Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #126 Why Your Daughter Doesn't Need Another Mirror In Her Life (Featuring Dr Renee Engeln)

Transcript

#126 Why Your Daughter Doesn't Need Another Mirror In Her Life (Featuring Dr Renee Engeln) · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:02
Speaker 1: That's often tweens we're looking at. And we're starting to
0:06
Speaker 1: get into social media, which adds this additional mirror. Right,
0:10
Speaker 1: you had the mirror in your head, and now you
0:13
Speaker 1: have the mirror on your phone where you're taking selfies
0:16
Speaker 1: and you're looking at yourself constantly and you're editing them,
0:19
Speaker 1: and you're scrolling through hundreds thousands of images a day
0:23
Speaker 1: of other people. Right, So that's just really turning up
0:26
Speaker 1: the focus on appearance. So that's the first sort of
0:30
Speaker 1: challenge that girls are running into at this age.
0:32
Speaker 2: This is the Parenting and Perspective podcast. It's a Happy
0:34
Speaker 2: Families podcast.
0:36
Speaker 3: Hello.
0:36
Speaker 2: My name is doctor Justin Colson, dad to six daughters,
0:39
Speaker 2: author of six books about raising happy families. And when
0:42
Speaker 2: I began researching for my book Misconnection, it became pretty clear,
0:46
Speaker 2: very quickly that body image was an enormous issue between
0:51
Speaker 2: and teen girls. In fact, for women generally, the anxiety
0:56
Speaker 2: the body image causes our daughters is a byproduct of
0:59
Speaker 2: the world we live in where women are judged on
1:01
Speaker 2: their appearance in a way that men simply don't experience. Well,
1:07
Speaker 2: my guest today is doctor Renee Engeln. She's the author
1:10
Speaker 2: of one of my favorite books, Beauty Sick, How the
1:13
Speaker 2: Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women. Doctor Ngeln
1:19
Speaker 2: is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University in Illinois,
1:22
Speaker 2: where she directs the Body and Media Lab. Renee's work
1:26
Speaker 2: has been published in numerous academic journals, and she's a
1:29
Speaker 2: regular contributor to The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune,
1:32
Speaker 2: and the Huffington Post. Her ted X talk from the
1:34
Speaker 2: University of Connecticut has racked up almost seven hundred thousand
1:38
Speaker 2: views on YouTube. So when you finish this podcast, look
1:41
Speaker 2: up that one as well. It's so worth watching, and
1:43
Speaker 2: make sure you grab a copy of Beauty Sick, How
1:45
Speaker 2: the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurts Girls and Women. It's
1:48
Speaker 2: a fabulous book when it comes to psychology and how
1:52
Speaker 2: girls and women view their physical appearance. I don't think
1:56
Speaker 2: that there's anyone more qualified than Professor Renee Engeln. And
1:59
Speaker 2: as you well, I began by asking her what work
2:02
Speaker 2: in family life looks like for her.
2:04
Speaker 1: Well, let's see, I'm a psychologist, I'm a body image researcher,
2:08
Speaker 1: and I'm a professor at Northwestern University, which is in Evanston, Illinois,
2:13
Speaker 1: just just north of Chicago, Illinois. And what else am I?
2:17
Speaker 1: I'm an aunt to a wonderful niece and nephew who
2:21
Speaker 1: came along kind of later in my life, and that
2:23
Speaker 1: has been an absolute joy. There four and almost two.
2:30
Speaker 1: They're little. Yeah, they're little, and I've never I have
2:35
Speaker 1: to say this is going to be a horrible thing
2:37
Speaker 1: to say on a podcast focused on parenting, but I've
2:39
Speaker 1: never really liked babies. I find them kind of terrifying
2:43
Speaker 1: and sticky, and they don't hold their heads up and
2:45
Speaker 1: they've always been scary. And when I knew my brother was,
2:48
Speaker 1: you know, he and his wife were having children, I thought,
2:51
Speaker 1: what if I don't love them? But no, I do.
2:55
Speaker 1: I love them more than I thought it was possible
2:58
Speaker 1: to love. So it's been full of joy and also
3:01
Speaker 1: just interesting for me to learn how to connect with
3:04
Speaker 1: these these little people that have been such a good
3:07
Speaker 1: part of my life.
3:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm totally with you on the floppy neck thing that, Yeah,
3:12
Speaker 2: that really bothers me. But for some reason, especially when
3:17
Speaker 2: they're blood, I mean, babies generally, you know, you see
3:19
Speaker 2: them and they are but but but when they're blood,
3:22
Speaker 2: when they're related to you, there's something that happens is there.
3:26
Speaker 1: Everyone said it would feel different, and I didn't believe them,
3:29
Speaker 1: but yeah, there's something powerful there that they're an extension
3:32
Speaker 1: of my brother. My love so much and and you.
3:35
Speaker 1: I've always been teased I like, I like tweens and teenagers.
3:39
Speaker 1: So about the time that children really start to drive
3:41
Speaker 1: their parents crazy, I'm always like, send them to me.
3:45
Speaker 1: I got them, Like, I really like that. I like
3:48
Speaker 1: their anger and their intensity and all that.
3:52
Speaker 3: So you can say that.
3:52
Speaker 2: You can say that because you're not the mom, right
3:54
Speaker 2: the mom is a like, ah, that'll be the cool,
3:57
Speaker 2: this will be fun.
3:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, send them to me. I have a number of
4:00
Speaker 1: friends who say, will you talk to my daughter? And
4:01
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, game on, talk about how
4:05
Speaker 1: terrible you are.
4:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Renee, we're going to cover in this conversation
4:09
Speaker 2: body image because that's your area, this is your absolute fascination,
4:15
Speaker 2: and we're going to talk about how it affects the
4:17
Speaker 2: youngest children right through to tweens, teens, and even adults.
4:22
Speaker 2: The mums and dads who are participating in this conversation
4:26
Speaker 2: and listen.
4:26
Speaker 3: To what we have to say.
4:28
Speaker 2: So a little over a year ago, I read a
4:31
Speaker 2: book that it just absolutely captured me. I wrote it
4:35
Speaker 2: on my list. I keep a spreadsheet of all the
4:37
Speaker 2: books that I read each year. I'm a little bit
4:39
Speaker 2: it's just because my bookshelf's kind of full of books,
4:42
Speaker 2: and sometimes I forget which ones that I loved and
4:44
Speaker 2: which ones I didn't or what was in them. And
4:46
Speaker 2: so I've got this spreadsheet where I title author, what
4:49
Speaker 2: did I give it out of five and a bit
4:51
Speaker 2: of a spiel about how I enjoyed the book.
4:54
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you think that's funny. So anyway, my
4:56
Speaker 3: dear getting.
4:56
Speaker 1: A live book review, and the nerdiest way ever I
4:59
Speaker 1: like it.
5:00
Speaker 2: This is this is who I am. Your book was
5:03
Speaker 2: a five star book. It was pretty much my book
5:06
Speaker 2: of the year. I think that one and a book
5:08
Speaker 2: by Todd Rose from Harvard called The End of Average
5:11
Speaker 2: was that were my two books of I think it
5:14
Speaker 2: was twenty eighteen. I just loved Beauty Sick, which is
5:18
Speaker 2: the name of your book, Beauty Sick, and I gained
5:20
Speaker 2: a sense of perspective that I just can't describe. So
5:24
Speaker 2: I'm a male, I've never had the kinds of questions
5:28
Speaker 2: about my body that you describe women experiencing. Now, I
5:32
Speaker 2: haven't told you something about me as well, and that
5:34
Speaker 2: is that my wife, Kylie, and I are the parents
5:37
Speaker 2: of six daughters.
5:39
Speaker 1: Oh what are their age rangers?
5:41
Speaker 2: Our eldest has moved out, she's married, she's in her
5:43
Speaker 2: early twenties. And then we've got one who is finishing
5:46
Speaker 2: her senior year of high school. She's about to be eighteen.
5:50
Speaker 2: We've got one who's sixteen in grade ten, and then
5:53
Speaker 2: we've got one in grade seven, one in grade five,
5:55
Speaker 2: and our baby is in her first year of school.
5:58
Speaker 1: Wow.
6:00
Speaker 3: Girls, So as I was reading your book, I saw
6:03
Speaker 3: things in a new light.
6:05
Speaker 2: I just didn't know that females felt the way you
6:10
Speaker 2: described when it comes to their bodies and the pressure
6:13
Speaker 2: that they fell around their bodies.
6:14
Speaker 3: Even with my wife, I'd never saw that. Now.
6:16
Speaker 2: What's really interesting about that is when I first went
6:19
Speaker 2: on a date with her, I think it was pretty
6:21
Speaker 2: much our first proper date. We walked into a chicken
6:24
Speaker 2: and chip shop. You don't really have them so much
6:26
Speaker 2: in the United States. I've found where you buy the
6:28
Speaker 2: barbecued chicken and a whole lot of hot You call
6:30
Speaker 2: them fries, we call them chips. We've got these places everywhere.
6:34
Speaker 2: We call them things. Like charcoal chicken. And so you
6:36
Speaker 2: go in and you order your chicken, your chips, and
6:37
Speaker 2: your salad or your chicken fries and salad, and it's
6:40
Speaker 2: all really fresh, and you go out and sit on
6:44
Speaker 2: the beach and eat it or whatever it might be.
6:45
Speaker 3: So I've walked in and I've.
6:46
Speaker 2: Ordered a chicken and a couple of dollars worth of chips,
6:49
Speaker 2: and then I looked at Kylie and I said, what
6:50
Speaker 2: do you got to order? And she thought that was
6:52
Speaker 2: funny because she thought I was going to share my
6:54
Speaker 2: chicken and chips with her, and I was like, no, no, no,
6:56
Speaker 2: I'm eating the chicken and the chips.
6:57
Speaker 3: What do you go to order?
6:59
Speaker 2: And she said, for the first time in her life,
7:01
Speaker 2: she was able to relax on a date because she
7:04
Speaker 2: could see that I didn't care what she ate, because
7:06
Speaker 2: she was never going to be able to eat even
7:08
Speaker 2: close to what I ate. In fact, she said it
7:10
Speaker 2: was the first time she'd been on a date where
7:12
Speaker 2: she ate more than a little bit of salad.
7:16
Speaker 1: I'll just have a salad, right. So many women they
7:18
Speaker 1: go home hungry and then they eat in private afterwards.
7:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, and your book kind of opened up this world
7:24
Speaker 2: of what it must be like to be female and
7:27
Speaker 2: to be worried about body all the time. Now, as
7:29
Speaker 2: it happened as I was reading your book, I was
7:31
Speaker 2: writing a book about teen girls, and it influenced the
7:34
Speaker 2: questions that I asked them in the way that I
7:35
Speaker 2: was able to write about their answers, and I found
7:37
Speaker 2: it just so helpful and so extraordinary. But in the
7:40
Speaker 2: introduction of your book, you state, and I quote, so
7:42
Speaker 2: many young women today are strikingly bold in important areas
7:46
Speaker 2: of their lives, but still crumble in front of the mirror.
7:50
Speaker 2: They fight so hard to be treated with respect, but seem,
7:53
Speaker 2: at least at times, to be willing to trade it
7:56
Speaker 2: all in an instant if they could only remake their
7:59
Speaker 2: physical opear pearance. And then you give an answer to
8:02
Speaker 2: the question of why that is, And this is an
8:05
Speaker 2: image for one of a better word, or maybe it's
8:07
Speaker 2: the perfect wood that really sticks throughout the entire book.
8:12
Speaker 2: You say, quote, we may no longer play dress ups
8:15
Speaker 2: and pose in front of the mirror the way young
8:17
Speaker 2: girls do, But I worry that's only because we've internalized
8:21
Speaker 2: that mirror, we never actually left it behind.
8:24
Speaker 3: I mean, that is so powerful.
8:26
Speaker 2: Can you can you talk about this idea that the
8:28
Speaker 2: mirror is on the inside.
8:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a This is a big paradox, and
8:32
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are not sure how
8:35
Speaker 1: to wrestle with because in many ways, we've been sold
8:38
Speaker 1: a bill of goods. Right. We've got these generations of
8:40
Speaker 1: young women who are like, I can do anything and
8:42
Speaker 1: I can be anything. And what we've seen is a
8:46
Speaker 1: co optation of that sense of power to sell them
8:51
Speaker 1: on beauty products and diet plans and tutorials and this
8:57
Speaker 1: world that is completely obsessed with how they look, and
9:00
Speaker 1: we've sold it as empowering, right, which is insane. And
9:05
Speaker 1: what happens is that we've gone from having a culture
9:09
Speaker 1: that's always looking at women, that's always commenting on how
9:12
Speaker 1: they look. We've gone from that, from that coming from
9:14
Speaker 1: the outside to a point where we've internalized it and
9:17
Speaker 1: we do that to ourselves. So I try to stay
9:20
Speaker 1: away from academic jargon, but there's a term that I
9:24
Speaker 1: always need to use, even though it's jargon, which is
9:26
Speaker 1: self objectification. Right. So the idea is if the world
9:30
Speaker 1: treats you like an object long enough and with enough
9:33
Speaker 1: intensity that eventually you see yourself that way, Right, you
9:37
Speaker 1: don't need to be looking in the mirror because it's
9:39
Speaker 1: in your head, and so you're always monitoring how you look.
9:43
Speaker 1: You're always aware. It's distracting, it's distressing, right. It crops
9:49
Speaker 1: up in inopportune times. It keeps you from living the
9:54
Speaker 1: life that's more consistent with your values. So that's what
9:57
Speaker 1: I mean when I say beauty sick, is that you've
10:00
Speaker 1: got that mirror stuck in your head and it's causing
10:03
Speaker 1: you trouble, and it's not your fault. That's always the
10:06
Speaker 1: thing I want to say. This is not something wrong
10:09
Speaker 1: with individual girls and women, it's something wrong with our culture.
10:13
Speaker 2: Well, let's start with the culture. In fact, no, we
10:17
Speaker 2: might come to the cultural stuff in just a few seconds.
10:19
Speaker 2: I want to talk about this beauty sickness. First of all,
10:23
Speaker 2: let's talk about young children, young girls, because when I
10:26
Speaker 2: was reading in Beauty Sick, you set the stage by
10:30
Speaker 2: starting with the youngest of our children, let's say, around
10:32
Speaker 2: age five, and you cite some research that talks about
10:36
Speaker 2: how five year olds feel about their bodies.
10:39
Speaker 3: Five year old girls.
10:40
Speaker 1: There's a pretty large survey found that about thirty five
10:43
Speaker 1: percent of five year old girls are already saying that
10:45
Speaker 1: they at least sometimes engage in dietary restraint. Now, I
10:50
Speaker 1: want to be clear that five year olds don't understand
10:52
Speaker 1: what dieting actually is, right, So when a five year
10:57
Speaker 1: old tells you that she's dieting, what she's telling you
11:00
Speaker 1: is that she's already learned that this is what women do, right,
11:03
Speaker 1: that this is this is part of being a grown up,
11:05
Speaker 1: this is something you think about. All of these young
11:09
Speaker 1: girls are already telling us close to third saying that
11:12
Speaker 1: they're comparing their bodies to women and girls they see
11:15
Speaker 1: in cartoons and movies and television programs. Right, So they're
11:19
Speaker 1: at this really young age where they're just learning to
11:22
Speaker 1: use their bodies. I'm not a developmental psychologist by training.
11:26
Speaker 1: I focus mostly on teenagers and adults. I don't I'm
11:28
Speaker 1: not super expert about young children, and so when I
11:31
Speaker 1: started writing this book, I actually just did some basic
11:34
Speaker 1: research on the developmental stages for children. And one of
11:37
Speaker 1: the things that really threw me and I read about
11:39
Speaker 1: this in the book as I asked, well, okay, well,
11:41
Speaker 1: what are five year olds supposed to be doing? Like
11:43
Speaker 1: what marks where a five year old is? And one
11:46
Speaker 1: of the things that was listed was learning how to
11:47
Speaker 1: properly use utensils a spoon and fork, And I thought,
11:52
Speaker 1: these are kids that don't even necessarily know how to
11:54
Speaker 1: use a fork particularly well. And they're already worried about dieting. Right,
12:00
Speaker 1: They've gotten great at getting the food into their mouth
12:02
Speaker 1: yet and they're already trying to keep it out. It's heartbreaking, right.
12:08
Speaker 1: It suggests that what's happening is that a lot of
12:11
Speaker 1: families are transmitting values to their young daughters that they
12:16
Speaker 1: don't mean to transmit. I think that's a lot of
12:20
Speaker 1: what's happening.
12:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I appreciate what you've said there at the end,
12:23
Speaker 2: that parents are well intentioned and they don't even know
12:26
Speaker 2: very often that these values are being passed on to
12:29
Speaker 2: the next generation from that tiny, tiny age. I wonder
12:33
Speaker 2: how much of it is children actually being unhappy with
12:36
Speaker 2: their bodies versus just doing what they're seeing happen in
12:39
Speaker 2: the environm Mum's always talking about the diet or dad's
12:42
Speaker 2: always talking about the diet, and so therefore I'm supposed
12:43
Speaker 2: to be on a diet.
12:44
Speaker 3: I don't even know what a diet is, but.
12:47
Speaker 2: I remember when my little ones, and in fact, I've
12:51
Speaker 2: got some video footage of my sisters. I've got twin
12:53
Speaker 2: sisters who are a few years younger than me, and
12:55
Speaker 2: I've got some really great footage of them at about
12:58
Speaker 2: the age of four or five, and they're running around
13:00
Speaker 2: the swimming pool. And the way I describe it is
13:02
Speaker 2: they're running aund they're not wearing any tops because.
13:04
Speaker 3: They're only four or five, you know, they're little.
13:06
Speaker 2: They've got their little bikini bottoms on or the little
13:09
Speaker 2: you know, the little swimwear bottoms on, and they've got
13:12
Speaker 2: what I would only describe as sticky addy tummies, because
13:15
Speaker 2: you know how little kids, they've got the sticky addy tummy.
13:18
Speaker 2: And they're completely uninterested in what they look because they
13:23
Speaker 2: look like because they're so.
13:24
Speaker 3: Absorbed in the moment.
13:26
Speaker 2: They're so caught up in it, and I kind of think,
13:29
Speaker 2: isn't that what it's supposed to be?
13:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I mean, my four year old niece loves
13:33
Speaker 1: to show me. We talk only on FaceTime now because
13:37
Speaker 1: we are still locked down due to COVID, but she
13:40
Speaker 1: loves to lift up her shirt show me her stomach
13:42
Speaker 1: right and kind of like grab it and move it around.
13:45
Speaker 1: And I get kind of sad already for the day
13:48
Speaker 1: that she's ashamed of her stomach. And you might think, oh,
13:52
Speaker 1: that day won't necessarily come, and I think, yeah, they will, right,
13:55
Speaker 1: We haven't. We haven't really found a way to prevent
13:58
Speaker 1: that for our girls. Yet. It may not be all
14:00
Speaker 1: the time, and it may that be that it may
14:02
Speaker 1: not be that bad, but you can bet there's a
14:04
Speaker 1: really good shot that she's going to become a tween,
14:09
Speaker 1: probably maybe not until a teen who doesn't like her
14:13
Speaker 1: stomach anymore. And so that joy she has in her
14:17
Speaker 1: body now, I wish she could keep it longer. I
14:20
Speaker 1: think it's it's it's amazing. It's important too in learning
14:24
Speaker 1: how to use your body without fear, right, and in
14:28
Speaker 1: learning how to really inhabit your body as a doing
14:31
Speaker 1: thing instead of as an object. But even parents who
14:35
Speaker 1: meanwhile are already tamping this down in young girls, that
14:39
Speaker 1: sort of bodily joy, how so partially with comments, right
14:44
Speaker 1: when we say things like sit like a lady. That
14:47
Speaker 1: partially And this is this is my big beef lately,
14:49
Speaker 1: by dressing girls and clothing that doesn't allow them to move.
14:53
Speaker 1: If this is a thing parents do, and I don't
14:55
Speaker 1: think it's it's it comes from poort intensions at all, right,
14:58
Speaker 1: but there's this temptation to put girls in dresses and
15:02
Speaker 1: tapes and things that make it really hard to crawl
15:04
Speaker 1: and jump are things that you're more likely to tell
15:06
Speaker 1: them to be careful, not to get dirty, to sit nicely.
15:11
Speaker 2: Just on that a there's a movement increasing in Australia.
15:15
Speaker 2: So andlike America, all of our schools, almost all of
15:18
Speaker 2: our schools insist that children wear a school uniform to school.
15:22
Speaker 2: But what typically happens is that the boys are wearing
15:24
Speaker 2: a shirt and shorts. The girls will in many cases
15:29
Speaker 2: be wearing a dress, or they'll be wearing a skirt
15:31
Speaker 2: orthough be wearing some item of clothing that makes movement
15:36
Speaker 2: a little bit more restrictive. If they want to be
15:40
Speaker 2: I feel uncomfortable even saying the word now that we're
15:42
Speaker 2: having this conversation. I was going to say, if they
15:43
Speaker 2: want to be more boisterous, but let's change that too.
15:45
Speaker 2: If they want to be more active, it's very, very
15:48
Speaker 2: challenging for them to do that in a way that
15:50
Speaker 2: would conserve a sense of modesty, because they're wearing dresses
15:54
Speaker 2: and they don't want to be flashing their undies all
15:55
Speaker 2: the backside to everybody. And so we've had this conversation
16:00
Speaker 2: in Australia over the last year, two, maybe even three years,
16:04
Speaker 2: where schools are now starting to recognize that perhaps it's
16:07
Speaker 2: okay for girls to wear whatever they want, including comfortable shorts,
16:11
Speaker 2: so long as it's within the school uniform set up
16:14
Speaker 2: right like this.
16:15
Speaker 1: And why wouldn't it be okay right the fact that
16:18
Speaker 1: we have to have.
16:18
Speaker 2: That conversation, but so many are still saying, no, it's
16:21
Speaker 2: not okay. This is our uniform and this is how
16:22
Speaker 2: we want our girls to be. We want them to
16:24
Speaker 2: be demure and lady like. Can you be lady like
16:29
Speaker 2: and wear shorts? That's my question? I mean I think
16:31
Speaker 2: you can.
16:31
Speaker 1: What does lady like me? And I mean ladylike means
16:34
Speaker 1: like a lady, and there are all kinds of ladies
16:37
Speaker 1: out there, So I find I find that whole phrase
16:42
Speaker 1: really problematic because what you're teaching your girls when you
16:45
Speaker 1: say that is stay small, right, don't take up space,
16:49
Speaker 1: don't move, don't learn to use your body, don't stretch it,
16:53
Speaker 1: don't trust it. Instead, from the beginning, think of your
16:56
Speaker 1: body in terms of how it looks to other people.
16:58
Speaker 1: Does it look appropriate, does it look modest. If you
17:02
Speaker 1: want them to look modest, then put them in shorts
17:03
Speaker 1: so they can move however they want. Right. And when
17:06
Speaker 1: you look at infants, I guess when they're a little older,
17:10
Speaker 1: they start to crawl. It's actually quite hard for a
17:12
Speaker 1: lot of babies to crawl in skirts and dresses. Right,
17:16
Speaker 1: And even that is something we don't think about. I mean,
17:20
Speaker 1: just imagine it. Imagine now trying to crawl in a
17:23
Speaker 1: dress versus pair pants or a pair of shorts. Right.
17:25
Speaker 1: So are how we dress girls in such a way
17:29
Speaker 1: that requires constant fussing and monitoring. It has a real
17:33
Speaker 1: impact on how they grow up to feel about their bodies.
17:36
Speaker 3: I want to come back to.
17:37
Speaker 1: Me, your bodies for other people?
17:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
17:40
Speaker 2: Let's go back to the conversation about children. Okay, So
17:43
Speaker 2: we started with five year olds and how a third
17:45
Speaker 2: of them or just over a third of them females.
17:48
Speaker 2: I'm guessing it wasn't the males that wanted to change
17:50
Speaker 2: their bodies, by the way, it was just the females
17:52
Speaker 2: that were talking about the diet.
17:53
Speaker 3: What happens as they get older.
17:55
Speaker 2: Can you talk me through the next sort of ten
17:57
Speaker 2: to twelve years from age five through to age seventeen eighteen.
18:02
Speaker 1: So I'd say there's two big changes right that happen.
18:06
Speaker 1: One is introduction to social media. Now, when that happens
18:09
Speaker 1: depends on the kind of choices parents make and what's
18:12
Speaker 1: going on with peers and things like that, but it's
18:14
Speaker 1: often tweens we're looking at who are starting to get
18:17
Speaker 1: into social media, which adds this additional mirror. Right, you
18:22
Speaker 1: had the mirror in your head, and now you have
18:25
Speaker 1: the mirror on your phone where you're taking selfies and
18:27
Speaker 1: you're looking at yourself constantly and you're editing them, and
18:30
Speaker 1: you're scrolling through hundreds thousands of images a day of
18:34
Speaker 1: other people. Right, So that's just really turning up the
18:38
Speaker 1: focus on appearance. So that's the first sort of challenge
18:42
Speaker 1: that girls are running into at this age. And then
18:45
Speaker 1: puberty hits, right, and the research around puberty is so
18:49
Speaker 1: clear that it tends to make boys like their bodies more. Right,
18:53
Speaker 1: It brings boys bodies more in line with the ideal,
18:56
Speaker 1: tends to make them more muscular, broad on their shoulders,
18:58
Speaker 1: get taller, things like that. But with girls, because puberty
19:02
Speaker 1: tends to increase the amount of body fat you have
19:04
Speaker 1: despite the fact that puberty is a sign of them
19:07
Speaker 1: physically becoming adult women, it actually is moving them farther
19:11
Speaker 1: from the body ideal for women, and there's something really
19:15
Speaker 1: twisted and wrong about that. But this is the time
19:18
Speaker 1: that we see a lot of girls start to have
19:22
Speaker 1: very very significant struggles with body image, some of which
19:25
Speaker 1: can turn into eating disorders at this age. And I
19:29
Speaker 1: think one of the most important findings for me that's
19:32
Speaker 1: come out of the clinical psychology literature is a study
19:36
Speaker 1: that's was trying to understand why it is that we
19:39
Speaker 1: see the gender gap and depression show up in this
19:43
Speaker 1: sort of early adolescent place. You know, until that point,
19:46
Speaker 1: both girls and boys get depressed about the same rates,
19:49
Speaker 1: but once the girls get a little older, it just
19:51
Speaker 1: starts to go up and up. Right, we see this
19:53
Speaker 1: big gap. And there's pretty good evidence now that part
19:57
Speaker 1: of where that gap comes from is girls worried. Girls
20:00
Speaker 1: worries about their bodies right, how their bodies look to
20:03
Speaker 1: other people, how their faces looked to other people, their appearance.
20:06
Speaker 1: So it's really this time when body image concerns that
20:10
Speaker 1: could have been a distraction can turn into something much bigger.
20:14
Speaker 1: And I think it's something to really be on the
20:16
Speaker 1: lookout for as parents.
20:17
Speaker 2: The second most worried about issue in my study of girls,
20:23
Speaker 2: and now this was not a university study. It was
20:25
Speaker 2: a survey with a handful of interviews and some focus
20:28
Speaker 2: groups with girls for my book Misconnection. Number one was
20:31
Speaker 2: I wonder if you can guess what do you think
20:33
Speaker 2: teenage girls? Number one issue was.
20:36
Speaker 1: I'm a little biased, but right, my sense is that
20:39
Speaker 1: one of the biggest issues is body.
20:41
Speaker 3: So body image was number two.
20:43
Speaker 1: So besides that, I would say relationships and.
20:46
Speaker 2: Parenting, relationships with friends it was yeah, yeah, I'm worried
20:50
Speaker 2: about my friends and how they see me in whether
20:51
Speaker 2: I've got any And what was fascinating about that was
20:54
Speaker 2: so many of them linked their relationships with friends to
20:58
Speaker 2: issues with appearance. Well, you know, they wanted to be popular,
21:02
Speaker 2: but to be popular, they had to be hot. You're like,
21:05
Speaker 2: there's this explicit, unmissible link when you look at the
21:11
Speaker 2: when you look at the comments from girls, it's it's
21:14
Speaker 2: an undeniable link for so many of them that they
21:17
Speaker 2: literally tie their value as a human being to their
21:19
Speaker 2: physical appearance. And if I look good, then I'm a
21:22
Speaker 2: valuable person. But if I don't look good, I'm worthless.
21:26
Speaker 2: I'm nothing, and nobody will like me.
21:28
Speaker 1: It would be incredibly hard for them not to tie
21:31
Speaker 1: their value to their appearance, because that's what every cultural
21:35
Speaker 1: message they get tells them to do. Right, That's what
21:39
Speaker 1: they've been sold since they were young. Right, that their prettiness,
21:43
Speaker 1: and then as they get older, their sex appeal. Right,
21:45
Speaker 1: that that is their source of worth. That that will
21:48
Speaker 1: be the ticket to success in life. It will be
21:50
Speaker 1: the ticket to a happy relationship, to good peer experiences. Right,
21:55
Speaker 1: this is a lesson that we learn over and over again.
21:59
Speaker 1: It's really hard hard not to internalize that.
22:02
Speaker 2: And there's there's that halo effect where I mean, there's
22:05
Speaker 2: so much research on there's people who are attractive get
22:09
Speaker 2: a on average, an easier ride in life. They're more
22:13
Speaker 2: likely to escape speeding tickets when they get pulled over
22:15
Speaker 2: by the police, They're more likely to be marked better
22:18
Speaker 2: in an exam, they get a better ride. There's so
22:22
Speaker 2: many studies in so many different contexts now that highlight
22:25
Speaker 2: that physical appearance actually makes life easier.
22:28
Speaker 1: I would never underestimate the sort of the goods you
22:32
Speaker 1: get in exchange for being sort of consistent with our
22:36
Speaker 1: culture's beauty ideals. Right, you get a lot from that.
22:39
Speaker 1: It's not all good though, right. You also get assumptions
22:44
Speaker 1: that you're arrogant or that you're dumb sometimes right, that
22:48
Speaker 1: you can't be smart and pretty. And I've also talked
22:51
Speaker 1: to a lot of young women who felt like, yeah,
22:54
Speaker 1: it was great to be identified as pretty or beautiful,
22:58
Speaker 1: but over time you start to wonder if that's not
23:00
Speaker 1: all you are. And then I talked to women who
23:02
Speaker 1: are heading into their thirties and forties who are terrified
23:07
Speaker 1: because they are well aware of the power they got
23:09
Speaker 1: from being beautiful, and they're also aware that it has
23:12
Speaker 1: an expiration date on it, and they head into middle
23:15
Speaker 1: aged thinking what's left? Right once this goes? What's left?
23:22
Speaker 3: You should have quote from your grandpa, Oh.
23:26
Speaker 1: Yes, I always worry about this because I don't know
23:28
Speaker 1: if he made this up or if he got it somewhere.
23:30
Speaker 1: I couldn't find it online. But he always used to
23:32
Speaker 1: tell me. He called me Nane, and he would say, Nna,
23:35
Speaker 1: never be too proud of your youth or your beauty.
23:38
Speaker 1: You did nothing to earn them, and you can do
23:40
Speaker 1: nothing to keep them. And I know it sounds sort
23:45
Speaker 1: of brutal, but I never experienced it that way, right,
23:47
Speaker 1: what I as a child growing up like that was
23:50
Speaker 1: his way of telling us that, hey, this this this
23:53
Speaker 1: game was rigged. Right. You might have gotten some privileges,
23:56
Speaker 1: you might have them now, you're not going to have
23:58
Speaker 1: them forever, and you didn't deserve them and earn them. Right,
24:01
Speaker 1: be proud of the things that you work for, and
24:04
Speaker 1: build foundations for your life that you can keep. Right.
24:07
Speaker 1: That's I think the most important lesson there.
24:10
Speaker 2: It's a little bit of tough love advice, but it's good.
24:12
Speaker 2: I mean, it's really good. What's driving this though? So
24:16
Speaker 2: can we point the finger at any one main culprit? So?
24:19
Speaker 1: I don't think so. You know, I'm not I'm not
24:22
Speaker 1: interested in sort of bashing any one target. Here. What
24:26
Speaker 1: I see is this collection of forces, you know, that's
24:30
Speaker 1: that's created this toxic stew that girls and women are
24:34
Speaker 1: swimming around in. And part of those forces we help
24:38
Speaker 1: a lot, right when we buy into the diet industry
24:42
Speaker 1: and the beauty industry. Right when we follow people on
24:46
Speaker 1: Instagram who do nothing but show us how beautiful they are.
24:49
Speaker 1: Right when we encourage this kind of thing.
24:51
Speaker 3: Sometimes, oh oh, you know what you've You've just reminded me.
24:53
Speaker 2: I saw a picture of a dinner plate set for
24:55
Speaker 2: sale in a store. I saw it was I.
24:58
Speaker 3: Couldn't believe what I was reading on the plate.
25:00
Speaker 2: There are three circles. Okay, so there's like an inner
25:02
Speaker 2: circle drawn on the plate. Then there's a circle halfway
25:05
Speaker 2: along the plate, and then there's a circle towards the
25:07
Speaker 2: outer rim of the plate. And there was a name
25:09
Speaker 2: for each circle. The inner circle which was you know,
25:13
Speaker 2: it was representative of the smallest portion size you might
25:15
Speaker 2: put on that plate. The inner circle said skinny jeans,
25:18
Speaker 2: the middle one said favorite jeans. And then the largest circle,
25:21
Speaker 2: which you know was out near the rim taking up
25:22
Speaker 2: the whole plate, said mum jeans.
25:25
Speaker 1: Oh oh, way, we treat mothers the way we treat mothers.
25:29
Speaker 2: Right.
25:30
Speaker 1: I watched, you know, since we've been sort of in
25:33
Speaker 1: lockdown here, I've been watching maybe a little more Netflix
25:36
Speaker 1: than I should. And I stumbled across the show that
25:39
Speaker 1: it's called The Baker and the Beauty. It was just
25:42
Speaker 1: this little like family sitcom and there's a young woman
25:45
Speaker 1: in it who has this line because she's pressuring her
25:47
Speaker 1: boyfriend to get married, and she said, I'm a woman,
25:50
Speaker 1: this is what we do. We diet, we get married,
25:53
Speaker 1: we have children, and then we diet again. And I
25:57
Speaker 1: was just so there was just silly little show, right,
26:01
Speaker 1: But there was something about that line. It's like, Yeah,
26:04
Speaker 1: for a lot of women, that's their life, right. You
26:06
Speaker 1: become a mom and then you diet because you're allowed
26:09
Speaker 1: to be a mom, but you're not allowed to look
26:10
Speaker 1: like a mom. Right. This pressure to have the body
26:15
Speaker 1: of a twenty year old for the rest of your life,
26:17
Speaker 1: it's it's insane, right, It's a pressure that has gotten
26:23
Speaker 1: absolutely worse over the years. There's not great data on it,
26:27
Speaker 1: but I've talked to a lot of practitioners who treat
26:29
Speaker 1: women with eating disorders, and they said, there's seeing something
26:33
Speaker 1: kind of unusual, which is like the onset of anorexia
26:37
Speaker 1: is showing up in the thirties and forties, just not
26:40
Speaker 1: something you typically see. Anorexia can last a very long time,
26:43
Speaker 1: but it tends to start much earlier than that. And
26:46
Speaker 1: some of that is tied to the sense that that
26:49
Speaker 1: women are feeling this pressure to do everything they can right,
26:53
Speaker 1: to not look like someone who would wear mom jeans right,
26:56
Speaker 1: to have the skinny jeans forever, to get botox, to
27:00
Speaker 1: get fillers, to color your hair, to go to ten
27:02
Speaker 1: workout classes a week, to constantly watch what you eat.
27:05
Speaker 1: It's it's brutal. It's brutal. There's got to be more
27:08
Speaker 1: to life than diet. Do some things and then diet again. Right,
27:11
Speaker 1: They're just has to be.
27:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm still curious.
27:15
Speaker 2: I know that I kind of interrupted you when I
27:17
Speaker 2: asked that initial question of what's what's creating it?
27:20
Speaker 3: What is the culport?
27:20
Speaker 2: And I say, there's no one thing. There's this toxic stew.
27:24
Speaker 2: But I wonder if we could actually name them. So
27:26
Speaker 2: we've got we've got dinner plates, the reinforce this, and
27:30
Speaker 2: we've obviously got the media and the social media. And
27:33
Speaker 2: but are they more insidious things as well? Are there
27:36
Speaker 2: things that we don't even.
27:36
Speaker 3: Know that A.
27:38
Speaker 1: Well, there's the beauty industry and the diet industry, which
27:41
Speaker 1: are billions of dollars to year. They're incredibly powerful, and
27:46
Speaker 1: they only make money if you feel unattractive, right, these
27:50
Speaker 1: are these are products like that you'll only keep buying
27:54
Speaker 1: if they don't work. Right. The power of these industries
27:58
Speaker 1: to capitalize on women's vulnerability is really breathtaking. I can't
28:03
Speaker 1: tell you how many smart, educated with it. Women will
28:07
Speaker 1: still say things like I swear for just a moment,
28:10
Speaker 1: I thought that mascara was going to change my life, right,
28:13
Speaker 1: Like you just really get sold this bill of goods,
28:16
Speaker 1: that this next thing is going to make it all okay, right,
28:19
Speaker 1: and that the only way you're ever going to feel
28:22
Speaker 1: like enough is if you can look like a fitness
28:25
Speaker 1: model or look like that influencer on Instagram. It's it's
28:31
Speaker 1: hard to see several generations of women now never feeling
28:35
Speaker 1: like they're going to be enough. Right. That's that's a
28:38
Speaker 1: really hard thing for me to look at. And it's
28:40
Speaker 1: really hard for me when I find out that even
28:44
Speaker 1: some grown women who are my heroes still feel that way, right,
28:48
Speaker 1: That's that's a really hard thing to hear. I have
28:50
Speaker 1: people ask all the time, like where did you find
28:52
Speaker 1: all these women with body image issues to talk to
28:55
Speaker 1: you for your book? And I was like, I don't
28:57
Speaker 1: understand the question, right, I just found I didn't look
29:01
Speaker 1: for women with body issues. I just found women, and
29:04
Speaker 1: I talked to them about their bodies. It's all you
29:06
Speaker 1: need to do.
29:08
Speaker 2: So young girls, between girls, teen girls, young women, mums,
29:16
Speaker 2: adult women, retirees.
29:19
Speaker 3: I'm guessing that this is just a pervasive thing.
29:22
Speaker 2: And again, just to emphasize, it's not a man thing.
29:26
Speaker 3: In fact, let me read something.
29:28
Speaker 2: I wish I could read your entire book to you,
29:30
Speaker 2: so that I could say, now, tell me about this,
29:32
Speaker 2: but let me just read this. This was in a
29:35
Speaker 2: chapter that you titled just Like a Woman, and I've
29:40
Speaker 2: underlined nearly the whole chapter, but I just want to
29:43
Speaker 2: read this bit to you. You said, think about it
29:45
Speaker 2: in this way. If I told you that someone in
29:47
Speaker 2: the United States was about to go under the knife
29:50
Speaker 2: in the hopes of reshaping their appearance, you could bet
29:53
Speaker 2: it was a woman and be correct. Around ninety percent
29:55
Speaker 2: of the time. Internationally, eighty five to ninety percent of
29:58
Speaker 2: surgical and non surgical cosmetic procedures are performed on women.
30:02
Speaker 3: If you heard that a.
30:03
Speaker 2: Young person was suffering from anorexia or bolima, I guess
30:06
Speaker 2: it was a young woman. You'd be right nine times
30:08
Speaker 2: out of ten. Eating disorders and plastic surgery are both
30:10
Speaker 2: complex issues, but we can't ignore gender gaps like these.
30:13
Speaker 2: They force us to acknowledge that men's and women's experience
30:16
Speaker 2: in this culture are vastly different.
30:18
Speaker 3: In important ways.
30:19
Speaker 2: Men and women are living systematically different lives when it
30:22
Speaker 2: comes to beauty sickness. I just want to read a
30:25
Speaker 2: couple more lines from this particular area. I know it's
30:28
Speaker 2: probably boring to you because you wrote it, but just
30:30
Speaker 2: it's so compelling. Women talk about how they look more
30:33
Speaker 2: than men do. They think about how they look more
30:35
Speaker 2: than men do, and they're more likely than men to
30:37
Speaker 2: engage in behaviors to alter or improve their appearance. There's
30:41
Speaker 2: a reason no one in this culture would be surprised
30:44
Speaker 2: to overhear a woman saying I feel so fat and ugly. Today,
30:48
Speaker 2: we accept this type of unhappiness as part of being
30:51
Speaker 2: a woman. Over thirty years ago, researchers coined the phrase
30:55
Speaker 2: normative discontent to describe the phenomenon. The term suggests that
31:00
Speaker 2: we've gotten to a place where it's considered normal for
31:03
Speaker 2: girls or women to be deeply disappointed when they look
31:05
Speaker 2: in the mirror. It's the girl version of boys will
31:08
Speaker 2: be boys.
31:12
Speaker 1: This is the first question I always get, right if
31:15
Speaker 1: I go speak to any kind of group about this topic,
31:18
Speaker 1: Almost always, the first question I get is what about men?
31:21
Speaker 1: What about boys? And so I always want to be
31:24
Speaker 1: clear that boys and men can absolutely have these struggles too, Right,
31:27
Speaker 1: they can happen to any gender. So, but that doesn't
31:32
Speaker 1: mean that boys and girls and men and women are
31:35
Speaker 1: living in the same world when it comes to these issues.
31:37
Speaker 3: So it's different for me.
31:39
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it can happen. And I also I'm not
31:42
Speaker 1: arguing that it's easy to be a man either, right.
31:45
Speaker 1: I think there are pressures that hit men differentially. So
31:49
Speaker 1: for example, the pressure to make a lot of money,
31:52
Speaker 1: to be powerful, to have high status. Right, that is
31:55
Speaker 1: a pressure, a burden that men bear much more than
31:59
Speaker 1: women do. Right. I think in some ways women are
32:01
Speaker 1: given more freedom in those respects. But I don't think
32:05
Speaker 1: we can argue that that men and women are facing
32:08
Speaker 1: the same reality when it comes to a parent's focus
32:11
Speaker 1: and so, but part of the issue is I study
32:14
Speaker 1: women and girls. That's what I do, right, so that
32:16
Speaker 1: is my focus. There are people who focus on body
32:19
Speaker 1: image and men and boys who are doing excellent work.
32:22
Speaker 1: So I don't mean to imply that that's not important
32:24
Speaker 1: and not out there. But what fascinates me is as
32:28
Speaker 1: a culture, this set of rules that women are just
32:32
Speaker 1: by and large expected to follow without question, that we
32:35
Speaker 1: would never ask men to follow. Can you imagine if
32:38
Speaker 1: we ask men to wear high heels are something equally
32:41
Speaker 1: uncomfortable and you know, inefficient when it came to.
32:45
Speaker 3: Walking or even to remove the hair from their bodies.
32:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, And people say, well some men wax, and I
32:50
Speaker 1: say absolutely right. But if you look at waxing salons,
32:54
Speaker 1: they'll say here's our waxing menu, and then there'll be
32:56
Speaker 1: a little part that says men's services, right, So they're
32:59
Speaker 1: even telling you there there's a differentiation there. It's not
33:04
Speaker 1: the norm for men the way it is for women,
33:08
Speaker 1: at least not for strate guys. I do think that
33:11
Speaker 1: sexual minority men face a greater degree of pressure on
33:14
Speaker 1: this front. But it's everywhere built into our culture, right.
33:19
Speaker 1: You hear it from the minute we start talking about infants,
33:21
Speaker 1: when we say such a pretty girl, such a pretty girl.
33:24
Speaker 1: Oh look at this strong boy. Right, it starts very
33:28
Speaker 1: young that we think about women's bodies, about their physicality
33:33
Speaker 1: as existing to be looked at, right, instead of as
33:37
Speaker 1: existing to do things.
33:39
Speaker 2: You know, I just remembered the story one of the
33:42
Speaker 2: guys that is a TV host for one of our
33:45
Speaker 2: major breakfast programs nationwide around Australia. His name is Karl Stefanovic,
33:50
Speaker 2: and a few years ago, there was a big media
33:54
Speaker 2: storm when he stepped forward and said, I guess what,
33:58
Speaker 2: I haven't changed my suit for a year. I've worn
34:01
Speaker 2: the same suit and tie every single day on the
34:05
Speaker 2: television for an entire year, and nobody nobody's noticed. I've
34:09
Speaker 2: not received one single email. I've not received one single
34:12
Speaker 2: comment on social media. Nobody's said a word about the
34:15
Speaker 2: fact that I've been wearing exactly the same suit and
34:17
Speaker 2: tie and.
34:17
Speaker 3: The white shirt for a year.
34:20
Speaker 2: But he stepped out and said it that day because
34:24
Speaker 2: that same day his co host too at the time,
34:26
Speaker 2: was a lady called Lisa Wilkinson. That day, she had
34:29
Speaker 2: been absolutely slammed with hundreds of comments because people didn't
34:32
Speaker 2: like the clothing that she wore on the television that day.
34:34
Speaker 2: And this was a This was a regular occurrence. This
34:37
Speaker 2: happens all the time. Because I'm on the TV. I'm
34:40
Speaker 2: following a bunch of Instagram accounts for the TV hosts
34:45
Speaker 2: that I'm interviewed by or that I work with from
34:47
Speaker 2: time to time, and whenever they post any pictures of them,
34:50
Speaker 2: the threads are full of comment after comment after comment
34:53
Speaker 2: of how beautiful they are. Now they're not posting anything
34:55
Speaker 2: about their looks. They're not trying to look snazzy. They're
34:57
Speaker 2: simply saying I'm here doing this gig, or I'm at
35:00
Speaker 2: home with the kids, or here's what I cooked for dinner.
35:03
Speaker 2: And nevertheless, all the comments are about their physical appearance.
35:06
Speaker 2: It's almost like people feel compelled to say something, they
35:08
Speaker 2: don't know what to say, and so they comment on
35:10
Speaker 2: their looks. But I can tell you I've never posted
35:12
Speaker 2: a picture, ever posted a picture on my Instagram or
35:15
Speaker 2: on my Facebook where people have chosen to make the
35:19
Speaker 2: majority of the commentary about my physical appearance.
35:21
Speaker 3: Never happened.
35:22
Speaker 2: I mean, I know that I'm not the most attractive
35:24
Speaker 2: guy in the world, but it's never ever happened. And
35:26
Speaker 2: I don't care that I'm not the most attractive guy
35:28
Speaker 2: in the world. I don't have to be brad Pit.
35:29
Speaker 2: People don't value me for my appearance. They value me
35:32
Speaker 2: for the work that I do.
35:34
Speaker 1: It's a super awkward place to be. I have to
35:37
Speaker 1: tell you, I can I can go somewhere to do
35:40
Speaker 1: a TV segment or give a talk on this topic,
35:43
Speaker 1: and often the first thing people will say to me
35:45
Speaker 1: is something about how I look. Even in that moment,
35:50
Speaker 1: right it still happens. I have an author Instagram account,
35:54
Speaker 1: which I'm not particularly good at. I don't know how
35:56
Speaker 1: to do stories, et cetera, et cetera. But I almost
35:59
Speaker 1: never post a picture myself. I'm not interested. I'm not
36:01
Speaker 1: interested in people's commentary. I'm not interested in those moments
36:05
Speaker 1: where I have to worry about how I look as
36:07
Speaker 1: I'm taking that picture, and what's my hair doing, and
36:08
Speaker 1: should I filter it or should I not filter it.
36:12
Speaker 1: I just don't do it right. But that's a power
36:14
Speaker 1: I have to be able to opt out. There are
36:16
Speaker 1: many people in jobs that can't opt out right, like
36:19
Speaker 1: a like a woman working in news. It's an image
36:23
Speaker 1: focused profession. There are There's a journalist I wrote about
36:26
Speaker 1: her a little bit in Beauty Sick, Heidi Stevens at
36:29
Speaker 1: the Chicago Tribune locally, who's got very curly hair, Like
36:32
Speaker 1: that's it, it's just curly hair. And she could write
36:35
Speaker 1: a column every year with a collection of little hate
36:38
Speaker 1: mail she gets about her hair, right, like how can
36:41
Speaker 1: you leave your hair like that? Your hair is a
36:42
Speaker 1: rat nest? How could you do that? That's so unprofessional?
36:44
Speaker 1: And she's not even on TV. This is all just
36:47
Speaker 1: based on that little thumbnail picture that you see next
36:49
Speaker 1: to a columnist. So just imagine how that gets gets
36:53
Speaker 1: turned up, right, And when you're a woman in the
36:55
Speaker 1: public eye, and I have to wonder all the time,
36:59
Speaker 1: how many women would seek out jops, careers, volunteer opportunities
37:04
Speaker 1: in the public eye but choose not to because they
37:07
Speaker 1: don't want that kind of scrutiny about their appearents. I
37:10
Speaker 1: think that's happening more than we talk about.
37:12
Speaker 2: And your research shows that the cost to women in
37:15
Speaker 2: terms of opportunity, which is what you've just described, is huge.
37:20
Speaker 2: But it's not just that cost. It's the cost in
37:22
Speaker 2: terms of the time. You know, when I've got to
37:25
Speaker 2: go and do a TV spot, I walk in. They
37:29
Speaker 2: throw a little bit of makeup sort of stuff on
37:31
Speaker 2: my face.
37:32
Speaker 3: It takes about a minute and a half.
37:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, they go, I don't know what it is, but
37:35
Speaker 2: they put some stuff on my face, which I remove
37:37
Speaker 2: as soon as I'm off the TV. I get those
37:39
Speaker 2: facial wipes and get rid of it. But I'm in
37:41
Speaker 2: and out within about a minute and a half. They
37:44
Speaker 2: have a look at my hair and say, oh, that's fine.
37:45
Speaker 2: They don't even sit me in the chair. Whereas the
37:48
Speaker 2: women who I'm often appearing on the television with, They'll
37:51
Speaker 2: have to be there at least an hour ahead of
37:54
Speaker 2: the segment I stroll in, fifteen minutes before the segment
37:57
Speaker 2: I'm in, I'm out, I'm done. That there at least
37:59
Speaker 2: an hour before they get the head on their spending.
38:01
Speaker 2: All that time, that time that they could be reading
38:03
Speaker 2: a book, or that time that they could be responding
38:05
Speaker 2: to him, all that time that they could be building
38:07
Speaker 2: their strategic plan for their business, and it's all of
38:09
Speaker 2: that money that they've got to spend. I don't spend
38:11
Speaker 2: money on my appearance, but women are expected to spend
38:14
Speaker 2: money on the messcar that's going to change their life
38:17
Speaker 2: that you mentioned before, just the.
38:19
Speaker 1: Basics, just the basic grooming. Now you're supposed to get
38:22
Speaker 1: eyelashes glued on to your eyelashes once a month so
38:26
Speaker 1: that it can save you time and not having to
38:28
Speaker 1: wear a mask. Here. I used to get my nails done,
38:31
Speaker 1: and not only did I get my nails done, but
38:33
Speaker 1: I got them done like clear, so it wasn't you know,
38:37
Speaker 1: I'm spending this time and money. It's not even a color,
38:39
Speaker 1: so it would be pretty low maintenance then. And my
38:42
Speaker 1: feet too and I enjoyed it. I found it. It's like,
38:45
Speaker 1: I know, it's such a privilege, we will go do
38:47
Speaker 1: something like that, but it's super relaxing. But I found
38:50
Speaker 1: that it got to this point where I would think, like,
38:52
Speaker 1: oh no, I gotta like it's been spend three weeks.
38:54
Speaker 1: I got to get my nails done and it started
38:56
Speaker 1: to feel like this burden, and I thought, what would
38:59
Speaker 1: happen if I just stopped? And you know what happened.
39:03
Speaker 1: It felt weird. For a few weeks, I learned, like
39:07
Speaker 1: any reasonable human can how to file my own nails,
39:10
Speaker 1: and it's one less thing I have to worry about now.
39:12
Speaker 3: And typing must be so much easier.
39:15
Speaker 1: It's just it's nice, right, It's nothing now, A pedicure
39:18
Speaker 1: still feels good. I won't lie.
39:21
Speaker 2: But the point is you're doing it because it feels good.
39:24
Speaker 2: You're not doing it to impress somebody. So let's move
39:26
Speaker 2: towards the final part of this conversation. It's been so
39:29
Speaker 2: compelling to talk with you about this, but I really
39:32
Speaker 2: want to talk about what we can do to help
39:33
Speaker 2: our children, both boys and girls, to get past this
39:38
Speaker 2: this awful belief that ties you self worth to appearance
39:40
Speaker 2: I love.
39:40
Speaker 3: Your suggestions in Beauty Sick.
39:42
Speaker 2: You've got the back end of the book is full
39:44
Speaker 2: of suggestions, And something that you did was so consistent
39:47
Speaker 2: with what I've read in the research and what I've understood,
39:49
Speaker 2: and that is there's very little point talking to our
39:52
Speaker 2: kids about how everything's photoshopped and saying, you know, I
39:54
Speaker 2: don't believe what you see because it's all photo shopped,
39:56
Speaker 2: Because to them, whether it's fake or not, whether they
40:00
Speaker 2: know it's fake or not, doesn't stop it being aspirational.
40:03
Speaker 2: You know, you're still focusing on the appearance, even if
40:06
Speaker 2: you're saying, look at everything and be critical of it
40:08
Speaker 2: and highlight you know, where the air brushing has happened.
40:11
Speaker 2: All the forty thousand dollars that have spent on camera
40:13
Speaker 2: and lighting and equipment and people, it's still in front
40:16
Speaker 2: of them, It's still being noticed. So let's start with
40:19
Speaker 2: our little ones, you know, our three, four, five, six
40:22
Speaker 2: year olds.
40:23
Speaker 3: What can parents do to reduce the likelihood that they're
40:26
Speaker 3: going to be beauty focused?
40:28
Speaker 1: So the thing I love to say is that they're
40:29
Speaker 1: actually a few pretty easy things you can do that
40:32
Speaker 1: don't cost money, and they just take some practice. And
40:35
Speaker 1: one of them is I encourage parents to consider making
40:39
Speaker 1: their home and appearance commentary free zone, right where you
40:43
Speaker 1: don't talk about the shape of other people's bodies or
40:46
Speaker 1: who's gained our lost weight, or who's ugly or pretty.
40:49
Speaker 1: And that means you, that means people on TV, that
40:52
Speaker 1: means peers, That means even people you don't like, right,
40:56
Speaker 1: even the politician you don't like. It means your body
40:58
Speaker 1: shame that person either. And so you just give this
41:02
Speaker 1: like continuous, gentle message that we leave space for other
41:06
Speaker 1: conversations in this house. That's not how we think about people.
41:09
Speaker 1: We don't think about them in terms of whether they're
41:11
Speaker 1: beautiful or not. Now, I do think you need to
41:14
Speaker 1: be careful there. You don't want to move so far
41:16
Speaker 1: as to say how you look doesn't matter. Right. Racism
41:19
Speaker 1: is real, anti fat bias is real. Right, Like, all
41:22
Speaker 1: of these things can still be wrestled with, But it
41:25
Speaker 1: means that you don't send the message to your children
41:30
Speaker 1: that a part of what determines if they're good or
41:32
Speaker 1: not is whether they are appealing to look at. So
41:35
Speaker 1: just practice it, right, And if you have guests to
41:37
Speaker 1: your home and they start saying, like, oh, did you
41:39
Speaker 1: see so and so lost weight. Just say, oh, we're
41:42
Speaker 1: working really hard not to talk about those things so
41:44
Speaker 1: much in this house. Do you mind if we change
41:45
Speaker 1: the subject, right, It's a pretty easy thing to do,
41:49
Speaker 1: and I love thinking about all the conversations that are
41:52
Speaker 1: going to happen instead. Right to me, that's so fun. Right.
41:57
Speaker 1: So that means as a parent, you have to stop
41:59
Speaker 1: body shaming yourself.
42:01
Speaker 3: And that's that's such a big one, isn't it.
42:03
Speaker 2: As a parent, how do we make sure that the
42:05
Speaker 2: comments that we make about our own bodies, if we
42:08
Speaker 2: go to make them at all, which so many of
42:10
Speaker 2: us do, how do we make sure that those comments
42:13
Speaker 2: are either positive or uplifting or focused. Something that you
42:18
Speaker 2: emphasized in your book that I've adopted immediately I thought,
42:21
Speaker 2: this is so perfect is when we're going to talk
42:24
Speaker 2: about our bodies, we don't talk about how they look.
42:26
Speaker 3: We talk about what they do, right.
42:28
Speaker 1: I think especially for young children, because they're learning to
42:31
Speaker 1: use their bodies. Right, So encourage them to think about
42:35
Speaker 1: their bodies not from this objectified perspective, not from how
42:39
Speaker 1: do they look to other people, but from the perspective
42:41
Speaker 1: of what do they do for you? What do they
42:43
Speaker 1: allow you? To experience. What do they allow you to feel.
42:47
Speaker 1: I've had some people say to me, oh, that's ablest straight,
42:49
Speaker 1: because what if you're disabled? But that's I don't mean
42:53
Speaker 1: that you have to be a marathon runner to appreciate
42:56
Speaker 1: what your body does.
42:57
Speaker 3: Like.
42:57
Speaker 1: Our bodies do all kinds of things. Right. They allow
43:02
Speaker 1: for creativity and communication, you know, they allow us to
43:05
Speaker 1: connect with other people. If you have children who are
43:08
Speaker 1: into athletics of any kind, right, they allowed that sort
43:12
Speaker 1: of thing. Bodies are super cool, right, So teach your
43:15
Speaker 1: children about how cool they are, like all the amazing
43:19
Speaker 1: things they can do, and how they can care for
43:21
Speaker 1: their bodies so that they can keep doing cool things,
43:24
Speaker 1: but not so that they can look good to other people. Right.
43:27
Speaker 1: The best advice is to just keep those conversations off
43:30
Speaker 1: the table. I just don't have them.
43:33
Speaker 2: If you were to extend that developmental trajectory from our
43:37
Speaker 2: younger children into the older children, everything that you've just
43:40
Speaker 2: said would obviously apply. Is there anything additional that you
43:42
Speaker 2: would add to what parents can be doing to reduce
43:47
Speaker 2: the focus on appearance with the tweens and teens.
43:50
Speaker 1: It's going to get really hard in those tween years, right,
43:53
Speaker 1: And I think you have to be very careful as
43:56
Speaker 1: a parent not to Here's a psychological term you've probably
43:59
Speaker 1: come across a lot in your work on parenting is reactants. Right, Like,
44:02
Speaker 1: the minute you tell a child don't do that thing,
44:04
Speaker 1: they're gonna want it more. And so I think you
44:07
Speaker 1: have to step away from that temptation to say, like
44:09
Speaker 1: you're being vain, you're being superficial, don't follow that Instagram account,
44:12
Speaker 1: don't post selfies, don't do that. Right, you can't really
44:15
Speaker 1: do that. You have to give children some space to experiment.
44:18
Speaker 1: But I think one of the best gifts you can
44:20
Speaker 1: give your child as they move into those years, no
44:23
Speaker 1: matter what their gender is, is room to explore all
44:26
Speaker 1: the different parts of themselves. Right, So ask them questions
44:31
Speaker 1: about what matters to them, what's inspiring to them, what
44:34
Speaker 1: they're worried about lately, what they're thinking about. I don't
44:37
Speaker 1: think we ask our children enough questions as they get
44:41
Speaker 1: to that age. A lot of children that age are
44:44
Speaker 1: quite willing to talk if you ask the right question,
44:47
Speaker 1: and if you show that you're willing to listen right
44:49
Speaker 1: and not butt in and tell them they're wrong and
44:51
Speaker 1: try to redirect them. And I think Giving tween girls
44:55
Speaker 1: space to be something other than beauty queens or other
44:59
Speaker 1: than people who are constant worried about the fact that
45:01
Speaker 1: they're not beauty queens is one of the best things
45:03
Speaker 1: you can do. So help them develop their interests, help
45:06
Speaker 1: them develop their passions, and then when they move into
45:10
Speaker 1: the teeniers here is maybe And it sound like insane
45:12
Speaker 1: advice that I told you I love teenagers, and I do.
45:15
Speaker 1: If your daughters in particular are struggling with these issues,
45:19
Speaker 1: it's time to get them angry. Right. It's time to
45:24
Speaker 1: talk with them about what a sick injustice this world
45:28
Speaker 1: does to girls and women when it makes girls and
45:31
Speaker 1: women hate their bodies. Right, It's time to ask them
45:33
Speaker 1: questions about who benefits from that hatred, who's making money
45:38
Speaker 1: off of it? Right? Whose life gets better when you
45:40
Speaker 1: don't like your body, and whose life gets worse? And
45:43
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Right? Teenagers, as you know, are
45:47
Speaker 1: quite angry sometimes, so to me, that's an opportunity, right,
45:53
Speaker 1: Harness that anger. Right, let them see the ways that
45:58
Speaker 1: they don't like what the world is doing and set
46:01
Speaker 1: them on the paths to make in a better world.
46:03
Speaker 1: Teenagers are ready to make a difference. I think we
46:05
Speaker 1: see this all around us right now. We see teenagers
46:08
Speaker 1: doing amazing work, work quite frankly, that we should have
46:11
Speaker 1: done right, and now they're taking it upon themselves. And
46:15
Speaker 1: so I think you can really give space for your
46:19
Speaker 1: teenagers to turn some of that sadness and that despondency
46:23
Speaker 1: into appropriately targeted anger. Right, Give them a passion, give
46:27
Speaker 1: them a cause, let them make their mark on the world.
46:31
Speaker 1: I think they're way more ready to do that than
46:33
Speaker 1: we give them credit for great answers.
46:37
Speaker 2: Something that stands out to me from the earlier part
46:41
Speaker 2: of what you were saying is just if I was
46:43
Speaker 2: to restate it, I guess and reemphasize a little bit
46:46
Speaker 2: of it. What I'm actually hearing you say is make
46:49
Speaker 2: their world and their lives so full that they don't
46:52
Speaker 2: have the time or the space to be worried about
46:55
Speaker 2: how they look. And that doesn't mean overcram their curriculum
46:58
Speaker 2: and show give them, give them the capacity to be
47:02
Speaker 2: developing other things, other talents, how the strengths, other capacities,
47:07
Speaker 2: so that they're not sitting there staring at their image
47:10
Speaker 2: in Instagram and trying to make it look that little
47:12
Speaker 2: bit better.
47:13
Speaker 1: Many years ago, I am so sorry I interrupted you there.
47:16
Speaker 1: But many years ago I tried to do a study
47:19
Speaker 1: of young women who weren't hurting in this way, like
47:22
Speaker 1: who felt pretty good about their bodies and weren't engaging
47:25
Speaker 1: and eating disordered behaviors. And we found this very tiny
47:28
Speaker 1: group of them and we just did this basic interview
47:31
Speaker 1: about like what did your parents do growing up and
47:34
Speaker 1: how did this happen? And what they told us is
47:36
Speaker 1: that it was nothing magic, right, Like, yeah, they were
47:38
Speaker 1: probably a little more likely to have these sort of
47:40
Speaker 1: like feminist leaning parents who were like trying to do
47:43
Speaker 1: some of this deliberately, but mostly what they said is
47:46
Speaker 1: it's just not something we focused on in my family.
47:48
Speaker 1: We focused on other things. Yeah, Yeah, And I think
47:51
Speaker 1: that's the key.
47:51
Speaker 2: A friend of mine, Rebecca Sparrow, she has a great
47:54
Speaker 2: following here in Australia and one of the things that
47:56
Speaker 2: she emphasizes is with your twein and teen girls, go
47:59
Speaker 2: through their Instagram accounts with them, go through the people
48:01
Speaker 2: that they're following and get rid of all of the
48:04
Speaker 2: people who are focused on fashion and appearance and instead
48:08
Speaker 2: fill up your feed with artists and poets and influencers
48:14
Speaker 2: and people who can offer something other than a viewer appearance.
48:20
Speaker 2: And it's such a simple thing to do, and I
48:22
Speaker 2: wonder how often we've done it. Okay, the big question.
48:27
Speaker 2: We've talked about little ones. We've talked about a tweens
48:30
Speaker 2: and teens, But what about the mum who's listening right now,
48:34
Speaker 2: or her husband or partner who is saying this has
48:39
Speaker 2: been my wife?
48:41
Speaker 3: How does she get past this?
48:42
Speaker 2: And how does she make sure that she doesn't pass
48:43
Speaker 2: it on to her kids, and how does a husband
48:48
Speaker 2: or partner support her as she tries to get past it.
48:53
Speaker 1: So I've talked to so many women who they kind
48:57
Speaker 1: of come to this topic a little late, and they
48:59
Speaker 1: realize I've struggled with this my whole life and I
49:02
Speaker 1: didn't mean to, but I passed these struggles on to
49:04
Speaker 1: my daughter, and it's too late, and I blew it.
49:07
Speaker 1: And my message is always like, it is not too late.
49:11
Speaker 1: Right if you have a tween or a teen, or
49:13
Speaker 1: a young adult or even an adult daughter, it is not
49:17
Speaker 1: too late. And there is something I think just really
49:22
Speaker 1: beautiful about sitting down with your daughter and saying, I
49:25
Speaker 1: realize that these are the messages I've been sending to you,
49:28
Speaker 1: right that I haven't been happy with my body, and
49:31
Speaker 1: these are the ways it came out, and these are
49:33
Speaker 1: the ways it might have affected you. And I wonder
49:35
Speaker 1: if you want to work together with me to change that, Like,
49:38
Speaker 1: here's some things I'm going to try to do differently now,
49:40
Speaker 1: I wonder what you would think about that. A lot
49:43
Speaker 1: of the daughters I know would just start sobbing with relief, right,
49:46
Speaker 1: They would so appreciate that kind of raw honesty. It's
49:52
Speaker 1: not too late, right, It's never too late. And if
49:55
Speaker 1: your concerns are severe, right, if they're really affecting your
49:58
Speaker 1: well being, your mental health, then I would also say
50:01
Speaker 1: seek some help. Right. If part of how they're influencing
50:04
Speaker 1: your children is because the intensity of those negative emotions
50:08
Speaker 1: is so big that it's leaking out, right, then get
50:12
Speaker 1: some professional support in there, right, so that you can
50:15
Speaker 1: learn how to heal yourself up a little and then
50:18
Speaker 1: create a better world for your children too. But it's
50:22
Speaker 1: not too late, right, even if you have adult children,
50:24
Speaker 1: it's not too late, And it's not too late to
50:27
Speaker 1: call your friends out either, to say, like, I want
50:29
Speaker 1: to do things differently. I don't want the first twenty
50:31
Speaker 1: minutes of every conversation we have to be about weight
50:34
Speaker 1: gain or loss. I just don't want to do that anymore.
50:37
Speaker 1: I have a friend who she's a junior high teacher,
50:40
Speaker 1: and she said she'll have these meetings with other teachers
50:43
Speaker 1: on zoom like we're doing now, and that the first
50:46
Speaker 1: few minutes they all fuss with like, oh do I
50:49
Speaker 1: have a double chin, showing I haven't been able to
50:52
Speaker 1: call her my gray that it's like this intro to
50:54
Speaker 1: their meeting. It's okay to just say no to that,
50:59
Speaker 1: to say like no, I decided I want a different
51:01
Speaker 1: psychological climate for myself, and it's going to start with
51:04
Speaker 1: me creating it and with me inviting the people I
51:08
Speaker 1: love to create it with me, where we're just not
51:10
Speaker 1: going to spend so much time on this. There's so
51:13
Speaker 1: many other cool things to spend your time on and
51:16
Speaker 1: your energy on, Renee.
51:18
Speaker 3: This has just been such a brilliant conversation.
51:21
Speaker 1: I've been fear I've gone into lecture mode, my number
51:26
Speaker 1: one mode.
51:28
Speaker 2: I've been as absorbed in this conversation as I was
51:30
Speaker 2: with your book. The book is called Beauty Sick, How
51:33
Speaker 2: the cultural obsession with appearance hurts girls and women. It
51:36
Speaker 2: is literally one of the best books I've read in years.
51:39
Speaker 2: It's definitely in my top five over the last handful
51:42
Speaker 2: of years, and I just loved it.
51:43
Speaker 3: I can't recommend it enough.
51:45
Speaker 2: Before we wrap up, can I ask you a couple
51:47
Speaker 2: of quick questions about those that Nissan nephew of yours?
51:51
Speaker 3: Okay?
51:51
Speaker 2: Because I always love to ask a handful of questions
51:54
Speaker 2: at the end of every podcast, everyone gets the same ones,
51:57
Speaker 2: rapid fire questions just about what it's like to little
52:00
Speaker 2: ones in our midst So if we asked your niece
52:03
Speaker 2: and nephew their favorite thing to do with the coolest
52:05
Speaker 2: auntie ever, what would they say?
52:07
Speaker 1: Ooh, So my niece who's around four, she's super into
52:13
Speaker 1: crafts and so actually for Christmas, I got her this
52:15
Speaker 1: giant bin full of craft supplies and that is something
52:19
Speaker 1: she loves right now. And I can't wait till our
52:22
Speaker 1: pandemic lockdown is over and she and I can make
52:25
Speaker 1: some mess with paints and then I really miss my
52:29
Speaker 1: he's just underto my nephew. I miss him so much
52:31
Speaker 1: because one of my favorite things to do with him
52:34
Speaker 1: is have him cuddle up next to me on the
52:36
Speaker 1: couch and read a book to him. And then when
52:38
Speaker 1: you finish the book, he scooches down, goes and gets
52:40
Speaker 1: another book, brings it back, gets back up, and I
52:43
Speaker 1: miss that. I miss those moments with him, So I
52:45
Speaker 1: can't wait to do those things again.
52:47
Speaker 3: Beautiful. Thank you.
52:48
Speaker 2: What's been your trickiest And I don't know if you
52:50
Speaker 2: would have had too many with the kids being so young,
52:53
Speaker 2: but what's been your trickiest auntie moment?
52:56
Speaker 1: Oh? I will say that I made a pledge never
52:58
Speaker 1: to talk to my niece about her appearance, that I'm
53:01
Speaker 1: just not going to do it. Figure I'll leave that
53:03
Speaker 1: to other people in her life, and I'll be a
53:04
Speaker 1: different place for her. But she is into Disney princess culture,
53:09
Speaker 1: and it is very hard for me to sort of
53:12
Speaker 1: maintain an openness around that when I really don't like it.
53:17
Speaker 1: I really don't like those elements of the culture. And
53:19
Speaker 1: when she's very excited and wants to talk to me
53:21
Speaker 1: about her new princess thing and her pink tiara and
53:25
Speaker 1: all of those things, I really struggle with that.
53:27
Speaker 3: Okay, last question for you.
53:29
Speaker 2: If you could spend an hour with this little niece
53:31
Speaker 2: and nephew at any age at all, Let's say that
53:35
Speaker 2: isolation finishes and tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock, they're coming
53:38
Speaker 2: over to spend some time with you, and they're walking
53:39
Speaker 2: into the living room at whatever age you.
53:42
Speaker 3: Can choose, what age would you pick? And why?
53:45
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't wait until they're you know, like twelve thirteen.
53:50
Speaker 1: I know this sounds bizarre, but I love kids once
53:53
Speaker 1: they get some angst right once there. Once they're a
53:56
Speaker 1: little angry and have that intensity, and it me that's
54:00
Speaker 1: such a cool window into the adults they're going to
54:03
Speaker 1: be calm and into what they're going to care about
54:05
Speaker 1: and what their passions are. I can't I can't wait
54:11
Speaker 1: until until they get a little little adolescent moody. That's
54:15
Speaker 1: the age I'm interested in, and.
54:17
Speaker 2: That's when parents say, auntieu are the best, Please take
54:20
Speaker 2: them for a week, two weeks a year.
54:22
Speaker 1: Yes, my brother jokes that I will be able to
54:24
Speaker 1: adopt them at that at that time.
54:26
Speaker 3: Absolutely perfect.
54:27
Speaker 2: Well, Renee, if people want to know more about you
54:29
Speaker 2: and your book, Beauty Sick, where can they go to
54:32
Speaker 2: get more information about this incredibly important and really really
54:37
Speaker 2: smart work that you've been doing.
54:39
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for the kind words. People can
54:42
Speaker 1: go to beautysick dot com or if you're interested more
54:45
Speaker 1: in the academic research side of things. My lab has
54:47
Speaker 1: a website as well, which is Bodyanmedia dot com. And
54:51
Speaker 1: if you're into Instagram, it's Beauty Underscore Sick fantastic.
54:56
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for sharing this time with me
54:59
Speaker 2: and with our audience.
55:01
Speaker 3: Give him wonderfully generous and shared so much.
55:04
Speaker 1: It's been my pleasure. Thank you.
55:06
Speaker 2: I hope you've gotten some insight into doctor Renee Engeln
55:09
Speaker 2: as a result of this Parenting in Perspective podcast. I
55:11
Speaker 2: love the quote from Renee's grandfather that you mentioned earlier
55:14
Speaker 2: in the podcast. Here it is again, don't be too
55:16
Speaker 2: proud of your youth or your beauty. You did nothing
55:19
Speaker 2: to earn them, and you can do nothing to keep them.
55:23
Speaker 3: Isn't that great?
55:24
Speaker 2: Well, join me next time as I talk with Ethan Cross.
55:29
Speaker 2: He's a professor at the University of Michigan, and we're going.
55:32
Speaker 3: To talk about controlling our emotions and self control.
55:35
Speaker 1: When I use the term self control, I mean how
55:38
Speaker 1: can people align their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors with their goals.
55:44
Speaker 1: So it's really broad. It's really like, if you want
55:46
Speaker 1: to act or think or feel a particular way in
55:49
Speaker 1: this world, how can you do that? What are the
55:51
Speaker 1: psychological tools that allow you to fulfill those goals?
55:54
Speaker 2: As professor Ethan Cross, he's a professor at psychology at
55:57
Speaker 2: the University of Michigan. He was actually involved in the
56:00
Speaker 2: Marshmallow experience. Well actually not not those ones, but his
56:03
Speaker 2: PhD supervisor was the guy Walter Michelle and he'll be
56:07
Speaker 2: my next guest on the Parenting in Perspective podcast as well.
56:11
Speaker 2: Just before we wrap this up, I really want to
56:12
Speaker 2: say thank you so very much to d Stewart who
56:16
Speaker 2: left a five star review at Apple Podcasts about the podcast.
56:21
Speaker 2: D Stewart said, fantastic parenting perspective. As the father of
56:25
Speaker 2: five young children, this podcast is fast becoming one of my.
56:28
Speaker 3: Top played podcasts.
56:29
Speaker 2: Very insightful, entertaining and helpful in parenting perspectives. Highly recommend
56:34
Speaker 2: So thank you very much D Stewart for diving in
56:36
Speaker 2: there and leaving that review. For me, it's those reviews
56:39
Speaker 2: that help other people to find out all about the
56:41
Speaker 2: podcast and build their families into happier families where their
56:45
Speaker 2: kids can thrive and flourish.
56:46
Speaker 3: And please make sure that you're too, your friends. We
56:48
Speaker 3: want to get the word out.
56:49
Speaker 2: If you'd like more info about how I can help
56:50
Speaker 2: your family to thrive and flourish, especially if you'd like
56:54
Speaker 2: to have that ongoing monthly support for as little as
56:57
Speaker 2: two dollars fifty a week via our amazing Happy Families memberships.
57:01
Speaker 2: Please visit Happyfamilies dot com dot you. We're having more
57:04
Speaker 2: and more people join the family every day. It's getting
57:06
Speaker 2: bigger and more exciting, and we're just doing so many
57:09
Speaker 2: great things in that membership.
57:10
Speaker 3: It would be great to have you there.
57:11
Speaker 2: If you want more info, visit my Facebook page, doctor
57:14
Speaker 2: Justin Colson's Happy Families or happy Families dot com dot
57:17
Speaker 2: A you, and as always, thank you very much to
57:19
Speaker 2: Justin Royland for his work in producing the podcast making
57:22
Speaker 2: it sound absolutely fabulous, and thank you for listening to
57:25
Speaker 2: Parenting in Perspective a Happy Families podcast