Chosen Family: In Conversation with Paige Brown (My Mom)
My favorite part of creating Making Meaning is the opportunity it gives me to connect with people in my life. I love having these conversations but we don’t typically engage in them in our day to day lives. We’re either too busy, rushed, distracted, or focused on the next thing to slow down and pay attention to what’s right in front of us: deeply powerful stories and relationships. Sitting down with my mom is a brilliant example of how lucky I am to be able to do this work, and additionally, to have the mom that I do. It’s difficult to open up, sometimes even more difficult with the people we care about most. But in those moments of authentic vulnerability I find true connection and meaning arise.
Recording a conversation inevitably changes the conversations that I have with my guests, but I try my best to create an environment where we can open up honestly, and edit out anything private or that my guest doesn’t wish to make public. Further, I have different levels of familiarity with my guests, and there are certain things they may not want to share with me. Having my mom as a guest certainly alleviated some of these barriers to vulnerability. My mom and I talk about nearly everything in our lives, but of course there will always be things you don’t know about the people you are closest with. This environment gave me a different lens into my mom’s life and a better ability to see her life experience in its totality.
Even though my mom and I talk about almost everything in our lives, hearing the dimension of experience she presented on the podcast deepened my understanding of her through the way she presented her story to the audience. Further, conducting a conversation with my mom as an interviewer as opposed to a daughter radically changed my approach to our conversation. Not only did this episode allow me to have a deep and meaningful conversation with my mom, it also served as an interesting exercise into our relationship and how it changes under different circumstances.
On top of these nuanced dimensions of our conversation, my mom was also extremely nervous to come on the podcast, which is rare for her. My mom is undoubtedly the most confident and self-assured person in my life, and to see her in this setting, with a mic and camera on and my questions framed as an interviewer, not as a daughter, revealed a completely new aspect of my mom’s personality to me. I think it’s fundamental to any relationship to see the strengths and growth edges of the people we engage with, but especially in parent-child relationships. As we become adults and can better understand our parents as fully fledged human beings and not just god-like figures that raised us, the more authentic our relationship can get.
Seemingly paradoxically, the more I see the flaws in my parents, the more my respect for them grows. Further, the more I grow the more my parents respect me. We will never be true peers, or true friends, because of the inherent power dynamic built into parent-child relationships, but I can confidently say that my parents are not just parents, but they are mentors, supporters, listeners, coaches, allies, and advocates, and I try my best to be the same for them.
A huge part of the health of my relationship with my mom, and both of my parents, is rooted in our shared value of open communication. There was a period of time where it was extremely difficult for me to talk to my parents about the things in my childhood that were difficult, or the areas that I disagreed with them on. But the more I opened up, the more both of us were able to see each others’ perspectives, learn from these situations, and grow closer. We don’t get to choose our blood relations, but we do get to choose our family, and I am extremely lucky to have biological parents that I would choose to be my family any day of the week. Our relationship is not just rooted in the experience of being birthed to them and raised by them, but is founded in our love for one another and a desire to bring out the best in each other.
To further explore the things discussed in this blog post, check out the below resources and recommendations.
Recommended by the Guest
YouTube Channel You’ve Got a Type
Psychology Resources
Understand Your Attachment Style (based on research from The Gottman Institute)
I hope you all enjoyed this conversation as much as I did! If you want more content, subscribe to Making Meaning on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts, and subscribe to the blog so you never miss a post! If you want to join the conversation, follow us on Instagram @thecoherecollective and leave a comment sharing your thoughts on this episode.
Until next time, so much love!
XX
Reese
Founder, The Cohere Collective
