The Impact of a Mother’s Happiness on Our Children

Those words hit me pretty hard when I heard them a year or so ago. The social media team for my podcast, The Mama’s Den, used audio from therapist and TV personality, Dr. Spirit Clanton over a few clips of me and my cohosts on a girls’ trip.

I felt a ping in my heart, reminding me why I have to live my best and most authentic life.

I felt empowered, while also feeling a huge sense of responsibility, a different kind of mom guilt. The kind that doesn’t come from letting my three boys watch too much TV or from working too much and not being there to put them to bed every night. I felt mom guilt from being unhappy and hearing what a grave impact that can have on my babies in the long run.

Let me take a beat to say that Dr. Spirit’s statement was somewhat controversial in the comments of this social media post. There were single dads taking the comments to mean their children wouldn’t thrive. There were folks saying how important two parent homes are, and how important it is that dad is involved. Someone said “a healthy dad is also important.” Let’s be clear that there are lots of factors contributing to a child’s short and long term well being and their ability to thrive. Dr. Spirit - a National Board Certified Counselor (NCC), Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Certified Forensic Mental Health Evaluator (CFMHE), certified Parenting Coordinator (PC), and wife and mother of seven - based this statement on research as to the number 1 indicator of a child’s ability to thrive.

With more than 380,000 views, 28,000 likes, 13,000 shares, and 3,000 saves, this social post and Dr. Spirit’s words definitely resonated. So, barring those that felt ostracized by the post, many people, like me, felt encouraged.

I am a 42-year old married mother of seven year old twins and a nine year old. I thought the first year or two of having three under three was actually pretty smooth. Then we were hit with the pandemic and evvverrrything was hard for everyone. But motherhood still wasn’t that hard to me. Challenging. Exhausting. Self sacrificing. A juggling act. Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.

Then there was 2024 when I had two five year olds and a seven year old. THAT was hard. Let me just say thank God we are no longer wiping butts and navigating tantrums. When I heard Spirit say “The quality of their mother’s happiness is the number one indicator as to whether or not a child will grow up to thrive,” I was definitely not happy. I was surviving. And that girls’ trip showed me a glimpse of myself being happy.

I have spent the last 10 years fully being an entrepreneur and storyteller. (Prior to that, I would say I was aspiring, a different journey which we can talk about another day.) Note that my oldest son will be 10 in October, so what does that tell you about what I have been juggling?

My husband and I run two businesses, one a multi-platform media company, and the other a TV/film production company. We have had 10-40 employees at any given time. I’m not saying my life isn’t harder than anyone else’s, especially not my husband (who is also my children’s father). But I’ve realized that the toll that entrepreneurship, leadership, and creative and business needs have taken on me isn’t worth taking all of us down.

In the quote from Dr. Spirit, she went on to say “...because if you have a depressed mother, if you have an anxious mother, a mother with post traumatic stress disorder, who is having to disconnect from her own body, she cannot show up to nurture you. She cannot show up to support you. She cannot fully step into that space.”

I latched onto this sentiment, knowing the stress of entrepreneurship has caused me great anxiety. I also know that sometimes in my marriage, I need to go inward and examine whether I am responding out of stress or an actual need my husband can meet. And parenthood, put simply, can be isolating. I read an Ohio State University survey that said 66% of parents often feel isolated and lonely.

So my mission has been not just to find joy, but to create and sustain joy in my life. Otherwise, the Oliver family is doomed.

Okay, that is dramatic. But something’s gotta give. For years, I told myself “you just need to meditate,” but then I don’t make the time to do it. “Create a morning routine,” but I’m thwarted by working into the wee hours and then finding a child in my bed at 6am (or earlier) and then it’s time to get everyone up, fed, and off to school. “Take a day or two off to recharge.” There is simply too much to do as an entrepreneur in a changing industry in a changing economy. “Get a therapist.” Full stop. I have a therapist I am grateful for. Even if our time together isn’t always consistent, making a one-off appointment or returning to a weekly schedule at any point, puts me at ease.

I have started to prioritize my friendships. I have never had a hard time making friends. But making time for them proves difficult. In 2021, I asked some mothers I admire to come together for a motherhood podcast and that turned into four years of The Mama’s Den podcast. GRAMMY award winning singer and mama of two, Melanie Fiona, and writer and mama of four, Ashley Chea, insisted that I be a part of The Mama’s Den podcast, where we explore motherhood, sisterhood, and (possibly ironically) our own experiences thriving happy humans as ambitious, entrepreneurial women from diverse backgrounds.

Over the years we have been recording, we have fallen in love as sisters and we cherish our weekly recordings. We have experienced SO much together and in our separate lives, we have become even more intentional about holding space for one another’s truth. Something as simple as a phone call to vent or a wine night with these ladies can significantly alleviate anxiety and stress, creating mental space to be a better mother for my kids. In fact, a mother’s friendships positively impact their child’s brain development. I don’t play about my “mom friends” or my lifelong friends and making time to connect with them has been my saving grace over these last few years. I can’t stress enough how vital it is to create community if you don’t have it.

Look, I played volleyball, basketball, and ran track in high school, and have been active all of my life. I haven’t had a regular workout routine since I was preparing for my wedding 10 years ago. Between motherhood and business, I just haven’t been able to be consistent. During the pandemic, after a particularly stressful work event, I was completely unsettled. I ended up walking in my neighborhood for hours. After which, my husband checked my phone to see my steps - something I had never done. And I had walked thousands of steps, compared to what I realized was usually a few hundred. After that day, I walked 10,000 steps a day for about a year until I resumed sitting at a desk most of the day to edit our TV series, Black Love. But don’t worry, I got back to it! That’s right, you can fall off, but just get back up!

Taking a few 30 minute walks a day can get more steps logged than you think. On the weekends, I’ll walk alone for over an hour even though my littles sometimes beg me not to go. (Don’t worry, I take them with me sometimes too, but my point is that I am putting myself first.) Seeing that step count grow on my phone or watch feels almost as good as my body and mind at the end of those days.

Research shows that children require little quality attention according to early educator, parent coach, and mom of 6, Charisse Sims. I have read that even 15-20 minutes a day doing something that they want to do is enough to improve how they feel about themselves, their relationship with me, and even their relationship to their siblings. So I work to do that a few times per week and it makes me happy to see my kids have that kind of joy.

On that same note, I am being more present with myself. I have put “thinking time” in my calendar in the past and it just becomes time to respond to emails or make a list of some kind. But now, I am working to be present with myself and identify how I feel about something and what I can do about it. What’s that unsettling feeling? Anxiety? What’s it tied to? What can I do? Nothing at this moment? OK, then, it’s time for a walk or a phone call to a loved one who puts me at ease.

These steps all add up to me being intentional about my happiness and simply slowing down to listen to myself and identify what I need. The most heartbreaking comments on Dr. Spirit’s audio were the women who said that they know this to be true and wish their own children could have seen them thriving, something they only began to do once their children were older.

Parents, please take seriously the impact of your own happiness on your children. But in particular, mamas, and any primary caregiver in a single or two-parent household, know that our children need us to be available to them. Creating real happiness for yourself from the inside out allows you to be a model and a guide for your children to thrive in their own lives.

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