Empowering Transitions: From Attorney to Mom to Life Coach

Jenni: Welcome to the modern family finance podcast, where we talk about all things, money, career, and life. I'm Jenny, your host and a Bay area financial planner, serving women and LGBTQ professionals. So if you have ever asked questions like how do I discover my true calling when it comes to my work in my career or maybe you've taken a career break to care for children or for parents and now you feel a bit lost, how do I reclaim my identity?

Or I want to make a significant career change, but I'm scared. What do I do? Then this is a conversation for you. In this episode, join us as we delve into the career journey of Tracy Crothers, a former public interest attorney turned life coach, and also a good friend of mine. We explore how she discovered her true calling and now helps individuals navigate through life's transitions with resilience and purpose.

Hi, Tracy.

Tracy: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Jenni: Hi. Yeah. Well, tell me a little bit about your story just as an as by way of introduction.

Tracy: Okay. Great. Yeah. So we'll start. I always like to go back to the way back. I knew when I was 15 years old that I wanted to be an attorney and I always say that I was a very unlikely Law student at that point, like my life was a little bit hectic. My teen years were not smooth, we'll say. And it was unlikely that I'd even go to college.

And after graduation from high school, I took a year off and worked, moved out of my house at 17, but that calling that, that feeling of needing to go to law school never went away. And so I went back to college and through. Taking a semester, paying for a semester, all these ups and downs of financial and just just life. I got through my undergrad and then eventually got to law school and graduated law school after I was 30 and became the legal aid attorney that I wanted to be. So I realized that dream and it felt right. But then as life does, we were thrown an opportunity. I'm married and I actually went to law school when I was married and we were navigating this, like balancing two careers. And after two years of practicing law, my husband was given the opportunity for work to move abroad to Japan. And I was actually pregnant with our first son at the time. And that was a pivotal point where. We said yes to adventure. We said yes for a lot of reasons. One was the adventure part, the, just the newness of that, but also the career success really for my husband and the trajectory that he wanted to take.

So I left being an attorney, moved abroad to Japan and started a whole new, a whole new life. Yes. Yes.

Jenni: And that's actually how I met you is our time in Asia together. We overlap. So, you know, I, maybe we can start here, which is you know, you were, you had worked hard to become an attorney and you had, you know, kind of worked that career for a bit and then you. took a different role as a kind of, you know, as, as a parent.

And how did you feel like in terms of identity and you know, tell, tell me that process for you.

Tracy: I, I love talking about this. I love this question because I think it's relatable to a lot of people when I speak to other women and. We don't, I don't think we talk about it enough, but I had a brutal identity shift and a death really of my ego. Right. Cause I had so much tied up into being an attorney.

That was my goal. I actually specifically did not want to be a stay at home mom. I didn't feel like that was the path for me at the time, but. guess because I'm open, I just have some openness to me and I hold everything a little bit loosely. This something, this whole opportunity piqued an interest in me and I was willing to go through the process of letting that identity go, but it was not easy. It was painful at times. I questioned it. Even now sometimes I look back and I could have done things a little bit differently, but ultimately it was the right choice for not just my family because it was We really made a decision having two high pressure careers at the same time. I have two sons who are 21 months apart.

It just wasn't, it's certainly possible, but it wasn't the life that I wanted to live. It wouldn't have worked well for me. So, but grappling with that shift in who I am and where am I, how I, my worth, where I got my worth. It forced me into a process that still sometimes is ongoing of identifying like my true inner value. What I really believe and not being attached to anyone title or identity for who I am, because I have learned at, so this has been, we've lived abroad or lived this lifestyle for 16 years now. And I say that I've suffered, I've suffered, I've gone through multiple ego deaths in that process, whether it's from changing careers. physical issues of like chronic pain. I had cancer, it changed my, my, body changed and what I could do and couldn't do being a mother, I realized I have teenagers now that changes, like all of a sudden you aren't as. necessary and you're treated differently. So like really learning about how to let go of what defines me as like a certain role and just be solid in who I am is huge.

And the, I always call it like the cocktail party question, the dreaded, like when people, when you meet somebody new and they say, Oh, what do you do? In those early years. Oh, it was so painful. And I had this roundabout story of like, well, I was an attorney, but now I left that because of this. And now I'm a mom and you know, all of these kind of qualifiers as to like, I'm still valuable.

I'm still, you know, worth talking to because I had internalized a lot of society's ideas around what success looks like.

Jenni: Yeah, I mean, this question of value is a huge one, right? When we are when we can't claim a particular identity, like, in the workplace, that's hard. What are some of the things that you did or experienced during your journey with this challenge that helped? Like, if you were advising your younger self, what would you advise her to do?

Tracy: Yeah. I love that. I, so. I started, I knew I wanted something else. And so I started early on and I, I got in, I, I, heard about coaching through, gosh, this is so cliche. Like I think it's O magazine that I first saw, saw it in.

Jenni: Love Omaxine.

Tracy: Yes, absolutely. And Dr. Martha Beck was a columnist and still is. I don't know if she still is, but there's a lot of her work out there that's written articles in O magazine. And. I started this word life coach and this idea that you can cultivate your life and really live, you know, design your own life the way you want to live it. That piqued my interest. And so started to do, I'm a, I'd say a lifelong learner. So I started studying just self, self development, personal development field, dabbled in a few coaching courses, and then ended up taking Martha Beck's court coach training. So I'd say the first thing I did was paid attention to what. Pay attention to what piques your interest, right? Like these little things that show up that you're like, Oh, that's a breadcrumb that I could follow that trail. I went from a very linear, like go to law school, become a lawyer, a very straightforward path to this winding road. So paying attention to the things that interests me interested me and balancing that within my life. That was one thing I did. I started, I was vulnerable. I shared, like I would start asking people like, This is hard. Like, I don't, I love being a mom, but I, who am I, what's going on? And I just really started conversations.

And I'd say that in some spaces I be, I became a leader in those converse in that, like to lead us into like, let's talk about this. It's okay to say that I'm struggling. So surrounding yourself with people who you can be vulnerable with. I hired a coach and I've had to coach for this whole entire time.

And that was huge to. To just help somebody who is outside of my everyday life to ask me questions, to teach me techniques and tools to discover by. you know, my essential self and what I really wanted to do. And one thing that I do reflect back on that I wish I would have done, I didn't have a lot of visibility of people, women specifically in my life who had done what I was doing.

And so I think I would have been able to hold on to practice law in a, in a little bit of a different way and still done the coaching bit. But to just, if I would have known what was out there. So I think really broadening your start to look for people who have taken a similar path and to look at parts of their life that are just appealing to inform what the decisions that you want to make.

So that's one piece that I wish I had. And I didn't, I grew up in a, in an environment where women weren't typically, I didn't have a lot of, I don't think I had any women professionals around me. Graduating from college and going on to law school was is definitely was a, It was a different path than most of the women around me. So identifying people who are living kind of in your 10 years ahead, I wish I would have had that.

And so, you know, they say, if you don't see it, it's hard to dream it, right? You don't, you don't know what you don't know. And so now that I know that when Seeking to do something different. I'll create, and this is a, this is a coaching technique, I think, or a coaching tool that I think I'll credit to Susan Hyatt, who was a coach, but creating like a board of directors. So even if you don't have people in your real world right away, who you can model or who can be your mentors, looking for people who you admire, how they're living, you want a life similar to and just like having those people in your mind. So that you, it's like advisors, right? And I think we

can do this for each other.

Actually, now I'm talking myself into this answer. This is the thing. This is why conversations matter because I've found this with you and with Lisa and with other people, like we can talk through these things and these positive conversations fuel you so that you have more energy to dream a little bigger. And that's what it's about.

Jenni: Love. Yeah, I love this idea of that. The board of directors doesn't have to be, or it might be difficult to find somebody exactly. What you want to do. In fact, you might not even know what you exactly want to do, but what you're saying is you can find friends or even people you don't know who exhibit some kind of quality or some kind of lifestyle or something that that draws you to them and that you aspire to.

So that's great. And that could be a way to figure out what you want as well.

Tracy: Yeah. And I think that people listen in the social media world, I love social media and I see the downside of it, but I think it can be such a good, if we use it intentionally as such a good guide to what we're craving. So if you see things, people talk about jealousy and comparison and things like that.

So, Oh, that person's traveling and I'm, Oh, she's traveling again. I'm so jealous. Well, There's another way to look at it to go like, Oh, what is she doing? That there's something inside of you that wants that. And that's a good thing. Like instead of like this jealousy and sitting in it and feeling frustrated, looking at, okay, what can I tease out of there?

That's actually drawing me to my truest self, my calling. There's something here to be curious about. And you can, when people say like, especially for moms, after you've been a caretaker for so long, and you've really been immersed in, you know, You know, everybody else's lives, you forget what you want, what you crave. You don't know it's, it's, it's not, it's okay to not know. I think that's natural, but starting to notice what you're paying attention to is just a clue about creating something different for yourself. So using the, using those kinds of things that are out there as a way to pull you forward.

Jenni: Yeah, I love that. I think, though, what you're also alluding to is that this journey of discovering yourself, there's a lot of uncertainty. There's probably a lot of push and pull. I've, I've experienced that for sure myself as well. Where you might, I think a lot of a struggle with, like, even knowing what to do.

What it is that we want to do. How do you, maybe for yourself or even for clients you've coached, how do you help? What advice would you give to manage that? I guess uncertainty, which could be months, could be years, could be decades of, of, of kind of trying to figure this out. Hmm.

Tracy: intimate relationship with uncertainty. It's been present for, I'd say five years now, maybe six and in a different way. So when I first became a coach and started pursuing coaching, I had this language of like, live your best life, you know be your best version of yourself.

And I, I like that. I still, I still enjoy that sometimes, but I kind of put caveats to it. Like. Be your best self. A lot of the times, you know, be the best be have the, you know, the version of your life that you're going for is going to be full of a lot of good and also a lot of difficulty. There is no way to get rid of uncertainty.

I think especially as we know that now after the pandemic, right? Like that was the. Big, like that was a catalyst, like a catalyst for a lot of us to really live in uncertainty. And we still are living in the effects of that of, you know, economic changes, people personally changing. And so my work with other people, if I'm working with a client, I would make friends with uncertainty a bit like you, that sounds so kind of whatever, very coachy, but like, it's not going away. And to learning, learning, especially as I get older, let me tell you, the uncertainty just keeps growing. And this is the biggest shock to me. I thought that I'm approaching 50 in August. I thought, I thought things would be more certain. This is not the case. Life is more uncertain and this can be, can feel like bad news and can feel like scary news.

But truly there is a process there that is good for clients, for me, for all of us. To hold everything a little bit looser to be to be in like creative engagement with our life of what's happening Always able to pivot here and there instead of holding this linear view. I think that will serve us much better 50 and on for me, especially because now I know I've been sick, you know, I've had, I've had an illness, I had chronic pain, those things that I couldn't control.

I had to learn to work within my mindset, within what I could control. I had to learn acceptance and those are things that are only going to serve me better, like serve my next, you know, 20, 30, 40 years because I have the hunch. That these rapid changes and uncertainties are going to continue to happen.

Jenni: Yeah, and I mean, I'd love to dig more, a little more deeper into this idea of aging and of your kids growing up to write, your kids are,

Tracy: Oh

Jenni: so, and I think as, as you know, as mothers, and as you've, you've had this, a certain kind of identity for so long of having to care for young kids, and now they're more independent and they'll be leaving the nest soon.

And and now you're sitting there really with I think a lot of women at this age might feel like there's nothing to do but to have to, have to face this question of, well, what, what am I and what am I going to do now? How has that felt for you and how have you helped people, particularly with the process of aging and kind of feeling old in the workforce, right?

Like to return to the workforce at age 50 is kind of a scary thing. But also feeling like you're shifting from being a primary mother or parent or whatever you were to needing to figure out what that next phase of life is.

Tracy: Yeah. Okay. There's, yeah, there's so much here that is, there's depth to all of this. I will speak to the, the parenting piece first, cause that definitely is the, that's the most emotional aspect for me. I, I. With having two teenage boys who are amazing. And we just living this life together. They're my little buddies, right?

We did so much together. My husband's work schedule was very intense and he traveled a lot. So we did everything together and to have them turn because they're so close in age, they really went through this teen kind of entry into teen life. All at both the same time. And when I tell you it was shocking, it was shocking.

Nobody prepared me for it. I was not needed. I mean, of course you're needed. Of course you are, but it's a very different role, like drastically different. And I'll say like in the past decade, I've had a lot of uncertainty and changes. This is one of the most shocking, honestly. Because I tend to look ahead and to prepare myself for things. I wasn't prepared for how this would hit me to my core because it is a change in how you are needed, your value. And there's a lot of question, like are they going to be this distant forever? Are they going to circle back? Is this, are the best laughs in the times that we had? Are they over? So I'm in process of that. And As I I'm grateful for all of the skills and the different coaching that I've done because all of that informs how to deal with this, honestly.

I, because I am, because personal development and self development, it's not just a career that I'm interested in. It's just the way I live. I started to have an eye on this. Really when we moved abroad, I started to look forward at, I looked at the people who were maybe 10 years ahead of me and specifically the women and what they were doing and what, and use that to inform how I wanted to. how I wanted to be at that age. And I, I would say that I, so I've done a lot of work of maintaining my personal interests of, of having a career in different ways of, you know, it, it, and it doesn't have to be career, having, having things that I was growing and learning that would, I knew at this point that I could bring together to launch into this new space of my life.

So if I was talking to somebody, and I have worked with people who are, In the, you know, let's say 40, 45, 40, 35, what to start, you don't have to have this like concrete, like plan. This is what I'm going to do, but start to look forward at the, at the landscape that you want to create. Like, what are you, to me, it's like gathering up all of these skills, all of these experiences, excuse me, that I've had in order to create something new. So really that code, the coaching aspect that's really helpful is this visioning, this dreaming, this curiosity and creativity. I love that part of it. And it's not going to take, it's like planting seeds that are going to, it's going to bloom later. the aging part also a bit shocking. And there's a very real, there's a very real challenge to entering the workspace. If the traditional workspace after taking this kind of time off. And for me personally, and with my, with something like the clients that I talked to or with friends, this is where for, you really have to look at your thoughts, your thinking around it, your beliefs and push through that are, they're not imagined barriers.

There are real barriers there. You know, we say that we value. Parenthood and being, you know, staying home and all of this, I don't know, like sometimes

I

Jenni: hmm.

Tracy: see that, that that's really the case. And so, and, and the aging aspect of it, you are perceived and treated differently, like how you are visible to people, it changes.

And if you're not managing how that affects you mentally It can, it can really hold you back. And so I think the first step is just acknowledging that it's real. And then I'm rebellious and I like to be like, let's be revolutionaries about this. Like I'm not going anywhere. In fact, I, I see myself standing at like a decade, at least my 15 year, like looking forward.

Like this is an entry for me into something new and I'm going to create, like, we're, we're repatriating, we're moving home. My opportunity is only going to expand. And where there's not opportunity or doors opening, I'm going to create it for myself or with my peers. I feel that very strongly. So, but it does take, it, you can perceive, you can, you can feel the, the closed doors.

You can feel yourself maybe shrinking a little bit because society does tell us something about aging. And that's where you have to do the work to make a choice of how are you going to show up and, and what do you want to create? And I am not fading away. I, I, I just, I feel like I'm 25. I feel better than I've ever felt. So you just got to like, you know, rally and come in strong and don't hide or diminish and get people to do, get support people to do this with you.

Band together.

Jenni: Yes, band together. That's the key. One of the key things I'm hearing from you is like community and finding support with friends, with peers, potentially with a coach or professional who can help be a guide and accountability. And I love what you said about kind of this being an entryway, seeing This new phase of your life as an entry into something versus a lots of doors, closing your face.

I, I, I think what's cool about it is just that you, I think the older we get, I think the guts here in some ways we get to, and it's like, well, hell, I'm just going to make it my way then, you know, I mean,

Tracy: yeah,

Jenni: it's harder to operate in that way, but I'm going to make my, my own way and, and redefine success in the way that works for me.

Tracy: And it's so much more fun. I think like that's that really speaks to me more than going into an already existing space or role. I'm really into right now. Like the stories. I mean, it's not just me. This has been in the In the personal development field for a few, quite a few years, but like the stories we tell ourselves.

And I'm always reminding myself that I can write the narrative of my life. So I could definitely go down a road of like, well, you know, it's been a really great run here living abroad and I've had adventures and now, you know, I'm getting older and, you know, I hurt a little, I'm ache or whatever story I want to tell.

And so, you

know, that's okay. I'm, I'm just, you know, nobody wants, nobody's going to want to hire me. Nobody's going to want to work with me. I'm to this or to that. Live that story and I could make it true. I mean, there's a

lot of people who make that true and I am saying no way. Like I am not living that story.

I'm constantly cultivating my own narrative and story of what, how I want to live, because that, you know, I always joke, like with coaching, I'm a little bit of a control freak in my own mind. You know, I don't want to, I'm going to take control of my thoughts and my beliefs and my values so that I. So that's working for me, not, not so that it's working against me.

I'm gonna, I don't, I'm a happy, optimistic person, but it's very easy to to sink into kind of a crappy story.

Jenni: Yeah, absolutely. So for you now, like, what does that story look like and how do you define success for yourself?

Tracy: So I, I define success as, I mean, listen, this is fluid, so you catch me on any different day, but really it's just living. It's, it's living a fulfilled life. I like to have a lot going on and things that are meaningful to me. So I know my values, community, adventure, creativity, or three of them. And if I'm consistently moving forward, pursuing things that That are true to my values where I'm aligned, that I feel like I'm successful because like, and yes, I have goals about what I want to build and you know, the number of clients I want to have or what I want things to look like, but I hold that loosely just because like there's some accountability built in there, but that's not the primary dictator of success because I know that that can be wiped out at any point through various things, a pandemic or an illness or whatever. So what I'm more like success for me is living aligned to my values.

Jenni: Can you tell us a little bit about your services, who you like to work with, and how people can find out more about what you do?

Tracy: .

So you can find me on Facebook at Tracy Carothers coaching and the. I typically have worked with mostly women, people who are in a place where they feel stuck, where they want to create something different for themselves, but they're not quite sure what they want to do. I also have a lot of experience working with this trailing spouse part of life, right?

So you leave your career, you leave life that you thought you were going to live in order to follow another, you know, another person's career. Now what? How do I create? My new identity and that I have, you know, I started that with the idea of doing internationally, but domestically this happens for a lot of people too, right?

They move to different locations or just life of being a parent required one person to kind of give up what they thought their career was going to look like. I do body image coaching and now I see that shifting into walking through aging. Really anybody who has just feels stuck and wants something to be different They aren't in crisis, but they're just like, this just isn't quite right.

This isn't how I want to live. And somebody, I get so excited talking to somebody who is at that edge of taking some kind of leap, some kind of change. And I love walking with them through that from the dreaming. obstacle kind of busting the, you know, refining your dream and really just creating a roadmap to live how you want to live.

Jenni: Awesome. And when I guess, what is, when should a person be looking for a coach versus say a therapist or, you know, what is the difference?

Tracy: Yeah, that's a great question. And I, so the industry, the coaching industry is definitely in Thor informed by behavioral sciences and by there's some therapeutic influence, their modalities, but therapy is very different than coaching. So if you are, if you're suffering from You know, a mental health issue, like something's going on, anxiety, depression, that's really impacting your day to day life and making it difficult for you to move through your day. That is something that I, if I was talking to a client, I would have them go to a therapist instead. I'd recommend a therapist, definitely somebody who's in a mental health crisis, somebody who is, has a lot of unresolved trauma coaching is not, does not exist to look backwards and to resolve trauma. Now that doesn't mean you can be a person who has anxiety. Who has worked on that with a therapist and come to see a coach. It doesn't mean that your anxiety has to be gone, but just the way like coaching is taking you from like, I like to say like, Oh, I'm fine. Like life is fine into a thriving state where therapy is really focused on some therapy is focused on keeping you, you're surviving.

You're really, really struggling to keep your head above water in a variety of ways.

. They, they work well simultaneously together. Like they, at times there, there are therapists, there's quite a few therapists who I know who are doing coach certifications and they're transitioning their practice into coaching. But there's also times where I have a therapist who has taken me through like, like very specifically difficult times, who is also, Help guide me into my future son, and then I've also worked with, I have like my, my coach who I go to for to be accountable to, to help me dream, you can work, you can pop back and forth between both is what I'm saying.

Jenni: Yeah, love it. I agree. I think you're gonna take both. I'll take all the

Tracy: Yeah, I think you need all the team you can get.

Jenni: So you've gone from kind of being in a, a, a lot of women kind of go from earning money in their own career. And now they're a challenging spouse, or they've taken time off to be a parent. And now they're either earning much less or nothing at all. And the spouse. Spouse is the 1 earning the money and I think that can also be an interesting experience.

What was your personal experience with that? Or also with clients who have gone through that? And how that relates to your own value.

Tracy: This is a huge thing. And it, it definitely was something that I struggled with. So I set out to be knowing I wanted to be an attorney. Also knowing that I wanted to be financially independent. That was a huge, that was a something that that was just a core part of what I wanted. Needed, I thought because of circumstances in my life and my childhood. So to give that up, it has taken a lot of work. And so what I would say is I just shift. There were self esteem issues involved and that I had to really work through of feeling like I'm not earning money. Therefore I'm not valuable. I'm, I'm not really contributing. It just took a lot of work. It took a lot of examining the thoughts and saying like, do you really believe that's true?

I don't really believe that money and earning money gives people value. Of course I don't believe that. But for myself, I had to pull that out. It took a lot of conversation with my spouse. Like we had to, you know, sometimes we, we put our story on them. Like, well, you don't think I contribute because I'm not earning like that.

A lot of stories in my own head that live, we had to negotiate. Like I finally, I feel great about it now. Like we S we have an equal relationship as far as spending and everything, but It took a lot of conversation to get there. And for me, it was like, again, like back to examining my worth and what I base my worth and value on. But I think it's very, especially as I'm approaching 50, like knowing if one person is the primary earner, you cannot check out. You can't check out financially. You have to stay engaged in, I do see this come up a lot with friends and just, and, and well, just a lot of women or people, whoever is not the primary earner checking out not knowing the finances, all these things that we hear about, know the accounts, know where every bit of your money is.

No, you know, tab financial meetings together, just because you're not earning doesn't mean you aren't part of the planning and you can flip it so that you are. Managing the money you are earning, you know, investing, you put yourself in a role in that way so that you are, feel some sense of empowerment. So don't disengage. No, all the passwords have a plan, know where everything is. And I think that that's just a vital, I'd love to see more conversation and podcasts and meetings about that, like group gatherings about how to do that. Because you can really end up in a bit of trouble. I, I don't know, I don't know about how to say this as an attorney as well. You know, I have thought about like when, you know, if there's ever a separation between couples, like that's, and you aren't the earner, there are, I think always cultivating a way to earn money is a good idea, honestly.

Having, completely checking out of the workforce, not, always having something that bolsters your skills or some kind of, something that you feel like you can go out into the workforce and, and start to earn. I, I believe that's a really important part of, yeah, just of being a couple. And I, yeah. Because you don't know what's going to happen either through

illness, death, separation.

So there's a, there's a lot there that I think needs to be, that you really have to, to look through and not living in denial of that, that sometimes bad things happen and we do need to be prepared and take responsibility there.

Jenni: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it sounds like you and your, your spouse have had it's been, you ha you share like an equal footing when it comes to finances, but I don't know that it's true for a lot of couples where, you know, there feels whether it's true or not, but at least in the head of the lower earner, they feel this imbalance of power because they're not earning the money.

And maybe you've seen friends or clients struggle with this. Do you have any advice for that? People who are really feeling, I guess this imbalance because of a difference in income.

Tracy: Yeah. I, I think the first step is to have conversation to make sure that you really know how your partner feels, because like I said, I think I put my story on. My partner, it wasn't true. Also as we have grown, we've been together 25 years, so this is a developing story. I think initially there was more tension around there and there was definitely a power imbalance and and just not maliciously, but just, it's just how we're as society kind of tells us to be.

So I being very vocal and having conversations was vital to shifting. It took a lot of educating on my part to tell my partner how. It feels to not be the earner, how society does treat you. And I needed some understanding from him about what this really looks like and how, and he did a great job. He listened, but this is over years. I think that if you're in a situation where you feel like there really is a power imbalance and you need to engage a money coaches or therapists to start working this out, I think that this is an issue that needs some professional support to. Come to an agreement because we all, we all have money baggage and abundance and scaredy issues that we, that come up.

Right. And so the only

way to, to equal out the, that imbalance is to talk about it and to get outside support. Because. You have to work towards, towards finding some way of being that is agreeable. And it's probably going to look different for every couple, but I'm very, I put like from a woman's perspective and a woman's empowerment, you should always have access to everything.

In my opinion,

you should always. Have access to, there should be no matter who's working, there should be equal rights to spending. There shouldn't be like, I hate hearing things like allowances and things like that, that, I mean, you can have budgets, right. That you both agree on, but not, I get really I'm not here for the, the non working spouse being in a lot of situations who is a woman being treated like a child, right.

Or being treated in a way that's not on equal footing.

Jenni: I hear you.