Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / Ask Emily: Your Personal Questions on Parenting

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Ask Emily: Your Personal Questions on Parenting · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Today, we are doing the third installment in some personal
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: questions you guys submitted on Instagram, And as with the
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: first two installments, the lovely Alex is here to ask
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: me the questions.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Alex, are you ready? I'm so ready.
• 0:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I want to encourage everyone, if you haven't
• 0:20
  Speaker 4: heard them, to go back and listen to part one
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: about Emily's marriage with Jesse and part two about her
• 0:26
  Speaker 4: career and how she does it all.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: They're great today.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: It feels very appropriate. Our final installment is about parenting.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: I am doing that some of the time.
• 0:36
  Speaker 4: It feels perfect to end on because I think for
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: a lot of us who read your books and your newsletter,
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: it feels like you're kind of the third parent in
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: the house with us, and you're there in our homes,
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: and so it'll be interesting to go inside your home
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: for a little bit and hear about your kids and
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: your journey as a parent. Let's start with some warm
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: ups though that people sent in. So the first one
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: is what's your favorite animated movie?
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Frozen?
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: Two?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Nice?
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Do you have any upcoming marathon plans?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: So I am running a half marathon, hopefully at the
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: end of April, assuming I don't get injured, and then
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: I am hoping to do what would be my first
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: marathon in the fall.
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: But we have to see.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: That seems like a long way, so I'm still sort
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: of working my way up to it emotionally.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: What's your go to daily breakfast?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yogurt, granola, berries, and a banana and sometimes gram crackers. Right,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: great clarification, I eat the gram crackers before I run,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: so I'm not counting that as breakfast. That's like the
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: first of the fifty seven snacks that I have in
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: the day.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: That's the first snack, then breakfast after I run.
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: Awesome, it's important snack. Oh, this is a funny question.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: What questions annoy you the most?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: I think I can most upset when people have questions
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: that just don't have any answer. And then I get
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: really annoyed when people ask me questions that I think
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: are mean, like like what are you like what are you.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Doing commenting on these things?
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: And sometimes I answer those questions just because I want
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: to like be like I'm going high and like addressing
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: these but actually, in deep inside, I'm.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Like, f off, Yeah, that's not really a question.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: That's not exactly that's not really a question that's just
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: a confrontational statement.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Do you have any pets.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: I do not personally have any pets, but my children
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: have recently acquired snails as pets, which I actually would
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: highly recommend, and I'm so engaged with that. My older
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: child had to tell me that I am not allowed
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: to just go in her room and look at the
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: snails without her permission, Like that's not She told.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Me specifically, if you need to be with.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: The snails, you should get your own snails with your
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: own money. Now, the thing is her snails were bought
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: with my money, So there's like something there that I
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: think is wrong.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: But at any rate, I'm really into the snails.
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: Okay, last warm up question she was a good transition
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: into parenting is how did you choose your kids' names?
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: So my daughter, I think we both, for whatever reason,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: just like gravitated to Like we really liked Penelope. I
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: think the sources you know Odysseus, and Penelope was Odysseus's
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: wife in the Odyssey, So we just.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Really liked that. Was that was easy for Finn.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: My husband really wanted an Old Testament name, but he
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: also didn't want he wanted to pick a name from
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: an Old Testament character whose actions he didn't find inappropriate
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: in some way, and that turned out to like quite
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: severely limit the set of names we considered, and so
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I was given like a short list of names that
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: we thought were like acceptable, and Phineas rose to the top,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: beating out Aaron, which was the only other really consistent possibility.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: Great, So I want to start just asking you to
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: tell us a little about your kids.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I have two kids.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: One is my daughter is eleven, almost twelve, and my
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: son is seven almost eight.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: And they're great. I like them a lot.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't end up talking that much about them,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: and we like have some pretty strict rules about sort
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: of putting things about them like up on the on
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: the internet.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Partly because I feel like that's their choice.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And you know, when they were babies, it was a
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: little easier to write about things like you know, my
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: kid doesn't sleep through the night, and like this is
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: you know, this is how we fed her choices, which
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: feel more like they were about us, and like that
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: was my story to share. And as they get older,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I feel like the things about them are like more
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: their stories.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I will say that, like my daughter really likes.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: The violin that comes up sometimes on my kind of
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: on my Instagram systems when I'm recording things. She's like
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: in the background practicing. So that's like kind of her
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: her thing. And my son really likes the hot glue gun.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: It's not as productive pursuit, but I can tell you
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: that he has produced some pretty impressive art using glue lately.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: So that's an exciting development in our house. That's incredible.
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: I last time I used a hot glupun, I burned
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: myself really badly.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, he also burns himself, just to
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: be clear.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: But like you know, he's figured out this kind of
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: amazing thing recently where he like fills the poppers in
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: those like poppet fidgets, like fill those with hot glue
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: and then pop them out, and then he has these
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: like little.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Hot glue things and he can glue those onto other things.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's genius.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, genius is maybe a little strong, but it's it's
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: a thing that you do with glue.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: For an year old boy, it's the thing exactly.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: So taking it back to the start, to do struggle
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: to conceive what was that like for you?
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: We did not you know, I came into conception thinking like,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: if I try hard, it will happen immediately.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: So it took like maybe six months, four months.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: So some amount of time that was not one month, which,
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: of course at the time felt like everything was not working,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: but in fact was I think quite typical. And so
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: we did not have a hard time getting pregnant actually
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: with either with either kid.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: This question is phrased so well, it's did you like
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: being pregnant or are you a sane person?
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: That's yeah, I think of my I don't think of
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: myself as the sane person, but just in general, I
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: did not.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: Mind being pregnant.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: I had a very I think quite good draw on
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: my experience of pregnancy with both kids. You know, I
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: was a little bit sick, but not very sick. I
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: was kind of tired at the end, but not very tired,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: And in general I think I had a good experience.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, I didn't love it. I'm not a person
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: who's like, oh I miss being pregnant. I definitely don't
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: miss being pregnant. But it also when we thought about
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: getting pregnant again with the second kid, I wasn't like, oh,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I can't believe I have to do that again, it
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: was like, okay, that was fine, Like I can you
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: know if it's like that again, that will be that
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: will be okay.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: And how did you know you wanted two kids?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: I just knew it was just very clear having only
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: one kid, like when we had the first kid, that
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: like having a second kid was something that we wanted,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: like that we wanted we sort of envisioned a family
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: that had two kids.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: That was what felt right.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: And sort of similarly, once we had a second kid,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: I don't think either Jesse or I like ever had
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: a thought like maybe we should have a third like
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: that's sort of never up before we had Finn, it
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: was like we're not done. After we had Finn and
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: was like, okay, now our family is like finished.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: When did you feel ready for Finn?
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: So we had imagined having the kids like three years apart,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: and then when we sort of got to the point
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: where one would need to conceive to like achieve that
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: birth spacing, it was in this really really really challenging
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: professional moment where I was like kind of right in
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: the middle of being fired in a kind of a
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: mean way, even worse than regular firing, I think, And
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: you know, we were just like really stressed and trying
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: to figure out what was going to be next and
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: kind of where was I going to have a job
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: and where was that job.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Going to be, and what was Jesse going to do?
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: And it did not feel in that moment like this
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: is a good time to bring another thing in. So
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: in the end we waited basically a year from that
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: point and to like a moment that felt like things
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: are more stable and now we are ready to kind
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: of move forward and have another kid.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: So in the end, the kids are four years four
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: years apart.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I would have felt in the
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: absence of this this sort of professional stuff.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if we would have done it. My
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: guess is we.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Would have done it somewhat earlier, But it ended up
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: being I think a good like a good spacing.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: What's been the hardest stage of parenting for you so far?
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: The period between about ten months and like three.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: You know, this kind of period where like.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: It's just physically so exhausting, and in particular before they
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: can like really fully talk and communicate what they need.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I found that to be very hard.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Once there was a possibility to kind of find out
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: what they needed, and when they could be a little
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: more self suffici it got.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: A lot easier.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: And then you know, now like there are parts of
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: parenting and adolescent that are it's not physically draining in
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: in all the same way as you know little kid
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: parenting was. It is like more emotionally draining in some ways,
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: like I'm sort of more existentially worried, more frequently or
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: more confused. With little kids, it was, it's sort of
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: it's not like I thought I was doing the right
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: thing all the time, but it was usually the case
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: that I kind of thought, either it's not that important
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: what we do here, it's not that important.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: What I say, or like this will pass. With older kids,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: it can more.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: It can feel more frequently like if I don't say
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: the right thing here, that might be really bad in
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: the kind of long term. But also I don't have
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: any idea what to say, so.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I'm just like a little lost. I'm more frequently lost.
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: Was that the most surprising part of parenting adolescents? Or
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: what has been unexpected for you?
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: That has been a little unexpected? I mean, I think frankly,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: i'd forgotten about mood swings. I mean, now that I
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: think about it I remember having them, but you know,
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: the experience not dissimilar from sort of postpartum where you're
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: just like one moment everything is great and the next
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: moment you're crying for no reason, like I'd just forgotten
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: that that like happens you know when you're when you're twelve,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: and like you're thirteen or whatever, and I just it's
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: it's a lot.
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: What is your favorite thing to do with your kids now?
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: So I really like being with my kids, which is
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: something that has become just more true over time. And
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: so I think my favorite, I would say, is like
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: one on one time. I mean, I love being altogether
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: as a family, but the thing that sort of feels
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: special is when we can find, you know, moments like
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: occasionally pick my son up from school and like we'll
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: walk to get a snack, and the experience of just
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: having that focused time with like one kid where they
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: can really like be themselves and tell you, like all
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: the stuff that's happening with them, or all the things
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: they're worried about or whatever, where you're not trying to
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: accomplish something specific other than like get to the mini marked.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: That's really nice.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: That's hard time to cultivate, particularly with the older kid.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: But when we can get it, that's my favor.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: What do your kids say they want to be when
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: they grow up.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: My daughter would like to be a therapist, which seems
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: extremely realistic. She's already an excellent therapist. And my son
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: would like to be a famous professional singer, which seems
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: quite a lot less realistic as a plan, but he
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: has some backups, like famous, chef, acrobat. There's a few
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: different options we're considering, all of which are very practical
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: and very famous, very famous, a lot of ways to
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: be famous and also practical.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: What do they know about your career and what you do?
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: How do you explain to them?
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: I think they know something about it.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: I mean they've seen the books, they know that I
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: write books, they know that I do some sort of
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: public facing.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Instagram, social stuff.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: They know about than newsletters, So they kind of know
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: about things. And very occasionally someone will like recognize me
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: when we're out in public, and then I think they
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: get some sense that, like, I don't know some people
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: know who I am, but it doesn't come up very much.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I think one main thing about kids is like they're
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: not that interested in you. They're like mostly interested in themselves,
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: as it should be, and so I don't think they
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: think very much about what my career is. You know,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: they understand like their dad has a job. He takes
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: the train to his job, and like he does economics there,
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: and they understand that, like I have a job and
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: it seems to involve more Instagram than their dad's job.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: And that's like kind of about as much as they get.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: What's been your biggest parenting regret or lesson in hindsight
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: from the point you're at now.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. I'm very happy with where things are.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Like sort of going back and thinking like what would
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: I have done totally differently is hard, you know when
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: you're like basically think it's going out like okay. You know,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I think, like almost everyone, I wish I had approached
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: the first year of my first kid's life more like
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: I approached the first year of.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: My second kid's life.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: Like I wish I had had less anxiety and just
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: like less obsession about different things in that period.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think it was also like many people, they're.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: Like we had a lot of family conflict just because
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: we didn't know what we were doing, and like we
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: really cared about doing it right, but also we had
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: no idea what that what that meant.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: And I think if we had had a sort of
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: different approach to that.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: Period, it might have been easier. So that's probably the
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: thing if I sort of the thing I think I
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: would change if I had, if I had the opportion
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to go back.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: Can you describe a little more what the experience was
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: like from your first to year second and that first.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Year and how it was different for you.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: So I think there's there's a few things. So one
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: is with my daughter, I really really struggled with breastfeeding.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: So it was like very I found very hard to do.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Like I didn't have a lot of supply.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure we.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Managed to supply quite right, and you know, she didn't
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: really want to latch.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: There were like a bunch of sort of pretty standard problems.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: And instead of sort of stepping back and saying what
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I say to people all the time, which is like,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: you know, hey, like there's a lot of good ways
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: to feed your baby, like sort of figure out what
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: works for you. And I think if I had had
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: that and been able to say, you know, here, we're
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: going to kind of incorporate formula and here's sort of
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: a plan.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: For how we're going to do it.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: I would have felt much more in control. Instead, I
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: just was like obsessively obsessed with like making this work
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: in a way that took.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: A huge amount of time, created a huge amount of stress.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Made me feel really like guilty every time, I mean guilty,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: like just made me feel bad every time she had
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: some formula, and I think that colored a lot of
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: my experience of that.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: And so that was kind of one thing.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: And then you know, there are like sort of very
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: specific examples, like my daughter slept in the rock and
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: play sleeper for a while, like for naps, and at
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: some point we like somewhat arbitrarily decided we would like
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: just transition her out of that, like without really ever
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: thinking about it, and we didn't really talk about it
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: or kind of agree on exactly how we were going
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: to approach this.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: And so then there was like this horrible.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: Day where like she did nap at all, and I
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: remember just how angry we both were at the other person.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: And there were a bunch of things like.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: That where I don't think they were very important, they
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: felt incredibly important at the time, and we didn't really
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: have a good system for kind of approaching them as
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: a team, and I think the second kid was much
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: more like, we know what we're trying to do. We're
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: like dialing this in to like the kind of system
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: that we have already, and we're going to know which
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: things to focus on, and we're going to kind of
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: make a plan. And it was just it just felt
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: much more like we were trying to do as do
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: it as a team. And he was a much easier baby,
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Which is the thing.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: Are there things that were harder or very different about your.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Second Yeah, so as that's actually as.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: A baby, Finn was like perfect, Like it was like
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: he was sleep trained in one night, Like you know,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: he was like everything about him, he was like such
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: an easy baby.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: As a toddler and older child, it was not as easy.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: You know, my daughter is like very interested in.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Not doing the wrong thing.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Like her, she's like very motivated by she just like
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: wants to do the right thing. And so she's like
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: very susceptible, very like responsive to any type of discipline
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: at all, you know, and was as a little kid
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: in particular, like you sort of say no, like don't
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: touch the stove, she just like would never do that again.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: My son was like the opposite, we don't touch his tove.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: You'd be like, eh, so what I'm hearing is touch
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: and try it out, you know. And so there was
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: kind of a pretty steep sort of learning curve moment
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: where we were kind of applying a set of sort
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: of organized discipline tools, like not organized, just a set
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: of like ideas about approaches to to sort of discipline
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: which worked fine for someone who like kind of never
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: did anything wrong or when you said please don't do that,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: they were like, oh, I feel so terrible, I'll never
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: do it again.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: We sort of tried to apply that to him. It
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: didn't work at all.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: And that was one of the main things I learned
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: writing cribsheet was about some of these like sort of
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: approaches to discipline. There's like the one, two three magic
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: kind of approach which worked much better with him than
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: then with her and kind of smooth smooth things out
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: a little. But that was he was easy as a baby,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: and then he got he got a little more challenging.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: What are some of your parenting or like family rituals? Now,
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: are there things that you do during the week or
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: the day that feel like important moments and parenting for you.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: We both have jobs, we both have like the kids
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: go to school all day, so.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Like the morning is just like a like although we're
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: together in the morning, it's like everyone's trying to like
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: get out the door as quickly as possible.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: When we go.
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: Towards the end of the day. That's kind of our
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: central family time. So you know, we have dinner together.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: That's like pretty important to the kind of the way
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Jesse and I have structure. This is that like almost
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: all the time, you know, at least one parent is
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: at dinner with the with the kids and usually both
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: of us, and then we have like a really long, elaborate.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Bedtime with like forty seven steps.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: There are breaks, but I would say the like the
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: bedtime experience in my house begins at like six forty
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: five and really only ends at like nine thirty. And
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I don't like it's not it's not bad. It's like
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: now a thing where like you put you in your
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: room and then like you're coming out and you're coming out.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: It's just like that time is filled with like twenty
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: minute blocks of like okay, we talk for this twenty
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: minutes and this twenty minutes like we hide inside the
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: blanket and like somebody tries to attag somebody else, and
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: then there's a period where you do school, you can
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: you read for homework, and then you like crafting, and
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: then the other kid is like so there's just an
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: ongoing series of activities.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: But it's like kind of nice.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: It's a time like I get to spend some time
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: talking to then I get to spend some time talking
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: to Penelope. We get to kind of like and that's
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: really like my time much more than Jesse's.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: And so that's very that's very nice.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Usually, Wow, I love that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: Okay, final question is where do you seek support and
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: who is your Emily Oster?
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess there's like two two answers.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: So I have a lot of like logistical support, like
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: supporting the stuff that I do. I we have talked
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: about this before, but like from you and from other
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: people on this parent data team. I also at home
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: have a lot of support. Yeah, from Jesse of course,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: who also provides emotional support, but we also have like
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: a really pretty amazing, very lucky and we have like
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: a pretty amazing nanny who does a lot of household
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: stuff and really makes it possible for sort of everything
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: to kind of function. So that's really that's really important
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: on the emotional side. You know my friends. My best
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: friend lives in Boston, and you know, she's been my
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: friend since we were eighteen, And I think there's sort of.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Something about someone who has.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Known you at all of the stages that is like
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: a pretty a pretty special thing. Their new friends are
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: great too, but the kind of people who need no context,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: that's a hard thing to that's a hard thing to replace.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, that makes me want to do another episode
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: just about friendship.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Friendship is important.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, the other thing that's so tricky about friendship
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: when you have kids is like it's hard to.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Find time to prioritize that.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: The really helpful friends I find are the people who
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: are like there, but you don't, but you don't need
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: to be there every moment, you know what I mean,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: Like people who kind of you can pick up with
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: even if it's been you know, a few a few
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: weeks or a few months or yeah, well, thank you, thanks,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: this is great.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: This was great.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: It's been very fun to ask you all these questions
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: from everybody who follows you, reads your work, and let
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: us know if you want us to do more things
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: like this in the future.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: If you like what you heard, subscribe to parent Data
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: in your favorite podcast app and rate and review the
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: show in Apple podcasts. You can subscribe to the whole
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: newsletter for free at www dot parentdata dot org.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: Talk to you soon.