How to Accept You Are Doing Enough with Dr. Allison Alford

Many women spend their lives carrying invisible responsibilities for their families without ever realizing how much energy, thought, and emotional labor those responsibilities require. Whether it's keeping the peace, anticipating needs, preserving family traditions, or caring for aging parents, daughters are often expected to do it all—and do it well. The challenge is that these expectations can become so ingrained that many women never stop to ask an important question: How much is enough?

This week, in episode 318 of the Positively LivingⓇ Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Allison Alford, communication scholar, researcher, and author of Good Daughtering: The Work You've Always Done, the Credit You've Never Gotten, and How to Finally Feel Like Enough. Allison shares insights from more than a decade of research on the often-unspoken role of adult daughters, exploring the invisible labor they perform, the societal expectations they carry, and how women can redefine what it means to be a "good enough" daughter.

Dr. Allison M. Alford is a communication scholar, researcher, professor at Baylor University, and leading expert on the experience of adult daughters. Through years of interviews and research, she has examined the emotional, cognitive, logistical, and identity-based labor women perform within families. Her work helps daughters recognize their contributions, challenge unrealistic expectations, and create healthier, more sustainable relationships with their families and themselves.

Key Takeaways:

• Daughtering is more than caregiving. It includes the ongoing emotional, cognitive, logistical, and identity work daughters perform to keep families connected and functioning.
• Much of a daughter's labor is invisible. While tasks like visits and phone calls are visible, the planning, worrying, emotional management, and family coordination often go unnoticed.
• Society places unique expectations on daughters. Women are often expected not only to care for family members but to do so willingly, skillfully, and without complaint.
• The mental load extends beyond remembering tasks. Daughters frequently anticipate problems, navigate family dynamics, and remove obstacles before anyone else notices them.
• Emotional labor has a real cost. Acting as the peacemaker, confidant, or emotional "thermostat" for a family can lead to exhaustion, overwhelm, and burnout.
• Birth order and family structure can influence daughtering experiences. Eldest daughters and only daughters often feel heightened responsibility, though every family dynamic is unique.
• You have agency to redefine your role. Even long-standing family patterns can be reassessed, and it's possible to establish healthier expectations and boundaries.
• Being a "B+ daughter" is enough. Striving for perfection isn't sustainable. Leaving room for your own needs, relationships, and well-being allows you to show up for your family without losing yourself in the process.

The invisible work you do for your family matters. But so do your needs, your capacity, and your well-being. You don't have to earn your worth through endless giving. What would change if you allowed yourself to believe that you are already enough?

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LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

Good Daughtering: The Work You've Always Done, the Credit You've Never Gotten, and How to Finally Feel Like Enough

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Transcript

Lisa Zawrotny: 0:22

Welcome to the Positively Living Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa. And today's guest episode is near and dear to my heart. In my time as an only child and an only daughter and a caregiver multiple times over, I'm someone who has wondered if she's done enough, and conversely felt like I've done too much and been unsure how to change either even today? The thought crosses my mind, and I wonder if I'm enough. Though, when I give my efforts a realistic review, the question almost seems ludicrous. My time as a caregiver and the burnout from it were actually a gift that helped me question these expectations of myself, and I am dedicated to helping others address these ideas before they reach burnout. If you're a caregiver, a parent, and especially a daughter, this episode is dedicated to you. Today's guest is Dr. Alison Alford, a communications scholar, researcher, and author

of the book Good Daughtering: 1:17

The Work You've Always Done, the Credit You've Never Gotten, and how to finally feel like enough. Through more than a decade of research, Dr. Alford has become the leading expert on the unspoken role of the adult daughter, the invisible emotional glue of families, and the toll that being good takes on a woman's sense of identity and worth. Today, she shares the four types of invisible labor that daughtering demands of us and helps us understand additional nuances like that of the eldest and only daughters, as well. Most importantly, we talk about what to do with these demands and how to identify what is enough and how we are enough. If you've struggled with this feeling, you will appreciate my guest's gentle and encouraging research-backed reassurance. If you'd like to read her book, you'll find a link on my resources page. Scroll down for the podcast resources link for all the books mentioned on the show at Positively productive.com/resources I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this episode, and welcome you to message me. Now, let's join Dr. Alison Alford to discuss daughtering that is good enough. You're listening to the Positively Living Podcast. I'm your host, Lisa Zarotni, founder of Positively Productive Systems and a productivity coach certified in positive psychology and stress management. Join me as we explore ways to live a more proactive, positive life with episodes on productivity, self-awareness, mindset, entrepreneur life, habits and systems, simplicity, fun, and more. I understand overwhelm personally as a multi-passionate entrepreneur, wife and mom to kids and cats, and as a caregiver, I'm here to help you choose what's right for you, so you can do less, live more, and breathe easier. Sound good? Let's get to it. Welcome to the Positively Living Podcast, Alison. I'm so delighted to have you here.

Dr. Allison Alford: 3:22

Thank you so much, Lisa. I'm glad to be here and talk about what it means to be a good enough daughter. So, I'm excited.

Lisa Zawrotny: 3:29

Yeah, this is meaningful to me as well. But before we dig into our topic today, I would love it if you would tell us a bit about who you are and what makes you light up.

Unknown: 3:40

Yeah, I am. Gosh, so many things, and whenever I get this question, I think, how does one encapsulate her identity in such a short period of time? But I am a daughter, I'm a mom, I'm a sister, a friend, and I'm a worker. I work as a professor in Central Texas at Baylor University, and part of my job is teaching, so I'm a teacher, but another part of my job is just being a thinker, and that's probably where we get down to the root of who I feel like I really am, is a thinker and somebody who tries to really see others and notice things that other people aren't noticing, and so that's what I'm good at, and that's why I wrote a book on the experience of women as daughters and families, so that people could feel noticed.

Lisa Zawrotny: 4:24

I love that, and that is definitely where we are kindred spirits, and thinking, you know, beyond what we normally see, and getting to the root of so many things. And the daughter part, how much of your experience as a daughter led you to wanting to uncover more about this?

Unknown: 4:43

Yeah, you know, I was in my 30s, and I was married, I mean, I was already married, still married kids held like I used to be, but kids, and I went back to school to get my PhD. This was really a lifelong dream that I didn't know what I was going to do with it, I just knew I wanted to get it, and it was in that space where I realized that I had foregrounded a lot of identities, like mother, wife, graduate, worker, colleague, and I had left this role or identity of daughter just simmering on the back burner, like, oh yeah, that's there, of course, that's there, but as I started reading and. Researching a lot of stuff, my degree is in family communication, or communication studies. So that's really the study of how do people make meaning in the world through communication, and I realized that we had a lot of material out there about how do mothers make sense of being a mother and doing mothering, and you know, how can you be a good romantic partner, a wife or a spouse or a husband? How can you be a good friend? How can you do dating appropriately? There were all these sort of sub areas, but there wasn't anything there about being a daughter. But when I looked at my own family, full of women, capable, confident women who were always interacting with each other and pulling out the best from each other, I realized that that was an area where we needed more attention, because I was a daughter and the thought of it was on the back burner, but the doing of it was right up at the front. I was always doing daughtering, making phone calls, making decisions, planning ahead, thinking of others, caring for others, and that's why I wanted to talk about it with others, and write and research about it, like we're doing now.

Lisa Zawrotny: 6:29

Well, I'm so glad you did, and you know, as a daughter myself, and a daughter not only to, you know, my parents who have passed, but also to my in-laws, and that experience of being a caregiver multiple times over, it's very meaningful to me, and you're right. I think that we've had this experience, and for whatever reason, and part of that will unpack today, that we just do, we keep doing, but we're not thinking about the doing, or stepping back and maybe understanding it better, or maybe allowing ourselves a little bit more grace. I mean, there's things you talk about in terms of expectations, and I'm like, that lands so much, so yes, let's dig into that. And so this idea of doddering, I would love to just start by, I guess, essentially helping us define it and put it into context here, like what makes it distinctive, and you know, because we could also talk about sunning, right, but what makes doddering so distinctive? What do we need to know about it?

Unknown: 7:29

Yes, well, daughtering is the often invisible emotional, cognitive, logistical, and identity labor that women are doing in families to keep everyone connected, and oftentimes we're doing so much more of that than we realize before. All of a sudden, we're burnt out, and that is because, as you just said, Lisa, we tend to only give ourselves credit or notice when we're doing something very visible, when we're taking our parents a casserole, or helping them figure out the online app for their pharmacy, or we are doing a visit, or we're on the phone, and so these are very obvious forms of doing doddering, but there are these other invisible forms of doing doddering that take our resources, that cost us, and that we give or donate to our family, and that's the emotion work, being emotionally available, being the one to soothe and smooth and prevent conflict. There's also the cognitive or thinking work of planning, planning ahead, removing roadblocks, considering what could come up. What do we need? What should we start preparing for, so it doesn't catch us by surprise. And then there's the identity work of what does it mean to be a daughter, and how do I represent my family out in the world, our family name, or who my mother raised me to be, and particularly that becomes even more salient when our parents have passed, because we can't talk to them on the phone or go visit them, but we can represent our family legacy for the rest of our lives, and so that becomes our daughtering is talking about our parent and telling the grandkids about them and bringing forth their memory, so all of these things that go together become doddering. Daughtering is not something that just starts when our parents are ill or elderly, you know, we're doing it all through our adulthood once we become independent actors in our family, so you know these college girls in their 20s, they're doing daughtering by calling or texting mom and dad and deciding how much am I going to let them into my life, how often am I going to visit, am I going to go on the family vacation, even these are daughtering choices about how they stay in the family and stay connected, but one of the things I think, particularly for your audience, that we notice more is that care role and the caregiving role. So, I distinguish between the two of those. I think daughters and sons and people are caring for one another all the time. Caregiving, we tend in our field to kind of say is really where we're taking care of someone elderly or ill who's dependent upon us, so caring may be happening as a daughter and doing daughtering in our 20s, 30s, 40s, or maybe you know, Dad has a knee surgery, so we go home for the summer, we do caregiving, but just for one summer, then we're back to not doing it, and then again to. Daughters do a lot of that when our parents are at the end of our lives. So, you said, what makes this different from sons? Well, it's the expectation. It's that we're supposed to do it, we're supposed to be good at it, we're supposed to give a lot of our time in our lives to doing it, because we were supposed to know all our lives that this was coming, and men are not expected to do that. That doesn't mean men are not doing anything, but there's a very big difference between the doing because they choose to and they give it freely. And then somebody says, oh, what a good boy, look at how he takes care of his mom, versus women who have to do it or face the wrath of society for being a bad daughter. And then that gets to our core identity, and on and on and on.

Lisa Zawrotny: 11:05

Yeah, those expectations, and I do happen to know some incredible men caregivers, and I think there might be a connection there, because those are people who have come to me to work with me, and I may attract those, and I think maybe because they do need help, you know, with that kind of role and the demand of it, and I think in that case society hasn't set them up for it, but on the side of doddering and expectation, I feel that so deeply, and when you were describing, you know, the caring aspect and sort of connecting to that doddering role, I was thinking about how that could really apply even earlier, I love what you're talking about, in terms of, like, college age, let's say, and you're making these choices, and you're becoming more of an independent person, you are heading into having, you know, your full executive function, like, developed, right, but, like, there's also this aspect, like, I'm thinking of with my youth, of wanting to be the peacemaker and having a certain expectation as the daughter, so I'm sure it can be exacerbated depending upon your tendencies, and now we start talking about chicken and egg, like what developed what, but I was definitely into conflict resolution at a very young age with my parents, and as the only daughter in my case, and then I feel like there's these emotional elements that carry us through, and then as we become more independent, it feels like it's the expectation becomes heavier, at least that's what it feels like in my experience. And you mentioned society, I talk about society a lot in terms of the expectations that are placed on us, and I think the key point I really want to highlight here is that there's this expectation that we're supposed to do this, and something you didn't mention, but I feel like I just want to go there for a moment, is it's not only that we're expected to do it, and that we're supposed to do it, but we're supposed to be okay with it, and not complain about it, right?

Unknown: 13:06

And good at

Lisa Zawrotny: 13:07

it. Oh, that too. Yeah, absolutely. All of

Unknown: 13:09

that. What was what was funny is when my book came out. My book is called Good Daughtering, and was just released this year. I had the pleasure of being featured on Good Morning America, and that was so exciting. And at the end of the segment the hosts were sitting on the couch and they were talking and Rebecca, who had interviewed me, was talking about the book, and then Michael Strahan speaks up and he says,"You know, Sam and I are going to write a book about good sunning, it'll be one page, and I was watching this from my home and I looked over at my family and I said he nailed it, because the difference is there's a whole book's worth to talk about of what does it mean to be good enough daughtering and doing doddering, and what does it cost us, and what is the benefit, where did this come from in society, in our childhood, what does birth order have to do with it, what is the difference, you know, culturally in different contexts or across the globe, and then the men's book is one page, right? And, and I think that the sort of lesson to learn there's again, it's not that men aren't doing it or aren't capable of it, it's just that there is not this big sort of albatross of expectation and perfection and enoughness that is traveling around with men, at least not so far, right? I think over time we could see that changing in our young people and over generations, but we're already there with women. There's a lot to do, and we're supposed to want to do it or be okay with it, even as it begins to take up masses of our time, our emotional reserves, our finances take over our lives, that we're on the phone dealing with all these different people and roadblocks to try to make everyone happy, and I think many women are opening our eyes on saying, but what if I'm not okay with it? What if what I'm giving, what if the ROI, the cost benefit analysis, isn't evening out, and I'm losing in this situation, because I'm giving, giving, giving so much, and I'm not really getting a lot of benefit in return, and I think that's where we're at. We're questioning it. Most of us aren't trying to just stop doing it, or leave, or quit, or estrange ourselves, but we're saying. Do I optimize this so that this fits better in my life, so I can have a good, purposeful life and good relationships without losing myself?

Lisa Zawrotny: 15:31

Yeah, and that's key, right there. And all of that you said hits so close to home when I talk about the most extreme caregiving that I've had to go through is caring for my mom, and she had Alzheimer's, and this was while my babies were little, actually, while I was pregnant twice, and then my babies were little, and it was talk about complicated and talk about challenging, and the expectation that I not only would do this and I'd be okay with it, but I know what I'm doing, like the so many expectations, and I nearly not only lost myself in terms of what we might say with my identity and so forth of just being completely pulled into caring for others and caregiving specifically, but also, you know, lost much of my health and much of me, and we was true survival mode and burnout, so I feel that deeply, and thankfully I stepped out of it when I actually, when I no longer needed to care for her, and sometimes that's how it happens. It's that we can't purposely step out. I didn't, but I learned after, oh, if you ask me what I would do differently, it would be taking better care of me, actually, not that I needed to do something differently there. That's a hard lesson to learn. So I'm grateful that you are having the conversation before many of us get into that point and get to that burnout. So one of the things you've touched upon is the different kinds of invisible labor elements, and I immediately, of course, was thinking about mental load, and we talk about that in parenting. We've talked about that on the podcast, and that's for sure a thing where you're keeping track of all the things, but then you're also talking about the emotional side. And I can remember this, I think it was a reel that I watched not that long ago. It hit home, where she's like, I would like to take a break from, you know, managing everyone's emotions, and I was like, I feel that all of these things I would love for you to speak to that, and then maybe let's head into the distinction, not only in terms of daughtering, but who's dealing with that in terms of birth order, right? And you mentioned eldest, and that sort of thing, so I'd love for you to speak on those things.

Unknown: 17:46

Yeah, so I do categorize daughtering in my work in four different ways, four different types of labor, and this comes from hundreds of interviews over 10 plus years that accompanied my doctoral work, and in the book you can read a lot of those sound bites, or I guess it would be quotes and stories with the women who shared their story with me, and I was fascinated to find out, you know, it's hard sometimes to talk about doddering, because we don't have the words. Daughtering is not prominent in our culture as a thing that we glorify as part of women's humanity, so we really don't have a lot of language or storytelling around it, so it can be difficult to tease apart what is doddering, what is everyday doddering for a vast majority of people, what's toxic, what's exceptional in terms of when there's an illness or there's an elderhood experience, but what I found talking to women again was the idea of the acting work, or the logistics, the thinking work, the feeling work, and the identity, or being work. So, acting, thinking, feeling, and being, and acting is really the one that is most visible, you know. If my parents are like, I need to clean out the garage, and I'm like, I'll be there on Saturday, then I'm there, you know, I'm in person. I think in person things - holidays, birthdays, food, watching golf together, going on vacation together, setting up a photo shoot, you know, for family memories. Those are really the most visible doing kinds of things. The next one, the thinking work that has to do with the mental load, right? But it's not just thinking and remembering tasks. It's also thinking about, okay, Aunt Sally's coming to my wedding, and she and my mom have this history together, and Grandma is going to get in the middle of that. So, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to have them come at different times and sit in different places. It's thinking ahead in advance, it's removing roadblocks logistically, so a lot of times thinking work is uncredited because the bad thing never happens because the daughter thought of it and removed it or solved it to try to make everybody have a good experience, including herself, but in order for her to have a good experience, she did a lot of extra work before she ever showed up to the experience, and so mental load is so many different things, but it sounds like you've covered that a lot. The feeling work is really the emotion work. So, how do I act as the emotional barometer? How do I take the tone? Where's everyone at today? But then also, sometimes as daughters, we have to act as the thing. Thermostat, we have to set the emotional temperature, and let's say we do that, we go out to dinner, and we try to make sure everybody is kind of even keeled, and we open and close the doors of who's talking, and you know, somebody brings something up, and we're like, let's change the subject, and we go home, and we need a nap for two days, because we took on the whole emotional need of the table, and we kept it light, we kept it happy, we avoided the bombs, and that's, you know, gets even harder when we think of this over multiple days and times, or if we have a parent who lives with us, or lives down the street, we're often together, or sometimes we have parents who need us to do that for them, you know? Even when we're young, your parent could call you, be like, 'Oh my gosh, let me tell you about my work day, and you have to give them 10 minutes of your time being this emotional sounding board for them. And so that's very invisible doing emotion work. It's invisible to society. It's not something you put on Instagram, but your body feels it. Your body knows, and so when we say something is invisible, we kind of mean, you know, I think, am I noticing the toll it takes, or how much it takes, and this, particularly with the mental and emotional, that's where caregivers mess up a little bit, is because we're not noticing how much toll it takes, and we're not realizing maybe I should substitute in another person to help with this, or maybe I should substitute in money to pay for this, but we think, no, I don't want to pay money for this, I could do it, and we don't realize over time the diminishing returns, because we become so tired, or we become so overwhelmed that we're no longer as effective at it, or our bodies pay the price, and so the last kind of invisible labor is identity work, and that's how do I be a daughter in society. I don't have to be in interaction with my mom and dad, but you know, how do I carry on the family traditions and legacies, the family name, make the special family foods, teach my kids and grandkids, the recipes take the family recipe to a neighborhood potluck and say, this is my mom's recipe. How do I carry on being a daughter even when my parents aren't around? And so that's something kind of from our soul, it's soul work that we choose to bring that element of our life forward that other people around us, you know, maybe my co-workers, they've never met my parents, but I'm choosing to bring my family life to work as a part of my humanity. So, when we think of the ways that the invisible is part of our everyday routine reality, you start to realize, wow, that's a lot of doddering, and I was only giving credit for when I send a text message or make a phone call or go visit, but there's just so much more than that that I'm doing, and it's both costing me, but also I benefit from it, and I can even enjoy it, but it's worth it to say it's still work, even if I enjoy

Lisa Zawrotny: 23:19

it. Yeah, I think that acknowledgement is so important, and I think conversations like this, and what you're doing with your book, and the conversations we're having here on the podcast are trying to bring that invisible into the light and let people see that, so that's incredibly important, and you've started to hint at some ways that we can monitor this and adjust, but before we get to that, if you could make some distinctions for us in terms of what you've seen with birth order, and I was curious, not only like eldest daughter, for example, but feel free to share in whatever birth order, but also if you found a distinction with only as well.

Unknown: 24:24

Yes, so you know, I would say that the birth order research is still very mixed, and in many ways what we have found in the research, both communication, psychology, sociology, is it's not really provable that the birth order makes you turn out a certain way, right? So, it's what we can say is there's a correlation, but not a causation. We see even a stronger correlation with the adult child who lives the closest to their parent in need and the one with the financial resources to be helpful as well, because also being able to leave work and go help your parent is a financial freedom that not everyone has, so they, or they can't fly across the country to help, so then they don't help, but I think it's also worth saying we're hearing in the zeitgeist in the world eldest daughter saying I am running the show, and as a researcher, I'm like, if someone's saying that's the reality, I'm listening to them, I'm agreeing, I'm saying,"Tell me more. And eldest daughters are telling us, you know, that what they're seeing and learning in childhood, and it kind of depends on the makeup of their family. Are there lots of children? Is this an immigrant family? Is this a working-class family? A lot of eldest children end up being parentified doing a lot of adult behaviors very young, and then they carry that into adulthood, and it continues to impact their relationship toward their parent, toward their own spouse and children, and toward their siblings, and many of these women are saying, halt, let's. Reset. I don't want to be in this position, or I would like some gratitude for being in this position. I want everyone to see the multitude of invisible that I'm doing, and give me a little kudos for it. Or I would like to substitute now, younger son, younger middle child, please step forward. It is now your turn, and these are such thoughtful and important experiences, and I think a great point is that we can reset at any time in our lives. So, yes, we're informed and impacted by the past, but we are not stuck in a loop. Daughtering and being in a family involves a lot of choice, and I get to make a choice at what is a good life? What is enough? What is a good enough daughter? And I'm allowed to say I'm already doing that, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna opt out of the rest. And so you know, we have new research coming out on that all the time, but I think that what eldest daughters should take away from this is, if you feel like you're in a position that you don't like, you have agency to begin to change that. It might not change quickly, but you have agency to change that. And there's a similarity for only daughters, which is, you know, one of my best friends is an only daughter, and she's given me so much insight over the past few decades about the weight of that, the struggle, the almost doom and gloom of like something's gonna happen at some point, I have nobody else to help me or rely on, and I have to do it all, and so, while there's maybe not another substitute sibling, there are partners, or your children, or finances, or caregivers, and so the reset here is again, what is enough, what is the right amount of giving of me at this time in my life that I have to give toward daughtering, and I'm not going to feel shame about not giving more than that. And so those are some of the things in my book that I go through. Each chapter has an activity on how to assess how much am I doing, and then the second part is, do I want to be doing this much or in this way, and then the third part is, how do I reset? How do I talk to the important people in my life? How do I make plans or paths to go forward differently if I want to all of this with the goal of staying in a flourishing family and not getting so burnt out that you feel that you need to be estranged or go no contact, hopefully you know those situations do pop up, but most of us are trying to stay in our family and stay connected, so there's a lot there, and there's a lot we still don't know, Lisa, and so I guess I'll have to come back and talk about it again another time.

Lisa Zawrotny: 28:30

I would love that. Yes, research is constantly fluctuating, but to your point, I think at the very least, there's enough anecdotally here to understand that there are these distinctions, and I think you've described it beautifully, with a distinction of an eldest daughter, and that idea of them being a parent. So, just right now, if you're an eldest daughter, and I've had many good friends who are, I'm giving you kudos, so snaps to you, because that is a challenging role to be in, and if you're an only daughter, I'm feeling you directly on that one. And I was thinking about the different kinds of labors that you were describing, and how there's sort of this sliding scale, and that we might be feeling different ones, so you know, for example, the emotional labor side, and maybe the mental load, and the thinking and acting side, you know, could be stronger with the eldest daughter, potentially, because they're wrangling other siblings, and they're kind of in that I'm a bonus mom kind of mode, and again, depending upon your situation, depending upon your culture, depending upon age gaps, right, all of those things, and then on the only daughter side, I can attest to the fact that identity part of it, and how am I representing even when they're still with me. And then also now that they've passed on, how am I carrying on that legacy when you're the only one doing it, and you don't have anyone else doing it? That can be a lot of weight. So all of these things that you're describing are. I just feel so spot on, but what I like the most is the framework that you're offering to say wait, you do have a choice, and the way you were describing it, of saying, you know, what's the right amount of giving for me. When we talk productivity here on the podcast, it's in that same context of saying, okay, I'm me with everything going on in my life. What's my capacity? It's more than okay for me to acknowledge and honor that, and then figure out, right? Then figure out how. But the first step, I think, is acknowledgement. So that feels like a really great first step today, to be like, is too much too much right now, like it's okay, and we're here for you if you're feeling that. So, I love that. I feel like this is a wonderful place to wrap up, but if there's anything else that you want to share that you were hoping, yeah, you might be able to say, please do.

Unknown: 30:49

Well, I want to speak to that enoughness part, and I'm a professor, so I tend. Work in rubrics, you know, and the students are like, how can I get 100% of the grade, and so what I started doing for myself was made kind of a doddering rubric. What is enough phone calling? What is enough visiting? What is enough talking about them? What is enough making the special meal every year that Carrie is on the legacy, and many students aim for an A plus or 100% but I have come to recognize that as a daughter I can't give 100% of me to daughtering all the time, so instead I aim for a B plus, and I think if I'm a B plus daughter, that's pretty good, because it means I'm leaving some of me for being me, being a wife, being a mother, being a worker, being a community member, and that's my encouragement to your listeners, is it's okay to be a B plus daughter, and I wear that moniker proudly, so I share it with you.

Lisa Zawrotny: 31:46

I love that I used to get all A's and like always a B plus, it was never quite straight A's, and you know what, I turned out all right, so I love B plus as the goal, and the idea of asking those questions legitimately, and as part of that, let's finish with telling us where we can find you online, where we can find your book. I did mention that I do have it linked from the resources page of the Positively productive.com website, but where else can we find you if we want to connect? Alison,

Unknown: 32:13

yes, my website is Daughtering One Oh one.com and all of my socials are at Daughtering 101 Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. The book is called Good Daughtering, and it's available anywhere fine books are sold. It's on most of the shelves at your local Barnes and Noble. Love going there and having a good book day, but also Amazon, and you can find it through my website. So, I'd love to hear from you,

Lisa Zawrotny: 32:36

wonderful, and I'll have all of those links in the show notes as well to make it nice and easy. And now let's have a little fun with a rapid wrap up and see what you have to say when we talk about inspiring positively living, and I think acknowledging that we are enough, we've done enough is a wonderful way to do that, but if you could share with us from your perspective, a song, a saying, and a resource that just makes life better. So, let's start with a song that we can put on our playlist.

Unknown: 33:02

Well, this might not be your playlist, but I find that when my brain is in the middle space of doing nothing but doing something, I often find myself humming The Price Is Right theme

song: 33:12

do So I offer that to you today. It's a very productive song to get stuck in your brain, but it feels very positive as you go. It's not, you know, it's.. it's not doom and gloom. It is. It's a

Lisa Zawrotny: 33:31

positive banger. I'll

Unknown: 33:32

give you that. Yes, put that on your playlist, my saying, my family likes to say glossy makes it fancy. So, if we ever have to make a design decision, you know, what should we buy? How should we paint this room? Which type of outdoor furniture? We always like the glossy one, because glossy makes it fancy. We're fancy people, clearly,

Lisa Zawrotny: 33:53

because we're fancy, I the

Unknown: 33:58

last item was a gadget. It could be a book. Yeah,

Lisa Zawrotny: 34:03

we have your book, obviously. So, yeah, it's something else.

Unknown: 34:07

Well, what I use every single day around here is the Libby app, which is my library's app, and too many people don't know about it. Now, maybe your library doesn't use Libby. It might use OverDrive or something like that, but Libby, l i b b y library app. And there are many additional free library cards that you can have from around the US. You can have more than one library card on your Libby app. And my book, Good Daughtering, is already in many libraries across the country, and it's audiobook and ebook, so you may be able to find it there.

Lisa Zawrotny: 34:38

It's like, you know, me, I'm the president of the board of trustees of my local library, and I'm a big fan of sending people to the library, but also love me some online apps, so this is a great combination. I'm going to put that in the show notes. And now we're going to do one little bonus thing, and this is going to be so easy, which is simply that it's last, but definitely not least, sharing some gratitude. So, what or who contributes to living positively for you? Where's the gratitude feeling for today? Alison,

Unknown: 35:08

today my gratitude is in my community, and I think that being a community member is both a resource and a benefit, but also something I have to commit to that I need to be a part of. But recently, my community has just come around. We had a graduate in the family, and everybody came, and they showed up, and they said positive things, and they were a light, and it made me realize I am so grateful to be in a community, contribute to the community, and receive from my community.

Lisa Zawrotny: 35:37

Oh my goodness, yeah, that is beautiful. I am grateful for the conversations that I have here. I am grateful for the daughtering that I have experienced, and I'm most certainly grateful for you, and that we were able to connect and have this conversation. So, I want to thank you for shining you. Light, so brightly in this world, and for sharing it with us today. Thank you so much, Lisa. Glad to be here.