Multi-Passion Mama: Ronna Detrick

Note from Stacey:  The following is an excerpt from my interview with Ronna Detrick, founder of RENEGADEconversations, for my upcoming Multi-Passion Mama Productivity System interview series.  Ronna and I had an inspiring conversation, and I was so impressed with her unapologetic approach to taking the time that she needs for herself, while also maintaining a fantastic parenting philosophy.  The excerpt below is part of a discussion we had on the important role that honesty plays in the relationship that you have with your children.  Stay tuned for more information on The Multi-Passion Mama Productivity System, and find out more about Ronna below.  Enjoy!

Ronna: I’m a single mom. I have 2 daughters – Emma will be 14 in a couple of months and Abby will be 12 in a couple of months.  They are absolutely delightful and incredibly challenging.  They stretch me and push me all the time – just incredible young women who I can already see, you know, glimpses of who they’re yet to become, and I love watching that in them.

Stacey: I love how you said that – how you’re inspired by them, how you’re “stretched” by them. It really sounds like an idea that my friend (and collaborator on my blog) Ruthie  talks about a lot – the idea that her children are her gurus, saying that she is learning from them all the time.  It was after she first said that that I realized that “Oh my gosh, it’s so true!”

For me, there is no better teacher on this planet than my child, and you really seemed to touch on that as well in your recent newsletter that touched me so deeply.  It was just a couple of weeks ago, and you talked about your 13-year-old – soon to be 14-year-old – daughter Emma, and that she had posted on Facebook some photographs of herself and a few self-portraits, along with just the most inspiring, incredible message. I think that never in a million years would I have been able to do this, as a 13-year-old – she wrote, “I am not perfect.  Nothing about me is perfect.  No one is perfect, but I am beautiful and no one can change me.”  And, gosh, there’s tears in my eyes just thinking about that post, and when I read it and saw the pictures that you also posted… I just want to say, thank you, Mama!  For raising that girl – that woman – to be able to speak from that place!  So – that being said – what kind of tools are you using to raise daughters who are so aware and reflective?

Ronna: It’s definitely a challenge. I think at a very base level, it’s just a challenge – like being in any relationship, right?

Stacey: Right!

Ronna: Your children want your time, and they want you to spend money, and want all kinds of things – and I have conflicting priorities.  I have all kinds of things that I am trying to do – I’m trying to pay a mortgage, and I’m trying to make things work with my business, and I’m trying to live a life and have friends and date and just, you know, keep a house clean!  Certainly on that level of the challenges of day-in-and-day-out life, I feel pushed often into places where I might feel guilt, or I might feel a little bit more defiant… Or, I might feel more generous and be able to shift my priorities around.

So there are of course those aspects of being a mom, but I think from my perspective – and this has certainly been the predominant motivator for me as a mother since my divorce – I have to create an environment in which they can tell me the truth.  More than whether or not they disappoint me, or thrill me, or they like me or don’t like me, is the fact that they know that we can have honest conversations.

And sometimes we’re successful at that and other times we’re not.  But even when I hear really hard things – like stuff that they’re really mad about, or times when they’re really disappointed in me – I’m grateful that at least I have the ability to step back and say, “Okay.  Yuck, I don’t like that, and thank you for telling me the truth.  That’s what I want from you.”  And I think that as I play the tape out, further down the line, and recognize that as they move quicker into these teenage years and have increased independence, and new decisions to make, that I will potentially disagree with all sorts of things.  But it’s just super, super important to me that they know that they can come back, that they have faith, and that they know that it’s more important to me that we can be honest with each other than how they behave.

So that’s kind of been my mantra and we’ve had some tough conversations.  I’ve said some things they have not wanted to hear and I have heard some things I did not want to hear.  It has not been easy or fun all the time, but it does feel really, really important.  Even when I think about Emma’s posting on Facebook, I still am just so stunned by that.  It is so vulnerable of her, and so strong of her, and not what I would necessarily have expected – and yet I look at that and I see those words and I’m like, “Who are you?  How did you become someone who could even do this?”  And then the part of me that says, “Oh my gosh, she’s my daughter!”  How beautiful to have helped create the conditions that enable her to feel safe enough, and secure enough, to talk about where she’s insecure.  I sure could have never done that at 13. It’s tough for me now, at 49!

Stacey: Yes, exactly!  That’s exactly it, that you get to say, “Oh my gosh, who are you? You are your own person!”  It’s so fascinating in so many respects, and then to say “Yes, you did come through me! And I have tried to live my “truth” and model that for you.”

You are obviously modeling that for your daughters, too, which is just extraordinary.  And that really relates to the “Multi-Passion” part, too, because the underlying thread of the series is that so many mama are so challenged by the day to day existence.  They’re cleaning the house and dealing with multiple needs of children, and then also carving out time for themselves – whether it’s their own artistic projects, or business, or dating.  But you are absolutely doing it, and presenting again, a model for how it can be done.  Maybe not perfectly – and we’re not looking for perfection at all – but we’re doing it.  We’re doing it because it’s important to us and I think about how for my own mom, that was something that she wasn’t able to articulate as well.

And she still talks about that, the idea that she doesn’t know where I came from!  Again, I think, it’s good to just continue the conversation.  Our moms definitely started it and we get to continue it and build on it. That’s what I’m really interested in with this series, is presenting to other busy mamas the idea that it’s never going to look like perfection, but you can do it.  And what I love that you brought to this conversation is “Let’s be very honest about these challenges.  Let’s talk to children about what a challenge life is, and let’s tell the truth about it.”

Ronna Detrick, principal and owner of RENEGADEconversations, is a speaker, a writer, and a mentor/spiritual director. She calls herself a Renegade and hopes for the same on others’ behalf: “amazing people who live from their hearts.” And she loves good conversation, on any topic, but most often in the realms of Faith, Feminism, and Telling the Truth.

Tagged as: "value yourself", balancing needs, faith, family, honesty, parenting, relationships