Transcript

Born Lucky · Mom Wars

0:01
Speaker 1: From the front lines of the mom Wars.
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Speaker 2: Here's Bethany Mandel and Kara Kennedy.
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Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to another episode of your favorite podcast.
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Speaker 3: It's no longer new, it's just now your favorite podcast.
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Speaker 3: And if it is your favorite podcast, don't forget to
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Speaker 3: subscribe and leave us for review. My name is Bethany Mandel.
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Speaker 3: I am a I think I am a contributing writer
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Speaker 3: or something at The Washington Examiner.
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Speaker 1: I don't know.
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Speaker 3: I write there all the time. I also write it
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Speaker 3: the New York Post all the time. And our lovely substack.
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Speaker 3: If you are a listener of this podcast and want
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Speaker 3: to actually see our faces, you can subscribe and see
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Speaker 3: the videos. I am joined by my beautiful co.
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Speaker 4: Host, Oh, thank you, Carrii Kennedy, and we ad joined
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Speaker 4: by do you want to introduce?
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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, but I didn't know if you wanted to. Oh,
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Speaker 3: and I also I have six kids we homeschool. You
0:53
Speaker 3: might hear that in the background, we're doing a rare
0:55
Speaker 3: mid day taping because our guest is a real person,
0:59
Speaker 3: and so we did a midday taping for our guest
1:02
Speaker 3: who is a real, live, important person. His name is
1:05
Speaker 3: Leland Vidder. He is the host of On Balance with
1:09
Speaker 3: Leland Vidder on NewsNation. It's one of the best shows
1:12
Speaker 3: on television. I love NewsNation. I feel like it's like
1:16
Speaker 3: this secret, amazing network where if you want like actual,
1:20
Speaker 3: really good news without like sensationalism everything, it's News Nation.
1:25
Speaker 1: I love it.
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Speaker 3: I love all the bookers, I love everyone from top
1:29
Speaker 3: to bottom.
1:29
Speaker 1: And he will be less secret in the future.
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Speaker 3: I mean I say it all the time to people
1:34
Speaker 3: and they're like, oh, do do I get it? And
1:36
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, you do, Yeah, you do get it.
1:38
Speaker 3: And it's amazing. He is also the author, and this
1:40
Speaker 3: is why we're having him on the show, the author
1:42
Speaker 3: of this beautiful new book that just came out on
1:45
Speaker 3: September thirtieth, right, correct, Yeah, Born Lucky, A dedicated father,
1:51
Speaker 3: a grateful son. He's the grateful son and my journey
1:54
Speaker 3: with autism. It was a beautiful book. So when you've
1:57
Speaker 3: written a book, this as a compliment. I read it
2:01
Speaker 3: in one day, practically one sitting. It was very readable
2:06
Speaker 3: and beautiful and lovely, and I couldn't put it down.
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Speaker 3: So I think, as an author, when someone tells you
2:11
Speaker 3: I read your book in one day, it's a compliment.
2:13
Speaker 3: And so That's how I extend that to you, Leland
2:15
Speaker 3: as a compliment.
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Speaker 1: We thank you very much. I'll take any and all
2:18
Speaker 1: compliments in any form. I'm just happy anybody has read it,
2:22
Speaker 1: because I think the reason I wrote it was to
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Speaker 1: give parents right now who I think we're having this reckoning,
2:30
Speaker 1: national reckoning on what parenting needs in all sorts of ways,
2:33
Speaker 1: not just for kids with disabilities, but to give parents
2:37
Speaker 1: hope that they really can make a difference and that
2:40
Speaker 1: the day to day struggle that they're going through, that
2:43
Speaker 1: all parents go through, is really worth it.
2:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, So tell me a little bit the backstory for
2:49
Speaker 3: folks who have not read your book yet. What did
2:53
Speaker 3: what did you look like as a kid, and how
2:55
Speaker 3: how did this progress? Your father is incredible and your
3:00
Speaker 3: mother was too, And I just this was like you
3:03
Speaker 3: took like honoring your father and mother to like the
3:06
Speaker 3: next level. It was like overachiever. It's like what could
3:08
Speaker 3: I do? I could write a whole book about how
3:09
Speaker 3: much my parents are amazing, And that's basically what you
3:12
Speaker 3: did well.
3:13
Speaker 1: And that's the real story, which I'm glad you picked
3:15
Speaker 1: up on. The story is not TV news anchor who
3:17
Speaker 1: had autism. Because everyone who's gone through anything and achieved
3:21
Speaker 1: anything in life, has struggles and hardships and difficulties. I
3:25
Speaker 1: think is a journalist. What was most interesting to me,
3:28
Speaker 1: sort of the man bites dog story, right, is my
3:33
Speaker 1: dad who said, Okay, thank you very much. You've just
3:37
Speaker 1: diagnosed my kid with what we now know to be autism.
3:40
Speaker 1: And there is this moment where he is hearing the diagnosis.
3:45
Speaker 1: I was about five or six years old. I could
3:48
Speaker 1: not in any way relate or kind of interact with
3:53
Speaker 1: kids my own age. I was angry. People would kid
3:57
Speaker 1: would touch me, and I would hit them. I had
3:59
Speaker 1: no friends, Nobody wanted to be around me. And he's
4:04
Speaker 1: with the psychologist and there was a few parts to
4:06
Speaker 1: this test, but one of the things they realized was
4:09
Speaker 1: that in the IQ test, my spread of IQ points
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Speaker 1: was from one hundred and fifty on one half of
4:17
Speaker 1: this test to seventy on the other half of the test.
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Speaker 1: Typically a twenty point spread represents a learning disability. So
4:24
Speaker 1: I was genius in some ways and in the parlance
4:26
Speaker 1: of the day, mentally retarded in others. Seventy points spread.
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Speaker 1: And he's sitting there and the woman says, you know,
4:32
Speaker 1: he's got all these problems and clearly he can't relate
4:34
Speaker 1: to people his own age, and nothing you're doing is helping.
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Speaker 1: And my dad goes, is there anything we can do? Anything?
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Speaker 1: And you can imagine sort of a father who had
4:44
Speaker 1: been as successful as he had with building companies, starting businesses,
4:50
Speaker 1: feeling absolutely helpless. And she goes, you know, generally not,
4:55
Speaker 1: but your kid has to be smart if anything's going
4:58
Speaker 1: to change, which they felt I but number two, he
5:02
Speaker 1: has to want it, meaning I had to want to
5:06
Speaker 1: get better and to be more than what I was
5:09
Speaker 1: and realize that how I acted was repelling to people,
5:13
Speaker 1: especially the people in my own age, And that became
5:17
Speaker 1: his mantra of convincing me number one that I had
5:21
Speaker 1: to want it, and then number two, trying to teach
5:24
Speaker 1: me from that point forward how to be different. And
5:30
Speaker 1: I've often said that his thought was so many of
5:35
Speaker 1: the experts, so much of the literature right now, so
5:38
Speaker 1: much sort of standard practice, is we're going to adapt
5:41
Speaker 1: the world to the kid. We're going to meet the
5:43
Speaker 1: kid where they are. And my dad's thought was, I
5:47
Speaker 1: am not going to allow my son to be met
5:50
Speaker 1: where he is, because if he's met where he is,
5:51
Speaker 1: his whole life. Then when he gets into the real world,
5:54
Speaker 1: that is going to be a problem. So I am
5:56
Speaker 1: going to adapt my son to the world. And this
6:00
Speaker 1: is that story.
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Speaker 3: So I love that because, you know, being knee deep
6:06
Speaker 3: in the parenting world for the last twelve years thirteen years,
6:10
Speaker 3: there is this gentle parenting mantra of like, we have
6:13
Speaker 3: to just make everything as easy for my kid as possible,
6:18
Speaker 3: and you know, really just smooth the runway. And I
6:21
Speaker 3: love that your dad did two things at once which
6:23
Speaker 3: are not usually thought of together at the same time.
6:27
Speaker 3: He like completely upended his life and made you like
6:31
Speaker 3: his job basically. But then he also didn't gentle you
6:35
Speaker 3: through it either, Like he wasn't he He didn't listen
6:40
Speaker 3: to the experts and say like, let's let's make this
6:43
Speaker 3: as easy for Leland as well, let's do all of
6:45
Speaker 3: those things. But I mean what he did was very gentle,
6:50
Speaker 3: but not in practice, if that makes sense.
6:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, it was the most loving, caring relationship. And yeah,
6:55
Speaker 1: I talk about in the book sort of at the end.
6:58
Speaker 1: You know, he and I are still best friends. When
7:00
Speaker 1: I was eight years old, he realized a little earlier
7:03
Speaker 1: than that I didn't have any friends and there's this
7:05
Speaker 1: moment in the book where he shows up at fifth
7:07
Speaker 1: grade pe class and hoping that, you know, maybe the
7:12
Speaker 1: pe teacher, maybe athletics can do something for Lucky, and
7:16
Speaker 1: the teacher goes, oh, well, you know, I'm trying to
7:19
Speaker 1: help him. I have him with the girls. So I
7:22
Speaker 1: was so sort of bullied and picked on that they
7:25
Speaker 1: couldn't have me play soccer or whatever it was with
7:27
Speaker 1: the boys, so they sent me down with the girls.
7:29
Speaker 1: So you can imagine what that would do to a father.
7:31
Speaker 1: And my dad said, I realized at that moment that
7:35
Speaker 1: you didn't have any friends, and maybe I could be
7:37
Speaker 1: your friend. So for a long time it was my
7:38
Speaker 1: only friend. He still is my best friend. You know.
7:40
Speaker 1: Forty three years later, we talked four or five times
7:43
Speaker 1: a day. I think what you're getting at is there's
7:46
Speaker 1: a difference between paving the you know, paving the road
7:50
Speaker 1: and lining it with roses or bumpers so kids don't
7:54
Speaker 1: have problems, versus saying, Okay, there's a really hard road ahead,
7:59
Speaker 1: and I'm going to hold your hand and we're going
8:01
Speaker 1: to walk down this road together. And I think that
8:03
Speaker 1: was what my dad did, And you think about what
8:06
Speaker 1: he went through you know, he used to sort of
8:09
Speaker 1: listen to me every night as angry as I was
8:13
Speaker 1: about being bullied and being picked on and being isolated
8:15
Speaker 1: and in all these issues that I was having because
8:17
Speaker 1: of who I was, and you know, I would sort
8:21
Speaker 1: of take out my frustrations and anger on him about
8:25
Speaker 1: these events at school, like the time that a teacher
8:28
Speaker 1: said to me that, you know, if if I was
8:30
Speaker 1: as ugly as his line was, if my dog was
8:33
Speaker 1: as ugly as you, So he's talking to me in
8:35
Speaker 1: front of an eighth grade class, my dog was as
8:36
Speaker 1: ugly as you, I'd shave its ass and make it
8:38
Speaker 1: walk backwards. So you can imagine the hurt and humiliation
8:43
Speaker 1: an eighth grade kid felt. I came home, took it
8:45
Speaker 1: all out of my dad. I obviously was crying, and
8:49
Speaker 1: I cried myself to sleep, as I did many nights,
8:52
Speaker 1: and my dad then went out in the living room
8:55
Speaker 1: and he started crying himself because he realized what was
8:58
Speaker 1: happening to his son. But at the same time time
9:01
Speaker 1: the next morning, he took me to breakfast and sent
9:06
Speaker 1: me to school because that, you know, making this easy
9:10
Speaker 1: wasn't going to help sort of change me and mold.
9:13
Speaker 4: Me what was his reaction when you decided to put
9:17
Speaker 4: this story on paper.
9:21
Speaker 1: It's a great it's a great question, Kara. And initially,
9:27
Speaker 1: and I think we have to sort of go back
9:28
Speaker 1: to sort of his teachings, right, because when I was
9:33
Speaker 1: much younger, he allowed me to fly, to take flying
9:36
Speaker 1: lessons because he thought it would give me something to
9:39
Speaker 1: do outside of school and give me a separate identity.
9:42
Speaker 1: And there's a whole chapter about that in my relationship
9:44
Speaker 1: with my flight instructor. But the culmination of that was
9:49
Speaker 1: I was the youngest person to fly from Saint Louis
9:51
Speaker 1: to Paris. For him, it wasn't about flying. It was
9:52
Speaker 1: about setting goals, fighting through airsickness, realizing that in order
9:57
Speaker 1: to achieve things you couldn't quit. Those were all the
10:03
Speaker 1: points for him. But I fu say it was to Paris.
10:06
Speaker 1: And throughout all this time, his whole rule had been
10:10
Speaker 1: there will be no publicity because you do things for
10:13
Speaker 1: your own personal achievement, in your own sense of self
10:17
Speaker 1: worth and who you are as a person, and you're
10:18
Speaker 1: defined by your character, not what people read about you
10:21
Speaker 1: in the newspaper or see you on TV, which is interesting.
10:24
Speaker 1: Then he pushed me to go into broadcast journalism, but
10:26
Speaker 1: that's a different that's a different part of the book.
10:30
Speaker 1: Your short answer is, I think in the beginning he
10:33
Speaker 1: was very encouraging because I think he felt this could
10:37
Speaker 1: really help people and help parents who felt so alone.
10:40
Speaker 1: I love the name of the podcast of mom Wars
10:42
Speaker 1: because there's so many moms and parents who feel and
10:45
Speaker 1: battled right now. So I think he did for a
10:48
Speaker 1: long time, maybe still does with me. But then when
10:54
Speaker 1: we got really deep into the stories, this was like
10:57
Speaker 1: going to therapy on national television, or is now that
11:00
Speaker 1: people are reading the book, so there's a lot of
11:03
Speaker 1: really intimate moments, and you know, there's the moments of
11:06
Speaker 1: my parents being in a principal's office in seventh grade
11:10
Speaker 1: when I had started a new school, and this teacher
11:14
Speaker 1: or this principle says to my parents, you know, everybody
11:20
Speaker 1: in this school thinks your kid is pretty weird. And
11:23
Speaker 1: my parents had been hoping that this was going to
11:26
Speaker 1: be a new start, this was a change out of
11:28
Speaker 1: the difficulties of elementary school, and so their crestfallen at
11:32
Speaker 1: that point. Everybody here thinks Lucky's weird. And then the
11:37
Speaker 1: principle delivers the line, and I do too, and my
11:41
Speaker 1: mom remembers we write about this in the book, her
11:44
Speaker 1: being so angry in this Principle's meeting in others that
11:47
Speaker 1: if she had been given a cup of coffee, she
11:49
Speaker 1: would tear the cup like the styrofoam cup actually apart.
11:53
Speaker 1: She was so angry and so frustrated with what was
11:56
Speaker 1: happening and how there was really no help for a
11:59
Speaker 1: kid like me than to just sort of say, Okay,
12:01
Speaker 1: you're gonna go be you. So the stories were really
12:07
Speaker 1: hard to tell for my dad, and I think the
12:09
Speaker 1: focus on him. He always will say, over and over,
12:12
Speaker 1: I'm not a hero. I'm not a hero. I'm not
12:13
Speaker 1: a hero. This isn't about me, this is about you,
12:15
Speaker 1: meaning me. I think that part makes him uncomfortable. I
12:18
Speaker 1: think it's overshadowed by the hope that I think you
12:22
Speaker 1: and Bethany are seeing in this that parents need to
12:27
Speaker 1: know that the day and day out struggle can really
12:31
Speaker 1: make a difference.
12:32
Speaker 3: I just want to like clarify for two seconds for
12:35
Speaker 3: our listeners. Lucky was your nickname growing out?
12:37
Speaker 1: Correct?
12:37
Speaker 3: Sorry, yes, I should have done that.
12:42
Speaker 1: The title of the book is Born Lucky because in
12:44
Speaker 1: the book I tell the story of my birth where
12:47
Speaker 1: I'm very lucky to be alive. My mom was thirty five.
12:50
Speaker 1: It was unusual in nineteen eighty two for that to
12:52
Speaker 1: be your first pregnancy. So I was upside down on
12:56
Speaker 1: an ultrasound and a doctor herobigyans, I have a bad
13:00
Speaker 1: feeling about this, and my mother said, well, I get that,
13:06
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of literature right now that people
13:09
Speaker 1: are doctors are recommending sea sections basically because it's easier,
13:14
Speaker 1: and on and on and on, and she was right,
13:17
Speaker 1: and it's still the case. It may still be. And
13:20
Speaker 1: the doctor said, you know, I understand that, but I
13:22
Speaker 1: have a really bad feeling about this, and you're older,
13:24
Speaker 1: and he's upside down, and this is before sophisticated ultra sounds,
13:28
Speaker 1: and as I was being born, both the nurse and
13:32
Speaker 1: the doctor exclaimed over and over how lucky of a
13:36
Speaker 1: baby I was. Obviously, my parents are sort of behind
13:39
Speaker 1: the sheet in the sea section, terrified at hearing this.
13:42
Speaker 1: And what it had turned out was the umbilical cord
13:44
Speaker 1: was tied in a knot and then around my neck.
13:46
Speaker 1: So if I had been born naturally, or they'd attempted
13:49
Speaker 1: a natural birth, I probably would have been dead, or
13:51
Speaker 1: had several palsy. So at that point I was nicknamed
13:54
Speaker 1: Lucky and up until I was eighteen, that's what I
13:57
Speaker 1: went by.
13:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. I want to rewind a little
14:01
Speaker 3: bit to what you just said about it being therapy,
14:05
Speaker 3: because I felt like this was not like you're married, Mazeltov,
14:12
Speaker 3: but it's not like premarital counseling, but it's like pre
14:16
Speaker 3: parenting counseling. And that's what I kind of felt like.
14:19
Speaker 3: This book was like a processing of your entire childhood.
14:23
Speaker 3: And I think it was extremely extremely healthy because most
14:27
Speaker 3: people of our generation, when they process their childhood, they
14:30
Speaker 3: try to find the things that make them mad. And
14:34
Speaker 3: this was the most healthy thing that I have witnessed
14:39
Speaker 3: someone do like this to process it and say my
14:43
Speaker 3: parents did an amazing job. These are all the ways
14:46
Speaker 3: they did an amazing job. And this is what I
14:49
Speaker 3: want to take from that as I become a parent,
14:54
Speaker 3: and I did that. Also, can you share a little
14:57
Speaker 3: bit about, like, you know, if you were in same
15:00
Speaker 3: sort of position, like what did you what do you
15:04
Speaker 3: feel like you could have done similarly to your dad?
15:08
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not a parent. My wife and I got
15:11
Speaker 1: married about three months ago. You'll you'll have to read
15:14
Speaker 1: the end of the book to sort of see my
15:16
Speaker 1: thoughts on how having kids has changed in what it is.
15:21
Speaker 1: There's the teas for your listeners. Look, this book isn't
15:25
Speaker 1: a prescription, it's not a method, it's not a cure
15:28
Speaker 1: for autism. It's none of those things. The idea was
15:31
Speaker 1: to explain to parents that there is another path to
15:38
Speaker 1: just meet your kid where they're at. And you know,
15:41
Speaker 1: my dad really realized when I was about seven years old.
15:47
Speaker 1: We were on vacation. It was like a week long vacation.
15:49
Speaker 1: Everybody showed up at the same time. And on this Saturday,
15:51
Speaker 1: there was this pickup soccer game at this little like
15:55
Speaker 1: dude ranch and they had a you know, like the
15:57
Speaker 1: outdoor of the main branch area had a soccer field
16:01
Speaker 1: and kids were playing pookup soccer. And I'm running into
16:04
Speaker 1: people and I'm pushing them, and I can't play and
16:07
Speaker 1: I clearly can't interact with anybody in my own age.
16:09
Speaker 1: And my dad looks at my mom and says, we
16:11
Speaker 1: have got a really serious problem here. And I tell
16:15
Speaker 1: this story in the books where my dads is We've
16:17
Speaker 1: got eighteen really rough years. And at that was the
16:20
Speaker 1: point that he really decided, I am going to invest
16:24
Speaker 1: full time in becoming a coach to Lucky and to
16:27
Speaker 1: try to help him see the world and understand how
16:33
Speaker 1: and why people have a hard time interacting with him,
16:35
Speaker 1: and how he can change and be better. So they
16:38
Speaker 1: didn't tell anybody about my diagnosis, never, not even me
16:41
Speaker 1: until I was well out of college. So I think
16:46
Speaker 1: the takeaways are the love and dedication can make this
16:53
Speaker 1: enormous difference. And you see, you know, one of the
16:56
Speaker 1: things that my dad did was he would take me
16:59
Speaker 1: to dinner with his friends, because I could never be
17:01
Speaker 1: around kids, but he would take me to a dinner
17:03
Speaker 1: with his friends. And I love being around adults because
17:05
Speaker 1: they were normally nice to me. And I was a
17:06
Speaker 1: mini adult because I only spent time with my dad.
17:09
Speaker 1: So you know, there's these stories in the books of
17:11
Speaker 1: me talking about Reagan and Bush and in nineteen eighty
17:14
Speaker 1: eight being able to discuss the nineteen eighty eight Ducacus
17:17
Speaker 1: Bush election with fairly intricate detail and analysis because I
17:24
Speaker 1: was six, but that's all I talked about, because that's
17:25
Speaker 1: all I talked about with my dad because he was
17:27
Speaker 1: my only friend, and so he would take me to
17:29
Speaker 1: dinner with people, and if I started talking too much,
17:34
Speaker 1: he would tap his watch, or if I would make
17:36
Speaker 1: a joke or say something wrong or whatever it was,
17:38
Speaker 1: which was a lot, but that was my signal to
17:40
Speaker 1: stop talking. It was also sort of a bookmark because
17:43
Speaker 1: then after these dinners or whatever interactions it was dinner's, coffees, trips, whatever.
17:51
Speaker 1: When we got some alone time, he would rewind the tape.
17:54
Speaker 1: For me. It was like a coach watching game film
17:56
Speaker 1: and he would go back, Okay, remember when I tapped
17:58
Speaker 1: to watch when you made a joke about it x
18:00
Speaker 1: or why why did you think that what you were
18:03
Speaker 1: saying was more important than what the person who was
18:06
Speaker 1: talking that mister Smith was say, on and on. So
18:10
Speaker 1: I think that lesson is something that's so important for
18:15
Speaker 1: parents to take away. Is that a lesson I would
18:18
Speaker 1: take to my kids, I would hope. So, I mean,
18:19
Speaker 1: I've always one of the real challenges I've always had
18:23
Speaker 1: about thinking about being a father. Although I just got
18:26
Speaker 1: married for the first time at forty three, I told
18:29
Speaker 1: every woman I ever did, I don't want kids, And
18:31
Speaker 1: the truth was because I didn't think I could be
18:33
Speaker 1: the same kind of phenomenal dad that my dad was.
18:47
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm James Lanwix and I'm at the diner. You know,
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Speaker 2: with little at jukeboxes. We love these and you can
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Speaker 2: join me here every Saturday when we talk about whatever
19:00
Speaker 2: happens to spring into my mind at the moment. There's
19:01
Speaker 2: no predicting where it will go, except that it'll be
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Speaker 2: Saturday from the Ricochet Audio.
19:09
Speaker 4: Network Ricochet, Yeah, join the conversation.
19:22
Speaker 3: I think that there's like a reckoning right now happening
19:24
Speaker 3: with the experts when it comes to autism, and it's
19:26
Speaker 3: something that I've observed very closely. I'm interested in it,
19:31
Speaker 3: and I disagree with a lot of the expert advice
19:35
Speaker 3: when it comes to autism. And that was something that
19:38
Speaker 3: really really resonated with me reading your book was thank
19:41
Speaker 3: god your parents didn't listen to the quote unquote experts.
19:45
Speaker 3: If you had a parent come to you and say
19:51
Speaker 3: this is you know my son, and it sounds like
19:53
Speaker 3: you know my son is similar to how you were.
19:56
Speaker 3: I think that your book, through telling this is that
20:00
Speaker 3: prescription of like this is this is what worked for
20:04
Speaker 3: me really well, but it's hard as a parent, and
20:07
Speaker 3: I think that you also are very clear about that,
20:09
Speaker 3: like watching your kid walk down this path, especially with
20:12
Speaker 3: the bullying. The bullying was really difficult for me to
20:15
Speaker 3: read as a parent.
20:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was difficult to go through too. Yeah, yeah,
20:21
Speaker 1: but look, I think this is what again, this is
20:23
Speaker 1: not a prescription, but I can say definitively that you
20:29
Speaker 1: know the moments of bullying, whether it was the teacher
20:32
Speaker 1: who said, you know, he would shave his dog's ass
20:35
Speaker 1: and make it walk backwards if it looked like me.
20:37
Speaker 1: Another story in the book where a choir teacher in
20:40
Speaker 1: front of the entire classes like seventh grade, said, you know,
20:44
Speaker 1: your off note singing is quite noticeable. Do not you know,
20:49
Speaker 1: sing softly? And then he said, you know, as a
20:51
Speaker 1: matter of fact, do not sing at all, just mauth
20:53
Speaker 1: the words. And look, you can say, what kind of
20:56
Speaker 1: real prick says that to a seventh grade kid who
20:59
Speaker 1: clearly is getting bullied. The flip side is I was
21:02
Speaker 1: sort of so difficult and obnoxious and awkward and all
21:06
Speaker 1: these things. As again, you know, I invited a lot
21:09
Speaker 1: of this. Now, should adults be better than to do it? Absolutely?
21:12
Speaker 1: But you know, the isolation, on and on. I tell
21:19
Speaker 1: the story of the book at the end where I've
21:24
Speaker 1: in the span of a month, broke up with my
21:29
Speaker 1: longtime girlfriend, moved out of my apartment, was asked sort
21:33
Speaker 1: of an invited note, to not return to Fox News
21:36
Speaker 1: after the twenty twenty election because I questioned Trump's elections claims.
21:40
Speaker 1: I was the only anchor to do it, basically sort
21:43
Speaker 1: of because of how my dad had taught me about
21:46
Speaker 1: telling the truth and doing things regardless of the consequences
21:49
Speaker 1: if it's the right thing to do is so important.
21:51
Speaker 1: And almost died of COVID. So I'm now in my
21:56
Speaker 1: parents' bedroom, extra bedroom in Florida. I have a backpack
22:00
Speaker 1: to my name. That's it. I was just sort of
22:03
Speaker 1: and it was a very dark time, and I remember
22:06
Speaker 1: my dad sitting there. He goes, look, I get it.
22:09
Speaker 1: It's tough. You've done hard things before. You know, you
22:13
Speaker 1: went back to school every day and fought through that
22:15
Speaker 1: every single day. You can do this. And I think
22:20
Speaker 1: that teaching kids at a young age they can do
22:23
Speaker 1: hard things and letting them struggle to do them and
22:26
Speaker 1: succeed is so important. Adversity is not something to shy
22:31
Speaker 1: away from it's something to embrace, it's a gift, and
22:35
Speaker 1: I think that is totally lost right now on kids
22:39
Speaker 1: now that you know. Look, my dad had me do
22:42
Speaker 1: two hundred push ups every day, five days a week
22:45
Speaker 1: for months, and I would get a reward. I would
22:47
Speaker 1: get to go to Disney World with my mom or
22:48
Speaker 1: something like this. But it was the idea of setting
22:50
Speaker 1: hard goals, persevering through them, achieving them, and moving on
22:55
Speaker 1: to the next one. And I think that I write
22:59
Speaker 1: this whole time, this whole story in the book about
23:02
Speaker 1: my flying lessons, and the biggest takeaway from the flying
23:05
Speaker 1: lesson was from my flight instructor, this much older man
23:09
Speaker 1: who agreed to teach me to fly. I was eight
23:11
Speaker 1: years old, and I would throw up every day that
23:14
Speaker 1: I was flying and learning to fly and throwing up
23:18
Speaker 1: all over the boys and he would have to clean
23:19
Speaker 1: it up. And he my dad finally said to him,
23:21
Speaker 1: He said, mister Mick, look, just tell him he can't
23:26
Speaker 1: do it. You know, I was nine years old and
23:28
Speaker 1: I was trying to get to this goal of flying
23:29
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic. And Mick looked at my dad and
23:33
Speaker 1: he said, if that kid won't quit, I can't And
23:37
Speaker 1: that always really stuck with me as a lesson and
23:41
Speaker 1: kids just don't get taught that anymore.
23:44
Speaker 3: That chapter, by the way of you flying across the Atlantic,
23:48
Speaker 3: this was like real, like they were calling from one
23:53
Speaker 3: spot to the next to see where.
23:57
Speaker 1: But there was a point where there was a time
23:58
Speaker 1: we got lost between between Canada and Greenland. We knew
24:03
Speaker 1: where we were, but like, this is before starlink or
24:06
Speaker 1: anything else. We were really flying the North Atlantic with
24:09
Speaker 1: not much more than nineteen sixties technology. And we had
24:13
Speaker 1: our you know, I'm eleven years old, eleven eleven. I
24:15
Speaker 1: had my flight instructure with me and then a safety
24:18
Speaker 1: pilot in the back, and you know, we were all
24:20
Speaker 1: wearing our survival suits. So if we had to ditch,
24:23
Speaker 1: it's a little twin engine sessta, you know, not much
24:26
Speaker 1: more powerful than a car. And you know, you think
24:29
Speaker 1: about eleven years old, He's like, well, if we run
24:30
Speaker 1: out of gas, then you know we're in the drink.
24:33
Speaker 1: So uh yeah, we got law the one station the
24:40
Speaker 1: radio they call it Ganander control that hands you off
24:43
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic. Somebody forgot to hand us off. So
24:46
Speaker 1: my dad would call, you know, and this is before
24:50
Speaker 1: cell phones or the Internet or anything else, and he
24:52
Speaker 1: would call these FAA or in that case Canadian control
24:56
Speaker 1: centers and just say, hey, have you heard from this plane?
25:02
Speaker 1: And November five one ALFA Romeo was our tail number,
25:05
Speaker 1: and at one point they had lost us, and they
25:08
Speaker 1: kept saying to my dad, no, we have no record
25:09
Speaker 1: of this. So we called the station before and finally
25:11
Speaker 1: they realized nobody could account for us. So there was
25:14
Speaker 1: that we were not lost and we did not have
25:17
Speaker 1: to use the survival suits. But it was quite a
25:20
Speaker 1: It was quite a moment. I think as an eleven
25:21
Speaker 1: year old. Those lessons later proved really useful when I
25:25
Speaker 1: was in the Middle East and sort of that the
25:30
Speaker 1: discipline and the decision making that I learned flying. Not
25:33
Speaker 1: to say every kid should go take flying lessons, but
25:36
Speaker 1: letting a kid be good at something, even if it's
25:38
Speaker 1: kind of a weird thing and no other kids are
25:40
Speaker 1: doing it or whatever it is, was really life changing
25:45
Speaker 1: for me.
25:45
Speaker 3: But also your parents allowing that. I just listened yesterday
25:52
Speaker 3: to the Thousand Hours Outdoors podcast, which was an amazing podcast.
25:56
Speaker 3: I super recommend it, and I will my appearents will
25:58
Speaker 3: come up at some point and she interviewed Lenor Skanese
26:02
Speaker 3: the other day. I don't know if you're familiar with
26:04
Speaker 3: her from Free Range Kids. I love her and this
26:07
Speaker 3: is something that would be so up Lenora's alley because
26:11
Speaker 3: letting your letting your kid as like as a parent,
26:15
Speaker 3: letting your kid do something so scary and letting go
26:19
Speaker 3: is something that she talks about a lot that we
26:22
Speaker 3: need to let go of our anxiety as parents. And
26:25
Speaker 3: I'm like the most free range parent on the planet,
26:27
Speaker 3: I feel like, and letting my eleven year old was letting.
26:32
Speaker 1: Your eleven year old fly across the Atlantic. And then
26:34
Speaker 1: fast forward to my late twenties when I went to
26:37
Speaker 1: the Middle East for Fox Uh huh, and my dad
26:40
Speaker 1: was sitting there thinking, you know, I was going to
26:42
Speaker 1: go be a foreign correspondent and hang out in Casablanca
26:46
Speaker 1: at the bar. And there was some of that, and
26:48
Speaker 1: then there was limit Egyptian revolution starts and I'm heading
26:52
Speaker 1: to Cairo as American journalists are getting kidnapped and beaten.
26:57
Speaker 1: And I call my dad this story we telling the
26:59
Speaker 1: Boo Book and he is sobbing on the phone, asking
27:04
Speaker 1: me not to go. And I had given up going
27:08
Speaker 1: to the CIA and going to work for the agency
27:10
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to scare my parents. But before
27:13
Speaker 1: I took the foreign correspondent job, I sat both my
27:15
Speaker 1: parents and I said, look, you're you have to realize
27:17
Speaker 1: that I'm going to get going being doing really dangerous places,
27:21
Speaker 1: you know, going to dangerous places and doing dangerous things,
27:23
Speaker 1: and you're gonna have to be okay with seeing that
27:25
Speaker 1: on TV. Oh yeah, we think this is great. We
27:28
Speaker 1: think it's so great, we think it's so great. And
27:29
Speaker 1: then I'm heading to Cairo. I'm in the Athens airport
27:32
Speaker 1: and my dad is on the phone sobbing, and he says,
27:35
Speaker 1: please don't go. You know, your mother and I are
27:37
Speaker 1: petrified about what's going to happen to you in Egypt.
27:38
Speaker 1: And I said, that's fine, I don't have to go.
27:41
Speaker 1: But then I quit and come home because I signed
27:45
Speaker 1: up to do this. This is my job, this is
27:47
Speaker 1: what I need to go do, and if I'm not
27:49
Speaker 1: going to do it, then I'm done. And I think
27:52
Speaker 1: that was really this this change moment in his and
27:57
Speaker 1: my relationship that you know, in that six eight weeks
28:00
Speaker 1: between being in Egypt for four weeks or three weeks
28:04
Speaker 1: and then then Libya for four or five weeks running
28:06
Speaker 1: with the rebels there, I kind of grew up in
28:09
Speaker 1: his eyes, and there was I think a sense, a
28:13
Speaker 1: little sense of letting go for him, which was hard.
28:15
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, it's hard, as you point out,
28:18
Speaker 1: to go see your kids do dangerous things. It's harder
28:20
Speaker 1: still to watch them get shot on TV or shot
28:22
Speaker 1: at on TV. But it was important.
28:27
Speaker 3: I loved those chapters because you could just for me,
28:30
Speaker 3: as someone who like works in media, to see how
28:33
Speaker 3: the sausage is made was very interesting. The the sort
28:39
Speaker 3: of rewinding a bit to what you said about getting
28:43
Speaker 3: shot at on TV and Libya is one of my
28:45
Speaker 3: favorite stories from the book of Your Mom, Like, can
28:49
Speaker 3: you tell the story because I'm it was like a
28:52
Speaker 3: couple of weeks since I've read it, but she was watching.
28:55
Speaker 1: I'm in Libya and we're running with the rebels. So
28:59
Speaker 1: it's small team, four or five guys, couple of security guys, drivers, whatever,
29:04
Speaker 1: and we're in eastern Libya, and we have a couple
29:06
Speaker 1: of satellite phones ab uplinks to send our stories back.
29:10
Speaker 1: And we're at this checkpoint about noon Libya time, so
29:15
Speaker 1: early in the morning in the United States, and all
29:19
Speaker 1: of a sudden. Our lead security guy who is a
29:22
Speaker 1: former Kiwi New Zealand SAS guy had a long time
29:27
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan other places, about three hundred and twenty pounds.
29:30
Speaker 1: It was a Maori guy. He looks at my photographer
29:34
Speaker 1: and I and there's our trucks parked twenty five thirty
29:38
Speaker 1: yards away. He goes, we're leaving right now, and I
29:40
Speaker 1: was like no, no, no, okay. Before I could sort of
29:43
Speaker 1: say anything, both my photographer and I he had lifted
29:46
Speaker 1: up like this kind of style over his head by
29:50
Speaker 1: the pulled straps in our flat jackets, and we're sort
29:52
Speaker 1: of skipping across as he's running and pushing us into
29:55
Speaker 1: the truck, throws us into the truck. We'd go about
29:57
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty two hundred yards away, get out
30:00
Speaker 1: of the truck now about forty seconds have elapsed, pile
30:03
Speaker 1: out of the truck, set the camera back up, and
30:05
Speaker 1: just then Libyan jets get offe jets come over and
30:08
Speaker 1: bomb the checkpoint. Obviously there was other media around, so
30:12
Speaker 1: we knew the story was going to get out, and
30:16
Speaker 1: shot a bunch of stuff for the stories. And then
30:18
Speaker 1: as we're driving back to the sort of our staging area.
30:26
Speaker 1: I knew that the video of the Fox News crew
30:29
Speaker 1: getting bombed was going to get out and be on TV.
30:32
Speaker 1: So I called my mom and said, hey, Mom, I said,
30:35
Speaker 1: really busy, no matter what you hear on TV, I'm okay,
30:39
Speaker 1: gotta go and okay. And that's so I think that
30:47
Speaker 1: that was a moment that I don't think she ever
30:49
Speaker 1: expected to be in, but that was what happened. And
30:52
Speaker 1: I do think.
30:53
Speaker 3: I mean, your dad watched you grew up in those
30:55
Speaker 3: a couple of weeks, but you really did actually grow
30:58
Speaker 3: up in those couple of weeks.
31:00
Speaker 1: It was going going to war. Going to war changes you, yeah,
31:04
Speaker 1: and losing people, you know, I lost I lost friends
31:06
Speaker 1: over there, and that that changes you. It really does.
31:12
Speaker 1: And I think for whatever the difficulties that I've had,
31:18
Speaker 1: you know, sort of with autism of emoting and relating
31:21
Speaker 1: to people emotionally and on and on, that that may
31:26
Speaker 1: have been the kind of something that broke through a
31:29
Speaker 1: little that and sort of change change my personality a
31:32
Speaker 1: little bit.
31:32
Speaker 3: I want to fast forward a little bit because you
31:34
Speaker 3: talk about it in the book also, and this is
31:36
Speaker 3: something that I know a lot of parents of autistic
31:39
Speaker 3: kids fear, and it's What I love about your perspective
31:43
Speaker 3: is that you are a successful adult in every way.
31:46
Speaker 3: But I think more important than your professional success is
31:50
Speaker 3: your personal success, because that is, to me more important
31:54
Speaker 3: the the fears that parents have about their kids, usually
31:59
Speaker 3: their sons, because autism is overwhelmingly male dominated in the
32:03
Speaker 3: dating world. Was there any sort of coaching that your
32:07
Speaker 3: dad did with you that parents can take with them
32:11
Speaker 3: in the book about like how because you did have
32:14
Speaker 3: a hard time relating to other kids, but like, how
32:18
Speaker 3: do you teach your autistic kid how to date?
32:21
Speaker 1: I think, look again, I'm not a parenting coach or
32:25
Speaker 1: anything like that, you know. I think it took over
32:32
Speaker 1: the years, a couple of really special women that I
32:35
Speaker 1: had relationships with, that understood and saw something in me,
32:39
Speaker 1: and saw beyond the awkwardness and saw beyond the difficulties.
32:42
Speaker 1: And yeah, I tell the story of the book. I
32:44
Speaker 1: was in seventh grade and I really wanted to try
32:46
Speaker 1: to impress this girl that I liked, so I tried
32:47
Speaker 1: to learn how to play tennis and I one of
32:52
Speaker 1: the things that happened, or another side of my life,
32:57
Speaker 1: was I was severely cross eyed when I was born.
33:00
Speaker 1: I have no depth perception I've had enough surgeries that
33:02
Speaker 1: I don't look cross eyed, but my eyes never fused.
33:04
Speaker 1: So ball sports are a non starter. They hit me
33:06
Speaker 1: in the head or I swing and miss or whatever.
33:10
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to learn to play tennis and my
33:12
Speaker 1: dad finally comes to me and he's like, look, I'm
33:16
Speaker 1: a fairly good tennis player, which he was. He was
33:19
Speaker 1: a very good amateur tennis player, raquetball player, golf for
33:22
Speaker 1: everything else. He says to me, He goes, look, I
33:25
Speaker 1: know something about tennis and sports. He said, you are
33:29
Speaker 1: never going to be able to play tennis. Ever. You
33:33
Speaker 1: will always be terrible. He goes, I'll pay for as
33:36
Speaker 1: many lessons as you want, but all come to every
33:40
Speaker 1: lesson you have and every tournament you have, you will
33:42
Speaker 1: always be terrible. You will never be able to do this.
33:46
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really important lesson from parents
33:49
Speaker 1: to kids, because I knew that I could trust him
33:51
Speaker 1: to tell me when I could do things. I think
33:53
Speaker 1: there's this desire, you know, and there was, you know,
33:56
Speaker 1: when I was dating, when I was younger, you know,
33:58
Speaker 1: there was you know, like, look, this girl doesn't like you,
34:00
Speaker 1: and you need to understand that. You understand what that means,
34:03
Speaker 1: and no amount of trying is gonna fix that. And
34:07
Speaker 1: that that realism in all parts of life, I think,
34:11
Speaker 1: whether it be in dating, or in sports, or in
34:13
Speaker 1: academics or in career, that was really important. And you
34:17
Speaker 1: hear all these kids say, oh you know all these pards,
34:18
Speaker 1: Oh you know, go be whoever you want you, go
34:20
Speaker 1: do it wherever you want you. My kid can do this.
34:22
Speaker 1: No they can't. Now, they can do other things, and
34:25
Speaker 1: they can be great at other things, but you know,
34:28
Speaker 1: the life's hard enough. And one thing that my parents
34:32
Speaker 1: were always very direct about was what they thought I
34:35
Speaker 1: was good at and what they thought I wasn't. And
34:38
Speaker 1: they were also very directed when I met Rachel that
34:42
Speaker 1: I had won the lottery and better not thrue this one.
34:44
Speaker 4: Up, bethany Where Where do you fall on that on
34:50
Speaker 4: telling your kids that they're just because this is the
34:53
Speaker 4: one thing that.
34:53
Speaker 1: My husband and I disagree on.
34:55
Speaker 4: I believe that you should be pretty quick and pretty
34:59
Speaker 4: savag about taling kids that they aren't good at something
35:03
Speaker 4: and they should try something else.
35:05
Speaker 3: Where do you feel I'm savage? Yeah, I'm savage. I
35:10
Speaker 3: tried and this was something that I took from my upbringing,
35:14
Speaker 3: my mom was very very honest with me, not to
35:18
Speaker 3: a fault, like she was just very very honest. And
35:21
Speaker 3: I've tried always to be very honest. One time that
35:24
Speaker 3: I feel like i've struggled with that actually is at
35:27
Speaker 3: the dentist we put laughing gas on a kid before
35:30
Speaker 3: they got anesthesia. I told them, you know, there's going
35:34
Speaker 3: to be a pinch, and the dentist got really mad
35:36
Speaker 3: at me for warning them about the shot that was coming,
35:39
Speaker 3: because he's like, that's why we gave them the laughing guess,
35:42
Speaker 3: so they don't know it's coming. I'm like, well, I
35:43
Speaker 3: don't want to lie, and the dentist was like, please
35:46
Speaker 3: do please lie.
35:49
Speaker 4: Okay, so maybe too honest.
35:54
Speaker 3: One of the best gifts that I think, Leland, that
35:56
Speaker 3: your parents gave you was your sister Liberty.
36:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
36:01
Speaker 3: I as an only child raising children who have siblings.
36:07
Speaker 3: I loved reading the tibots that you wrote about Liberty,
36:11
Speaker 3: and in the acknowledgments, I think it was you kind
36:15
Speaker 3: of acknowledged that, like all of this stuff, bringing it
36:18
Speaker 3: up was painful and she had to navigate being the
36:23
Speaker 3: sister of sure this whole situation. I want to hear
36:27
Speaker 3: more about her perspective of you know, and.
36:32
Speaker 1: It's such a great point. And to be fair, my
36:36
Speaker 1: mom really made a push as we were working on
36:39
Speaker 1: the book, and obviously I wrote it along with my
36:42
Speaker 1: co author Don Yaeger, but you know, mom and Dad
36:45
Speaker 1: and Liberty were reading chapters along the way, and in
36:48
Speaker 1: keeping with sort of who we are as a family,
36:49
Speaker 1: we really didn't share it outside of the family, but
36:52
Speaker 1: my mom really pushed. She goes, you need to understand
36:55
Speaker 1: the effects this had on Liberty and how many other
36:59
Speaker 1: siblings of kids who have troubles. Doesn't have to be autism.
37:03
Speaker 1: It can be ADHD, it can be behavior issues, it
37:06
Speaker 1: can be learning disabilities, it can be physical disabilities, it
37:09
Speaker 1: can be anxiety. All these kids who require a lot
37:12
Speaker 1: of attention from their parents, which clearly I did, the
37:16
Speaker 1: sibling also has. There's a real effect. So I put
37:19
Speaker 1: on my journalism hat and I spent a long time
37:21
Speaker 1: listening to Liberty and just asking her questions about her
37:24
Speaker 1: experience with me. And you know, there's a six year
37:28
Speaker 1: age different. So the beginning of her realizing that I
37:32
Speaker 1: was different was in fifth grade. She was in kindergarten.
37:34
Speaker 1: I would walk home from school every day just sobbing,
37:38
Speaker 1: and she would hold my hand and she didn't know
37:40
Speaker 1: why I was sobbing. She knew people were mean to me.
37:42
Speaker 1: And Liberty is about it has about as high of
37:44
Speaker 1: an EQ as you can have. She also has pretty
37:46
Speaker 1: high IQ. She's a PhD in math from I. But
37:50
Speaker 1: we know which apple fell from the tree and then
37:52
Speaker 1: the apple that rolled down the hill. But she understood
37:58
Speaker 1: that I had these real difficulties, and in look, there
38:00
Speaker 1: was a huge difficulty for her that when we got
38:05
Speaker 1: to high school. In middle school, which I went from
38:09
Speaker 1: seventh to twelfth grade at the same school she went
38:11
Speaker 1: from seventh to twelfth grade. But when I was in
38:13
Speaker 1: twelfth grade, she started as a seventh grader. And to
38:16
Speaker 1: give people a perspective, and I tell the story in
38:18
Speaker 1: the book that she's starting her seventh grade year, and
38:23
Speaker 1: every seventh grader is assigned to twelfth grader. Boys are
38:27
Speaker 1: signed boys. Girls are signed girls. Big sister, little sister
38:30
Speaker 1: to look after you and sort of teach you about
38:32
Speaker 1: the school and you know, kind of give you stuff
38:33
Speaker 1: to do, especially in the fall. And there were three
38:36
Speaker 1: girls in total who were asked to be Liberty's big
38:39
Speaker 1: sister from my class, and all three of them in
38:41
Speaker 1: success and said no, thank you. And finally she didn't
38:44
Speaker 1: have one. And I was known to teachers as the
38:52
Speaker 1: retarded kid. Now I don't know if we do were
38:54
Speaker 1: not to say that word, but that's what I was called,
38:56
Speaker 1: and she was called the retarded kid sister universally in school.
39:02
Speaker 1: You can imagine what that was like for her coming
39:03
Speaker 1: into seventh grade, and there were teachers who were frank
39:06
Speaker 1: with her, who said, like, you know, I hope you're
39:08
Speaker 1: not as screwed up as your brother is in the
39:11
Speaker 1: and so you imagine her trying to deal with this
39:17
Speaker 1: ying and Yang are being caught between trying to be
39:20
Speaker 1: her own person and realizing she was going to have
39:22
Speaker 1: five years of or six years of school to deal
39:24
Speaker 1: with at this place, and then also wanting to stand
39:27
Speaker 1: up for a brother. So it was a I think,
39:30
Speaker 1: really remarkable how she navigated that.
39:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and that was something that I really took
39:36
Speaker 3: from the book Born Lucky out September thirtieth. I try
39:40
Speaker 3: to do that more often than I actually did this time,
39:43
Speaker 3: but that was something I really took from the book,
39:45
Speaker 3: was how your sister and parents navigated all of that.
39:48
Speaker 3: Because I think that I know that you keep saying
39:51
Speaker 3: that it's not prescriptive, but there's so and I can
39:54
Speaker 3: say this like authoritatively. There's so few voices for parents
39:59
Speaker 3: who don't want to listen to the experts and because
40:02
Speaker 3: they're wrong, very very very frequently. I know someone who
40:06
Speaker 3: their kid got an autism diagnosis at three. They were
40:08
Speaker 3: handed a pamphlet that says this is this is the
40:11
Speaker 3: website for Autism Speaks. Good luck to you. And I
40:13
Speaker 3: don't like Autism Speaks. I don't like anything in that
40:16
Speaker 3: packet that they were given. And I also really appreciated
40:22
Speaker 3: hearing your perspective as someone who overcame and it wasn't
40:27
Speaker 3: an accident, it was by design and it was like
40:29
Speaker 3: a plan that your father kind of had to put together.
40:33
Speaker 1: And yeah, no, and look, I think the idea behind
40:37
Speaker 1: writing the book was to give parents real hope that,
40:43
Speaker 1: in the words of George Will who wrote the forward,
40:46
Speaker 1: the mountain moving power of parental love is real. And
40:50
Speaker 1: this is proof of that. This book is proof. I
40:52
Speaker 1: am living proof that it can make an enormous difference.
40:56
Speaker 1: And the experts aren't always right. The flip side is
40:58
Speaker 1: I always I will always be who I am right
41:00
Speaker 1: and you know. Thank God, I have parents who understand that,
41:04
Speaker 1: and my wife now and her family and everybody else
41:06
Speaker 1: who you know, I am who I am, And I've
41:09
Speaker 1: said this before, and I even in the book say that,
41:14
Speaker 1: you know, I will always be who I am. You're
41:16
Speaker 1: never you're never cured, but you've learned. There was a
41:20
Speaker 1: moment today that I somebody wanted to talk to me,
41:23
Speaker 1: and I was way too focused on what I was doing,
41:25
Speaker 1: and I was extraordinarily rude. And I think to myself, like, yeah,
41:29
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, like you just sometimes you won't learn, really,
41:35
Speaker 1: And I said, you know, and you can make an
41:37
Speaker 1: excuse and go, well, that's the autism or that's whatever.
41:39
Speaker 1: It's like, No, that that's just who I am. And
41:41
Speaker 1: I have to be better every day and focus every
41:44
Speaker 1: day to try to to sort of live up to
41:48
Speaker 1: what my dad taught me and how he taught me.
41:50
Speaker 1: But I think the idea for parents that there's real
41:56
Speaker 1: hope and the experts aren't always right, and that you
42:00
Speaker 1: said at the beginning sort of you know, you want
42:03
Speaker 1: to make life easy for your kid, and I think
42:06
Speaker 1: we really forget how important doing hard things is because
42:10
Speaker 1: then you know you can do them. Yeah, that is
42:13
Speaker 1: a lesson that is not being taught right now.
42:15
Speaker 3: Amen. Amen, I think that's a really good note to
42:19
Speaker 3: end on.
42:20
Speaker 1: Yes, true, and thank you.
42:23
Speaker 4: Coming on telling historians incredible well.
42:26
Speaker 1: And in good luck what you're pregnant? When do you do?
42:30
Speaker 4: Uh march I Okay, I just had a baby, so
42:34
Speaker 4: that this is why I'm it's not that exciting anymore.
42:37
Speaker 3: It's it's exciting every time, Yes, every time, And it's
42:44
Speaker 3: fun because like you see, like you see all the
42:48
Speaker 3: all the milestones every single time, which, by the way,
42:52
Speaker 3: speaking of like autism and leland, all these things. Write
42:55
Speaker 3: this stuff down because when someone asks you, like when
42:58
Speaker 3: was the first time your fifth child rolled over? And
43:01
Speaker 3: it's like part of their questions, You're like, I could
43:03
Speaker 3: not tell you that to save my life. So write
43:07
Speaker 3: those things down because it all blurs together. Thank you
43:11
Speaker 3: so much for coming on. This was an incredible book.
43:14
Speaker 3: I loved it and like truly one sitting so refreshing.
43:20
Speaker 3: This perspective is not out there enough, and I hope
43:23
Speaker 3: it inspires parents to think outside the box. And friends
43:28
Speaker 3: that I have that have dealt with this diagnosis, the
43:32
Speaker 3: number one advice that I've heard from them is talk
43:34
Speaker 3: to successful adults on the spectrum. That is the number
43:40
Speaker 3: one piece of advice. And you don't even have to
43:42
Speaker 3: talk to Leland. You can just read the book and
43:43
Speaker 3: you don't have to feel like you're bothering someone, which
43:47
Speaker 3: is nice.
43:48
Speaker 1: But thank you all, really really appreciate it.
43:51
Speaker 3: The book is out born Lucky Leland that are NewsNation
43:55
Speaker 3: watch it every night and you also sorry, I know
43:58
Speaker 3: that I'm trying to end the show, but you have
44:00
Speaker 3: by younger sargan one all the time.
44:01
Speaker 1: She's one of my best friends. She's fantastic and she
44:04
Speaker 1: is filling in for me when I take vacation at
44:08
Speaker 1: different times and her every weekly show now is going
44:14
Speaker 1: to be on News Nation on Saturday afternoons. I love it,
44:17
Speaker 1: love it plastic.
44:18
Speaker 3: Okay, so until next time, subscribe and watch the podcast
44:23
Speaker 3: on our subsect. Don't forget so subscribe to our podcast.
44:26
Speaker 1: I'm the first man. I feel like I know now
44:28
Speaker 1: I've now blazed a path.
44:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, you really have. And it was a weird path
44:32
Speaker 3: because you're not even a dad yet, and so it
44:34
Speaker 3: was like we're letting, we're just letting any any old
44:38
Speaker 3: guy on these days. But you write an incredible book
44:40
Speaker 3: and have an incredible perspective, so thank you so much
44:42
Speaker 3: for coming on. Until next time, settle.
44:45
Speaker 4: It Ricochet
44:55
Speaker 1: Join the conversation.