% I know for me, I get stuck in this loop of I don't have choices anymore, so that I become resentful and angry and bitter, and I stop enjoying the parts that can be enjoyed, like I am enjoying bedtime for the first time in 14 years of being a mom. And that's not to say everyone needs to enjoy bedtime. Bedtime sucks. But I'm to a place now where, like I can, but I also recognize that my kids are older. How old are your kids? 10 and 11? Did you feel this like a seismic shift when your youngest turned like, five? Because mine just turned five, and it's like, my world just expanded. I have more, like, brain space, more physical time, more physical space, so I'm more capable of enjoying them.

Danielle Bettmann  24:39  
Yeah, the weight of the care routines is lifted because they're so much more independent. 

Sharon Johnson  24:43  
I get to actually enjoy motherhood and not just be constantly worried if someone's like, going to actually die or not. It's lovely. That is the dream. I think it's very validating. I think. So everyone says like, oh, being a young mom is really hard. When you're in it, you see everybody else doing it, and I don't know, it feels like maybe it shouldn't be this hard. Or you kind of gaslight yourself into like, is it actually that hard? Are you just a failing, crappy mom? Do I just suck at it really bad? And then you get out of it, you realize, like, oh, holy shit, that was crazy. Like, I wish you could have this perspective as an older mom, or a mom to older kids, like when you were a young mom, because I feel like I would have been so much better at, like, giving myself grace. Like when I was a young mom, I was still trying to make like, four-course, like full-blown homemade meals every single meal we were sitting down at the table every single night. Whereas I still do that because, I mean, sometimes like, because I enjoy it, but I had guilt over like convenience meals and freezer meals and Costco meals and Trader Joe's meals, and now we eat those, like three times a week, no shame. 

Danielle Bettmann  26:06  
Well, the days are long in those years, and it feels like you're gonna be there forever.

Sharon Johnson  26:11  
Forever you cannot see past it.

Danielle Bettmann  26:17  
When I was a young mom, and I went to our church's mom's group, and there was, like, a mentor mom who had elementary age kids, it seemed like that she lived on a different planet. Like, what is it gonna be like when, you know, I don't have little kids like, that is gonna be crazy. Like, and now, I mean, that's been in my life for like, five or six years, so it's just the time actually does move, you do get to a place where it gets better? 

Sharon Johnson 26:49  
The other night, I was so mad myself.  I had a beautiful bedtime. Like, I even enjoyed giving everybody their, like, personalized waters. I was like, how much ice do you want? I was out of control. I was having a good day. That day I had a moment where I came upstairs and I was like, oh shit. Every single older mom, when you're a young, stressed out mom, tells you like you're gonna miss it, and you're like, shut your face. No, I'm not. This is dumb, and it's hard, stop telling me. And I had this moment of like, I'm missing it right now, like for just a few minutes, I was like, they were so squishy, and I wish I could go back, but at the same time, it's missing it with acknowledging I would never go back in a billion years, if that makes sense, like absolutely nuts, and no amount of like, enjoying it in the moment, fixes missing it now, right? It's not my lack of enjoying it that makes me miss it. It's just you can miss it now. Now that you're not in the chaos of it. You can be like, oh, that was really great to hold a baby all the time, but when you're holding a baby all the time, absolutely not.

Danielle Bettmann  28:06  
It is absolutely a gift to miss it. And I think we put that like it's a bad thing. They're gonna miss it later. And when I was in it, I felt like I had to remind myself that time passes either way, whether I am holding them for 10 more minutes, or whether I set them down and start dinner, either way, they're getting older. The time is passing. You're only in these years for so long. No amount of soaking it up stops time. So like you got to, it's a marathon. I got to be able to keep going. And I'm going to do them a disservice if I don't acknowledge what I need or how to keep going, because it's so hard.

Danielle Bettmann  28:54  
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Sharon Johnson  30:54  
I wonder if our lack of village, kind of increases this idea in our brains that we're going to be in this toddler baby life forever and ever. Because when you're a toddler mom, like you hang out with other toddler moms, it's like your whole world, at least in kind of my circles, you don't have this collective group of women or people that are in different stages, and you're all there collectively, experiencing those things together. And I wonder if that kind of just like, drives the point of like, you're never gonna leave, like, this isn't forever. And on that note, did you have a hard time? Like, how long did it take you to transition from toddler life to where you are now? Because my five-year-old just went to kindergarten, and we homeschooled quite a bit. So I'm like, in this weird phase where I thought I would just like, let's go, and I would snap back to like, whatever normal life is now. Oh, and I'm having a really hard time transitioning. 

Danielle Bettmann  31:56  
Yeah, there is no going back. Yeah, we are different now. It's very much finding a new normal very slowly, because my girls are 15 months apart, so they have always almost acted like Irish twins, which has, you know, real deep pros and cons. But I mean, my phases of motherhood have been very tight, as opposed to, you know, yours have been very spread out, from, like, youngest to oldest. I moved from preschool mom to elementary mom and have stayed, you know, elementary mom and they've been in shared classrooms in the same one through a Montessori school. So, like, everything has been the same. So, like, I've run my business now for about six years, but I feel like just now, I'm still finding pockets of time to start a hobby or do things that I thought, like finding, you know, my fashion sense again. I mean those types of things. Like, I thought, yeah, maybe I'd snap back when they're both six and seven. But no, they're 10 and 11. I'm still trying to work on that. 

Sharon Johnson  33:05  
I don't know if that makes me, like, really sad or like, wait what? It's gonna take longer than, like, a year?

Danielle Bettmann  33:15  
I just feel like, especially post pandemic, our capacity is so much less, at least mine is. I also feel like that's related to my ADHD, where I'm finally, like, working within the limitations that my brain actually has. Therefore I can accomplish much less in a day. And that means that the things that I think, because I have timeliness, I think I can fit in all of these things realistically, I just absolutely can't. And so it really just limits my ability to kind of add things to my plate that make sense.

Sharon Johnson  33:47  
I think I'm on the opposite end where I think, because of the Depression being in remission, us not homeschooling, and my six kids are only nine years from beginning to end. So, like, I essentially did like toddler phase for like 14 years, like I either had a baby or a toddler. That's why, for 14 years I never really got those transitions of, like, moving from one step to another. I was doing that while also staying in right? 

Danielle Bettmann  34:00  
You have one foot on each side. 

Sharon Johnson 34:22  
Yeah, that was hard to manage. That's still hard to manage, because you think, like, oh, if I would have had less kids, then I could kind of really appreciate all of these stages on their own, whereas instead, I'm trying to balance, like, bouncing back and forth, and also, like, I'm bored right by the sixth kid. I'm like, I've done this kindergarten thing for five other people already. You have to, like, drum up motivation, right? And be like, come on. This kid deserves some excitement too. You gotta take some pictures. You gotta be excited. Oh. So my situation with how we ended up having six kids is a little bit different. We had three kids, and we were in a weird situation. My husband had been laid off. We had to move cross country. We were homeless, like living, like crashing on couches, living in people's like closets, although I was pregnant with my third, and my husband's looking for a job, and we're like mooching off of all of our family members who absolutely saved us. And during that period, my husband's sister was going through a bunch of crises, and we decided to adopt her kids, her two children, while, oh, I guess I had had my baby, my third, he was in the PICU. He'd been life-flighted three different times for respiratory failure and put on life support. And during that time of like, figuring out, if he was gonna actually die or not, we decided to adopt my niece, my nephew. So I went from having two kids to five kids in six months, and then yeah, a bunch of other we're just gonna skip over, a lot of crisis and trauma happened again and over and over again, and the pandemic all that. And I got pregnant while I was consistently on birth control. We were on birth control, and I got pregnant with my sixth. So our situation was just coping, right? Like we weren't trying to heal, we were just trying to figure out how to survive. Just adapt and make sure that everyone's like basic needs were met, and I think that that allowed for me to give, to learn how to give up on shame and to let it go, because I didn't have any room for it, and we literally were doing the best that we could with the information that we had, and I was also able to completely recognize that, like I was failing my kids in certain ways. There were things, it is what it is, like I was failing them. They weren't getting the attention they needed. I had to focus on one kid while ignoring another, and then decide where my priorities lay, and I think that just really allowed me to give a more objective view to myself and our lif,e and what doing your best looks like, and what you are capable of. And I think luckily, I've been able as we've come out of that crisis and trauma and just survival mentality, I've been able to bring that with me. Of, okay, well, what is your best now? It's that priority of, I think every mom struggles with, like, how much self-care to give yourself, right? And if it's selfish and if it's taking away from your kids. And I think that when you're able to step back and look at it objectively and say, like, yeah, I am going to go on this trip, and that means I am going to miss my kids this way, you know, X, Y and Z, and they might need me, and I'm not going to be here, but objectively, in the long run, this is what mom needs, and this is how much I need it, which means it's a higher priority, because then I can come back and be a better person and be a better mom, and everybody's needs get met. And I think that that's what that situation did. It really made me step back and say, what are everyone's needs? How can everybody get at least a little bit of that covered? And I'm included in that.

Danielle Bettmann  38:41  
Yeah, yeah, because you are, it all rides on you. Your ability to be there for them requires you to have something to give. And if you had nothing to give, then you're gonna essentially fail meeting their needs anyway. And so it's like being able to make a short term sacrifice for that long term investment. And yes, like, I think there's a level of like, radical acceptance we need to have around the short term sacrifices, of like giving up being there for XYZ, or not being able to pour into them at bedtime tonight and read 18,000 books or, you know, whatever it is like, there's always gonna be these moments that are super innocent in and of themselves, that we have to, like, consciously admit I could do better or more right now, and I'm essentially either choosing not to or I just can't and that's hard to admit, I think.

Sharon Johnson  39:45  
it is. I think it helps having pretty normal, quote, unquote, like parents. I have parents that screwed up. I have parents that, like, made some really poor decisions, and who I like, especially like in college, when you go through that bitter phase of like, you messed me up, like, what were you thinking? And it's been helpful for me this point where I can look and be like, oh yeah, you failed in many, many ways, and you loved me, and you're just humans, and you were doing your best. And like, I'm okay. I'm a full blown adult that can go to therapy and deal with my shit and I'm okay. I think that's been helpful. Not that it's like excuses times that I mess up, but like, I guess I have parents that acknowledge that they didn't do anything right, and that is what I think counts, is that validation of and I already have those conversations with my kids, with my teens. I already get to say, like, no, I understand, especially like when adoption is involved, you know, there's a lot of validation of like,  you were screwed over. Like, this was unfair. You have all rights to be angry at everyone, and I think that that is been very healing to me, is learning to admit where I screwed up. It doesn't make me feel more shameful. It allows me to forgive myself, because I'm validating the situation exactly what it is that I was doing the best that I could, that I'm only human. I mean, we all feel like we're just 14 years old to someone just like handed a bunch of kids and said, figure it out.

Danielle Bettmann  41:31  
Yes, however sad, I still feel like a teenager. 

Sharon Johnson  41:33  
And a lot of us, like you and me, we are learning from scratch, so much of what we're doing like I feel like this revolutionary like in my family, and that comes with pains and struggles and screwing up and making mistakes and figuring it out, especially when you're healing from family trauma and religious trauma like that comes with aches and pains, and unfortunately, that's going to hit our kids. But I always say, like, at least for me, my job is to just do a little bit better than my parents did, and their job was to do a little bit better than their parents. And we're all doing that, we're all just up in kind of, like, the healing of the generational lines. So that's all I can ask of myself, really is to just do a little bit better, and you hope and cross your fingers that it's enough. 

Danielle Bettmann  42:27  
For sure, I think it's almost easier on you to under expect out of yourself, and then you can surprise yourself, or like, you know, over deliver in some ways, as opposed to having an impossible bar that you can never meet and are constantly disappointed or discouraged or defeated by the reality that it doesn't meet what you thought it would be. 

Sharon Johnson  42:54  
I want to say something, I just had the thought about something lovely about giving up on, like, the shame of motherhood and walking away from religion. We talked about how there's all these shoulds in the supposed to, like, there was this box of what motherhood was, and I had to fit in that box. And I absolutely saw motherhood as not really, like a relationship, but a role. It was a role that I was playing, and my role was to raise these humans to also fit into a box, right, like as long as you believe in God and are contributing members to society and love Jesus and go to church and do all of these things, I did a good job, and it made me a very like, I don't know strict is the word, but like, very formal parent, if that makes sense. And being able to strip that all down and decide what I want my motherhood to look like, I've come to the conclusion for me that motherhood, for me, is now a relationship that I get to have with my child. It's a two-way relationship that I get to enjoy as well as we talked about, and I am not putting them in a box. I am there to help them and guide them into finding the life and the happiness that they want to have, to help them figure out who they are, and that really has made me like it's made motherhood so much more enjoyable, because it doesn't feel like a job as much. How do you explain this? 

Danielle Bettmann  44:33  
It's like an experience. It brings curiosity, and like so much more authenticity.

Sharon Johnson  44:42  
I'm not constantly sitting there thinking about what I need to teach my children. It is enjoying them. It's listening to them. I'm silly. I'm a much sillier mom. I'm a more fun mom, and I'm learning those boundaries, right? I'm learning when it's like, ah, the kids are not listening to me anymore, like we've swung too hard to the other side, right? Like I'm not their friend, but also you are sometimes. And it's just been a much more like beautiful, enjoyable experience than it was before. Because it's not this job with all of these expectations anymore.

Danielle Bettmann  45:24  
With this big to-do list that you have to check off. I think our kids respond to that authenticity and that silliness and that relationship so much better too. Whereit's genuinely a better result, because that's what they want from us, is a level of understanding and mutual respect and being able to contribute to something bigger than them in the family that doesn't feel arbitrary, that doesn't feel like it's imposed demands on them as well, and it frees them up to really be who they are, and you can help them discover who that is every day, every year and that's just objectively fun.

Sharon Johnson  46:09  
It is, it's fascinating to me. It is so fun.  I had this huge, long conversation with my teens the other day, and they had this experience where, like, something was going on with our friends. Some people were saying, like, don't share this information with your parents. And my kid, we ended up having this conversation where they were like, I forget that I have parents that I can say these things to, that I can talk to them about this situation that could or could not be viewed as problematic, or you might need assistance in, you know, and, and that was like, I just wanted to give myself like, a bajillion gold stars of like, gosh, it's like, in this situation where her friends are like, we can't talk to our parents about this, because we're gonna be grounded or whatever, like we're gonna have to learn some lesson and be disciplined. And my kid was like, ah, I forgot that. Like, I can talk to you about this. Why was I scared to talk to you about this? And I was like I don't know, good. I don't know if I'm doing it right, but at least, like I have kids, they can talk to me about hard shit and that is like for now. I know we're very early on in our teenage experience, but I also can acknowledge, and even with my teens, we can acknowledge, like, listen, we are going to fight and we are going to argue. This is just the nature of being a teenager. There are going to be times that you are so mad that you hate my guts. That is just how it's gonna be. But like, let's try as much as we can to, like, try to understand each other and talk and have open communication and treat it like a relationship and not like I'm your boss, let's learn how to communicate. 

Danielle Bettmann  46:09  
That is so life giving. 

Sharon Johnson  46:12  
It is. There have been situations where, like, they've hurt my feelings and I've been able to sit there and be like, hey, I'm a real life person. Can we talk about how we communicate better, and like, can you ever imagine sitting down with your mom or dad and being like, hey, let's learn how to have like better communication skills with one another. Like, no, absolutely not. You just, you just did whatever your parents told you to do.

Danielle Bettmann  46:13  
Yeah, and then raged in anger in the basement about how much you disagreed with it, yeah.

Sharon Johnson  47:35  
Then you just talk shit on them for days with your friends, which I'm sure they still do, but at least they're talking to me about it. 

Danielle Bettmann  48:45  
Yes, that is genuinely when I talk to parents about like their long term goals for their family. One of the common threads I hear so much more often than not, is I want to have an open, honest relationship with my teens. When my kids are teens, I want to have an open door communication. I wanted them to be honest with me when they get to those situations that are higher risk, that we have this like established relationship and credibility and trust built up, that we can then call upon in those years, and they understand that that's not just something you like show up and expect you have to put years of credibility and effort into that to get to that point. And that is a really big, I think, symbol of something that you've done right, that you should get gold stars for, because it shows so much more that has led up to that point in the last you know, 10 years that you've put that work in.

Sharon Johnson  49:41  
I don't give advice very often. I think some tangible advice that has worked really, really well for us, even when it comes to little kids, is that there is no extra disciplining for when you lie in our family. Because for me, that only, especially for some of the kids, we realized, oh, they were getting in trouble for the thing that they did and getting in trouble for lying. So now, when they do something wrong, they will double down on their lie, because they don't want to get the double punishment where we want to, like, reward truth telling, even if you lied before. Like, it takes a lot of guts to tell a lie and then be like, you know what, Mom, I lied too, like, that should be applauded, that honesty should be rewarded. And so we're still disciplining for, like, the thing that happened, right? Like, you were not supposed to be kicking a soccer ball in the house, and you did, and you broke a lamp. Like we still need to address that situation, and we will talk about life, talk about the consequence, the natural consequences, of not being believed in, mom and dad, not being able to believe you when you say things. But in the end, we have chosen we don't discipline for that, because then you're just gonna have kids. They're doubling down on the lying because they don't want to double punishment. 

Danielle Bettmann  51:05  
That makes sense. And lying is just a coping mechanism.

Sharon Johnson  51:08  
Yes, like let's talk about it. Were you scared? What did you think was gonna happen? It's actually coming down to like, yeah, you're right. It's a coping mechanism. Why are you lying? Let's talk about that.

Danielle Bettmann  51:17  
Yeah, yeah. Now I have to ask, because you have such a presence on TikTok and on the internet, do you still feel shame at all when you share things that are vulnerable on the internet? And I know in some of your comment sections, people aren't always nice. They have a lot of judgments that they will share, especially, you know, when you're like, here's how I manage six kids. And, I mean, people are quick to be like, six kids. What? 

Sharon Johnson  51:45  
Oh, yeah, even at that, right? 

Danielle Bettmann  51:48  
Yes, so how do you manage that? 

Sharon Johnson  51:53  
Not well. I'm learning. I've been on social media for three years now. So I think last year I had, I don't remember when we started following each other. Were you here for bath, gate, path, gate? That was the biggest and the hardest one that I went through. I just did a video that I thought was just a cute little helpful video of, like, the mother of six, six things that I do to help manage, like our big family, and I mentioned that we had a bath schedule at one point. So kids were getting bathed no matter what, you were getting bathed, like on Wednesdays and Sundays, and then in between is needed, is what I said. But like, no matter what, and I mean, the internet collectively lost their shit. It was bad. Newsweek called me an unsanitary mother. Hundreds of duets and stretches just telling me that, like CPS should be called. My kids were disgusting. I was a terrible mother. But then on the flip side, you had all these other people that are, like, doctors say you shouldn't bathe your kids more than this.  It was very in hindsight, so it was very hard to go through. It absolutely made me feel shame, and absolutely, like, made me question, like, am I a good enough mom? Am I a terrible human, like, am I robbing my children of learning? Like, good hygiene habits, you know, like, I thought we were doing just fine over here, doing a good job. And 1000s of people are telling me I'm like, the worst mother there ever was.

Danielle Bettmann  53:32  
I think that's like, secretly, our biggest fear is to be called out on our insecurities and be like, no, really, you actually are a terrible parent, and here's the evidence, and we all collectively agree.

Sharon Johnson  53:43  
I think stepping back, it's really fascinating to look back. There's a lot of issues with the whole like, how many times you bathe yourself and in this collective like, anyway, this obsession that we have with other people's hygiene, but we don't need a reasoning on that. I think it was really fascinating to just see like how drastically different people do motherhood and how much like culture and who you surround yourself in and your community has to do with that, and how we shame other mothers based on our lived experience, when their lived experience and their community and their culture is drastically different. You can't compare apples to apples when it comes to motherhood, which means you can't compare yourself to other people, because it's drastically different. Fundamentally, there are these core subconscious parts of motherhood that exist in you that you don't even know why they're there, and they don't exist there for other people, and you think that it's for everybody.

Danielle Bettmann  54:05  
Like, the lens you are viewing everything in is not the same as the glasses. 

Sharon Johnson  55:00  
It's not the same reality. I think that's one thing. Of stepping away from the church, you come to understand that everyone lives in a different reality. You're not all living in the same world.

Danielle Bettmann  55:13  
Yeah, and one is not more right than the other.

Sharon Johnson  55:18  
Yes, yes. That is a valid, wonderful point to point out in that is that it's just all different. There's not a wrong or right in that it is just different.

Danielle Bettmann  55:28  
Yes, and once I felt like I was really understanding that I realized that the biggest lesson I wanted my kids to have, morally or ethically, is the understanding that different is good. When they were really little, I just kind of summed it up, like, yeah, people are different. The way that they dress is different, the way that they eat is different. I mean, you can go all day, it's just different. And different is good. That's all you really need to know, because that's gonna help you translate a lot of like, your initial if it's unfamiliar, and if it seems scary, but it's just, you know, your proximity to it and how you're going to interpret it. It's going to feel that the difference is a little bit scary, but really, like, once you learn to embrace it, because you have more maturity, to be able to see, like, oh, that actually taught me something. Or oh, there's value in that that I didn't understand. Or there's actually a different way of doing things that both work. I think that's what I learned so much about leaving religion, is that it's not black and white. It's not as black and white as I always thought. Every answer has a perfect answer and it's black and white, but there's so much gray. And actually, most of life is gray, if you are like an emotionally developed adult, that you can understand, that there's nuance, there's so much nuance to humanity, and it's uncomfortable. I do miss how certain I felt about things.

Sharon Johnson  56:55  
You just got like a plan I'm working that in a lot of therapy is learning to trust myself and learning to be able to make my own decisions. 

Danielle Bettmann  57:03  
Man, I could not trust myself. 

Sharon Johnson  57:05  
Because even with my therapist, I'm like,  I handled that okay, right? Like, that was okay. And she'll be like, I'm not gonna tell you that. And I'm like, damn, validate it. 

Danielle Bettmann  57:16  
I still can't make a decision on my own. I gotta have backup. I gotta have somebody else give me their two cents so I can, like, base it off of something, because I was taught not to trust my instincts that my instincts were evil for 30 years. 

Sharon Johnson  57:30  
And you were constantly seeking outside validation for everything, whether that was from the church rules or from God. You're constantly looking outside of yourself for answers. And I went from that to TikTok. So like, I went from the validation of myself of like a God, to a validation of blowing up on TikTok and everybody telling me that I was either really great or really terrible. So I'm still in the process of, like, dismantling all of that and just, oh boy, that I can just be good, because I say that I'm good, and that is all the validation.

Danielle Bettmann  58:04  
Yes, oh, man, easier said than done. Yes, absolutely lifelong journey there.  Well, we do need to wrap up. I feel like there's a million other things we could talk about that we have in common, but, you know, I'll have you back to do that. So will you share with my listeners how they can connect with you?

Sharon Johnson  58:20  
Yeah. So for now, I'm on TikTok, as long as it's alive. It's Sharon.a.life sharing a life on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook, and I have a podcast with my sister. It's kind of her podcast. She bullied me into joining. It's lovely, and I'm loving it so far. It's called Wake Her Up, and that's on Apple and Spotify and anywhere that you can find podcasts. Yeah, that's where I'm at for now.

Danielle Bettmann  58:20  
Perfect. All those will be in the show notes. And then the last question I ask every guest that comes on is, how are you the mom your kids need? 

Sharon Johnson  58:55  
I feel like I can very confidently say right now I feel like I'm a really good mom right now, and the experiences that I have gone through, even though I feel kind of shame and I'm failing my kids sometimes with my mental health, what I've been able to learn from my mental health is allowing me to be the best possible mom to my kids as they struggle with some of those things as well. I am patient, I am kind. I know coping mechanisms, like I think it's interesting having adopted kids, because you question that a little bit more. I think if somebody else could be doing it better, and I can confidently say that I am the best parent for my kids right now. I absolutely am, and I am because I show up for them. I'm honest with them, and I love them. I'd say that's what they need. Yeah, that's all they really need. 

Danielle Bettmann  59:57  
I hope for every parent to be able to say the same. And to have that feeling of pride in the themselves and their relationship, because that's truly such an emblem of what our kids need. And I am so glad they have you.

Sharon Johnson  1:00:12  
Me too, and I'll hang on to that confidence, because I know it'll plummet in a short few months, but you like, you hold on to it. You take your wins as you can take them.

Danielle Bettmann  1:00:19  
Absolutely. There'll still be highs and lows. But for now, we can name that, and I love that. 

Sharon Johnson  1:00:27  
Thank you so much for having me on. This is lovely. 

Danielle Bettmann  1:00:30  
Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

Danielle Bettmann  1:00:39  
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Failing Motherhood. Your kids are so lucky to have you. If you loved this episode, take a screenshot right now and share it in your Instagram stories and tag me. If you're loving the podcast, be sure that you've subscribed and leave a review so we can help more moms know they are not alone if they feel like they're failing motherhood daily, and if you're ready to transform your relationship with your strong willed child and invest in the support you need to make it happen, schedule your free consultation using the link in the show notes. I can't wait to meet you. Thanks for coming on this journey with me. I believe in you, and I'm cheering you on.