Friends from Wild Places

From Grief to Advocacy: Janet's Mission for Furniture Safety and Public Awareness

• Shireen Botha/Tanya Scotece ft Janet McGee • Season 3 • Episode 28

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What drives someone to turn unimaginable grief into a mission for public safety?

In this episode, Janet McGee, a former mortician, shares how the tragic loss of her 22-month-old son, Ted, led her to become a national advocate for furniture tip-over prevention. From her foundational work in mortuary science to her influential role in passing critical safety legislation, Janet's journey is a testament to resilience and purpose. Together with my co-host Tanya Scotece, we reflect on a powerful quote from Brianna Wiest's "The Mountain Is You" and how life's challenges can shape one's path in profound ways.

Janet McGee


Janet opens up about her battle with burnout in the mortuary science field and the subsequent transition to the banking sector, highlighting the stark differences between the two careers. She discusses how the structured environment of banking provided a semblance of normalcy but lacked the deeper sense of meaning she once had. Janet's story takes a poignant turn as she recounts the loss of her son, Teddy, and how that devastating experience led her to establish Lifted LLC. Don’t miss this heartfelt conversation about finding balance and purpose after tragedy, and the powerful ways one mother's grief transformed into a life-saving mission.

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Voiceover:

Tales from the wild, stories from the heart. A journey into the mind and soul of fired up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion as we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Shireen Botha:

All right, all right, welcome Shireen here, your virtual boutique bookkeeper and QuickBooks advisor. Your books are the backbone to your business, so are you drowning in paperwork and struggling to keep up with your bookkeeping tasks? It's time to consider outsourcing your bookkeeping to the experts at Shireen's Bookkeeping Services. We take the burden off your shoulders so you can focus on growing your business. We are looking for business owners who want to experience the freedom and peace of mind that comes with outsourcing your bookkeeping PS, way more affordable than a full-time employee. So go check me out at www. shireensbookkeeping. com and allow me to keep your books clean so you don't have to. Shireen's Bookkeeping Services your bookkeeper for the future. All right, welcome back.

Shireen Botha:

Listeners. You are listening to Friends from Wild Places with myself, Shireen, and my wonderful co-host and mortician, Tanya Scotece. Welcome, welcome, Tanya. We do have something exciting to tell the listeners and I don't know if you would like to share or you want me to share. It's quite a recent thing that we've set up for the podcast for all our listeners that are committed supporters. Uh, we have actually set up a um subscription for bonus content, so if you want to listen to us a little bit more and more often in the month. Uh, we are putting out some extra bonus content which you can easily access for a little $5 a month, where you can go and get some extra juicy stuff with me and Tanya. So we're really looking forward to that and throwing out some extra content for you guys, right, Tanya?

Tanya Scotece:

Yes, yes. Well, good morning, good afternoon and good evening everyone. It's a pleasure, shireen, to be here with you, as always, and yeah, so our listeners have actually asked us if we can go a little bit deeper on some subjects that are a little bit more sensitive. So that is the reason why we are for coming up in 2025, doing a $5 a month subscription for deeper content, talking about, for example, struggles with, you know, with weight, struggles with image, struggles with relationships, you know getting just you know, how do you get up and go about your day if you're feeling kind of down. So kind of those subjects there that we're going to be diving a little deeper $5 a month just to help our podcast. And again, it's always a pleasure for friends from wild places to bring you fresh content.

Tanya Scotece:

And today we have a lovely guest. We have Miss Janet McGee. It's just an honor and privilege to have you with us just to share your story and your journey. I've talked to you in depth and I always have more questions that come up after we speak, so I'm always looking forward to sharing your perspective and just diving deeper into your mission and about why it has become your mission. So welcome, miss Janet.

Janet McGee:

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Shireen Botha:

Awesome. Well, Janet McGee, mba, is a 2002 graduate of the University of Minnesota Mortuary Science Program and worked as a Minnesota licensed mortician in her earlier career. She later attained her MBA and established herself in the corporate world for almost a decade. When her 22-month-old son, ted, died tragically in 2016 from a furniture tip-over accident, she left her career behind to advocate nationally for furniture tip-over prevention.

Shireen Botha:

Mcgee is the founder and president of the Lifted LLC short for the Life of Ted which provides modern education to death care professionals in an ever-changing world. She played an integral role in forming and operating Parents Against Tip-Overs, pat, which we'll talk more about. She was instrumental in passing the Stop Tip-Overs of unsafe, risky dresses on youth, which again, we'll talk about that act a little bit more later, which became effective in 2023 and has required furniture manufacturers to follow a stronger and mandatory safety standard before selling dresses to consumers in the US. So that sounds super exciting and we will dive a little bit deeper into that coming up on the next few few episodes. So, right off the bat, Janet, we love to just chat about. You know a quote of the day, and today's quote of the day, uh, which you suggested was from Brianna west, am I saying it correct?

Janet McGee:

I believe it's Brianna weist brianna weist okay, well one.

Shireen Botha:

She said one day, the mountain that was in front of you will be so far behind you and will barely be visible in the distance, but who you become in learning to climb it, that will stay with you forever. This is the point of the mountain, wow, okay. So, Janet, what does this quote mean to you?

Janet McGee:

It's quite a good one, it is a good one and it's how Brianna Wiest finished her book the Mountain Is you, and it was a really powerful book. It's all about kind of transforming self-sabotage into self-mastery and I really appreciated that quote because I guess I felt that a lot throughout this journey with Ted and even before Ted had died I felt that a lot in my life like, oh man, some of these hard things were happening but for some reason there was a lot to learn in the process and it makes us better, right, like we can become bitter over it or we can become better. And it was just kind of that. Hearing that in the book was just like OK, this is perfectly worded. It's what I've kind of felt, but I had never had the words for it and I guess that's why it stands out to me so much.

Tanya Scotece:

It's beautiful. What a beautiful, beautiful quote. Jenna, do you mind, you know, walking our listeners through as far as so? You are a mortician, right Licensed mortician practicing.

Janet McGee:

Do you mind telling us a little bit about that? As far as your journey into funeral service and then kind of science classes in high school and we did anatomy, we did dissections, and I thought that was fascinating and I got really into chemistry of all things, and I don't know why chemistry was just so cool to me, but it was. And my mom suggested at one point in high school you know, maybe you should consider being an undertaker that was the word she used and I'm like that sounds gross. I don't think so, mom, but I mean, that was my thought as a, you know, 16 year old or whatever I was. But I was curious about it and started looking it up because the internet was becoming popular and so I had access to things and so I started Googling and thought, you know, this seems like a career that kind of combines a lot of my interests. You know, I was pretty involved in my church at the time. It involved religion, it involved cosmetology, it involved science, it involved business Every day is a little bit different and involved people, skills and communication and grief and psychology and just a lot of things that were very interesting to me, and so for that reason, after looking into it more. It just felt like the right thing to do, the thing that fit me, and so I ended up pursuing my degree in mortuary science and graduated from the University of Minnesota Mortuary Science Program when I was 20 years old and went on to work as a licensed mortician for about six years until I had completely burned myself out.

Janet McGee:

I had no concept of work-life balance at all. I was in my early 20s, I was a single mom for a portion of those years and I just was trying to do it all and I couldn't do it all and I wish I knew then what I know now about, you know, burnout and about protecting your energy and things like that. But you know, it's just, it's so easy to want to be everything to everybody when you're an empath and when people are sitting across the table from you. So I ended up deciding to change careers. But I didn't know what I was going to do, because being a good embalmer doesn't really give me transferable skills to any other profession.

Janet McGee:

But I realized, you know, being a mortician does offer a lot of transferable skills. I mean, I know how to meet deadlines, I know how to communicate with people, I know how to write, I know how to you know, organize information and get things done. I know time management, you know the list goes on. And so I firmly believe that this career set me up for a lot of success down the road, simply because of the way you know, the way that we are in our profession.

Janet McGee:

But I ended up leaving the career behind and going to work on my MBA and I got a job at a large bank and so I pretty much started over again, and the reason I did that was because I knew that I wasn't going to be making as much money, but I really needed to get away from on-call, I needed to be provide some stability for my son, who was four at the time, and I just needed to kind of heal a little bit from being on call all the time, and, and so that was good. I mean, even being even working full time in the banking world and working on my MBA at night felt easier than being a mortician.

Tanya Scotece:

If I may, I just I just want to. I just had a couple of questions for you, so I don't want to. I don't my brain, you know what they call it senior moments. I guess I'm at the age of senior moments, so I just want to just touch on two things. So when your mom suggested to become an undertaker as a career when you were, you know, obviously, in high school, did she have any, you know, a close relationship with, like a local funeral home? Where did she come?

Janet McGee:

up with that idea for you? That's a good question. My mom was a social worker and my mom had actually lost a child. My sister had died before I was born. So I had lost a sister who was 13 months old who died of fast onset pneumonia. So from the time she was showing symptoms of being sick to the time she died was only about 12 hours, and my mom was like 26, I think, when that happened. So I mean, that was something that really impacted my mom and dad and and, of course, being a social worker at the local nursing home and working with discharge, with the patients and things, she worked with some funeral homes and it's a very small town and so she just thought it might be a good fit.

Tanya Scotece:

Wow. So you know and it's so interesting, you know cause obviously you and I, both in the mortuary world and see, sheree, there is there we are attempting to get you onto the dark side, even from accounting you can come to us. So, janet, with with your you know mom and you know kind of you know in prompting you right to look into mortuary school and, having been so young, having completed the program, can you just share for our listeners, because we do have a lot of mortuary students that do listen to our podcast how did you choose your mortuary school? Was it area specific? If you could tell us? Obviously you're US based. Shireen is obviously zooming in from South Africa. Tell us a little bit about your choice, about how you actually got into the program of your choice.

Janet McGee:

Sure, you know, quite honestly, it was just location. I was born and raised in Minnesota and the U of M in Minnesota offered a program. I didn't, I didn't realize at the time.

Shireen Botha:

Janet, you've gone silent. Sorry, sorry, We've. We've've lost janet's uh sound. Um, I don't know what's going on. We'll just take a few minutes just to quickly sort that out. Um, did you maybe? Um, there we go, there we go, and she's back. Okay, we've got. You can hear me now.

Janet McGee:

Yes, what happened? There it says my internet connection is unstable. Oh, it's okay. Um, okay, please let me know if that happens again. Okay, um, yes, so it's just. It was just location. You know, I was from minnesota and I really hadn't to, to be honest, researched mortuary science schools in the nation. I just went to the closest one.

Tanya Scotece:

Okay, okay, so, okay. So then what else would you like you identified you know a really key point about you know funeral directors and burnout, and what do you think maybe could have prepared you better for understanding that? Like you know, for other students out there that maybe are experiencing the same thing they're in school, very motivated, getting their job Like what could somebody have shared with you that maybe would have not had you go completely to the opposite side of where? I don't want to be a funeral director anymore right now. Good question.

Janet McGee:

That is a good question and it probably depends on the person. For me, I think I was so passionate and excited about this new profession that I just couldn't help but like put everything into it, and I wish I had understood better at that time the danger of that, that that is going to be a very high risk for burnout if I choose to put myself into it like that, and the fact that that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing that you're so passionate about it. But what can we do to just find balance in that so that we can protect ourselves and mitigate burnout?

Tanya Scotece:

Right, right, right. And I think you know that's another, you know area of concern as far as people that are not used to being on call it's like. So then they start doing like energy drinks to stay up you know caffeine and you know the Red Bulls and any other type and then they have to go to sleep and now they're wired. So there's a lot of this up and down, and I mean people. You know short term can, can function, but long term it's just eventually catches up, you know, catches up with everyone, so and again.

Janet McGee:

So you're, so you're as far as your education, your, your associate, is in mortuary science. My bachelor's is in mortuary science, and then my master's degree is in business administration Unbelievable, unbelievable, and there are very few programs out there that offer is in mortuary science, and then my master's degree is in business administration, unbelievable, unbelievable.

Tanya Scotece:

And there are very few programs out there that offer of the bachelor's degree in mortuary, most of the schools are offering the associate. So, uh yeah, kudos to you, kudos to you, so continue your journey, continue your journey.

Janet McGee:

So you had this really fundamental um, like mortician background um, and then burnt out and then went into the bank world and then, yeah, so I will say, like being in the banking world, it was refreshing in a sense that there was no call schedule and it felt like I was quote unquote normal again, um, but I really felt like I, my, I lacked purpose, for lack of a better. I mean, I don't want to say I was a paper pusher, but I felt like, I mean, the things that I did mattered, but it didn't quite matter to the level that it mattered. When I was a mortician, I felt like as a mortician, I really was impacting people's lives and I think that that's something that I've realized the older I've gotten is. I really did love being a mortician and it was a calling, you know. But anyway, so I was. I worked at in various capacities as I was working on my MBA. It took me about four years, so I worked at this bank for almost a decade and then by that time, I had been remarried and had another child.

Janet McGee:

My son, ted, was born in 2014 and just kind of felt like, okay, life is coming together, got my house and I don't have a call schedule anymore, things are stable, got my nine to five and then one day I put Teddy down for a nap. It was Valentine's Day in 2016, and I put him down for a nap and he was two, almost two, so he didn't want to go down for a nap. He was getting out of bed and I was putting him back, redirecting him back into his bed, and, um, you know, teddy, we got to take a nap now so we can, you know, have a good night tonight. And um and so I put him back in his bed and closed the door, and um came back to check on him about 15 minutes later to just make sure that he had fallen asleep, cause it had gotten quiet. And when I opened his bedroom door, um, I opened it just enough to see that his bed was empty. So I was like, okay, he must be out of bed. But kind of, on the other side of the door, what was? Some toys. So I was like, maybe he's playing with toys or something you know.

Janet McGee:

So I opened the door even further and right away I saw his dresser had fallen forward. His dresser was on the floor, um, face down, and just in an instant, it was so quiet and I knew he had to be under there. Um, and so I lifted up the dresser and kind of started digging through a pile of drawers and clothes and he was at the bottom of the pile, non-responsive, his face was purple and his eyes were half open and I just you know it's like that, tanya, you know what I'm about to say, where you've been around dead people long enough to know, like I don't know, that there's life in this body. You know, um, his feet were starting to get cold. Um, I immediately started CPR. I screamed for help, my, my son who's he's 19. Now he was 11 at the time. He ran in and saw Ted and called 911. I was very proud of him, um, to help with that, and between him and my husband at the time came up and, anyway, it felt like forever, but I know it was just within minutes.

Janet McGee:

The ambulance was there, the police were there, the fire you know fire department was there and, long story short is, they brought Teddy to the ER and he still had a faint heartbeat, and so they, they tried to revive him, I'm sure by I don't know what, all they do, but they did find a faint heartbeat, which I was honestly a little surprised about. But we were just praying like maybe, maybe he could come back from this. I don't know, um, but uh, as they're walking us through, you know, they had staff, doctors, nurses, all over, probably like 10 people in the room working to save him. And you know we're holding his hand and um, finally, the doctors, like there's just, there's just nothing more that that we can do, um, and so, you know, we, we kind of said our goodbyes and um, it was, uh, you know, our it kind of. It was like our prayers kind of went from like like God, please save him, to like God, please just take good care of him. You know, until we see him again. And it was, of course, very traumatic.

Janet McGee:

And you know, I think, what was eye opening for me and Tanya, you can probably relate to this too. It's like it's one thing when you're serving families on one side of the arrangement table, but I always say, wow, sitting on that other side of the arrangement table is such a different experience when you're in, when you're there and you're living it. It's like textbook. You think you know what it's like. And then all of a sudden it all comes like, wow, here's all these things. I, I really had no idea, you know. And I think, um, well, I guess I'll just say I'll pause there for a minute and ask us are there any questions up to that point in the story? And then I can kind of move on to what happened after, right yeah, I'm so sorry that that happened to you.

Shireen Botha:

Um, you know that's I wouldn't. I can't imagine I don't have children of my own, um, but I'm sure that's one thing that's any mother's worst nightmare and last thing that they could ever imagine. So I'm thankful for you sharing that story with us. It takes someone really brave to have to relive that memory again, but I'm glad we stopped there because that is quite a heart-pulling story. So thank you for sharing that with us in story. So thank you for sharing that with us.

Shireen Botha:

Um, I'd like to just take a breather and also just put in a little bit of a buzzsprout ad. I think it's a perfect timing to do that as well. Um, so buzzsprout is a podcasting app that we use here at friends from Wild Places. Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners, and the team at Buzzsprout is passionate about helping you succeed. Join over 100,000 podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world. When we started this podcast, we didn't know that in the the beginning. It's quite overwhelming and there's a lot to think about when forming your own podcast, editing, putting it up, advertising, all of that but with buzzsprout, it makes it super straightforward and easy. So to start your own podcast, get a 20 amazon gift card. Follow the link in the show notes. This lets buzzsprout know we send you and um, it does help us. You know, support the show and helps us to continue what we're doing.

Tanya Scotece:

Tune in next week for part two from Friends From Wild Places you've been listening to friends from wild places with Shireen Botha.

Voiceover:

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Shireen Botha

Host
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Tanya Scotece

Co-host
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Janet McGee

Guest

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