Should Have Listened to My Mother! with Jackie Tantillo

Bobbi (00:01.414)
Welcome everyone to the Fly Mom Fly podcast. Today we have a special guest who has embarked on a journey through the emptiness phase of life. Jackie Tantillo, a seasoned professional in the radio and broadcasting industry found herself at a crossroads when her eldest child started college. Seizing the perfect timing, Jackie decided to start her own podcast.

Bobbi (00:25.994)
pushing herself to learn new things and embrace change after decades in her familiar industry. Jackie's podcast, Should Have Listened To My Mother, is a platform where she has had the privilege of hearing incredible stories from diverse individuals over the years. From heartwarming tales to valuable life lessons, Jackie has become privy to a multitude of experiences that have left a lasting impact.

Today we have the pleasure of exploring Jackie's own journey, the challenges she faced during the emptiness phase, and the wisdom she gained along the way. Hi Jackie, it is lovely to have you joining me today.

jackie tantillo (01:06.143)
It's really great to meet you and to speak with you and I love what the title of your podcast and I think it's great having these conversations.

Bobbi (01:16.61)
It is and speaking about titles, I just smiled when I first read yours, should have listened to my mother because for me anyway, deep down, I probably could have listened to a lot more. However, you know, we are who we are. We do have our rebellious phases. We're going through the adolescent years. And then I often find myself now

jackie tantillo (01:39.991)
Yes.

Bobbi (01:46.766)
almost a carbon copy of my mother. I went up to our neighborhood pool the other day and I'm now 52 and I was meeting my friend up there she's about to turn 50 and I was leaving the house and I was just laughing to myself because I had become my mother. I had SPF 50 lathered all over my face so it looked like I was a ghost. I had my very wide brimmed hat on.

jackie tantillo (02:05.407)
Okay.

Bobbi (02:14.33)
I had my glasses, I had my pool cover up, and sunscreen sprayed over the rest of my body. And I just, I walked in and I said, I realized I'm my mother. Oh my goodness.

jackie tantillo (02:27.113)
But that's a good thing. You're like channeling each other or she's channeling you and it, you know, it all, however you want to take that in and use it, it's great. Some people have a hard time with it, but it's great. We all use that expression, whether we're, you know.

Bobbi (02:39.549)
Yeah.

jackie tantillo (02:48.998)
you know, being sarcastic or realistic, you know, our boys, oh, you should, I say it to my boys all the time, you know, you should listen to your mother. Right? Yeah.

Bobbi (02:57.518)
Exactly. And you have every reason now to say that because this is pretty much your life experience at the moment, interviewing other people and sharing their stories. Let's go back to when you became an empty nest mum. You mentioned you have just boys.

jackie tantillo (03:14.678)
Yeah, I have two boys and I had started the production of the podcast a year prior to when I was working at WABC radio in New York. So it just said I had maybe a half a season worth of shows produced already and then things got complicated at ABC. It turned out that they were being sold. So they weren't going to use it, which gave me them the right to use it all on my own and get it out there how I wanted to.

But boy, did I throw myself into the fire when Daniel went away to school. It was a big adjustment for sure. I mean, I'm the youngest of seven, so you'd think, oh, two kids, no big deal. I watched my mom go through, as much as she showed us, the heartbreak with her six prior children leaving the nest. But it was a big eye-opener for both my husband and I. The huge.

that was there. And it's not to say that our younger son wasn't spectacular and that we loved him, you know, but we still missed, we had a lifetime of sports and activities and being outside with our friends for so many years, just like so many parents, baseball was our life. And all of a sudden it's like very, it's quiet. It gets very quiet. So, yeah.

Bobbi (04:14.162)
Mm-hmm.

does. I so agree. And interesting you said that you come from a big family. I'm also number seven out of eight. And yeah so big family and I like you only had two children. I've got two girls. And I think family had been just such a prominent thing throughout my life. Having people around. Really

jackie tantillo (04:44.026)
Yes, yes.

Bobbi (05:05.058)
seeing the parenting role, really working in conjunction with other siblings. And then when we grew up and we left home, the family was still front and center of everything that we did. We'd like maybe once a month have a family get together. I find now I'm over in Ohio and all our kids are back in Australia. We brought one over with us five years ago. She did high school.

got through the pandemic and said, mom, I'm out of here. I wanna go back to life in Sydney and I totally get it. But now there's this 10,000 miles in between us. So everything that I held dear and created my identity kinda just got on that plane and flew off with her. So tell me about this. Yeah, it is scardling and it is a shock. And I think

jackie tantillo (05:55.226)
It's startling. It's startling the adjustment.

Bobbi (06:02.126)
One thing I do want to say, and I think this is very important for listeners to comprehend, we're all at a different stage of our empty nest journey. You may be far down the track and coping really well and have gotten your shit together and you're just rocking life. However, there are women who are just at the beginning or still way down the track.

who haven't had the tools, tips and resources to navigate this phase of life successfully. And what I think it's so important to say, because I keep reading the opposite in answers to women's requests for help on social media, we need to meet these women where they are currently. We are of no use to them if we say things like, suck it up, you always knew they were gonna leave, go let them live their life. It doesn't mean that we're

not letting them live, we're just left behind with this pain that we actually have to manage. So to say that yeah, it is a shock initially, it sure is. Can you tell us more about your personal experience in those few weeks and months after the boys both left?

jackie tantillo (07:18.96)
I'm not a person to, I've never had a panic attack or anything in my life. I'm pretty even keeled. Um, sense of humor is very important in, in my life and my family. Um, but when we were pulling away from university in Maryland, I can remember I got this email from a friend and there was all these animal videos. And as I'm leaving campus, I just started watching these.

animal videos and I was laughing hysterically, you know, those silly cat and dog things that we spend hours every day wasting time or, or therapeutic. And, and we, I remember getting to the exit of the campus and all of a sudden, and we get on the highway and I wound up falling asleep for like 20 minutes and I woke up and it was this really

uncomfortable feeling, a feeling I've never had before. And all of a sudden I realized that I was having trouble breathing. It was, I can still sense it right now as we're talking. I was shocked for so many reasons, but it was the reality of that sense of humor, that laughter that I had right when we left his dorm. It was like my defense mechanism or a safety mechanism. My friend just happened to, you know, for some reason, I opened my phone and I was laughing.

And then I passed out in the car for a couple of minutes. And then the rest of the hours, it was hard. Got home and both my husband and I were crying. It was terrible. So, but there is a life after that. And the most important thing to remember, and I guess we were lucky that we knew that our son was happy where he was. He had a good network of friends.

Bobbi (08:46.19)
Oh, that's horrible.

Mm-hmm.

jackie tantillo (09:07.214)
from his hometown that were there with him. And freshman year can be hard, no matter how social you are, it's an adjustment. And I always told my boys, college is more than academics. You have to figure out who you are, you have to figure out how to do things on your own. You gotta get lost and find yourself, right? But it was a big adjustment. Again, our younger son John was with us, which was fantastic.

But luckily for me, I'd always worked. I'd always had an identity of my own other than being mom. And I'm not saying every mom should work because that doesn't always work for everybody. But I've always, whether it was part-time or I would have my fingers in two or three different jobs in production, I always had something that I was working on the side. And...

Then when Daniel was gone, it was like, oh boy, here we go. We're gonna step up those interviews. We're gonna step up the production of the show and we're really gonna get this thing going. So it's tough and it's really important, I think, to go through if a parent goes through it. Some parents drop their kid off at school and they're like, hallelujah, it's about time. But not so much the case for my husband and I.

Bobbi (10:31.078)
I love the fact that you did have your business and your career to fall back on. And from my own personal experience and talking to other empty nest moms, I think the sweet spot for preparation is when your child goes into the 11th grade. So back home, we call it year 11. When they go into that...

grade. They're going to be around sixteen in the US. They have their license maybe if they want it. So they're a little bit more liberated. They're not so attached to you. They have perhaps their emerging identity and their own tastes and their circle of friends. This is generalizing by the way. However, they do

tend to need you less and less at that stage. In fact, I think we're lucky if they actually want us to be front and center at that time of their life. But this seems to be the sweet spot because moms can then start planning for this empty nest phase and start going through the motions to discover, okay, who am I now as a woman whose child is nearly grown?

We're vastly different than we were way back when. We're not the same woman we were. We've grown up with our kids along the way. And it's time now to discover or rediscover what we value, what our needs are, what sparks joy within. And I think it's important at that stage because we don't necessarily have the shock and grief surrounding us when we're working on ourselves and doing a lot of that inner work.

It's quite a comfortable scenario because we have the best of both worlds during that two year period before I head off to college.

jackie tantillo (12:31.622)
I'll speak for myself. I don't know if I, I didn't plan ahead. It wasn't like, oh my God, what am I gonna do? I have two years before they start leaving here cause they're a grade apart school wise, you know, so they're pretty close in age. I wasn't that smart to say, okay, I'm gonna have, I'm gonna be here, here and here by the time he leaves. So I won't even know that he's gone. To me, that wasn't, you know, we were enjoying every minute of him being part of the family, you know, obviously.

Bobbi (12:41.459)
right.

jackie tantillo (13:00.742)
Um, but, um, we have children and we all know that they're going to move away, right? They're going to leave fly, leave the coop. Um, that's what our job is to get them ready so they can do that. Um, juxtaposed to, um, some kids that are nurture, I remember going on college visits and the tour guide said, I didn't know how to do laundry.

I didn't know how to do this. My mother did everything for me when I got here and she was brilliant. And she like sealed the deal for my son's decision because the tour guide on a college visit makes all the difference in the world, right? And she really had her act together. But she had a huge growth period. I wish I knew her name because she was fabulous. She did not know anything because her mom did everything for her daughter.

And I can only imagine that adjustment. I mean, my boys started doing their laundry when they were getting out of elementary school. I think I put little pieces of tape on the washing machine and the dryer saying number one, number two, number three. So maybe I was prepping, I don't know. But we have children so they can go out into the world and be good people, hopefully, right?

Bobbi (14:21.79)
They do. I tried to kid myself and block out the reality that was going to unfold. I knew Lucy wanted to go back to Australia. My role became trying to find her a boyfriend. So she stayed. And I like it's funny, we laugh about it and we'd be out or we'd be in our neighborhood and it'd be like, oh, Lucy, that boy, he looks quite nice.

jackie tantillo (14:37.704)
I think we're in the states. Oh, boy.

Oh my god.

Bobbi (14:51.39)
just stop and I had to say to her but I just want you to stay and we would have a laugh about it and I knew that the time was going to come where she'd pack up and leave and she did and you know what she's happy and thriving but they do have an adjustment period as well and it's interesting for me to have seen her transition and her own grief because

jackie tantillo (15:03.339)
Hello.

Bobbi (15:18.694)
She loves being around her family, yet she knew her life was going to be back in Australia. And she calls me every day, and this is now nearly two years later. Emily has been on her own for five years now back in Sydney. She went to university over there, so she stayed. So she's really kind of used to not having the last five years with mom and...

living life on her own. So probably hear from her once a week and we have a good video chat. But Lucy really is every day and she shares a lot of her life. And I can see the grief that we both experience or that we have had, we have had experienced through since the last say 20 months or so. And it is sad but I'm glad that we're there to support each other and

By sharing our grief, we are normalizing it and we're talking through it. And hopefully it helps us adjust a little bit more. I'd love to hear about Jackie, the podcast, how you came up with the name and how that has evolved with you, for you, sorry. And not only that, but what has it given you to have that now that you are an empty nester?

jackie tantillo (16:41.918)
Well, one quick story, can I just go back a little bit to the contrast between your oldest child and your younger child, if you happen to have two? And only because it was a lesson. My husband and I, we were always so busy with the boys and doing everything that we were doing, that we would, our anniversary, you know, every day is an anniversary, we're very much in love with each other and we celebrate all the time.

Bobbi (16:46.354)
Please.

Yes?

jackie tantillo (17:08.466)
it's to the point of ridiculous how happy we are together. So we laugh about it. But anyway, my husband planned this mystery trip to somewhere and we were gonna celebrate our anniversary. Just what happened, we had brought our younger son who was never going to college. He finally, we found a school in Chicago, it was near water, because water is very important to him. So Michigan, like Michigan's there.

Bobbi (17:10.409)
Hahaha

jackie tantillo (17:34.358)
And it was, he got a scholarship for e-sporting. I'm gonna just make this really fast cause he was a gamer. So we bring him, we drive him to Chicago, we drive back. The next day we were leaving on this mystery trip. I had no idea. It turns out, this is my son had been away from home a couple of times, but not really. He didn't wanna go to school. He wasn't social. He was social with friends all over the world online, but he had a tough time at school with bullying and stuff.

But anyway, so we're back from, so it's like two days after we drop him and we're leaving on this trip. It turns out my husband took me to Rome and two other couples were surprising us. I didn't know it. My husband had planned this whole thing. They're my college friends. So there's six of us in Rome and I'm on the plane. I'm saying to myself, so two days after we left our son who never wanted to go away, blah, blah.

Bobbi (18:10.043)
Yeah.

jackie tantillo (18:34.422)
in a city he didn't know. And I'm like, I started that whole breathing thing again when I had with Daniel, when I went to go to sleep. And I just, I felt like, I was like, I can't believe I just left my son alone. We're leaving. I knew where we were going at that point because I was on a plane. But that panic, that breathing thing, like I tried to lie back.

Bobbi (18:41.456)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, I had to.

jackie tantillo (18:59.59)
And I immediately had to sit up because I felt like, oh my God, you're so selfish. I can't believe you're leaving. He doesn't know anybody, people ba ba, that whole thing. And you know what? We spoke to him maybe once in that week. He said, you guys are on vacation. You never get to go away. And this child has now graduated from college and he's getting a full-time position at the university and he's just rocking it. So.

Bobbi (19:26.898)
Oh, that's a wonderful story. All good on him.

jackie tantillo (19:27.238)
I'm telling you, I honor him, Johnny, and all that he has become, because it wasn't easy. This is a kid who could never go up to a counter and ask for a sandwich, or a change of something, or go buy something. He really was very, very shy, and it's possible. All you moms and dads out there listening, your baby will grow up and be able to be out there.

Bobbi (19:42.73)
Peace.

Yes.

Bobbi (19:56.242)
Yeah, look, that's true. I, yeah, Johnny sounds like Lucy where she did not speak a lot to people, very socially awkward, would not go up and ask anything for herself. It was exactly the same scenario. In fact, she was once staying overnight at my sister's house and she was playing with her cousins the next morning in their playroom. And she was six years old. And my sister said, oh, I came downstairs.

jackie tantillo (19:57.546)
It was hard. That was really, really hard.

Oh my gosh. Oh, that's great.

Bobbi (20:26.078)
this morning and I heard this voice and I didn't know who was in the house and it was my daughter speaking to her cousin. She'd never heard her speak. So it was to that extent. But now Lucy is the one who decided I've been in the US for four years with mom and her stepdad. I'm going back to Australia and she started this life. She was, yeah, so you're right. And the mums, it is possible for these kids to thrive.

jackie tantillo (20:46.472)
Good for her. She's there. She's close. Yeah.

Bobbi (20:54.714)
I have always worried about her. I felt from the time she was born, for some reason, she was the one I needed to protect. However, she does, and she does grieve we still have a very close connection, but she is just hitting milestones every day. So I think Johnny and Lucy, perfect. In fact, damn, I could have introduced Lucy to Johnny and she could have stayed in this country.

jackie tantillo (21:10.867)
It's gotta spread those wings. Yeah. Oh, right. You have to stop. And don't forget, we all worry about that word, but basically worrying is a negative energy, a negative connotation that something...

Bobbi (21:21.038)
see I am that type of mother. I know I really do have to stop don't I? Oh

Mm-hmm.

jackie tantillo (21:36.886)
You know, so that's sending out the bad vibe. So we have to stop. We have to send positive, you know, we got to think. Any sky's the limit. I'm telling you, Johnny was not going anywhere. He wasn't leaving his room and he is rocking it. And he does have a great girlfriend too now, by the way, sorry. So anyway. Oh yeah, you asked me a question. Oh, the podcast. So, you know, I was.

Bobbi (21:40.614)
It's so true. It is.

Wrong.

Bobbi (21:54.802)
Oh perfect, okay. So talk to me about the podcast. Yeah, yeah, just the podcast.

jackie tantillo (22:05.054)
trying to think of a podcast to do, you know, everybody's doing podcasts and I'm lucky I have my home studio where I am now. And, um, it, it's one of those things in the middle of the night. It actually said, should have listened to my mother. And I know it's a long title and you're only supposed to have short titles and all that, but the basis of it is, um, when I say, are you who you are today because of, or in spite of your mother, it is, um,

Bobbi (22:11.06)
Yeah.

jackie tantillo (22:33.654)
the effect your mom had in you or a maternal female role model, right? It doesn't just have to be a mom because not everybody has a mom. It could be a, you know, a person outside of your family too, but that curator, um, and helping you become who you are. And I'm, I'm working my way towards 200 interviews in my fourth season. So for some reason, I don't know if it, I go through periods where

the mother, their mother was a phenomenal role model for my male or female guest. And then you hear the stories of the mom who was not existent or was abusive or involved with drugs and alcohol and blah, and how the kids are the ones, whether it was the individual I'm speaking with or the whole, the children just banded together and raised themselves basically. And that.

is what blows me away because not everybody, you know, was able to grab that golden ring and get the best mom in the world. And yet they still get up every morning and they have an amazing attitude. And it blows my mind how people turn their life around. As a kid, you don't know, well, forget this. I'm not gonna let her influence me. I'm going on my way. But some...

Bobbi (23:37.222)
Yeah.

jackie tantillo (23:58.902)
whether it's divine intervention or a happenstance of, I'm very spiritual, but an angel or some guide that comes to these individuals and sheds light and lets them breathe again and believe that you can become who you want to be, who you dream of, who you aspire to be or what you aspire to be. And that's...

what just makes it very interesting. I don't have scripted questions. I don't want to know a lot about my guests before I do the interview. It's a very much back and forth conversation like this. And they just are able to be free and talk to me and tell them, tell me, share what's on their mind and what they, you know, they go back to being a kid again. It's a lot very emotional sometimes, not always, but.

Bobbi (24:48.671)
Thank you.

Yeah, so tell me I know what podcasting gives me on a daily basis. What are the great things that you have experienced through doing this?

jackie tantillo (25:08.438)
Well, again, meeting, I talk to people all over the world. It's just ridiculously great. And they're all like, Jackie, you got to come, you know, I'm gonna come to Ireland. I'm here, please, you have to come visit or, or Egypt or Italy or India, you know, it's

Bobbi (25:11.87)
Yeah.

with.

jackie tantillo (25:27.174)
It's opened up. I mean, obviously technology has changed our world. Even the pandemic more so opened us, opened the world up. But it's also enabled me to reflect and look back on what role I've played as a mom. That's very important to me. I mean, yes, I know I made a million mistakes. I could list them all, but going forward, who am I? Right? As a kid, you're not.

You're not so aware or conscious of the depth of the role your mom is playing. But as my sons are maturing and, you know, we're young adults, right? You have a different relationship. And I want them to first and foremost see how fortunate they are, how fortunate they are to have a loving mother and father and a very strong relationship. And my family...

and my husband's family, more so my family. My family is so large that they have that group that when we get together, it's just magic. And that's my parents were first and foremost about the significance and the importance of family. We lived overseas for a number of years. The last three of the seven kids were born overseas and we carry those traditions, the late dinners and...

Bobbi (26:35.22)
Mm.

jackie tantillo (26:53.386)
You know, we would sit and have, not every night, but some nights have some wine with water for the three little kids. We were born in Spain in Gibraltar, my dad was working there. So that very much carried, the European culture carried into our upbringing. So that's very important to us. So I've learned, my guests have given me a huge gift. You keep learning as a being or a mom, one would hope that you keep learning.

Bobbi (26:59.131)
Yeah.

Yeah.

jackie tantillo (27:21.482)
learning new things, learning new perspectives, and to reflect and change as you go forward is I think a gift. I'm like getting my PhD in philosophy, you know, psychology, all of it. It's pretty great.

Bobbi (27:22.564)
Yes.

It's so true and listening to you talk about that just what a gift this gig is, podcasting, meeting people from all over the world and I'm finding that the women I'm chatting to are becoming friends. We're connecting on Facebook and we talk and we support each other's businesses and you also mentioned that you're spiritual so I'm sure you will get this. Maybe about two months

jackie tantillo (27:47.478)
Yeah.

Go.

Bobbi (28:06.302)
I was feeling a lack of connection. So I work from home. My husband works 12 hours a day. I have a few really good friends in the neighborhood. However, they also either work or have their own lives. And I was not getting the interaction within my Facebook group that I desired. So I was kind of at a bit of a loss. And I was saying to my girlfriends,

I just want an expanded social experience. I want to just have, meet these real people and have real conversations, not just talk about surface level bullshit because it really, it doesn't feed me in the slightest. And I get bored really easily and I want to be able to engage and be present with people. But unless we're kind of heading towards that sort of conversation after

jackie tantillo (28:39.774)
Sure.

Bobbi (29:04.646)
you know, a few meetings, then it's not really perhaps a relationship for me. And little did I know that then about two weeks later, I was having lunch with an Aussie girlfriend who lives here in the same town as me and I was talking about things and she mentioned podcasting and I thought, oh, okay, I'll give that a go. And then the next time...

jackie tantillo (29:33.334)
You did! Here you are!

Bobbi (29:35.274)
Yes, and so that was on a Friday and then the next Thursday I had my first episode up and I said to her, oh this is great and now every day and I and I realised this because I've got this influx of people wanting to talk about different issues in relation to the empty nest phase and what they do to help other women and we have these amazing conversations that go deep from the get-go.

jackie tantillo (29:42.088)
Wow, you're good.

Bobbi (30:03.902)
and where the participants are really eager to open themselves up and share. And I just realized, oh my goodness, when we ask a question, when we put it out there to the universe, it's not a matter of us getting what we want, it's a matter of us getting what we need, because we might have all these ideas that yes, this is what I thought, oh am I going to meet someone new in the neighborhood who likes to, you know, have a deep conversation? How is this going to...

jackie tantillo (30:09.226)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Bobbi (30:33.278)
How is this going to play out? But I think what is good, and I aim to be mindful to do it more often than not. When I want something, I ask God for the best possible outcome because then I'm getting out of my own way and I'm open to always. And it's just, it's been great. So I totally, I totally get where you're coming from. I would love to, if you can, share.

jackie tantillo (30:46.958)
There you go. Oh my gosh. Where do we go? No, no, no. I'm just trying to think. There are many. Actually it was from.

Bobbi (30:58.626)
one of the uplifting stories or the uplifting encounters that you have had due to podcasting. It's probably a million.

jackie tantillo (31:16.426)
the very first episode, I interviewed Joan Hamburg, who's a long time metropolitan area in the Northeast, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut. She was like one of the first women in broadcasting. And she, as far as I know, I don't know if she's still in the air now, but she was up until like two or three years ago. She was phenomenal because she knew everything about not only New York City, but in the arts and politics and she covered it all.

So it was Joan Hamburg and then Christopher Nomura who is a soloist, a singer. And his story, he's Japanese American, but he performed in Allegiance, the show on Broadway with George Takai, the show on Broadway with George Takai. And George wrote the story based on his family's experience with the internment camps. But the story of Christopher's

Bobbi (32:05.137)
Yeah.

jackie tantillo (32:15.95)
mom, which she survived and endured and they came to the United States and they started a school in the San Francisco area of preschool and it's still there today and Christopher still runs the school and it's highly regarded. So his mom was a teacher and the family is just phenomenal. That's just one that comes to mind. There's moms that have been, you know, activists and outspoken for their beliefs and they brought their daughter Kim to...

to do the letter writing for political elections and things. And she remembers licking the stamp when we have to actually lick stamps and put them on the envelope. And she is so her mom today. She's such an activist. And she uses her voice where she feels fit. So there are so many, so many, so many, and I apologize for not being able to mention all of them, but they're dreamy.

Bobbi (32:52.968)
Yes?

Oh no, well the thing is we can all just listen to the podcast. I mean that's an absolute, yeah, a reason why we need to head on over.

jackie tantillo (33:13.67)
You can listen to the podcast. Yeah, they're all there. Everything from babies that were adopted and how they loved and admired and held true to their adoptive mom versus their bi... I mean, the stories are mind boggling.

Bobbi (33:35.898)
I can't wait to listen to more.

jackie tantillo (33:38.646)
Yeah, it's really exciting. It may not be for everybody, but the essence of it is really is how women took, they were given this role or they took it on as mom. And it's a really big role. And what I often hear is she did the best she could with what we had. And when I first started hearing that, that was really upsetting, especially if it was.

Bobbi (33:50.45)
Yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

jackie tantillo (34:05.458)
an unhealthy environment for a child to be in, but it really helped them heal. And she did the best she could with what she had. I can't tell you the number of times I've heard that, but the important one of the keys to healing from what I've learned is forgiveness, right? So if they're able to forgive and move on, then it's all good.

Bobbi (34:12.21)
Mm.

I love that. It's been such a pleasure speaking with you. Before we go, I would love to know if you have one bit of advice that you would want to impart to another empty nest mum, what might that be?

jackie tantillo (34:49.329)
One bit of advice. Again, we have children and this is their destiny. If we've done our job right, your children will move out of the house. They will go to college. They will always come back. But what I think is key is that we've given our children the tools to move on in life.

It's those tools that enable them to move forward with confidence and in a positive direction and a healthy direction. There's so many things out there in this world that are unhealthy, whether it's social media or whatever, alcohol, all that kind of stuff. But if we do our best and our mind is clear, our children pick that up. Our actions speak sometimes way louder than our words.

Bobbi (35:30.833)
Yeah.

jackie tantillo (35:43.006)
And that's something else that I've learned. Our actions are very important too. That's been a pleasure, Bobbi.

Bobbi (35:48.742)
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. And I really suggest we all go over and listen to your podcast and hear all those wonderful stories and really just realize who we are as mothers, what we're capable of normalizing challenges, pain and struggling. And then

sharing our triumphs and achievements as well. So yeah.

jackie tantillo (36:20.318)
patting ourselves on the back. We don't ever do that. I'll speak for myself. I don't do that. Yeah.

Bobbi (36:26.054)
We don't, we don't often enough. And I think everyone now listening, give yourself a little pat on that back, give yourself a hug. You are doing the best you can with the tools, knowledge and resources that you have. Well, Jackie, all the very best and to our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in and we look forward to connecting with you next time.