Deborah Burns, SATURDAY'S CHILD
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the web-in-nominated podcast,
[0:12]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:13]I'm excited to be interviewing Deborah Burns today who's the author of Memoir Saturday's
[0:18]Child, a daughter's memoir, a former media chief innovation officer and brand leader for
[0:23]El Girl, Metropolitan Home, L. Daycore and El Global Marketing. Deborah has helped many
[0:27]brands and execs reinvent themselves. She founded Skirting the Rules, a firm that helps other
[0:32]women find meaningful futures. She currently lives on Long Island with her husband and
[0:36]close to her three-ground children. So welcome, Deborah. Thanks so much for coming on
[0:40]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. My pleasure. Thank you, Zibi.
[0:44]So can you please tell listeners what Saturday's child, a daughter's memoir is about and what inspired
[0:49]you to write it? So this book is about my very unconventional, larger than my mother. I was an only child
[1:00]danced around and otherworldly, beautiful goddess of a mother. And life with her was really
[1:08]all I knew. She may have been a CAD narcissistic. Not a word I knew back then. And she was always central
[1:18]to my life. And when she was 56, she got breast cancer and after some lingering was not a survivor.
[1:28]And more than 20 years after her death would have always carrying her with me. My life was changing
[1:35]and I realized it was time to reflect on that critically important relationship to me.
[1:45]And so the book was born from that reflection, which was full of revelation. And then I got
[1:56]inspired to actually write a book when I was on a trip to London with my own daughter. So
[2:02]a mother-daughter story sort of continues. And what do you think aside from
[2:08]the larger than life personality of your mom? And obviously I know having read it. But what do you
[2:12]think is the most distinctive aspect of your relationship with your mom? Like what did you think made
[2:17]this book where they? So I was born into the prim conservative 1950s. And my mother was anything
[2:28]but I think what makes this book worthy is even though my relationship with my mother was a unique one,
[2:37]it was a very subtle one. It was one that had a lot of delicateness and intricacies to it.
[2:47]And I lived sort of in the world of gray with my mother never too sure. Is it me or is it her
[2:55]and somehow through this one unique story, I managed to help readers see themselves and their own
[3:06]relationships. In it, if that makes sense, I know everybody always seeks some sort of universal
[3:15]aspect to the book. But I think the themes of narcissism, perception and misperception,
[3:24]illusion are important and in everyone's life to a degree. So as you know, from
[3:35]interviewing so many authors, how this began? It's not necessarily how it ended up.
[3:40]We, I took many twists and turns and fits and starts and all kinds of things to get to the
[3:48]book that you just read and I'm so thankful that it did resonate with you. So I feel that
[3:56]some of its bookworthiness is only becoming apparent to me now. Some of the reviews
[4:04]not only from the industry, I'm going to put those aside and just the reader reviews.
[4:10]Not a day goes by now where on Instagram or Facebook people DM me and tell me how helpful the
[4:21]book was to them or tell me think about my mother that are there for the interpreting because
[4:29]I have no judgment in the book. And I think there's an optimism to the story
[4:36]that is important to people. So it's becoming more and more
[4:42]book worthy to me as more people give me their feedback and see themselves in the story.
[4:49]That was a great answer. I mean, I think there were, I think there were so many things that made it
[4:55]interesting. I mean, your life in general, the things that I don't want to give anything away.
[5:00]But some of the, I felt like some scenes in the book could have been entire books in and of
[5:04]themselves. So there was a lot of drama, but also just a lot of, you know, every, the drama of
[5:10]the everyday really. I liked how you called it, how you realized that you had a quote unquote
[5:15]weekend pals relationship with your mom because she sort of came and go your whole childhood.
[5:20]She was always out to say nice. That's just what she did. She worked all day. She, you know,
[5:24]did what she wanted on the weekends. Sometimes you sat in a couch and waited for her two hours
[5:28]until she was ready. And I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh, my kids won't wait, like two seconds
[5:32]for me to get ready. So, and you, you lived with these, with your two ants in your home who took
[5:37]over most of the, the mom like functions when your mom was sort of doing her own thing. So I was
[5:43]wondering, was it enough for you to feel loved by your mom without the time being spent? I feel
[5:50]like there's this trickiness to the time spent versus the amount of love. Is it correlated? Is it
[5:58]not like touched me a little bit about that? Yeah. Well, that's a very layered, interesting question
[6:04]that I'll break down a little. I fit this book. I sparked a conversation around mothers and
[6:12]daughters and women and work. And I think on one level, my mother created a life,
[6:22]crafted a life for herself that suited her needs that mothers today would applaud.
[6:30]It's like, oh my god, she didn't want to do that stuff. So she got her two sisters in law who
[6:37]were unmarried to come in, live with her, and take care of absolutely everything. And she never
[6:46]so much as a glass again. I applaud it because I want a piece of that as I'm sure, you know,
[6:55]everyone can see themselves in that. So there's that aspect to it. And I think it's my mother were
[7:02]alive and reading this book. She would say, but Debbie, which is what she called me, but Debbie,
[7:10]I did whatever mother was supposed to do. I gave you a happy home. I was surrounded by love.
[7:17]And I saw you, you know, casual. And I think there is a fine balance there, even today,
[7:26]for time and nurturing. And there is something to be said for presence that needs to be in the
[7:32]mix. And like any other recipe, it's all the balance of the ingredient. And in that balance,
[7:39]I think things were a little skewed or off for me because I had more of some ingredients,
[7:46]but less of others. And I think her absence and her gloriousness in many ways kind of got mixed
[7:57]with an emotional reserve that she had. She wasn't demonstrative where my aunt and my father's Italian
[8:07]aunt were. And she also was kind of on high, so more distant. And it was easy for me as a
[8:19]sensitive child for love and beauty and the quality together, little tangled for me because she
[8:32]was the way she was. And so I think relating it to children today, I became the mother I needed,
[8:42]which I think is something that we all do. So I made sure that even though I worked,
[8:51]and I ended up with a career that grew and grew and took me away, more than I ever intended it
[8:59]to at the beginning. But I think what I tried to do at the very least was shape the relationship
[9:10]with children so that no matter what they knew, they came first, and they were fully loved.
[9:18]So that's how it kind of worked its way out for me and for my own family. I think I had to
[9:27]go through a relationship with my mother so that I could process it and all mothers intend to
[9:36]involve for the better, like with each generation. You have to reject something from the generation
[9:42]before because that's the nature of progress and evolution. And so what I tried to do in my own life
[9:50]was work and I had another world life where I existed in
[10:00]and another world beyond being a suburban mother of three.
[10:04]But at the same time, I blended qualities
[10:09]that made my children feel fully loved.
[10:12]Well, that sounds like you headed out of the park.
[10:15]I mean, that's all you did.
[10:16]That's really all we can talk about.
[10:18]Yeah, yeah, for all of us, I know you have more, I think,
[10:22]and I just said to you in an email,
[10:25]I watch in awe because you were building and branding
[10:31]and establishing yourself so thoroughly
[10:34]in an industry with a powerful footprint.
[10:37]And I know the kind of time that takes and energy.
[10:41]And so I'm full of appreciation for what you're able to accomplish.
[10:45]Oh, thank you.
[10:46]That's really sweet.
[10:49]So let's get back to your bag for one second.
[10:51]So you have this one conversation with your mom,
[10:54]which stayed with me a lot.
[10:55]And she says it's not easy being a grown-up.
[10:57]And you respond, it's not easy being a kid.
[11:00]And then you ask her what the hardest part is for her.
[11:03]And she says, I guess it's the difference
[11:05]between what you want and what you get.
[11:07]So I just wanted you to talk to me a little about that.
[11:10]And it sounds to me like you'd have ended up
[11:13]with what you wanted, but perhaps that she just never really
[11:16]did.
[11:16]And maybe that goes to her relationship
[11:18]with the role of Dom in the book, which I won't get into.
[11:21]Mm-hmm.
[11:24]There was always an air of disappointment
[11:28]that I picked up from my mother.
[11:30]She never spoke about it.
[11:32]She never drove home points to me.
[11:37]But it was very clear to me at an early age
[11:40]that my mother was an extraordinary woman,
[11:43]living an ordinary life.
[11:45]And that was a sore spot for me,
[11:49]because I was always on her team and championing her
[11:54]and never judged any of her actions,
[11:57]never had any resentment toward her in any way,
[12:01]which I never really looked at carefully
[12:04]until I was in my own midlife.
[12:06]And so she did not get what she wanted.
[12:11]And in so many ways, she had all the attributes, too,
[12:17]get what she wanted.
[12:19]And I think that was always a little bit of a disconnect
[12:22]for me and a little bit of an insecurity
[12:27]in the sense that is this woman could get what she wanted.
[12:34]She looked like Rhea Woods when she woke up in the morning
[12:37]and it only got better from there.
[12:40]She was also extremely smart and excelled in history
[12:46]and math.
[12:47]Of course, when you're that beautiful,
[12:49]you can be in life too beautiful.
[12:51]And when you're that beautiful,
[12:53]no matter what your other attributes are,
[12:55]your calling card is always superficial
[12:59]and how you look.
[13:01]And that was no different for her.
[13:04]But when you live with someone who is so unattainable,
[13:10]so unattainable and so majestic,
[13:16]what it does to the child who doesn't look quite like her
[13:20]is to say, well, you know, if she's not happy,
[13:25]if she didn't get what she wanted in life,
[13:30]what hope is that they are for the rest of us.
[13:33]And so that notion of being difficult to be an adult
[13:38]is something that I was always very mindful of
[13:43]at an early age.
[13:45]And I think it shaped a certain path for me in that,
[13:51]even though I might have been a little uncertain,
[13:55]I did not want to lead an ordinary life.
[13:59]I almost wanted to kind of step in
[14:02]and be a completion of something for her
[14:06]to make things come of circle.
[14:10]And so whether it was something I had to prove to her
[14:14]or to myself, not being ordinary,
[14:19]became important to me.
[14:21]That makes sense.
[14:22]I mean, I feel like your mother, if she lived today,
[14:26]like it would be so much easier for her to get the attention
[14:29]that she was craving back then,
[14:30]but there just wasn't the meaning for it.
[14:32]You know what I mean?
[14:33]Like you do YouTube videos of herself
[14:36]and you know, there should be all over the place.
[14:38]You know what I mean?
[14:39]I feel like it just, there just wasn't a forum
[14:41]for somebody like her back then.
[14:43]And so it led to so much frustration.
[14:45]So I don't know if it's good or bad thing
[14:47]but now anybody can sort of like pop themselves
[14:49]onto the public scene, if you will, but I don't know.
[14:55]Well, certainly for her today,
[14:57]I've been asked a lot, what would your mother do
[14:59]if she was born in another generation?
[15:02]And, you know, I do see her as an actress.
[15:07]I think she, you know, with the whole hashtag movements
[15:12]that are around, you know, I think she would have
[15:15]in another era actually become an actress.
[15:21]I see her as that, you know, with her own,
[15:24]I don't know if it would be a YouTube following
[15:26]but she certainly have her own Instagram persona
[15:28]and then put with that it down.
[15:31]But I also always see her in relationship to someone else.
[15:36]And so I see her being very happy at someone's side
[15:44]and helping them build something together.
[15:49]I think my mother was a man's woman.
[15:52]She was a woman's woman too.
[15:53]She had a lot of friends but she was a man's woman.
[15:57]I think she really liked that whole dynamic
[16:02]and fed off of it.
[16:04]Very liked being the different woman,
[16:07]the one who could mingle between the worlds
[16:10]of women and the worlds of men.
[16:13]And that set her apart in many ways for her era
[16:17]might not be the same now.
[16:19]So whether she would be married to someone like a Ted Turner,
[16:24]you know, I could for doing that kind of thing
[16:27]and loving to move the pieces around on the chess board
[16:30]of life with someone important at your side,
[16:33]that kind of thing.
[16:35]So one or the other, or maybe both,
[16:37]Jane Fonda was an actress and married to Ted Turner.
[16:40]She would have done the same thing.
[16:43]And I think my father who was so musically inclined
[16:49]would probably have loved the platforms of today.
[16:55]All of his efforts creatively never kind of made it
[16:58]through the music industry matrix,
[17:01]the life of the time and DJs or whatever.
[17:06]But today would have been different
[17:07]and he had a strong business sense.
[17:10]So I think he would have loved it
[17:12]and probably ended up producing.
[17:14]That's how I see him today.
[17:16]And you know, they're both so important to each other's stories.
[17:20]I would have, I would wish them well,
[17:22]maybe even an independent life from one another.
[17:27]And I feel like your relationship with your dad
[17:30]and the way you wrote about him was just as poignant.
[17:32]I know it focuses more on your mother,
[17:34]but you did subtitle it a daughter's memoir
[17:37]and not like a mother daughter memoir,
[17:39]which I think is important because your relationship
[17:41]with your dad was super relevant to all of it.
[17:44]And sometimes it seemed a reaction
[17:47]to your relationship with your mom.
[17:49]But the way that you wrote about what happened to him
[17:51]after his herniest surgery
[17:53]and I won't like go into any details
[17:55]because I don't want to give anything away.
[17:57]But the way you wrote about that
[17:58]and your feelings about him and the closeness
[18:00]and it was so good.
[18:03]And I was just wondering what you thought
[18:04]about when one parent kind of takes up all the air
[18:07]in the room, what happens to that other relationship?
[18:10]Sure.
[18:12]Well, my mother eclipsed everything for me,
[18:15]maybe because my aunt were there too.
[18:18]I loved them and I knew they loved me
[18:21]but my prize was winning my mother.
[18:27]And that chase and that longing
[18:31]just was preeminent for me.
[18:34]And so my father and my aunt, as much as I loved them
[18:39]were a little diminished by the qualities
[18:43]of the relationship with my mother.
[18:47]And had I been more certain of her love and devotion,
[18:53]it might have been different for the other people
[18:56]in the household, for the other adults in the household.
[18:59]But unfortunately, he was just not the same intense focus
[19:05]that my mother was.
[19:06]That said, he was extraordinarily important to me
[19:12]and by the time I finished the book, I realized
[19:16]I'm so much like him.
[19:19]And this has been a completion,
[19:24]not only for my mother,
[19:27]but for my father as well.
[19:31]I was able to do things in my own life
[19:35]that fulfilled some hope or mission for him.
[19:40]And will I answer your whole question?
[19:43]That was great.
[19:44]It was great.
[19:45]It was good.
[19:46]It might be like, no, that's him.
[19:47]It's great.
[19:48]I just like hearing a little more about it.
[19:50]I do it almost at a time now, but tell me,
[19:52]I want to hear more about skirting the rules.
[19:54]I spent a long time on the website last night
[19:57]and reading out questions and anyway.
[20:00]I'm a creator too, I'm a creator too.
[20:03]Yeah, so this has been a creative journey
[20:06]that has taken years to get to the book
[20:09]that you held in your hand.
[20:10]And as I said at the beginning,
[20:12]it was sparked by this notion to write,
[20:15]it happened while I was in London
[20:17]and I was looking at portraits
[20:21]of fabric women and unconventional women from the 18th century.
[20:26]And as usual, I was thinking about my mother.
[20:30]and picturing her in their time.
[20:32]And then like a movie scene or a lightning strike,
[20:36]I got hit with this notion
[20:39]where I became compelled to write,
[20:41]to learn about these women and write more about them,
[20:44]the phrase, skirting the rules came into my head.
[20:48]And so fast forward, 16 years later,
[20:52]skirting the rules is the trademark brand.
[20:54]And even before this book came out,
[20:57]it opened the door to helping women understand themselves
[21:03]more deeply and to kind of share the beginning
[21:08]of my own reinvention journey.
[21:11]So the site is you're not there yet.
[21:14]Thank you for taking the quiz.
[21:15]Anyway, this site is more for me to reinvent their lives.
[21:22]And my work world has really always been about invention
[21:28]and reinvention.
[21:30]I'm working with brands and even more so
[21:33]since the magazine brands that I worked on
[21:37]kind of looked their digital future in the eye
[21:40]and really didn't know what to say next.
[21:42]Everything is in a state of reinvention
[21:47]in challenging times as everything accelerates
[21:50]and swiftly moves from an old story to a new one.
[21:56]And the process of writing this particular book
[22:01]which took 15 months nonstop
[22:05]where I put everything else in a draw
[22:08]and basically took my first sabbatical ever
[22:14]because the moment to write this book
[22:16]and tell this story was now.
[22:18]I decided that there were so many lessons in that
[22:23]that I would create a program
[22:28]that help other women who were 50 plus
[22:31]kind of be the author of their own lives
[22:33]because I went through certain steps to get here
[22:38]and I thought that that was a worthy endeavor
[22:41]to help other women because always working in women's media
[22:46]I know there's one struggle
[22:49]and that is women are searching for something.
[22:53]And my own authentic journey can maybe illuminate some spots
[22:58]and some paths in the road.
[23:00]And so I started doing it at library
[23:03]and while I was writing the book
[23:05]that was the one thing I did
[23:07]I would have a skirting the rules course
[23:10]and it's an each step program
[23:12]and I work with women
[23:14]and now I'll be starting to work with corporations
[23:17]on helping women invent and reinvent
[23:21]for their best futures.
[23:22]So all of this kind of came out of the book
[23:25]and that first impulse to write about my mother
[23:29]and it led to all of these other things.
[23:31]Wow, how great is that?
[23:33]You end up helping all these other people.
[23:34]I mean, that's wonderful.
[23:36]Who knew? Who knew? Who knew?
[23:38]Who knew?
[23:39]I know it seems that there might be workshops
[23:42]or boomer mothers like me
[23:44]and their millennial daughters.
[23:47]Oh, interesting.
[23:47]You know, my, I know we're almost at a time
[23:50]but it is an interesting point.
[23:52]My generation of mothers is really the first
[23:56]to have careers on loss.
[23:59]And now the world is changing as we talked about
[24:04]and millennial who are our prodigy
[24:08]want more balance in their lives.
[24:10]And they may not want the same thing that we did.
[24:14]You know, I kind of unraveled the myths of my mother
[24:18]and humanized her as part of the process of writing the book.
[24:22]And there are many myths around women and work
[24:26]and achievement, especially as the corporations
[24:30]that hired by generation are melting away
[24:34]and transforming from hundreds of thousands of corporations
[24:39]into millions and millions of untethered millennials
[24:43]trying to find their next thing.
[24:46]And so it's a, it's a never before seen moment in time
[24:52]where our daughters may not be able,
[24:55]at least on paper, title-wise,
[24:59]your path, the boomer mothers of my generation.
[25:02]And that's fascinating to me.
[25:05]And it opens the door to a gazillion new conversation.
[25:09]Do you have any parting advice to aspiring authors out there?
[25:13]I do. Well, first of all, there's a stick to it of myth
[25:17]that is a part of writing.
[25:20]And everyone seems to go through the same notions
[25:22]of reading what they wrote and saying, oh my God,
[25:25]this is the worst thing ever.
[25:27]No one will ever read this.
[25:29]I think I'm an enormous fan of women's voices.
[25:33]And I think there are so many stories that need to be told.
[25:37]And I think getting it out in draft form
[25:41]and just accepting that every finished book
[25:45]is like draft 392.
[25:49]And life is in the editing and the book is no different.
[25:53]So stick with it and keep refining.
[25:56]It's great.
[25:57]Well, thank you so much.
[25:58]I really appreciate your coming on the show
[26:00]and taking out your time and sharing your story with us.
[26:04]It was so great and keep doing what you're doing as well.
[26:07]So impressed.
[26:08]Thank you.
[26:09]All right, take care.
[26:11]Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:13]You can follow me on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time
[26:16]to Read Books.
[26:17]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[26:20]for the Sound Editing.
[26:21]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[26:23]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.
[26:26]Thanks for listening.
[26:27]You can always email me at zibi at zibiowans.com.