Finding Your Classic Style and Embracing Who YOU are with Artist, Author and Mother, Kate Schelter

scottie  0:00  
Scott, welcome to the momplex Podcast. I am your host. Scotty Durrett, my passion and purpose is to help other moms just like me rediscover their joy and step into their confidence as their kids grow up, join me as I share my own experiences, my own mistakes and aha moments as I navigate this incredible journey of motherhood while trying not to lose my identity. If you are a modern day mama who is ready to live for herself, not just for her kids, and knows

Scottie Durrett  0:34  
that is the best possible gift you could give, then you are in the right place. This is momplex. You okay, my beautiful mamas today, we're talking to a woman and my new best friend that I just met in real life. She has lived about three glorious lifetimes in one, she's an author, she's an artist, she's a visionary, she's a creative director, she's a RISD grad, New York fashion world powerhouse. She's a mom of three, and she's done it all with this rare mix of fierce intuition, ambition and a lot of unapologetic soul, which you know I love. You've seen her work everywhere, in vogue, bergdorfs, I mean, St Regis, The New York Times. She has a book. I mean, she is a complete badass, but what I love most is that the Kate we're meeting today, she's not just the artist who's built a career from pure talent and pure fire, but she's a woman who's let an identity unravel when motherhood and life and covid cracked her wide open, and instead of letting it knock her down, and instead of letting it kind of prevent her from going after her dreams, she actually stepped into something deeper, and we're going to talk about that today. She actually left the noise and she left the shoulds and she left the pressure, and she's re found a truth, and I think it's actually helped her come back into a vision and a version of herself that's actually going to be even more exciting. We're going to talk about that today, because it's making her even more alive and more beautiful and more soul infused, which is going to help her brand and her business become even more powerful in a world that is becoming more machine and more AI and more replicated by less authenticity. She is even more authenticity, and as a mom of three, she's doing something that I'm obsessed with. She's designing a life that you love, not a life that you just survive. No martyrdom, no shrinking, no apologizing for wanting more than one identity at a time. Kate is living proof that you don't have to choose between being an incredible mother and being an incredible human and going after your dreams. You can do it all. You can be it all. And today we're going to talk about how to do all of that. So Kate shelter, I'm so happy you're here. And welcome to momflex.

Kate Schelter  2:58  
Thank you, Scottie, for that amazing introduction. It's so nice to hear that, because wouldn't it be nice if we all had like, a running broadcast in our heads of the nicest things people could possibly say about us at all times? Yep, we deserve it. Usually it's, you know, just it's me and my studio having conversations with myself, so it's a pleasure to be here. I'm so excited about the mission that you're broadcasting about moms, leading by example with their children and dreaming big, creating example for your kids, where they see you dream big, they see you try. They see you succeed, they see you stumble, they see you fumble. You know, we're all living in Richard scary's busy town where there's just like shit happening all the time. Excuse My French and you like to curse here. Yeah. I mean, I think that's the reality is that I'm pretty over the polished perfection that we see so often on digital channels. And I always, always, always prefer what is under the surface and hearing what's really going on with people, and what people are really excited about what people are really terrified by, and helping them bridge that mindset so that you can enter the realm of possibility with excitement and deep play.

Scottie Durrett  4:36  
I love that. It gave me goosebumps, especially because that's the core of identity, right? I think especially in your work, when you're talking about helping brands, and we're going to dive into that, but you really that's what gets you so excited, right? When you're helping a client really understand who they are, you've got to help that person become brave, right? Like, how do you separate yourself from this over. Overpopulation, this over saturation in the creative world, right? Like you've got to be able to be authentically brave and vulnerable, because that's where the magic is, right? And I think that happens with our kids, right? We all know how special our kids are, right? We see them every day behind the scenes. We see the magic that they are from sunrise to sunset, and then they go out into the world, and it's easy for kids to get lost, right? We know how loud the world can be, and we want them to start to get we want them to appreciate their voice, and we're seeing that now in the career world, right? Like the voices are getting so drowned out by how many people are out there. I mean, you open up the phone, I can't even tell anymore What's being created by a human and what's being created by AI. I'm getting joked by all the time. My kids actually say, Mom, that's not even real. That's that's AI right now. So I think, to your point, more than ever, how important it is for us to really become so brave with our authenticity, and to be like you said, this is it's okay to fumble. It's actually beautiful to fumble. It's actually that's where it's going to be like we need to show the scars, we need to show, like the laughter and the tears and the mistakes and all of it, because I think that's what's going to be so attractive, is that humanity so backing up a little bit, you built this huge, creative, unbelievable career in New York, the kind of path women dream about, the kind of path that us on the West Coast, we saw on Sex and the City and then, you know, motherhood and covid kind of knocked you off Path. I guess it cracked everything open. What did that unraveling feel like to you?

Kate Schelter  6:46  
I felt like a lot of fear. So I went from living in New York City for 20 years and basically turning a life of what I was passionate about, individual, authentic personal style, and turning that into a career for myself and I've worked with multiple mediums, first as a photographer, a trend reporter, Creative Director, fashion stylist, And then the owner of my own branding agency. I spent so many years running like just so excited and like high on the the excitement of New York City and being able to work with such amazing people and meet your mentors and dreaming really big. And New Yorkers have this wonderful sense of anything is possible, especially the over the top, and that is intoxicating. And when I was pregnant with our second child, after six years of infertility and IVF treatments, I finally became pregnant with our second child, and we decided to leave the city so that we could have the things people leave the city for, like green grass and peace and quiet, all that stuff. We got here we moved back to outside of Philadelphia, which is exactly where I was raised and born, and six months later, covid happened, so I had a six month old. I was like, pushing the baby stroller outside the local grocery store, and I just, like, was so terrified that we were all gonna die, and that it was I knocked on the window of the grocery store, and I burst into tears, and this woman came out, and she's, I was like, I have a baby. I am too scared to go to CVS to even buy, like, soap, and I don't, my baby's just starting to eat solid foods. I can't. I'm like, and she's like, don't worry. And she went in the store, like, made two grocery bags for me, of like, yogurt, sweet potatoes, things like that. Gosh, brought them out to me, and I'm, like, crying. I gave her money, and there was just like that. And that's legitimate fear. I mean, that's, yeah, that's the fear of survival that really helps keep us alive. That's the helpful fear. Then we had a third child, which was a surprise when I became pregnant when I was 44 and this is after my second child, six years of infertility. So for whatever reason, it was the biggest, biggest, biggest blessing. And I, you know, we welcomed it, but it was just, it just burst open my entire soul to have two children in two years during covid and suffer what felt like a loss of professional identity, which was a huge part of my personal identity. Yeah. Yeah, and that was the just try to survive. Do not try to thrive. Moment for me, I was like, basically, if you can just get through every day, that's all you need to do. But when that cycle repeats itself day after day after day for several years, it became a large like personal challenge for me, something which I had not experienced before. And so suddenly, I was no longer in the environment, surrounded around the people and the mentality of New York City, my social network, my professional network, the sense of community, where everybody kind of knows everybody else, and they know you. And of course, I was with my family and I was in my own house, but I didn't recognize myself. I knew something needed to happen.

Scottie Durrett  10:59  
I and I can relate to this a little bit. So, you know, it's, it's such a big deal because you, of course, you had worked so hard for your career, and then you had worked so hard to build your family, right? I mean,

Kate Schelter  11:11  
it was sitting in the abundant nest of everything that I ever dreamed of in my entire life, and I was afraid I was waking up in the middle of the night, sweating. I was scared to have conversations with people that I shouldn't have be like just of I was just not myself. I lost my PO do, yeah, and on the surface, I probably seemed the same. I was still doing my best. I was still able to be function. I don't think it was so much depression as it was anxiety, and just like the shock of taking me out of a place, feeling like my professional identity had been stripped. Like, you know, if a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to hear it, you're like, if a mom of three is living outside of New York City and she never sees her friends, then what like?

Scottie Durrett  12:09  
That's such a great analogy, right? Because Absolutely, here you had, I here you had worked your entire life building that identity in New York. You know, you had blood, sweat and tears. That's who you were. You had, you know, Creative Director, you had a whole history of work. And then it was,

Kate Schelter  12:29  
yeah, and it was very kind of like, I don't want to say effortless, but it was sort of just like there was a care freeness to it, like it was just like, it was never like, Oh, I'm gonna do this and this and this and this. It was like, Oh, this leads to this. And then this person leads to this job, and this person recommend it was, like, very much a carefree attitude. And then when I when I left, and then I had my family expanded, everything felt like it had to be way more intentional. And also I just didn't feel like I had an audience. And that's that's something that's very satisfying when you're a creative person, like you want an audience emotionally, and also you want people who appreciate the same things. And I don't think that, like our children are meant to be our audience. You know, that's not what that's not the relationship. I hear you, Mom, I see you. I validate you.

Scottie Durrett  13:35  
I love that analogy, yeah, but I think that goes back to we're allowed you have this incredible identity, and then we become moms, and we're allowed to pivot. We're allowed to put that on the shelf while we pour our heart into building the family. And then when we get our feet underneath us, right, because it does feel like you're drowning for a second, and right in the middle of covid. You said it so well, there's a real fear. There's a real fear. When you become a mom, let's just say, under normal circumstance,

Kate Schelter  14:06  
yeah, you have to keep someone else alive. That's That's it, yeah. But then, what if, like, What if I die? What if my husband dies? What if any, you know, like, what if we all die? And what I started to realize is that, like, basically, we could all die at any moment, at any time, not just during covid. It was heightened, but it just made me that much more hungry for, like, you know, going for it and doing the things and dreaming big. So I was experiencing this distance and this disconnection from things that were one of the things I do now as I go into New York City once or twice a week, no questions asked, non negotiable, it's essential for me to feel connected to the people that I. Love into the play, a place that I love and just have space for myself. And that came from a therapist who was like, you know, she said, this has to be unconditional, like you don't need to wait for the once or twice a month when somebody invites you to do something, or there's an event, or she's like, you're you have the ability to go into the city whenever you want. I love that, even if you go you don't have a plan. You just walk around do that, because otherwise you're going to resent if we give up part of if we give up too much of our identity. That is, like deep, deeply ingrained, and we do it for someone else or some something else, then we're going to end up result, excuse me, resenting that person. It's like we've given up too much. This is my way of filling myself up so that when I come back, I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm so happy here. And also it creates this seamless connection where I feel like I'm still the person that I am and was, but I'm living in a different place. For some reason, it was a it was a big thing for me to leave the city. And I know a lot of people leave the city and then they move back because of that same reason.

Scottie Durrett  16:14  
You and I talk a lot about the the connection to our soul. I think that's really important. And I do think there's a soul match. I do think that people have a real connection to a city. I think there's, there is a chemistry, right? I think cities can make us feel alive. We talk so much about the simplicity of really listening to our bodies, you obviously feel an electricity in New York City that makes you feel connected to yourself, connected to your creativity, connected to a part of you, and not to mention an identity. There's a history, right? There's a history of you growing up there. There's a history of you becoming who you are, becoming who you are that led you to become the person that chose to become a mom, right? Like you might not have made the choices that you did right.

Kate Schelter  17:01  
Had our first child in New York, and we lived there for six years with her. And it was seamless. It was, it was perfect. I mean, nothing's perfect, but it was. It worked really well. I've lived in a lot of cities in a lot of all over the world, actually, and but New York was the city that I lived the longest, other than where I grew up, really captured my heart.

Scottie Durrett  17:27  
So that's the one thing you do now. This kind of you know you're going into the city a couple times a week, you do that unapologetically, and it's it's unconditional. I love that the therapist told you this because it's empowering.

Kate Schelter  17:40  
It's very empowering. It's very important. Like, don't wait, just do it. And there's no judgment. You know, you don't have to have a reason. And sometimes the hardest part of that day is just walking out the door and getting in the car to go to the train. And sometimes I'm just like, just get in the car. Just get in the car, go, and then it's like, that initial step right to New York. I'm like, oh, there's like, a million things I want to go do. And my friends are used to me texting, being like, I'm going to be there tomorrow. Like, who am I going to meet? Who wants to have lunch? Or what gallery openings are there? Or, you know what's going on. And now people know that I come in so that they think of me to do things, whereas before they might have thought like Kate's on here. So it's my way of showing up for myself.

Scottie Durrett  18:29  
I love that there. I think a lot of moms listening can relate. A lot of moms do feel this guilt that they they want more, right? Because, gosh, how many times have we been told, Oh, you're so lucky women that can't have kids. You should, you know, this kind of weird message that we get from maybe our elders or society that, you know, gosh, this is your job. There should be nothing else that you should want than to be a mom. And so then I had to go over this grief of like, gosh, I must be a bitch, because I love my kids, but I cannot be at home with them all day long. It's making me angry. It's making me not enjoy being with them. You know, I had to go through a lot.

Kate Schelter  19:12  
That feeling comes from not doing enough of what you love. I mean, it can be that you're overwhelmed for what's going on, but often it comes from the you're not doing enough to fill yourself up, or doing enough of what you really love, or what you're really good at, or what you really want to be doing. And that's comes out in anger, rage, you know. And know, I've been all those places,

Scottie Durrett  19:47  
and I love it. I think we should be talking about this, yeah, versus hiding it.

Kate Schelter  19:52  
No, I don't hide it. I mean, my my close friends and family are used to me calling them in tears. Oh. And they just have to, like, Kate was gonna remind you of the same thing I told you last time I'm like, but that's good. That's what

Scottie Durrett  20:07  
you want your kids to see, the becoming the unraveling, the rebuilding.

Kate Schelter  20:11  
I had a coach that I worked with named Sasha Hines, and she had the best advice. She said, when you're thinking about yourself. Think about yourself as if you were a character in a movie. What would you be rooting for that character? How would you want her story to turn out? And you can flip that even further and think if you have a child, how would you want their story to unfold. What would you be rooting for? Would you want them to sit at home crying for some, for somebody else, or for no you would want to let them have the wings to fly high, you know, like you would want to set them up for an extraordinary life. That doesn't mean doing everything for them, but it certainly means, you know, opening up the door and saying, I'm here for you when you come home. You know, I love that. I love

Scottie Durrett  21:09  
that, if you were watching yourself in a movie, you'd be rooting for him, right? The whole time. You'd be rooting for him the

Kate Schelter  21:15  
whole time. So I have a 12 year old daughter, and I'm thinking, like, what would I want for her? I'd want her to have the best fucking life she could possibly have. 100% 100%

Scottie Durrett  21:27  
I think about this all the time. I tell my kids, how many you can do, anything you can be, anything you can have, anything I have to go first. I have to walk that walk, right? Because if I'm sitting on my butt feeling sorry for myself. They're gonna, in their head, say, I'm really confused. Yeah, I am so confused. My mom is sitting here telling me I can swim, I can bike, I can love, I can dream, I can go after everything. And my mom's sitting over here sad and unhappy and angry all the time. That's these puzzle pieces are not fitting, yeah, you know. And it's, it's, you know, it's like, we want them to swim. We have to learn how to swim. And so I love, I love that, just that it's a good analogy. It's like, if you're rooting for yourself in that movie, of course, I I'm rooting for myself to go get with Ryan Gosling in the notebook. Like, come on, we have to talk about your creativity. We've got to talk about this, because this is bursting out of your heart. And this is really, you know, this is you were, I mean, I'm assuming you were born with this, but you've written a book, you went to RISD. I mean, this is, this is who you are. But let's talk about your art. Let's talk about your creativity. Let's talk about your dream and what you're doing this because this is, this is probably involved in how you're raising your kids. This is involved in how you're walking the streets of New York, and this is involved in how you're working with your clients. I mean, tell me about it. Tell me about everything. I want to know it all honestly.

Kate Schelter  22:54  
And I'm not trying to do a hard plug, but if you read my book, more classic style. Hand it down, dress it up. Wear it out. Indeed, the thread of my whole career and my own philosophy is personal, authentic style that gets into everything that I do. The book literally talks and is illustrating my upbringing and the influences that my parents had, my family had, my education and then starting my career and how that happened, so that I always like to share that with people, but then it also helps readers define their own personal style, to forget what's cool and go with your gut instinct. And as well as I've illustrated over like 150 items that I consider to be sort of fail safe, classic icons that kind of work for everyone.

Scottie Durrett  23:56  
So she can actually access this, learn about you, see your talent, but also use it almost as a manual to kind of help her kick off her own and then, like a get started here with your best picks, and then she's kind of building her own personal, authentic style from this.

Kate Schelter  24:16  
Yeah, it says, The intro says the key to personal style is simple. Forget what's cool and trust your gut. The magic is in your mix. When you draw confidence from your classics, the pieces that you come back to again and again, your style is your own. Classics let you do more and be more with less. This is very much like the essence of my design philosophy, and a lot of it is things that I learned along the way, but yeah, the thread is like helping people remove everything and then slowly build or rebuild the simple essence of what makes them sincere. You. Unique and different, often based on your story or your history. And so I work a lot with brands who are very well established, but they need to like, they need like a rebirth. They need a revitalization. They need to refresh for a new market or a new customer. And I also help new brands when they're sort of have a direction that they're going in, but like they haven't quite figured out their color palette or their typography yet for their logo. But it's more than just visual identity design, which I do, let's say I'm working with a, you know, a skincare brand. I would say, if you were a restaurant, which restaurant would you be? If you were a travel destination, what travel destination would you be? If you were a pair of shoes, what pair of shoes would you be? And I really believe that, like all of these visual indicators, signal to the rest of the world based on their iconography, who you are, what you stand for, and I also believe that we can identify false identities immediately. The idea is to be who you really are. It's like wearing your heart on your sleeve. How do you coax the heart and the soul out of a brand or a person and then broadcast that to the world with you know, beauty and joy and a sense of playfulness or a sense of naughtiness, or, you know, whatever your brand is, it's it doesn't have to be what I'm telling you to be. My goal is to make it more authentically you.

Scottie Durrett  26:55  
I want to do this for a retreat for just people, yeah, because you see this all the time, and I, I love social media. I hate social media, I really do, because I think it fucks with our brains all the time, especially because I'm a content creator, which I flipping hate. You have to do it for your business, and I try to put stuff out, and my head is, I'm like, oh gosh, is this hook? Okay? Is this filter? Okay? And it changes you. It changes how you talk. It changes how you show up. And it's you see it all the time, and it's It just shifts how I think people would actually have a conversation with another person. And it's as you're saying these things, I'm thinking, Gosh, what shoe am I? I'm a flip flop. You know. It's like, what you know, it's like, are we actually wearing our heart on our sleeves, when we're really showing up in our day, are we really showing up as our true selves? Because that's really what we deserve, what our kids deserve, what our work deserves, what our dreams deserve. And I love it, and it's it's so exciting that you're doing this work with these big companies, these big companies can give us that can show up on a billboard like that, please, please, please. That's what we want. That's what we need. You owe it to us, because that's what these kids are witnessing all the time. You know we need somebody to be brave as shit and go first, yeah. And because that's what's dripping down and having such an impact, like, Please break the rules. Somebody. Please go and get be the salmon. Somewhere. Be the salmon. It's funny, when

Kate Schelter  28:31  
I remember my book came out, I was like, thinking in terms of Instagram captions. And I was like, yourself doing everything and saying everything, and you're like, Ah, I came down to was I tend to post more of, just like my finished artwork, and a lot of people are saying, Can you please post more of the process? And I was like, Well, I can't, except for that, I have to, like, set up a camera, and when I really just want to be painting. The bottom line is, what I told myself is only try to post things that you will inspire other people. Don't try to post like your fancy friend or your fancy restaurant or your whatever, because, again, false identity post what inspires other people. Okay? And it might be that you're in a fancy place, and that's inspiring to somebody, but I should be sort of default. So I post things that I'm excited about, love that inspired about in hoping that that will translate with other people, that that will resonate, but

Scottie Durrett  29:39  
at least you're following your heart. I think that's the point, right? Like you're you're going with what at least you're saying is you and I know you've worked on your mission. I know you've worked so hard, you're at least you're creative, so you can't help yourself. You know it's important for you that it's esthetically pleasing. Thing you know that's that's your eye. You see things through that kaleidoscope. That's your vision.

Kate Schelter  30:05  
It's like voice and vision. So what we all have that's unique,

Scottie Durrett  30:10  
but at least you're doing it through your authentic lens and not somebody else's rules. I think that's the point of it, right? What you just said, forget what's cool. Go with your gut, right?

Kate Schelter  30:19  
I never do it with someone else's rules, because I see creativity as basic as handwriting, like it's it's impossible. I mean, and I'm a good drawer, I could copy someone's handwriting, maybe a sentence, but I could I write six pages of notes in someone else's handwriting? No, it would have to be in my handwriting style is your default. And I believe there's even a haven't read my book in a while, but there's a chapter called your style is your pajamas. It's like what you're doing when you're not trying to be doing the thing that you think you should be doing.

Scottie Durrett  30:58  
I don't think I could post anything on Instagram. Then people

Kate Schelter  31:05  
are like, what this whole thing, you know? And then they're like, Yeah, that's amazing. It's like, so that's a metaphor, because obviously we're not always in our pajamas, but yeah, like your style is what you are where no one else sees you. It's also when you're at the height of yourself and you want to broadcast something and, you know, dress up. I'm a huge believer in the power of dressing up and the power of dressing up for night life, which was a huge part of my life for about 20 years, going out dancing at night, was more than just about that. It was about putting, you know, trying on parts of ourselves experimenting with outfits, which is, you know, self expression. And that was, again, it's easier to analyze in hindsight, because probably at the time, I was like, Yeah, I just want to be out with my friends and dancing. It's fun. But all those outfits I put together, all of you know, the thrift stores and vintage pieces that I found, especially when I was younger and on a, you know, tighter budget, all of that was like honing your vision, honing your identity, honing what you love, getting rid of what note, what you don't love, bringing more of what you Do like closer to your heart?

Scottie Durrett  32:21  
Yeah, which makes sense, if you had done all that work and then you had kids, and you left the city, she couldn't help but burst out again. You know, it's like she couldn't if she lived in a different zip code, and I think we owe it to our kids to let her come back out, right? Like I believe that We're soul mates for our kids. I don't believe that we are our kids moms by accident. I think our kids are meant to learn how to do life from us specifically and to this point of this whole authentic conversation, the way that you dress up, the way that you find your style, the way that you walk down the sidewalk, the way that you see the world that's you are meant to show your kids that and right,

Kate Schelter  33:08  
like, obviously, like, I think parents are children's first introduction to like, what's possible or what else is out there. Luckily, we can get that from so many more people as we get older, leave the house. But even just like my my son, I came down the other day, and I'm wearing stockings and boots or high heels or something. He's like, Mama, what are those? Why are your legs black? And I'm like, This is what I wear when I get dressed up to go to the city. And he's like, Oh, you get dressed up to go to the city I love it should I get dressed

Scottie Durrett  33:43  
up unapologetic. This is me. Yeah, me. This is me right now. You know, this is me right now, and embracing it. And I just, I think it's so powerful. And I this whole idea of, like, the ending mommy martyrdom, the shoulds, and you did that, you know, you literally, you stepped away from you had to in so many different ways, but you found the courage to make these choices that didn't necessarily make sense to other people and maybe didn't make sense to you at that time either. But I think a lot of self trust came from that, right? And I think you continue to build that self trust right? Where you're getting in the car you're leaving our advocacy, yeah, yeah, that self advocacy, yeah.

Kate Schelter  34:25  
My experience has been that what the more responsible I am for others, the more nerve wracking life can feel, and the more I need to do things for myself, and I need to, like, be very diligent about advocating for myself and not doing everything for other people. Oh, interesting. You maintain that. You maintain your sense of self. To be honest,

Scottie Durrett  34:50  
you're saying like so the more pressure you feel, the more necessary your antidote is, the more you need to take care. I have

Kate Schelter  34:58  
to do things where I feel free. Me, and that can come in a lot of different formats. I have to do things where I feel connected to other people. I have to feed that side of my soul, because it doesn't come as easily, because I'm not just myself anymore. Yeah, and you know, I'm not raising kids who just want to, like, stay at home all the time. I want to go out into the world and interact with the world, travel all those things. And so while everything starts at home, as a mother like I think, I mean, some of the most my most fun times with my children have been where we go out and do things, and also it's nice to be at home too, but yeah, I sort of like for me personally, I had to advocate for myself and become very clear on what I needed to do and why I felt I needed to do it, because otherwise I would feel I lacked the confidence to go forward or go through with the things that I wanted to do. I would just be like, Okay, no, no, I'll just, I'll cancel what I need to do and take care of this or whatever, stay home because whatever. And then that would build inside of me as resentment. To be totally honest, you can't really resent your children, but you can resent other caretakers of the children, like their your spouse or and it's not their fault. It's not your fault either. It's just awareness. So I do it for all of us. That's what I tell myself. I'm doing it for me, but I'm really doing it for all of us.

Scottie Durrett  36:39  
And you know, one thing that's really helped me so much, because it's these are normal thoughts. These are normal conversations for us to have. And my I always think my kids are counting on me. They do not care what I'm doing when they're not around me. They do not care. They don't even ask, but they really care who I am when they show up. Yeah, right. So they're really looking for me like, I do not care how you're spending your time when you're away from me. But I really,

Kate Schelter  37:08  
I don't think they know that we exist when they're like, they have no concept doing,

Scottie Durrett  37:13  
but they expect me to be happy when they walk in the door, to have the patience, to have the mood and the time and the energy in the presence. So it's my job to do whatever I need to do, figure out whatever it is I need so that I become the person that they're counting on. You know, it's like figuring out what do I need? What do I need?

Kate Schelter  37:33  
Take that one step further, also, something I've learned from my therapist is not to be figuring out what they need all the time and fixing everything we love that I was talking to like a counselor one of my kids schools about something else, and she used a term snow plow parent, that is a parent who clears

Scottie Durrett  38:00  
the way we're past helicopter parent. We're past. We're now, yeah, this is

Kate Schelter  38:05  
another mode of transportation. And I was like, Oh, I feel like I'm guilty of starting to go down that path a little bit where, like, you know, you know, when you're again, if something's like life or death, of course you're going to help your child. But I was starting to be the parent where, you know, a child would come to me and, like I said, I have a middle schooler, and, you know, if there would be an issue or whatever, and I'd be like, Oh, well, let me basically, let me fix it for you. And what does that say to my child? It says that I don't think she can trust herself. I don't think she can trust I don't think she can fix it herself. She thinks that. I don't think she can fix it herself, huge. So the best thing to do is just sit there and shut the fuck up, yep, and listen. And listening means not talking, which is something I had to learn later in life. Listening also means like nodding my head and saying, I hear you, yep. Listening means sitting on her bed for 10 minutes while the lights out and she's gone to sleep, just so she knows that I'm there. It's just that feeling that you're not alone. But it doesn't mean doing the homework for them, doing the whatever for them.

Scottie Durrett  39:18  
Yeah, I love everything you said, especially that subconscious belief that they believe that they you believe they can, right?

Kate Schelter  39:29  
Yeah, and it's like, think about like I was always very resourceful from a young age, and always had this like dreams, and also like, I'm going to make this happen, and that's probably because the parents didn't do everything for me. In fact, they did certain things really well, but there was other things where I wish at the time they had done more of but it made me super resourceful and resilient and. I'm ambitious,

Scottie Durrett  40:01  
and you're living proof of that right now.

Kate Schelter  40:05  
As a parent, you don't want to over coddle. And that sounds obvious, but it comes out in a lot of other manifestations that are just not helping our children. Like, for example, I love this book, the anxious generation. His main, one of his main the author's main tenants, is we're under protecting our children in the digital world, and we're over protecting them in the physical world. Kids aren't even allowed to walk to the candy store anymore. And I thought about this weekend we went for a hike as a family, and two youngest kids, who are four and six and my 12 year old, all went off trail. And it's like this huge wood Woods area, hiking trails. And they're climbing up like the steepest, steepest cliffs and and they are just obsessed. They are just like, going up the mountain, and my husband and I are like, watch out for the edge. Please come back. And I had to say to myself, like, like, cover. Like, let them. Obviously, we don't want them to fall off a cliff, but this is much healthier than letting them, like, watch YouTube kids going down some whatever digital spiral that

Scottie Durrett  41:20  
it's just allowing this awareness of how we are modeling this stuff for the kids. I think, you know, it's like you are showing your kid just what it looks like to be brave. You're also showing your kid what it looks like to stumble and fall and pick yourself back up, right? And, you know, I think my kids learn so much more from what I do than what I say,

Kate Schelter  41:43  
exactly that what you do and like, that's such a key point. So it's like, I'm trying to do as much physical things, like analog with your hands, kind of things that you can do. Because also that's where such a feeling of capability comes. Like, I remember when I was little, I could make things with my hands. My mom let me use her sewing machine. I had glue, scissors, tape, magazines, markers, paint. I would just like make these crazy collages. My mom let me paint the inside of my closet so cool, I remember I had to when I wanted my room repainted. My mom and I went to the hardware store together, picked out the paint color, and then we painted it together. You can do that. I mean, that's the empowerment is like showing them rather than telling and describing.

Scottie Durrett  42:34  
I love it. I It's, I talk about this a lot. It's just like we have to be able to go first. And I think a lot of that is how we're gonna end this whole mommy martyrdom and like that. We have to be the living proof.

Kate Schelter  42:45  
You mean, I love that. You have to be the one who goes first, meaning, like the oxygen mask on the airplane 100%

Scottie Durrett  42:52  
you wrote in your book. You got to forget what's cool. Like, I don't know who's writing all these rules, who's writing all these rules that says we can or we can't. You know, it's yeah,

Kate Schelter  43:03  
it's like, we're all over influenced, yeah, I smell that horrible post that said, like the generation who is a teenager now is going to have more memories of other people's experiences than their own personal experiences in their life. I can't, if that's not enough reason to blow up all the social media, then I don't know what is. It's like we have constant influence, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, and it's just, it's like a polluted pool, because as a creator, it's all about putting out right? You're an you're an outward arrow. The channel is going outward. When you're a consumer, everything's coming in, everything's coming in. Not one is not good, not bad. But when it's really upside down and really not balanced, or not even close to being balanced, it's like, that's where all the anxiety comes from.

Scottie Durrett  44:03  
Actually, perfect segue is we're going to wrap this up because your work is so human, it's so alive, it's so soulful. It's the opposite of what we're talking it's the opposite of this mass production machine made it's this saturated IA world. So a couple of things. If there's a mom listening who is super creative, maybe she hasn't picked up a, you know, a paintbrush or art, and, you know, she's kind of just feeling a little overwhelmed by mom life, you know, where does she start? How does she reconnect to her creative self.

Kate Schelter  44:42  
For me, the restart always comes from connection, connecting to other people. It's always like an emotional thing. First, if I can't connect to myself, or if I'm feeling like there's a block, like I will always try to connect with a friend, okay, or a mentor. I, if I feel blocked in social relationships, I will connect with myself. And it could be the teeny, tiniest thing, and it's just all about just like starting. So it could be saying I'm going to get dressed in the morning before I dress my children, okay? Or I am going to do something for myself. For myself first. And if you're talking more about specifically about art. When I teach master classes, I always advise people to, like, for example, if somebody wants to learn how to watercolor paint, I always say, keep something up at all times. Like, you know, the way people do puzzles, they leave them on a table, and like people can walk by the puzzle and sit down and put a few pieces. So with watercolors, I'm like, just buy watercolors. Doesn't even matter what brand. Just start have a couple brushes, piece of paper and a palette at an area you could be one part one, one half of your kitchen table, and the other half is, you know, where you eat, or it could be one part of your desk, or it could be on your part of wherever. Just keep it up. Doesn't mean big. And then have keep it set up so that you can go and you can set a timer. I'm a big person who I love to set timers, to inspire you set a timer for 10 minutes and you probably won't be able to stop for two hours. I love that, because the starting is sometimes the hardest part, and

Scottie Durrett  46:30  
like, the setting it up would be the biggest time hurdle.

Kate Schelter  46:34  
People like, get this out, yeah, it's like, have it already set up and then set a timer for 10 minutes. Sit down. Once you start, you will not be able to stop unless you're being interrupted by somebody else.

Scottie Durrett  46:50  
But even if you are, it's still set up, right? You can come back to it. It's still back to it.

Kate Schelter  46:56  
There's no perfect painting to do. It's like, just start. I also tell people just paint every color in your palette. Take there's a rain, you know, 10 colors in your watercolor palette, put water in each one and then put it on the paper, then write your name in every different color, and do paint with different brushes. You're not painting a painting. You're just the action of painting.

Scottie Durrett  47:19  
I love that. That's great advice. You set up. I'm gonna go buy a puzzle right now. Um, right now. How can I link your book in the show notes? I'm gonna put your website everything. But how can everybody find you and reach out to you, and if they want to just get in your world? What's the best way to do that?

Kate Schelter  47:37  
Please follow me on Instagram, which is at Kate shelter.or at Kate shelter K, A, T, E, S, C, H, E, L, T, E R, and my website is Kate shelter.com I always love when people reach out on DM or email for commissions or ideas or just with a comment, welcome at all. Can read my book classic style.

Scottie Durrett  48:04  
I'm going to put that in the show notes. And actually, I did want to ask, what is going on for you in 2026 what is on the horizon?

Kate Schelter  48:13  
I'm working on a very exciting licensing deal for product design with my artwork that I cannot announce yet.

Scottie Durrett  48:24  
Okay, all right, well, then stay tuned, follow Kate on Instagram, and then it'll be released on there.

Kate Schelter  48:30  
Is that? Right? One thing I could do is, I'm always painting in my studio, and I'm always going to New York City, and I hope to be traveling to at least one new location with my family this year. That's, that's,

Scottie Durrett  48:42  
oh, I love that you were living proof that we don't have to choose between motherhood and our ambition and our creativity. And I could hear your kids in the background, and they sounded alive and happy and gleeful and healthy, and I think that's what we need to remember. And I think what we need more and more are these stories that it's meant to be alive and real and artistic and true, and it's not a highlight reel on Instagram.

Kate Schelter  49:20  
I mean, I'm even almost guilty of that too, because our impression is of what we see. Like I'm an 100% visual person, so I remember almost every thing I see. And the truth is, is that, like we made that all up, and there's no just think of all the millions and billions of people who have been born before us, who are mothers and different countries and different ages, and how everybody has their own way of doing it, and so just like, give yourself a fucking break.

Scottie Durrett  49:58  
The end. Ha. Ah, yes, you're amazing. You're awesome. I got to meet Kate in real life last week in New York. You can't see her full, but she is this, like gorgeous, tall, beautiful blonde, and her style is incredible, and it's her own. And I love that you embody what you're talking about, and it's incredible.

Kate Schelter  50:24  
Thank you. And we were drawn to each other because we both let's give Lydia a plug. We were at our friend Lydia finetz, the most powerful woman in the room is you summit at Rockefeller Center. And we were in a breakout group, and we each had to go around the circle and share three things about ourselves that people might not know, and we aligned on that. We both love intuition. And I was like, I want to be with her, yeah. And it's like, opened up this whole new world for us. So it's again, I could have stayed home. I love it. I could have not gone to that but what a loss.

Scottie Durrett  51:06  
Same I flew from San Francisco just for that event. I had 1000 reasons. I told Lydia. I had 1000 reasons not to go, but I had one, one to go

Kate Schelter  51:16  
for yourself. No one else is gonna show up for yourself.

Scottie Durrett  51:20  
No one else is going to show up for you, but thank you for coming on today. I love this conversation. You're amazing, and thank you for all you're doing. I love it.

Kate Schelter  51:30  
Thank you so much. Scottie,

Scottie Durrett  51:35  
Hey Mama, thank you so much for listening before you dive back into the beautiful chaos of your life, please take this with you. You're doing better than you think. You are not alone, and you do not have to do this on autopilot. If this episode helped you in any way, please share it with a mom who needs to hear it, because we grow faster when we do it together. And if you have a second leaving a five star review helps momplex reach more mamas who need this kind of real talk and support. If you want more support and guidance or just someone in your corner, be sure to visit scottyderette.com to learn more. Get in touch with me or dive deeper into this work. Until next time. Mom, trust yourself. Trust your gut. You already know what to do, and you are exactly the mama your kids need. I love you. I'll see you next time you Thank.