How's Work? with Esther Pere - Not Many Men Work For Their Moms

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0:00

What you’re about to hear is an unscripted one time counseling session focused on work for the purposes of maintaining confidentiality names, employers, and other identifiable characteristics have been removed, but their voices and their stories are real.

0:17

Wella sit sit, sit sit anywhere you want.

We’re going to speak in English.

And if you have any difficulty, yes, you just say the word.

Yes, and we will translate for you so much.

It doesn’t matter.

This office will comes every passport.

0:39

I just I feel continually undermined.

The job has always been that place where I’ve been needed in.

I feel important a lot of the people that work for me are like an extension of my family.

There’s no doubt that you’re emotional and relational.

0:57

Derek comes with you to work.

Imagine going to work every day, and I’m really busy place and no one will make eye contact with you.

I mean, it feels like a breakup.

It doesn’t feel so how’s work?

1:20

I mean, for most of for most of History, you did what you family did.

Basically, you did what your father did.

If you were a man and you did what your mother did, if you were a woman, the seamstress, the carpenter to Shoemaker you had a trade and you learned the trade of the family.

1:37

This is very recent actually that we get to decide what we want to do.

And today, all of this has become split.

And personalized and privatized but still within our market economy.

Many many companies are family businesses from very small to very large and they bring a cluster of issues that are unique to the melding between family and business.

2:07

You call it family business or Mom business family business.

Explain, I think it’s because we’re together.

So it’s so the family.

Business means the two of you, I think so.

Yes, in this session.

2:24

I work with a woman who created her own real estate company. 25 years ago.

She’s been very successful in the past six years.

Her younger son has joined her into the business.

And as you can hear, they are French speaking.

And what would you hear that as a kid or a teenager?

2:43

Major young adult began to draw you.

It was part of daily life discussions at dinner or breakfast as well as dinner breakfast, lunch, dinner afternoon snacks, sometimes it’s the opposite.

2:59

Like I grew up above a store with very sharp and we talked about the storm breakfast, lunch and dinner and I told her I said, I will never enter this Shopper.

I think it’s the energy.

Because as a young child, you don’t understand the technicalities of the of the job itself, but you feel the energy and you filled the way that a person is passionate about something, it draws you.

3:27

If you’re attracted to it from the start because I have a brother who’s a doctor who’s doing something totally different, who I think reacted in a different way, but for me, the whole idea behind it, attracted me.

Look, I think that in every family Is this one of the great challenges is to separate the mother-child, the parent-child relation from the either, the boss and the worker, or the partners or meaning to step outside of the mode of family and into the mood of the roles of work, right?

4:05

Absolutely.

Most people it’s either Sons or daughters working with their fathers, but I don’t know many men.

They work with their mom.

It’s often.

I think it’s the contrary.

I might say that I’m a mama’s boy, always have been, but in the, in the workplace, the first three years, or three, four years have been very, very difficult because when do I behave as her son?

4:31

And when do I behave as an employee or where do I behave as a partner?

Those lines are very thin.

It’s very complicated and in the beginning, having finished.

Finishing my degree thinking.

I know it all.

I’m the big boss, you know everything, I studied management, I will come and I will arrange everything here.

4:52

Putting your ego aside as a young person, who thinks, who knows?

It all shutting up.

Listen, learn.

It’s something that’s very difficult.

I think it’s difficult in general, with any type of boss or any kind of work environment, but when you’re so emotionally close to the person, I think rejection and accepting failure from that.

5:13

Person can be difficult.

I think, in the beginning, it was a lot of shouting and a lot of deception, deception, disappointment, disappointment disappointment.

That’s a word that in English, and in French means something very different.

5:31

Okay.

What, how do you describe the situation?

What is the conversation that needs to happen?

That wouldn’t happen, or that hasn’t happened yet between the two of you and for which this It’s you hope will be conducive, the situation is as follows.

5:50

I created the business from zero and I did it all alone.

Everything, all the things that has to be done from publicity to sales to marketing to Everything.

I did alone, but I always was the only bus and comes a moment when my son phones me after he studies and he said, Ma’am, I’m come to you.

6:14

I will never forget that moment.

I’m coming to you.

I was happy because in the meanwhile I put on an office with a secretary with people salespeople and so on and I needed somebody and who could be better than my own son because of trust because of potential and so on.

6:35

And I hoped he had the potential and I’m not deceived about that because this is a humble person.

See if not disappointed.

Simple as it looks actually this moment, the deceived would have been a good use of the word.

He didn’t deceive me.

Meaning, he didn’t lie to me about how capable he is.

6:53

Exactly exactly.

This word is gonna become useful to the end.

You are still young coming fresh out from from University 22, and I had to swallow a lot.

7:09

A lot of things during the first years, but I said, Myself, look, if I’m not doing it with my own son, with whom shall I do it?

But it was not easy at all.

There are only women in the office.

He came as a young boy, sometimes, arrogant.

7:31

Sometimes very difficult because it’s a very difficult character.

Sometimes, no.

No, I was very arrogant at the time.

Yes.

I’m I’m not ashamed to tell.

You can’t return to him as you talk.

Looking out.

The window.

What are you are?

7:46

Looking at the New York Mets on a nice cake, you know, and okay and to the to the years, I always come to the same point.

I said, mate.

Shit, I’m dead already 25 years and he is coming and he thinks he knows better.

8:08

And you know what?

Sometimes it’s doing it better.

And that is also frustrating for me, because sometimes and the lately, I feel totally overwhelmed with things that I cannot follow.

When I started the business.

I had a fax machine.

8:24

No the way to to do the business to Facebook Instagram and so on.

I have to keep it up, keep it up.

Keep it up.

Thanks for me.

A lot of energy also, and I’m still in a human business.

I mean Selling Houses to people is a human business.

8:42

You have to approach this emotional site and sometimes I feel that this generation or my son is thinking about the money and the commission and how to do and this and that and not enough about the human side of the work.

8:58

And this disturbs me.

I’m going to This talk to him.

Yeah, turn first of all, your bodies are facing me and I listened, I enter, but it’s almost like I can be a souffle from the back while you are having this conversation.

9:14

I don’t even know how much you need me.

Sometimes people come into my office, but they don’t really want to talk to each other and sometimes people come.

And I know that they’re dying to talk to each other.

What they need is a container.

9:30

Honor in this case.

I realized that they’ve been talking to each other in their heads for a while.

And this is the opportunity for them to actually say some of these things out loud.

And for that they need to really look at each other rather than at me.

9:46

It’s not difficult to talk to me.

I’m not the one that’s involved.

So just to turn the bodies to face each other to look into each other’s eyes.

This is what happens in a session.

The session is uninterrupted there is Do you mean presence of people who are trying to work something out or to connect or to clear out all kinds of old debris?

10:14

You just need to box it and dig.

I’m 61 and I have a problem.

Now.

I don’t know how I will go on and for how long I will go on.

You have your whole life in front of you?

10:30

I don’t and I’m here because I don’t know.

Come on Lisa.

My repair references.

Wait.

I cannot find my references anymore comes a moment when I want to see.

10:46

Maybe there’s something else for me.

I don’t know why I stand anymore.

This is my problem and maybe that’s why I’m so nervous.

Sometimes, you know, sometimes I’m at the office.

I see that is bad-tempered.

I said, oh, maybe he’s hungry.

I’m going to the supermarket who the moment again and I do like that.

11:04

I do like this.

Where’s the mom?

Where’s the boss?

Difficult, whoa.

Some and also when I tell you don’t tell the the, the clients, my mom is busy.

11:23

She will phone you back.

Tell mrs.

Will phone you back all those things.

You have to adapt, very difficult.

But I have, I have a question.

I have a question and I have question to you.

11:40

Do you still need me this?

I want to know, do you still need me?

Honestly, the, the way it has been the last five six years.

It has been a learning curve and I still learn every day from you.

12:00

But it’s more of a way that I don’t need you to hold my hand as much anymore.

You can loosen it a little bit or I can let the hand go a little bit as well for my years to come.

It’s more knowing that you have my back more than you hold my hands.

12:19

There will come a moment to add.

I will not be there anymore.

You have, you will have to be alone.

I’m thinking a lot about that.

That’s good to know.

Do you know subconsciously I do?

12:37

It’s one thing to have your Bose.

Say I’m not going to be here forever.

It’s something very different when it’s your mother that says to you because in that moment, she’s the mother when I asked him.

Do you know that I’m not just asking, do you know that chronologically at some point?

12:56

She’s going to get older.

It’s also that you’re basically saying to the sun one day, you will not have your mother next to you and that Resonance that the same sentence, actually speaks at many different levels of the emotional layering of their relationship is very poignant in that moment.

13:20

You’re a little bit less present time.

You come later in the office.

You’re letting it go one, one day at a time and to be very open.

It’s not that.

I don’t feel supported.

I feel very much supported and having the ability to have the freedom to do anything.

13:39

I like at a young age.

If I had to do it somewhere else.

It would have taken me 10 to 15 years.

So I’m very, very much grateful for But you know, this is also one of my problems, he reached the point that is able to do it himself and he is better than I was because he has relational skills that I did not have I.

14:05

I worked my way and I did it my way and he’s doing it his his way.

How would you describe the difference?

He, he works and he knows what he has behind him.

14:24

I did not have nothing behind me.

How can I tell is?

Real short?

Is the children’s homes?

You have confidence, you have confidence.

You have a self-confidence that I did not have what I’m hearing you say.

14:39

Is that his confidence comes from knowing that he’s not alone that he can take certain risks.

Or he can venture out because you are there and that you had no backing and you were all alone.

14:55

And so you held yourself back more, see the question is always what is personality and what is context, right?

Is it that she comes with the same confidence that developed over the years that comes from his relationship with you and Dad and the world and and he has a level of confidence today not when he was arrogant because arrogance is He a mask for insecurity and, and lack of confidence.

15:22

Or is it that the structure is such that?

It also, because it could be a both mm lens him the confidence because he’s not alone.

Okay.

I’m sure that I gave him confidence.

Isn’t it hundred percent me?

15:38

All those years.

I did not have that.

My parents never said, it’s fantastic.

What you do at the contrary they break.

They broke me.

Come.

Instantly, or you just a book or when you will sell you, the few houses you will be finished.

15:55

So I never had that and it’s such a stressful work that you have to spend.

Never had that belief in me.

The Hat, the head to, at the end.

They had to admit that I became somebody they did, I think so.

16:13

They never told me but I think so.

Yes, but at the end, I did not need it anymore.

That’s what changed it before.

It was a hard struggle for myself.

Terrible struggle.

This is such an important moment because now she’s all You’re bringing into intergenerational part.

16:36

My parents did not support me my parents.

In fact, undermined me and question me all the time.

That’s part of why I did not feel that.

I had that confidence.

You my son.

I did give you that.

16:52

Sense of confidence.

You were not alone.

Not just because I was there before you, but because of the way that I was there for you.

You can always come to me and because I know the business and I know how to do.

17:10

I’m backing him the whole time.

So maybe that’s my positive point.

Maybe that’s what I have to do.

It’s interesting because I’m at the moment when I’m thinking myself, is the conversation about how we continue or is the conversation, an assessment of your saying to him.

17:29

I think I’m about to want to stop and I want to know.

Where you are at with that?

It’s a bit of both, because one leads to another.

Yes, well, if you decide, I want to quit.

17:46

It’s not so much about when you will stop.

But more about how how, and how much of the total responsibility are you willing to, to hand over and not only that after all those years.

I know so many people and people want me they come to the office said, okay.

18:07

Mrs. We want to we want to deal with you.

We would like to deal with you and then I have to Look, my son is even better than me, and all its many times.

It happens like this and I would like to come to a moment when they’re coming for him.

It puts a lot of pressure on me because I would have to double prove myself one to the base.

18:28

No triple prove myself one to the business.

The people who I work with because I’m the son of.

So I have to prove to the other people when the data you will be gone that I’m able to handle it to gain their respect.

It’s, that’s one then I have you as a mother and a bus together and I have the people also that I have to.

18:49

So it’s a, it’s a lot.

It’s a lot to take in another Dynamic that really appears in so many of the family business when a person enters from the second generation.

The question always remain.

Could I have done it myself?

And am I here?

19:05

Just because I am the child of or because I’m here by my own merits.

And if a door opens, Can I be honest about the fact that this door was open to me?

Because I am the son or the daughter of and sometimes there’s a lot of self-doubt that gets generated about it.

19:24

Sometimes, there is a denial of the nepotism that actually takes place and sometimes there’s a deep wish to know that I am here because of me and not because I am the son of or the daughter of now, remember in many, many parts of the world.

19:39

We are named and the next part.

Of our name is son of or daughter of you know, Astaire, but daughter of Adam Eben son of Knutson in Sweden, son of.

I mean our names really have always been markers of the family chain that we were part of we are among the first Generations here who are naming ourselves who are claiming our identity and who are thinking that we can do such a thing as to tell our own story.

20:13

All of this is what gets challenged and lies underneath the old story of family business.

But you started with something that I think really is the piece you want to hold.

20:28

You said, I have been in this business, my entire life.

And that’s the thing you want to convey?

It’s not just, I’m 28 and I’m working six years in the business.

It’s that the rest, the stuff that you’ve absorbed without sauce, Moses, you know, breakfast, lunch dinner and I think that family business that impregnation that children have by just listening to the stories, you know, that’s the training and that is a very different training that.

20:56

No single school will give you by the time you enter, you know, the stuff that is actually more intuitive and more intangible.

But the word you have in used, which I think is a transition word.

21:11

That could be very useful.

That is not boss.

That is not Mom.

That is called mentor.

If I would say that you’re my mentor, would you accept it?

21:28

Yes.

Yes, so nice.

It’s a beautiful role problem solved.

It was no problem.

But I think it’s I don’t think it has to be said because it’s obvious, you know, certain things change, meaning when they are named correctly.

21:47

Exactly.

Or renamed.

And you know, when you actually talk to your clients and you say, my son is as good as me.

You.

Come from the place of the mother.

That’s trying to convince the client.

You know, what about the mother, but I can tell you, you know, if I didn’t think he was good.

22:05

He wouldn’t be here.

Stop calling him.

My son stop.

Now, although the range you could say, a family business, it is.

And it’s an explicit identity to the business.

Or you say, I don’t want that to be the identity of the business, then stop calling him your son.

22:24

It’s so correct what you say, so maybe we should change the name of Of the firm, you know, that sometimes you are going together to take a house for sale and after 20 minutes, it comes out.

You are mother and son.

22:40

I feel so uncomfortable at that moment.

Really.

I feel that we are devalue, not the balance, the balance has shifted between the two of you or because of the situation, Suddenly It’s modern.

22:58

Some who are coming.

There is not the bus with an important person of the office.

The fact that that we had the family at that moment doesn’t match much.

It doesn’t match the purpose of the work.

23:14

So now explain the bias.

This is a fundamental bias.

Look, I entered a house with him.

Okay, everybody.

What is important?

The look?

How do you get somebody convinced to give his house for sale?

23:31

The look that you have the way you are dressed the way you speak the way.

You you come with material to prove that you’re very Commendation C and so on and so on.

The comes a moment when they look or they say I it’s mother and son.

23:50

At that moment.

I feel bad.

I’m losing the business.

Why?

Because the strength is away.

Cannot express mother, can’t be businesswoman.

What’s the bias?

Because what happens at that moment and you are mother and son.

24:07

Yes.

Yes.

Let me see.

You look like each other.

Now, you tell me I should have seen it before and then you shift into a conversation, that’s not professional anymore.

And that’s not the relation is not, it’s not so strong.

24:25

This is the world softer.

It’s too soft for business.

Yes, and when a woman, and when the woman becomes identified with mother, Yes, she loses.

She loses sometimes professional business.

Punch power.

24:41

And it has, but not always.

Because when they ask me, are you sure you can sell my house?

I said, look, all my files.

I always said, is like my babies.

I’m busy with all my first like my babies, and people like that.

No, sooner have we established the Prejudice?

25:06

The bias.

She then starts to give me a beautiful example of how she subverts the bias and how she uses the mother metaphor to her advantage.

I think that what you’re seeing here is something that is archaic.

25:24

Probably true, but our cake and massively a patriarchal bias.

Because there is not a situation where a father and by the way, a father coming with his daughter for that matter, would not have that.

25:40

Incestuous quality that you’re talking about that becomes less powerful on the business front because you have enough now, shown your softer side out.

Automatically now that we discussing it, have we lost so much business because of it.

25:56

No, I think we have always found a way to be creative and enter enter and turn it around.

I Say that of all the times that we went together to a listing pitch.

We lost 25 to 30 percent because of it to work to do not reach out of 10.

26:14

Not even now I think more than we think.

I’m more pessimist.

Yes.

Yes hundred percent.

This is what my mama’s boy, what it is for me or what?

I think it is in general, those Bots.

What is from your mama’s boy is a boiler, is very attached to his mother.

26:32

For which he thinks or for whom he thinks the mother will always be there, whatever whatever would happen.

And I think in general, it is also the same.

And you feel like this with me.

I hope that you will always have my back.

26:50

That’s not an answer to the question.

She just asked to do feel this way.

Yeah, a little bit.

I’d always think we had a very special relationship.

And I’m not scared.

27:06

I’m not scared to say it.

I would imagine the opposite, would imagine that you would feel full when you say it.

That your heart feels up, and then it’s fantastic.

Because you see it’s a good feeling, of course.

27:23

It’s so interesting.

Right?

On the one hand were talking business and family business center.

And on the other end.

We’re talking about a few major archaic remnants.

That’s what you’re grappling with when you say it like this.

Like I’m not scared to say it is actually like, you know, it doesn’t take anything away from me rather than to say I am so lucky, but you see men don’t do it like that.

27:47

You know, the loan with this mama’s.

Boy, means generally can’t make any step without mama and therefore is a truncated man.

It’s never not the case.

Of course not.

That’s why you, if you’re going to use the term turn it on its head and make it a source of of the pride and the joy that it gives you, this happens a lot.

28:09

I’m sorry to interrupt, but this happens a lot, it comes up and I say I’m working with my with my mother and we’ve been doing it and we’ve been doing it for a couple of years, but I’m learning from the best and I’m loving it.

And I’ve said very often and if there’s one person I would, I would mostly want to do it with it would be from her.

28:27

Because she has the experience.

She knows what she’s doing and I can only learn it from her.

What I’m referring to when I think about the archaic remnants?

Is that it seems to me that no man has to worry that if he reveals in a business meeting that he’s also a father or that he has children.

28:48

That someone would question his business Acumen because of that.

Very fact, whereas that is, what is being discussed here for her as a woman.

Even when she reveals, that she’s the mother.

And on top of it, that her son is right next to her.

And the same thing is true when he says, I have a deep attachment to my mother, can a young man say, I’m deeply attached to my mother.

29:12

We have a uniquely close relationship and defy.

The immediate question that follows of what is the state of your masculinity?

The disempowering of the woman, on the one hand and the emasculation, Of the men.

29:28

On the other hand.

Those are the archaic stereotypes that are being discussed here in the midst of this conversation about where do we go as partners?

And as the mother of two sons, I really hope one day.

29:46

Men can say I’m very, very close to my mother without having to add and I’m not scared to say it and I would hope that a woman can say I’m a tough businesswoman.

Owen, and I have five children.

Then we will have a new world order.

30:06

A mama’s boy.

Does he keep the stories of his own intimate life for himself?

Because why I’m speaking about that.

He never talks about it.

We never talked about that.

So it’s not that we have a completely enmeshed and much.

30:27

Yes.

Relation.

I have another son.

It’s not the same, he can talk about his things up with me without problem.

But the one with whom I work, he shut it completely.

30:45

Are you scared that you’re losing your son to an employee?

Sometimes?

So are you skated?

The only thing that we will have is not the emotional bond that you created and nurtured after 28 years now, but that the only thing that we will have left is discussing that.

31:03

How is that a party?

Exactly, exactly.

Sometimes, I have that feelings that when we are out of speaking about the last deal and the last thing in the last that you go, Life, I’m not part of it anymore.

Yes, I do.

31:26

Bringing the other people.

Like for example, I’m just thinking, when you give if you’re going to give over the business to him.

What does what implications does this have for your other kid?

Right.

I mean, there are issues of legacy and there are issues of succession.

31:42

Yes.

There’s a huge issue.

I don’t even know how to handle it.

I love both my kids.

The same, not the same way, but as much, and I don’t know how to do not a privilege one against the other in many ways.

32:05

My concern is also what will happen afterwards.

Between the two brothers.

I don’t want any any Cain and Abel and Cain and Abel.

Yeah.

How does he see the two of you?

I think it’s it disturbs him.

32:28

I think he’s like, kind of jealous jealous is not really the but maybe somewhere frustrated not to be part of it.

I think so.

You think so?

You think so now that we’re speaking about it and I’m happy we’re speaking about that.

Also.

32:44

I do wish that you would have with him better relationship.

It’s important.

You see the same to the other, not know the first time I said, it also makes you think we have a bad relationship.

33:01

No, it’s not good into good bad.

So what is it that needs to happen or that you would like to happen?

What’s your dream, you know, bottom line.

I would like them to have more respect one for each other.

33:19

They have a brotherly love together, but the respect is not the enough possum.

What do you think?

I don’t think it’s an issue of respect.

33:36

I think, I think there is a lot of respects.

At the end.

I just think there’s not a lot of understanding toll, respect, was not the, the, the exact world.

It’s I don’t think, I realize how difficult it is.

33:52

What he’s doing on all levels because he’s a surgeon technically, no chemically nor emotionally and emotionally all the time and efforts and stress and I don’t think that He realizes, how difficult, and how intense our line of work is to absolutely.

34:17

It’s not a matter of respect.

I respect it a lot what he’s doing.

I think ultimately he respects me as well.

It’s just it’s understanding.

He never asks questions and he never explains either nor do I So, maybe you should.

34:36

You have to know the more I listen to you and the more impressed.

I am of how many layers.

Of relational systems, you straddle.

I just want you to know what I think you’re handling an enormous amount of stuff.

34:58

And I for that matter, think you handled it very well.

Your awareness of things.

Your ability to think about how the other person thinks about things.

It’s very discerning.

I just wanted to tell you that it’s kind.

35:17

Thank you.

And do you know when you talk I’m map, I’m up.

You and your brother, you and the clients, you and the other salespeople, you and your mother, you and your father, which we haven’t addressed.

And when you begin to add it up like that, it becomes a complex, you know, molecule of relationships.

35:38

And, and I think you handled a lot of it quite beautifully, period.

And I’m saying this to him, but I’m also saying this to you.

That’s great.

Yes, it’s, you know, probably in the midst of this, you have fights and you have screams, and you have, but all of this is right there as well.

35:58

And family business is the most difficult one to struggle because you straddle both.

Because if you lay somebody off, you’ll never see them again, but if you lay off you son.

He remains you son.

You know, you I met you may have had a terrible week.

36:15

You may still meet on the weekend.

Yeah, and the ability to maneuver that is one of the essential qualities of family business.

What is the role of the father in a mother son?

36:34

Great question.

Start to get a first I want to know how you see it.

I know how I see it, but I would like to know.

How do you see your father in that picture?

We never talked about the Father, the Father, which is also your husband.

36:51

Yes, my husband his father.

Because it’s also part of the Assurance.

He’s doing all the financial operation.

He’s the see CFO is doing the accounting and the back end.

37:08

Yes, not that the other than on the non-visible, but you never see, I work with my father and my mother.

So here even here, you’ve never said, I work with my parents.

I said, it’s a family business.

Don’t play with me.

37:28

The whole conversation has been about working with Mom.

But in fact, you work with both your parents at, that is true.

It is not presented like that.

It’s true for sure.

Although the company holds his name.

He’s not the face of the company and for me, that’s not the same for me.

37:45

It’s my name and ultimately hopefully one day it will be the face as well.

That’s a question I have for you.

Do you ever feel regret that it’s not your name holding the company sometimes?

Yes.

38:03

It’s a good question.

It’s a very good question.

It’s fundamental.

It’s his name.

And I’m using his name already 30 years, but you cannot have a big problem with it, but you cannot neglect the contribution.

38:26

Of course, not of course not look when you were young baby and your bottle so he did everything that I could study and study the business and start the business and he was babysitting and keeping and so on.

38:43

He never complained.

I have the whole gratitude to towards him for that, but It’s true that after all these years.

It’s not my name, but for you, it’s different.

38:58

It’s your name.

It is it so important?

It’s not important.

I never thought about it.

But lately, it seems important for me after all this achievement.

I said all these have children because it’s an issue of Legacy, but I am telling you it’s an issue of patriarchy.

39:18

I have to tell you that socially lately.

I used few times my own name.

Nobody knows that but I gave my own name.

But that’s what I’m saying.

Is that when this is an interesting moment for you because it made a very beautiful distinction when you talked about your brother between respect and understanding.

39:43

This is a moment when you need to bring your curiosity to her and try to be more understanding.

What is at stake.

Do you think your girlfriend if she ever married?

You would keep her name?

I sure would take your name.

40:01

I don’t care, right?

But she has a choice.

Okay, your mom is from a generation.

That didn’t have that choice.

And so the name and the identity that comes with the name and the difference between there is my face, but it’s not my Identity or there’s my face but there is not my name.

40:24

That is a real generational story and primarily of women.

That’s what I meant by patriarch, but an old social structure.

It’s a given that you take the name of the father.

Why?

40:42

I understand, right?

So that’s the conversation.

Do you think that you began to use your maiden name after your father died?

Yes.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

40:59

Very interesting.

Beautiful.

She had written in the intake forms, that her father had recently passed away.

And it occurred to me that it was his death.

That now allowed her to claim her name as hers, and not just as the name of her father.

41:18

And that this notion of which is my name, the wife of the daughter of rather than the woman.

I am had become much more Central for her in this past few years.

Where I live.

Everybody knows me by the name of my husband and my own name is buried, finish that it’s important for him to understand that, for me.

41:46

Tell him, it’s important that, you know, that?

Okay, so it’s important for you also to tell my father and to tell your husband that he, you have sacrificed this piece of yourself that you do recognize too.

42:01

They, that is so important.

You need to know that and you need to know and understand all his sacrifices and everything that he did.

Because there is an equality there, even though it’s not a monetary equality or an income equality.

42:20

It’s a personality.

What was his sacrifices?

And the fact that his wife was running more than him.

That he had been always the underdog.

It’s not a question of Underdog.

42:36

I think it’s it’s attaching a level of importance to things.

You attach a lot of importance to the business, to the time, to the monetary, the financially.

And he attached a lot of importance to the role that was socially.

42:58

Accepted to be for the wife and not the husband for people in your generation.

And he has done it without compromise without discussion for as much as I know and you have to be able to realize it that it’s that these two things, today’s in today’s world are equal.

43:27

And that’s an important thing to know.

What do you you do?

Realize that you don’t have parents like your other friends for sure.

That by us.

The rules are completely.

How did you understand what he just said?

I think she understood by saying that the rules are different by accepting it and acknowledging it, huh?

43:52

He’s cooking every day, and he’s dealing with things at home.

And he took a lot of Joy from it.

Yeah, he feels good at it.

Okay, and I think your balance each other much more than you think or much more than you realize you never felt uneasy with it.

44:12

When important that very important, the way the relation that we have now for work is based on the relation that you have at home with the parents and how you see that?

Part of what you’re highlighting is, is that from where he comes from heating?

44:31

That your arrangement, with your husband is a rather egalitarian arrangement.

We’re two people contributed in a way that allow the other person to do what they did best.

It’s very, that’s a different definition of egalitarian.

44:51

Yes.

And so, you know, you have never seen it in this way.

No, because you were looking at it from a monetary perspective.

No, no, not the monitors person.

No, but you could have said I’m ashamed of my father, because for years, he’s not working.

45:10

He’s death at home the whole time doing nothing and so on some, but you did not see it.

It’s good.

No, because he could have been very jealous.

He could have been very obvious ambitious.

45:32

No, you cannot say that because maybe he can be ambitious in a different sense, but, What that did is he gave you the space and the freedom to do it by accepting all the other roles that were perceived as not for the man to do.

45:56

They should come from both of your sides.

Great pride and love for giving each other the freedom to do, what you do best.

That’s a whole different view on your marriage than the one you have.

46:12

Right?

And on the gender Dynamics, and the power structures.

This is the moment where things begin to sink in for her.

46:29

Because her own son, has just given her an entirely different rendering on her marriage and she would never accept the primary Breadwinner being the man saying my wife at home does nothing.

And so what she highlights here is the way that she too has fallen into the Trap of the old gender structured patriarchal model for years on some level.

46:59

She lived with the idea a that she had done it all alone.

When in fact, her husband had been a primary contributor as an active CFO in the company, but that was never mentioned for years.

She thought I’m the man of the house rather than my man is making it possible for me to be the woman.

47:22

I want to be And for years, she thought that her son’s would be embarrassed by having a stay-at-home dad, who had no ambition, which the sun reinterpreted us.

The ambition of my father was to let you shine.

47:42

I’m going to Simply put three dots at the end of this sentence because it’s not a concluded conversation, but it’s where we are.

Thank you very much.

Okay, but you guys can continue this conversation.

Even as you leave here, this piece about that we will would show.

48:00

Yeah, I think that’s a revelation for you.

Mom.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Esther perel is a best-selling author, speaker and host of the podcast.

48:18

Where should we begin to learn more about Esther perel swirled to sign up for our newsletter?

Or to apply to be on the podcast?

Go to Esther perel.com /.

How’s work?

How’s work is produced by magnificent noise for gimlet and Esther perel Productions.

48:35

Our production staff includes Eric Newsome, evil.

Watch over Destry Sibley, Alex Lewis.

Is Kristin Mueller and are coordinating producer is Lindsay rutowski?

Our recording engineer is Noriko acaba, and Damon, Whittemore is our mix engineer.

48:53

The theme song was written by Ducks laylan and the executive producers of how’s work.

Our Esther perel and Jesse Baker.

We would also like to thank nazanin rafsanjani, Matt Lieber, Darien Le Beach Courtney Hamilton Kelly Roos, Nick oxen horn.

49:12

Dr. Guy, winch Kathryn Minshew and her team at the Muse.

Paul Schneider Thomas, Curry Shawnee avram and Jax all