Lessons in Courage and Parenting Adult Children with Bernadette Catalana

In this episode of Midlife with Courage™, Kim welcomes guest Bernadette Catalana, a New York City attorney and mother of two daughters. 

Bernadette shares her early experiences of overcoming fear and building courage, recounting a significant moment from her childhood when she challenged a misplacement in a reading group. 

The conversation shifts to her experiences and challenges as a mother, and later as a grandmother, emphasizing the importance of respecting and trusting adult children. 

Bernadette also discusses her journey to becoming a lawyer later in life, inspired by her daughters, and her work mentoring young lawyers. 

Bernadette’s book, 'Daughter Lessons,' and her insights on motherhood, career, and life are highlighted, providing listeners with inspiring lessons on courage and personal growth.

00:00 Welcome to Midlife with Courage
00:15 Meet Our Guest: Bernadette Catalana
01:07 A Childhood Story of Courage
05:18 Raising Daughters: Bernadette's Experience
09:34 Parenting Adult Children
14:00 Maintaining Family Connections
16:29 A Mother's Journey: Finding Purpose and Courage
17:49 Balancing Career and Motherhood
19:26 Embracing Grandmotherhood
21:35 Writing 'Daughter Lessons'
25:38 Reflections on Life and Writing
29:23 The Future and Final Thoughts

To learn more about Bernadette and her daughters and more, go to her website daughterlessons.com. 

Get your free ebook called Daily Habits for Hormonal Harmony by going to my website. This free guide will help you balance your hormones through some easy daily activities. 

Just add your email to the popup and your guide will be on its way to your inbox.

From morning until bedtime, you can help yourself feel better! 

Reserve your spot today to get in on the very first Courage & Confidence Hour!

Transcript

Kim Benoy: 0:33

You are listening to Midlife with Courage. This is where women in midlife come to learn how to build their confidence, live with courage, and stop living for someday. If you don't want to miss an episode, make sure you subscribe or follow. Let's get started. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Midlife With Courage. I am Kim Benoy, your host today. I have a beautiful guest with me. Her name is Bernadette Catalana. Welcome to the podcast, Bernadette. Thank you, Kim. Happy Friday to you. Yes. We are both mothers of daughters and mothers of two daughters, and we're gonna talk about that today. But first, why don't you introduce yourself. Tell us where in the world you are and what you do. Sure. I am in New York City right now, and this is where I live. I do travel a lot for work. I'm an attorney and my office is in Midtown and I live near Central Park and my two daughters are both within walking distance of me, so I am super, super fortunate in, in that way. That is so cool. I love that. So let's talk about first before we get into your story and your daughters. Tell us about a time in your life when you felt courageous or you showed courage. Oh, wow. Are we talking ancient history or anything you want? Okay. Here's the story from my childhood that I, I felt like it might have been the first time that I had to be brave. I was a very fearful child. In fact, I feel like much of my earlier life. Was defined by, by fear. I was afraid of dogs. I was afraid of men. I was afraid of anyone in authority. I was afraid to speak out. And when I was in fourth grade, so I had started out at St. Ambrose Catholic School and when I hit third grade, they talked about a consolidation, which actually happened and hit the next year. I was always really, really good at reading. I was a reader. I love reading. I always had a book in my hand and they did testing for us. When we went to the, new school. And I remember, you know how when you're little, they named the groups and they're very thinly veiled. Like there were the eagles, the bluebird sparrows, blah, blah. So I ended up in probably like the Sparrow group. I was not in the top reading group. In fact, I was in the lowest reading group, which I knew. Was not right in my little, you know, 10-year-old heart. I knew that this wasn't right, but I, I did not have the courage to say anything, and my parents were going through a divorce at the time, so I didn't have any parent to advocate for me. Then at one point I remember walking up to our teacher, Mrs. Mancini, and saying, I think I'm in the wrong group. I know I'm a good reader, and I should really be in the Eagles. And I think she saw that. It took every ounce of courage in me to tell her this, that immediately believed me and said, we're gonna have you tested again. So she had me tested again, and in fact, I tested out higher than any of the groups that were in my grade. I finished through the eighth grade readers by the end of fourth grade, and in fifth grade I was going into the first grade and helping the first graders learn how to read. So, Aw, I know that's like a little trite story, but for me it really, like I, I can still all these years later. Remember how hard it was for me to come up with that courage to tell somebody in authority that there was some kind of mistake and it, it really, courage has been something that I struggled with quite a bit in, I would say the first 40 years of my life. Yeah, for sure. I always tell women at this point in your life, if you're not feeling confident or courageous, look back at all the things that you've done already that you just kind of forget about. Or maybe you just don't think that they're that big of a deal, but that that was a big deal for you. And it's, you know, yes, it and is a muscle. Like anything else, if you don't exercise it and flex it, you're not gonna have it. So the more you confront your fears, and then I, I did get to a point where I thought, anything I'm afraid of, I'm gonna run at it. I am gonna run at it. I was not great at public speaking and I decided, I was getting to a point where I thought, okay, I'm gonna sign up to read at church. I'm gonna read a church, so I'm gonna be in front of all these people and I, I'm just, there's not gonna be any room to be afraid. So yeah, that's been one way I tackled that lack of courage that I felt like I was born with. Yeah. Amazing. So you have two daughters. Tell us about them. Okay. Carly's my oldest, and she is. 14 months older than Courtney, who's my youngest. Oh, wow. And they are just, they, they're just delightful. Carly is a young mom and she has two daughters that are about 16 months apart. So I feel like I'm watching her live my life over again. They're three and two. She is a digital marketing manager, which is for a real estate company, which I think is a job suited for a lot of young people. Right. Because they grew up and that's what they know. Sure. My daughter Courtney, is expecting her first baby in December, which is super cool. We're excited. She is having a girl. So we're very young girls. I'm also one of seven children, six girls. One boy. Oh my gosh. In fact, I just learned this on Sunday at a family reunion. Courtney and three of my nieces are all pregnant at the same time. They're all due within a month, and they're all having girls. Oh my gosh. Girls run in your family. Yeah, they, they sure do. So Courtney the younger of the two is a former professional dancer. She is married to a, I should say retired. Retired professional dancer. Mm-hmm. And we are pretty certain this baby is probably gonna wanna dance. That's moving around in there. Yeah. Both ballet dancers, so, and they both had great careers and they're still both teaching and coaching. Mm-hmm. But Courtney is the human resource director. So during COVID, which was really a very tough blow to a lot of people in the arts community, both she and her now husband were in shows. Shows abruptly ended and you know, their livelihoods. So Courtney went back to school, finished up her undergrad and got her masters. Wow. Got her MBA and she is working for a startup company and she is the, you know, recruiter, human resource director and she's doing really great in, in that job. It's, it's a tough transition going from professional. Artist to being in the, eight to five world. But yeah, I her a lot of credit. She's doing well with it. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. I can hear the pride in your voice when you talk about them. That's wonderful. My girls are. Adults now, of course. And they were, they're twins. They're still twins. Oh, wow. Yeah. Are they identical or fraternal? They're supposed to be identical, but there's things about them that makes me think they're not. Okay. You know, but, but yeah. So I know we had our trials and tribulations. I, they're great people. They're wonderful. They're like my best friends. Is there anything that sticks out to you that maybe are challenges for raising girls? Yeah. And the, the girls were extremely different. Carly was and is, and has been always extremely spirited and has her own mind. So she was not, let's just say she was not one, always willing to take direction. Courtney, completely different child. I, I will say, and I, and I'm. I, I really stretched try to think of an occasion. I don't know that I ever had to raise my voice to Courtney ever once Oh, wow. In, in her life. But she also saw the challenges with Carly, and she would say, I feel so bad for you. I feel so bad for you and dad. So you know what? I think that's that's valid. I will say as adults, I'm worried about Carly much less than I've worried about Courtney because Carly has that courage. Mm-hmm. She is afraid of nothing. And Courtney, even though she can dance in front of, you know, a thousand people she's a little more timid, probably a little bit more like I. Started out. Sure, sure. So I wanna talk about parenting adult children, because I'm sure there were times for you where maybe they made choices or did things that maybe you didn't agree with or I didn't think you were gonna do that. Did you have anything like that? First of all, I should probably ask that of Of course. Of course. We all do. I think the important thing about raising adults and, and parenting adult children, because you know, first of all, people, your life changes, your role changes, and you have to accept that we don't want to and it, it is hard. Not being, the center of the hive, so to speak. Yeah. Anymore. I mean, they're, they're living in different places than you most of the time, right? Mm-hmm. So you're not even seeing day to day. And then when we hear things, we hear about it. Oh, you know, we hear about like something big happening. Mm-hmm. But I will say, I think what's helped me with that is I mentor a lot of young lawyers. So part of my job I was managing partner of the New York office in my last firm. I'm also the founding partner in the New York office here, and also manage it now and work with young lawyers and I also young lawyers on the teams that I leave. So I have had a lot of practice working with young adults and you have to respect them. Absolutely have to respect them. And I also think you have to trust the process. You did the job, you did the best job that you could do. You gave them the skills. And you know, Carly and I, and I talk to my girls all the time, we are so lucky. We talk every day virtually, and I see them a lot as well. And Carly and I were talking about. The fact that sometimes you have to, even though you know someone is heading towards maybe a bad decision or a decision you wouldn't make as the parent to some degree, you have to have enough faith to say that's their mistake. That's their mistake to make. And I think about the mistakes, you know, finger quote, mistakes that I've made in my life, and those have been my best teachers. So why would we deprive our children of what could truly be their best teacher now? Yeah. I know there are extreme situations where there might be a health issue or a threat of physical or emotional harm. Mm-hmm. And I don't miss words with my girls. I'm very direct. Mm-hmm. I try to, even when I am trying to maybe guide them in a certain direction or they've come to me and I can see that they really don't know how they are going to come down on an issue. Mm-hmm. I, I try to end with, I trust you, I know you've thought about this long and hard, and I know you'll make the right decision for you, and then just. Kind of have my peace with it, because what can you do that's so hard? But think about like, did you teach your girls how to drive? Yes. Okay. Yep. Wasn't that hard. Oh yeah. Letting them, letting them go off in the car when they got their license.'cause you knew they really didn't know how to drive. They knew enough to pass the test. Right, right. Yeah. So I, at that point, I made it a, a practice for myself. I'm gonna say one prayer a day in the morning for everyone's physical safety. And then I literally need to give it over because Yeah. It, it's, it's not productive. It's not doing anyone any good. If I was sitting around a nervous wreck thinking, oh my gosh, what are they doing in the co, you know? Right, right, right. So, yeah. Say one offer, one up to heaven for everyone to be safe every day. And then I think you have to let it go. Yeah, for sure. You just have to, it's. As I've gotten more mature, I know, there's things I can control. There's things I can't let it go, so, yeah. Yeah. But it's tough. I think. So where are your girls? My girls live within an hour of me. So, every morning we have a text, a family text. Good morning. Love you. You know, so, oh, that's so sweet. Yeah. We schedule one time a month to have dinner together. Like all of us, like one daughter's married, one daughter has a partner. So, you know, we all, the six of us get together to do something each month, so we know we have that. So it's, it is nice to have them nearby, but there's been, you know, situations where. Let go and let God, because literally I can't fix it. I think that's the biggest thing is like trying to fix for them. That's not my job anymore. No, I mean, again, your job is really important and I, I think sometimes our job as parenting adults may even be more important because what our children are facing, the consequences are so much bigger, you know? My mother-in-law used to say. Little children, little problems, big children, big problems. I mean, nothing so true, right. Has been said. So we might not be working in the office every day. We we're working remote. So working remote has its challenges, right? Yeah. Yeah. So how do we make that connection when we're not there every single day? And even though we're all in the same city and, you know, in walking distance, I may not necessarily be eyeballing everybody every day. Mm-hmm. Which, you know, is, is an important part of knowing how people are doing. Right. So, you know, I'm grateful. And I think, you know, it sounds like you're in a similar situation. Just be so grateful that those lines of communication are, are open. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I just think back one generation to my mom. I, I didn't necessarily feel close to my mom, probably because I was one of seven children. I was one of the youngest of the seven children. I was number six. And my mom was a single mother. Oh. For much of my growing up. Wow. So I really, really didn't feel all that connected. I didn't really feel like I knew her that well or that she knew me. Mm-hmm. And you know, actually Carly and I were talking last night and she said, mom, you healed that in one generation. You healed. That disconnect. And I thought, wow, what a compliment to hear from my adult daughter and True, true. Yeah. That is amazing. Did you consciously do that or did you just, that just happened because of how you found your courage maybe? Yeah, in all candor. Becoming a mother, and I was a young mother, certainly by today's standards. I was, I was a young mother and it was really the first thing I had ever done in my life that made me feel important. I felt connected, I was good at it. I just embraced being a mother so much and committed myself.'cause I, I, I probably have never felt good about myself. Ever in my life until I had Carly and very shortly after I was plotting how, I wanna have another one because I am enjoying this and I'm so happy. Mm-hmm. And then sure enough, you know, Courtney came around 14 months later and I think that just made me extremely committed mm-hmm. To the process. Mm-hmm. I am going to. Do everything I can. I'm going to commit every single day of my life to loving these girls, raising these girls, and doing what I can. And that's why I went back to law school. I wanted Carly to be proud of me. So in between. I mean, I had a job. It was okay. But I knew I was smart and I knew I should have been in the Eagles. Right? Yep. You knew you were an eagle, not the, not the Bluebirds or the sparrows. And I took the LSAT when I was six months pregnant with Courtney. Oh my gosh. That is amazing. Yeah, it was just kind of meant to be. And really much of the success that I've had in my adult life, I attribute directly to my children inspiring me to go there. Mm hmm. I love that. I didn't realize you had gone to law school and then I thought you just were a lawyer first, so that, that is on top of having children. I know that that's not an easy thing to do anyway, but then having the children, but having that goal of showing your daughters, what they can do too, really. Yes.,, I was sworn into the New York bar on Courtney's fifth birthday. Love it. So it was, it was just such an amazing moment right. For you right there. And, and they, you know, and they've seen me, they've seen me work, work really hard. It's, this is not an easy life that we chose, but mm-hmm. I. I am at peace with it and I, I enjoy it and I especially enjoy kind of my role as professional mother to a lot of, a lot of younger lawyers, and that's been really good for me as well. That's great. I love that. So how has becoming a grandmother changed, your relationship with your daughters? Yeah, that's a great question. It's a shame in our world because grandmother is almost a pejorative word. And, and I, you know, and I think back on it, I loved my grandmother shows my favorite person in the entire world until my children were born. Mm-hmm. So I will say there was some probably irrational I don't know how I feel about this. Probably the word grandmother more than anything, but so happy for Carly and so to see her so happy and see her really having a very similar experience that I had with my girls. Mm-hmm. She's so happy. Never seen her. So happy. So I love it. And I, and obviously I love. The girls, they're wonderful. Blake and Gemma, and they are three and two. And we have so much fun. And usually you know, I'll, I'll watch them. They'll come stay with me at my apartment when they have something, you know, and Carly and Phil have something to do. Yeah. Wedding or whatever. In fact, I watched Blake for a week when they went to Europe when she was. Maybe seven months old. And when Carly came back, she was pregnant with, with Gemma. So, very productive trip. Yes, you're welcome. Yeah, exactly. And I, you know, I, I was able to be there. In fact, when, when Blake was tiny. Until they moved to their, their current apartment. So maybe, probably Blake's first year. I lived down the street from them. I literally lived one block away. Nice. So I would walk there every morning when I was going to the office. Drop off my dog. The nanny would watch Blake and my dog. And then when I came back at night, I would, I would pick up Jacks and see Blake. So that was really nice for everybody because I was able to be, you know, Johnny on the spot when they needed somebody. Right, right there. Yeah. It's amazing that, that's so cool. I love that. So your book is called. Daughter lessons. Yeah. I have it right here, daughter. I have, yeah. Tell us some things marked in it, and Yeah. Tell us about how that all started. Yeah. I, I started, well, I, I am an essay writer. I, I would say that's the format of writing that I like the best. And I had written a lot of essays over the course of time. I have a website, lessons.com. And I just, you know, how, how did I start out writing these essays? Well, I was getting to a point where I knew that the girls would not be living with me anymore. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, the more ominous thought is that, well, although I'd like to, I'm probably not gonna live forever. You know, we have a limited number of days on the earth, and I thought so. They're not only gonna not be with me, I'm not gonna be with them. Mm-hmm. And I want them to know me. I want them to maybe learn some of the lessons that I learned in my life, not only from raising them or lessons that I'm giving to them, but also lessons I learned being a daughter. Sure. And, you know, just the forgiveness that is often required in any family relationship no matter how close you are. So I got up one morning, it was October 1st, and every single day for a month, I wrote down a lesson for the girls. Not, not extremely, like you'll see. They're very short. Very short to the point, and I try to. Give them a sense of what it was like in, in my life, some of the things that happened in my life and how, you know, how they can really, you can really reinvent yourself at, at any age and any stage, and just choose to be happy. There's so much happiness to be had out there if we look for it. Mm-hmm. And if we do it. So that's, that's where it started from and it just kind of took on a life of its own and it's been such a blessing for me. I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed people who I've never met before. Reading the book and reaching out to me saying, I loved your book, and this is what I like about it. And people that I do know who are close to me, one of my best friends, Lynn. Her mother is in her nineties and she said, I keep your book by my bed. And I pick it up and I read just one little lesson and it makes me feel better. And you know that, I mean, not how can that do anything but make you feel really good about yourself. Yeah. That's why people write books they wanna share and they wanna help other people and yes. That's what you're doing. That is how I feel. I just want other mothers to feel, I mean, I so identified with being a mom and, and that's not unusual. Mm-hmm. That's how I think most of us are.'cause it's the best thing, best job we ever had. Right. But the day comes when you're gonna get fired or at least you feel like you're getting fired from the best job you ever had. And that's scary for people. Yeah. But I want people to know it doesn't have to be that way. And there's, there's so many good times ahead. You know, I just, I did, I was on, on my phone with Carly. I had my headphones in. I was walking to Bloomingdale's last night, and we had such an amazing conversation and she said, mom, we're so lucky. And I thought, yeah, we are. Yes, we are. You know, and we can keep it going for as long as we choose. Yeah. Oh my goodness. So many good lessons there. So many good messages too. I love that. So what do you see ahead, do you think you want to write more or what's going on? Sure. I do write, I am on LinkedIn and I do post on the practice of law and the practice of life. So I, I do write I write a lot of light things'cause I try to look for the lightness, but I do write about serious things as well. In fact I'm looking out a window here to my right. And that building that is right across the street was the the scene of the most recent mass shooting. In New York City just before the one that unfortunately happened in Minnesota, which broke my heart. And I wrote about that. I wrote about that on LinkedIn and it, my posts certainly had quite a bit of reach there. Mm-hmm. And, you know, the, the message there was, and I, I titled it, are you okay? Because as I. You know, that happened. Luckily, we were all fine. We had all just left the office. We have a small office. We're growing, so we all tend to leave at the same time. We check in each other. I mean, New York is, is not the easiest place to be. So we're all concerned about safety, always. Sure. So. I had just walked home to my apartment. I walked to work every day and I just walked into my apartment and one of the associates, Danny said, are you home? There's a shooting near our building. So that was all he knew. So it was, we were all checking in with each other. Then as my wider circle, you know, this was hitting the news. I got a lot of texts. Are you okay? Are you okay? And, you know, the whole gist of my words were, as long as our babies have to learn how to hide under a desk to save themselves from someone trying to murder them at school, and as long as, you know, people are allowed to buy automatic weapons mm-hmm. We, none of us are. Okay. None of us are, okay, this needs to stop. I wish I knew an answer. I so wish I knew an answer, but sometimes just writing the question, a lot of people connected with what I wrote because. We don't know what to do. Mm-hmm. And the unfortunate thing is this is becoming so commonplace. We're going through this cycle of outrage, devastation, wanting to do something, and then numbness. Because nothing is, you know, no one's listening, right? There's nobody listening to people who are outraged by this. It's interesting. So, yeah. Yeah. I do write on LinkedIn. I, earlier in this year the week before Mother's Day, I was a guest columnist. For the Assi Institute and wrote about motherhood every day, and then I parallel posted those on my website. So, okay. I do like to write and you know when maybe at another time when I have more time to sit down and write, I, I have like two, two fiction works. I have multiple chapters done, but you know, as lawyers, we don't have a lot of time to Sure. To actually like bang out a book. I wish those, yeah, yeah. Do you think you'll retire soon from being a lawyer or. I don't, I'm just curious. No, I really enjoy it and I have, I'm not there. I'm not quite there. Yeah, that's good. Age, age wise or stage wise, so, yeah. Okay. I was, I always, that's curious to me. Yeah. Because it's such a hard job or Yeah, you're so busy with so many different, I don't what, I wanna say lawyering, but I don't think that's the right word. No, no. Lawyering is exactly right. I am in litigation, I lead one of the, the, probably the biggest gist of my job is I lead litigation teams. So there are, you know, certain litigations they call mass tort. So companies get sued, not just in one lawsuit. They get sued in. Multiple lawsuits. So I work with those companies and work with their lawyers to get ready for trials and I also do a lot of resolution work, so I do negotiations. It's, it's brisk. I mean, there's no doubt about it, but I enjoy it. And, and like I said, I am enjoying the, role of working with younger lawyers and, and helping them have the confidence to keep going and keep their eye on one, the profession that they chose, but also having a personal life that is extremely important. And it's easy for people in this profession, probably in the medical profession as well. To think that what you do is who you are. Mm-hmm. And that's just so not true. Yeah. Yeah, that's a whole other topic that we could get into, but in the interest of time. Yeah. So where would you like people to go? I know you, you said you mentioned your website. Do you wanna say that again so people can find you if, yeah. Daughter lessons.com. I have a lot of posts about motherhood and they're, I'll say pretty fun and pretty. And my, my book is on amazon.com. You can get it there and I'm thinking maybe I will read a short blurb from my book. Yes, please. That would be perfect. And actually I have one called. Sweet goodbyes and each of my entries is it begins with a quote, and this one is from Winnie the Pooh. How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. Courtney left today and won't be home again until Christmas. We had fun during her off season from the Dayton Ballet, but it went way too fast. Like all the time I spend with my girls. Perhaps the hardest part of being a parent is being separated from your children as they grow up and often away. Thank God for the modern conveniences of cell phone, texting, and Skype, which now we would say Zoom. They really do make it easier to stay in touch, but technology can't replace being with someone in person. There is something sacred in sharing space, breathing the same air, just being together. It was with great joy that I discovered Courtney left her favorite water bottle and had to return for it before hitting the road with her dad. At least when she left the second time, I remembered to grab a picture of her and peanut sharing one final snuggle. No goodbyes are never easy, but they are sweet when we know that we send our children out into the world armed with love and our faith in them. I love that. An example of, one of my essays that you can find in daughter lessons. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I think we're gonna end it there, Bernadette, thank you so much for joining me today. Good luck in your future endeavors, and we'll put the links to your website in our show notes so people can go and grab that and read more of those wonderful words. Great. Thank you. Take good care, Kim. Thank you for listening to Midlife with Courage. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review or even better send a link to a friend.