Hello everyone and welcome. You’re listening to SuperPower Mommas and I’m so excited to be with you again today.
I’m very excited about the guests that is going to be with us in a conversation. We are talking on the topic of how to develop confidence and Bonnie Dillabough is with me.Â
She is a writer and I don’t know how to describe it except that she wrote her first poem when she was eight years old and read it in her church. She’s just a delightful woman who has raised six children of her own. She’s been in the Army, she also has and she describes her children as amazing, which is wonderful. She also has a wonderful husband and she is also a grand mom of 17 grandchildren.Â
So, we are so excited to have you on the show, Bonnie, and to really talk about this topic of how to develop confidence.
Welcome!
Thank you so much. And actually, don’t forget the great grandson that we recently had this year. I’m so excited about that.
Ye. Love it.
But, it’s kind of weird because I don’t think I’m really old enough to be a great-grandmother, but there you go.
But that’s so wonderful, right?
Oh, yes, it’s awesome. Yes.
And I can’t wait to dive into what you have to share with us because we know that mamas are doing is such a very important work in the world. Often that kind of goes to the wayside because it’s kind of that natural progression of life where people have children or not, whichever.
Sure.
But professions are looked at as a very valuable in the world, in the work that we do. And I like to highlight the idea and the understanding that mama’s have such an important role in how this world develops.
I totally agree. That’s absolutely true.
Yeah.
I think we have a tendency because of cultural issues and other things to undervalue our contribution. And the fact of the matter is looking back, if you look at your own parents, or lack of parents and especially your mom or lack of a mom, it is a huge factor in so many other things that you experience in your life.
We were talking about confidence. Your confidence is so much more bolstered when you feel loved and you live in a loving and caring family and you know that there’s somebody on your side cheering for you. And I think moms is cheerleaders is talk about your superpowers. That is so important.
I was blessed in that I had a mom for a very short period in my life who very much loved me and taught me some of the things that have affected me all of my life.
And even when we have to correct our kids, we need to correct them with the understanding that we don’t think less of them as a person for them making mistakes or even sometimes being belligerent, but that we do expect more of them because we believe in them and what they’re capable of. And I got a lot of that as a kid growing up. I was blessed in that I had a mom for a very short period in my life who very much loved me and taught me some of the things that have affected me all of my life.
And she loved me enough to give me and my sister up to my grandparents because she wasn’t going to be able to take care of us. And I can’t even imagine how difficult that was for her because she really did love us.
Yeah.
And then I had a grandmother who put so much time and effort into me and my sister. And I don’t think that we can short change the people out there, the women who are mothers in absentia, who mother other people’s children.
Yeah.
But that’s through adoption.
Yes.
Or as a foster mom or as a great aunt who just really loves and cares for her nieces and nephews. Whatever that is, that the effect that we’re able to have is women can be so powerful in the choices that our children make and also in how they feel about themselves.
And I was very blessed in that way to have this ongoing building of myself. As a kid I had the same kind of insecurities at all, especially teenage children find themselves in and I had a few added factors in there. But the fact of the matter is the women in my life, have been some of the strongest advocates for me.
And having an advocate I think is really, really important.
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And what a beautiful story to share because you’ve touched on so many backgrounds that might be listening to the show. Where we all come from. And generationally, things have been shifting.
Yeah.
But what was true today was not true necessarily years ago.
No, it wasn’t. As a matter of fact, I was actually looked down upon by my peers because my parents were divorced.
Yes.
That was a big deal thing back then. People just didn’t do it. It was a scandalous thing.
Yeah.
That somebody got divorced. These days, the majority of young people live in families that are not traditional.
Right, right. Which brings with it a whole another set of challenges and blessings.
Challenges and blessings, yes. Absolutely. And I think it’s about time that we all owned up to the fact that there are no perfect families, there are no perfect parents, but we’re all doing the best that we can.
Right.
And so, I’m not going to sit here and point the finger at somebody else. What I know of my own shortcomings as a parent and I was a stay at home mom in the neighborhood and I have six children and when you think about six kids, each of them bringing a couple of other kids’ home because their parents weren’t home, they were out working.
Yeah.
No judgments there. That was just the way that it was.
Right.
And so, I was a stay at home mom and we had sometimes dozens of children in our house at any given time. My husband would come home and he’d say, okay, any of you whose name is not Dilabow, it’s time for you to go.
But, I mean, and years later I have gotten phone calls from individuals who are grown people with children on their own now.
Yes.
Saying, I wanted you to know what it meant to me to know that I had a safe place that I could go after school where there wasn’t any fighting, where there was no judgment, where there were rules that we followed. And because of that, we were also much happier. And then I got the opportunity to really feel like, that I could talk to you when I needed to, when things were rough.
In her case, her mom died when she was early teens. And there was, of course, so many things that you go through as a result of something like that.
Absolutely.
She said, I really needed a mom right then and you were there. So, momming is not just about bearing children, although how important is that? I mean, no species without it. Right?
Right.
But that being said, we all can be nurturers of the people around us and not necessarily only children.
Yes.
One of the things, right now, that I’m going through is this really wonderful adventure at this season in my life where I’m getting to the opportunity to write novels, which is something I’ve wanted to do since high school. And I did the other things at the time, felt way more important to me and I have no regrets about that.
Can we just hold that thought for a minute? We have to take a break.
Oh, let’s take a break.
Yeah. I’m so sorry to interrupt you, but I wrote down, we’re going to pick up right where you’re leading off so everyone stay tuned. Please share with us your mama SuperPower.
I will.
Okay, so where can people find you and we’ll take a break.
The best place to find me right now is either on Facebook, Bonnie Dillabough on Facebook.
Okay.
Or you can find me on my author page on Amazon. Bonnie K.T. Dillabough is my author page on Amazon.
Perfect. And that will be in the show notes everyone. So, we’ll be right back. We are talking on how to develop confidence with Bonnie Dillabough. Hold on.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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