Balancing Work and Family, Unmasking Flattery, and Cultivating Quality Relationships

Ever found yourself juggling work and family life, trying to keep everyone entertained while meeting deadlines? I certainly have, and this summer was no different. In this episode of Steel Roses, I share my personal stories of balancing my busy work schedule with the joys and challenges of spending quality time with my kids. From organizing "mom fun days" to reviving my childhood tradition of board game nights, I reflect on the true value of meaningful connections. Let's explore why prioritizing quality relationships over quantity can lead to a more fulfilling life, and how making time for those who matter most can enrich our everyday experiences.

Have you ever noticed how a well-timed compliment could shift the burden of responsibilities? In this episode, we uncover the subtle art of weaponized flattery in both our personal and professional lives. I recount how my husband’s praise sometimes leads to me taking on extra tasks and how the "damsel in distress" tactic is often used to avoid duties. Additionally, I share a professional experience where flattery was used to placate rather than promote genuine growth. Join me as we dissect these manipulative behaviors masked by sweet words and discuss strategies to foster healthier, more equitable relationships.

Takeaways

• Prioritize spending quality time with loved ones, especially during busy periods.
• Focus on building meaningful relationships rather than seeking attention from others.
• Recognize and call out manipulative behavior, such as weaponized flattery.
• Set boundaries and prioritize self-care to avoid being taken advantage of.

Chapters

• 0:03 Prioritizing Quality Relationships Over Quantity
• 8:43 Recognizing Weaponized Flattery in Relationships

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hello everybody, good morning. This is Still Roses podcast. This podcast was created for women, by women. Thank you for joining me today. Happy Thursday. I hope everyone is having a really great week.

Speaker 1: 0:18

Can anyone else believe that it's mid already? Like how fast did the time fly? Now? I was actually just speaking with somebody yesterday and I said to them I was like I feel like as soon as school let out, I was running a marathon nonstop. I've been running.

Speaker 1: 0:40

I feel like I've been running a marathon nonstop because with the kids home now it's more of a juggling act and I mean, I've been talking about this, as you guys already know, and you all are probably experiencing it, but it's a juggling act, right? So my kids are in camp half day and then I have the half day stop or I have to go get them and then I got to keep them occupied while I'm also working. It's a lot, it's a lot and one day kind of very quickly blurs into the next. And right now it's mid-July and I was looking at the calendar last night because I was setting up some tutoring sessions for my kids before they go back to school to help with the summer slide and I was like, wow, there's only about six weeks left or five weeks left, like I think, roughly I think five or six weeks left, um, for them to be on summer vacation. Like, uh, where did the time go? Now, one thing I will say I'm very happy that I made the call this year to use all of my vacation time throughout the summer and once a week, um, I'm just with them and I'm off and I'm with them. What we started doing, I started calling them Um. In the beginning of the summer, I had a quote, unquote a meeting, a family meeting with them, and I said explain that, like this summer, mommy has off every Tuesday and we're going to have mom fun days and on those mom fun days we can do activities together and hang out together and mommy won't work. So now, some of those days, um, I do podcasting work, but I'll try to keep it to the morning when they're not here, and then, you know, in the afternoons we can spend time together. So, this week for mom fun day, now that they're old enough, I got to play board games with them.

Speaker 1: 2:32

I grew up. It sounds very cheesy, but I grew up playing board games with my family when we I have very, I have very fond memories of all the cousins going down to my grandparents' house and we would all stay down there with our parents and everything, and then we would have like Monopoly and Rummikub. If any of my family is listening, I'm just flashing back to Grandma Rose teaching us all Rummikub, and my older brother was like obsessed. He got a Rummikub set. He was just obsessed with the game. Um, but I have a lot of happy memories like that, so I'm trying to install some of that into my kids.

Speaker 1: 3:11

So yesterday, um, in New Jersey it's, it was very hot and I didn't really want them to be outside all day. So, um, we did games in the afternoon for like two hours and then, um, you know, we got in the pool. But it was, you know, it was very pleasant. I was telling my husband last night, you know, there was only two mom outbursts for me, um, which is actually kind of like a record essentially. Um, so just kind of sharing that I am. I'm grateful that I'm doing that this year and I'm prioritizing spending time with them this year, because I've never done that before and I always would just work Monday through Friday. That was really the priority Monday through Friday, and then I don't know if I just didn't see it that way or I didn't value the free time that I had, but then in the free time I was also quote unquote busy all the time.

Speaker 1: 4:00

And this past year and a half two years that I've been making this quantum shift with my energy and my alignment I value my time much more and I value the people that I spend that time with. Now that brings me to my first thought starter. I saw this on Pinterest, as I usually do when I'm browsing at night, and I saw this pin come up and I want to actually highlight it for everybody because this is pretty significant and I think a lot of us um, I don't do this so much anymore because my, again, my alignment has shifted, so I'm a little bit, I'm much more mindful, um, but I think a lot of us go chasing after attention for things and and and hold on. Let me clarify before you you are kind of annoyed that I said that um, the quote is some people talk to you in their free time and some free their time to talk to you. Learn the difference. So what we're homing in on there is that there's people that truly value spending time with you and they're going to prioritize it. If they really want to talk to you, they're going to prioritize it.

Speaker 1: 5:13

And you know, when I was much younger I didn't. I looked at my social circle more like instead of quality versus quantity. Right, I was into quantity and I had a very extensive, large social circle and I thought being popular was like the most important thing and I wanted to hang out with everybody. I wanted to be everybody's friend. I wanted to be able to dip in and out of social circles. Like that was my thing, like I, I was like Miss social butterfly and it bit me in the ass pretty hard, um, in the times that I was at my darkest, that large social circle that I had built basically turned on me and knew all my business because I was, you know, not shy about sharing information, which again, another no, no, um, and sharing information is not bad, but if you share it with the wrong people, it is, and that's what I was doing. And it bit me in the ass pretty hard and it was a really tough lesson for me to learn that you know if you need to, if you have to chase someone down to talk to them, and if you have to go out of your way and jump through hoops to, you know, make a connection to somebody. They either really don't want to be connected with you, which is perfectly fine, or, like you know, they don't value you, which also is perfectly fine, and that means that they're not meant to be in your wheel, in your circle.

Speaker 1: 6:50

Um, currently, as an adult, like, there's people that I know that are, like you know, just friends from an arm's length, friends from a distance, like, or, you know, acquaintances. I know these people but I'm not friends with them, I just know these people. There's, there's a line there and I think that, like, once you recognize that and you stop and you start to kind of identify like these are the people that actually value me and want to spend time with me. Let me just put all my attention here, like, why am I trying to spread myself out so thin? Quality over quantity, especially now, like I'm in my forties, I could care less. Like I'm, like I, it would be very nice to have, like you know, mom friends and and people that I can relate to. And I do have some folks that I can reach out to and chit chat with or whatever, and I don't mind having that mom connection. But you know I'm also not going to force my way into someone's social circle, like, that's just not, that's not my vibe and I don't think it should be anybody's vibe.

Speaker 1: 7:48

If you have to force your way into something or if you have to convince people, or if you feel pressure that you need to do something a certain way just to get people to like you, those people don't really like you then and you shouldn't be doing that because you're amazing as you are, and if it means that your social circle is three people good for you, the three people that will go to bat for you, versus 15 people that will talk shit about you behind your back Sorry, trash, excuse me, you know what I'm talking about. That Like that's what I'm talking about here. So I just wanted to highlight that because I think that you know we get. I think that we get wrapped up in that, especially as women. Like you know, we all want to be liked. None of us want people like being rude to us or what have. Nobody wants that. Everybody really does truly want to be liked. But at the same time it's like at what cost you're not going to, you're not going to sacrifice yourself and your sanity for that.

Speaker 1: 8:43

So it was just something that I had thought about that, um, it popped up again. I popped up and I was like, let me save this so I can talk with everybody about this and just highlight it. Now there was another quote kind of in relation to that and I cannot find it, so I'm going to pivot. So there, the other one that I saw is a little bit. Let me see if I can find it here. Okay, um, here's another part um shifting away from friendships and that, those kinds of relationships, um, weaponized flattery. Now it sounds strange, it's like a conundrum. Um, I've actually recognized this in real life. And then I saw the quote and I was like, oh, okay. So I was corrected in my annoyance.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Um, so we talk a lot about weaponized like incompetence, right, and people who, um, basically, will hide behind incompetence to, you know, not have to do something or not participate in something or not pull their weight. I was talking to my husband about this recently, where I've, um, unfortunately, it was mostly women. Actually, now that I think about it, my industry is mostly women, um, in my levels Anyway, um, I've encountered women that use their not femininity but they'll try to play like the damsel in distress card because they, they could do it. But like, why do it when you can convince someone else to do a kind of thing? And, um, that was never my thing. So I always was like kind of disgusted by that behavior because why are you gonna have someone else do it for? Do it yourself, like you don't want anyone to have anything like that. They could. In my eyes it yourself, like you don't want anyone to have anything like that they can. In my eyes, it was always like I don't want someone to be able to hold this over my head.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Um, but I've seen that a lot and I never really understood that, like women who and at the time these were young women in their twenties, that would you know, dane like, oh, I don't know, can you show me how to do this? And then you know the guy would be oh, of course, I'll show you how to do it. And then they would end up doing all the work and the girl just, you know, kind of go about her business. And I'm I never, I never really could wrap my head around that. That was never. I couldn't, I couldn't do it. Um, but if you think about weaponized flattery. Now it's a different flip and we've probably all experienced it, but you didn't realize that, or you did realize it, but you didn't know what to call it.

Speaker 1: 11:13

So my husband does this with me and I call him out on it every single time where let's see oh, making doctor's appointments. Now, if you're, if you're married or in a serious relationship or whatever, most of the time it's the woman who's calling to make appointments. Um, so, making all handling all the appointments, everything goes through me and that means that it often gets delayed because I don't have a lot of time. My husband will say like and I'll get annoyed. He's like. He'll tell me like, oh, you gotta, you gotta do this, you gotta get this scheduled. And I'll tell him, like, just call, just do it, just handle it, cause I clearly haven't done it and you're still waiting. And then he will say to me well, you're good at that.

Speaker 1: 12:03

That's a weaponized compliment, because it's not. Anyone can call and make an appointment. It's not that I'm good at it, it's just that he gets nervous talking to offices and he doesn't know all the information that they're looking for. He's not as familiar with making appointments anymore because we've been together for almost 15 years and I've been doing it for 15 years. So he leans on me for that. And then when I get annoyed, he says well, you're good at that. So the example that um is in this post is no, dad, my mom isn't amazing at organizing events. She just has to do it. Because you're not doing it, it's the same thing. And I and I laughed when I saw this.

Speaker 1: 12:46

I was like, oh my God, like there's many more things that, like my husband quite often will be like or I think I'll say to him like well, you can't all wait for me, like we're getting like stuck, like you can't all, every single one of you need something and you're waiting for me. I'm like babe, what do you read to the kids, or do this or do that? And his response will be like you read to the kids or do this or do that, and his response will be like, well, you're good at that, you're better at that than me. And I literally turn around and say, no, you also are good at that, you just don't want to do it. You're being lazy, do it. And you know, like that's kind of like I started realizing it and I started calling him out on it, cause I'm like, don't say that, like that's a cop out. You're, you're, you're copping out right now, you know, you just don't want to be bothered with it. Just be upfront, Just say you don't want to do it. Um, but it's not even just in pertaining to relationships.

Speaker 1: 13:35

I had a professional experience where I was you know, this was in my days of 12 hour days where I didn't care and I would work all night, and I remember I was really working towards getting my own account. So I work in client services and the way that it works is you get quote, unquote client accounts that you will manage and lead. Um, I wanted my own and I didn't have one yet and I wanted to be a lead. And, um, I was told by my manager at the time you're doing a great job, I don't see why not. Like, we can make this happen. Flash forward about a week or so and, um, he comes back around and says oh, you know what we're actually going to give it to so-and-so, you're so good at what you're doing, let's just keep you there.

Speaker 1: 14:23

And my immediate reaction was in my head was all right, well, I'm going to start looking for another job Then, if you're not going to give me a leadership opportunity, I'm going to leave. But really think about that compliment there, that quote, unquote compliment You're so good at what you're doing, let's just keep you there. That's backhanded, that's a cop out. For whatever reason, they didn't want to advance me, which is fine. That's happened to me my entire professional career that I've had men tell me we're not going to advance you, for whatever bullshit reason they come up with, excuse me, it really irritates me. I'll come up with whatever crap reason they want and say oh well, shoot, sorry, you missed an email, can't, can't promote you. It's like well, you mean so? The 99.9% things that I've been hitting out of the park don't count, but that one time that I made a mistake, you're going to make that the reason why you can't advance me. Thank you for letting me know that I need to move on from here. That was always my response.

Speaker 1: 15:17

Think about your day-to-day interactions at work with your managers or with other folks that are trying to pawn work off on you, because that's still a thing, it still happens. It doesn't happen where I'm at, but well, not anymore, but it does happen. It is a thing, and if you're not mindful of it, people will take advantage of you. They'll use a backhanded compliment, they'll sandwich it in with a request and then we'll sandwich it in with another compliment, like, oh my God, you're the best. Thank you, I can always depend on you. Do you really want to be that person that they can always just throw stuff at and you're just going to do it? I don't think so.

Speaker 1: 15:51

So it applies to personal relationships, it applies to professional relationships and it's something that we all have, as women especially need to be mindful of, because our tendency is to say yes, our tendency is to go with it and say my work will speak for itself, and then someone will jump in and help me. This is me saying no one's coming to help you Nobody. You have to help yourself. You have to meditate. I'm in a broken record this whole summer until everybody's meditating to meditate to your affirmations, do your visualization. You have to be mindful of your barometer, that fear that I talk about in some episodes, that gut feeling that we talk about in some episodes.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Be aware, if you have an inkling that something is not quite right, you're probably right. Look into it further, think about it more. We have to be the change. I was born in 1983, so everyone in my generation. We're just waking up now. We're just waking up. I'm talking, having conversations with loads of people for the fall series and I have almost the whole entire fall series booked up and every single person that I talked to about this, about this focus and about what we're doing here on this podcast, every single person is saying to me like we need to do this. We need to be the change. We're going to be the ones that shift the. We're going to shift the barometer. We're going to make this change because the next generation is coming up right hot behind us and we need to be the ones to be leading the way here.

Speaker 1: 17:19

So I'll leave you with those thought starters today. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I'll see you all next week. I appreciate all of you listening. Please make sure that you, um that you leave a review for me, um, in any of the podcast platforms that you listen to. I greatly appreciate it. It really does help, um, get this podcast into other people's feeds when you leave reviews. So I really appreciate everybody's support with that, um. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, as I said, and I'll see you on the next one. Take care everybody.