Season 01, episode 09 May 11, 2025
Originally recorded April 30, 2025
SPEAKERS Dayna Del Val and Sally Z
SUMMARY
In this conversation, Sally Z and Dayna Del Val explore the complexities of motherhood, the emotional journey of parenting and the importance of supporting children in their identity journeys. They reflect on personal experiences, the significance of Mother’s Day and the challenges of navigating the evolving relationship with their children as they grow. The discussion also delves into the concept of ‘brave middle ground’ in parenting, emphasizing the need for honesty and discomfort in fostering growth and understanding. In this conversation, Sally Z and Dayna Del Val explore the complexities of identity, particularly in the context of being transgender in today’s society. They discuss the challenges faced by transgender individuals, the importance of visibility and representation and the societal norms that shape our understanding of gender. Sally shares her personal journey as a parent of a transgender child, highlighting the emotional and practical aspects of navigating this experience. The conversation also touches on the misconceptions surrounding transgender individuals, particularly in relation to safety and bathroom access, and emphasizes the need for acceptance and understanding. Ultimately, the discussion is a call to embrace authenticity and courage in the face of societal challenges.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Mother’s Day, parenting, birth stories, emotional journey, middle ground, identity, LGBTQ advocacy, personal growth, motherhood, family dynamics, transgender, identity, parenting, societal norms, gender, visibility, acceptance, representation, bathroom access, future aspirations
TAKEAWAYS
- Mother’s Day is a deeply personal and emotional day for many.
- Every birth story is unique and deserves to be shared.
- Parenting is an emotional roller coaster filled with highs and lows.
- The journey of motherhood is complex and multifaceted.
- Each person’s experience of motherhood is different yet universal.
- Brave middle ground in discussions can challenge everyone involved.
- Discomfort in parenting can lead to growth and understanding.
- Supporting children in their identity is crucial for their well-being.
- Parents often have to navigate their own feelings while supporting their children.
- There are many aspects of parenting that are beyond our control. Parenting involves allowing children to become who they are.
- The world can be a difficult place for transgender individuals.
- Acceptance does not require understanding; it requires respect.
- Transgender women in sports are not a widespread issue.
- Societal norms often dictate our understanding of gender.
- Visibility is crucial for the acceptance of diverse identities.
- Coming out is a gradual process that requires support.
- Bathroom access remains a significant concern for transgender individuals.
- Misconceptions about transgender people often lead to scapegoating.
- Living authentically is essential for personal fulfillment.
Dayna Del Val 00:00
Sally Z, Happy Mother’s Day!
Sally Z 00:13
Thank you. You, too!
Dayna Del Val 00:17
Thank you. Yeah. Are some or all of your kids with you today? Will they be?
Sally Z 00:23
Oh, gosh, this is a great question. They’re now beyond my ability to control them. So I won’t know, really, until the day of. I really hope so. I mean, I know that my the two that are living at home with me, they do not have a choice in this matter. They will be with me…
Dayna Del Val 00:44
Yes.
Sally Z 00:45
But my college kiddo, I don’t know. I don’t know. Gametime call, gametime call,
Dayna Del Val 00:50
Yeah. I say every year, I have this unfulfilled wish that there will be a knock at the door, and my son will have flown in from California for Mother’s Day. I don’t believe that’s going to happen today…
Sally Z 01:07
And we love that for you, though.
Dayna Del Val 01:10
I know I love it for me, too. It makes me sad that it’s probably never going to happen.
Sally Z 01:15
Does he know that you harbor this secret wish?
Dayna Del Val 01:21
I wouldn’t say he knows that. I would say he knows that Mother’s Day is a very serious day to me.
Sally Z 01:27
Okay.
Dayna Del Val 01:27
Serious in the sense of, we used to have this thing that we did every year. We did all our planting. We had dinner together. We built my husband into it. It was this great traditional thing.
Sally Z 01:40
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 01:41
And, you know, he lives 1,800 miles away, so it’s much harder to do now. But I would just like to think that one year, he’ll think to himself, like, in February, “You know what? I should plan to go home for Mother’s Day weekend. That would knock her socks off.”
Sally Z 01:56
I mean, Mother’s Day kind of sneaks up on me, and it’s like, literally, my favorite day of the year as well. Like, it’s all about me, even more than my birthday, way more than my birthday. Isn’t that funny? It’s so special. And I have had a wish and haven’t yet done it. And even this year, I was like, I’m gonna do it, and it didn’t happen. But I wanted to build a podcast all about birth stories, yeah, and hear women’s birth stories, because they’re, like, my favorite thing in the whole wide world, and each one is different and kind of dramatic in its own way. And women, I’ve never met a woman who doesn’t love to tell her birth story.
Dayna Del Val 02:47
Yeah, that’s probably true. You’re right.
Sally Z 02:49
I mean, I’m sure there are some women who are, like, too dramatic or, you know, there are tragic stories, there are tragic stories. But even then, like, for that to be witnessed and experienced and appreciated as like, Yes woman! Like, whatever happened, you are an incredible being. Oh my gosh. And then you raise these humans.
Dayna Del Val 03:15
Yes.
Sally Z 03:17
We are awesome.
Dayna Del Val 03:20
We deserve a lot more credit than we get because we make and raise the humans.
Sally Z 03:25
Yeah, we really do, and it’s different. And no disrespect to my husband and the partners with whom we raise these people, but it is a particular thing. And I have a senior in high school this year.
Dayna Del Val 03:43
Oh, yeah, so you’re really counting down those minutes, both the positives and the hard to imagine.
Sally Z 03:50
Yeah, it’s a roller coaster of emotion. I am…yeah, it is not logical. There’s no rationality. Like the other day, just at dinner, I was like, just like, sob, just a little sob came out. I was like, I’m just realizing you won’t be here in four months, you know? Like, oh my gosh. It is a wild ride. And here we are.
Dayna Del Val 04:17
It is. I remember, because my son was four and a half weeks early, so they whisked him away to get some oxygen, and so I never had that gloppy baby moment that you see in TV. Maybe nobody has that. I have no idea, but I did not. And they brought me back this tiny, little old, old, old man. He had all this hair that they had scooped over to the side like a little comb over.
I looked down at him, and I thought, “Okay, in 18 years, I’ll be 41 years old. And on some level, 18 years feels like a life sentence. And on some other level, I know it’s going to go fast. I think I can give you 18 years.”
And, okay, that was 11 years ago! I mean, it just blew by. I’m not sure there’s an adage that is more powerful than “the days are long, but the years are short.”
Sally Z 05:15
Yes, yes.
Dayna Del Val 05:16
Because, boy, there were some days where I thought, “Huh, I might throw one or both of us out the window. I’m not sure that this is the day for me to be tested.”
Sally Z 05:25
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 05:26
You know, now I want him to fly home and surprise me for Mother’s Day.
Sally Z 05:30
Come back to me! Come back to me!
Dayna Del Val 05:33
Yeah, oh, it’s a complicated thing we do with these little people who become big people.
Sally Z 05:39
Yeah, it’s our identity, and it’s also not. And we want it to be our identity, and then we also don’t want it to be our identity, like it’s…
Dayna Del Val 05:48
Don’t define me as someone’s mother,
Sally Z 05:49
Yes, and yet I am defined. I define myself in some ways around that completely. In other ways, not at all. I mean, it is, it’s a really wild ride. My parents are always reassuring me, “Sally, your parenting job is not done. Like the relationship is not done. It evolves.” I know this. I’ve already felt it with my oldest, where I’m like, this is different. It’s different. And yet you’re, you’re still part of me, you know.
Dayna Del Val 06:23
I think maybe one of the most profound things I ever have heard said happened when I was with you and another new friend, Catherine Hickem, and she is a coach and a thought leader around parenting adult children, which is such a genius area of work. But she said, “Your children will never love you as much as you love them.”
And I remember, I know what I was wearing, I know where I was sitting when I heard her say it, and I kind of was like (gasp). And then I realized, it’s true. It’s appropriate. It’s devastating. It’s hard. It’s beautiful. I mean, it would be weird if, if our children loved us as much as we love them, because they don’t know the beginning of how they arrived to us. I mean, they lived it, but they don’t, they don’t recall it the way that we do.
Sally Z 07:21
Okay. I remember that moment, but it’s hitting me now, really differently, probably because my son is a month from graduating, and I’m just like, he has no idea how much…he probably has an idea, because he’s a little bit overwhelmed by me, I think, from time to time. He’s like, “Got it, Mom got it.”
Yeah, and, and yet, um, they can’t possibly know. None of our kids can possibly really understand until they have their own kids, and then they’re gonna be like, “Wow, I’m so sorry.”
Dayna Del Val 07:58
Right? “I should have been nice with you. Yeah, I should have come for Mother’s Day. I’m very sorry.”
Sally Z 08:03
“I can’t believe I didn’t get on a plane and show up for you on Mother’s Day,”
Dayna Del Val 08:08
“Show up to plant your tomato plants. How selfish of me.”
Sally Z 08:13
Oh my gosh.
Dayna Del Val 08:15
Anyway, I say, we say all of this, of course, with the understanding that today is actually not a joyful day for every single person. Some, some things have been really, really hard for some women. And so, I just want to acknowledge, out of the gate, that however, however motherhood comes to you or doesn’t come to you, the journey is the journey, and I’m not here to judge, we’re not here to judge. We’re just here to share our journeys. Because, you know, all we can do, as you said about birth stories, all we can do is share the experience that we’ve had and honor other people’s experiences and choices,
Sally Z 08:57
Yeah, and be witness to each other in that. It is so profound. It really is profound. And every person’s experience is so different. It’s so different. And yet I think there are probably some universal, universalities in this.
Dayna Del Val 09:14
Well, you know, as you were saying that I was thinking about all of the conversations that my husband and I have had with people in recovery over the years that we’ve been vocal about that. And it’s the exact same thing. Every recovery story has many, many moments, many markers, where you go, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I get that that. I hear that over and over and over again.”
And yet, every recovery story is unique to the person who went through it, to the person who’s sharing it. So I think, I mean, iwe’re not that special as human beings, and yet, each of us is uniquely unique.
Sally Z 09:51
Isn’t it? Both of these things are very true, both.
Dayna Del Val 09:52
Yeah, yeah. So we’re a “both and” not an “either or.” So Sally, let’s start where I start with everyone, which is, how do you define middle ground?
Sally Z 10:09
Ooh, great question. And of course, I have listened to several of your episodes, and you’d think, you’d think, having done that, I would come in ready,
Dayna Del Val 10:21
Alright.
Sally Z 10:22
With a thoughtful answer here, but I have thought about it in the past as I’ve listened to other people talk about it. I worked at an organization for a long time that prided itself on holding middle ground, middle space. Sometimes I found that really infuriating, because it felt like “We’re not taking a stand on something.”
But when I knew that we were taking brave middle ground, and this is what I would say, is we were articulating a truth that was uncomfortable for everybody, that challenged everybody. So from a political spectrum, it was like, the brave middle ground actually challenges everybody. It doesn’t mean milky. It doesn’t mean like, “We’re gonna try and not piss anybody off.”
Actually, I think the bravest middle ground says things that forces everybody to go, “Hmm, how? What about me? Am I? Am I living up to what I say? Am I? Am I really experiencing and holding myself to a high enough standard in life?” And so that right there, I would say, I’m always searching for that. You know, that level of complexity and nuance, which is really hard to come by these days, where truth is still truth, where we’re not ignoring reality and the way the world is impacting people in major ways. And we’re also not being so ignorant of the realities of, you know, other people that exist outside of this middle as well. It’s really hard. I don’t know how successfully I find that space or articulate it, but that’s what I’m going for, is a place where, where I’m articulating a truth that is challenging for everybody,
Dayna Del Val 12:41
That is really interesting. I don’t think anybody else has come along and identified it quite that way. I’ve said this many times, but I did not expect the phrase middle ground to be quite so multi-dimensional or to have such singular definitions based on someone’s lived or professional experience. So it’s really been a delight conversation after conversation to hear someone define this seemingly easy phrase in these completely different ways. And I guess I’m not surprised at your definition, but I really love it.
Sally Z 13:23
Thank you.
Dayna Del Val 13:24
You know this nuanced complexity where everybody is a little bit uncomfortable, that’s, that’s a bold statement, because I think it’s hard to make everybody uncomfortable.
Sally Z 13:36
Well, and that’s not, certainly not fun to be the bearer of a challenge for every
Dayna Del Val 13:43
discomfort and challenge exactly, yeah.
Sally Z 13:46
Oh, I can’t wait to hear what she has to say. But, you know, the opposite of brave middle ground is like wimpy middle ground. You know, like wimpy middle ground is just like, “No, you’re right, and you’re right.” And you know, that that actually doesn’t, I don’t think, help us progress forward as a society.
Dayna Del Val 14:11
I’m thinking about so my stepdad died 13 and a half years ago of pretty awful cancer. And I was with him and my mom in the doctor’s office when the oncologist said to him, you two weeks to two months to live. And that was a brave middle ground moment, which I’ve never thought about that way until right now. It was uncomfortable for her; it was uncomfortable for each of us. We all had to sit in that space. All of the hope and the promise and the effort came down to “It didn’t work. And so this is the new reality. This is the middle ground. What do we do now?”
Sally Z 15:00
Wow, now, yeah, I mean brave. Brave means it’s gonna be hard. Yeah, that’s kind of the prerequisite of middle ground is it has to be it has to be challenging. It has to make us uncomfortable in a way that is gonna help us grow, not in a, you know, there’s a lot of different discomfort and fear and pain, not all of it is great, but brave says to us that at the very least, we are gonna be uncomfortable about facing a truth or our own understanding or reckoning with an idea in a way that makes us go, “Hmm, shoot, now, now, what? Now what does this mean for me? Now what?”
Dayna Del Val 15:46
Yeah, oh, yeah, it’s big. It’s really big. So I want to read a quick section from your book, Speaking Story. We’re, we’re not going to actually spend a ton of time in your professional realm today, not because I’m not interested in it, but because I think we have some other things that fit this brave middle ground premise differently and better. But Speaking Story came out in 2024. I love this book. I took it with me to Hawaii to read it. That was a treat.
But I’m going to read the very, very beginning, and I’m going to skip around a little bit because I’m just want to set a premise for you, and then I’ll ask you my question. You say, “Tell the story with your whole heart. You should know before I begin that I’m a pretty (okay, very) positive person. Side note, that’s true. I don’t generally walk around criticizing or analyzing other people and how they show up in the world. But as an award-winning speaker and speaking coach for the last twenty-plus years, it’s an occupational hazard of mine to always be assessing” or to ABA”
“Sitting at a fundraising event a few years back, was no different. I was definitely (*ahem*) ABAing…It was fine, not a “Here, take my money” kind of event, but fine. Until one award recipient got up.”
“As he took the stage and stood in front of the podium, he took a breath. Then without going into any “thank you so much” standard practice response to getting an award (which we hardly listened to anyway), he started telling a story: ‘When I was 12, my dad wrote a letter to the superintendent…’”
It was like someone had tipped the audience on its axis toward the stage. We leaned in. The mood shifted. We were listening. Snd by the end of the story, I knew not only what his work was, but also why it mattered.”
“He took his time. He set the scene, and his story led us perfectly to a point: When someone believes in you, like his dad did, anything is possible.”
“That’s the power of a story. It gets us out of our heads and into our hearts. It helps the audience not just understand something intellectually, but also feel it” (1-3).
Okay, to me, that’s the essence of what you coach and teach on. It’s certainly what I took from working with you as my coaching teacher, which was such a gift, continues to be such a gift. But actually, Sally, you’re on today because you have a special parenting role in 2025 that I don’t think you expected. It’s probably two-fold. You didn’t expect to have a child who stepped into this arena, and then you probably didn’t expect to step into the arena with your child because of the political environment that we are finding ourselves in. And so I’m hoping that you will share the story of you and Rowan and bring us in; tip our access. Let us lean into this with you.
Sally Z 19:00
Oh my gosh. I’m feeling super emotional right now. I just should say that. I mean, you know, we start off talking about emotional the joy of parenthood, and it has been a joy. And we as parents, we don’t always know what that journey is gonna look like. At some point, our children get to look at us and say, “This is who I am.”
And about five, six years ago, Rowan turned to my husband and I, actually they sent us a text. So that’s how this started. With the text.
Dayna Del Val 19:37
Very millennial/Gen Z.
Sally Z 19:39
Very millennial/Gen Z. You should know Rowan is, is especially introverted, socially anxious person, honestly, pretty anxious about things. And so, you know, all of my parenting expert friends were like, “It’s fine, it’s fine. They’re communicating with you. Don’t analyze how, you know?” I was like, “I want to sit down and have a moment, right?”
But Rowan sends a text and says, “Hey Mom and Dad, I want you to know I think I’m maybe a demigirl.”
And I was like, “Huh? I don’t… Great. Tell me more. What does that mean?” You know? And like, this generation has a lot of terms and identifiers around all kinds of things. So I was learning, Okay, interesting.
And then a few years later, not even a few years, maybe six months, eight months later, Rowan said, “I would really appreciate it if you would use they/them pronouns with me.”
And I was like, “Okay, no problem. Interesting. Tell me more.”
And then, behind closed doors, I was like, “What the? Oh my gosh! Andy, Andy, what do we do? What do we do?”
And he was like, “What do you mean what do we do?” He’s very calm, and I’m very…
Dayna Del Val 21:03
Thank goodness you and I found very calm spouses.
Sally Z 21:08
There is a reason for that, of course, but yeah, Andy was like, “Just breathe. Breathe.”
And honestly, I have always been an LGBTQ advocate, and it’s, it’s, you know, theoretically. It was not a reality in my household. In my family, extended family, yes, but not in my household. And so it really is a moment of, “Are you who you say you are, Sally? Are you an advocate? Are you an ally? And can you show up for your kid who is expressing a very difficult thing for them to do? Expressing this emerging reality for themselves?”
And so I had to do a lot of work on my own, but I worked really, really hard for Rowan to never see that, to just only feel…and I’m sure that they did. I’m sure if Rowan were here, they’d be like, “Yeah, I could tell my mom was freaking out a little bit.”
But we as a family entered into…at that phase we were practicing. It was not external. Rowan was not super public about it, because that was not something they were really comfortable with. A few small group of friends knew, but that was really it, until right before Rowan’s senior year of high school, when they officially changed their name to Rowan and wanted school to operate as Rowan; wanted all of, like, externally, people to know.
And so I started in support of Rowan, trying to own that story more for me as a parent and in support of Rowan, just so that everybody was clear that I support my kid, I support and love my kid exactly who they are and for whoever they become. Because you know, you just never know.
And it was really interesting, as I started sharing this story more, I would hear this universal response from parents who would say, “Yeah, I did not want my child to become a pilot, and yet, there he is becoming a pilot.” “I did not want or expect my child to go through drug addiction, and yet, here I am now.” Obviously, I wouldn’t necessarily align that as a choice that that person’s making, necessarily, but we as parents, there’s so much we don’t get to control who they are becoming, where they live. You know, they’re gonna live in California. I’ve just went through this with my son, Luke. I’m like, turns out I can’t dictate what school he goes to. I want him here. He’s like, “This is where I want to go. This is who I’m becoming.”
Okay, wow. I just get the privilege of stepping back and watching my kids become who they are.
So I give you that sort of summary, because it wasn’t a light switch, and it wasn’t instant. Yes, I’m happy for you, even though I’ve really wanted to be and tried to be externally, and now we live in this world where, man, it is hard and it is a crappy place to live. If you’re a transgender person, it is really…the United States has failed my kid, like really, pretty profoundly. Not everybody. Most of the time, Rowan feels support and yet it’s a scary place right now, and that’s really hard. Sucks.
Dayna Del Val 25:20
Yeah, so thank you for sharing that. First of all, I knew I wanted to talk to you about this because I knew that you were open to talking about it. And I think it’s talk about a middle ground where everybody feels a little bit uncomfortable, if the only discomfort you feel is “But they/them are plural, and we’re talking about one person, my English, nerdy grammar brain can’t make that work.”
If that’s the most uncomfortable you feel, bravo. You are on the right side of his comfort.
And if you are feeling like “You know this young person is trying to get attention. Orr they’re on a bandwagon, or boys are boys and girls are girls, and there are two.” Then you’re on the wrong side. I’m just saying that because I can and because it’s true, you’re on the wrong side. You don’t have to understand someone’s decision to accept someone’s decision,
Sally Z 26:22
Right. Well, and facts in history actually really undermine a lot of what’s being said externally right now. Just to make super clear, transgender women in sports, they’re not taking over sports. It is such a rare occurrence.
Dayna Del Val 26:38
Yes.
Sally Z 26:39
And to have—this is a little soapbox moment for me—but to have somebody… All right, okay, here we go: to have somebody in the executive branch who has been accused of, and there’s many, many, many examples and anecdotes of him truly abusing women…
Dayna Del Val 27:01
He’s been convicted of it!
Sally Z 27:05
Convicted of some heinous crimes against women. To use transgender people as a dividing wedge and say that it’s about protecting women really upsets me, because there is no harm being done to women. I think we should keep our eye out.
Like the middle ground to me on the athletics is I can see why there’s worry here, and we can keep our eye on this stuff, but it’s not a now problem, and it absolutely is not a something that requires executive orders and changing identifiers on passports and obsessing over bathrooms and criminalizing people who are, literally have felt, you know. Like the heartbreaking thing is, this is, this is my child, who felt pretty uncomfortable just in their own skin and had a hard time getting through the day. And now their comfort in themselves, their confidence in themselves, is growing. So I’m like, “Come at me. People really, REALLY, you’re gonna come after this, like, sweet, really shy person who just wants to feel like clear and aligned and proud of who they are? Like, really? Really?
Dayna Del Val 28:38
Yeah, it’s, to me, it is the quintessential bully move. You find someone who is weak and has limited agency by cultural standards, and you just drill down on them. Because while most people are not anti-trans, most people are uncomfortable and don’t know what to do, and so in a bullying situation, they’re going to do nothing, and that just empowers a bully, because there’s not going to be anyone there to stop them.
Sally Z 29:14
Right, right, right? And, you know, it’s funny, because I remember being in college, it’s 1997 or 1998, and I was in a critical theory class. And my prof, I remember when he said this, because it blew my mind. He said, “Gender is a social construct.”
I was like, “Wait, wait, wait, how? What do you mean? Like woman, man, body parts are different. How is this a social construct?”
And the more we talked about it, was like, Oh no, the way we understand what it means to be a woman. What women look like. How we show up. The roles that we play, like all of that is created and different in every culture.
So intersex people. There’s a lot more of them out there than anybody knows. And they don’t talk about it generally, because you can’t see it on their outside. Those are people who, they can choose, to some degree, “What gender am I? Because my biology isn’t telling me what gender I am. So what gender do I want to be?” There’s some choice there; kind of wild.
And there’s cultures for eons that have really blurred the lines between how gender is expressed. Men in skirts and women going out, doing the hunting and like there’s, there’s more than two ways to live this life. There’s more than two, like, roles with boundaries on it. I just want a life for all of us that is more liberated than that, so people can really walk around and fully express who they are and engage in the world in a way that is authentic and true to them, because we’re gonna get the best out of people when we do that. Oh yeah,
Dayna Del Val 31:20
Yeah, I think about…this isn’t exactly the same, because he was not a transgendered person. He was a gay, closeted gay man. But you think about an Alan Turing and his breaking the Enigma Code. Okay, so if I mean, as soon as it was discovered that he was gay, he was medically castrated. He was…he eventually committed suicide. He was completely vilified.
We probably would have lost World War Two had he not shown up and brought his fullest self, which he didn’t get to do, because he had to hide his gayness from everybody.
But the point is, let’s just take Rowan. Whatever Rowan is meant to do, they won’t be able to express themselves to their fullest ability if what they have to worry about is looking over their shoulders at every turn to make sure that the people who think what they’re doing is on the right side by, you know, eradicating them,
Sally Z 32:23
Yeah,
Dayna Del Val 32:24
If they are not allowed to live fully, who knows what we will miss?
Sally Z 32:29
Yeah. Well, to me, part of my job right now, sort of in the brave middle ground, is to make clear, A) to make this story visible, partly because I look like such, and am such a cis gender. I’m a Midwest gal in the middle of the country and, you know, it’s just like, hey, yep, and I’m a mom and, you know, family and values and blah, blah, blah. And here’s my amazing kiddo who is living life differently than I ever saw coming. And it’s not…the rhetoric right now is what is making things dangerous. And the actual laws, but it’s really more of the rhetoric than even the actual laws right now, because that’s what makes it scary to send Rowan out in public, is there’s so much fervor around this one issue. And I’m just like “People focus on something that matters, please.”
Dayna Del Val 33:36
Yes,
Sally Z 33:37
Something that’s actually impacting your life, because I don’t see how this is actually impacting your life. You’re definitely impacting ours, but I don’t see how this is impacting you.
Dayna Del Val 33:49
So Sally, talk to me about the decision that you and Rowan made, or your family and Rowan made to be public about this, because somebody could say, “Well, gosh, if you don’t want Rowan to be put at risk, what are you doing talking about it and lifting up this story?”
Sally Z 34:14
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 34:15
How did you decide to be public about it, as public as you’ve chosen to be?
Sally Z 34:21
Well, I mean, it has been baby steps all along the way. Baby step with our immediate family, and then baby step the extended family, and then baby step with friends, and baby step at school, and then baby step at an event.
I told a story, that was kind of Rowan’s big official coming out, was at this event that I talk about, actually at the end of the book. And it was our family owning this story externally even more. Well, obviously, Rowan got to choose whether or not that happens. You know, it was like “Ro, I wrote this thing. What do you think would you feel comfortable. If I shared this on stage? How do you feel about me putting in the book?”
Well, every time we’ve done that, this really introverted little being lights up and says, “I’m okay with it; I’m good with it.”
So every step has been really an owning, a stronger owning of their place in the world. And I think having, you know, when I see Rowan, the first time I heard Rowan say, “I use they/them pronouns” out loud, we were on a college tour, and I immediately, like, got choked up because it was the first time I heard them say it out loud and say it, like, publicly to strangers.
“This is who I am, and this is how I want you to know me.”
And I knew it was super brave. And so anytime anybody does something brave, I’m like, “Oh my God, you’re amazing, right?”
So I was just like, okay. And I knew that this is where they were gonna go to school, and I was writing PS, but because I was like, they’re feeling it, they’re feeling the support and the love and the space and place.
And so, I just, when I see Rowan do something brave like that, I’m like, “I’m the adult, I’m the protector, I’m the mom. Like, I have got to be braver.” I don’t have to be, but I want to be, I want to be as brave as Rowan, if not braver to, like, get all the crap out of the way so they could just live their life. Like, just go live their life and not worry about what bathroom to use, you know? So, you know, it is risky to talk about it publicly, and it’s risky for my business in some ways, in this world of like anti-DEI everything, but if I want Rowan to live fully and authentically, then it’s a great challenge for me too. I mean, it’s brave middle ground every time, when people ask me about my family, “Tell me about your kids. And they’ll say boys or girls?”
Dayna Del Val 37:25
“Yes, and…”
Sally Z 37:27
And I will say, “I have three kids, one of each.”
And then there’s like a thing, huh?
And I’ll say, “My oldest is non binary, transgender.”
And they some people go, “Oh, fun, cool. I like how you did that.”
And some people are really confused, and that’s okay. That’s okay.
Dayna Del Val 37:46
I love that answer, actually, because it really does invite, if somebody’s listening, it should invite some sort of follow up.
Sally Z 37:54
Yeah, yeah.
Dayna Del Val 37:56
I love that. So Sally, you told me kind of in passing. I think we were packing up from our weekend together, and I was holding a door for you, so it really was in passing. I asked you what your fears for Rowan were, or what the hardest parts of this were. And you talked about UTIs, which,
Sally Z 38:22
Well, my fear, yeah,
Dayna Del Val 38:24
Yeah, I cannot shake that. So tell me that story again. Because for anybody sitting here thinking anything negative, predatory, whatever you’re thinking, I want you to hear this story and still feel that way. I want to meet the person who hears this story and still thinks this is a problem.
Sally Z 38:49
Rowan works hard to never use a public bathroom. Never. So never use the bathroom at school—six, seven hours a day. Never. When we go on road trips, they never get out of the car to use the bathroom at the rest up, unless they really, really have to. They just don’t want to deal, don’t want to deal with that.
Rowan presents, I think, pretty androgynously, which is the intention and, and I think it’s scary now, given an option. And I don’t want to speak for Rowan, because I think it probably feels like a gametime call. Sometimes Rowan will come with me into the women’s restroom, but, but they don’t want to, they don’t want to deal with it. They don’t want to do it.
And so every once while, I’m just like, “Rowan, it is not good for your body. It is not good for your body to wait that long.” And it’s a real worry. And I think Rowan gets headaches and is dehydrated and like the real impacts to this.
Dayna Del Val 40:06
Yeah.
Sally Z 40:07
And so that is the world that we have created. That is the world that Rowan is living in right now. Now, it is not true at school, and they’re in college right now. And so school is a safe place, and so it only exists outside of that bubble, and outside of the bubble of our house, and outside of the bubble of college, where all of a sudden they’re seen as somehow a threat, or, which is just hilarious, just to me, like they are like the sweetest person. So yeah, it’s not safe zone. Bathrooms are not a safe zone, and it’s not that Rowan is the threat.
Dayna Del Val 40:59
Yeah, so just take that in for a moment, people: bathrooms are not a safe zone, and it is not that Rowan is the threat.
I mean, I don’t know about you, Sally, but I’ve never looked at the person in the stall next to me. I mean, what in the actual hell are we talking about here?
Sally Z 41:23
I know. I know.
Dayna Del Val
I can tell you I have been in mixed use bathrooms, and it is a little startling when you’re washing your hands and a man walks out, you do sort of feel like, “Wait, am I in the wrong space? Are you?”
Sally Z 41:35
I know. I know panic moment.
Dayna Del Val 41:37
Yeah, because we’re so conditioned that men go here. Women go here.
Sally Z 41:41
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 41:42
But I can also tell you that if we stopped being conditioned in that way, nobody would care. My favorite thing people say is, what do you have men’s bathrooms and women’s bathrooms in your home? Don’t you all use the same fucking bathroom in your home?
Sally Z 42:00
I know, right?
Dayna Del Val 42:02
What are we talking about? And Mother, I apologize, particularly on Mother’s Day. What are we talking about? It’s such a stupid, stupid thing to fixate on. It’s a, you know what it is? It’s a small-minded thing to fixate on, because the reality is there’s so many big things to fix and nobody wants to deal with them.
Sally Z 42:02
Well, it’s another way where we’re scapegoating transgender people when the real danger, the real actual danger for women, are cisgender men.
Dayna Del Val 42:38
Of course! Just like a real danger for school shootings is 18 to 25 year old, white, straight, disaffected men. I mean, I’m married to a white straight man. I birthed a white straight Yeah, I like white straight men.
Sally Z 42:52
Me too. Me too.
Dayna Del Val 42:53
But they’re kind of a real problem as a whole, and that’s our fault societally, not their individual fault. It’s our fault societally. How about we work on that? How about we give them some tools to have some emotional depth?
Sally Z 43:07
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 43:07
So that they’re not threatened by a small person who’s figuring out how they want to show up in the world, right to no harm to anyone.
Sally Z 43:16
Biology in their pants doesn’t reflect theirs. Um, it’s, it’s wild. So there’s a, there’s a man on TikTok. So he’s a transgender man, and he, you know, he’s got a beard, and he’s, like, bulky. He looks like a white dude who likes to, you know, hunt. You would never know, you would never know that he’s a transgender man, but he’s a man. You look at him, you’re like, man, and he just looked in the camera and said, “Do you really want me in the women’s bathroom?”
Dayna Del Val 43:49
Yeah.
Sally Z 43:50
“You don’t. You don’t want me in the women’s bathroom. I will scare the crap out of women in the women’s bathroom. You don’t want me in there.”
Dayna Del Val 44:02
Yeah, that’s the other thing. Have you ever seen anyone’s genitalia in the bathroom? Now as women, we don’t sit at a trough the way men, yeah, I guess men look around, but there’s stalls in men’s bathrooms.
Sally Z 44:16
Yes,
Dayna Del Val 44:17
let’s just all have stalls and friggin’ be done with it.
Sally Z 44:22
I know, I know. Yeah, so it has become a really stupid lightning rod, and but it has become a lightning rod. I mean, the election was ugly. It was ugly. It was mean. The whole they/them, just throwing that around was so dismissive, and it was effective.
Dayna Del Val 44:47
Yes, it was,
Sally Z 44:48
I am pretty confident that that is why. That is why Donald Trump won, and along with, like, some idea about eggs or something,
45:00
Yeah,
Dayna Del Val 45:01
Well, he’s fixed.
Sally Z 45:02
That’s worked out great
Dayna Del Val 45:04
On the list, yeah, what a whizbang he’s been
Sally Z 45:07
What a whizbang.
Dayna Del Val 45:09
Oh, Sally, what, what are Rowan’s thoughts, and I’m sorry to ask you to speak on their behalf, but what are Rowan’s thoughts about life post college? Because they’re an upperclass person now.
Sally Z 45:27
Oh no, sophomore, sophomore, n.,
Dayna Del Val 45:29
Plenty, plenty of time. Okay,
Sally Z 45:31
Like stay in the bubble,
Dayna Del Val 45:34
Yeah, eventually they will leave that bubble.
Sally Z 45:37
Yeah.
Dayna Del Val 45:37
What? What are they thinking about? What texts are you getting about that?
Sally Z 45:42
My gosh. Dayna, this is a great question. The truth is, I think this has been, you know, it’s a process. It’s an emotional process. It’s a…there’s physical elements to this. I There’s a lot to tackle. And so right now, you know when we’ll be like, “So where do you see yourself? What do you want to do? Where are you going?”
You know, Rowan’s like, “Well, you know, I want to…” and they’re like, super brilliant, talented writer and computer science, like, obsessed with computer science. So the dream, Rowan’s dream is to create story -based video games, like, kind of narrative video games. How to get from where they are now to there. I don’t really know. I don’t really know that’ll happen.
We are just staying so focused on be, be right where you are. Enjoy this space and this place. I’m so grateful that most of this administration for Rowan happens under this loving bubble of college with a super supportive, awesome roommate, and, you know, a handful of good friends and a really supportive college administration and staff, and the way that campus works is really loving. And I’m just like, “Just be there. Enjoy there.”
Dayna Del Val 47:21
Maybe graduate school would be good for you. Rowan.
Sally Z 47:24
I know, just keep going on the in this like academic little bubble. It’s scary to think about, but I also feel like on the whole, progress has been made really quickly on these things. And I know that’s part of people’s fear. It was like, “This happened really fast. Wait, wait, wait, all of a sudden, we’ve got pronouns on zoom all the time. We’ve got this, we got that, like, I don’t even know what this means.” And it is scary for people.
It’s gonna catch up, because as soon as you know someone, your story changes. That is why I think so much of the LGBTQ narrative and story has become accepted. It is a normal part of who we are as a country and people, and even if there’s a minority of people who really have sincere issues with that still, on the whole, most people are accepting and loving. And maybe not even not quite loving, but accepting and honoring of it, and can engage and work with people who are different from them. What a concept! And I don’t know where we’re going to be in three years. My hope is that it will be a safer place than it is now, but I really don’t know how to…I can’t predict next week right now, let alone,
Dayna Del Val 48:47
No, not, not with this group. We certainly can’t. So Sally, what’s, what is your next step? I mean, I think your point about being this Midwestern, very traditional mom and wife and you know, all these things gives you this extraordinary platform. I mean, it’s why Mazz and I went public with our story, because we don’t look like a household of addiction, whatever that looks like. I mean, clearly we do, but we think we know what these what these families and people look like. We don’t, because it’s all of us. So what’s next for you in this?
Sally Z 49:26
it’s very connected to the ideas that I talk about as a speaker and an author and a coach. My whole mission is to get people to overcome what’s holding them back and show up with authenticity and clarity and courage.
Okay, well, then I better do that. I better do that myself. So my own gumption, like this is my word for 2025. Is gumption. Well, gumption is saying yes to opportunities like this and standing in the truth of who we are as a family and who Rowan is. And even if, uh, even if, I’m afraid about the reaction that it’s gonna get, it doesn’t change who we are. This is who we are, and I’m really proud of who we are. And I couldn’t love Rowan more, and I’m so proud of who they are and who they’re becoming. So, you know, it’s a practice for me in doing what I talk about.
So I don’t really know what that will mean and where it will take us, but I always talk about my kids when I speak, and I just use, when I talk about Rowan, I’ll say they and some people catch it, and some people won’t. Sometimes I talk really specifically about Rowan. It’s Rowan’s bravery and how they inspire me to live with authenticity and courage. And sometimes it’s just as subtle as “Yep, I still have my pronouns on my zoom.” I still, you know, like, just in little and big ways, I’m trying to make really clear who I am, who we are and what I want for this world, which is more love and belonging and inclusion and, you know, fewer buttheads,
Dayna Del Val 51:24
Yeah, yeah.
Sally Z 51:25
That was the nicest way I could say it.
Dayna Del Val 51:27
Yeah, yeah, fewer smallminded people, yeah. Well, Sally, I love this conversation. I feel like in some ways, it’s the perfect Mother’s Day conversation, because while it isn’t all about boxes of chocolates and hearts and you know, the white picket fence and the two kids and the dog and the cat, it is very representative of who we are as people. We are messy and complex and nuanced and brave and scared and unique and universal, and what better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than to lift up a basic American family that is living in an extraordinary way? So thank you for joining me today.
Sally Z 52:20
Thank you for having me, and I really appreciate A) the invitation, of course. I’m grateful to create the space to have the conversation that you see it as a brave conversation that needs to be shared, and recognize it as that. And just the work that you’re doing has really important ripple effects. And I know you are just a creative beast, and you are just so full of ideas. I mean that in the best possible way. So it is always exciting to be not just a part of what you do, but just to watch what you’re doing and know that you are a very creatively, purposefully driven person, and that makes it really exciting to be here and to be a part of it. So thanks for inviting me.
Dayna Del Val 53:12
Wow, thank you for that. I will just say I appreciate that, and I appreciate that you helped me find my voice again. So thanks. Thanks to you. This is a mutual admiration society, Sally.
Sally Z 53:24
Yay
Dayna Del Val 53:24
Everyone else, if you are a mother, Happy Mother’s Day. If this is a hard day for you, I’m thinking about you too, because it’s not every day is joyful, just because Hallmark tells us it should be. So everybody, have a great day. We’ll talk soon.
