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Babies Sh*tting At A Funeral · 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
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• 0:37
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• 0:54
  Again, it doesn't smell, which I don't understand. It's sleek. It's actually sexy. Here's a question people ask: how often do you empty it? Good question. It's every three weeks.
• 1:05
  I don't know, maybe, and there's a bunch of us. 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
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• 1:26
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• 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] Like, one of those babies during the funeral is gonna shit themselves, and, like, life just keeps going. [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.
• 2:11
  We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like screen time and vaccines. Banned books, and maybe just stop leaving your books on the car floor, damn it.
• 2:21
  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.
• 2:32
  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.
• 2:43
  You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website notrightnow.show..show.
• 2:50
  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.
• 2:58
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions@notrightnow.show. [upbeat music] Hey, we got a guest today.
• 3:14
  Her name is Diana Rondero. Diana is a parent, of course, a registered...
• 3:20
  [laughs] We should, we should make someone who's not a parent listen to everything on this show and then just have them on and go, "You know, what do you think?" Anyways, Diana is a registered dietician.
• 3:29
  She's a meditation teacher and an end of life doula most recently, which is really interesting and important to talk about, we think.
• 3:36
  Obviously, without taking it too seriously, but if you're listening to this, you're probably part of whatever, whatever the fuck they call us, a sand- sandwich generation or whatever.
• 3:44
  You got kids and boomer parents, and it, it's a lot, even on the good days, um, and really appreciated Diana's context on all this and her perspective and also just, yeah, you know, being a parent through it all.
• 3:55
  So please enjoy this conversation. [upbeat music] We had a ton of snow, like, in early December, and then it all melted by Christmastime, and I was like, "Good." I was like, "Fuck a white Christmas.
• 4:05
  I don't need snow being drifted into the house, and the salt, and, like, the kids' wet stuff."
• 4:12
  Yeah, so- But your kids take on their, out all their shoes and their clothes before they come inside, and they hang it all up, right? You know what? I have to say, they're not even that bad.
• 4:20
  It's like the dog is part of it, too. Mm-hmm. It's just even under your best of circumstances, like, it's still pretty disgusting, so I'll take the whatever gray green stuff compared to...
• 4:29
  You know, and then I had learned that we only had one shovel, one snow shovel, so I had to, I had to go passive aggressively angrily buy snow shovels so that we could all buy some, so there's no excuse now for, you know...
• 4:40
  Everyone should be shoveling. Like, you should have a shovel in your hand at any time, so. Yeah. Anyway. [laughs] Perfect. Anyways, welcome to the show. We're so excited to have you.
• 4:51
  Really appreciate your- Thank you for having me. Oh, of course. Hold on to that. We'll try not to ruin it the best we can.
• 4:57
  So the reason why I invited Diana onto the show is 'cause she knows my friend Erica Reid Gerdes, and Erica is a death doula. And we can talk a little bit more about what that job is.
• 5:08
  And Erica also is in an amazing all-female Beastie Boys cover band called She's Crafty. So she's just, between those two things, one of the most interesting people. That's incredible.
• 5:18
  And I wanna give the plug that Erica is gonna be in conversation on January 29th with Becky Robinson about the book, My Parents Are Dead, What Now?
• 5:27
  So if anyone is listening to that and is in Chicagoland and wants to tune into that, come and see it.
• 5:33
  But anyway, I asked Erica, I said, "Who else do you know who's in this space, who's cool, and would be fun to talk to, who's a mom?" And she recommended Diana.
• 5:40
  So welcome, Diana, to our show, and tell us a little bit about what your work is lately and also about your kid. I know that's, like, two huge questions slammed together, but- Basically, just say whatever you want.
• 5:52
  It's fine. It all relates, right? That's my work- [laughs] Yep. Yep... as well. I am a registered dietician. I primarily do n- nutrition counseling, education.
• 6:03
  I have my own practice that I've been slowly getting up for the past year. Takes a lot of work. So I work with people around, like, eating disorders, disordered eating.
• 6:16
  I also work with people with chronic illness.One of my other jobs is mainly working with people who are food insecure, so this is a lot of Medicaid, a lot of food stamps.
• 6:27
  I've been doing it for over 10 years, and all here in Chicago, mainly the South and West Sides. And so over that time, I've just seen how it all intersects around
• 6:39
  death, the body, grief, how we hold these in our body, how we're not nourished in so many ways. So what I try to do is really hold space for them to heal, and when I can, give practical, gentle tips on
• 6:58
  what they could do to help support them. Claire, before we talk about dead stuff, can I ask a question about the Medicaid work? Because
• 7:06
  th- all the rest of my job is, you know, climate and public health and all that stuff, food and water. Mm-hmm. With the education program, the big Medicaid edu- or SNAP ed getting cut, what does that mean f- for
• 7:19
  how you're gonna do your work? Do you imagine an influx? How do you f- try to fill the gaps, I guess? It's such an insane question because you are now required to do the work that this entire program is doing.
• 7:32
  It's insane, and I basically tell people, "I don't know." Yeah. They're like, "What am I supposed to do?"
• 7:38
  And it's like, all your barriers are there, and they're real, and I can give you more things to do, more places to go, but the reality is they're running out of food too. Like, the pantries are running out of food. Yeah.
• 7:54
  And I would get people all the time. I'd just say, "You gotta go to your alderman, see if there's anything local in the neighborhood that you could find." So it's impacting hugely.
• 8:06
  It is hard because it's like, what can I give? I can't really give anything, and sometimes I'm just that transparent with them, is that I don't know. Well, thank you for being transparent and candid about that. It is...
• 8:18
  I think it's helpful to be able to say that at this point. It feels probably a little...
• 8:23
  There's a more grown-up word than fake, than to feel like you're ahead of the system, these enormous fundamental changes to programs that have supported a hundred million people to be like, "Oh, I've got the answer."
• 8:36
  It's like, no, you can take a second and be like, "I don't know yet, at least, and I do some work," you know? And tell me, your daughter is a teenager, is that correct? No, she's 10. She just turned 10. She's 10. Okay.
• 8:47
  Yeah.
• 8:49
  How do you suss raising a sassy 10-year-old with the work that you do that is very intensive, and, you know, how do you suss that if she's giving you attitude, maybe she doesn't, maybe she never does this, but if she's ever not finishing her food or doesn't like what you gave her to eat, like, how do you approach that in a way that doesn't completely bite her head off?
• 9:09
  Maybe I'm speculating. Maybe you don't- We never do that, basically, is what we're trying to say. I internally lose my shit quite a bit. She is a picky eater. I mean, she knows she's a picky eater.
• 9:23
  I try to make things that are new. I don't do it that often because time, right? Yeah. As a parent, you don't have time. You're exhausted.
• 9:34
  You want to give them a variety of foods, but at the same time, I don't have the fucking money to spend on it either. I don't have the time.
• 9:44
  I just need her to eat, and at the end of the day, that's kind of what it comes down to, you know? So the other night is a good example. Mm-hmm. I made something. I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this.
• 9:55
  I have the ingredients," and it's called, uh, sope de fideo. It's a Mexican dish I grew up on, and I was like, "I think she'll like it." And she took two bites, and she's like, "I like it okay.
• 10:09
  If I have to eat it, I will." And I'm like, "Well, you have to." That's a win in my house. It's the one with the little noodles, right? It's like a little noodle soup? Yes. Yeah. Like, stars or letters or... Yeah.
• 10:22
  I was trying to make it fun, and I was like, "Well, that's all there is in the fridge now, so you're gonna eat it until next week" [laughs] So, 'cause I don't have anything else. Yeah.
• 10:31
  So good thing to know that you will eat it if you have to, 'cause you do, so that solves that. Yeah, I can only imagine. I mean, I can imagine snapping on them.
• 10:41
  Like, I went through a health crisis with my mom a couple weeks ago that I told you about, and I tried to be gentle with my kids, but there was one day where my kid said, "Jeez," 'cause I asked him to do something really normal, and I really bit his head off.
• 10:54
  And I was like, "I called 911 on my mom, and you haven't even written her a what, get well letter, and you're accepting Christmas presents?" You know, and I just really went off.
• 11:03
  So if you can keep your going off internal and not external, then I tip my cap to you, 'cause I don't know how you would do that. Quinn, I'm sure you're the same way with your kids.
• 11:13
  Claire, we almost named this podcast Screaming in the Shower. Yeah. Which, by the way, still feels like a win, either internally... I mean, I don't know how you do that. That's incredible.
• 11:22
  I am at the point now, I'm so tired most of the time, there's very little that remains internal. Yeah. We, I mean, we lost it over mac and cheese the other night. Like, I started crying. I was at my wit's end.
• 11:33
  My father-in-law, who is in his 90s, has what maybe what you can call ARFID by this point, but he has a, he is a picky eater to the point where it really m- like, damages relationships, I would say. Mm-hmm.
• 11:47
  And he not only refuses to eat foods, but he refuses to sit at the table with people. And my... I didn't go whiz 'cause, like, this, it... I wouldn't say that's the reason why our relationship is strained.
• 11:59
  That's part of it. But my husband had the exact same experience I had where he just made spaghetti, very simple spaghetti, like ground beef plus a jar of Ragu and noodles.
• 12:07
  Like, nothing, you know, out of this world, and his dad refused to eat it and sat in the corner and read a book, you know? And it is such a...
• 12:17
  You know, knowing that can happen, like, everyone is entitled to have preferences and things like that, but, like, I, I have a friend who's put her kids through eating therapy because her kids had such, you know, strong eating restrictions, and I was like, "I hope you feel good that you put your kids through this therapy," 'cause this canManifests that whole life, and it is more than just...
• 12:37
  You can tell that it's more than just a, you know, "I don't like mushrooms," or, "I don't like onions," that it is, like, a whole, affects a whole spectrum of things.
• 12:43
  So I can imagine that causes a lot of stress on you to imagine, and the things you've seen as well. So that's pretty rough. Yeah.
• 12:49
  I don't work with kids for a very specific reason, 'cause you're working with the whole system then, and that's a bit more challenging.
• 12:58
  But yeah, ARFID is a really hard one because it is impacting their body, and also just the aversions, and you can't force it. I don't have a lot of experience with ARFID.
• 13:10
  Will you define it for anyone listening who doesn't know what it is? Avoidant restricted, avoidant restrictive food intake disorder. Okay.
• 13:18
  From what I know is, like, just a lot of aversions, texture, you know, getting grossed out easily at things.
• 13:25
  I mean, somebody who has more experience, maybe they can define it a little bit better, 'cause I haven't worked with people that much. Yeah.
• 13:32
  And I mean, it seems like there's, you know, having been the child who I didn't want the, any of the food to touch on my plate, you know, and now I smash it all together and, you know, you've got the kids who are, yeah, same thing.
• 13:42
  They're like, "I don't like the texture of hummus." You're like, "You will." I think there's, like- Yeah... baseline stuff probably for everybody.
• 13:49
  It's kinda like when you see other people's kids act out and you're like, "Thank God it's not just my kid." There's standard shit.
• 13:56
  But yes, probably eventually becomes clear, especially when they're 90, that it's become, you know, a lifestyle, right? Yeah. And there's a good dietician, her name's Elsa, Ellyn Satter.
• 14:09
  She came up with this for parents. It's called the division of responsibility. Mm.
• 14:14
  So what you're responsible for, what the kid is responsible for, and that actually has been helpful for me to where you're not forcing your kid to eat, because that does create some distortion in their relationship with food.
• 14:28
  Yeah. And so it's basically, "Here's what I'm cooking. You have options, but this is it." And then they get to choose what they're eating from their plate. And if they leave things, great.
• 14:40
  If they don't, that's great, too. It's...
• 14:42
  When my kid was a toddler, I remember seeing my cousin's son happily eating some pancakes like that she'd just torn up and sort of, like, casually put on his high chair tray, and my son just...
• 14:53
  It took him a while to get into eating, and I took it so personally when he wouldn't eat, especially because when you're a new mom, you can get swept away into these, like, peer pressure of, "Make your own food.
• 15:04
  It's so easy, and it's nutritious, and it's better than," you know, like, this health halo of making your own mashed sweet potato is so much better than buying it in a pouch or whatever.
• 15:12
  And my son wouldn't do it, and it was so much beyond just him being picky that I felt so rejected and so angry at him that I remember, like, slamming the high, the, the tray, the high chair tray into the sink.
• 15:23
  And like now, and, like, and with time past that, I'm like, "God, that was, like, such an extreme reaction," but it is more than just food, you know?
• 15:30
  And I did an article once about kids' eating disorders and family therapy, and it really does affect the entire family. Like, it is such a hard disease to deal with, for sure. Yeah.
• 15:40
  I made tamales with my friend for Christmas time, and she's, my daughter's trying it, and it's great. I'm glad she's trying it, but immediately she doesn't like it.
• 15:51
  And every time I give her something, especially culturally significant that's close to my heart, and she doesn't like it, it internally breaks my heart and makes me- Yeah... really sad. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah.
• 16:03
  I grew up on mac and cheese, Lunchables, bagel dogs, and I, you know, that's the thing, right? Later on it'll change, so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, mac and cheese especially, 'cause it's so fucking good.
• 16:16
  I feel like it's objectively good, and then again, media, commercials, read any magazine, there's a ki- like, an image of a kid, like, happily eating mac and cheese.
• 16:23
  So you're like, "You are faulty if you don't like this wonderful mishmash of cheese and pasta. Like, what could be wrong with you?" But yeah, it is hard business.
• 16:32
  Now, I have kind of a random question for you, maybe not, but you said that you lost your dad last year. Is that true? I did. Okay. I'm really sorry to hear that.
• 16:41
  Did you get a lot of people giving you food to, you know, help you out and comfort you? Yeah, I got some. I got some.
• 16:48
  So me and my family were all scattered, like California or Colorado here, and I did get some people coming to help, and they were sending money, really. Mm.
• 17:00
  That was the thing that was most helpful, and I was like, "That's good. I could just order food." [upbeat music] I'm gonna tell you a little story here.
• 17:07
  When the iPhone first came out 2007, one of the first apps I tried to convince a coworker to help me develop was what I was calling, and people were calling, a read it later app.
• 17:18
  And that's 'cause we worked all day at ESPN, and we used to print up all the old ESPN page two columns we loved, and then we would go and hide and read them on the company toilet.
• 17:29
  Wouldn't it have been great, though, is what I said, if we could just do that on our new touchscreen phones instead of printing them up?
• 17:36
  Anyways, 150 years later, I have tried every read it later app, all of them, migrating my archives over and over. But a couple years ago, I found Reader from the creators of Readwise and never looked back. It's so good.
• 17:53
  It's so fast. It's so smart. It works in my browser to save articles and read them and highlight them. It works on my phone and my iPad. I put it on my phone, on my home screen instead of social media stuff. It's great.
• 18:04
  Reader can save it all. And because they also built Readwise, all the highlighting and syncing is flawless. Text-to-speech? Sure. Ghostreader GPT so you can ask questions of your stuff? Sure.
• 18:17
  Here's how you can try it for free in Readwise, too. Right now, they're offering you guys, my listeners, two free months of Readwise and Reader when you sign up instead of just one month.
• 18:28
  So when you sign up, you get them both. The link to sign up and get that extra month is in the show notes, of course, and it's right here. It's readwise.io/re-Quinn, Q-U-I-N-N. That's readwise.io/quinn.
• 18:43
  Again, it's right there in your show notes. It really is the future of reading. I can't recommend it enough. Probably the most essential thing I use every day. Check out Reader today.
• 18:53
  [upbeat music] So I was curious whether there was anything you ate or had that really brought you-- either made you feel nourished or brought you comfort at that time.
• 19:02
  Like, I know it c- like, some things can make you, you know, you can turn away from them, and other things you're like, "Wow, I really needed this. I didn't even know that." A burger. Sometimes when I'm feeling
• 19:14
  destabilized from grief, I have to, one, recognize if I ate, and I tell people this too all the time, that think about when you ate. Mm-hmm. And I have to do that for myself. And then I'm just like, what do I need?
• 19:29
  Something really solid- Mm. A little bit greasy, and very comforting. So- Yeah... that could just eat with my hands. Yeah. I had a friend who dropped off... And this was just such a nice way to help.
• 19:41
  This woman said, "I'm making this chicken tortilla, like, dish, and my kids like it. Can I make double and drop it off at your house?"
• 19:48
  And she just put it in a very straightforward way, and I was like, "That sounds great." And there was something about it that I was like, this just hits the spot.
• 19:55
  It has chicken, it has carbs, it has cheese, it has beans, it has peppers. And I just felt, for some reason, that was the dish that, like, really got me through a couple of hard times.
• 20:04
  Quinn, what do you guys, what's your, like, when you're bereft, maybe you don't eat when you're sad, but, you know, if you do, what makes you feel better?
• 20:11
  I feel lucky to not have much of a sweet tooth unless it's, like, chocolate chip cookie related, in which case it's, you know, all bets are off essentially.
• 20:19
  Claire, I've told you how my wife is one of those people that'll have a thin mint and then put them back in the freezer for a month, which is just... It's so dark. Psychotic. It's so dark. It's so upsetting.
• 20:29
  I-- My friend Jeff, who's definitely listening, is the same way, who will frequently text me a picture of a cookie and say, "This is my cookie for the week." It's just, you know.
• 20:38
  So anyways, I'll take down a box or whatever's available. It's the same reason I don't keep snacks in the office, and that's on non-emotional days. There's not a lot of control, so whatever's there. I will tell a story.
• 20:47
  So when we were in Los Angeles, we lived directly across, for about seven years, we lived directly across the street from Alex Trebek. Just, you know, what a hero. Nicest guy.
• 20:58
  He was the nicest guy and his wife is so wonderful.
• 21:03
  And we were out of town when he died, and we have these very good friends, this couple who don't have kids, so they're a little more flexible, and they loved our dogs, and so they were staying at our house.
• 21:14
  And my buddy Seth is a really fantastic cook, and he, you know, had met them various times 'cause they'd housesitted for us a number of times and got to know them, and he just woke up, heard the news, and said, "I'm gonna make them a lasagna from scratch 'cause I don't know what else to do," and who doesn't love lasagna?
• 21:33
  And also it is like tamales or something. There is so much, so many layers, figuratively and spiritually [chuckles] and literally, of love that go into this.
• 21:42
  He handmade the pasta and everything like that, and I remember he said he just dropped it at their door and he was like, "I'm not gonna take up space or anything. I just want you to have this if you want it."
• 21:51
  And his wife, Alex's wife, came by, you know, a week later and just was like, "No one else brought us food. Like, that got us through the first two days."
• 21:59
  And for whatever re- You know, it's slightly different case, but she was like, "Thank you." It i- 'cause it is nourishing, right? It is, that is why you make food on a regular day. But I try to remember.
• 22:09
  That's the thing. And, you know, it's funny, just to plug one other thing, my mom participates in, there's a really fantastic organization, I think it's called Lasagna Love, and you can sign up to just...
• 22:19
  It's like a two-sided marketplace. You can just make lasagnas, and people who need food can sign up that they need food, and it can feed a family so well.
• 22:27
  And you just deliver it to their house and drop it off, keep going. It's a great organization. Lasagna Love. That's great.
• 22:33
  I love that idea, and I love lasagna, and no one in my family loves lasagnas, which is very sad 'cause you can't just have, you know, you have to get, like, a whole ass lasagna, but...
• 22:41
  Deanna, we-- So one thing in my past life, I forget if I told you this, I used to be the assistant to the editor-in-chief of
• 22:49
  what's, it used to be called The Journal of the American Dietetic Association, now it is J- Journal of American Nutrition and Dietetics, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So 'cause you're a registered dietician. Academy. Yeah. Yeah.
• 22:58
  Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
• 23:00
  And it was funny because my editor, my boss at the time, was one of the co-creators of the food pyramid as we used to know it, and it made me laugh because this woman, I worked for her for 10 years, and I saw her eat one time.
• 23:13
  I saw her eat half of a roasted tomato once. And other than that, she only ingested black coffee and Jesus and exercise and science.
• 23:22
  Oh, and, uh, also, when I was pregnant, I'll never forget this, like, she made a point of telling me that my baby's stomach was this big so that I had no excuse to just eat 'cause I was pregnant.
• 23:33
  Just to, you know, be like, "Just in case you think that you can eat whatever you want, you can't. You fat bitch." There is a lot going on there. Wow.
• 23:41
  Anyway, all that is to say is that there's a new food pyramid in town, and I'm curious to hear what the perf-- like, what the scuttlebutt is among the dieticians right now. I, you know, I got your notes yesterday- Mm...
• 23:55
  and I was like, "Oh, shit, I gotta look this up." That was my first response, to be honest. I am- Well- It's a time thing, but I'm also on the, not on news or social media a lot for my brain's sake and my health.
• 24:11
  I get impacted very easily. But when I started work today, somebody posted the AND, the academy, their stance on what they said, and after reviewing it, it's all problematic.
• 24:23
  It's all gonna make our life harder, like, what's going on with the new dietary guidelines. And there are things where it's great, like whole food, you know, less saturated fat, less sugar. Nobody's denying that.
• 24:36
  That's stuff that we're always trying to do, right?More fruits and vegetables. Yay, that's our war cry. Yeah.
• 24:43
  But, but there are things too where they're talking about saturated fat, and then they're emphasizing more beef, more whole milk, more like butter or certain type of butter. I don't even remember.
• 24:55
  But it's, yeah, like stuff like that is confusing and it's problematic. On a whole, I don't know how much I actually give a fuck about what these people are saying when the same day ISIS is killing people. Right.
• 25:12
  Like, how does it... How does this actually matter? This is... It's all elitist. It's- Yeah... white supremacy. It's awful. It's like you're not actually taking care of anybody- Right... where you don't have food stamps.
• 25:24
  People aren't even able to get food. So, sorry, that's my whole spiel. It's more infuriating and insane. It's absolutely insane. Yeah. Well, you have nothing to apologize for.
• 25:35
  The theme of this show is trying to parent through all of this, and do your job through all of this. Yeah. And answering...
• 25:40
  It feels insane to answer questions about the food pyramid, which is so important, however imperfect it's always been, every version of it, this and that.
• 25:47
  When stuff like yesterday happens, and like you said, you can't take away, uh, food stamps and SnapEd, and kick people off Medicaid for paperwork, and then just go, "But you should eat more red meat," and we're gonna, you know, we can kill anybody anytime.
• 26:01
  You go just like, "None of this is real." You know? Right. It's just- Yeah. No... it's awful. Like you said, it's, it's very hard to suss your feelings 'cause on the one hand... Well, there's three hands, right?
• 26:11
  On the one hand, you're like, great, like less processed food. We can all sort of get behind that. Uh, but also on the second hand, we all have kids and, you know, we're all gonna give...
• 26:20
  Like, you cannot raise a kid, I think, and work a job, and give them no processed food. I just think that's impossible. There's something, even if it's the best, most organic, like you gotta...
• 26:30
  There's something that's gonna come in a package to make your life easier. But then on top of it, these folks who promote this mentality are not looking out for poor people and Brown people.
• 26:38
  This is white people who want like a, to promote some kind of ideology that is not representing the entire population as a whole.
• 26:47
  But it's the part that's rooted in a tiny bit of truth that like almost feels the scariest and most dangerous, where you're like, "Well, we can't write this all off," but just a lot of it, basically.
• 26:57
  And I was thinking, 'cause I was like, I'm not gonna do anything differently 'cause of this, but what, we'll see what happens with the rest of the country. I don't know.
• 27:03
  Yeah, so does the association say we have to ag- stick with this, or are they gonna promote, you know, do what you have been raised, you know, as a nutritionist, or what you've learned, you know, that might go against this, these new teachings or these new guidelines?
• 27:17
  Well, they do put in the statement that there are things that are problematic. Mm-hmm. So they're very clear of what we support. And it's gonna make it harder for us to do our jobs in this way.
• 27:29
  And I think I listened to your last podcast where somebody was talking about the Academy of Pediatrics, and they had to put out a statement too, "We don't support this." Mm-hmm.
• 27:39
  I think a lot of the organizations like that have the scientists wrapped there are putting that out. Oh, I didn't even... I mentioned this on the notes.
• 27:49
  So this time last year, and I'm not even gonna prioritize this, and thankfully we have a nice pediatrician who told me not to worry about it.
• 27:55
  But our 10-year-old son, he got a finger poke test at his annual, and he has to come back and do it again to get a lipids test. And my mom was, you know, in the hospital and then in rehab, and it was Christmas break.
• 28:08
  And I was at the library checking out some books for my son before he went out of town, and I got a call from the pediatrician saying, "Your son's lipids are s- like s- in the 600 range, so we're gonna get..." Yeah.
• 28:20
  [laughs] And he's like, "Did he fast?" And I said, "Well, he took his ADHD medication and he chewed gum. But otherwise, no, he didn't take anything." And he's like, "I wanna get him to a preventive cardiologist."
• 28:31
  And again, I was all over the place and I was like, "Is he gonna have a heart attack at age 10? Is that what we're talking about here?"
• 28:37
  And on the one hand, I felt shame over, yes, he does eat hamburgers a couple times a week, and pizza. But also on the other hand, he eats raw red peppers, and apples, like, and carrots, and, you know, Cheerios.
• 28:52
  And then I remembered, I was like, I have, I take a statin. My dad has high cholesterol. But I just was like, "I can't deal with this right now."
• 28:58
  But, you know, thanks to the food pyramid, now we're gonna have to give him more red meat on top of this probably. Like- You have to. That's the deal. You have to. Yeah. Sorry.
• 29:06
  That's how you solve that is with more of that kinda stuff.
• 29:08
  And my, the pediatrician was like, "This is a preventive thing," because like basically you get them now because when they're young adults they're not gonna give a fuck. So get it looked at now.
• 29:17
  But I said, "Does this have to happen like right now?" Because our insurance premiums went up 750 a month, you know. And of course, because we work for ourselves, we have kind of goofy insurance.
• 29:29
  And so the one cardiologist he recommended is not anywhere network, you know. So I was like, "Can this wait?" And he said, yes. Thank God.
• 29:35
  'Cause I was like, I don't have it in me right now to worry about a 10-year-old's cholesterol right now. Like, I can worry about his BO, and that's about all I have. Right. The more immediate problems. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
• 29:48
  I don't know. So Tia, tell us a little bit, total palate cleanser, what is your daughter into? What's the scuttlebutt? Like, what's the word? What does she, like her class care about right now, back to school?
• 29:56
  What have they been talking about? Well, she is really into dragons. Mm-hmm. And what are... Legos. That's her stuff. That's what she's into. Which is not, it's out of the norm for most girls. Yeah.
• 30:12
  She likes Percy Jackson, so I'm watching, like, the Olympians with her. Yeah, that's pretty much it. Oh, she's very into football. So- Oh, really? That's pretty- All right. Yeah. That, these are the things that she's
• 30:27
  super into. And, you know, without getting too personal for her, I don't wanna share all her information. But I think, you know, at this age, fourth grade,
• 30:36
  things are starting to happen, like with friendships, you know.Boys, things like that.
• 30:43
  First of all, I interviewed a girl for one, one of the other newsletters I write, who was a 14-year-old girl who is really into Legos, and that was kind of...
• 30:52
  Like, the beginning and end of the story was that she's a sporty girl who's also really into Lego, and I was like, "Do you think you are the typical Lego person?" And she said, "No."
• 31:01
  And I said, "What do you think is a typical L- Lego person?" She's like, "Well, I don't wanna be mean." And I said, "It's okay. Just be honest." And she said, "I think quiet and a boy."
• 31:09
  And I said, "Yeah, you know, that's the, uh, you know, typical, I would say." But she got into Lego during COVID, and it was, like, a form of therapy for her, basically. Sure.
• 31:17
  And I think it's, like, a form of crafting, basically, and, you know, you hear about couples that... Like, a- adult couples who Lego next to each other.
• 31:24
  And so, you know, the downfall of Legos is where do you f- do you put them all, you know? And do you keep them all together and, you know, all nice and stuff after the fact?
• 31:34
  You know, girls like- Did, did you hear Jonathan Bailey say his idea of a perfect date is to just do Legos? That's adorable. That's very nice. I mean, it's every... He's perfect. Um- Do you do Legos, Quinn?
• 31:45
  Do you want me to go and get the Legos in the office that I'm not allowed to have at home? Oh, wow, okay. [upbeat music] Okay, so I wanna tell you all about one of my f- favorite tools I have. It's called Readwise.
• 32:02
  It has changed my reading. It has changed my parenting. It has changed my work here.
• 32:08
  It has helped me literally just remember things I read, but also start to tie it all together, to find themes and ideas that connect to how I live and parent and how I show up as a partner, but also in my work and to express my ideas.
• 32:25
  I've got 300-something books in there, a couple thousand articles, a ton of old tweets. Here's how it works. You highlight stuff in Kindle or whatever, or Readwise's Reader app.
• 32:35
  It saves it to Readwise, and then every day, the app is on your phone or whatever, and it's like, "Hey, here's five of your past highlights. Would you like to review them in 10 seconds?" And you do.
• 32:44
  But here's what's fun. You can also do more, and you can search it all. I can't imagine having this in college. I would've probably graduated easier.
• 32:54
  Does it help me build a broader understanding of all the niches we work in? Yes. Does it help me build a broader understanding of how it all ties together? Yes.
• 33:03
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• 33:13
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• 33:24
  The link to sign up and get that extra month is in the show notes, and it's also here. I'm gonna read it to you. It is simple. It is readwise.io/quinn. That's readwise.io/quinn.
• 33:36
  Again, it's right in the show notes for you. Just click it. Please check out Readwise today, support our partners, and never forget what you read ever again, which is not something I thought I'd ever say.
• 33:46
  [upbeat music] I have the unopened, the new Game Boy one. Oh, yeah, that's coming. Okay. It's coming. We're gonna do that. Deanna, your daughter, does... She's into the Percy Jackson show, which is great.
• 33:58
  We're watching that as well. My daughter's 11, and I think you're moderately alluding to, I think she might be into it for the hero, for various reasons.
• 34:06
  Yeah, well, and I, I had asked her- I ju- I was like, "I didn't know you were watching this." She's like, "Oh, I'm watching this." Is she a reader? Does she like the Percy Jackson books? She reads a lot. Yeah.
• 34:14
  Have you guys seen... 'Cause all three of my kids are really into him. Rick Riordan, the author, besides all of the books he wrote, he has his own imprint where he does other cultures' sort of versions.
• 34:27
  Uh, he basically helps publish other cultures' versions of those kinds of stories, so out of Latin America, out of Africa, you know, same sort of heroic myth building. They're all fantastic. If...
• 34:37
  So if you look up- Send them to me, please. Yeah, it's... It, it'll have a little logo on the book, but if you look up Rick Riordan imprint, there's so many, and it was a great way- Okay...
• 34:44
  for my kids to be like, "Oh, it's not just, like, Greek gods. Like, how do we go into- Right... all these other ones?" They're pretty incredible, so can't recommend those enough if your children are insatiable like mine.
• 34:55
  So let's talk about death. Claire and I talk a lot about, again, like, what do they call us, the sandwich generation or- Yes... whatever. You know, there's seven billion boomers living on the knife's edge at this point.
• 35:07
  They're all on statins. They're all doing this and that. We're living longer than ever. Health span, we're paying incredible amounts of money the last third of... I mean, honestly, the second half of life.
• 35:17
  I mean, everyone our age is on something of some sort. It all just got more expensive, like you said.
• 35:22
  We don't let people die gracefully if they want to or their family wants to or whatever their wishes usually are, and we've also got kids and everything on the TV. How did you sort of make your way into
• 35:38
  this world, this sort of work? Because it's related. Like you said, it's all holding space and nourishing and helping people be full people even towards the end. Yeah. I think a couple years ago,
• 35:53
  I was going through a heavier time where there was a lot of grief, and it wasn't death-related. And I noticed people's absolute aversion to grief. They don't wanna touch it with a fucking 10-foot pole. And it...
• 36:09
  Because we're not shown how to, we avoid discomfort. We avoid pain. I think it's very human, so I think there's a lot of compassion to hold around that in multiple ways. But in that grief, I
• 36:28
  started to just get more interested in death, and I took a training to become a death doula. So that's about the extent of my training at this point. You know, I've sat at some death cafes.
• 36:44
  I have conversations with people around it.But through my work, I noticed a lot how much people were in grief, like, around their bodies, or even dealing with death of a loved one sometimes.
• 36:58
  And so it really just kinda sent me down a spiral, in a good way, of wanting to face it, look at it. 'Cause it deserves to be honored, death, grief, and sat with. And we need to do it with people.
• 37:15
  'Cause when it's alone, it's really... it gets really dark, and it helps to kinda lift some of that. Feel like half my work is saying the words fortunately and unfortunately.
• 37:26
  There's so many more people exposed to death and grief over the past five years than folks could have ever imagined, with the sirens in the street and New York Times saying 100,000 people, a tragedy, and then we just kinda moved on.
• 37:37
  There are no memorials. We didn't grieve for them publicly- Yeah...
• 37:39
  and so many people had to grieve alone, like you're talking about, if they were allowed to leave their house or not, if they have preexisting conditions or they're immunocompromised or they're worried about someone else.
• 37:49
  It's just, we keep it churning, and like you said, we don't talk about it. We do a terrible job talking about it. Much less, like, in a proactive, thoughtful way participating in grief with people, you know?
• 38:04
  Obviously, there's various... In my past life, I was a religious studies major.
• 38:07
  I'm like a pagan atheist monster, but, you know, every belief system has their own version of dealing it, even if people are less, quote-unquote, "religious" than they used to be.
• 38:16
  But all in all, like you said, not only do we not embrace it and participate in it, we really shun it, and that's not healthy, much less helpful, you know?
• 38:26
  Well, also, what I had seen, like, in the healthcare system too, 'cause a lot of my work centers around that, it's, you know, health and living and kind of keeping alive at all costs, right?
• 38:37
  People go in the hospital, they're gonna keep doing what they need to do to keep them alive. Mm-hmm. Regardless of quality of life, unless there's, like, a DNR in place already.
• 38:47
  And something that I noticed in one of my jobs I, I worked, it was a long-term acute care facility, and so most of the people were on tube feedings. So seeing people there, like, in the hospital, where they
• 39:04
  probably weren't gonna wake up, and I was just blown away where it's like, what is this? People don't... They're not prepped for it.
• 39:13
  I mean, especially in certain areas in Chicago, it's like a lot of these people, they're, a violent accident happened. They're not prepped for death. Mm-hmm. So we're talking about, like, the systemic issues here, and
• 39:27
  I noticed that so much. And so there's a bigger grief in that as well, where it's like this individual person who's stuck in this in-between state, and
• 39:40
  they don't have anybody, or the family doesn't have, like, the information. Or sometimes families want to hold on. Mm-hmm. And that's, you know, that's up to them.
• 39:51
  But it's just a lot swirling that got me thinking about our aversion to death. I don't know what the answer is except to just talk about it more, you know? Do you know what broke my brain?
• 40:02
  So I discovered my mom semi-conscious. I actually had to cancel a podcast recording, and I texted Quinn and this other guest, and I was like, "If I don't get back to you, it means shit has gone down."
• 40:13
  And then shit got, went down.
• 40:15
  And so my mom was in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and my dad was on a business trip, so I called him, and I was on the way to the hospital not knowing what I would encounter with her. And I asked him...
• 40:27
  They have known each other since sixth grade, and I asked him, "What have you talked about in terms of advance directive? You know, if they're asking me whether they wanna intubate her, you know, or do CPR on her."
• 40:37
  And he told me they'd never spoken about it, which just blew my mind, that you could li- know someone for 70, 65 years, and never even just as a thought experiment talk about that.
• 40:51
  And I was like, I thought it was funny in a weird way, and I was furious, and I also was like, I can't be mad at him right now.
• 40:57
  So it was just, like, a little opening into, like, how much the lengths people will go to avoid discussing this.
• 41:05
  I wanna back up for a second, just really quick, for anyone who's listening who's not familiar, will you g- go, just go over what a death doula is, and also what a death cafe is? Yeah.
• 41:14
  So a death doula, they can help support people through grief, like emotionally. They can help practically. They can help with things like advance directives, estate planning.
• 41:27
  There's something called sitting vigil, which is like prepping for the active dying state. There is legacy work. I'm sure there's a bunch more that I'm leaving out. Yes. But it's kind of all-encompassing, like, what
• 41:43
  do people need support with? It could be for the person who's dying, it could be for the family. And so the way I kinda wanna work with it is a lot more of the emotional support around it.
• 41:56
  Also, sitting vigil, if I could ever do that, like, actually practice that and do that with people is one area that I feel like I would wanna do a little bit more to kind of bring more beauty and ritual back to the actual, like, death
• 42:12
  process in that way. Yeah. And I've heard too that a big part of the work is that family may have differing opinions or, like,
• 42:22
  upsetting versions, or maybe they wanna settle scores or have unfinished business, but then as the dying person, you wanna do it your way and not involve other people's bullshit, and it's nice to have a person there who's like, "I'm here for you for this process."
• 42:34
  Yes. And not gonna be influenced by the out-of-state daughter, for instance, who I heard is, like, a person- Yes... like, who shows up sometimes. An advocate. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
• 42:43
  Their advocate to kind of help relieve that tension, 'cause who has the energy to do that when they're dying? And a d- death cafe is what?So it's a place to come and just talk about death.
• 42:56
  It's not a grief circle, it's just to have conversations if you're thinking about it more and to de-stigmatize it, I think, really. Yeah. And there's some put on here in the area.
• 43:08
  I think there's a lot of virtual ones, too. Yeah. I've seen them at the library near me, the public library will have them often.
• 43:14
  I mean, I know we can't choose how we die, and I think we all wanna die peacefully or without realizing it. I think about my cousin's grandma who died while she was checking her email. She just died in her office chair.
• 43:25
  Ugh. Great. What a lovely way to go, honestly. And, you know, I was reading, I don't know if you saw the article I sent you about, from The New York Times about the different ways to do body, you know, disposing.
• 43:36
  And I was like, oh, if you donate your body to medicine, to science, like that really takes care of a lot of stuff without a lot of- Definitely... you know, money.
• 43:44
  But have you thought very much about, you know, if you could choose certain thing, ways to go, do you know what you had in mind about what you could control that you would do? For my process, yeah.
• 43:55
  We had to write it out when we were- Yeah... doing that training. And it's, yeah, it's pretty powerful. Like, I would want my family and close friends to be around, you know?
• 44:06
  If I had the privilege of dying in that way, right? Like, kind of actively dying, like not something sudden or...
• 44:13
  And I don't know, that seems weird to call it a privilege, but I do think it is a privilege to be surrounded by loved ones in that way. I don't know. Maybe some people wanna go alone, and that's fine. I don't.
• 44:26
  I wanted people to be there. I wanted there to be laughter, so even if I wasn't really there, put on my ridiculous sitcoms that I like to watch and have that in the background. I don't want people necessarily coming to,
• 44:42
  what is it? Not settle scores, but- Take care of unfinished business or- To repair, to repair, yeah. That's, like it's fine. Say the unsaid. At that point, it's fine. Like it's all- Mm-hmm... good, you know?
• 44:55
  Food, I want that to be there. Mm-hmm. I would like to be somewhere close to nature, if that's possible. And then after that, yeah, I have ideas of what I'd want for a service.
• 45:08
  I would want more, like, spiritual and indigenous practices brought in. Also a party. Mm-hmm. So, part of me too is get a fucking DJ and dance. Go have fun, you know?
• 45:18
  Like we're, we're planning my dad's celebration of life, and it's nice. I look forward to it because you need a place, you need to be able to have
• 45:28
  a ritual and in honoring somebody, and I think that's been one thing that's hard is we haven't had the time to put that together until now, and we are gonna have a place to go put that and celebrate who he was.
• 45:41
  And he was very loving and very overly friendly. [laughs] Just, he would talk to everybody, and so he would want a lively gathering, and like I would want that too. That's nice.
• 45:54
  Quinn, have you ha- given it much thought or have you seen or been a part of deaths where you're like, "This sounds... I would take, I would shop from this part," or, "I would not prefer this part"? Right.
• 46:03
  It's kinda going to other people's weddings where you're like, "We're definitely not doing that, but I'll take that." Yeah. Like a s'more station sounds- Yeah... like a great idea. Let's make sure- Yeah...
• 46:10
  we do that if it doesn't break the bank. I mean, it's funny. You know, I remember taking a class in college called Death and the Afterlife, and again, like that's where was sort of my first indication in a lot of this.
• 46:20
  At the same time, like most of my grandparents were passing around that time, so...
• 46:24
  And they're all very different but, you know, my one grandma was very Catholic and there was that, and then, you know, my two grandfathers had sort of the, they were World War II vets, so you had the military part of that even though they'd been out of it for 50 years and various pieces, and they all had little bits of, you know, potpourri of dementia here and there, and that's obviously such a big part of how people are passing now and will in the next 20 years certainly, increasingly, is do they remember making a DNR?
• 46:48
  Do they remember their estate planning? Do they remember even who their children are? You know, it's un- unpredictably predictable certainly.
• 46:57
  You know, my office mate who I share an office with, we've known each other since we were two, and we joke, joke, but also doesn't seem like a bad idea that like if one of us was,
• 47:08
  you know, going to be definitely cut down by something terminal, probably unexpectedly, but I don't know like what the age threshold is where you get to the point where you're like, "Well, that just is what it is," we decided we would like to be towed out to the largest wave we can find with a little cyanide in the tooth and just tell people like, "This is great.
• 47:30
  That's better than when you're checking email." You know? It's like you said, I'm in nature, I'm doing something I love, I don't want to endure all the rest of what's they just told me is gonna happen.
• 47:41
  We ha- like, why would you wanna watch me go through that? Why would I wanna go through that? And of course, like I am very much the, what's the Hamilton lyric? Why do you write like you're running out of time?
• 47:50
  That's how I tend to live. I've had a lot of loss and so that has always influenced me. I like to think I'm getting a little better at that, so I do wrestle with the mathematical, oh, but you would be losing this time.
• 48:00
  But I don't know, like again, we've all, I think, whether you're a death doula or not, at this point been partial to or adjacent to it being a very rough process for a lot of people involved, and I hope I would
• 48:18
  make it easier for folks. You know? Like you said, have a party, make it an excuse to do that. How often do you see everybody? If you can do that. Make it easy on my kids as much as I could.
• 48:30
  Whatever it is, try not to yell at them on the way out, you know? Yeah. Give them that gift. Yeah. You know, they've been waiting their whole life for it. I don't know. So yeah, that, I guess that's my philosophy on it.
• 48:40
  I don't think I have something specific. I love the idea of something involved in nature for sure.
• 48:45
  But yeah, my b- wife and I both thought about, we did estate planning tw- 12 years ago, something like right when we were about to have our first kid finally.And you know, a go to state planning attorney will be like, "Okay, now we gotta do the wills, and do you want a DNR?"
• 48:58
  No. "And you gotta look at this standardized form, check the boxes." And you're like, "What? I can't-" Yeah.
• 49:03
  Again, you feel this aversion, but she's like, "I'm gonna sit here until you do this, because this isn't for you. This is for everybody-" Yeah... else, basically. Yeah.
• 49:10
  And then you're like, "I, I did it," and we wanna put it away and never think about it again. But then you kinda always- Uh-huh... think about it a little bit, you know? Yeah.
• 49:16
  So- Well, like my mom, I was in this state of pre-grief. I was actually got to...
• 49:21
  I wanted to talk to my friend Erica, who our friend, like beforehand about how, I'm like, "My mom is not the same as she used to be, and I'm sad about that, but she's still walking around," and people tell you to cherish your loved ones, but you're like, "What if I'm sad the, about the version that they're in?"
• 49:35
  Even though they are still like, you know, have a life. And then I discovered what happened. She was the first person I called, and I kind of couldn't stop.
• 49:45
  I was like in this weird state of laughing and angry at the same time, 'cause I was like, I...
• 49:50
  As Quinn can say, I had been calling this for a long time, whatever it was that happened, and I felt this weird state of feeling validated, basically. But so now we're in this state of, well, she...
• 49:59
  I feel like she, from 20 years ago, would not like what her life is like now, but there's also no one to say that. You know, she likes reading, she likes to see her grandkids. She seems like she's in a good mood.
• 50:08
  She eats her food. So, you know, who's to say that is, like, not a life to live? So that's like an uncomfortable truth, I think, that we, like- Yeah...
• 50:16
  we're like, "I wouldn't wanna live life this way," but you're like, but you're, we're saying that from this perspective, and not if what we were further down the line where life might be different, but not necessarily bad.
• 50:26
  And I don't know. I have nowhere to put that, those feelings. But also, that's okay. I feel like I, I'm also sober now, which is like, whatever.
• 50:34
  There's the whole, like, feeling your feeling statement, which is, I just laugh 'cause I'm like, "Well, that sucks." Like, feeling your feelings is, like, crap, but also whatever. There's no good...
• 50:46
  There's no, like, ideal scenario for it, you know? Sometimes you're like, "Well, this just is shitty," and, you know, I'll just wait for the next thing that to, to distract me, basically.
• 50:54
  Like, here we are talking about death, which is, like, not optimal. But also we're not online, like, reading comments about, you know, terrorism, so that's, like, kinda good that we're talking about a real thing.
• 51:04
  But- The bar is low. Yeah. The bar is on the ground. It's both important and we need to talk about it more, but also the bar is very low.
• 51:10
  Deanna, I wanna mention that, 'cause I have a friend going through it, where his dad, his mom died early in COVID, one of those filled with life, was in a church in the first month and everybody is singing, and you're like, "That's the diagram we all saw online," you know?
• 51:23
  And then his dad, as a lot of caretakers do, suffered heavily and went really downhill. Incredibly smart guy, and now is in assisted living and really doesn't remember them much at all.
• 51:37
  But they're, whatever drug they're giving him, first of all, I would like it now, because he was like, "He's just having a great time, but the person I was attached is not there."
• 51:50
  And how do you, and again, I know you're, you know, kind of just getting in this, but maybe just you as a person and as a friend or a mom, how do you navigate helping the family go,
• 52:03
  like Claire's saying about her mom, like she seems like she's having an okay time. Obviously it could be much worse. We've all seen that.
• 52:09
  While you have to almost disassociate from who, saying goodbye to that, the person that was, you know, the relationship that was. How do you balance that? Like, how did I do that for myself, with my family?
• 52:20
  For yourself, or how would you coach other people through that to say they get to live their life as it is now, even if they're not aware, or they think every day is the same.
• 52:27
  Like you said, she loves reading and playing chess and watching her programs. I don't know. Yeah. It's balance, I would say.
• 52:34
  I mean, I've had one experience, and this is food related, because I've, I have worked with people who are dying, and I've had to, like, kinda talk to their family, and they're talking about food where, "Well, I want them to eat this," or they are trying to still watch out for their blood sugars 'cause they're a diabetic.
• 52:56
  That's true. Or things where it's almost, it's almost like I would have to kind of tell them, like, "It's okay." Like- Yeah...
• 53:02
  "You're also doing the best you can," and just kinda remind them that we're not in a keeping them alive process. Mm-hmm. You know? And with this one patient I had, I just remember telling the daughter that.
• 53:17
  Like, going through all the foods, everything that she had questions about, and then at the end of it, it was kind of just like, "It's okay." Yeah. So it's almost like that space holding for their anxiety about it. Yeah.
• 53:34
  Mm-hmm. It's- Sure... such a weird place to be, you know? In terms of, like, bigger than that, sometimes I'm guessing it would depend too on the belief system of the family, on the person. If I were able to get to know
• 53:50
  about what they wanted or what they believed, you know, spiritually speaking, that can help put people at ease. But again, I kind of have to know where their happiness at. So- Yeah...
• 54:02
  at least for my family, I think that was one of the pieces that was really helpful in all of that, the, the spiritual, religious aspect of it, um, was an anchor. Sure.
• 54:16
  The thing Erica has kept telling me is that she keeps saying, "You're doing everything exactly right," which is kind of funny, you know, 'cause I'm not doing anything, or I feel like I'm just doing what you're supposed to do, or I don't know.
• 54:26
  But I, I think the joke or the irony is we all don't know what we're doing, so that therefore it is exactly right for you, you know?
• 54:34
  Or maybe just that I'm not murdering anyone, you know, or, like, really seriously abusing myself. That is, like, all you can do.
• 54:41
  But that, you know, and I think for me, laughing about it with other people who have been there has been really helpful, that, like, I can, mm, you know, call my mom a bitch, basically, and be like, "This bitch," like, she doesn't even know what happened, and she's just having a good time, not worrying about how I feel, and that I can be around people who, like-laugh about that instead of saying like, "How could you say that?"
• 55:03
  Yeah. You know, or, "How could..." You know, anything like that.
• 55:05
  And, or talk to other moms, because I think about, I'll talk about how mad I am at my parents for not doing what I think they should do to prevent this, and I take it out on the kids.
• 55:15
  And I have a friend who has three kids, and she's like, "It's so hard. It's so hard not to snap at them." And I just feel better. You know, I mean, it's...
• 55:22
  I know, again, that's all the best you can do, but just to hear someone else say, "Yeah," or to not say, "Think of the kids," or, you know, whatever, "Try not to be mad."
• 55:30
  Does your daughter, does she have a lot of thoughts and questions about death, or does she, does she not focus on it too much? I don't think she focuses on it too much. I, uh, probably because I talk about it a lot.
• 55:41
  [laughs] So, or, or I, you know, I am vocal about it, so, you know, anything Mom really likes, she's- You basically- Which I think-... normalized it enough that she was like, "I am not... No, thank you." Yeah.
• 55:55
  Like, "I'm over it." Or maybe she's... It freaks, it freaks her out, like, uh- Sure... probably. I don't know. Or she's just little and doesn't really fully know what to do with all of it.
• 56:05
  But we talk about my dad, you know, and she usually just talks about the happy things and the memories. But I'm pretty, yeah, I'm pretty vocal with her about a lot of stuff. We don't shield her from anything. Yeah.
• 56:19
  Much at all. My kids are like, surprisingly, I feel like I was really scared of death and scared... And I would think about my own death more than my parents' dying when I was a kid, 'cause I was very self-centered.
• 56:27
  But we took our kids to a wake in the fall, and that was their first time seeing a dead body, and I had never... I didn't know if that was gonna be happening ahead of time or not, so I didn't prep them at all.
• 56:38
  And my younger kid, I think he was joking, I couldn't tell, but he kept claiming that he saw her move, and I'm just like, "Well, either you're joking, which is not funny, or that's like vibrations from the floor."
• 56:50
  And I was like, "Also, it's the, whoever did the embalming must've done a great job, honestly, if you thought you saw her moving."
• 56:56
  But I was kind of prepared for them to have nightmares and questions about it, and they did not. And I, on the one hand, I'm like, "Wow, what a couple of, like, basic boys," but also I was like, "You know what? Good.
• 57:07
  Fine. Happy for them that they're not-" Yeah. "... terrified about that kind of stuff." Quinn, are your kids worried about that very much, or not too much? They were more worried...
• 57:16
  A couple years ago we lost two, two dogs in two years or something, and that affected them.
• 57:22
  And it was kinda during COVID and stuff like that, which they were pretty young, so we didn't show them the headlines much, obviously. And we didn't lose anybody specifically to that. Now they, you know, talk about it.
• 57:32
  We tried to do the thing, there's a great... I will find the kids' books we picked up at that point about it that were really helpful.
• 57:40
  But, you know, there was a kid at my oldest son's school who died of this crazy viral infection sorta suddenly, and that affected him. I think he was a little numb about it.
• 57:51
  I'm not sure we did the best job dealing with it, but now, yeah, I don't... It probably doesn't come up as much as it should, which
• 57:59
  sounds like a weird thing to say about death, but at the same point, that's kind of what we're talking about here, right? Is it's happening everywhere to everyone all the time, and it's gonna happen to...
• 58:07
  We currently live with, Deanna, we're extremely lucky. If, my mom is down the street two houses and currently living with my mother-in-law, and they're both great and they're best friends. It's ridiculous.
• 58:17
  We set it up that way.
• 58:19
  My mother-in-law's 84, my mom is 70-something, and we moved from LA, back from LA, I grew up here, and just said, "Well, we got 10 years, basically, until the kids leave somewhere, prison, college, whatever, family band."
• 58:31
  [laughs] "And with the grandmas, so let's try to do this." And it's been great. It's been five, and we're very lucky, but that's, you know, time works how time works.
• 58:39
  So I am interested in, like, how do we, if not professionally deal with them, but not make it a surprise, not make it so
• 58:48
  impactful to them for these, like, people they're so close with, much less anything else that's unexpected. Yeah. You know? I think it's like, like exposure, 'cause kids- Yeah... can kind of handle a lot.
• 59:00
  Like how you said your kids didn't really bat an eye. Yeah. And okay, you know. Mm-hmm. If you kinda talk to them about it and include them, like, basically when people do die, let them go to funerals. Yeah.
• 59:13
  I think that kind of stuff is important. I remember I took my daughter to my grandmother's funeral. She was only a year and a half, two years old.
• 59:21
  But I just remember walking down the, like, church aisle with my cousins, and a lot of us had, like, newer babies and toddlers, and we were all carrying our kids.
• 59:30
  I just, I remember that so distinctively, and I thought it was so important, so beautiful. It's important to bring it all in and to not fear it in that way. Mm-hmm.
• 59:44
  And it's, like superficially, it's also such like a, like yes right now, not right now thing we talk about, which is like one of those babies during the funeral is gonna shit themselves, and like life just keeps going.
• 59:54
  Yes. And you have to be part of that and be reminded of that. And y- hopefully you have a grandparent who'd think it's hilarious. Like my grandparents would've found that incredibly entertaining. Yeah. You know?
• 1:00:05
  And so I'm like, "You're wel- you're welcome. I did this for you." Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, I think a nice way to, to wrap things up, unless, Deanna- Is it?... is there anything else that you... I don't know.
• 1:00:13
  I think talking about babies shitting at a funeral is beautiful and great.
• 1:00:17
  I mean, I can also, if you want, hear, like I, I went to a memorial, like, service a couple years ago for my, like, great aunt, and they handed out cookies shaped like hot dogs because her favorite restaurant was Portillo's.
• 1:00:31
  And they had talked about cremating her and scattering her ashes at Portillo's, but they're like, "We're probably gonna get in trouble for that," so we had the Portillo's hot dogs in honor of her.
• 1:00:39
  And I just, I just love that. I just thought- Mm-hmm... that was such a lovely memory, you know, and kind of funny, sort of irreverent, you know, and who doesn't love Portillo's?
• 1:00:47
  You don't probably, Quinn, 'cause you don't even know what that is, but- I know what fucking Portillo's is. Come on. [laughs] I'm, I'm aware. Je- I'm not a monster.
• 1:00:55
  They're at the top of the food pyramid, as many hot dogs as you can eat. That's right. Turns out now I have to eat them. [laughs] It's not even a fucking option. Throw away my whole- Yeah... the whole lifestyle.
• 1:01:02
  It's out the window. Gotta do- Yeah... what RFK says. Deanna, what questions haven't we asked or did you think you might get the chance to actually express or engage in when you agreed to talk to us? Oh, I don't know.
• 1:01:13
  I think that was good. That was, like, about running the gamut of what I, the questions you sent, and-Yeah, I think it was good. I think one thing that's important to me around,
• 1:01:25
  like, grief is just that it's there all the time. Yeah.
• 1:01:29
  And so trying to hold space for it, like, for ourselves, and it's messy and it's really fucking gross, and I think that's one of the biggest things is, like, with emotions, like, I am a feeler. Mm-hmm.
• 1:01:41
  Big, like, feeler, and so I am, like, a mess 100% of the time. Mm-hmm. And I guess I'm kind of liking [chuckles] how going into that space, even though it can be painful, but finding people, there are people who could
• 1:01:57
  sit with it if it's needed, you know? I have a, a question for you, actually.
• 1:02:02
  I mean, this is more just on your personal take, but I had the very sad experience last year of going to the funeral of a child, and the parents were people I'd gone to high school with, and it was this odd feeling of feeling like a high school reunion, but then we're all there for a child's death, and which is horrible.
• 1:02:20
  And it was this like... I mean, we're old enough now that I think we could understand and grasp that it was, it is awkward and there's no one way to be at something like that.
• 1:02:30
  But what do you tell people who are maybe our age or kind of, like, entering this new world of way more funerals, memorials, where you don't know how to be? Is there a way to be at a funeral?
• 1:02:40
  Like, how do you-- When you're like, "I wanna say hi to someone and I'm happy to see them, but we're so sad at the same time," like,
• 1:02:46
  how do you present yourself or talk or something like that for someone who doesn't know, you know? I don't think there's a perfect way. I think sometimes it is just showing up and just...
• 1:02:56
  I don't even have the words, 'cause I think people are trying to figure out the right thing to say, or, like, they wanna fix it. Like, it's in us to wanna help people not feel pain.
• 1:03:07
  But I think the first thing is to know that's not gonna happen, you know? Mm-hmm. Is let there be uncomfortable silence, let there be awkwardness, or how you mentioned the person bringing the lasagna.
• 1:03:18
  It's, "This is all I could do right now." Mm-hmm. And yeah. But just, like, showing up and sometimes asking about it. 'Cause on the flip side, too, I mean, I've had my own moments of like,
• 1:03:34
  "Why aren't people asking me more about this?" Sure. Also, I don't want people asking me about it. Oh, no. So it's just this complete irrational, like- Yeah... feeling where it's, it doesn't make any sense.
• 1:03:46
  Yeah, it's just show up, I think, is really- Yeah... key. We're all doing everything exactly right after all. Right. Right. Thank God. Somebody tell my kids that. I just had two sort of timely things just to finish up.
• 1:03:57
  So obviously,
• 1:03:59
  and, you know, fr- frame this as objectively as possible, which is we have a men problem in this country at least, and a young men problem i- in a thousand ways, and it's very complicated, and it's obviously, again, not women's jobs to, to guide them or fix them or anything like that, but women are being affected by it and men are being affected.
• 1:04:17
  It's all so fucking toxic and messy, and a big part of that is not the only part, but they don't talk about any feelings, anything like that. They don't spend time together, this or that.
• 1:04:25
  And there's two really interesting examples that I think about. And again, I, you know, I lost one of my best friends when I was like twenty... twenty-five, twenty-six, something like that. He was twenty-nine.
• 1:04:35
  And how our friend gr- who's a childhood friend, how we all dealt with that, how we're all still dealing with it like sixteen years ago and with kids and talk about him and this and that.
• 1:04:43
  And my favorite soccer team is Liverpool, and I lived over there and went to the games and love them and ups and downs and all this.
• 1:04:51
  Well, right before the season this year, they won the title last year unexpectedly, brand new coach. The whole team sort of stuck together from this other coach coming.
• 1:04:58
  And right before this season, high hopes, their twenty-nine-year-old striker dies in a car crash with his brother. And they've been not good this season.
• 1:05:09
  And part of that is probably objectively attributable to the fact that they finally actually made some changes in their lineup and brought in, you know, some old guys retired or moved and they brought in some new studs.
• 1:05:21
  They also lost one of their, again, objectively soccer-related, lost one of their best players to a fucking car crash. But also, these are all men who are under the microscope as it is.
• 1:05:34
  They are all by default between the ages of basically 20 and 26 and are dealing completely publicly and privately and in a thousand different ways with the loss of one of their best friends. And
• 1:05:47
  I'm really thankful for the commentators and folks out there who are like, "Of course you would like fans, you would like your team to be doing better, but maybe we can use this as a moment
• 1:05:59
  to show, like, how much these young men are probably being affected, and maybe we should talk about this more, because this happens to everybody all the time." You know? And I thought that was interesting.
• 1:06:10
  It remains, it continues to be compelling. One of the guys, again, it's been six months, whatever.
• 1:06:14
  One of the guys, Scottish guy, you know, he's been on the team forever, one of the vice captains, and Scotland made the World Cup against all odds. And they said, "How does it feel?"
• 1:06:22
  And he said, "All I can think about is my buddy Diogo, because we always talked about how amazing it would be to make the World Cup together." And he just broke down in tears on camera.
• 1:06:31
  You know, like, yeah, this guy's affected every fucking day.
• 1:06:34
  And the more they can talk about it, hopefully that breaks through the insane chaos of these men being told they're not lo- enough unless they're completely gendered and terrible people.
• 1:06:44
  And the flip side of that is, did you guys see, I don't know how anyone has missed this at this point, the Conan O'Brien interview with Will Arnett talking about Conan's parents dying? No, not yet. No. Okay. I did not.
• 1:06:56
  So last year, both of Conan's parents died in 48 hours. I think the dad was kind of expected and the mom was not. I'm not gonna give any of this away. I think people have listened. We'll put it in the show notes.
• 1:07:05
  I would love if you both went and watch this, like, two-minute clip of him doing a conversation, like, a month ago with Will Arnett talking about what happened over those 72 hours and how Conan grieved then and is grieving now to show that, again, like-Maybe knowing the person really helps and what they would've wanted, and knowing that the people around, whether it's a funeral or you've said the words out loud, people-- It's gonna be a celebration.
• 1:07:31
  That helps to set the tone for folks. If you're, like you said, so privileged to be able to determine any of it, right?
• 1:07:38
  But if you can do that ahead of time and tell your friends, "I-- Listen, no matter how it goes, I want this to be a celebration, whether it's tomorrow or in 50 years," that helps. Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:46
  But it's really interesting to me to examine those and look at them and go, "I hope we can continue to learn from these people speaking out about it," 'cause like you said, nobody talks about it. Right.
• 1:07:56
  So maybe it would be better. So anyways, those are my last things. It's not about a baby shitting themselves at a funeral, but what are you gonna do? Love it. Thanks, Quinn. [laughs] You're so welcome. You're so welcome.
• 1:08:07
  By the way- Work cornered... remind your kids, if you could today, that at one point they shit themselves, and they will not believe you. It's incredible. I've had that conversation a lot recently. I will.
• 1:08:16
  Actually, I'll remind them that your kids shit themselves, and we'll see what they say about that. [laughs] Great.
• 1:08:21
  [laughs] Deanna, one last question that's not related to death, but before we sign off, what's something good you had to eat recently that just- Ooh... hit the spot? Oh, God. What do we got?
• 1:08:29
  It's-- Okay, it's been a while because I have been just living off of what I have [laughs] until I can go grocery shopping again. But probably I am obsessed right now with tamales because I have a right near tamale shop.
• 1:08:42
  So I, I made them, I had them myself, and then I go and buy them, like, from right near me. So that was probably a couple days ago. Nice. It was really good. It's very, like, comforting food. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:08:56
  Quinn, you had a good breakfast sandwich this morning. Was that a good filler? I had a pretty good breakfast sandwich, yep. Four scrambled eggs, a little piece of sourdough, some salad, and some- Ooh... avocado.
• 1:09:04
  Just smashed it all together and shoved it in my face. I made a really good soup recently. I can send you the recipe too. It was pretty hearty. What was it? It was from a few years ago.
• 1:09:13
  I had a woman on the podcast, and she's this amazing cook. She calls herself the Korean Vegan. Amazing cookbook. She put out a soup recipe a couple months ago.
• 1:09:22
  It's like white bean, kale, plant-based sausage, or do whatever you want, potatoes. Fantastic. And obviously, carrots and all that stuff. Very- I-... nice winter meal. Awesome. My kids hated it. Good.
• 1:09:36
  Well, everyone needs to eat something good, so I'm just glad that people are getting food in. Yeah, what about you, Claire? You have to answer the question.
• 1:09:41
  Well, Steve made turkey sandwiches yesterday, and, um, I told him he makes my favorite turkey sandwich. It's nothing special.
• 1:09:47
  It's just like, my mom has, she once said, "No, no sandwich tastes as good as one that someone else makes for you," and that is just true. Like, he just- Mm-hmm...
• 1:09:54
  makes it with a ranch, a thousand i- no, Thousand Island, lot of lettuce with cheese. I cook some bacon and a lot of turkey. So yeah, good old dad turkey sandwich. Yeah.
• 1:10:04
  All right, Deanna, thank you so much for being on this with us and talking about, like, the most essential things, death and food. And we're gonna put a link to your website in the show notes.
• 1:10:12
  If people wanted to, like, Zoom with you, you know, if they found you on your website, do you only talk to, work with people in Chicago, or do you work with clients who are outside too?
• 1:10:21
  No, I work with people outside of Illinois. So as far as nutrition counseling, like medical nutrition therapy, I am licensed in Wisconsin, New York, Oregon, and New Mexico.
• 1:10:33
  And then as far as, like, death doula services, around that, I can work with people from anywhere. Okay.
• 1:10:40
  Do you mind also sending us where the death doula class or certification, whatever it was you sent along, and any information- Yeah... on, like, death cafes?
• 1:10:48
  Like, we could look it up, but if you have a great recommendation, I think that'd be really nice. Yeah.
• 1:10:52
  I'll send the link of where I got the training and, and then, yeah, death cafes, and I can also send a link to Ellen Satter. I don't know if parents would like that. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:11:01
  As far as food, I feel like that might be something that is helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Awesome. People are always struggling with kids and eating. Well, thank you so much for sharing your time with us, and I hope that,
• 1:11:11
  I don't know, this year is not-- it doesn't keep going the way it's been going. I don't know. Let's go Bears. Like, let's say that. Yeah. Like...
• 1:11:20
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