CALLING HOME with Whitney Goodman, LMFT

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of domestic violence, child abuse, and suicidal ideation.

In this Q&A episode, Whitney answers questions about families who respond with denial when being called out. In question one: a parent threatens suicide to shut down an argument. In question two: two parents shield each other instead of the kids.

Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles.

Have a question for Whitney? Send a voice memo or email to whitney@callinghome.co

Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club: https://callinghome.co
Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit
Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft
Order Whitney's book, Toxic Positivity: https://sitwithwhit.com/toxic-positivity

Sign up for updates on Whitney's new book: https://cmnyyv4kpyt.typeform.com/to/PHMzjy0o

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rin Reczek spent two decades studying families before she turned her research toward estrangement. What she found in the data took her by complete surprise. In this conversation, the sociologist and author of Families We Lose explains why the estrangement rate probably isn't actually rising, why the language of "honor thy father and mother" shows up even in nonreligious families, and why grandparent estrangement is almost never the selfish, spiteful choice it gets painted as online.

In this episode, you'll learn:
- What "compulsory kinship" means, and how biology-based language like "step" and "half" quietly signals hierarchy in families
- Why religious phrases about honoring parents show up in estrangement stories even among people who aren't religious
- Why the data doesn't support the idea that adult children are cutting off grandparents to be controlling or spiteful

Connect with Rin Reczek
Website: www.rinreczek.com

Buy Rin’s Book: https://amzn.to/4guKWI2

Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles.

Have a question for Whitney? Send a voice memo or email to whitney@callinghome.co

Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club: https://callinghome.co
Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit
Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft
Order Whitney's book, Toxic Positivity: https://sitwithwhit.com/toxic-positivity

Sign up for updates on Whitney's new book: https://cmnyyv4kpyt.typeform.com/to/PHMzjy0o

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of self-harm, physical and emotional abuse, and a parent expressing suicidal ideation.

We spend a lot of time talking about the person who decides to go no contact, and much less about everyone else who ends up living with that decision. In this Q&A episode, Whitney answers a woman in her 30s who inherited and is now dealing with the consequences of her mother's estrangement from her side of the family. Second, a listener six months no contact with an abusive mother, asking the question: who is responsible for her now?

In this episode, you'll learn:
- How to build your own relationships without betraying a parent's decision to go no contact
- Scripts for handling the question "how's your mom?" without becoming the family messenger
- How to separate compassion from obligation with a parent in crisis

Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles.

Have a question for Whitney? Send a voice memo or email to whitney@callinghome.co

Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club: https://callinghome.co
Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit
Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft
Order Whitney's book, Toxic Positivity: https://sitwithwhit.com/toxic-positivity

Sign up for updates on Whitney's new book: https://cmnyyv4kpyt.typeform.com/to/PHMzjy0o

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We have the cure for estrangement: just see your parents as children too. Easy. Case closed. [Read: sarcasm] In this episode, Whitney traces where this sometimes helpful and sometimes very unhelpful idea came from and shows how something genuinely useful got turned into a permanent exit ramp from accountability.

In this episode, you'll learn:
- How "your parents were children too" worked its way into self-help
- Why unfinished business has to move upward or outward, never down to your own children
- What defensiveness in a parent is usually protecting

Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles.

Have a question for Whitney? Send a voice memo or email to whitney@callinghome.co

Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club: https://callinghome.co
Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit
Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft
Order Whitney's book, Toxic Positivity: https://sitwithwhit.com/toxic-positivity

Sign up for updates on Whitney's new book: https://cmnyyv4kpyt.typeform.com/to/PHMzjy0o

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Content warning: This episode contains descriptions of suicidal ideation, child abuse and neglect, childhood sexual abuse, and abortion.

Whitney answers two questions about accepting a family situation you never chose and never asked for. First, a mother whose family just lost a three year grandparent visitation case. She is being mandated by family court to send her children on unsupervised monthly visits with a grandmother she doesn't believe is safe. Second, a listener who has been 15 years no contact asking the question: should the adult child be apologizing for how they behaved as a kid?

In this episode, you'll learn:
- How to separate what the court controls from what you actually control as a parent
- How to prepare a child for time with someone you don't trust, without making them afraid
- Why a child's behavior during abuse is never something to apologize for
- When accountability between an adult child and a parent is genuinely useful, and who has to go first

Whitney Goodman is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and the founder of Calling Home, a membership community that helps people navigate complex family dynamics and break harmful cycles.

Have a question for Whitney? Send a voice memo or email to whitney@callinghome.co

Join the Family Cyclebreakers Club: https://callinghome.co
Follow Whitney on Instagram | sitwithwhit
Follow Whitney on YouTube | @whitneygoodmanlmft
Order Whitney's book, Toxic Positivity: https://sitwithwhit.com/toxic-positivity

Sign up for updates on Whitney's new book: https://cmnyyv4kpyt.typeform.com/to/PHMzjy0o

This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.