MFP 336: What Would You Say to Your Younger Self? An Interview with Suzanne Bilodeau

Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

Mike and Alicia Hernon : Catholic Marriage Parent and Family

Parenting, Religion & Spirituality, Christianity, Kids & Family

4.9 • 841 Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

God has selected you uniquely to be the mother for these children. He will equip you for the work He wants you to do!

Summary

No one feels prepared to be a parent. Even if you were one of the oldest of 10 kids in a Catholic family (like Alicia or Katie) or a family of 7 (like Suzanne) you can never really be ready! The key to surviving, and even thriving, is stepping fully into your identity as a daughter of God. All the love that we have for our spouse and children needs to come from a deep place of confident love from our Heavenly Father. Listen in to this interview with Suzanne Bilodeau, author of She Loved: Resting in the Beauty of Motherhood, a compilation of letters from older mothers to their younger selves. In our conversation we talk about actually NOT finding our identity in our motherhood, but in our daughterhood, how fear is a liar, and the importance of compassion for yourself.

Key Takeaways

Fear is a liar. Satan tells you that you are not enough. God says - I made you for this moment.
We can be transformed when we recognize that before we are a wife or mommy we are a daughter. That is foundational.
We all need to have compassion for ourselves. This is a theme found in most of the letters written for She Loved!
Don't be a martyr to your motherhood. Take time for yourself to reconnect with God and others.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Family, all in this together.
0:08.2	Family, we're taking a chance.
0:10.8	Family, like birds of a feather.
0:13.3	Family, get off my shoes and dance.
0:15.4	Hey, we are Mike and Alicia Hernin.
0:17.4	We have 10 kids and grandkids too, and we are here for every parent. Because we are on a
0:22.2	mission to empower moms and dads to embrace their sacred calling. So join the conversation.
0:27.6	Thanks for joining us on today's podcast. We are glad you tuned in. And the um, you know, the topic we're going to talk about
0:39.3	today, I think is really important because our world denigrates mothers. It really tears down
0:45.3	what it means to be a mom. And maybe if they don't mean to, it's even the work of mothers,
0:49.9	the work of the home is, I don't know if that's really valued. Yeah. Devalued. Right. And sometimes moms, well, many times, moms can feel overwhelmed, right?
0:59.6	Right.
0:59.8	Yeah.
1:00.0	And stressed out just with being a mom.
1:02.8	And I remember as a dad feeling.
1:06.2	You remember as a dad?
1:07.1	I remember early in my dadhood.
1:10.6	It's a young dad. dad. As a young dad,
1:12.4	feeling like, am I measuring up? Am I doing the right thing? Am I getting, checking the right
1:18.3	boxes? And I felt there was anxiety. There was pressure that I was not doing it right and didn't
1:24.6	know what I was doing. And I think that today's episode is going to
1:28.2	speak into the overwhelmed, the stress. Those, the, there's not sure if they're succeeding and how to do
	...

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