The 5 Conditions That Create Secure Attachment

Michael Ashenfelter: Michael, why are you in such a pissy mood today? I know we do to bring you up. I was just gonna warn the audience. One of the two is in a pissy mood. And it's his name's Michael. Never have I ever. I have not worked today and I've hung out with friends and was drinking at the Katie Trail. Ice House. Nice. Yeah. I haven't been there in a long time. I've actually never been. Yeah. It's a it's a social light haven. I can imagine so. But that should just give the audience a clue as to who might be in the better mood. I am just a peach. You are a peach. As always. Well, one of the things that was interesting at this socialite, is that what you said? Mm-hmm. establishment were all of the signs that stated children must remain seated. Isn't that interesting? Uh-huh. so this is a part of town. Don't be a child. Right? How would you describe that part of town for the listening audience who is global? And they actually are global. Yeah, I know. But may have no idea what we're talking about. Yeah, so it is in downtown Dallas, but the part of Dallas is in its own. It's actually uptown. It's called Uptown. Yeah, okay. Mm-hmm. So Dallas proper, but Uptown, which is a young, up and coming, wealthy. Already out wealthy. Already wealthy inherited it and living their best lives. continuing their wealth. Lots of dinks. Dual income, no kids. except there they're actually dink wads. So dual income, no kids with a dog. Are you up on that lingo? No, but it's perfect because it's true. I am a Dinkwad. Yeah. But yeah, it's s so that's a part of town. Yeah. Dallas. A nice part of town. Texas. Very family friendly, family values as a general cultural moniker of the area. So it'd be very young families. Well sure, or none. Who who I think struggled. Do we take our kids or do we not? Yeah. and so in this restaurant it it it there were probably eight signs that stated it it was a restaurant that was more like outdoor patio. And plastered everywhere is this requirement that children be seated. the sign is saying children are not welcome. Yeah. I mean just trying to be especially children of a certain age. huh. Yeah, say more about that. Like Well, I mean, children that are seventeen, eighteen, sixteen, twelve, th those are often not difficult developmentally. They often want to be seated and can be easily satiated, entertained, and fulfilled by s by sitting. With food and drink. Yeah. But when you're three, four And your whole developmental biological trajectory is compelling you to go explore the world and play to play, let alone when you're seven or nine, as was my company that I was with. I think there were two nine year olds and a seven year old. Yeah, what what why did y'all go to Katie? Well well first of all, none of this was my plan. None of this is my idea. I was just a ride or die. I was along for the ride, I was the chauffeur. I was the Uber alternative. Is that odd for you? Because they're the same age as you. Yeah, correct. They had kids very late in life. Yep. And you had them very early in life. No, no, I didn't have them early. We had them very fifteen is pretty early. Like when I was fifteen. my god. No, that's when I got betrothed. That's what was early. That's what was early. The fact that my wife and I were the fact that we've been married for thirty one years. Yeah. And We're only fifty two together for thirty-five years. Which is relevant because some of the folks that we were with were the people that introduced my wife and I. Yeah. In eleventh grade, albeit. But they yeah, but they have younger children than you do. You have kids that are on their way to college in college. Yeah. Yeah, I have two college students and the schooler. Yeah, so I'm personally way past that stage of life. the wisdom. Yep. but one, it was it made me reflect with these are my friends from California. and I'm from California. And coming to Texas I I bristled at the notion that Texas was family friendly or family values here because I grew up in a community and I just didn't know anybody that didn't value family in LA. And one of the things I learned just what was important was how I never felt in any sort of restaurant, and granted I'm in far north suburbs. I'm not even in Dallas County. I'm so far into the suburbs. But I I was aware of just how welcoming children in all of their developmental stages were in restaurants and open spaces or public spaces. how I don't think I'd ever seen a changing table in LA. It could be that they were there in restaurants and I just never paid attention because I never needed one. But I thought it was something different. You thought that's where you put your koala? my god, that's hysterical. This is where Why are koalas so popular? And I guess they really want to be seated. So it was interesting to be a part in in a part of Dallas that was so profoundly not child friendly. Explicitly so. Yeah. So we got we meaning they got reprimanded on two significant occasions. wow. Yeah like they followed through with it. yeah. Yeah. And on some level in their defense, I I was glad. Sure. Because there's a theory of parenting that quadrant i think it is where you have high expressions of affection or low expression low levels of expression of affection high levels of expectation or low levels of expectations and depending on where you are on those quadrants so permissive parenting is where there's high levels of affection but low levels of expectation Low levels of affection and low levels of expectation is kind of neglectful parenting. Mm-hmm. That makes sense. and where there's high expectations but low levels of affection is authoritarian parenting. And for the most part, the general consensus is that the better parental outcomes for children Is authoritative where there's high levels of affection and high levels of expectations. Yeah. And these beloved friends I was with definitely were in the permissive side where there was high levels of affection or higher levels of affection, but very few expectations, very little structure. And so these kids were just being kids. Sure, it might be the sort of cognitive meaning making of the children. Of the parents. O sure. of about the children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for them to actively go to the Katy Trail and break off pieces of bamboo to then be able to play swords with each other with these sticks of bamboo in the restaurant, running around the restaurant. is a form of low expectation. Right. and just by the way, my anxiety is already rising. Just hearing it. Well, I w I was qu I was doing my best to stay emotionally regulated, stay in my lane. These ain't my kids. No one's asked me. They've not asked for help. They've never given clear indications of we co parent in the community. Mm-hmm. and frankly, I don't know that I felt equipped to have been able to do much. Even like a redirect? Yes. Frankly. Hey, come come over here with me. From what I observed, that was profoundly ineffective by the parents. Yeah. and so even if there's an intention of high expectations, there's a poor follow through of holding those expectations. And so it's still sort of I would register that as Low expectations. Yeah. Yeah. and so the the the restaurant wasn't displeased. They were not happy. I don't think the patrons were all that happy either. even though it was pretty in their defence pretty empty and Well it's also a really high energy place. Not when we were there, interestingly, but I bet it is Like it's a it's a famous happy hour for Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Hmm. But all of it got to of course got me thinking about attachment, not just parenting styles, which is different from attachment. But influences attachment. Yeah, absolutely. It's a sort of precursor to thinking about parenting styles and how to raise children and what are the best sort of optimal conditions for for kids. But it got to me it got me thinking about those five optimal primary conditions that support security of attachment. Yeah? Yeah. And so I thought we could talk about this today. Okay. I love that. I I hope that's true and I I wish you had a a a nicer smile. Again, I'm a peach. I know. I'm I'm a true blessing today. I I find these these five conditions I r I I have them on my in my therapy office on a whiteboard all the time. So I can reference them in my own mind, so I can help draw patients' attention to them when they're reflecting on their own childhood, for them to think about Is that did did that experience have any of these five kind of qualities to it? You as the therapist, are you ever holding these five conditions that we'll go over in a minute? are you ever holding these within yourself to try to provide? yeah, absolutely. Yes, that's right. That that as well. Even if they're sort of second nature, right. through the training of becoming a therapist and what have you, but having them articulated and clear. to very pointedly draw attention to has been, I think, really helpful to me and yeah to my patients. So why don't we go down the list? And maybe we can unpack some of them or we can talk about our clinical experiences or I can talk more about what my afternoon has been like, my morning and afternoon. As riveting as that is. I think we will go down the five. so I'll start with the first one and yeah, we'll we'll talk about how you see it and maybe your own experience. what we talked about earlier too is I I sometimes have a hard time talking about the parenting role because I feel the inferiority there of not having kids. at the same time, I think I borrow it as a therapist. and so I can relate to trying to help close some of these woundings that have happened over the years, the the absence of these things that I often do try to provide. Yeah, you try to embody these five. Yeah. Yeah. For the record, I really don't think you should be so reticent to speak authoritatively about parenting. It's interesting. I think like when talking about like on a podcast and like being perceived as an expert on something, I do get a little anxious about it. Yeah, sure. But in my sessions I have no problem parenting. yeah, nice. Yeah. Being like, Yeah, don't do that. Yeah. That's not that's not a helpful parental behavior. This is not yeah. This is not appropriate. but yeah, yeah. I have no problem becoming daddy. That's not true either. I get very uncomfortable. I have embraced my daddy either. Sometimes I sometimes I just say things. so we'll start with we're gonna delete that. I hope not. Anyways. I'm all hot and bothered now. All right. Number one, the one of the five primary conditions is felt safety and protection. Yeah, so the kid is gonna feel safe because the parental behavior is one of protection. You know, I think there's a time and place to play with sharp objects. And I don't know if the p time and place to play with sharp objects is in a restaurant. Correct. Including in a restaurant that has as their value and their expectation that children be seated at all times. At all times. Yeah. And so one of the things that my beloved friends are not protecting their kids from is from each other as they're pla playing swords with bamboo, the hardest wood I think in the world. The audience can't see my eyes. Questioning that. Nor can they see your heart. I think it's true. It could be like some sort of like hardest with the lightest. It could be like Okay. I'm defending myself. I feel very defensive. But either way, yes. A time to to play with sharp Yeah, sharp sharp objects. one of these kids that was in my house walked by and picked up a knife and was playing with it. And I as the host am not protecting these kids because the knife is available for them. I'm a sort of out of the game for thinking about what nine year olds and seven year olds might do. They might like walk by a kitchen and pick up a knife and stab you. Stab themselves, stab you, stab their sibling. well what it brings to mind though is could that be a a sense like 'cause everything is nothing is based on one moment. Correct. Right. And so we have to take everything into a broad context. or across time cross-time. Repeated experiences. Yeah. That there may be actually a felt sense of safety and that they could pick it up is one of the reasons they did pick it up, the knife. Yeah, so so here so here's w how I thought about how I would have parented my own child. Mm-hmm. in that moment. One, I would have educated my child that knives are never toys. So we don't play with them. Or most importantly, you will never play with a knife. Because a knife is not a toy. And and you're certainly not gonna play with my knives because my knives are not toys. They're not my toy. They're not your toy. And I would educate them on the grave danger that a knife k poses, especially when you're making stabbing motions, that it leaves others feeling unsafe. Mm-hmm. and that I find no humor in it when I'm dealing with a nine year old or twelve year old or eight-year-old or six-year-old. And that it creates an environment of unsafety. And so I think that's how I would respond to a child picking up a knife and walking around my kitchen pretending to stab things. Is that that's not safe behavior, that's not a safe attitude. that's not how you use these things. These things pose a real serious danger to self and others. Yeah. I have a hard time protecting you and others. Yeah. When you be at that things that are inappropriate. Yeah. And that just sort of continued into a restaurant by finding a new sword. Sword. I I think what we should do is like we'll just go through this five, maybe a short example. sure, but then spend other podcasts specifically dedicated to one or two at a time. That'd be cool. Cool, cool, cool. Go more in depth. number two of the five primary conditions is feeling seen and known. We've talked about another podcast, attunement, like what that means. Yeah. Yeah. So the child's gonna feel seen, feel known. when the parental behavior is characterized by attunement. So Michael, what what what is attunement? I I'm your patient and I have no idea what you mean by attunement, which we've covered on this podcast in earlier sessions, but it always bears reiterating and Because we talked about it while watching the bear. Not everyone's watched the bear, so they haven't seen it. Also that's true. And not everybody listens to every single episode or word. That's on them. But yeah, one of the ways I describe it to my patients when we talk about it is I think of it like a dial-up radio. that when you're attuned, you are on the exact station and dial. and you hear all the mess you hear and receive all messages clearly. but if you're slightly off, it's it's muddled, it's garbled, it's not it's not clear. so the attunement is I can connect with you and what you're going through. I can relate to it. I can explore it. and it doesn't mean I have to fully go away. but I can be present with you. Yeah. Yeah, it's lovely. Anything you would add to that? I don't know about ad. I just would say it correctly. Uh-huh. though the I think the way I would talk about it is attunement is a capacity and an active and sometimes unconscious effort to perceive the needs of an other. And to perceive it exquisitely. Yeah. particularly needs that can be sort of unseen because they're internal. Unseen because they're psychological. Unseen because they're the needs of a mind. Not necessarily always the need of a sort of external body. But they include that too. Yeah. And so one way of thinking about it is that second sort of condition is about the other four conditions. When you're attuned, you can perceive that a child is needing some protection and therefore you protect, you act upon it. Yeah. So maybe the attunement one way to describe it is if the a child is crying, it takes attunement. To understand what that cry is about. Yes. Yeah. Which is a different condition, which is soothing and reassurance. Number three. Number three. I'm amazing. and so attunement is not just to physical safety, it can be to f psychological safety, like someone just said something really mean to you, criticized your haircut or the way you made a cocktail or I'm allowed to be sad. Yeah, and you're allowed to be sad that your cocktail was kinda shitty and your hair looks like crap. And never happened to me before but if it did, I would feel the room to be sad. And then I would be attuned to that you need a someone to stop telling you that. You need some protection from the person who's bullying you that way. And then also need them some reassurance and soothing. Yeah. Number three. Also known as felt comfort. Yeah. So the child's gonna feel comforted and the parental behavior is is soothing and reassurance. Yeah. Which brings us to number four. Well, before you go there, we can give an example. You just did. I have a better example. So It was so interesting. One of these kids that I was with today was starting to complain about how she wasn't feeling well, particularly in her tummy. It wasn't pain, but it was a kind of maybe nauseous, maybe anxious. She eat some bamboo. This is prior to the bamboo incident. And one of the parents she she was talking about how it the the kid was talking about how she just needed to cry about how she didn't feel good and because that's how she was feeling. And I think one of the parents did their best in trying to respond with something quote unquote. I understand how you're feeling and we're here to support you. It struck me though very much as being very cerebral, very cognitive, very procedural, and the kind of comforting and soothing wasn't drenched in the kind of alteration in one's voice that happens when a child is feeling sick. It was sort of what you might say to a coworker about a spreadsheet. Right? It was sort of flat in its emotional quality or and it struck me as something as cognitively reassuring and comforting, but emotionally in in a felt sense, I don't know that the child felt comforted, felt soothed. Which will, if repeated over and over, will lead to an insecure attachment. Yeah. One way or another. Mm-hmm. And so a d a different sort of approach may have been reaching back to the child and putting one's hand on their lap saying the same words. Sure. That conveys the congruency of it all. Yeah. In an embodied physical affection. Yeah. Our mind. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, like you just did, like a A nice pat, yeah, pat pat. Like they're there. Yeah. All right, number four. Number four. Feeling valued or express delight. That's my favorite one of it all. Absolutely, me too. Express delight. Yes. When parents, caregivers are expressing their delight in their children, the child will then be left feeling valued. Yeah. Basic self esteem. How do you compare that to like the parent who just thinks and expresses like their farts smell like roses and cotton candy? Uh-huh. It's actually not to be delighted in. Well, first it's a lie 'cause they don't smell like cotton candy or roses. So why are you lying to your child? And two, delight has at least in the way in which we in attachment theory make use of that concept, is that it's so much less to do with what the child does, you're farting and more about who the child is without the doing or irregardless of the doing, whether you did or didn't. I it's more about how s maybe a parent lights up when a child enters the room, when there's a reuniting rather than delighting that you got in fourth place and tried really hard. And so here's your trophy. That's sort of a bastardization of the concept of delighting. That's a kind of ingratiating and a kind of intolerant emotional intolerance for losing, for defeat, for unpleasant feelings that is a part of life. that needs to be we we need to develop a capacity to tolerate those feelings. Right. and that's not what attachment means by expressed delight and feeling valued. It's not the participation trophy. Yeah, it often doesn't actually pull away from feeling discomfort. At all. Right. In fact, it might suggest I have to tolerate the uncomfortable, discomforting feelings in order to bring the comforting. It's not a an anxious get rid of the uncomfortable feelings. Right. But it is an attunement to you need to cry, you need to feel the full weight of your defeat. This is inappropriate. You need to feel the response experience. Yeah. Yeah. That your behavior was inappropriate or was hurtful or and also I love you and nothing will ever Get in the way of my utter love for you, which is reminiscent of the fifth condition of unconditional support, unconditional encouragement so that the child feels supported. Yeah, the way it's written is full felt support for best self. Yeah. It's a it's a very interesting, exacting phrase there. Yeah, so I think attachment is particularly speaking toward not unrelated to attunement that the child's best self might be a different self than you. say more. Well, what what comes to mind always is that you're better. Is the Christmas claymation story. and I don't remember the name of the show, the movie, but is where there's the island of misfits. The midnight, no. the little boy wants to be a dentist rather than an elf that makes toys. I have no idea what you're talking about. my god, you hate Christmas. And it's old it's from like the seventies. Were you born? I wasn't alive. God, my god. Triggered. Triggered. Seventies, eighties. You know those claymations. Rudolph the red nosed reindeer. Sure. That's what it is. That's that's the claymation. Rudolph the rednosed reindeer. Rudolph. There was a dentist in the Rudolph? No, it's a little boy. And there he's always like in conflict with his community about being an elf and making toys. And he doesn't want to make toys. He he actually wants to be a dentist. And so he winds up finding himself on the island of misfits and there's there's the big Yeti that's scaring everybody and the reason why he's scaring everybody, he's getting he got a toothache. I forgot the details of all that. I think I was just scared of the Yeti. So that comes to mind as this example of this archetypal story of my individual self that is separate from maybe what my parents or my community or my grandparents might be expecting and wanting of me right that is incongruent with who I am. And so it the kind of secure attachment behaviors of parents includes this quality of parents unconditionally ex accepting and supporting the uniqueness of every single one of their kids. To be their best self. Yeah. And I think one way that that's shown up in our own family is we had a very high achieving, self-motivated firstborn. Firstborn. And when I say I never had a clue, I'm serious. I never had a clue about what homework he had, when projects were due. Because they were always done, there were always A's and his own sort of self generated, my God, I got a ninety eight sort of problematic, right? And it's the kind of obsessiveness and But when the second child comes along and literally still cannot spell my name, she cannot spell her parents' names because she is dyslexic AF. Mm-hmm. Our expectation for her unique self is just that she be her best dyslexic self. So whether that's a straight A student or a straight A B student or a straight B student or straight C student or like I don't really care about the grades. We didn't she and her mother. Uh-huh. We we didn't necessarily care about her grades in so much as we cared about her doing her best and making use of her resources and accessing her accommodations and fulfilling her capacity, which was quite amazing. Right, which is it's an important part. Like that is part of the parental development is understanding and accepting capacity. Yes. That's right. Which kinda comes back to attunement. Right. When you really tune into not just what they need, but who they are and what they're capable of truly. And I think they all f like all five fold in on each other. So then you're expressing delight that's right in what their capacity is. Yeah, that's amazing. You gotta be minus. Yeah. I'm so proud of you. You must be so pleased with your effort and your accomplishment. And it's like, yay. Whereas at my oldest, I'd be like, the hell is going on? Like, something's going on because I know you're capable of getting a 98 in this course. Are you okay? Is something not well? Is something bothering you? Did we miss something? Did we misattune to something? Right. Like, but that's his unique self. That's what that I think unique self-ness is about in attachment. Yeah. Okay. And I can see that go askance. when you say that again? You can see what? These the attempt to support someone's best unique self go askance. Yeah, I was hunting in my deer blind and didn't know what you meant by that. A scance. It is a word, is it not? I don't know. I always have my dictionary app Available. No. A scant. Riveting. my god. my god. Riveting. part of the problem with using my dictionary app is that I also don't know how to spell either because I'm also dyslexic. A scant? I've heard of scant. I haven't heard of scant. maybe so it's maybe I'm scant. I can't spell scant. Scant. Barely sufficient. In amount or qual quantity? Because I scant do it. Not abundant, almost inadequate. To do scant justice. So yeah, here it is. A scant amount. So I have merged It has gone scant. Is that the right way of saying that? Scant chance. You're just trying to be a w a rapper. Beyonce's not hiring, don't worry. No, she's not. Scant. Okay. Yeah. It's gone scant? You say a scant. I don't know. I'm can't wait to figure that out. Anyways, it's gone awry. It's gone off the rails, like this conversation. This non riveting conversation. Mm-hmm. Such an asshole. At your service. Sorry, did we finish that story? my god, I was so interested in your stories that I didn't pay attention. And who are you? Okay. I find I don't think we f I don't think you finished it. I I don't even know what story I was even in anymore. something had gone a scant. Does this ever happen in session to you? I'm sure all the time. not this bad. I usually think people get lost and they're like, what are we talking about? no, I I'm very I'm very good at holding the thread. Holding the thread, yeah. In in my clinical work. Me too. But I'm not drinking a martini as I'm sitting with my patients. That's one thing. And I also haven't had also two beers previously in my day before I've seen my patients. I'm just giving you a clue of of what a great day I've had. And why I am truly the peach. Leech. Now who's rapping? All right. So we got number one, felt safety and protection. Number two, feeling seen and known, attunement. Number three, felt comfort, soothing and reassuring. Number four, feeling valued with expressed delight. And five. Felt support for best self, unconditional support and and encouragement. Encouragement. Encouragement. Encouraged. The These are the five conditions that help promote secure attachment. Yeah. So if you do all these perfectly, you will have a securely attached child. said no attachment theory research. Right. But if you keep these in mind, you will always be working toward security of attachment, both in developing it or repairing it. That's what I was gonna say is like all of this leads to plenty of opportunity for repair. So if you're keeping these in mind, like express delight, soothing reassurance, attunement, those are all characteristics of what Brings on repair. Yeah, how to do repair. Yep. Mm-hmm. Why to g a good apology is really healing. Right. Because it has these features to it. Because parenting we're inevitably going to get it wrong. Always. Because our own crap comes up in it. Or it life is complicated. Life is very complicated. Yeah, it doesn't have to be crap. It could just be like I had diarrhea and I was unavailable to reassure you and soothe you. Which actually that's the point and we'll probably talk about this in other sessions. They're what are these called? Podcasts? Yeah, it's not a session. I know we're we're we're always in the language of sessions. one thing I'm working on, it's coming up a lot in my sessions with my clients quite a bit, is when people are telling their attachment story, like they're they're telling their origin story, and they have such a hard time being honest about their parents. And They want to talk about well, my parents were good. They were always there. They're always available, or they came to every game. if I needed them, they were there. And I'm like, sure, sure. and you're here seeing me. So somewhere along the way, that was not true. and they have a hard time believing or admitting that. and what's coming up lately is me just kind of leveling the field and normalizing that. By us doing this work, it's not we're not condemning your parents and or saying they were bad. We aren't. We aren't. And any therapist worth their buttons. No. No. Any therapists worth their salt, they should not be condemning anyone. Right. and so loving the playing field of when I say like a parent wasn't available, we're not saying they chose to not be available. Yeah, though that was but necessarily Was sadistic, wasn't intentional. That is some people's story. Right. To be fair. but in general for the most part. Yeah, it's a parent was depressed. That depression therefore made them inaccessible in the moment. Or that parent was overwhelmingly stressed with poverty. Right. And loss of a job. The trauma of the death of a fit close family member. Sure. That that developmental moment in your life may have crisscrossed. with an important moment in their life and therefore they were not available. Not a bad parent. And at the same time that needs to be repaired. Yeah, I I do take I think that's where I I had some fantasies about this podcast earlier today. Okay. There is such a thing as bad parenting. Absolutely. And maybe they were bad parents. Mm-hmm. And by bad, I don't necessarily mean that they're bad people. And I I I'm I would say this to my friends if they asked me. they're not good parents. Yeah, my question this whole time has been, are they gonna listen to this? I doubt it. Okay. But I would tell them that if they asked. Yeah. And that doesn't mean that I think they're bad people. And it certainly doesn't mean what I've what I'm at all thinking, communicating, or conveying, that they don't love deeply their children. Mm-hmm. That's not a that's not the conversation I'm having here when I say you're not very good at parenting. And parenting that's not good parenting. I would argue is parenting that did not have these five characteristics to it. I would argue that all parenting that doesn't promote the security of attachment is generically speaking, broadly speaking, not good parenting. Because the security of attachment is what breeds the most resilience. inoculation from the devastating effects of a difficult, threatening world. so I I I I I would say that i they are bad parents, but I know that that's difficult for sometimes for some people to hear. Right. They can't hold that. Yeah. Because if my parents were bad, what does that mean? Or if I'm a bad parent, what does that mean? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, it it it goes on and on. But And and I would argue what it means is that you're a bad parent. That's what it means. It means you're bad parent. Well does that mean I'm a I don't love my kids? I never said that. That's not what it means. For the most part. There there are some people that want ill to their parents and their or to their kids and they are very ill people. What it means is something happened to you, right, that led you to now become a parent who is not a good parent. By good I mean good at parenting, skilled at parenting. Which involves mainly being able to create an environment of these five characteristics. These do these five things. Yeah, do these five things on repeat across time and when you're not doing these things to employ one or all of these things to get back on track. Right. And with the assumption that you're gonna get off track frequently, maybe daily. that you you will not embody all five of these all the time. That's not possible. It's probably not ideal. And perfection isn't the name of the game. Ever. It doesn't exist and therefore it can't be pursued. But can you hold your mind and know, I missed it there. Yes. Yeah, I just started with a new patient who recently that kept saying it's not the first time I've ever said it said I heard it from a patient, but I'm just so afraid I'm gonna mess up my kid. I'm so afraid I'm gonna screw them up. Do you ever just want to be like, well let's just go and check that off? Yeah. Done. Done. Too late. Moving on. Mm-hmm. Like what can we do from here? Yeah. Like but but like what's what's going on in that mind that thinks That you're not gonna have a negative impact on your kids. Of course you are. And security of attachment does not mean you haven't had negative effects on your kids. Security of attachment means that you've been able to repair the neg negative effects that you've had. Yeah. So I look forward to talking about this more. and I think we have some other topics of like interjecting gentle parenting versus attachment parenting. Yes, or respectful parenting. I mean there's many kind of names out there. Yeah. And of course we're the experts and know the the best practices. I don't know about that. I mean it's it's it is to say though that attachment science has something to say about it. Awesome. Cheers. You know what we did not do? We didn't introduce our cocktail. my gosh, that's weird. We almost always do that at the top of the hour. We can do that now. Okay. And we can either do magic and put it at the beginning. No. Or we can just leave it at the end. Yes, let's leave it in its imperfect state. But today was a day of what do we have on stock? in stock. Not on stock. On hand, on hand. There we go. In stock. Because this is just at home bartending. And today we didn't have much brown liquor. I had a little bit of gin and a little bit of vodka. So we were working with low levels. So today we made a gin martini. Good news, good news is that's only three ingredients. And so a little bit of gin, a little bit of driver mouth, and orange bitters. And it's really crisp, clean. It's a good drink. Even though I don't love Jen. Literally my favorite. Your favorite. How how did this one taste then, if it's your favorite? Well Thank you for asking. I've I think I can I need you to s express delight and soothing reassurance. I find you just a delight just in who you are, Michael. Irrespective of your shitty cocktail that you've made. That's expressed delight. Express delight. It's not about what you do, it's about who you are. I'm holding on to is shitty cocktail. It's fine. I find that n obviously not all gin is created equal. Correct. And I appreciate the description of gin as being clean, crisp. I find that the gin you used In your defense, you also had to use a few two different gins. But the first and main gin, or at least just the first gin. Greenhouse. I wasn't trying to name names. No, let's get sponsors. Let's go. Goodness. Well, I'm about to criticize it in the form of I don't care for greenhouse. I've concluded. Why? First 'cause it's more citrus forward than juniper forward. That's right, that's right. Ugh, I hate juniper. I know, and here's the the debate about gin and why many people don't like the gin, is because of that juniper. And I remember first tasting gin and not liking it because of that. And then I grew up and had a more sophisticated palate. Says yeah. And now I love gin, and gin is my favorite liquor of the liqueurs. So I prefer a cleaner gin and I find that the more juniper is a cleaner taste. Juniper tastes dirty. My God. What are we gonna do? that is my true opinion. Yeah, yeah, yeah. huh. Well, and then there are some gins that are somewhere in between that they're not so juniper forward. But it's true. I do I like greenhouse and I like gunpowder. yes. Both are citrus forward. Yeah. Now I do love gunpowder, and I think I got I turned you on to that, did I not? yeah, y'all and you yeah, Gab my wife introduced it to me. Yeah. I don't know why you have to bring her to bring her into the U is what I'm saying. Well, it was my friend that introduced us to it. Okay. Not her friend, sort of our friend, in honesty. yes, I I do love me a gunpowder Irish drum shambo. Watch your mouth, but yeah, I think you're right. Yeah. It's an Irish gin. I think my favorite really is botanist, which is why I swung by and picked up some more just in case we were gonna have s seven that I then mixed with greenhouse. Yeah. It's I think it's the c clearest, cleanest, crispest. Yeah. Okay. Anywho. We might do a a gin tasting sometime. Have you ever done that? Mm-hmm. Without me? Yeah. I don't remember being invited, so that's weird. You weren't. Wow. Sometimes I find it weird that you have friends outside of me. I have to say I have some friends. Not many, but I have some friends outside. I did a great gin tasting with friends that are not you. or Tiffany. I I have hosted a couple of bourbon tastings. Yeah. So have I. It's not a competition, Michael. You've been a part of some of those. You've not been a part of any of mine. I know. Just say. All right. That's enough. So we made the Gin Martini and it was delightful. It was. It's really good. Almost as delightful as the company. But yes, you know, you did like it. Although you didn't fully drink yours. It well, it was a double. I will finish it, but some of us have higher tolerance than others. Some of us are peaches. Some of us are in great moods. But yeah. All right. We'll keep on the parenting. I like the parenting discussion. Cool. Yeah. Let's do it. All right. Bye Michael. Bye Michael.