Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / The Internet is Messing Up Our Kids with Dr. Shefali
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: No one has all the answers, but when we ask
- 0:05Speaker 1: the right questions, we get a little closer. Closer to truths.
- 0:11Speaker 1: Closer to each other. Even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
- 0:16Speaker 1: Danielle Robay, and each week my guests and I come
- 0:19Speaker 1: together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
- 0:22Speaker 1: of thinking by daring to ask, what if? Why not?
- 0:28Speaker 2: And who says?
- 0:30Speaker 1: So come curious.
- 0:31Speaker 2: Dig deep. and join the conversation.
- 0:35Speaker 1: It's time to question everything. Have you guys noticed kind
- 0:42Speaker 1: of a change in the temperature lately when it comes
- 0:44Speaker 1: to technology? Maybe it's just my algorithm, but this summer
- 0:48Speaker 1: I feel like we've seen the mood shift. Sure, there's
- 0:52Speaker 1: always been skeptics and haters, but I feel like recently...
- 0:55Speaker 1: We've seen things take a turn. The company behind Facebook
- 0:58Speaker 1: and Instagram have reached a settlement totaling.
- 1:01Speaker 3: Nearly $ 18.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Billion to end a lawsuit centering on the harms of
- 1:05Speaker 1: social media to children. First, there was Meta, which in
- 1:08Speaker 1: August reached a landmark settlement with a number of states
- 1:11Speaker 1: that had alleged that the company designed its apps like
- 1:14Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to kids. Not only that,
- 1:18Speaker 1: the states alleged Meta knew about those risks and went
- 1:21Speaker 1: out of their way to hide that information from the public.
- 1:25Speaker 1: The settlement means Meta will pay $ 17 billion over a
- 1:28Speaker 1: decade and will make changes to how its platform operates.
- 1:33Speaker 1: And then there's AI. There's a chance we could all die.
- 1:36Speaker 1: That is coming soon. That's former anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon.
- 1:41Speaker 1: He just recently sounded the alarm bells on CNN and
- 1:44Speaker 1: NBC News claiming that the race for the technology has
- 1:47Speaker 1: become reckless. He wrote in a post on X, quote,
- 1:51Speaker 1: the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill
- 1:54Speaker 1: us all by the.
- 1:55Speaker 2: End of the decade.
- 1:56Speaker 1: Ugh, when I read those words. Listen, I don't know
- 2:00Speaker 1: if AI is going to do incredible harm. Frankly, nobody knows,
- 2:04Speaker 1: not really. But what we do know right now is
- 2:06Speaker 1: that it's hard to grapple with the realities of this
- 2:09Speaker 1: technology as adults, with fully formed brains, let alone for
- 2:13Speaker 1: kids who are coming of age in a world that
- 2:16Speaker 1: looks fundamentally different from the one generations before lived in.
- 2:20Speaker 3: Now there are a thousand strangers that can take your
- 2:24Speaker 3: child's attention and attachment.
- 2:26Speaker 2: Away from you.
- 2:27Speaker 3: And not only that, the algorithm is perfectly designed and
- 2:30Speaker 3: tailored to do that. So now the strangers at the bed,
- 2:36Speaker 3: not at the doorstep, not down the block, the strangers
- 2:39Speaker 3: in the house.
- 2:40Speaker 1: Today's guest says parents are now competing with algorithms designed
- 2:44Speaker 1: to understand our kids, hold their attention... and keep them
- 2:48Speaker 1: coming back. Dr. Shefali has been asking important questions about
- 2:54Speaker 1: raising children for years. She is the New York Times
- 2:57Speaker 1: bestselling author of seven books, including The Conscious Parent, which
- 3:01Speaker 1: Oprah once called one of the most profound books on
- 3:04Speaker 1: parenting she's ever read. I have to agree. That book
- 3:08Speaker 1: was released in 2010, and so much has changed since.
- 3:13Speaker 2: So Dr.
- 3:13Speaker 1: Shefali is back with not one, but two new books.
- 3:16Speaker 1: Raising Conscious Daughters and Raising Conscious Sons. She says the
- 3:20Speaker 1: moment required two different books.
- 3:23Speaker 3: Boys are not wired the same as girls, but we
- 3:26Speaker 3: are shaming them for not being like girls and then
- 3:29Speaker 3: telling them don't be like the asshole men that are
- 3:33Speaker 3: out there. So boys are like, OK, can't be like
- 3:35Speaker 3: the girls, can't be like the boys. Who should I be?
- 3:38Speaker 3: So then they're retaliating. And that's where the manosphere comes
- 3:41Speaker 3: in and is so attractive to boys because it's giving
- 3:45Speaker 3: them a blueprint.
- 3:46Speaker 1: Listen, I'm not a parent yet, but you probably know
- 3:49Speaker 1: from listening that I think about parenthood often. And one
- 3:53Speaker 1: question I hear constantly from my friends with children is,
- 3:56Speaker 1: what if I mess them up? So I asked Dr.
- 3:59Speaker 1: Shefali and her answers surprised me. She said, you will.
- 4:03Speaker 1: The goal is not to raise a child perfectly. It's
- 4:06Speaker 1: to raise one who feels safe enough to be fully
- 4:08Speaker 1: themselves and connected enough to keep coming back to you. Now,
- 4:13Speaker 1: this conversation with Dr. Shefali centers around parents and children.
- 4:16Speaker 1: But to be honest, even if you're not a parent
- 4:18Speaker 1: like me, this episode really had me thinking about my
- 4:21Speaker 1: own relationship with technology. You may agree. You may disagree.
- 4:25Speaker 1: You may hear something that makes you reconsider what you
- 4:27Speaker 1: were taught. And I think that's the point. Because the
- 4:30Speaker 1: question is no longer simply, how do we raise emotionally
- 4:33Speaker 1: healthy children? It is, how do parents raise confident, emotionally
- 4:38Speaker 1: healthy children? when we all no longer control or even
- 4:42Speaker 1: fully understand the world shaping them. It's time to question
- 4:46Speaker 1: everything with Dr. Shefali. So Dr. Shefali, when Oprah read
- 4:56Speaker 1: Conscious Parenting back in the day, she said she couldn't
- 4:59Speaker 1: even get through the first chapter until she had to
- 5:02Speaker 1: send it out to all of her friends. And she
- 5:05Speaker 1: kept using the word important. And that book, gave a
- 5:09Speaker 1: vocabulary to hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of parents across
- 5:14Speaker 1: the world. And this book, these books, feel very different
- 5:19Speaker 1: in tone. I was reading them feeling, this is a
- 5:22Speaker 1: little bit more worried. It's a little bit more urgent,
- 5:27Speaker 1: is the word. And you paint this very dire picture
- 5:30Speaker 1: in the book's opening. You write,' Never in our recent
- 5:32Speaker 1: history have we parents felt so helpless or so powerless.'
- 5:37Speaker 1: So Conscious Parenting came out in 2010. What is so
- 5:41Speaker 1: different in 2026?
- 5:43Speaker 3: Yeah, the world has changed so many times over. So
- 5:48Speaker 3: when I first wrote The Conscious Parent back then, I
- 5:53Speaker 3: was already alarmed and concerned that we parents were not present,
- 6:00Speaker 3: not connected. And this was before we had a phone
- 6:02Speaker 3: in our back pocket. as a young mother, I could
- 6:05Speaker 3: see how I was consumed by culture's waves and I
- 6:10Speaker 3: was riding waves and not really present in the moment
- 6:14Speaker 3: and not really seeing my daughter for her essence I
- 6:18Speaker 3: was projecting. So that was enough material to write like
- 6:22Speaker 3: six books, which I did. But now I decided to
- 6:25Speaker 3: write these two new books, Raising Conscious Sons and Raising
- 6:29Speaker 3: Conscious Daughters, because I feel now we are in a
- 6:34Speaker 3: completely new urgent inflection, cultural inflection point, where if we
- 6:40Speaker 3: as parents don't wake up and realize that we are
- 6:44Speaker 3: not just raising children, but we are competing with forces
- 6:49Speaker 3: that are strategically designed to co-opt their attention and be
- 6:57Speaker 3: a fill-in for attachment.
- 7:01Speaker 2: So, a child will turn to.
- 7:04Speaker 3: AI and to social media and to strangers and predators
- 7:09Speaker 3: because they are more readily available than ever before. And
- 7:14Speaker 3: so they're going to compete for our presence and our connection.
- 7:18Speaker 3: So if we are disconnected, which we are, if we're
- 7:21Speaker 3: not safe, if we're judgmental, if we're not listening, if
- 7:23Speaker 3: we're not.
- 7:23Speaker 2: Attuned, then all the more reason. You see, back then.
- 7:26Speaker 3: When I first wrote The Conscious Parent, okay, your child
- 7:29Speaker 3: would go to the gang down the street, or they
- 7:32Speaker 3: would go to grandma and not come to you. But
- 7:35Speaker 3: now there are a thousand strangers that can take your
- 7:39Speaker 3: child's attention and attachment away from you. And not only that,
- 7:42Speaker 3: the algorithm is perfectly designed and tailored to do that.
- 7:47Speaker 3: So now the strangers at the bed, not at the doorstep,
- 7:52Speaker 3: not down the block, the strangers in the house And
- 7:56Speaker 3: we parents better up our game because what is needed
- 7:59Speaker 3: for a healthy childhood is being severely undermined.
- 8:05Speaker 1: What is needed for a healthy childhood is being severely undermined. Yes.
- 8:09Speaker 1: It's interesting because I was reading your books thinking the
- 8:12Speaker 1: conscious parent, in the conscious parent, you were saying that
- 8:15Speaker 1: the child is the mirror, right? But in these books,
- 8:19Speaker 1: it felt like you're saying the algorithm is now the mirror,
- 8:23Speaker 1: which is very scary because- Like you said, it's a
- 8:26Speaker 1: bunch of strangers.
- 8:27Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
- 8:28Speaker 3: So a healthy childhood in a nutshell, like if somebody
- 8:31Speaker 3: asked me, what would you say are the five top
- 8:34Speaker 3: ingredients for a healthy childhood?
- 8:36Speaker 2: Of course, they're 25.
- 8:37Speaker 3: But the five top are, you know, a child needs safety,
- 8:42Speaker 3: which means predictability, consistency, routine, and a relative amount of
- 8:48Speaker 3: low stress in the environment. A child needs a connected,
- 8:52Speaker 3: at least one connected relationship. with a healthy caregiver. A
- 8:56Speaker 3: child needs emotional regulation. So we need an environment that
- 9:00Speaker 3: is not volatile, that is not unpredictable, that is not averse,
- 9:04Speaker 3: that is not chronic stress.
- 9:05Speaker 2: We need regulated caregivers.
- 9:08Speaker 3: A child needs play, unencumbered, creative exploration and play. And
- 9:14Speaker 3: a child needs to have their feelings being attuned to
- 9:19Speaker 3: and mirrored. So because children are unregulated they their brains
- 9:24Speaker 3: are not yet able to regulate for themselves because children
- 9:28Speaker 3: don't yet have a firm sense of self yet they
- 9:32Speaker 3: are borrowing that sense as a you know through surrogates
- 9:37Speaker 3: and the main surrogate for their a proxy for their
- 9:40Speaker 3: own internal system which is not yet developed the first
- 9:43Speaker 3: surrogate is the first caregiver it can be a parent
- 9:45Speaker 3: could be grandmother could be an aunt it doesn't matter
- 9:49Speaker 3: and i use the the female but it could be
- 9:51Speaker 3: a male Typically, a female caregiver, only because females are
- 9:55Speaker 3: more wired to have oxytocin and the bonding hormone is
- 10:00Speaker 3: more readily available and they are more able to pick
- 10:03Speaker 3: up on nonverbal nuances that infants need. So if that
- 10:08Speaker 3: proxy surrogate is not consistently present, if the parent is distracted,
- 10:13Speaker 3: if the parent is on their phone You know, you
- 10:16Speaker 3: and I were sharing how we know so many adults
- 10:18Speaker 3: in our lives who on the dinner table are more
- 10:21Speaker 3: on their phone than with us. And we take it
- 10:23Speaker 3: personally a little bit. But we're not borrowing a nervous system.
- 10:27Speaker 3: We're not borrowing regulation. We're not borrowing a sense of self.
- 10:30Speaker 3: But children are.
- 10:31Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
- 10:32Speaker 3: So when that sense of self that they're trying to
- 10:34Speaker 3: attune to borrow and see themselves in, like the mirror,
- 10:38Speaker 3: who am I? Am I worthy? Are my feelings... being validated.
- 10:45Speaker 3: Who is my caregiver? Can I trust her or him?
- 10:48Speaker 3: Can I count on them? When that person is unreliable
- 10:52Speaker 3: and inconsistent, then that internal system doesn't get developed. And
- 10:57Speaker 3: then if you have AI and the algorithm just ready
- 11:01Speaker 3: to be present to your child, to attune to your child.
- 11:04Speaker 1: To be pleasing, right?
- 11:06Speaker 2: The AI algorithms.
- 11:07Speaker 3: Are known to be sycophants and they're the echo chamber
- 11:12Speaker 3: is so available. But that echo chamber is so appealing
- 11:15Speaker 3: to people because we all yearn to be mirrored in
- 11:19Speaker 3: our intimate relationships. So that's how the AI has, you're right,
- 11:24Speaker 3: they've programmed the AI to be that proxy mirroring system
- 11:30Speaker 3: that we should be getting from our relationships. And that's
- 11:33Speaker 3: why children and teens are turning to AI relationships and
- 11:37Speaker 3: AI chatbots because it's safer. It's giving them the validation.
- 11:41Speaker 3: They see the child in a way that the parent
- 11:44Speaker 3: is not.
- 11:45Speaker 2: Wow.
- 11:46Speaker 1: I didn't think about it that way. Part of me
- 11:48Speaker 1: was wondering if you really feel like children are struggling
- 11:53Speaker 1: more nowadays or if we're just talking about it more.
- 11:56Speaker 1: But hearing you, it sounds like you really feel like
- 11:57Speaker 1: they're struggling more.
- 11:59Speaker 3: Yeah, because we parents are struggling more because we've allowed
- 12:03Speaker 3: tech to take over.
- 12:06Speaker 2: Our lives. I mean, I do all my work on
- 12:09Speaker 2: the phone, right?
- 12:10Speaker 3: So just last night, my daughter came home and she
- 12:12Speaker 3: was with the animals and wanting my attention, but I
- 12:15Speaker 3: kept trying to do, you know, send an email in
- 12:18Speaker 3: between or send a text.
- 12:19Speaker 2: Anytime she looked at the dog, I wanted to finish
- 12:22Speaker 2: some work. This is unhealthy.
- 12:24Speaker 3: And she told me a few times, mom, can you
- 12:26Speaker 3: get off your phone? And this is me, right? Trying
- 12:30Speaker 3: to be present and a conscious parent. I'm failing miserably.
- 12:33Speaker 3: So All to say that this is not about judging
- 12:36Speaker 3: or shaming parents, but to wake parents up to the
- 12:41Speaker 3: reality that we have too many things now in our
- 12:45Speaker 3: homes and in our back pockets that are taking us
- 12:48Speaker 3: away from the present moment. And if you choose to
- 12:51Speaker 3: be a parent, you better learn to be present. That's
- 12:55Speaker 3: all I'm going to say, because children need that caregiver
- 12:59Speaker 3: that's consistently attuned. I'm not saying 24-7. But I'm saying
- 13:03Speaker 3: that you have to be present when you're present.
- 13:06Speaker 1: You know, I've never interviewed anybody who's written two books
- 13:09Speaker 1: at one time. And you probably could have written one
- 13:13Speaker 1: book just about children in general, but you specifically separated
- 13:17Speaker 1: them into two different books, one for daughters and one
- 13:20Speaker 1: for sons. Why was that? What was that choice?
- 13:23Speaker 3: Yeah. First, you know, that's my own internal crazy, my
- 13:28Speaker 3: own level of intensity and, uh, It's my own high functioning,
- 13:33Speaker 3: you know, people pleasing. Why don't I just do two books?
- 13:37Speaker 3: So I had to really confront that within myself because
- 13:40Speaker 3: it was a cycle project.
- 13:42Speaker 2: And I had to do it so fast because it
- 13:44Speaker 2: was urgent. So, you know, I saw Adolescence in August
- 13:49Speaker 2: last year.
- 13:49Speaker 3: I think I finalized my contract with the publishers by September.
- 13:54Speaker 3: And I think both books were done by January end.
- 13:58Speaker 3: So within months, I wrote these two books. The reason
- 14:01Speaker 3: being is because the algorithm purposely preys on each sex,
- 14:09Speaker 3: knowing the wiring of each sex. And children are hormonally,
- 14:16Speaker 3: developmentally different. Each sex is wired differently. Doesn't mean that,
- 14:22Speaker 3: you know, a daughter can't be more like somebody in
- 14:25Speaker 3: the son's book.
- 14:26Speaker 2: Or vice versa.
- 14:27Speaker 3: This is not to reduce it to a gender binary,
- 14:31Speaker 3: but to really call to awareness that our sons and
- 14:35Speaker 3: daughters are not only hormonally wired differently, but the algorithm
- 14:39Speaker 3: is exploiting them differently.
- 14:41Speaker 2: So that's what I really care about.
- 14:43Speaker 3: And we have to understand, you know, a 12 or
- 14:46Speaker 3: 14 year old boy who signs on to social media,
- 14:50Speaker 3: the algorithm will send him different things than it'll send
- 14:53Speaker 3: the girl.
- 14:53Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 14:54Speaker 3: And so if we parents are not aware of how
- 14:57Speaker 3: your son or daughter is being captured by culture, then
- 15:02Speaker 3: we won't know how to help them. So, you know,
- 15:05Speaker 3: many parents may take offense or many humans may take
- 15:08Speaker 3: offense to, you know, why have I segregated the sexes
- 15:12Speaker 3: in such a clear way? But I keep repeating that
- 15:15Speaker 3: this is a spectrum. It's a conversation. It's a duology
- 15:19Speaker 3: that I've created. I want parents to read both books.
- 15:22Speaker 3: because you may find something in the son's book that
- 15:25Speaker 3: relates to your daughter, right?
- 15:27Speaker 2: And vice versa.
- 15:28Speaker 3: But we need to know what's happening to children in general.
- 15:31Speaker 3: And also uniquely understand how son and daughter is just
- 15:37Speaker 3: so differently wired. And it was so fascinating when I
- 15:40Speaker 3: did the research, because even I didn't realize how young
- 15:44Speaker 3: and how different the brain is, how different the brain
- 15:48Speaker 3: is at a young age between boys and girls.
- 15:51Speaker 1: My mom's been telling me that for years because I
- 15:53Speaker 1: was a political science major in Madison, Wisconsin, which is
- 15:56Speaker 1: a very progressive city. And I took a class on gender,
- 16:01Speaker 1: a few classes, and the curriculum was really that we're
- 16:04Speaker 1: all the same. Yeah. My mom kept saying, wait till
- 16:07Speaker 1: you have kids. Maybe you think we're all the same
- 16:10Speaker 1: and then you have a son or a daughter and
- 16:12Speaker 1: you realize how different we all are.
- 16:14Speaker 3: Well, we are fundamentally human and we have the same
- 16:18Speaker 3: pain points and we can relate to each other.
- 16:21Speaker 2: That's what makes us beautiful.
- 16:23Speaker 3: But I think there's no shame to talk about our
- 16:26Speaker 3: unique differences and in fact, to celebrate them. And to
- 16:30Speaker 3: honor what makes a girl different than a boy. And
- 16:34Speaker 3: there's no harm in talking about it as much as
- 16:38Speaker 3: there's no harm in celebrating our non-binary nature.
- 16:42Speaker 2: And we shouldn't reduce.
- 16:44Speaker 3: Ourselves to any one gender and we should be allowed
- 16:46Speaker 3: to express ourselves. And I've repeated this message through the book,
- 16:50Speaker 3: but I definitely pay homage to our hormonal blueprint.
- 16:54Speaker 2: Because listen, I'm in menopause.
- 16:56Speaker 3: And if I didn't pay homage to my estrogen decline,
- 17:01Speaker 3: not to use it as an excuse for everything, which
- 17:03Speaker 3: I do, but if I didn't honor it, I would
- 17:05Speaker 3: think I was going crazy. So it made me celebrate
- 17:09Speaker 3: what I was going through, not through shame, but through honor.
- 17:12Speaker 3: So I'm honoring our beautiful differences as much as I'm
- 17:17Speaker 3: allowing for our sameness.
- 17:30Speaker 1: So you mentioned adolescence. That show took the world by storm.
- 17:34Speaker 1: What do you think the real lesson from that show
- 17:36Speaker 1: is and why did it hit you so significantly?
- 17:39Speaker 2: Well, it hit me in so many ways.
- 17:41Speaker 3: So this will get a little bit provocative for people,
- 17:44Speaker 3: but let me just say it and then we can
- 17:45Speaker 3: move on. I believe that we have a wounded male
- 17:49Speaker 3: problem in our society today. I mean, I don't think
- 17:52Speaker 3: anyone can dispute that. We've done episodes about it on
- 17:54Speaker 3: the podcast.
- 17:55Speaker 2: Okay, good.
- 17:56Speaker 3: And there's a specific group of men, of course, not
- 17:59Speaker 3: all men, who are really perpetuating tremendous defilement and violence
- 18:05Speaker 3: against brown people, women, children and the earth, all in
- 18:12Speaker 3: the name of exploitation and greed and dominance, right? Now,
- 18:16Speaker 3: because of that, we are at a high risk for
- 18:21Speaker 3: our boys to follow that model. And if we don't
- 18:26Speaker 3: pay attention to how our boys are going to get
- 18:28Speaker 3: seduced by that wounded male ideology, which blames women and
- 18:34Speaker 3: children for their problems, which holds themselves to no standard
- 18:39Speaker 3: of ethics or integrity, which removes all accountability and responsibility,
- 18:45Speaker 3: which doesn't believe in empathy and vulnerability and honesty and transparency.
- 18:51Speaker 3: So if we are not careful, our boys will grow
- 18:54Speaker 3: up being seduced by that wounded male ideology and think
- 18:58Speaker 3: that that's the way to be a man. So adolescence
- 19:02Speaker 3: for me, highlighted because that 12-year-old boy in that documentary
- 19:07Speaker 3: was so angry with the girl because she rejected him
- 19:11Speaker 3: or quote-unquote made fun of him or mocked him. And
- 19:13Speaker 3: because he was so internally fragile, which our boys are
- 19:16Speaker 3: just like our girls, and because he felt so much
- 19:20Speaker 3: just like our girls do. See, people think that boys
- 19:22Speaker 3: don't feel. Boys feel very deeply. They just have a
- 19:26Speaker 3: very different chemistry and expression around it. But because he
- 19:30Speaker 3: felt so deeply and because he felt so rejected, but
- 19:33Speaker 3: he had nowhere to turn and wasn't taught to honor
- 19:37Speaker 3: his feelings and to cry and to go to his
- 19:39Speaker 3: parents and to say, I need help and to be vulnerable.
- 19:42Speaker 2: But what he was taught instead.
- 19:43Speaker 3: By the manosphere, by the wounded male ideological manosphere that
- 19:48Speaker 3: is out there, he was taught.
- 19:50Speaker 2: That women should not, females should not turn you down.
- 19:54Speaker 3: And females are at your beck and call and for
- 19:57Speaker 3: your pleasure. And, you know, women are nasty if they do,
- 20:01Speaker 3: and you should hold them accountable versus hold yourself. And
- 20:05Speaker 3: because boys have not been taught about the power of consent,
- 20:08Speaker 3: and just because you have desire doesn't mean you have access.
- 20:12Speaker 3: Because we haven't taught our boys this, this boy fell
- 20:15Speaker 3: prey to the manosphere and killed the girl because.
- 20:18Speaker 2: She rejected him.
- 20:20Speaker 3: That's it.
- 20:20Speaker 2: That's all that happened.
- 20:22Speaker 3: And he was so disconnected from from the pain of
- 20:25Speaker 3: that moment that he was able to lie about it.
- 20:29Speaker 2: Now, this is a 12-year-old boy.
- 20:30Speaker 3: Now, you can call him a narcissist, sociopath, an evil,
- 20:35Speaker 3: you know, particularly evil, vile human being, or you can
- 20:39Speaker 3: ask deeper questions of how did he get here from
- 20:42Speaker 3: beautiful parents, from caring parents, a sweet boy.
- 20:46Speaker 2: How did he split off from his heart? And that.
- 20:53Speaker 3: You know, spiked in me this huge alarm, but also
- 20:58Speaker 3: an inspiration to do something, right? Yeah. I can cry
- 21:02Speaker 3: and scream and scare everybody. Or I can say to myself,
- 21:06Speaker 3: how can I help solve this problem in a small way?
- 21:10Speaker 3: And that's the whole impetus and the inception for choosing
- 21:14Speaker 3: to write Raising Conscious Sons. And so then I was like,
- 21:17Speaker 3: I'm going to write this book. I'm going to change
- 21:19Speaker 3: the world. I'm going to help parents raise healthy boys
- 21:23Speaker 3: so that.
- 21:23Speaker 2: I can save my daughter. I can save us women.
- 21:26Speaker 3: So we can stop blaming men because they're so easy
- 21:30Speaker 3: to blame. They're mostly unconscious, not most men, but a
- 21:35Speaker 3: lot of men are mostly unconscious. And we can keep
- 21:38Speaker 3: yelling and blaming and me too-ing But if we don't
- 21:42Speaker 3: go deeper to how did this boy get to be
- 21:45Speaker 3: like this? I mean, is it just that half our
- 21:47Speaker 3: sex species is just, they're just all assholes? No, they
- 21:51Speaker 3: can't be, right? And they're being raised by women mostly.
- 21:55Speaker 3: So what's going on there? So there is something deeper
- 21:59Speaker 3: that we're not addressing. And I wanted to go there.
- 22:02Speaker 3: I think my book Raising Conscious Sons is my most
- 22:04Speaker 3: important book. It may not get a lot of traction,
- 22:08Speaker 3: but I feel like I've contributed to helping create a
- 22:12Speaker 3: blueprint for a conscious masculinity. And then, of course, when
- 22:15Speaker 3: I wrote the book for the boys, I had to
- 22:17Speaker 3: write one for the girls. So I wrote that one first, actually,
- 22:20Speaker 3: for the girls.
- 22:21Speaker 1: Interesting.
- 22:21Speaker 3: Yeah, because I wanted to get the easy one out.
- 22:23Speaker 3: I'm a girl. I'm a daughter. I'm a daughter and
- 22:27Speaker 3: a mother of a girl. So that was easy to write.
- 22:29Speaker 3: But then when I got to the boys one, I
- 22:32Speaker 3: interviewed lots of men. I actually interviewed 100 kids for
- 22:35Speaker 3: these books just to make sure I was on the
- 22:37Speaker 3: right track, just to make sure I had my finger
- 22:40Speaker 3: on the pulse. But then for the boys book, I
- 22:42Speaker 3: interviewed a lot of adult men and talked to them
- 22:45Speaker 3: about porn, about their sexuality, about who was there the
- 22:50Speaker 3: first time they had a wet dream at night, who
- 22:53Speaker 3: was there for their first erection. And the answer is nobody, nobody, nobody, right?
- 22:59Speaker 3: Nobody helped them through that initiation to manhood. And that
- 23:03Speaker 3: I believe is the problem for our perverted sexuality by
- 23:06Speaker 3: men today.
- 23:07Speaker 1: And does it matter which parent helps them through it? Like,
- 23:10Speaker 1: should that be a male figure.
- 23:12Speaker 2: Or is it okay?
- 23:13Speaker 3: Yes, ideally, because we women have no clue what a
- 23:17Speaker 3: male wet dream or an erection feels like and how
- 23:22Speaker 3: out of control it feels for a boy or a man.
- 23:25Speaker 3: I mean, there's studies where, you know, they test how
- 23:28Speaker 3: many erections a man has a day.
- 23:30Speaker 2: I mean, there are many a day, a day.
- 23:33Speaker 3: So imagine a boy who is now sitting on this,
- 23:36Speaker 3: unbridled sexuality and nobody's helping him normalize it. And a
- 23:41Speaker 3: mother can try better than nobody, but we want to
- 23:45Speaker 3: get a man in there talking about it in an
- 23:47Speaker 3: integrated way. Like, look, you're not abnormal. Look, this is
- 23:50Speaker 3: a powerful thing. Look, you're holding this, you know, the
- 23:55Speaker 3: seeds of humanity here, but you have to be very
- 23:58Speaker 3: careful and hold yourself accountable for how you disperse these seeds, right?
- 24:04Speaker 2: Like this is not a free for all.
- 24:06Speaker 3: And how do you manage your sexuality? And how do
- 24:08Speaker 3: you honor the woman or a male partner, whoever you're with?
- 24:13Speaker 3: And how do you take care of your body in
- 24:15Speaker 3: a way that doesn't make you feel ashamed, but also
- 24:19Speaker 3: doesn't make you a problem in the world?
- 24:23Speaker 1: Through all these interviews you did, did you come to
- 24:25Speaker 1: a conclusion as to if one gender or sex is
- 24:29Speaker 1: harder to parent than the other?
- 24:33Speaker 3: I think that Girls are, no, I don't have a, look,
- 24:37Speaker 3: I'm a mother of a girl and I see my
- 24:40Speaker 3: friends who are mothers of.
- 24:41Speaker 2: Sons and I go, damn it, you have no problems, right?
- 24:44Speaker 2: Because boys don't share.
- 24:47Speaker 3: So they have hardly any issues on a day to day,
- 24:51Speaker 3: but then they will erupt.
- 24:53Speaker 2: Then the boy will erupt.
- 24:55Speaker 3: And an erupted boy who's not harnessed can be a
- 24:59Speaker 3: big problem.
- 25:00Speaker 2: Now the girl is erupting every damn day.
- 25:02Speaker 3: Like every day I'm having some issue with my daughter.
- 25:05Speaker 2: Every day I'm doing something wrong.
- 25:06Speaker 3: Every day I said the wrong word because girls are amazing.
- 25:11Speaker 2: I mean, wow.
- 25:12Speaker 3: I listened to my daughter talk to me and both
- 25:15Speaker 3: sides of her brain are on. Like she's able to
- 25:18Speaker 3: articulate the feelings and talk about them and process. Yes.
- 25:23Speaker 2: Till the cows come home, I want to run away. Yes.
- 25:25Speaker 2: But then my friends who are mothers of sons, they're like,
- 25:30Speaker 2: I feel disconnected. I barely get a word answer. They
- 25:34Speaker 2: don't talk to me. They don't want to be with me.
- 25:36Speaker 3: And then when that son sends them like two heart emojis,
- 25:40Speaker 3: the mothers are like, oh my goodness, I feel seen, right?
- 25:45Speaker 3: But me as a mother of a daughter, I feel
- 25:47Speaker 3: seen every day. I mean, she's there every day. She's
- 25:50Speaker 3: connected every day. She's present every day. So on some
- 25:54Speaker 3: days I yearn for the stoicism of a boy. But
- 26:00Speaker 3: other days, I'm so grateful to see how I must
- 26:03Speaker 3: have been to my mother and how fascinating.
- 26:06Speaker 2: And they both are fascinating.
- 26:08Speaker 3: And I just, I love watching both boys and girls
- 26:12Speaker 3: grow up and how beautiful and sensitive they both are.
- 26:16Speaker 3: Boys are so sensitive and so tender, but then they
- 26:19Speaker 3: haven't been allowed to feel that that is masculine as well.
- 26:24Speaker 1: I find that the first time boys, and it's sort
- 26:29Speaker 1: of in a good scenario, the first time boys are
- 26:31Speaker 1: really sensitive and tender is in a relationship. It's the
- 26:35Speaker 1: first time that they're able to sort of let their
- 26:37Speaker 1: guard down. And that's been interesting for me as somebody
- 26:40Speaker 1: dating men, you know, to watch happen.
- 26:44Speaker 3: Boys are very tender and they have this mask of,
- 26:48Speaker 3: you know, compartmentalization or rigidity. that can fool us. But
- 26:54Speaker 3: their brains are completely wired differently.
- 26:58Speaker 1: You write that girls today are excelling on the outside
- 27:01Speaker 1: while unraveling on the inside. Tell me what you're seeing.
- 27:05Speaker 3: So girls have taken off. I mean, we women are
- 27:08Speaker 3: on some other stratosphere.
- 27:10Speaker 2: Look at you. You're 35.
- 27:12Speaker 3: You're just at a pinnacle that when I was 35,
- 27:16Speaker 3: it was hard to reach. So your generation and younger
- 27:18Speaker 3: generation have access now to coaching and life skills and
- 27:24Speaker 3: red flags.
- 27:25Speaker 2: I mean, I never looked at any red flags till
- 27:27Speaker 2: I was like 45. Too late, right?
- 27:30Speaker 3: But you all are being equipped with this psychological arsenal
- 27:33Speaker 3: that has made you impervious and empowered, and you'll have language,
- 27:37Speaker 3: and you'll have the Me Too movement, and you'll have
- 27:40Speaker 3: laws that protect you in a way, and you'll have
- 27:42Speaker 3: a platform and a voice. So that's all amazing. But
- 27:46Speaker 3: I think on the inside, it's also daunting because y'all
- 27:50Speaker 3: are also being given conflicting messages. You know, in many ways,
- 27:56Speaker 3: y'all are being told that to be a feminine woman,
- 28:01Speaker 3: a mother, to love being in a relationship, to love
- 28:05Speaker 3: taking care of children is now kind of like a
- 28:08Speaker 3: second class citizen kind of job. And to be a
- 28:12Speaker 3: career woman and to be you know, financially secure is
- 28:16Speaker 3: the way to be. And it's hard for you, you know,
- 28:19Speaker 3: and you're feeling conflicted by lots of messages. You'll have
- 28:22Speaker 3: to be healthy and vegan and optimized all before seven o'clock.
- 28:26Speaker 3: And you'll have to have a career and not be
- 28:28Speaker 3: dependent on a man. But then if you're yearning to
- 28:31Speaker 3: be a homemaker, then you're called a trad wife. So
- 28:35Speaker 3: there's a lot of labeling and judging that I didn't
- 28:37Speaker 3: have to face. I was excelling if I was just
- 28:40Speaker 3: a little bit out of the norm.
- 28:43Speaker 2: It was good enough. But now there's a lot of
- 28:46Speaker 2: noise out there.
- 28:47Speaker 3: So to be excelling, you'll have to be super something,
- 28:51Speaker 3: way more than I had to be. I just had
- 28:53Speaker 3: to be a little bit more extraordinary and I could
- 28:55Speaker 3: be excelling.
- 28:56Speaker 2: But you guys, I feel, have a lot.
- 28:58Speaker 1: Interesting.
- 28:59Speaker 3: I mean, your faces have to be perfect.
- 29:00Speaker 2: Your makeup routine has to be amazing. It's a lot.
- 29:04Speaker 3: So I think the pressure is from the inside now,
- 29:08Speaker 3: not so much on the outside. I mean, why do
- 29:10Speaker 3: you think our girls have the highest anxiety disorders recorded
- 29:15Speaker 3: in modern history, at least in the last decade? You
- 29:17Speaker 3: would think that there was more psychological competency, but there's
- 29:22Speaker 3: equal psychological fragility.
- 29:25Speaker 1: I liked reading about what you kind of call an
- 29:28Speaker 1: Ozempic culture that we're living in, a productivity culture, an
- 29:32Speaker 1: optimization culture. I do feel that way. And you talk
- 29:36Speaker 1: about this phrase, good enough.
- 29:38Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 29:38Speaker 1: But what I think is so interesting is you are
- 29:42Speaker 1: excellent in every single way. So you're not really wanting
- 29:45Speaker 1: the good enough, right? Right. And yet you're saying, as humans,
- 29:50Speaker 1: maybe we can just strive for good enough. So how
- 29:53Speaker 1: do you wrestle with that in your own mind?
- 29:55Speaker 2: Yeah, good question. It's one that I imagine you have
- 29:58Speaker 2: to wrestle with, right?
- 29:59Speaker 1: Yes, I think we all do.
- 30:00Speaker 3: All competent women have to struggle with that. But I
- 30:04Speaker 3: think just having that good enough default, right? Okay, to
- 30:09Speaker 3: rein you in. is the key. It's not perfecting the
- 30:15Speaker 3: good enough, right? Right.
- 30:16Speaker 2: Like how good enough am I being good enough? Yeah.
- 30:19Speaker 3: That could be, it's, I always have these internal reins,
- 30:23Speaker 3: but yeah, I go way out, but then I'm like,
- 30:25Speaker 3: I have something.
- 30:26Speaker 1: You do two books.
- 30:27Speaker 2: Two books.
- 30:28Speaker 3: And now I'm like, okay, now whatever happens has to happen.
- 30:31Speaker 3: Now I cannot go. So then I pull myself back,
- 30:34Speaker 3: but I'm always doing this.
- 30:35Speaker 1: It's a push pull.
- 30:36Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 30:36Speaker 3: But I'll always shoot for the stars, but then I'm
- 30:38Speaker 3: always going back to, but I'm good enough.
- 30:41Speaker 1: How do you think a parent teaches their child that
- 30:43Speaker 1: they're good enough? Yeah.
- 30:45Speaker 2: Yeah. It's really tricky. It's really tricky.
- 30:48Speaker 3: But I don't want parents to listen to my answer
- 30:51Speaker 3: and go, oh, my God, I've effed up.
- 30:53Speaker 2: I don't want them to feel like they have to.
- 30:55Speaker 3: When I say it's really tricky, meaning it's almost impossible
- 30:58Speaker 3: to do, and it's a tightrope, right?
- 31:00Speaker 2: So some days you're going to do it better than others.
- 31:02Speaker 1: Right.
- 31:03Speaker 3: So how do you teach your child that it's good enough?
- 31:05Speaker 3: I think in the early years, it's really important that
- 31:08Speaker 3: you keep low expectations. See, parents start off with super
- 31:13Speaker 3: high expectations because they're trying to shoot the child ahead
- 31:16Speaker 3: of the curve, right? If I'm strict in the beginning
- 31:19Speaker 3: and I'm really tough on my kid in the beginning,
- 31:22Speaker 3: then I can relax later, right?
- 31:24Speaker 2: And I believe it should be the opposite.
- 31:26Speaker 3: The early years are where there is just exploration, safety,
- 31:32Speaker 3: where the child feels that they are mighty if they
- 31:37Speaker 3: put the beans back in the cup or they picked
- 31:40Speaker 3: up the pasta. Because developmentally, they are capable of very little,
- 31:47Speaker 3: like very small things. That's why they will have a
- 31:51Speaker 3: meltdown If the toothpaste is not where they thought it
- 31:55Speaker 3: should be, if the toothpaste is here, they cannot handle it.
- 31:57Speaker 3: They're crashing out because their brains are so like pea-sized.
- 32:02Speaker 2: In a way.
- 32:03Speaker 3: So they want to develop competency in their little world.
- 32:06Speaker 3: So they want the toothpaste there. And they said, fried egg, mommy,
- 32:11Speaker 3: not scrambled. And you're like, can you just freaking just
- 32:14Speaker 3: eat the scrambled? But they're like, no, fried egg. Now,
- 32:18Speaker 3: it sounds like they're so rigid and I'm going to
- 32:21Speaker 3: raise a monster. But we have to understand in their
- 32:23Speaker 3: little world, that is competency.
- 32:26Speaker 2: That is authority.
- 32:28Speaker 3: They don't know much besides fried egg and scrambled and
- 32:31Speaker 3: toothpaste and yellow and blue.
- 32:32Speaker 1: Right. Like competence leads to confidence.
- 32:35Speaker 2: Competence leads to confidence.
- 32:37Speaker 1: Interesting.
- 32:37Speaker 3: But their competence is over very ridiculous things in our
- 32:41Speaker 3: adult eyes.
- 32:41Speaker 1: Okay.
- 32:42Speaker 2: But you want to give them that. No, I want
- 32:45Speaker 2: the monkey. I don't want the bear. Okay.
- 32:47Speaker 3: Now, parents listening to this will think that this is laissez-faire.
- 32:52Speaker 2: Or no boundaries. I'm not talking about not being.
- 32:54Speaker 3: Able to say no to your child, but it's about
- 32:57Speaker 3: giving them empowerment over their very small world in the
- 33:00Speaker 3: beginning of their life, right? So now if you go
- 33:02Speaker 3: the other way in pushing your child too much, teaching
- 33:07Speaker 3: them 10,000 activities so that by the age of six,
- 33:09Speaker 3: they are well-versed and multilingual, you think you've done a
- 33:14Speaker 3: great job, but you don't understand you've pushed too far perhaps.
- 33:18Speaker 3: You know, you should push just a little bit beyond
- 33:22Speaker 3: because when you push too far too early, there's too
- 33:25Speaker 3: many moments of helplessness, too many moments of striving. And
- 33:30Speaker 3: childhood is a place of rest and ease and confidence building.
- 33:35Speaker 3: Like I'm the big fish in the small pond. But
- 33:38Speaker 3: if you put your child into the big pond too
- 33:42Speaker 3: many times, it's too overwhelming. So early years, you want competency,
- 33:47Speaker 3: you want mightiness, you want, wow, I'm the king of
- 33:50Speaker 3: the world, the queen of the world. And then By nine, 10,
- 33:53Speaker 3: you start pricking the bubbles. And then your child goes, oh,
- 33:56Speaker 3: I'm so ordinary, but they can handle it. But they've
- 33:59Speaker 3: had a foundation. And then they get into the real
- 34:02Speaker 3: world and the bubble starts bursting and you start peeling
- 34:05Speaker 3: back the layers of this is the real world. You're
- 34:08Speaker 3: not that special. You know, you're unique, but you're not
- 34:11Speaker 3: that special. And you begin to allow that to sink in.
- 34:16Speaker 3: And then you send them off into the real world.
- 34:19Speaker 3: But the first years are where you get to let
- 34:21Speaker 3: them feel Like they're mighty.
- 34:23Speaker 1: Like they're mighty. You talk about girls living inside something
- 34:38Speaker 1: called a perception prison. What is an example of that?
- 34:43Speaker 3: Well, I think your generation, you know, grew up in that,
- 34:46Speaker 3: being seen all the time.
- 34:48Speaker 2: You know, when.
- 34:50Speaker 3: I was in my career all the way till my
- 34:54Speaker 3: late 40s. I never got on a Zoom, right? We
- 34:57Speaker 3: didn't have Zoom till COVID hit really in the big
- 35:01Speaker 3: way that we have. And you know now that you're
- 35:03Speaker 3: on Zoom, you see every floor, you see yourself too much.
- 35:07Speaker 3: And then you begin to wonder how people are seeing
- 35:11Speaker 3: you and now you have to dress up to go
- 35:12Speaker 3: on the computer. And so this lends itself to this
- 35:16Speaker 3: feeling that you're constantly at any moment going to.
- 35:19Speaker 2: Be photographed, videotaped, commented on.
- 35:22Speaker 3: Somebody's going to say something about your looks and it's
- 35:26Speaker 3: the world at large, right? People are happily commenting on
- 35:31Speaker 3: how you look and how I look. No business to
- 35:33Speaker 3: comment on us. And we have no business reading their comments,
- 35:37Speaker 3: but now it's.
- 35:37Speaker 2: Part of our psychology, right?
- 35:39Speaker 3: Some person in Turkey telling me how my nose is
- 35:42Speaker 3: looking today or why is it Why am I looking tired?
- 35:46Speaker 3: What business do they have? And what business do I
- 35:48Speaker 3: have caring about what they are saying? So it's this perception,
- 35:52Speaker 3: you know, collapsing prison that just feels like we're being
- 35:57Speaker 3: seen at all times and need to be presented to
- 35:59Speaker 3: the world at all times, which is unhealthy. We should
- 36:02Speaker 3: not look in the mirror. We should not be seeing ourselves.
- 36:04Speaker 3: We should not be so self-obsessed.
- 36:06Speaker 2: As we are.
- 36:07Speaker 1: How do we combat that at home? Like when you're
- 36:09Speaker 1: raising girls? What can you do in the house? Because
- 36:13Speaker 1: you can't really control how culture works, right?
- 36:17Speaker 3: So I think the mother and female role models, especially
- 36:20Speaker 3: for our daughters, are very important to show up ordinary,
- 36:23Speaker 3: to show up looking very much like how we looked
- 36:27Speaker 3: in COVID, right? When no one was looking at us.
- 36:30Speaker 3: We didn't wear a bra. We didn't comb our hair.
- 36:33Speaker 3: We didn't brush our teeth. I mean, I'm not advocating
- 36:35Speaker 3: for slavendiness, but just be ordinary, right? Have most moments
- 36:40Speaker 3: of your day Where you're looking very average, right? And
- 36:44Speaker 3: then your perked up, you know, stylized, curated look is
- 36:49Speaker 3: reserved for, okay, this is the face I put on
- 36:53Speaker 3: in the world once in a while. But your daughter
- 36:55Speaker 3: needs to see you looking very average. You know, my
- 36:58Speaker 3: daughter will tell me. That's not what I expected you
- 37:00Speaker 3: to say.
- 37:00Speaker 2: Yes. My daughter will tell me now that she's older.
- 37:02Speaker 3: She's like, mom, I didn't realize what a poor sense of,
- 37:07Speaker 3: you know, dress and fashion you have.
- 37:09Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, good. And now you know. I'm very
- 37:11Speaker 2: poor sense.
- 37:12Speaker 1: Oh, see, I don't agree.
- 37:12Speaker 2: You always look great. No, I know. But this is
- 37:14Speaker 2: because I'm showing up in the world. Oh, at home. Yeah,
- 37:17Speaker 2: I couldn't care less.
- 37:18Speaker 1: That's funny.
- 37:19Speaker 3: Right? So you want your daughter to see you confident
- 37:22Speaker 3: with a very poor sense of fashion.
- 37:25Speaker 1: I underlined this part of your book, and I still
- 37:29Speaker 1: can't wrap my head around how I feel, so I'm
- 37:31Speaker 1: so excited to ask you in person. You write that
- 37:34Speaker 1: girls are being sold a lie, that hypersexualization is empowerment. So...
- 37:39Speaker 1: My first question is, what do you consider hypersexualization? So
- 37:43Speaker 1: this is a huge trap.
- 37:44Speaker 2: Okay.
- 37:45Speaker 3: So hypersexualization is always prevalent in our culture towards women.
- 37:51Speaker 1: Yes. It's the beginning of time.
- 37:53Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 37:53Speaker 3: It's not anybody's fault. It's the female is the one
- 37:57Speaker 3: who the male tries to get.
- 37:59Speaker 2: Okay.
- 38:00Speaker 3: Look at the rest of the animal kingdom. The male
- 38:03Speaker 3: peacock tries to be the peacock with the best feathers.
- 38:07Speaker 3: The male antler. rose the antlers for the, they, they
- 38:10Speaker 3: want mating opportunities.
- 38:12Speaker 2: Okay.
- 38:12Speaker 1: Since Cleopatra.
- 38:13Speaker 2: Right.
- 38:13Speaker 3: But back then, and in the rest of the animal world,
- 38:16Speaker 3: the female was the chooser. Now we have become the
- 38:20Speaker 3: chosen and we have, it's inverted. So, so we are
- 38:26Speaker 3: the primary object of sexual desire for all of time, eternal,
- 38:31Speaker 3: all across the animal kingdom. But we used to be
- 38:34Speaker 3: the choosers and now we have become the chosen. So
- 38:37Speaker 3: now We are always the sexualized object of desire, but
- 38:41Speaker 3: we have lost our power. And we have now been
- 38:45Speaker 3: sold a lie that if you can dress how you
- 38:50Speaker 3: like and you can walk around naked and that's power
- 38:54Speaker 3: to you, right?
- 38:55Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, guess what?
- 38:57Speaker 3: All the males on the beach are like, we love this.
- 38:59Speaker 3: We love you to be more empowered. Go ahead, show
- 39:03Speaker 3: us more. And we are playing right into the male gaze. Now,
- 39:07Speaker 3: I'm not saying not to dress how you like, but
- 39:09Speaker 3: just understand that The dynamic is still staying the same.
- 39:13Speaker 3: You are still being an object to the male. Now,
- 39:18Speaker 3: you can choose to identify with that or not, and
- 39:21Speaker 3: all power to.
- 39:21Speaker 2: You if you don't.
- 39:22Speaker 3: But don't be fooled to think that you are not
- 39:27Speaker 3: playing to the male gaze.
- 39:28Speaker 2: And you can see on Instagram.
- 39:29Speaker 3: Why?
- 39:30Speaker 2: Are women posing the way they do because they're doing it.
- 39:33Speaker 1: For likes but here's where I get confused because I
- 39:37Speaker 1: agree with you I spent my whole career trying to
- 39:40Speaker 1: be taken seriously and that was in conflict with at
- 39:45Speaker 1: all being like I would never wear a low cut
- 39:47Speaker 1: shirt when I was doing news you know like ever
- 39:51Speaker 1: But I see Gen Z girls, and they really like
- 39:55Speaker 1: Kim Kardashian for the most part because they feel like
- 39:58Speaker 1: she's both things. She's an and. She wears bikinis and
- 40:02Speaker 1: poses like a Playboy model would have in the past.
- 40:06Speaker 1: And she's an attorney and helping people get out of prison.
- 40:09Speaker 1: And they're like, as a woman, why can't I be both?
- 40:12Speaker 3: Yeah, but the part in her that is the bikini
- 40:15Speaker 3: model pop-up is definitely playing Kim. to the male gaze.
- 40:21Speaker 3: I mean, let us not pretend she's playing to the
- 40:23Speaker 3: female gaze. She wants to clearly establish herself as the
- 40:27Speaker 3: queen bee, telling all the rest of us females that
- 40:30Speaker 3: she's winning the competition, clearly, like clearly, like do you see?
- 40:35Speaker 3: And she is playing to the male gaze. So the
- 40:38Speaker 3: question is why and how much and when is enough enough?
- 40:42Speaker 3: And every woman and all power to her, you know,
- 40:45Speaker 3: I think she's, She's working it for herself.
- 40:50Speaker 2: And if that's what she needs to feel good about herself.
- 40:53Speaker 3: All power to her. However, she's also a role model
- 40:56Speaker 3: for others. So she needs to, for whatever degree she
- 40:58Speaker 3: wants to have a sense of accountability or responsibility, that's
- 41:01Speaker 3: on her.
- 41:02Speaker 2: I'm not here to tell anyone how to be a
- 41:04Speaker 2: role model.
- 41:05Speaker 3: But what we need to teach our daughters is how
- 41:07Speaker 3: much and why do you need so much attention? Now,
- 41:11Speaker 3: we are all playing the game. You played it when
- 41:14Speaker 3: you wore your high heels. I played it when I
- 41:16Speaker 3: put my makeup on today. So we are all playing
- 41:19Speaker 3: it to be desired. Let's not pretend we're doing this.
- 41:23Speaker 3: You know, women will lie and say, or lie to
- 41:26Speaker 3: themselves and say, no, I do this to feel good.
- 41:28Speaker 3: I go, but in COVID when no one was looking
- 41:30Speaker 3: at you, you didn't do this to feel good. You
- 41:32Speaker 3: were very happy not doing this. So let's not bullshit.
- 41:35Speaker 3: Let's just say, I know when I get ready is
- 41:38Speaker 3: I like to feel desired.
- 41:40Speaker 2: I like it. I'm not doing this for myself.
- 41:43Speaker 3: If I was doing this for myself, only for myself
- 41:46Speaker 3: to look at myself, I don't do this at home.
- 41:48Speaker 3: So I do this to get compliments, to be seen,
- 41:52Speaker 3: and to be in the game. Just be clear about it.
- 41:56Speaker 3: It's no problem. It doesn't make you a lesser person.
- 41:59Speaker 3: I'm very confidently saying I love getting a compliment. I
- 42:02Speaker 3: love telling other women they're beautiful and they tell.
- 42:04Speaker 2: Me I'm beautiful.
- 42:05Speaker 3: What is wrong with that? We are doing it for that. Otherwise,
- 42:08Speaker 3: you would not wear high heels. You'd wear flip-flops, right?
- 42:11Speaker 1: Well, I think a lot of young women would say, no,
- 42:13Speaker 1: I'm dressing for the girls. I'm not even dressing for guys. Okay,
- 42:15Speaker 1: that's fine.
- 42:15Speaker 2: That's fine.
- 42:16Speaker 3: But you're dressing for something. That's, and the question is always,
- 42:21Speaker 3: why and how much? That's my eternal question to myself
- 42:25Speaker 3: every day.
- 42:26Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, why are you doing this?
- 42:28Speaker 3: And then I have to justify it to myself. And
- 42:30Speaker 3: many times it's, it's a, something to do with vanity
- 42:34Speaker 3: and my ego. And I go, okay, just know that
- 42:36Speaker 3: you're doing it for that. You're willing to wear these
- 42:38Speaker 3: ridiculous stilettos and possibly break a leg because you want
- 42:42Speaker 3: to look a certain way.
- 42:43Speaker 2: Okay, Shefali, go ahead. And how much? Okay, now how
- 42:46Speaker 2: much is too much?
- 42:47Speaker 3: And you have to create that boundary for yourself. No
- 42:51Speaker 3: one can tell you what it is and there's no judgment.
- 42:54Speaker 3: Be as naked as you want and be as conservative
- 42:57Speaker 3: as you want. Neither are going to get you anything
- 43:01Speaker 3: if you don't feel worthy from within. So don't be
- 43:04Speaker 3: all dowdy and dressed up in a suit thinking you're
- 43:06Speaker 3: being taken seriously because that's not going to get you
- 43:08Speaker 3: taken seriously either. And don't be out there trying to
- 43:12Speaker 3: get all this attention thinking it'll give you validation and
- 43:15Speaker 3: worth because that's not going to get it. So what
- 43:17Speaker 3: is going to get it is your own eternal, internal
- 43:21Speaker 3: barometer of who it is you are. You get to
- 43:23Speaker 3: play this life how you wish, but don't do it mindlessly.
- 43:28Speaker 3: Do it as consciously of your vanity and your ego
- 43:31Speaker 3: and the matrix and how you're being pulled in as possible.
- 43:34Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 43:34Speaker 2: Right?
- 43:35Speaker 3: When I see a fabulous wrinkle cream, I get fooled
- 43:38Speaker 3: and I buy it, you know, and then I'm a sucker.
- 43:41Speaker 3: But I know what I'm doing, right? I'm not pretending
- 43:45Speaker 3: that culture is doing it to me. There's no man
- 43:47Speaker 3: out there telling me how to dress up. There's no
- 43:49Speaker 3: woman out there telling me how to dress up. No
- 43:51Speaker 3: one is telling Kim Kardashian how to be. She has
- 43:53Speaker 3: chosen to do this for herself. So we have to
- 43:56Speaker 3: own our co-creation. So an OnlyFans girl who is there
- 44:01Speaker 3: for sexual content may think she's very empowered because she's
- 44:06Speaker 3: earning how much ever she's earning. She is empowered financially,
- 44:10Speaker 3: but let's not be fooled to think she's not part
- 44:13Speaker 3: of the same old game of selling our bodies for
- 44:17Speaker 3: money that we've done. And all power to you, but
- 44:20Speaker 3: it is the same game.
- 44:22Speaker 1: I love that you brought that up because I've actually
- 44:24Speaker 1: been thinking about that. A friend of mine said that
- 44:28Speaker 1: She felt like OnlyFans was actually the transition in sex
- 44:31Speaker 1: work because in the past there had been men who
- 44:34Speaker 1: had been making money off these women and now women
- 44:37Speaker 1: are making money off of themselves.
- 44:40Speaker 3: But the platforms are owned by men who are making
- 44:43Speaker 3: money off the women.
- 44:45Speaker 1: And the advertisers are still, it's.
- 44:47Speaker 3: Still capitalism in its old form. So just know what
- 44:51Speaker 3: you're doing. It's about being conscious about the game we're playing.
- 44:56Speaker 1: I thought it was so interesting when you wrote that
- 44:59Speaker 1: if young girls can't use their voice to stand up
- 45:01Speaker 1: to their parents, they won't be able to do it
- 45:04Speaker 1: in the patriarchy.
- 45:05Speaker 2: 100%.
- 45:06Speaker 1: That was an unlock for me. So in what ways
- 45:10Speaker 1: are you saying young girls should be exercising their voice
- 45:15Speaker 1: at home and how can parents shepherd that? Is that
- 45:17Speaker 1: by asking them questions and caring about their opinions?
- 45:20Speaker 3: I think it's about parents being super conscious about that
- 45:24Speaker 3: they don't want to raise a good girl.
- 45:26Speaker 1: Oh, I love that.
- 45:28Speaker 3: They have to be conscious of that because the girls
- 45:30Speaker 3: want to be good because they get validated for being good.
- 45:33Speaker 2: We tell the girl, you're so sweet. What a good girl.
- 45:36Speaker 3: And we have to watch that because that gets amplified
- 45:40Speaker 3: by culture. And then the girl gets validated for being
- 45:44Speaker 3: obedient and silent and subservient and compliant and a people
- 45:48Speaker 3: pleaser and a conflict avoider. Very quickly, it catapults. So
- 45:51Speaker 3: you at home, want a badass, right? You want your
- 45:54Speaker 3: daughter at three to go, I said fried eggs, right?
- 45:58Speaker 3: Now it sounds bratty and it is annoying because I
- 46:02Speaker 3: raised that girl who was then became, you know, oh
- 46:05Speaker 3: my God, really? But I knew why I was doing
- 46:09Speaker 3: it because it needs to be exaggerated in the house
- 46:12Speaker 3: because culture will dumb it down so fast that you
- 46:16Speaker 3: want to amplify it and inflate it in the house.
- 46:19Speaker 2: And then at some point.
- 46:21Speaker 3: I was like, oh my God, I have raised a
- 46:23Speaker 3: girl who's getting into fights with her Uber driver now
- 46:25Speaker 3: because the Uber driver was rude to her. So she
- 46:27Speaker 3: was like, I'm not going to stand for it. And
- 46:29Speaker 3: this was at 13, 14.
- 46:31Speaker 2: And I get a note.
- 46:32Speaker 3: She's like, mom, I got off the Uber app. I
- 46:34Speaker 3: was disqualified. I was like, I'm raising somebody too strong now.
- 46:39Speaker 3: But I realized there's no such thing because done consciously,
- 46:43Speaker 3: of course, and done without entitlement, a girl... It's okay
- 46:48Speaker 3: for her to go too far because culture is going
- 46:50Speaker 3: to slam her down versus keeping her safe so she
- 46:54Speaker 3: fits into culture, but then culture will slam her down.
- 46:57Speaker 3: So you want to go too far with the girl
- 47:00Speaker 3: because culture is designed to suffocate.
- 47:04Speaker 2: The girl's voice.
- 47:05Speaker 1: Can you give me two or three examples of what
- 47:07Speaker 1: that looks like in parenting?
- 47:08Speaker 3: So it starts really young, yes? When the child says, no, mommy,
- 47:13Speaker 3: I want to put on my own boots. And they're
- 47:15Speaker 3: taking 10, 15 minutes or No, I want to wear
- 47:18Speaker 3: these clothes and they look like a clown. It starts there. Okay,
- 47:23Speaker 3: let's try. And of course you give the choices, right?
- 47:26Speaker 3: Of course you buy the boots. Of course you buy
- 47:29Speaker 3: the clothes because parents always tell me, oh, then I'm
- 47:31Speaker 3: just going to raise a brat. I go, how can
- 47:33Speaker 3: you raise a brat when all the choices that the
- 47:36Speaker 3: child will fight for are.
- 47:38Speaker 2: Choices you give?
- 47:40Speaker 3: If the child only knows between scrambled and fried eggs,
- 47:43Speaker 3: then that's what they're going to fight. So you give
- 47:45Speaker 3: the container and But within the container, they get to choose.
- 47:48Speaker 3: So you do that very intentionally. And then when the
- 47:52Speaker 3: child makes mistakes, right? When they like a friend who
- 47:56Speaker 3: you think is a brat or a toxic friend, you
- 47:58Speaker 3: allow them within the safety of your guidance to work
- 48:03Speaker 3: it out, to flex and to figure out the limits
- 48:09Speaker 3: of their expression.
- 48:11Speaker 1: I want to go to boys now because I liked
- 48:13Speaker 1: when you wrote about shame. You said it's a driving
- 48:16Speaker 1: force in boyhood. And that really surprised me. I have
- 48:19Speaker 1: been going to therapy for six or seven years. And
- 48:22Speaker 1: I've recently been thinking about shame for the first time.
- 48:25Speaker 1: And I thought that boyhood would be driven by anger
- 48:30Speaker 1: or frustration or hyper energy. But you said shame.
- 48:35Speaker 2: Why is that?
- 48:36Speaker 3: Well, all the things you said, anger, aggression, sexuality, hyper energy,
- 48:42Speaker 3: All of that is closed to boys. We don't allow
- 48:46Speaker 3: them to be hyperactive, hypermobile, hyperphysical. We teach them to
- 48:53Speaker 3: be like girls in school, to sit at circle time
- 48:55Speaker 3: and to be good boys. And by the age of
- 48:58Speaker 3: five and seven, most boys are now being diagnosed with ADHD. Now,
- 49:01Speaker 3: is it environmental or is it genetic or is it
- 49:03Speaker 3: social or.
- 49:04Speaker 2: What is it, right?
- 49:06Speaker 3: Boys are not wired the same as girls, but we
- 49:08Speaker 3: are shaming them for not being like girls. And then
- 49:12Speaker 3: telling them, don't be like the asshole men that are
- 49:16Speaker 3: out there. So boys are like, okay, can't be like
- 49:18Speaker 3: the girls, can't be like the boys. who should I
- 49:20Speaker 3: be so then they're retaliating and that's where the manosphere
- 49:23Speaker 3: comes in and is so attractive to boys because it's
- 49:27Speaker 3: giving them a blueprint get the square jaw get the
- 49:30Speaker 3: big body go to the gym and have you know
- 49:33Speaker 3: 1600 grams of protein or whatever it is and conquer
- 49:37Speaker 3: the world and move to miami and drive a flashy car.
- 49:42Speaker 3: I love Miami, but it's that whole profile. And why
- 49:47Speaker 3: are so many boys following it? It's because they don't
- 49:50Speaker 3: have any blueprint for a conscious masculinity.
- 49:55Speaker 1: I mean, you wrote that they're receiving two conflicting messages,
- 49:58Speaker 1: be dominant and then apologize for being masculine. What does
- 50:02Speaker 1: that whiplash produce?
- 50:03Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a tremendous conflict. And I detail this in
- 50:06Speaker 3: the book. So if anyone wants to learn how to
- 50:09Speaker 3: do this, I mean, I did it for the girls
- 50:11Speaker 3: as well. I talked about seven pillars for a conscious masculinity.
- 50:15Speaker 3: So that whiplash of don't be like this and don't
- 50:18Speaker 3: be like the girls and, but talk about your feelings,
- 50:20Speaker 3: but then don't be too vulnerable.
- 50:21Speaker 2: I mean, like it's so messed up.
- 50:23Speaker 1: It's an impossible mandate.
- 50:24Speaker 2: It's an impossible mandate.
- 50:26Speaker 3: And we know that it's partly our own internalized misogyny.
- 50:31Speaker 3: Like We don't like being told that we are, we
- 50:35Speaker 3: as women, too feminine. So now when we see a
- 50:37Speaker 3: man being feminine, we put him down. But then if
- 50:40Speaker 3: he's not attuned, empathic, articulate, emotionally literate, we.
- 50:45Speaker 2: Put him down. So it's impossible for a man to
- 50:48Speaker 2: know how he should be today.
- 50:49Speaker 1: I see it. I'm dating, right? I'm single and... The
- 50:53Speaker 1: conflict that you're describing is my main issue in finding
- 50:58Speaker 1: a partner.
- 50:58Speaker 2: Yeah. But you're looking for this perfect integration. Yes.
- 51:02Speaker 1: And it doesn't exist.
- 51:02Speaker 3: And it doesn't exist because there is polarity. At some stage,
- 51:06Speaker 3: the way we were designed is to have polarity between
- 51:09Speaker 3: male and female. Whether we like it or not, that's
- 51:12Speaker 3: what attracts us.
- 51:13Speaker 1: Right?
- 51:14Speaker 3: The male wants to feel like he can protect and
- 51:17Speaker 3: be competent and provide. I mean, it sounds so horrifically traditional,
- 51:22Speaker 3: but there is an element of that.
- 51:24Speaker 2: I'm not saying all of it.
- 51:25Speaker 3: And there's an element of our femininity that wants to
- 51:28Speaker 3: be taken care of, that wants to receive, that wants
- 51:31Speaker 3: to also caretake. These are our beautiful parts. All I'm
- 51:35Speaker 3: saying is that we're losing these in the name of integration.
- 51:38Speaker 3: And I am all for integration of masculine and feminine.
- 51:42Speaker 3: but I'm also for polarity. And there's times to have
- 51:46Speaker 3: polarity and there's times to have integration. And the most
- 51:50Speaker 3: beautiful relationships are those that allow for both.
- 51:53Speaker 1: For both, yeah. I realize the more I'm in my masculine,
- 51:57Speaker 1: the more I attract a more feminine man. We do
- 51:59Speaker 1: attract our opposite of whatever we're being in that moment.
- 52:02Speaker 3: Yes, you're giving no room for another masculine energy to
- 52:06Speaker 3: step in.
- 52:07Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 52:07Speaker 3: So if you want a masculine man... You're going to
- 52:10Speaker 3: have to let go a little bit and be in
- 52:12Speaker 3: the polarity.
- 52:13Speaker 2: A little bit.
- 52:14Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 52:14Speaker 2: Not all the time, but a little bit.
- 52:16Speaker 1: I want to let go, don't worry.
- 52:17Speaker 3: Yeah. Most women actually, when they're very honest and are
- 52:22Speaker 3: feeling safe, they will say they feel attracted and seduced
- 52:26Speaker 3: and taken care of by the polarity.
- 52:30Speaker 2: I know I am.
- 52:31Speaker 3: So I don't think it's being lesser of a powerful
- 52:34Speaker 3: woman to say that. It's being an integrated woman.
- 52:49Speaker 1: So who's worrying you more, our boys or our girls?
- 52:51Speaker 1: Our boys, 100.
- 52:52Speaker 2: Our men are worrying. I'm worried for our men. Our
- 52:55Speaker 2: men are suffering.
- 52:56Speaker 3: All the men you're dating, they're not telling you the
- 52:58Speaker 3: truth entirely because they're so ashamed. They don't feel safe.
- 53:03Speaker 3: They're like, oh my goodness, she has it all together.
- 53:05Speaker 3: She has her masculine and her feminine. She's figured it out.
- 53:08Speaker 3: I haven't figured it out because no one fought for me.
- 53:11Speaker 3: And because men don't talk that much, no one is talking.
- 53:15Speaker 1: Right.
- 53:15Speaker 3: But there is this male problem. I'm very worried about
- 53:19Speaker 3: our men and our young men who are lonely, more
- 53:22Speaker 3: suicidal than ever before. They're hidden in basements on video
- 53:25Speaker 3: consoles in a fake virtual world, jacking off to porn,
- 53:29Speaker 3: hoping to date an AI chatbot and marry her. Because
- 53:34Speaker 3: it's safer to be that boy than to be out
- 53:37Speaker 3: in the world today.
- 53:37Speaker 1: And there's no friction if you're with.
- 53:39Speaker 2: There's no friction.
- 53:40Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 53:40Speaker 2: That's the key.
- 53:41Speaker 1: So if social media disappeared tomorrow, what percentage of today's
- 53:45Speaker 1: parenting challenges would go away?
- 53:47Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
- 53:48Speaker 3: Look, I wrote The Conscious Parent in 2010. So obviously,
- 53:51Speaker 3: we still had problems. But.
- 53:53Speaker 2: Yeah. they are cataclysmic and astronomical. So yes, I would
- 53:57Speaker 2: be all for it.
- 53:58Speaker 3: Not so much because the kids are in trouble because
- 54:01Speaker 3: the kids hopefully are only being exposed a little bit later.
- 54:04Speaker 3: The parents are not present. The parents are fighting in
- 54:09Speaker 3: this competition and trying to create content and be out
- 54:13Speaker 3: there and post everything. So they are showing a false
- 54:16Speaker 3: reality to their children. They're showing their children that it's
- 54:20Speaker 3: so important to be perceived and it's so important to
- 54:22Speaker 3: be seen as something externally validated and it's okay to
- 54:28Speaker 3: live in a fake world.
- 54:29Speaker 2: That's the greater problem.
- 54:32Speaker 1: And in The Conscious Parent, you write that parents help
- 54:35Speaker 1: children build their worth through presence. Yes. So when they're
- 54:37Speaker 1: on their phones and they're not present, it's saying you're
- 54:40Speaker 1: not worthy.
- 54:41Speaker 2: Yes.
- 54:42Speaker 3: Or if the mother is so consumed by how she
- 54:44Speaker 3: looks and she's modeling that to the girl because now
- 54:46Speaker 3: the pressure to look so amazing and to have so
- 54:49Speaker 3: much in your skincare routine and so much in your
- 54:52Speaker 3: bedtime routine and everything is a routine.
- 54:54Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 54:54Speaker 3: The girl begins to watch or the boy begins to see, wow,
- 54:58Speaker 3: like it takes a lot to just exist. And then
- 55:01Speaker 3: for the males to see that these men out there,
- 55:04Speaker 3: you know, talking about hustle culture and making it and,
- 55:08Speaker 3: you know, everything is about optimization.
- 55:11Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 55:11Speaker 2: Well, then what is pure living and being?
- 55:14Speaker 1: Yeah. And There's this ongoing theme in your book. You've
- 55:20Speaker 1: mentioned it a few times. We've used the word patriarchy
- 55:22Speaker 1: and misogyny. And I think those are such buzzy words
- 55:25Speaker 1: right now. People sort of shy away from them. I
- 55:29Speaker 1: try and lean in because it's just the truth. We're
- 55:31Speaker 1: living under a patriarchy, right?
- 55:34Speaker 3: Well, the patriarchy is not so much the problem. Patriarchy
- 55:37Speaker 3: is like whoever's in charge.
- 55:39Speaker 2: Okay.
- 55:39Speaker 1: Yes.
- 55:40Speaker 2: It's a patriarchy.
- 55:42Speaker 3: It's the acute toxicity and the extremity of the patriarchy
- 55:48Speaker 3: that is the problem here, right? Let the men be
- 55:51Speaker 3: in charge, but then the women are in charge of
- 55:52Speaker 3: other things, right? And there's a balance and a give
- 55:55Speaker 3: and take. The mothers could be in charge. The women
- 55:57Speaker 3: can be in charge. Then would we call it toxic?
- 55:59Speaker 1: No.
- 56:00Speaker 3: It's the toxicity part of it, which is fundamentally an extreme.
- 56:06Speaker 3: Extremely narcissistic, unempathic, disconnected, exploitative, capitalistic regime. That is the problem,
- 56:15Speaker 3: the autocracy of it, the extremity of it, the capitalistic
- 56:19Speaker 3: domination and the drive for this extreme wealth in the
- 56:25Speaker 3: hands of a few, the oligarchic element of it.
- 56:29Speaker 2: That is the problem.
- 56:31Speaker 1: And you really share how it's showing up online. I
- 56:33Speaker 1: know you mentioned we joked about Miami, but there's all
- 56:36Speaker 1: these Instagram accounts that I see all the time where
- 56:39Speaker 1: they're like, how much money do you make? And what's
- 56:41Speaker 1: the most you've made in a year? And it does
- 56:44Speaker 1: feel like so much is about money in a way
- 56:46Speaker 1: that it didn't used to be. And you call it
- 56:48Speaker 1: the digital patriarchy or digital misogyny. Yes.
- 56:51Speaker 3: And that is the intelligence. the intrusive level of these
- 56:55Speaker 3: extreme messages that come on your phone unbidden.
- 56:58Speaker 2: See, that's the thing. We're not in charge of what
- 57:01Speaker 2: we're seeing. It's curated for us.
- 57:05Speaker 3: And I hope that as things become more fake, that
- 57:08Speaker 3: we'll actually go back to the, you know, the analog
- 57:13Speaker 3: way of living. I'm hoping because I myself, I'm getting
- 57:16Speaker 3: more and more turned off. Because what was my curated feed,
- 57:19Speaker 3: and I was so proud of my intellectual wisdom feed
- 57:24Speaker 3: and news feed, it's all gone. I'm not in charge
- 57:27Speaker 3: of my feed anymore. So I personally don't like to
- 57:30Speaker 3: be exploited. I feel like I'm being influenced and taken
- 57:34Speaker 3: advantage of. So I'm already turning away from my feed.
- 57:37Speaker 3: It's not mine anymore. So I'm hoping that people listening
- 57:40Speaker 3: will realize they're being taken advantage of. They are being
- 57:44Speaker 3: led to the slaughterhouse. They are being led to the advertiser.
- 57:47Speaker 3: They are being led, seduced constantly. And the moment you
- 57:50Speaker 3: sit on a little wrinkle cream a bit too long,
- 57:52Speaker 3: you're going to get 15 more.
- 57:54Speaker 2: You are being brainwashed.
- 57:56Speaker 3: And the more you see it, I can see it.
- 57:58Speaker 3: You know, I am looking for certain things and it
- 58:01Speaker 3: doesn't come because it's not capitalistically driven. So I am
- 58:05Speaker 3: getting turned off. And I hope more and more of
- 58:07Speaker 3: us get turned off because we are being played.
- 58:09Speaker 1: I'm getting turned off too. And I've never really had
- 58:12Speaker 1: an issue with my phone or like addiction to a screen.
- 58:15Speaker 1: And I'd say in the past two to three months,
- 58:17Speaker 1: I've thought, you know, I don't feel good when I'm
- 58:20Speaker 1: on my phone anymore.
- 58:21Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't feel good at all.
- 58:22Speaker 3: We have to go on these detoxes to cleanse ourselves
- 58:26Speaker 3: of this, you know, intrusive nature of these messages. We
- 58:30Speaker 3: have to go on diets.
- 58:31Speaker 1: So your daughter is 21 now?
- 58:33Speaker 2: 23.
- 58:33Speaker 1: 23. Yeah. Okay. So I think there's, and tell me
- 58:37Speaker 1: if you think I'm right or wrong, but it seems
- 58:39Speaker 1: to me, I love parenting experts and reading about parenting.
- 58:42Speaker 1: I'm not a parent yet, but It seems to me
- 58:44Speaker 1: that parenting advice shifts.
- 58:46Speaker 2: Every decade or so. It is shifting every decade. Okay.
- 58:50Speaker 1: So I feel that. And I think when you wrote
- 58:52Speaker 1: The Conscious Parent, it changed everything. People had a whole
- 58:57Speaker 1: new vocabulary. And then in 2025, there was this Washington
- 59:01Speaker 1: Post article, and it said, goodbye, gentle parenting. Hello, fuck
- 59:06Speaker 1: around and find out. Exactly. You know which article.
- 59:08Speaker 2: Exactly.
- 59:09Speaker 1: Exactly. So I think we went through this phase and
- 59:13Speaker 1: this was after the conscious parent where it was gentle parenting.
- 59:17Speaker 1: And now parents have had it. They're frustrated. They're triggered,
- 59:20Speaker 1: which you talk about.
- 59:21Speaker 2: Yes.
- 59:22Speaker 1: What were we wrong about in gentle parenting that we're
- 59:25Speaker 1: just pushing against now? Yeah.
- 59:26Speaker 2: So conscious parenting is not gentle parenting.
- 59:28Speaker 1: Yes.
- 59:29Speaker 2: At all.
- 59:30Speaker 3: Conscious parenting is being conscious of what you're bringing to
- 59:33Speaker 3: the table, of your awareness. And you don't have to
- 59:37Speaker 3: be gentle. You can talk the way you talk. It's
- 59:38Speaker 3: about being authentic. So I'm not a very gentle speaking person.
- 59:43Speaker 3: I talk the way I talk, but I'm conscious of it.
- 59:48Speaker 3: So gentle parenting to me felt a lovely attempt to
- 59:53Speaker 3: at you know modulating your voice and and paying attention
- 59:56Speaker 3: to your tone but it felt performative to me and
- 1:00:00Speaker 3: it felt like you were so afraid of your child
- 1:00:02Speaker 3: and afraid to make mistakes conscious parenting is is all
- 1:00:05Speaker 3: about make the freaking mistake show your child you're human
- 1:00:09Speaker 3: be present be brave and be accountable yeah gentle parenting
- 1:00:14Speaker 3: was hide your authenticity and put on this show Right.
- 1:00:18Speaker 2: So then, of course, there was a backlash.
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:00:21Speaker 3: As the progressive movement went so progressive that we lost
- 1:00:25Speaker 3: sense of like, OK, what is reality now? We're so
- 1:00:28Speaker 3: out there. So woo woo. You know, it's OK to
- 1:00:32Speaker 3: be woo, but woo woo. We got too much. Now
- 1:00:35Speaker 3: we had a backlash of ultra conservatism.
- 1:00:37Speaker 2: And, you know, we went. Ultra right.
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: The other way.
- 1:00:40Speaker 3: And that's where we are right now. Ultra orthodox, ultra right.
- 1:00:43Speaker 3: And now we're like, fuck around and find out.
- 1:00:47Speaker 2: And the poor child is like, I didn't do anything. Like,
- 1:00:49Speaker 2: why are you angry with me?
- 1:00:51Speaker 3: You decided to be a performer and tippy toe around me.
- 1:00:55Speaker 3: You didn't treat me like a normal human being. And
- 1:00:57Speaker 3: now you're telling me to fuck around and find out
- 1:00:58Speaker 3: why you're backlashing against me.
- 1:01:00Speaker 2: So it's not the children.
- 1:01:01Speaker 3: It's our own mental gymnastics because we're so unanchored. We're
- 1:01:06Speaker 3: not in conscious parenting. Conscious parenting, you will never go wrong.
- 1:01:09Speaker 3: I promise you, you will never go wrong because you're
- 1:01:13Speaker 3: conscious about going wrong.
- 1:01:15Speaker 2: So you're going to see it in real time.
- 1:01:18Speaker 3: And there is never a time where it has not
- 1:01:21Speaker 3: worked beautifully.
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: It's one of the best books I've ever read. I
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: think that book changed the world. So your daughter, Maya,
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: is now 23. And she was 11 or 13 when
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: that book came out.
- 1:01:35Speaker 2: Yeah, somewhere around there.
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: Somewhere around there. So what's one thing that you look
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: at her now and think, wow, I was absolutely right
- 1:01:42Speaker 1: about that in terms of parenting?
- 1:01:45Speaker 3: So many things, providing emotional safety, staying present, showing up
- 1:01:51Speaker 3: every day, letting her know that she's worthy. So I
- 1:01:55Speaker 3: did good there, but I made lots of mistakes.
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: If you're willing to share, I'm so curious.
- 1:01:59Speaker 2: Oh my God, my daughter has done a whole YouTube,
- 1:02:01Speaker 2: like a whole interview with me where she slammed me.
- 1:02:03Speaker 1: I didn't see this. Yes, yes. I'm not trying, I
- 1:02:06Speaker 1: don't need to slam you, but I'm curious if there's
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: anything that you would have done differently.
- 1:02:10Speaker 2: Oh my God.
- 1:02:11Speaker 3: And she will give you a litany, like she won't stop.
- 1:02:14Speaker 3: I do it like apparently I still haven't learned. So
- 1:02:17Speaker 3: things like, you know, many times I don't freaking understand
- 1:02:21Speaker 3: what the hell she's saying.
- 1:02:22Speaker 2: You know, I'm like, what are you saying?
- 1:02:24Speaker 3: Like things are so simple in my head, but they're
- 1:02:26Speaker 3: so differently complex in her head. So I short circuit her.
- 1:02:30Speaker 3: I'm impatient, very, you know, superior in my righteousness. You know,
- 1:02:36Speaker 3: she'll say, oh, you just love playing Jesus.
- 1:02:39Speaker 2: And I love it.
- 1:02:40Speaker 3: So I go, yes, I love playing Jesus. But it's
- 1:02:42Speaker 3: not about getting it right. You know, I think, and
- 1:02:44Speaker 3: I've told her this, I will make the same mistake.
- 1:02:48Speaker 3: Only I will catch it faster and be willing to
- 1:02:50Speaker 3: cop to it faster. But if you're asking for a
- 1:02:53Speaker 3: different mother, you have to go somewhere else. Just like
- 1:02:57Speaker 3: I can't ask you to be a different wired daughter
- 1:03:00Speaker 3: and you've stayed the same in your wiring.
- 1:03:03Speaker 2: This is how I'm wired.
- 1:03:05Speaker 3: So this is it. Now together, let's figure out how
- 1:03:09Speaker 3: we can not kill each other, right? But the wiring,
- 1:03:12Speaker 3: and this is what I teach in conscious parenting. So
- 1:03:14Speaker 3: I teach her how to be a conscious child to
- 1:03:16Speaker 3: her parent because The wiring is the essence. Each child
- 1:03:20Speaker 3: comes with a temperament. You cannot really go too far.
- 1:03:23Speaker 3: What I saw in my daughter at two, three, four,
- 1:03:25Speaker 3: I still see the same wiring, just a little bit
- 1:03:29Speaker 3: more modulated or just a little bit more anchored. But
- 1:03:31Speaker 3: the wiring is the wiring. And that's what I teach parents.
- 1:03:34Speaker 3: Recognize your child's essence early on and learn to be
- 1:03:38Speaker 3: attuned with it, okay with it, and celebrate it. The
- 1:03:41Speaker 3: sooner you align, the sooner you're on flow with that person.
- 1:03:46Speaker 1: So- I was reading that working moms spend more time
- 1:03:50Speaker 1: with their kids now than stay-at-home moms did in the 50s.
- 1:03:55Speaker 1: And the Skims and Good American CEO, Emma Greed, made
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: headlines for saying that she spends between 30 minutes and
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: three hours a day with her kids. And she calls
- 1:04:03Speaker 1: herself a core memory mom. Yeah, that's a lot.
- 1:04:07Speaker 3: You know, 30 to three hours a day, the child
- 1:04:11Speaker 3: has gone to school. The child has come back. They've
- 1:04:13Speaker 3: gone for an activity. They have good caregivers. And now
- 1:04:16Speaker 3: you're between 30 to three hours and you're there and
- 1:04:19Speaker 3: you're present. If she does that consistently and she's fully
- 1:04:24Speaker 3: lit and fully connected and not projecting her shit onto
- 1:04:27Speaker 3: the children because she's living a fulfilled life and she's
- 1:04:30Speaker 3: really seeing them for who it is they are, that's
- 1:04:33Speaker 3: not a bad average.
- 1:04:35Speaker 2: It's about being present. It's about being there.
- 1:04:37Speaker 3: It's about making sure your child feels seen and worthy
- 1:04:41Speaker 3: of your attention. And then each parent plays it. You know,
- 1:04:44Speaker 3: some days you don't even have to see your kid
- 1:04:47Speaker 3: if you're busy, but then you make it up. There's
- 1:04:49Speaker 3: no perfect equation. I think that's what Emma was trying
- 1:04:52Speaker 3: to say, is that there's no equation here.
- 1:04:54Speaker 2: You know, you don't.
- 1:04:55Speaker 3: Have to be there, a lifeless block of flesh, if
- 1:04:59Speaker 3: you're not really lit up.
- 1:05:01Speaker 1: Yes. I mean, how much of good parenting nowadays is
- 1:05:04Speaker 1: just putting down the phone?
- 1:05:05Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And just being there with your kids.
- 1:05:08Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 1:05:10Speaker 1: I froze my eggs three years ago, and I think
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: about motherhood a lot. And one thing I hear from
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: my friends who are mothers constantly is, well, what if
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: I mess my kid up? So after everything that you've learned,
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: what actually does mess a kid up?
- 1:05:25Speaker 3: Well, you are going to mess your kid up. So
- 1:05:28Speaker 3: if your goal is to not mess your kid up,
- 1:05:30Speaker 3: I suggest you don't become a parent, right? Because that's
- 1:05:32Speaker 3: an insane goal. What do you mean mess your kid up?
- 1:05:35Speaker 3: What does that mean? If your kid goes to therapy
- 1:05:38Speaker 3: and blames you for everything, does that mean you messed
- 1:05:40Speaker 3: your kid up? If your kid is depressed, that means
- 1:05:42Speaker 3: you messed your kid up. No, there's no, if your
- 1:05:44Speaker 3: kid has gender issues, does that mean it was your fault? See,
- 1:05:47Speaker 3: we think we're so important that we can actually really
- 1:05:51Speaker 3: mess this up. Now, having said that, my work is
- 1:05:54Speaker 3: all about trying to consciously not mess things up, right?
- 1:05:56Speaker 2: So it's a both end. So what are some things
- 1:05:59Speaker 2: to mess your kid up?
- 1:06:00Speaker 3: The most important thing to mess your kid up is
- 1:06:03Speaker 3: Just being an asshole, you know, just being disconnected, just being,
- 1:06:06Speaker 3: you know, narcissistic and having things your way and not
- 1:06:11Speaker 3: having this incredible connection and this dialogue with your child.
- 1:06:17Speaker 3: Making a child who you want them to be and
- 1:06:19Speaker 3: judging them for all the ways they're not, I think
- 1:06:21Speaker 3: is the surefire way to mess things up. Barring that,
- 1:06:25Speaker 3: it's hard to mess your kid up. If you're not judgmental,
- 1:06:28Speaker 3: if you're safe, if you're present, you're not an alcoholic,
- 1:06:30Speaker 3: you're not a drug addict that you're, lost to your senses.
- 1:06:34Speaker 3: You're there, you're trying. It's actually quite hard. Now, that
- 1:06:38Speaker 3: doesn't mean your kid won't get a divorce or your
- 1:06:40Speaker 3: kid won't put on weight or have 20,000 pimples. It's
- 1:06:44Speaker 3: not about looking a certain way, right? It's about feeling
- 1:06:48Speaker 3: connected to you. It's very hard for your kid to
- 1:06:51Speaker 3: abandon you.
- 1:06:52Speaker 1: So you've spent your career helping parents understand children. But
- 1:06:56Speaker 1: if your work has taught us anything, I think it's
- 1:06:58Speaker 1: that children are often the ones trying to teach us.
- 1:07:02Speaker 1: And I sort of want to end here. If a
- 1:07:05Speaker 1: 16-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl were sitting across from
- 1:07:08Speaker 1: you right now instead of me, and you had 60 seconds,
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: what would you want them to know before they became adults?
- 1:07:15Speaker 3: That their parents did their best and they provided a springboard.
- 1:07:22Speaker 3: And that's all parents are supposed to do, a hopefully
- 1:07:25Speaker 3: healthy springboard. But it's up to you, the child now,
- 1:07:30Speaker 3: to take... that story that has been your story till now,
- 1:07:34Speaker 3: own it for its tragedies, its traumas and its triumphs.
- 1:07:38Speaker 3: But now you have to write your own story. And you,
- 1:07:41Speaker 3: the more you keep looking back and bringing your parents
- 1:07:44Speaker 3: along with you through blame or through for support, actually,
- 1:07:48Speaker 3: the more encumbered you will be. They are supposed to
- 1:07:51Speaker 3: be left behind now. And as Khalil Gibran said, you
- 1:07:54Speaker 3: are the arrow upon which you get to create your life.
- 1:07:57Speaker 3: You get to shoot as far as you need to.
- 1:08:00Speaker 3: And You have to take accountability for that story.
- 1:08:03Speaker 1: That was really, really beautiful. I can't believe you came
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: up with that on the top of your head. I did. Okay,
- 1:08:07Speaker 1: I have some rapid fire questions for you. The number
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: one way to conscious parent?
- 1:08:14Speaker 2: To shut up and listen.
- 1:08:16Speaker 1: What parenting trend do you hope dies in the next decade?
- 1:08:20Speaker 1: All trends except conscious parenting. What parenting trend gives you hope?
- 1:08:25Speaker 2: Conscious parenting.
- 1:08:27Speaker 1: The one sentence that you'd ban every parent from saying
- 1:08:30Speaker 1: to a child.
- 1:08:33Speaker 2: I told you so.
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: Good one.
- 1:08:35Speaker 2: It's my favorite.
- 1:08:37Speaker 1: The pop culture moment. So a show, a song, an
- 1:08:40Speaker 1: influencer that you think is most quietly shaping children right now.
- 1:08:45Speaker 2: You know, from the Kardashians to.
- 1:08:50Speaker 3: Andrew Tate, you know, and I don't mean to put
- 1:08:53Speaker 3: the Kardashians in a negative way, but they are so influential.
- 1:08:57Speaker 1: They are.
- 1:08:57Speaker 2: In so many positive ways. They've changed 100%.
- 1:09:00Speaker 3: Brown women are looked at, how women's bodies are looked at.
- 1:09:03Speaker 3: I so love so much. And I also feel so
- 1:09:07Speaker 3: bad that they've been given this status of being the
- 1:09:10Speaker 3: rule makers, right? It's a tremendous responsibility. They're mostly positive.
- 1:09:15Speaker 3: And then the Andrew Tates of this world who are
- 1:09:17Speaker 3: misogynistic and just taking women down.
- 1:09:20Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:09:21Speaker 2: And men down.
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: What's the most important life skill that you can teach
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: a child?
- 1:09:27Speaker 2: Self-trust.
- 1:09:28Speaker 1: The number one way to teach resilience.
- 1:09:31Speaker 2: Self-trust, taking risks, making mistakes, falling down, getting rejected.
- 1:09:36Speaker 1: What's the best way for a mom to spend a
- 1:09:38Speaker 1: Friday night with her teenage daughter?
- 1:09:41Speaker 2: Oh, goodness.
- 1:09:42Speaker 3: My daughter would say the best thing you can do, mom,
- 1:09:44Speaker 3: is eat pizza and ice cream with me because I'm
- 1:09:46Speaker 3: so careful about my food. But just to let go,
- 1:09:50Speaker 3: be young again and be a silly girl because that's
- 1:09:54Speaker 3: what our daughters want from us, that they want a
- 1:09:57Speaker 3: silly girl.
- 1:09:58Speaker 2: You know.
- 1:09:59Speaker 1: What age is safe to get a phone?
- 1:10:02Speaker 2: In my ideal world, I would say 17, 16, 17.
- 1:10:05Speaker 1: How about the right age to join social media?
- 1:10:10Speaker 2: Oh, not before 17, 18.
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: If you could raise your children in any decade, which
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: one would you pick? I like I would say the
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: decade before mine. So I could, because by the, by
- 1:10:22Speaker 1: the time my daughter turned 13, 14, I felt social
- 1:10:25Speaker 1: media coming. So I would say I would want another
- 1:10:28Speaker 1: 10 years before. Which is the worst social media for kids? YouTube, Instagram, TikTok,
- 1:10:34Speaker 1: or Snapchat?
- 1:10:37Speaker 3: I really, anything where their finger can scroll is bad.
- 1:10:41Speaker 3: And the algorithm sends you what it is and you
- 1:10:44Speaker 3: don't choose your own movie, you know, on your VHS
- 1:10:47Speaker 3: and put it in the, When you're not choosing your
- 1:10:50Speaker 3: movie and you can scroll to the next thing is
- 1:10:53Speaker 3: the worst thing.
- 1:10:54Speaker 1: Should parenting classes be mandatory?
- 1:10:56Speaker 3: Yes. And a license and supervision and a qualifying exam
- 1:11:00Speaker 3: and yes, check-ins and you renew your license.
- 1:11:05Speaker 1: Aside from your books, is there a book that you've
- 1:11:07Speaker 1: read that changed your life? Something you think everybody should read?
- 1:11:10Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. Yes.
- 1:11:11Speaker 3: I mean, any books by Eckhart, you know, The Power
- 1:11:14Speaker 3: of Now, A New Earth. The Untethered Soul by Michael Springer,
- 1:11:19Speaker 3: The Presence Process by Michael Brown, Pema Chodron's books. I mean,
- 1:11:22Speaker 3: they're all Eastern spirituality books which talk about the power
- 1:11:26Speaker 3: of presence. So those are my guiding light when I've
- 1:11:31Speaker 3: lost myself in the noise of culture.
- 1:11:34Speaker 1: What's something that every woman should try once?
- 1:11:39Speaker 2: I had all sorts of things go through my head.
- 1:11:41Speaker 1: I know.
- 1:11:41Speaker 2: There are lots of things we should try. We should
- 1:11:44Speaker 2: try to... we should try to.
- 1:11:47Speaker 3: Lean in into our femininity and we should try to
- 1:11:50Speaker 3: lean into our masculinity. Like do both in like some
- 1:11:54Speaker 3: big way. Like go all out this way and then
- 1:11:56Speaker 3: go all out. Monday through Wednesday, we go all into like,
- 1:12:00Speaker 3: how can I be the most feminine? And I think
- 1:12:03Speaker 3: keeping on practicing the boundaries and the assertiveness and the
- 1:12:08Speaker 3: masculine skills and then the receiving and the caregiving and
- 1:12:12Speaker 3: the caretaking. I think, For myself, that's what I aspire
- 1:12:17Speaker 3: to do both. And when I get too caught up
- 1:12:19Speaker 3: in one, I'm in trouble, you know.
- 1:12:22Speaker 1: Where is this? Okay, I'm going to hand you the
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: card game. Oh, I love it. Sort of like tarot.
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: You pick whichever one calls to you.
- 1:12:28Speaker 2: Wow, look at that. Question everything. Tap into the power
- 1:12:32Speaker 2: of questions. Get curious. Your curiosity will lead you to
- 1:12:35Speaker 2: whatever you're here for. I love that. It's all about
- 1:12:39Speaker 2: leaning in, no? Yes. Okay, let's lean in and pick one. Okay,
- 1:12:45Speaker 2: I'm ready.
- 1:12:45Speaker 1: That's the instruction card. Oh, it is.
- 1:12:48Speaker 2: Love the blue. I want to instruct away. Okay, can
- 1:12:51Speaker 2: I do this? Yes, yeah, of course. Okay.
- 1:12:54Speaker 3: One thing you are trying to or need to let
- 1:12:56Speaker 3: go of. I am trying to let go of certainty,
- 1:13:04Speaker 3: needing control and certainty.
- 1:13:05Speaker 1: It's hard.
- 1:13:06Speaker 2: Very hard. I've been doing it for decades.
- 1:13:09Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a constant practice. It's my constant practice because
- 1:13:12Speaker 3: I always want certainty.
- 1:13:13Speaker 2: I want to know. But there is no knowing.
- 1:13:16Speaker 1: That's the only certainty.
- 1:13:19Speaker 2: Yeah, the unknown is the known.
- 1:13:21Speaker 1: Yeah. Dr. Shefali, thank you.
- 1:13:23Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much.
- 1:13:30Speaker 1: Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good
- 1:13:33Speaker 1: day to have a good day. I'll see you next week.
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: We'll be right back.