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Push Them Down · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] Hey, I have three kids. They eat so much. We try to eat real food. We try to cook when we can.
• 0:10
  We try not to waste too much 'cause it drives me nuts, and it's expensive, and also for obvious climate reasons, which is why the Mill Food Recycler changed our lives a couple years ago.
• 0:23
  It is an odorless, effortless, and fully automated food recycler. Look, we've had this thing front and center in our kitchen for, again, a couple years now it feels like, and it is just such a game changer.
• 0:37
  Way less waste, less smell, way less garbage, which by the way, saves you money. No leaky bags.
• 0:44
  Look, you got peels, bones, stalks, whatever leftovers, dump 'em in the Mill, and Mill dries and grinds them while you sleep. Again, it doesn't smell, which I don't understand. It's sleek. It's actually sexy.
• 1:00
  Here's a question people ask: How often do you empty it? Good question. It's every three weeks. I don't know, maybe, and there's a bunch of us.
• 1:07
  Plus, there's a little app where you can control it if you want and set a schedule, and it shows you how much food your family keeps out of landfills. A delight.
• 1:15
  Look, you can get seventy-five dollars off right now when you go to our special partner site. I'm gonna read you the link, but you should know it's also in the show notes, and you can just click it.
• 1:26
  It is mill.com/lp/important-not-important. That is mill.com/lp/important-not-important. I couldn't remember that, so we put it in the show notes.
• 1:44
  It's right there for you. Check it out. Huge thanks to Mill for sponsoring our work and doing the right thing, and thanks to all of you listeners for supporting our partners.
• 1:55
  [upbeat music] If you raise a bad boy, then you are part of the problem of the world. Mm-hmm. You know, your kid being naughty at school is... [upbeat music] So we're on a big cleaning streak right now.
• 2:08
  As you can imagine, I'm very annoying about it to my children, but we're trying to dial it down to the essentials at home.
• 2:15
  So whether you're an appliance, a piece of furniture or clothing, whatever, you gotta earn your spot. Everything's got a place.
• 2:24
  Everything has utility, which is hard with kids who constantly bring things into the house and all their stuff, and it's really hard when you're trying to feed them constantly.
• 2:34
  And there are various appliances that are advertised to you that can literally do one thing that honestly can't justify the counter space. But I'll tell you what does.
• 2:46
  It's the Mill Food Recycler, and holy cow, does it ever. It doesn't even go on the counter, by the way. It goes on the floor like a sexy trash can. It plugs into a standard outlet, and voila, no more food waste.
• 3:00
  Got peels, bones, stalks, whatever, leftovers? Put 'em in there, and then while you sleep, the Mill automatically turns on, dries, and grinds them, and it doesn't smell at all. It's crazy. Again, let's rehash.
• 3:13
  Not only does it not stink up the house, or two, cause leaky trash bags, which are disgusting, and three, send leftover food to the landfill to turn into waste and then methane and then rising oceans.
• 3:27
  It actually makes you feel good because it grinds up all of your food waste into these adorable grounds you can use in the garden, you can give to a local farm, you can put 'em right in the green bin.
• 3:38
  You can even ship back to Mill via postal service pickups like it's Netflix in two thousand and three. Anyways, a delight, a game changer.
• 3:47
  You guys can get seventy-five dollars off right now when you go to our special site. I'm gonna read it to you, but you should know the link is right in the show notes, and you can just smash your finger against it.
• 3:56
  It's mill.com/lp/important-not-important. Can I remember that? No. That's why we put the link right in the show notes.
• 4:07
  So anyways, huge thanks to Mill for doing the right thing and trying to cut down on food waste, most of which comes from our homes, for sponsoring our work, and of course, thanks to you listeners for always supporting our partners.
• 4:19
  [upbeat music] The first step on the path to becoming, you know, Donald Trump.
• 4:25
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.
• 4:39
  We'll be talking about/crashing out over topics like screen time and vaccines. Banned books, and maybe just stop leaving your books on the car floor, damn it.
• 4:49
  Climate change and five-minute shower timers no one uses, and also turning off the lights. And apparently the end of sex ed and maybe sex. And is sex woke? I don't know. It's not an advice show.
• 5:00
  It's a you're not alone and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kinda show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches. And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important.
• 5:11
  You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website, notrightnow.show..show.
• 5:18
  Uh, and if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet, and then drop us a nice little five-star review.
• 5:26
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions@notrightnowshow.show. [upbeat music] So here's the deal. It's always been gnarly to be a parent, I imagine, even with
• 5:42
  being a white person with any amount of income, much less a dual income or any amount of accumulated wealth through real estate or whatever it might be. In the United States of all places, it's still difficult.
• 5:53
  But the point is, parenting right now, there are some things that are pretty universal about it, I think.
• 5:58
  There are things that probably have stood the test of time that now our parents are looking at us going like, "Fucking told ya," you know? Just 'cause the technology is different doesn't mean anything else.
• 6:08
  But, you know, as much as our parents hid under their desks for a nuclear crisis that didn't happen, we've got our own set of issues, some of which we can do something about and some of which we can't do as much about.
• 6:19
  And how do you-Operate as a human being, also as a partner if you have a partner, also as a parent during climate change and fascism and artificial intelligence.
• 6:30
  So if you haven't listened to anything else, my name is Quinn Emmett. I'm the founder of Important Not Important. We call it science for people who give a shit.
• 6:39
  I am very happy to introduce my amazing co-host, co-conspirator, Claire Zulkey, who's the founder of the wildly popular Evil Witches blog. Claire, tell us about yourself. Hey, Quinn. Nice to talk with you.
• 6:53
  I am a freelance writer. I am based in Evanston, Illinois, which is where I grew up. I did not intend to come home to where I grew up, but I did- Mm... end up doing that. I'm married to a creative like myself.
• 7:04
  He is a filmmaker and producer and director. We have two boys who are ages 9 and 12, and I began parenting writing the second I got pregnant, I would say probably, because writing is how I make sense of things.
• 7:18
  Parenting- Mm-hmm... is not how I make sense of things. Mm-hmm.
• 7:20
  I remember really clearly when my son was born, in the early postpartum days, for instance, how my husband and I were fighting so much 'cause we were so tired and so stressed out. Mm-hmm.
• 7:30
  And my husband said something along the lines of, "This baby is trying to break us up, and we have to stand against him to fight against him to not let it happen." And- [laughs]... I wrote an essay [laughs]
• 7:40
  I think for The Hairpin maybe about, or The All, about that prospect, about just how a baby will tear you apart, you know? And just writing that made me feel so much better.
• 7:52
  And then I heard back from other parents that they, that resonated with them. And so on my career, I've written for Parents Magazine, and Real Simple, and New York Times. And then around 2019, 2018...
• 8:05
  Oh, actually in 2016, I started a Facebook group for moms that I just considered cool moms who would get it if I could talk shit about my family and my kids, and people who I could say, "I, I hate these kids." Mm-hmm.
• 8:17
  But they knew that I loved them, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And but they were just the kind of people you could be irreverent with.
• 8:22
  But also moreover, they were a group of people who were very intelligent, talented, funny, who did not intend to bury that part of them as they r- raised these children, even if it was incredibly difficult to maintain that, that side of them.
• 8:36
  And I wanted to personally just have a kind of discussion around parenting that was, that acknowledged that side of you.
• 8:44
  'Cause I remember, like, reading in Parents Magazine, they would never talk about your own desires, for instance. Or- Mm-hmm...
• 8:49
  you know, they might reference postpartum or frustration, but they wouldn't talk about rage that would make you scream and wonder if there was something wrong with you and, you know, the acknowledgement of how you might actually understand why someone might shake their baby even though you- Never do it.
• 9:07
  [laughs] But yeah. But you get it. Yeah.
• 9:10
  And so anyway, we would talk about our kids, and our spouses, and the schools, and our work, and our fashion, and sex lives, and joke, and pop culture, and people would say, "This should be a larger conversation."
• 9:22
  And I ended up on Substack, and that's where I send out these different conversations as we go along, and we have conversations, and never feel compelled to say, "I'm just kidding," or- Mm-hmm...
• 9:33
  "I don't really mean it"- Mm-hmm... or, "Of course I love my kids," 'cause let's, we all know that. We know- Mm-hmm... you know, we wouldn't even be talking about this probably.
• 9:39
  We wouldn't be worrying about it so much if we didn't care. So that's kind of what I explore with Evil Witches. It's amazing. It's truly one of the...
• 9:48
  My fucking job requires me to subscribe to so many goddamn newsletters and take in so much shit, and it is one of the few that I open so gleefully every time, 'cause I'm like, "Let's see
• 10:00
  where Claire had her camera in my fucking house this week." [laughs] Because it really is the whole thing, and I really appreciate, and God, do you find so
• 10:11
  valuable, once you're not quite out of being in it, I mean, you're always in it, but it just becomes it- I guess such a big part of who you are, is, is people you don't have to explain yourself to.
• 10:21
  I was out to dinner last night, rarely, with five other dads locally. Same thing. I'm in Williamsburg, Virginia, where I'm above a candy shop in Colonial Williamsburg.
• 10:31
  I was born and raised here, left for eons, and just came back a couple years ago. Same thing. Didn't totally see that coming, but thought maybe.
• 10:39
  And I've got, of the five guys at dinner, myself was one w- and two of my childhood best friends who have m- also moved back were two others, and then there were two other guys who are just fantastic.
• 10:53
  And everybody's got kids from six to 13, basically. And first of all, the disappointment in that poor waiter when everybody just ordered tap water for dinner.
• 11:05
  [laughs] And he was just like, "Goddammit," but it's like there's, we have nothing to give. But I came back, and I remember telling my wife, she was like, "How was it?"
• 11:13
  I was like, "It's just, it was like an hour and a half, and it was so great because it's just a group of people you don't," like you said, "don't have to be like, 'I'm kidding. Uh, uh, of course.
• 11:24
  No, they're actually great kids.'" Don't have to do any of that. Of cour- sure they are, and I love all their kids, too, and they also drive me crazy because usually they're involved with my kids in some hellish scheme.
• 11:33
  And it really does make a difference. And like you said, it, it's really healthy. You, you have to try to find that if you can, even if you don't actually see people in real life, which I, we do so, so rarely.
• 11:45
  You have to have whatever your version of it is. Yeah. It really makes a difference. So yeah, it's a funny thing.
• 11:50
  So, you know, I've got this other m- m- work, and I get asked a lot, like, sort of what are the qualifications behind it? And the answer is none.
• 12:00
  Like, you know, barely graduated from Colgate University 'cause of swimming and sports and girls, and I'm a dipshit, but I've worked at the Financial Times and for different media companies, and done investing in philanthropic stuff, and on political campaigns, and all that kind of stuff.
• 12:16
  And, you know, an oceanography expert on the other side telling me what a moron I am, because again, you know, we're enormously privileged. We both work.
• 12:23
  My wife is so hardworking and the greatest person that's ever lived, and wildly successful, and we have a great support system.
• 12:30
  But holy shit, man, I had three under three for a little bit, and we've done every version of it, so I feel like I can do this all day.
• 12:37
  And I think it's healthy, and I think-There's a lot of people out there th- that want and need to just know that there's other people going through it as well, especially with such big shit going down. Does that- Yeah...
• 12:50
  ring a bell at all? Yeah. There's something magically cathartic about... There's something that will live in your head, and, like, for me, laying on the floor, that's when you know I'm most depressed or- Mm-hmm...
• 13:01
  most tired, is I... There's nowhere else. I can't... N- I need to b- be on the ground. And there would ha- be things that would bring me down, literally, and I would think, "Maybe I shouldn't have had kids." Mm-hmm.
• 13:12
  You know, all these things. And then I talk about it with another friend, especially another mom who has two boys.
• 13:17
  J- there's something about it, about living that boy life, and you'll say something that in your head was making you cry, and then the second you say it out loud, it's hilarious. Mm-hmm.
• 13:27
  My friend telling me how she called her son a little bitch and pushed him out the door, and I- [laughs] You know, she is a great mom, and this is a great kid, and I love this family.
• 13:35
  And I was like, "I bet- Doesn't matter... he was being a little bitch." Yeah. "And I support you," you know? And I'm sure she felt horrible about it at the time, but we just laughed our butts off.
• 13:44
  And you just, you absolutely need to know that you're not the only one, and that this other stuff goes on, and there's something about it that is really joyful just to connect with other people about it, 'cause it can really...
• 13:56
  Yeah.
• 13:57
  When you, like, your kid is not being great at school, and you can talk about it with another mom who's been, or another parent who's been there, so you're not carrying around this guilt of k- my kid made the teacher's life hard, and then that made someone else, some other kid's day at school worse, and maybe this kid is now destined to, like, not be a great person- Mm-hmm.
• 14:15
  That's it... 'cause we didn't do... You know, and... Yeah.
• 14:18
  But when you can talk to a- another mom whose kid got the same email with the subject line reading, "Bathroom incident," which is something that happened with me and my friend, then you can laugh about it.
• 14:27
  And, and you remember that this is normal. And you need to be reminded of that, of all the work you do to try to raise a good kid, and the kid turns around in your face and throws it right back in your face- Mm-hmm...
• 14:37
  and does, like, the opposite, but even harder. You know, and to remember that's normal and not a sign that you are fucking up. And, you know, with boys in particular, I mean, I...
• 14:46
  This is a huge generalization, but I feel like- Please... if you raise a bad boy, then, like, you are part of the problem of the world. So, you know- Mm-hmm...
• 14:54
  your kid being naughty at school is, you know, the first step on the path to becoming, you know, Donald Trump. So yeah, it is a very stressful thing, and it really got to me.
• 15:05
  I don't know if you were able, if you were able to just roll with it, but I had a hard time not taking it personally. Uh, you know,
• 15:11
  ha- half of my job is helping people understand, for example, how the insurance markets are completely crumbling. I don't know if you've paid attention to that. If you haven't, you can bury your head on that one.
• 15:21
  But it's a lot of helping people understand what are you exposed to, right? Your in- investments, where your, like, home insurance, whatever it might be.
• 15:32
  And having children is just exponential math, as I was trying to explain to a friend with very small children. Pre-walking, 'cause, you know, walking is when it gets...
• 15:43
  Everyone's like, "Yay," and it's, you know, so much worse. Push them down. Yep, push them, keep shoving them down. Having... I had...
• 15:48
  We had three under three, and now, you know, it's three under, three between nine and 12. At any given moment, I can be called about anything.
• 15:56
  With one, shit happens, and you probably love that child more than, for example, I love all three. But yeah, anything at any given moment. So when I get the... Let me read this text to you. "Good afternoon.
• 16:09
  I am sending your son home with a behavior reflection form for something that happened during lunch. It would be great if you could talk with him about it and reinforce that his job in the cafeteria is to eat.
• 16:22
  Happy Wednesday." That's- And by the way, that's the teacher who's amazing, and all- Mm... three of my children have had this poor woman. She's on the last one. But, you know. Yeah, because here's the two thing.
• 16:33
  Like, on the one hand, as a parent, you wanna support the teacher 'cause their job is... They're, they don't get paid enough. You know, they don't get enough respect. Mm-hmm.
• 16:39
  You know, your kid is probably just one grain of sand in the, you know, ocean of children that they're handling. On the other hand, now, first of all, you don't know what the hell they did. Were they- No idea...
• 16:50
  shouting to- Surprise... their friends? Or did they take a dump in the middle of the cafeteria? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Did they hurt someone, or were they just being a pain in the butt? And- Right...
• 17:00
  now you can think about that for the rest of the day until your kid comes home, and that kid is probably tired and done and wants to be done. Done.
• 17:07
  But now you have to talk, as if you talking is gonna be the thing that will make su- make them never do that again.
• 17:13
  Right, and I have discovered more and more recently, and I assume 95% of this is my fault, that the more I talk, the worse it gets.
• 17:22
  [laughs] And then I say things like, "You know you have to listen to me when I'm talking to you," as they're walking away from us, talking about them listening to me talk about them, so.
• 17:32
  And they don't care that you're like, "Secretly, this is really about me, 'cause it makes me feel like I look bad when you cause a problem at the school." Mm-hmm. They don't... That, that doesn't make them wanna behave.
• 17:42
  Like, and it- Mm... I don't know. I've just been there.
• 17:45
  We were just talking about my son's first preschool teacher, who would send these kind of notes home, and have no idea on what we could do, so we were, like, doing all kinds of charts and taking away things. Like, we...
• 17:54
  And he was three. Like, you know, in retrospect- Yeah... he was a walking baby. And, um, anyway, I just have a lot of, uh... I was a really good girl in school. Mm-hmm. I never got these...
• 18:03
  I think the worst thing I ever did was, like, read a book under the desk during math class. [laughs] And so it was a real, you know, it was very humbling to go through this.
• 18:13
  And I hate being humbled, but I, it gives me a lot of compassion. And it just stinks, 'cause you wanna help the teacher, but also sometimes they're not always great at communicating. I mean, they're on the fly.
• 18:23
  They don't, they're not gonna sit you down for an annual review and, and make goals and things like that, so. And by the way, she sent that to me at 12:30 during their day.
• 18:32
  As she's sending that, she's got 22 other nine-year-olds to deal with as she's sending that. God knows what else is happening in there.
• 18:39
  And it's good kids, and it's a good class, but it's still anything could happen at any moment.
• 18:43
  But also, I-Did not only get in trouble for reading books under the desk or a single book, as you put it, which seems insane to me.
• 18:51
  But n- no, I mean, I, I still give my mom, who's the greatest person alive, blanket apologies for things, and she's like, "For what?" And I'm like, "Fucking everything." Like, what... We were, I was awful.
• 19:04
  Of course, my sister was perfect. Two other brothers are morons, too, but not quite as big as me. So- Remind me where you were in the birth order. I'm the second of four. Okay. So older brother,
• 19:15
  four and a half years, my mom had a couple miscarriages. He calls them the golden years 'cause he was without me. Yeah. I showed up, was the miracle baby. Not that, eventually.
• 19:25
  And then a younger brother who's two years younger, and then a younger sister who's, she's six years younger than I am, and she was the great one.
• 19:32
  They got to her, and they were like, "Ch- ch- ch- ch- the rest of you guys get out of here." Yeah. Yeah. "We don't, we don't need you anymore." That's funny.
• 19:37
  I just read this memoir by M- Churchill's youngest daughter, and, uh, Winston Churchill's youngest daughter, and it was very similar. My wife read all those. Which one? Oh, really?
• 19:44
  I don't know why I read that, but it was interesting, you know. But it, yeah, she was, like, the remainder, and she came after a mis- like a child who died.
• 19:51
  And of course, she was the baby, and they all loved having the baby. But there was a book called, I forget what it's called, but it's about your second born and just, like, what a maniac they are.
• 19:58
  And, like, this book, I think, was self-published and has these certain, like, these typos in it, and they make me laugh 'cause I'm like, I don't know if these were actually accidents or if this was, like, a stylized choice to- Mm-hmm...
• 20:08
  portray the mind of a parent raising a second-born son. But either way, it really... Like, it talks about how the second born will bully the first born, you know? Mm-hmm.
• 20:16
  Things like, yeah, and it makes you feel better that you're like, "This is a feature, not a bug."
• 20:20
  There's a moment in, this is gonna get nerdy real quick, in the first Lord of the Rings movie where they go into the Mines of Moria underground, and they discover, oh, this isn't the kingdom it once was.
• 20:33
  Bad things happened. The dwarves who were there left a diary, and, you know, as is typical, at the end of the diary it's like, "They're coming," about orcs, and then it trails off, and that's the last entry.
• 20:43
  My mom has this baby book I discovered recently from my birth, which they worked so hard on for so long to, to make happen, and th- first couple entries like, "Oh, how lucky are we?"
• 20:55
  And then at 18 months, I'm not kidding, and I'm gonna find out. I have a picture of it somewhere. I took a picture of the entry.
• 21:00
  It says, "Quinn has turned into an absolute terror," and the T is capitalized, and it's the last entry. It's the last fucking entry. And I was just like, "Oh, shit. I didn't know it started that early." God, wow.
• 21:13
  She must have been mad to get out the baby book and, 'cause that is not just laying around. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. That takes... It's like people who put bumper stickers on their cars.
• 21:22
  Like, it takes work to go out there, to put it straight. For, I mean, you gotta buy it. You get all the shit. Yeah. Yeah, she did. So that's why, you know, I get this shit from the teacher, who's amazing, and I'm like,
• 21:34
  f- one, I'm sorry, number one, my kid's a dipshit. He's wonderful, but he's a dipshit like I was, and he probably got it from there. One, if it was a joke, was it funny? And, and two, c- come on, man.
• 21:44
  Don't, not at class. I haven't been able to write this up, and maybe it's 'cause it's hard 'cause our kids go to Catholic school, which is its own thing. Mm-hmm.
• 21:51
  But I always say how school is like no other transaction you make as a human 'cause you put all, you put
• 21:59
  all this into it, and what you get out of it is not at all related to what you put into it, and you don't even, you're not even a part of it. You know? Like, and- Can you expand on that a little bit?
• 22:08
  Well, you know, before you have kids, you're used to putting money in to buy something, and you get the goods that you want.
• 22:13
  Or perhaps you're used to putting in effort to something, and then you feel either the pride in your finished product- Mm-hmm... or, you know, perhaps the experience that you gained from it.
• 22:23
  With the school, you feel, I mean, at least based on social media, you see these first day of school pictures with the kids with their hair brushed and maybe the little chalkboard, and it, you're so, you know, excited about ABCs and the teacher.
• 22:36
  And then before you know it, you're getting asked to volunteer for something that nobody wants to do and nobody appreciates. Mm-hmm.
• 22:41
  But you have to do it because somebody has to step up, and then you're putting in extra money for the school supplies even though perhaps you already paid tuition.
• 22:49
  And you are getting emails from the teacher about how your kid is a totally normal dipshit, and maybe you've met some best friends at the school who are other parents.
• 22:58
  Maybe you've met some other people who are, like, completely antithetical to everything you stand for, but you have to work with them. Mm-hmm.
• 23:05
  And then meanwhile, the discourse is all about how teachers are overpaid, you know, or we are indoctrinating chil- you know? And so there's no just, "Here's the money. Here's the kid. Educate them. Send them out."
• 23:16
  There's just this morass of things that you have to, to handle. I mean, I'm just doing right now, I'm re- raising bonuses for the teachers 'cause they're criminally underpaid. Mm-hmm.
• 23:25
  But I'm also getting asked to do communications for another fundraiser, and I don't wanna do any of this stuff.
• 23:31
  But also, I don't know, someone is gonna, gotta do it, and I'm better at it than probably some other people, so I might as well do it, I guess. I don't know.
• 23:40
  It is, I just think people who don't have kids don't really understand how y- whatever you put into it is not re- remotely related to what you'll get out of it. Yeah, I think that's totally fair. Mm.
• 23:49
  We had a swim meet this weekend.
• 23:51
  I think I sent you the email about we were there from Friday morning until Sunday night because one of them qualified for finals by, you know, two one-hundredths of a fucking second, which again, that's a whole life I lived.
• 24:01
  [laughs] I try to be supportive, but I, I'm nowhere near interested in being a swim parent. That's a whole different thing. Or soccer or whatever.
• 24:08
  But we talked about they made some progress, and I said, "What you," not always, mass generalization, "what you put in is what you get out. It wasn't about you showing up this weekend.
• 24:17
  It was all the work you've done every day ever since," all that kind of shit. Getting good sleep and stuff like that. But you're right. There are certain transactions as a parent where you put something in,
• 24:29
  and it's a Pandora's box- [laughs]... of stuff that you get out. And like you said, you do have to do it, though, because one, like, it's part of, I guess, participating in the whole thing.
• 24:40
  But two, logistically and financially, if you don't do it, they won't have supplies.And there won't be a, a walkathon, which is also to raise money.
• 24:50
  There won't be, uh, like, all this other shit, 'cause like you said, the problem is, is when you identify yourself as, "Fuck, I'm, I am kinda good at this," or at least you're better than everyone else who wouldn't do a good job, right?
• 25:01
  Yeah. "No, this is the way you send the email, and please just use this service to sign everybody up." Yeah. You know? The
• 25:08
  sheer luck that goes into whether a school community has parents who are magically good at, like, organizational change, you know, for instance- Mm-hmm... and communication, maybe tech, fundraising.
• 25:18
  Our prior school, the community was very reluctant to tap parents for money and time, 'cause they didn't wanna bug them.
• 25:25
  But the output of that is the teachers are underpaid, the activities are weak, you know, everything is janky, and you're like, you know, it's just a matter of, like, you ha- you know, not every school has someone who's used to leading meetings for the school board, for instance.
• 25:40
  Mm-hmm.
• 25:40
  Or, yeah, like, just running things, like continuity, all these, like, sort of business things that consultants get paid millions of dollars to do that, you know, you're just lucky if you get a, some parents who are able to do this, and have the free time, and have the expertise.
• 25:54
  But it's completely random, and it's totally based off privilege, which, you know, so just a- add, like, a nice fondant of guilt over all that, you know? Like- Oh, yeah... how, yeah. How lucky am I? No, 100%, and
• 26:07
  yeah, you're right. It, it's, it, it is pure luck. When we were in Los Angeles up until a couple years ago, my kids went to a, one of the very few good public schools in LA.
• 26:17
  There were 1,000 kids, K to 5, and they did, they've worked so hard to make it feel like half that size. And you can only do so much, but I mean, if that school, the number of fundraisers they had, and it was very clear.
• 26:32
  You're like, "You're not paying tuition, 'cause it's public school, but you got a lot to do," because you, they d- first of all, they didn't have a nurse, so just stop there.
• 26:41
  And you paid for every one of the, what, I don't remember what they called it, centers or whatever the word they used for was. Art, science, et cetera, et cetera, all came directly out of parent funding.
• 26:49
  'Cause they were like, "Look, we're doing our best, but i- if we don't raise 300 grand a year, like, that's the baseline to operate like this." Yeah. And they did a great job. And you just go, "Oh my God."
• 27:00
  And meanwhile, I think of the h- thousand kids at the school, I think at any given moment, like, 10 to 20 were fully homeless or unhoused, however you wanna phrase it. And so you're just going [laughs]
• 27:12
  "Okay, I'm gonna participate. I will be the security guard. I will send the emails at midnight after I do all the bottles or whatever, because someone has to do it."
• 27:20
  And there's these, you know, the parents of the fifth graders who get, like, a, the long applause when they leave because they have literally held the school up with their bare hands for six years when they leave.
• 27:30
  And you go, "I have to do that?" Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But you have to. Yeah. Because that's why it's there. Yeah.
• 27:36
  And I'm- And you have to get along with people who really don't believe the same things you believe, you know? Or who think that you must have more time or are less important than they are, like, all these things.
• 27:48
  And yeah, it is not [laughs] I don't know. I was l- yesterday I helped a friend who had a sick baby, and o- on the one hand, I was like, "Man, I don't miss at all having an infant who was sick."
• 27:58
  Like, how, you know, like the desperation- Mm... and it was a never ending cycle, and how long those days are. But also, I was like- Oh my God...
• 28:05
  just thinking about, you know, my oldest is 12, and I was like, "You have no idea, like, all the things that are gonna come your way," you know?
• 28:11
  And just all the myriad situa- like, volunteer hours and science projects and internet and, you know, whatevers. I mean, we know all this, you know, but just, anyway. No, it's so hard to,
• 28:24
  you wrote about, at one point, I don't remember what post it was, but it was [laughs] I think it was this year, I don't know anymore, about anything, about the advice you try to pass on at the baby shower- Oh, yeah...
• 28:34
  basically. Mm-hmm. It's, it always reminds me [laughs] of the Billy Madison moment where he shakes the kindergartner and is like, "Stay here for as long as you can." And it's the same thing.
• 28:45
  Our, one of our children was out elected for their morning chore to be picking up dog poop. You're gonna have a dog and you wanna play in the yard, you to go, it's not that much. It's not that complicated.
• 28:56
  Just go out every morning, and then it won't pile up, like your room.
• 28:59
  And at one point they were out there, and they had dragged my wife into it, of course, and they were very frustrated and did the, I mean, it's so cliche, stomped the foot and said, "Adults don't have to do any chores."
• 29:12
  And you're just like, "Fuck." [laughs] I don't know, so- Can I ask you a, like, a brief question? Yeah.
• 29:18
  Tell me, like, a tiny victory from lately that made you think we're on the right track, or these kids are not gonna be so bad, or maybe we made a good choice here. With my kids? Yeah.
• 29:28
  It's such a reflex to be like, every day. I told them the o- [laughs] I d- I had this little thing the other day. I think I copied it from someone years and years ago, and I j- my kids, "How was your day?"
• 29:37
  I go, "Every day is the best day of my life with you guys." And the other day my nine-year-old goes, "Every day?" [laughs] I was like, "Maybe not every fucking day. I mean, I, we can both read the room here.
• 29:46
  Not every day. Like, why? What did you do today?" No, I mean, I don't know.
• 29:51
  You know, little thing, big one got home from the swim meet the other night, and his sister just left him a little note, said, "Hey, I'm really proud of you." That's great. And I was like- That's beautiful...
• 30:01
  "That's it, man." 'Cause we're so, like, macabre with them. We're like, "We're gonna die so much sooner than you think. You are, all you have is each other." [laughs] And they're like, "Fuck, okay.
• 30:10
  Can I go ride my bike please?" So little shit like that, I'm like, "Great. Nailed it. That's it for the day." What about you?
• 30:16
  My 12-year-old, you know, as you know, n- there was, like, five minutes between Thanksgiving and Christmas season this year. Yeah.
• 30:22
  And my older one was bitching about wondering where the advent calendar was, and I had just hosted 22 people for Thanksgiving. And I said, "You know what?
• 30:30
  I think that you should be in charge of it this year," 'cause we have a refillable one. Mm-hmm.
• 30:35
  And, and he did, and he still has Halloween candy, and he's putting it in there, and he's also realizing that it's really hard to keep up with. Mm-hmm. And but I was just like, "Good, I'm glad you, he's enjoying it.
• 30:46
  He's doing it for his little brother." Mm-hmm.
• 30:48
  And I'm glad that he's realizing how much work goes into making the holidays magical, but he is doing it, and that just made me happy that he's, like, a part of it now and making it happen. So tiny thing.
• 30:58
  So, and good for you for, I guess, dropping the facade in, in some ways and, 'cause at some point you just gotta be like-It's, if it's gonna continue to be up to me, I'm gonna let you know that this specific thing is not gonna happen anytime soon.
• 31:10
  [laughs] And that's just it. Because I've got 70... 'Cause I just finished Thanksgiving. You know, we haven't even finished getting through all of the fucking dishes from three days ago, and Christm- Yeah...
• 31:20
  and you're like, "Where's the Christmas tree?" Yeah. You know? It's, it's a lot. But that's great. That's awesome. And it does help for them to almost immediately go, "Oh, this is very annoying.
• 31:31
  This is-- I get something out of it 'cause my sibling enjoys it, and that's great, but whoa, remind me to never bring this up again." Yeah, 100%. I mean, and that's what the little things are.
• 31:41
  Like, the, you know, the big moments like the honor roll or graduation or the championship or the swim meet, like, those are fun, but that is- Yeah... the culmination, and a lot of luck, you know?
• 31:51
  That that doesn't add up to the s- or like my younger kid, he volunteered to pick up the poop in the backyard yesterday 'cause he wanted to play football back there.
• 31:58
  And sometimes this kid is so lazy and entitled, you know- Mm-hmm... "Can you pour my milk? Can you," whatever.
• 32:04
  And to, it was just very pleasing that for once in his life he was like, "I'm gonna take it upon myself to do this unpleasant task because I need it to happen for me to enjoy myself." And I was like, "Yes, thank you.
• 32:14
  All right, good. Finally." That's incredible. That's a win.
• 32:17
  Truly, like, those should count for much more than all the fuck-ups or like you said, you know, you've mentioned before talking about, you know, l- [laughs] "What if my kid isn't quite working out the way I hoped?"
• 32:29
  [laughs] Yeah.
• 32:30
  I mean, so look, the goal here, obviously this is the first one, and it could end in a fireball, but it's to very loosely structure a conversation around one of these things, from, you know, chores to book bans and consumerism and waste and climate and, and sex ed or lack of, whatever it is.
• 32:51
  And I hope that the first however long this was is indicative of it'll veer off topic, but I think a lot of that is because parenting is 7,000 unfinished conversations, and so you're, a lot of your conversing with other parents is like, "Oh, and this other fucking thing."
• 33:08
  But it all actually goes together, which is, it's hard. And again, even if you've got all the support in the world. So if we do more of these, if they work, I would love to incorporate some Q&A from people.
• 33:18
  People tend to have a lot of that. Yeah, that's it. I do wanna clarify, and I know we both care about this a lot, again,
• 33:27
  if this, if you, uh, kind of like Evil Witches, like, it's, uh, for moms, and you mentioned it's, you know, it's for all parents. It's one of my favorite things.
• 33:35
  But you do a really great job, if you don't mind me reading this, describing from your sort of About page who this is for.
• 33:42
  Again, if you don't fit into this, great, but you wrote, "We're the moms," in, in this case, parents, "who will not be taken aback if you say something negative or irreverent about your family.
• 33:53
  We will most likely try to make you feel better with our own story or joke," 'cause we've all had the, the blowouts on the airplanes, whatever it is.
• 34:01
  "And we can all do this and still say something adoring about your child on social media because we too look for..." [laughs] Goddammit, Claire. I reread this last night and I was like, oh my God.
• 34:09
  We, [laughs] "We too look forward all night to bedtime and then paradoxically spend the evening looking at old baby photos." I mean, it's so fucked up.
• 34:20
  But importantly, folks should know, whoever's out there listening, this is not a podcast for anti-vaxxers or people who think teachers are overpaid, [laughs] clearly already.
• 34:29
  People who think, like you said, social emotional intelligence is feelgood nonsense. It matters. And because it's difficult to...
• 34:37
  I wrote a whole blog post that's not uplifting called "The Disconnect" about why the, the kids are so angry. But I wanna give our standard caveat, um, or
• 34:48
  I guess what we support and promote, which is, I wrote it a couple years ago and I said, "We're biased here, but not towards any particular party, person, or company.
• 34:55
  We often and specifically call up with good actors and bad actors who are measurably working towards or preventing progress at every level of power, and understanding who, what money, and what policies are driving progress or standing in the way are key to bending the arc further and faster."
• 35:11
  And I guess when that's applicable to parenting, that can be everything from free school lunches to maternal health to, you know, paid leave. I mean, you name it.
• 35:19
  And again, we've both got versions of support systems that are helpful from real family to found family to amazing spouses, but that's the goal here. Does that sum it up, Claire? Yes. And I, yes.
• 35:31
  And I, if I may say, and I think this is related, I think a big part of it as well is the internet and social media. Mm-hmm. Are we the same age? I was born in '79. What year were you born? '82. Okay. Well, you're young.
• 35:43
  But I was just having a chat with Emily Gould, former editor- Mm-hmm... of Gawker, and I, because I've been toying around with this essay that I've been working on about how we enjoyed, as parents, analog childhoods.
• 35:54
  Mm-hmm. And then we weren't, we were a little bit older when we got online, and the internet was a much smaller place and a freer place, and you could be anonymous. There were no videos at the time, no social media.
• 36:06
  You could experiment, play, make mistakes, and not have it be served up to haunt you forever. And our kids are online at a much earlier age. There's much less privacy.
• 36:18
  There are so many more ways to fuck up, and it's terrifying, and you can't avoid it at the same time. Uh, Emily was comparing it to food, where you need food to live.
• 36:28
  And it is pretty impossible to live a life completely online at any age at this time. And I mean, um, at least my 12-year-old has to be on Google Classrooms to do his homework.
• 36:37
  So what are we gonna do with this tool that can be a tool or it can be a cudgel, and it can ruin people's lives, or it can uplift you? And how are we navigating that with our kids? And what are we gonna teach them?
• 36:49
  We don't even know what the future looks like, but we gotta guide them and ourselves through it, and that's terrifying. Mm-hmm. And I think it's good to talk to other parents about that.
• 36:57
  We don't know what's coming, and it's really scary. But, you know, like with COVID, we got through that, and we'll get through this and see what happens. Let me ask you something.
• 37:07
  Again, the cliché isOld people like me going, "In, in my day." So there's obviously fundamental philosophical universal truths there.
• 37:18
  But do you think our having experienced sort of a last analog childhood, do you think that's helpful in parenting or do you think we, like, hold that against society or use it as a crutch or any of those things?
• 37:32
  I ask 'cause I literally today bought a home phone. Huh. 'Cause I told my kids they're not getting phones. So I struggle. [laughs] Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Our...
• 37:41
  If anything, for instance, I realize that I'm closer with parents who have made the same choices that we have because I think, you know, a hard part of parenting and being a kid is peer pressure. Mm.
• 37:51
  And, you know, you- it's easy to say to yourself, "We're not gonna do this," but then when you live in a world where everyone else does that, you know, you start to second-guess yourself, and you have to stand up for yourself.
• 38:01
  And I will say, well, Seth Meyer had a joke, I think it was him in his latest stand-up special, where he talked about how his kids don't have phones yet.
• 38:08
  And he said, "I'm not saying our kids are better than yours for it if you did give your kid a phone. I'm just saying we're better parents than you are" [laughs]... which is obviously a gag.
• 38:19
  You know, it's so much of these things, you have to be sympathetic and empathetic.
• 38:23
  If your kid is riding the, the subway to school and you don't see them all day, or if your kids' parents are divorced and they need to talk to them, like, there's so many good reasons for them to have a, a cell phone.
• 38:32
  But on the other hand, it does make me happy. I- I'm not a brain doctor [laughs] or a genius.
• 38:38
  [laughs] But I think it is g- I do think in my heart of hearts, like, that it is better for my kid that he goes out with his friends and plays football- Mm-hmm... or he makes a game up, you know?
• 38:49
  Or he drew little piece... He made his own Pokemon and hid them around the house for his brother to find, that he can make his own fun.
• 38:56
  And I, there's a, in my heart, I'm like, I think that it's good for his brain, and I do feel good about that.
• 39:01
  But on the flip side, I do feel this sense of sadness for when he does get his first phone, and it's gonna be like him, you know... It's like when you see in a movie where someone smokes their first joint and it- Mm...
• 39:12
  like, they s- it's like everything, you know, they fall through the looking glass.
• 39:15
  And I feel this sense of sadness for his impending loss of innocence, and he is already behind his, his, a lot of his, his colleagues, as it were, in terms of social media and knowledge and savviness.
• 39:27
  But I think being sophisticated is incredibly overrated as a child. So I feel good about it, but, you know, a lot of things have to go right. It has to be... It's not easy.
• 39:37
  Also, as a parent, you have to make a lot of trade-offs. You have to... There's a lot more messes. There's a lot more talking to your kid. You may have to work, you know?
• 39:45
  You might not have time to entertain them while they're offline. So I am glad we made that decision, but it's not easy. But yeah, I think it's special, you know?
• 39:54
  It's a special time of your life, 'cause being bored is a luxury when you're at a certain age, and knowing what to do with your time is, is a skill. So yeah, I don't...
• 40:03
  [laughs] No, it's very easy in my day job and a lot of what's going on in the world to really see more than is applicable or fair as black and white, or to really demonize something, or to cheer something on.
• 40:20
  And on the one hand, there's the "don't meet your heroes" side of things, pragmatic about it. [laughs] It's like you can be idealist, but I, you know...
• 40:28
  AOC had a really great quote recently, which was essentially paraphrasing, "It's important to be right, but we also have to be effective."
• 40:36
  And that's actually pretty applicable to parenting, and I find dealing with a lot of this shit as well, which is I loved Instant Messenger.
• 40:45
  The number of times I changed my information to, to match, I don't know, whatever band ex-girl happened to like at that time to reinvent myself [laughs] for or whatever.
• 40:54
  And I loved all the offline parts of technology that were not, one, connected, much less programmed to capture us from Organ Trail to, to Mac Paint. So I do get it.
• 41:05
  It is different, however, because again, it is specifically programmed to, to capture you as much as possible, and that is, like, the most innocent version of it, obviously.
• 41:16
  The, it goes much deeper and darker, or it can at least. But you're so fucking tired as a parent, even with all this support, that it's really easy to fall back on the, "Yeah, we're just not doing that, bud."
• 41:28
  And, or as I often say, like, "Our family's gonna do it different." And they're like, "Well, can I choose another one?" Like, I get it, you know?
• 41:36
  And that's unfair, but it's also hard 'cause you're like, how am I dealing with a different chat thing or a different app or whatever it might be every single day that you're being left out of?
• 41:46
  My kids actually handle it really well, and I think, or at least outwardly they do, and maybe that's because I've just been such a caveman about it for so long. But
• 41:57
  it's, they're gonna, they're gonna get to that point where they feel left out. I've actually thought about recently, a bunch of their friends have phones because similarly, we're in a pretty military-heavy area.
• 42:06
  Parents are gone a lot, both day to day and longer term, or they're both working and not from home, and so a lot of kids have phones.
• 42:14
  Less social media so far, but I've thought to myself, what if I offered their friends money to not be on social media? Whoa. Like, is that too far? [laughs] Like, how... I, I don't know.
• 42:27
  I, I, it's, you know, trying to stave it off. It is, I mean, something that people don't talk about a lot is, yeah, the peer pressure. Well, first, I mean,
• 42:36
  again, there's so many things that this pops up for me in terms of I wanted to write about the... A friend and I, who's also, her daughter is similarly offline. It's weird how you find each other, but- Mm-hmm...
• 42:45
  she, we've sort of had to cheer each other on about the, how it's overrated to have a cool kid. First of all, there's, you'll never catch up to that. There's, your kid will never be...
• 42:53
  And cool means, you know, cool for them, not for you. Mm-hmm. You're, you may think your kid is cool because he put some good stickers on his skateboard, you know?
• 43:01
  But for him, it's like, how is his YouTube cha- you know, how many likes and subscribes does he have?
• 43:06
  And yeah, the coolest kid will never be the coolest, and it's never catching up, and you'll, you know, and then you look like Amy Poehler.
• 43:13
  But you, it matters to you that your, that your kid is cool.But I think at a certain point, I think they get smart enough to realize, like, what they are missing out in terms of the bad stuff as well.
• 43:23
  But I will say, we're not, like, a completely analog family. Like, our son has to be on Google Classroom for school, and we gave him an iMessage account to talk to his friends.
• 43:32
  And he and I had a cute moment last week where he's like, "Mom, you gotta upgrade to..." What is the latest version of Mac that we just downloaded? I don't even know. 18 something, yeah. But he was like...
• 43:41
  Yeah, he's like, "You can respond with anything, and there's all these text things, you know, text effects." And we just messed around with it together, just sending, just, you know, in adjoining rooms- Mm-hmm...
• 43:53
  sending each other text messages with goofy, you know, fonts and things like that. And, you know, is that nice? Is that scary? I don't know.
• 44:00
  But he- I was engaging with my seventh grader, and, you know, that's kind of special in its own way.
• 44:05
  But I, I was also gonna say, you know, you raise your kid, and you are taking care of them, just the, just you, the two of you, and then they start school, and no one prepares you for their friend who has four older sisters- Mm...
• 44:17
  and they know everything already. Mm-hmm. You know, and they, you know...
• 44:24
  Or my son, whose friend, I think in fourth grade or fifth grade, was sending, like, rape jokes and, you know, "I hope you kill yourself" to other kids, and he was on his phone at 1:00 in the morning 'cause his mom left his Apple Watch in there.
• 44:35
  And, you know, my kid is feeling left out of that, and you're like, "Thank God he's left out of that." Mm. But, you know, no one prepares you for these other influences.
• 44:44
  So yeah, just another example of things you're not prepared for. There's no real way. I mean, I think my parents were mean parents.
• 44:51
  We didn't have cable until I went to college, and we, I was not allowed to have a phone in my room or a TV- Mm-hmm... in my room. There were downsides to that.
• 44:59
  I certainly got to college, and I had to withdraw from some classes because I spent so much time then smoking weed and watching Comedy Central 'cause no one was overseeing me.
• 45:07
  But I got my feet under myself, you know, and I think I kinda like maintaining the tradition of being a, a mean parent and holding a few things back.
• 45:15
  They also have literally everything else in the world, like n minus one. So- Well, that's the thing. They're gonna be fine.
• 45:20
  Is there some social stuff and more influences in a given hour if the fire hose is on than e- either of us ever encountered growing up, even as though we were surrounded by MTV and all this shit?
• 45:34
  Um, but, and, you know, we're not entirely a- analog either. So we've got three beat-up old iPads. [laughs] They, they can text each other [laughs] and us.
• 45:45
  And, you know, on the one hand, I'm like, "Ugh, I could probably do a little better on that." They're, you know... Again, we try not to just demonize screen time, like you said about the school computer thing.
• 45:56
  But what are you... Is it really science homework, but is that what we're doing right now?
• 45:59
  On the iPads, I know it's, I've got them locked down to a certain degree, and then they're like, "Well, I discovered iMovie, and I made a movie of me building these Legos, and I wanna share it with you."
• 46:07
  And you're like, "That's a great, I think that's a great thing, and maybe I shouldn't be such a dick." We literally had that discussion at our house this week 'cause my son has been making videos with his friends.
• 46:16
  And they're cute, and they're good. Like, he's, I, in my opinion, I know I'm biased, he's the perfect, beau- most beautiful, smartest child who ever lived- Mm-hmm... and no one else is co- No.
• 46:24
  But he is making these cool videos, and he wants a YouTube channel to put them on.
• 46:28
  And I don't like that idea because I don't want him to think about, I don't want him to be tracking how many people have seen them- Mm-hmm... likes, replies.
• 46:36
  And so I was saying maybe it can be on Vimeo, or maybe my husband can make a website to put them on. And of course, my son is devastated that, you know, we, he is so deprived that he won't have his own YouTube channel.
• 46:49
  Mm-hmm. But that's, like, the nitty-gritty of where things go.
• 46:51
  I wanna encourage your creativity, but, like, how can we do that in a way where you're not gonna fall into a wormhole, and you're gonna start being served up, you know, red pilling channels that are gonna convince you that, you know, your mom should stay home and cook for you, and that Joe Rogan is who you should be listening to and not- Yeah...
• 47:08
  your nice male teacher at school. So- Right... yeah, all these things that are the same problems our parents dealt with, but really not at all. [laughs] But it's a little- You know? Right. No, 100%.
• 47:17
  But it's a little, you know... My children, we were driving somewhere and, you know, usual, my w- wife tends to, like, semi-joke about the boys, like, just the unfounded white guy confidence that they have.
• 47:30
  And she's, "This is what I'm... I have this Zoom calls with this all day," and she's, "Somehow it's just [laughs] born into them." And they were remarking something about driving, and I said, "Guys,
• 47:41
  is there a chance, like, I fuck this up, I'm not paying attention, you ask for some song, or you dipshits can't keep your hands off each other in the back or whatever.
• 47:49
  But I also have no control over everybody else who are driving around.
• 47:52
  And we are exposed to a bunch of semi-qualified people going 80-something miles an hour who are not paying any attention to, to what they're doing, much less us."
• 48:03
  I was like, "That is what is actually so hard about this." And it feels the same way about YouTube, because they're like, "It's just a YouTube channel." And you go, "It's not." Yeah. You know? Yeah.
• 48:13
  It's grabbing your brain, and it wants it, and, you know, it may seem fun for now, but, you know, you don't know how your brain works.
• 48:20
  And it's crazy 'cause I was just talking to a cousin of mine at Christmas, Christmas party, and she's 28, and she's talking about dating now. And someone said, "I know a, a single man. He's 42.
• 48:32
  Would you date a 42-year-old?" And I looked at her, and I was like, "You are a fully formed adult standing in front of me, but your brain has just finished growing." Mm-hmm. Like, that is wild to me- Mm-hmm...
• 48:40
  like, how far they have to go. And they don't, I mean, we didn't know that when we were younger.
• 48:44
  You know, I, there's, being older is hard, but I also love the slowing down and the thinking and, like, the, you know, like, "Maybe I'll wait before I send that email," or, "Maybe I'll... Let me think about that joke.
• 48:56
  Is the edginess of that joke-" Yeah... "gonna pay off, you know, in the way that I think it will?"
• 49:01
  But I, this is, you know, another conversation, but I also wanted to say the bar is on the ground, but props to you for talking to your kids and driving them to school.
• 49:09
  I was just telling my kids y- the other day, and I don't remember the context, but I was telling them about there's a lot of dads out there who take it as a point of pride to not be involved in their kids' upbringing, you know, and I mentioned-Hmm...
• 49:21
  the president as an example of the dads who have never changed a diaper and are proud of it, and don't know what size clothes their kids wear, or who their teacher is, or what time school starts, or what the doctor's name is, and things like that.
• 49:33
  And so I was telling them that they have a good dad who actually is involved, and that's a lucky thing, and I don't even know if it occurred to them that they might not have two parents who are actually engaged in their lives.
• 49:43
  So, you know, I appreciate you for thinking about it [laughs] and wrapping your brain around it and digging into it. Well, th- I mean, thank you, but, I mean,
• 49:52
  I f- fuck up 42 times a day, and there's definitely times where everyone in the entire family is like, "It would be great if you stepped into the other room, pal." [laughs] "We- we- we've got this.
• 50:01
  It- [laughs] it only gets worse if you're here." And I'm like, "Yeah, no, that's fair." You know, we had
• 50:07
  so much trouble making our kids, and spent every dollar on IVF, and it didn't work, and it didn't work, and it didn't work, and miscarriages.
• 50:15
  And then they put the last one in, and the doctor who we owe everything to was like, "Good luck with your C-grade embryo. F- [laughs] F- fucking see you never again."
• 50:26
  And that is a 12-year-old now who's wonderful, and a moron, and wonderful. And, and then sorta they were like, "Well, if you want a second one, you gotta start doing that shit again."
• 50:38
  And we're like, "We barely had the f- we got nothing left." Happened to make the second one, and then of course the third one was an accident while breastfeeding, which, as my wife describes it, buy two get one free.
• 50:48
  But I remember when they were really young, and there were just so many diapers and boxes of Amazon wipes.
• 50:56
  And we were out in Los Angeles, and my, my best friend died of cancer, and I moved out to be with my long-distance girlfriend, who's now my wife, and I, I left a great job at ESPN and, uh, all these other things. It...
• 51:09
  2009, economy totally crashes, there's no jobs. And it took a long time to really get back on my feet in any way, but I did some screenwriting stuff while I was doing some other advice.
• 51:20
  And I, I had a chance, an outside chance of getting hired onto a really popular TV show. And there was a... God, I was probably th- how old am I? I don't know, 31.
• 51:35
  And the first 30 years of me was like, this would be incredible every day, that experience. Legendary writers' room, what they put out is amazing, all this.
• 51:46
  And they're like, "Yeah, so, you know, we usually roll in about 10:00, we finish up about 11:00 PM every night," this and that.
• 51:54
  And I just remember thinking, "Oh, this is my fucking Sliding Doors moment," because we'd just spent every dollar making these kids. And my wife had all kinds of postpartum shit, and was working full time.
• 52:07
  I mean, she was running a TV show when the first one was born. She went to back to work after a week. I didn't do it, and I was like, "Well, just set the old career back 10 years."
• 52:16
  But I also was like, I have always wanted to be a dad and wanted to be there at dinner. And then there's plenty of nights [laughs] where I'm like, "Maybe I don't wanna be at this dinner right now." [laughs] Yeah.
• 52:27
  "Maybe someone else wants me to be at this dinner right now." [laughs] Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, no one's glad mad Dad is there to yell at everyone- Right... and to- So weird... behaving?
• 52:34
  It's so weird that now I literally have a, a notification on my phone that tells me to take my gummy before I go home- [laughs]... so that I'm not mad Dad at dinner. [laughs] And they're all like, "This is great."
• 52:43
  But I, I do try to cherish that, 'cause as you know, it flies by, and all of a sudden they, all they wanna do is ask you questions and talk, and then all of a sudden every response is like, "Uh-huh."
• 52:53
  And you go, "Wait, did I just lose it? Is it gone?" That's so funny. My, my husband just took my 12-year-old on a trip 'cause he was like, "Who knows how long he'll wanna talk to me for?" You know? 'Cause he's so...
• 53:04
  thinks it's, you know, the sands are, are going away. Yep.
• 53:06
  I remember s- I think when my first was a baby, a boss of mine told me that, he was like, "There's nothing that makes you feel more secure and pe- gives you peace of mind than going to bed at night and locking the door and knowing everyone's in their bed and under the same roof, and you're not wondering where a new one is."
• 53:23
  And, and I don't know why that stuck in my head, 'cause I don't think I even had a second one at that point, but, like, it... And knowing it'll go away doesn't make it probably easier when it does happen.
• 53:32
  But, you know, I s- did you ever see the movie Tully? No. I know the story, but I didn't see it. Okay. It s- it wrecked me when I saw it. I watched it on Mother's Day, and I was tipsy and stoned when I saw it.
• 53:42
  [laughs] Just, you know, all the things. But- Mm-hmm. Mother's Day... the, one of the takeaways is that the kids need...
• 53:47
  Parenting is a grind, and it's tedious, and it's all this stuff that goes unappreciated, and it's really boring to us.
• 53:53
  But ultimately, that's what kids thrive on, and that's what they need, is that reliability and for you to be there, you know? And I think a lot about...
• 53:59
  You know, you just, you mentioned that your ambition has cratered, and that you turned down this job. But I think a lot about what do we owe our pre-kid selves? Like, why- Mm-hmm...
• 54:08
  do we think of that as, like, the true version of ourselves that we, like, owe to keep certain promises to? 'Cause that, we are still that same person. That person didn't die. But why do we feel like that's the most...
• 54:19
  I don't think I should become a vet because I wanted to be one when I was five, you know? Mm-hmm. But you still think, "Man, I should be writing a book. I should be," I don't know what.
• 54:28
  Like, with striving more, trying to make more money, but also I just really wanna read a be- book and go to bed and- My therapist describes that as should-ing all over myself.
• 54:37
  So yeah, I mean, I'm proud of what I do now, and so I think I have lost some of it. I mean, there's still part of me that's like, "How am I not a fucking baseball player? What happened?"
• 54:46
  [laughs] But at the same time, I do feel, and [laughs] maybe some of it is, you know, like you said, just getting older or, or more comfortable, or, or seeing the appeal of, of getting older in, in a lot of ways.
• 54:59
  Like you said, the slowing down, of having learned lessons and then applying them, which is f- a new experience. [laughs] It's, I do feel m- probably more comfortable with myself than I have been.
• 55:14
  And I think there's so much change for such a period.
• 55:18
  Like you said, your brain still doesn't stop developing till you're, like, 30.And then you have a bunch of kids, and you get married and you move and this and that, and jobs and life.
• 55:25
  And as much as parenting does change every six months, I do feel like I'm kind of in, I don't wanna say confident by any stretch, but like in a "I think I can do this" phase for now. Yeah.
• 55:38
  Which is probably the longest it's been [laughs] for a while. You shouldn't have said that. You're gonna open a- I know. Now I'm fucked. [laughs] That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. No, I know, the same thing.
• 55:46
  I've been like, I was like, it's been a minute since I've been like felt bereft and I don't know what to do, and I don't have the tools, and you know, a- and everyone's sad or mad.
• 55:56
  But yeah, which means like it's incoming, but- It's coming tonight. [laughs] It's... Yeah, the second this call is over. Yeah. But yeah, it is...
• 56:04
  I, I, I think it is both great and also the worst that we can talk to so many people and see what everyone is doing. Yeah. And I think both of... Maybe the goal of this talk is, you know, we're all on social media.
• 56:14
  It's Christmastime as we talk. Everyone's got pictures of their daughters in beautiful velvet dresses, and their sons with their hair combed, and they're standing in front of the Christmas tree.
• 56:23
  And, and you know, that doesn't reveal a fraction of what we go through. And- Mm... you know, and I think it's important to just be able to hold...
• 56:30
  Of course we wanna be proud of our kids and show, show our, the fruits of our labor literally and figuratively, but also you can't do that without also talking about the, like the literal shit under your fingernails, you know, that, that comes along with that.
• 56:43
  And it's, you know, it's good to remember that we're all faking it. We all have this facade, you know, but, uh, to some extent, but at the same time we all are washing skid mark underpants and- Oh... you know.
• 56:55
  [laughs] Yeah, I mean, you would be sur- the things that I have been surprised that I've had to tell my kids to do, scrub your ass. Mm-hmm. You do need to wash under your armpits. No, do not put a pepper in your nose.
• 57:06
  I can't believe I had to tell you that. Mm-hmm. Things like that, you know? So.
• 57:09
  Right, 'cause on the one hand, like you said, both things are always true, which is like c- you're really smart kids, and like s- you have a little street smarts too, but we figured out that it's important to wash your hands 100 years ago.
• 57:22
  Why would you, like, fundamentally disagree with it, basically? [laughs] Like, why do you [laughs] have this philosophical bent against it? Where they literally look at you aghast every time.
• 57:33
  It's fucking memento, where they go, like, "Every time?" And I'm like, "Yeah." Well- "Every fucking time. You have to do it." And they're like, "That seems completely... You're a fucking asshole."
• 57:43
  I mean, during COVID, my husband, and he's doing b- he's better now, but, I mean, a little bit better, but he's had a... Anxiety is his, you know, he- I'm depression, he's anxiety. Mm. We're very similar.
• 57:53
  Reverse, but yes. He, our younger one, because he's the second-born and ADHD, he decided that he would rebel because the one thing you had to do during COVID was wash your hands, and he wouldn't do it.
• 58:04
  And the screaming, knock-down, drag-out, this is the one thing you're supposed to do, wash your hands, fights.
• 58:11
  And it's funny now 'cause we can joke about it, but like literally just these little, these little arguments that will just fucking destroy you in the moment 'cause it does feel like life or death at the moment. But...
• 58:23
  Yeah. I, I mean, I feel like everything is true at once. [laughs] Mm-hmm. It's insanely hard. It's incredibly redeeming. It's the greatest thing. It's brutal.
• 58:30
  And then you go to bed and you start scrolling through the pictures, and you're like, "What kind of sick fuck? What is my [laughs] problem?" I know. Oh, God.
• 58:39
  I mean, I just was looking at the Christmas tree 'cause there's a pic- there's an ornament of my nine-year-old, like his little cute face in preschool. Mm-hmm. And I'm like, that was it.
• 58:46
  This is like the perfect version of him, and I think that was like the teacher who would call us all the time about- Mm-hmm... you know, how he was not being good. Mm-hmm. You know?
• 58:55
  But, and he's at school, and thank God he's at school right now 'cause I would not wanna be home with him because I gotta record a podcast and talk to another grown-up. But, but this little face, you know?
• 59:04
  And it's almost like you... It, it is wild. It is completely wild 'cause you're like, "I don't feel that different," and yet this was a completely different kid at that time.
• 59:12
  It is really, I always think of it, I don't know if you ever saw Conan O'Brien when he had his TV show would do these bits where he had a super, super slow-mo camera and he would show things like, I remember I think they like hit a piece of Jell-O with a tennis racket, and you watched it in slow motion come through the, the strings of the racket, and I always think of that's what parenthood does to your brain is that it gets hit with a tennis racket and it turns into all these pieces, and then it eventually coagulates on the other side.
• 59:42
  And that's amazing that happened and you're stronger for it, but it's a very unpleasant, difficult process to go through at the same time, and you lose some bits of the Jell-O on the way out as well. But, you know.
• 59:52
  [laughs] Oh, no doubt. I mean, there's a lot of Jell-O that is missing.
• 59:56
  And you know, we, I like, we like to say to them, and we try to model this for them and I often do a, a poor job, which is you get to be tired or hungry or whatever, but you don't get to be a dick, you know?
• 1:00:08
  Once you get old enough and you have sleepovers at grandma's or friends' or whatever, you guys get to stay up. That's great for you. I did the same thing.
• 1:00:14
  You do not get to come home and be a dick to your siblings or else we're just not gonna do it, and that's totally your choice. Mm-hmm.
• 1:00:21
  I also empathize that it's a hard lesson to learn 'cause you, 'cause I didn't learn it until six months ago, you know? [laughs] So I'm trying to help you do it sooner for both- Yeah... of our benefits.
• 1:00:31
  But you know, it's hard. You black hole a lot, you know? I remember when our second kid, our daughter, popped out after a brutal pregnancy for my wife, and I mean, our daughter was like still slimy.
• 1:00:45
  It was seconds, not even two digits of seconds, and she looked at me and she goes, "I know, I can see why people have a third." And I was like, "Are you fucking kidding me right now? Did the hormones work that fast?"
• 1:00:56
  I, like- I said the same thing... 'cause I remember the whole fucking thing. [laughs] No, I- By the way, I wanted 10 kids, but I was still just like, "Holy shit."
• 1:01:03
  I, well, I said the same thing and I, well, I would say, I said giving birth a second time is like dri- pulling out of a driveway that's been shoveled already, you know? 'Cause the first time- [laughs]...
• 1:01:11
  the, the driveway's not been shoveled and you're slipping- Sure... and sliding and you're stuck. Uh-huh. But yeah, that's why I was glad we had the vasectomy scheduled 'cause I was like- Mm-hmm...
• 1:01:18
  this will prevent me from having a third kid, and I'm glad we... Two is, two is good for me. Two boys is- Mm-hmm... enough. I would, people would always often be like, "Aren't you gonna have a girl? Go for the girl."
• 1:01:28
  I'm like-Even a girl is still another kid. Mm-hmm. Even if she's a girl. Still a boy. Even if she's the world's- Yeah... best girl- Yeah... she's still a child. And so no thank you. And then you get to skincare. Oh, God.
• 1:01:38
  Which is, was literally most of my daughter's Christmas list, and we were like, "Nope," and then she's gonna hate us. So yeah. I'm already mad.
• 1:01:47
  I put my husband in charge of Christmas shopping 'cause we had a big blowout many years ago over a disagreement about how many presents they should get, and the end result was that he was like, "You own Christmas then.
• 1:01:57
  You're in charge of all the gifts." Mm-hmm. "I won't criticize. I'll give you ideas if you want, but I won't say anything." But so he got my son a water bottle. You may
• 1:02:06
  not, you may be surprised to know that we already have several water bottles in our house, so I don't know why we got another water bottle. Oh, my God, the fucking water bottles. Yeah. Continue. No, that's it. That's it.
• 1:02:18
  [laughs] Every parent who's driving home right now to their kids that they were excited to see about an hour ago- [laughs]...
• 1:02:22
  and they're gonna get home, be like, "Fuck me," right now is, like, reaching behind them in their car or whatever, and there's seven fucking water bottles. Meanwhile, their kids are like- Yeah...
• 1:02:30
  "I can't find my water bottle." Really? [upbeat music] That's it for this week. You're gonna make it.
• 1:02:45
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• 1:02:55
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• 1:03:02
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• 1:03:10
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• 1:03:22
  [upbeat music]