Latest / Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD / Telling the Truth About Marriage with Young Kids with Majka Burhardt

Transcript

Telling the Truth About Marriage with Young Kids with Majka Burhardt · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to parent Data by Emily Oster. This is Emily.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I'm a professor of economics at Brown University and a
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: mom of two. I write a newsletter called parent Data,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and on this podcast.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: I'll read it to you.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: If you want to read the newsletter yourself and see
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: more of my writing on parenting and pregnancy, you can
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: sign up for free at www dot parentdata dot org.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: And now for today's newsletter, I am so delighted to
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: welcome Michael Barheart. Thank you so much for joining me.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: It's awesome to be here, Emily.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: So we're here to talk about your book more.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And I have to say I was very skeptical when
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: you reached out because I expected this to be a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: book about rock climbing, which is an activity that I
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: think is very scary, and as a result, I thought
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: that I would just be too scared and not be
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: able to relate. But actually the book is almost uncomfortably relatable. Alex,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: who works with me, and I were talking about how
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: we both really couldn't put it down, even at moments
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: when we thought, oh, I kind of ah, I'm feeling
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: this a little too much because it's not really a
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: book about climbing.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: So much.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: It's really about parenting and partnering when you parent, and
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: that conflict and all all that stuff, and so we're
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: going to get into that, and that's really where I
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: want to focus. I think it's so relatable to so
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: many parents. But first I want to ask you this
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: sort of basic book question, which is, you know, can
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: you tell us in your own words, what is this book?
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Why did you write it, and what do you hope
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: people will get out of it?
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: I love hearing that that it was like kind of
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: itchy and close to you, because I mean, really, for me,
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: this book was how I survived being pregnant and then
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: being a mom to young twins. And I didn't.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Set out to write this book. I wrote this book
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: like the way a.
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: Teenager turns to their journal to try to like understand
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: what the heck is going on in their life. And
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: that's really what this book was for me as a
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: you know, when I was becoming a mom and then
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: in my early years of being a mom, and my
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: kids are still really little, they're six and a half
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: right now, I'm still at the very beginning of this journey.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: But I felt like I had this fiery ball of
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: unknown and ankst. I needed a place to put it,
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: and so I put it in writing, and eventually I
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: looked at it and said, oh, I think, actually, what
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: if I stitched that together? What if this was something
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: I was willing to share with other people what they relate?
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: Is this a similar experience? Because I really felt like
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: I wanted to have like those were the conversations I
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: was dying to have with anybody I met on the street. Like,
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: you know, I'd see some random mom and I'd be like, no,
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: flipping way, is it this hard? I had no idea, right,
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: It's like, who knew that all this stuff was gonna
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: cascade and feel like this? And how do I find
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: my way to being a dialogue about it? So in
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: some ways the book was really selfishly that's what it
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: was for me. But it's you know, it's the story
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: of me balancing becoming a mom, thinking that I could
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: have sort of one kid and just mesh them into
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: my lives and instead having two at one time and
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: having the universe say guess who's in charge? Trying to
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: do it with a really dynamic career between being a
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: professional climber and also growing a your international nonprofit and
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: trying not to take my marriage.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so far, so far, so good.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: You're still married, you still have two children, you still.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Have a job, so check check yeah, check check check check.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: All right, it's all we're We're all great.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no problem is super easy.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: So what's interesting about the book is it's written entirely
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: in these form of sort of audio journals and journal
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: entries that you wrote I presumed, unless you're a very
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: good figure, that you wrote at the time.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, at the time.
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: And I was.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Curious because it's it makes the reading of it so
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: very raw in a way that I think it wouldn't
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: be if you had written this in a more traditional
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: book form, where you looked back at those and use
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: those as material, but then you surface them through the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: experience that you have.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Several years later.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Why did you do it, Like, did.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: You ever consider the more traditional like I'll use this
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: as source material and then write a more regular memoiry
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: kind of book.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: No, Oh, I never considered that, because I was just
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: really fascinated with the integrity of Like I remember playing
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: myself back these audio recordings when I thought like, maybe
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: I'll type these out, see what it's about. And I'm
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: like that has to something has to happen with these
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: Like maybe it's just that my children are going to
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: listen to them one day. It's like this first person account,
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: and why do we need to change it? Why should
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: because I think when we do retrospectives, you everything gets
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: a little bit blurred and it gets a little it's
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: all like very lovely, and we kind of round the
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: edges a little bit. It's like, well, I probably wasn't
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: that mad, and it probably was like generally okay, and
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: now I have wisdom because I've had better sleep and
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: all these things. But when you're in the middle of it,
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: when you're just in the hot mess of it, like
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: if that's where you're trying to speak to and that's
• 4:40
  Speaker 4: the thing that I would have loved to have the
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: like as I said, those are the conversations I wouldn't
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: have Like to me, it was more important to sit
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: right there on the hot mess of it.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is it is hot mess.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you look back on this period and
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the stuff you wrote about, is there one sort of
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: entry or moment in the book where you would say
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: this was the low but like encapsulates the hot and
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: hot messiness of this experience.
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: It's a good question.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: I think that things got really really tricky for me
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: when my kids reached about two two and a half
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: and suddenly they're trying to you know, they're having all
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: these big emotions and words, and you know, I all
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: of a sudden realized that when I was at that age,
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: my parents were splitting up, and I would like, I
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: couldn't sit in the moment as a mom and try to,
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: you know, tell my kids how to be angry and
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: help them understand that anger was an okay thing, without
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: realizing that I never had that skill set given to
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: me when my family was blowing apart, and at the
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: same time, I was dealing with a ton of anger
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: and resentment towards my husband, which I knew wasn't entirely
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: healthy or entirely appropriately directed, but I just couldn't figure
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: out what to do about it. And I think like
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: being at like like the ven Diagram of Hell, that
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: that was was really really hard for me, right, Like
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: we always think about like this Van diagrams, like oh, all.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: These things are related.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: It's like no, no, Like it was too much, and
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: now I was like, how do I do this? And
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: how do I do it while trying to be like
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: a really patient, lovely mom who can say, yes, I've
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: got you, I'm here for all of your emotions and
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: like find a way to talk to my husband and say,
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: I feel like this and I know it's not it's
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: not entirely okay, but something about this is wrong and
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: we need to fix it. And holy god, how do
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: I under reparent myself? Like what are the tools that
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: I have so that I can show up as a
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: different parent to my kiddos?
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's so much in them.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: One thing that's so hard about that is this realization
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: that oh, I, like I need to parent differently than
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I was parented and I don't have those resources.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Comes in the moment that you need it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: It's not that I'm a year out before.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I have a child and I think, Okay, let me
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: fix all of my issues so I don't pass them
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to my kid.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: It's the moment where you think, oh my goodness.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I'm a passing a pass in it right now and
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: there's no time to figure and I.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: Had no idea.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: I thought of it so much more intellectually before. It's like, oh, yeah,
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: like you know, I see that my parents did this,
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: and here's why I want to carry on, like like
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: like you get a choice in the matter, right, but
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: it is not. You are just like like the I
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: don't know, like the giant bowling ball is coming at you.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: You can't get out of the way, and.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: You're just like, Okay, here we go. How I'm going
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: to do this?
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: And you know, how do I keep You know, it's
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: kind of like the repair concept, like how do I try?
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: How do I biff?
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: How do I go back to my kids the people
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: around me and say, yeah, I'm trying.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: I'm learning.
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to do something that I don't have the
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: muscle memory for. So I'm trying to create muscle memory
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: and emotional memory my kiddos while I'm doing it for myself.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I want to ask about the spousal stuff because that
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: is something that you know, that's a big piece of
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: this book, and it's it's one I was interesting because
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: if you look at the data the first year, first
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: few years of having kids, it's typically the low point
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: in the data for people's marriages. You sometimes they say,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: like it does recover in the data by the time
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you have grandchildren. So that's you know, something to look
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: forward to about.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: Things.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: It's not like it's like three years apart. Okay, that's hysterical, But.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: I remember this from my own sort of for my
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: own marriages, like that year being the most conflict that
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: we had, more so than the pandemic or the arrival
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: of the second child, or when we had to move
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: across the country, like all of these other disruptions, I
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: felt like were we were much more on on a
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: team about and the beginning of parenting had in some
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: ways les like weirdly less of a team feel because
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I was so there was so much on stur Day.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure what exactly what is, but I think
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: it resonates with a lot of people. But the thing
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: is that when I look back on that, I can say, well,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: you know, that was really hard, but I don't remember
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: all the details, like I remember one particular incident involving
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the rock and play sleeper and napping, But other than that,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: it is this rounded edges, you know, and and I
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: don't relive it with frequency, and of course writing it
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: in this way you do relive it with frequency.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: So I was first wondering, you know, how did that go?
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Like how hard was it? To have him read that.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: Man, it was super hard to be honest right like
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: it is. You know, this was not something that was
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: really fun to share, to be like, hey, here are
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: my inner workings. But it also seemed to me really
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: important to say, if we're really in this to win it,
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: if we're really this team in the long run, then
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: if you don't know that this is where I was
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: at during this point, are we really being transparent right like?
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: And not to try to push us to a cliff,
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: but to just be like, this is how hard it was,
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: and this is how scared I was. You know, Peter
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: knew I was working on the book after a certain point,
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: but it wasn't for years because I didn't know I
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: was working on a book. It was really not until
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: like the kids were like three and a half that
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh, I think this is actually going
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: to be a book, right And then I like spent
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: the next year like writing and putting it together and
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: then sending it out, and then it was like, well,
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: I guess it is a book. And I think that
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: for me, it was more important to show up who
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: I am to my spouse than it was to mute
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: that and to like take the risk, and it's been hard.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: I mean it's been bumpy. Like I am married to
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: someone who's very private, right, and like that is not
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: his dream. It's like, yay, let's write a book about
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: the hardest part of our lives, and let's not even
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: do it in retrospective with like some nice blurring and
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: some great morals of every It's just like, let's be
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: in the shit of it and really show people what
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: that felt like. But to me, I'm like, yeah, but
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: what about the gift that we can give other people
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: to be like I'm not alone, right, because it feels
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: so terrifyingly alone.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's the thing I remember at one point thinking.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: Well, of course that's why all these marriages blow apart
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: when that people have little kids, or where you like
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: lay the tracks for just so much intense resentment and
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: nature that you can't pull yourself out of it because
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: you've like got and it's like, we have to have
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: a better way to do this, And I think to
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: have a better way to do this, it's it's it's
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: an intersection of all the pieces, right, It's the Marshall
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Plan for moms. It's like having different conversations about how
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: we're reparenting. It's looking at the data and saying, why
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: are we being led astray with all of these like
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: wives tales versus like what's really happening? And it's also
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: saying it's this heart. When it's heart, it's this heart.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: It can't just be fixed by saying, well, just buck
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: up and one day you'll get sleep and by the
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: time you have grandkids you'll probably be okay with each other.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Like that's bullshit, right, I'm just reporting the data and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not in your bullshit, But I'm just saying, like,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: if we can't solve, we're not being able to solve for.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: This and take care of people and love them and
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: nurture them on this journey unless we're willing to say that,
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: like sometimes it feels that heart.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: So I'm like, all right, I'll fall on the sword.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: I'll be the person being like it can feel this heart,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: and I can do it in a public way.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that's so interesting about
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the way that you write this and the journey we
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: get on here is that there's there's a lot of
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: discussion of breastfeeding, so and there's a lot of discussion
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: of your your experience with breastfeeding and your you.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Know, and and how much how much you liked it in.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Some sense or I don't know, maybe that's the other
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: right way to put it, but that's sort of how
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: I read it, that it was complicated, but.
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: Ultimately I think it's really important to me. Yeah.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but that I.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Think brings up one of the reasons that some of
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: these you very deep inequities exist, which is that that
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: is something that only you could do, and there's this
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: tension of you know, well, I want the things, and
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you feel this in the book, and I think a
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: lot of us feel in the world like I want
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: this to be exactly equal, except I also want this
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: other thing which only I can do, and somehow, I
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: don't know, I want it. I just want it to
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: be different. I want there to be away for all
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of those things to happen. And as even as far
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: as we could move to make things better, that will
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: always be in the way, and versions of that, the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: childbirth part, the breastfeeding part, some of those things will
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: always be in the way.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's like there's almost this desire to have a
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: commensurate commitment from the other person to be like, yes,
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: I can't do this, but I will. I will shoulder
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: extra of these other things because you're shouldering these pieces.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And it's like for me, I always get obsessed, and
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: I mean it's in the book.
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: It's like I try to do the math on things.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: I'm like, why is this not equal? Like what's feeling wrong?
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: How do I solve this? And it's like you can't
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: really apply math to eything because there is that there
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: are these personal choices, right, But you know, definitely my
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: mom's generation, it was not even an option if you
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: were going to be like a crusher career mother, like
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: you could not say and I'm also going to try
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: to pick up my kids sometimes at three o'clock. No
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: way could you ever do that? Right? You just had
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: to like fully beyond that other track. And I think
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: now there's this question of what if I can try
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: to have this career and I can try to be
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: really present as a parent. And I think then then
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: kind of the corollary to what you were saying, Emily,
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: is is your spouse also trying to do all that
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: or are they not? And if they aren't, which could
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: be their prerogative and could be the way your agreement
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: is are you always going to feel like there's an imbalance, right,
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: And it's kind of like carrying the breastfeeding thing or that,
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: you know, like being the birthing parent forward and being like,
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: I'm owning this, but I want to own this because
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: this is what makes my family work. And I wish
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: you were owning something similarly big.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think what's so hard about that is
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that it ventures into the territory of it's not just that.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: I want you to do the dishes. I want you
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: to love doing the dishes. You know. It's not just
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: that I want you to do the thing.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: I want you to feel like you want to do
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the thing, and that sometimes it feels like all we
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: should be able to ask, like it should be good
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: enough that the dishes are done, and that goes, that
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: goes in both directions.
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: But I think it happens when we care.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: When we care about something, we have a set of
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: preferences that we almost want the partner to have the
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: same set of preferences, And there can sometimes be free
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: freedom in saying, you know, this is my this is
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: my set of preferences, and I like you. Actually I
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: have a much higher taste for random times with my kid,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: you know, picking them up and walking to the Kimdingian
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: store at three o'clock in the afternoon. And I organize
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: aspects of my professional life around that in a way
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that my husband does not, and not because he doesn't
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: like the kids or because he doesn't care about equity,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: but because that isn't important to him. And I'm always
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: struggling a little bit with, you know, to the extent
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: that we do on equal amounts of parenting, which we
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: do to you know, how much of that is because
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: that's really what I want? And how much of that
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: is an underlying inequity And if it's just because it's
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: what I want, how should I.
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: Feel about that?
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: And I don't think there's an easy answer in any
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: of that.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, So there's this.
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: Piece that I really want to write, and I want
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: to write, like this article about the last thing that
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: I'm going to this is gonna be very like man
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: woman conversation right now, right, but like, the last thing
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: I think husbands should ever ask their wives is what
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: they want?
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Because I hate that.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: Question, right, I'm like, I don't want It's not that simple.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: A Marshall plan for moms complete equality, you know, Yeah.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: Exactly and like and in this moment, what I actually
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: want is to is for you to just know what
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: has to happen, because the icing on the cake is
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: to divide the actual task.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: It relates closely to some of this this idea that
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I talk about sometimes around and called total responsibility transfer
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: is related to the mental load. You know, you get
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: into these places where it's the version of you know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: what do you want? Is sort of like tell me
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: exactly what to do and then I will implement it
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: when a huge amount of the work is thinking about
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: what needs to get done, and so there's space there
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: for doing a.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Better job probably for all of us. In saying you're
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: responsible for this thing.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: You know that we're going to divide the tasks in
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: a way, not that I'm responsible for everything and I
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: allocate them like you're my employee, but like we're the.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: You know, the co CEOs or whatever exactly.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: It's like this is totally your genre and I don't
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: have anything to think about in that. And I think
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: that's what it comes down to, because it is it
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: is that mental labor right to actually carry that and
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: to have it all and that's why you get to
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: this point where's like I'll just do it right, And
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: I mean it can be in the flip side of it,
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: like you know, we've had these like puking snowstores up
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: in northern New Hampshire right now, and my husband is
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: the person who deals with the snowblower that has been
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: broken for three times. If he gets it back, he
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: tries it, you know, and it's like, I'm just like,
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: I'm not on the snowboarder team. That's that's like entirely
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: your team. I'm excited about that being your mental mode,
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: you know, but it's you know, like I'm not stepping
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: in there to do that one. Yeah.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: No, And we have we have then we have something
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: about you know, anything that's about electronics or cars or
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: anything where I think he wants me to care.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: He wants me to care, you know, like.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Which if we need a new car, which trim should
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: it have? And I'm like, please don't ask me, like
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: I don't care.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: But see that's you being like just tell me what
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: you want.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking, No, I think he wants me to have
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: an opinion.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I think he really genuinely wants me to like engage
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: with this question because he thinks I don't know that
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: it's important or there's something. I mean, we're off topic,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: but like there's something about this particular aspect of the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: car trim that he he.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: That is that is like a parallel.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: There's so many other things, and I can see now
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: how he feels because I'm just like, this is the
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: third email, I don't care, don't ask again, doesn't matter
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: at all to me.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: But I think it's about like a shared experience, right,
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: like when you are carrying the load of whatever it is,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: you're like, it's this odd thing. Like before we had kids,
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: I felt like nobody knew me better than my husband.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: Nobody knew everything that was happening with my like with
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: my job, like the ins and outs, and all of
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: a sudden we lost that because we didn't have time
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: to talk about any of that stuff. And so there
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: are these ways that you kind of like, you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: put a shot off the bow to be like I
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: need to think about like, you know, the socks that
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: don't seem to fit my children's feet for any worse,
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: and like I can't seem to keep these things on
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: and I'm actually putting mental bandwidin it. And he's kind
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: of like why are we even talk I don't want
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: to talk about that. I'm like, okay, fine, right, but
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: it's it's like you're trying to find these points to
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: bring each other in and I think that I think
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: the reality of having young kids is that you just
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: missfire with your partner all the time, and you can't
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: see the misfires, and you're too tired and you're too
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: caught up in whatever the hell you're going through emotionally
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: that you're not seeing that your partner's going through that too,
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: and you can't help catch them. And I think that is,
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: you know, one of the reasons that it's so darn hard.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, And I think that does get better,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and partly because for the most part, you get slightly
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: less tired and you have slightly more time, and you
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: wake up one morning and you realize, oh, we could
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: have a cup of coffee together and we could talk
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: about something other than missing socks. And I think that's
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: when the moments when that happens and you and you
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: find that you do still like your partner are actually
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: quite special, right, The sort of realization of like, oh,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying doing this and.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: I wish we could do more of it.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: But actually I'm enjoying because I like you, and that
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: like that itself is a.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Really nice that's a nice realization.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah it is.
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: It's also I mean, I can do this now with hindsight.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: The irony is that I have no doubt Peter was
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: right there trying his best the whole time. That's not
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: a question, right, And that's the irony of this, that
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: you could be trying your best. But again, it's like
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: that missfire piece. So it's not only you find these
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: moments and you say, oh, man, I really like you,
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: but also yeah I haven't. I haven't been seeing you
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: and you have been seeing me. And but yet that's
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: kind of how we based our whole relationship before having kids,
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: was that we were the people who saw and got
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: each other. What a wild thing to then be tossed
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: into being parents, sharing the most intimate experience you could
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: ever share, but not sharing it. That doesn't make sense.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: But that's actually, to me a summary of early parenting.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: No, that's so that is like, that's such a perfect
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: that's such a perfect summary.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: So I had one other more specific question.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I was just curious, probably because you have a sort
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of shared experience you talk a lot about the iniquities
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: or the feelings of inequities when sort of Peter goes
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: back to work climbing and you sort of do it
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: as a lesser thing, lesser but like in a less
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: intense way, at least initially. How much do you think
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that inequity was so visible because you have the same job.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, hugely, right, because I mean I look at people.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, I went.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: I was in Kenya this past November and I met
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: this team member who I've been working with for Zoom
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: for three years, and I was like, holy cow, she's
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: so much taller that I had no idea and she's
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: she's like, wow, you are so much shorter than I
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: thought you were.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Right, Like we do.
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: Our brains do this thing that we were like, oh,
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: I know who this person is, and you map yourself
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: onto other people without us knowing it. Right, So I
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: think in this way, well, intellectually I know that we
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: are completely different. I think that I always equivocate us,
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: and it was much easier.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: It's like, well, we're the same.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: We're just kind of these different versions of each other.
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: And then all of a sudden, it's like, whoa, we
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: are not different. Versions of each other. He did not
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: gain seventy pounds care like twins and then have to have,
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: you know, an induction and forty two hours of labor
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: n a C section, and you know, it's like, no,
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: there's just no way, and that that was hard for me.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: And I do think you're right that it like having
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: that mirror that was never a mirror but is really
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: not a mirror there. It just felt like it was
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: more in my face than it would have been if
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: he had a different passion, if he had a different career.
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: And it also and it manifests in these different ways
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: because you also see desire, right, Like, That's something I've
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: had to really have a reckoning with, is that our
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: our appetite for what we want to do as climbers
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: is different now, and it's it's always been a little
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: bit different, but it's much more different from each other
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: now with our kids than it was before we had kids.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I totally resonate with that.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I think this idea of sort of we're doing the
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: same thing and then all of a sudden, the kind
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: of foray into parenting made us, I think for Jesse
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and I too sort of maybe realize oh, like we're
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: not you know, we're not really doing the same thing.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And now we're like really not doing the same thing.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: But you know, for a long time we were sort
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: of I felt like I was doing kind of the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: same thing in a more interested, not as good way,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: which was, you know, more tired way.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Let's say, yeah.
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: But it's again, it's all these things are probably like
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: these dials in our in our psyche that are that
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: when you when you lay them out like this, you're like, wow,
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: those are really not functional. Like humans should do a
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: better job, right, We shouldn't just see that we're the
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: same as our partner, because it's going to kick you
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: and it's going to bite you in the ass, right,
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: But but yet we do it and then all of
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: a sudden, I think it adds to the different tension
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: points vera, as if you had some like more zen
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: way of understanding from the very beginning, like they are
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: a unique individual. We sometimes cross over in these patterns,
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: but we will always pursue it differently, like it'd probably
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: be healthier. But I just I didnt start from that point.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: No, I know, the getting must start there. Okay, so
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: my last question for you is, have the kids read
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: the book, and do you or do you think I
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: guess they're only six and a half so maybe not yet,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: but but.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: Do you think that you will have them read it?
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: They know about the book, which is really fun, and
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: they I've read them little excerts of them or I've
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: told them funny stories that I've recounted in it. They're
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: too little to really understand the book. And because it's
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: so intense, I want to be careful about when it's.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Time for them to read the book.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: The whole point of this book, it's a book to them, right,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: So I remember early on someone be like, you can't
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: write this your kids, you're going to read it.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I'm like, that's the whole point. That's something. It's like,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: I want them to.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: Read it when it's because in my family, the family
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: that I am like trying to lead with these two
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: little humans, it's like, let's talk about it. Let's talk
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: about this thing that's hard. It's like the doctor Becky thing, right,
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: It's like, let's go sit on the bench together through
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: the hard so that you know that I can be
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: there with you and we can get to the other
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: side together. So absolutely, when it's time, like this book
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: is theirs.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: I think the greatest gift in sometimes to your kids
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: that they will be able to read this when they
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: are going through this themselves someday. And that's a pretty
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: I would have really liked that version of that from
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: my mom.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's all I wanted, Like, I just like desperately
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: wanted this like portal in time to go back and
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: be like, oh my gosh, you went through all of this,
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: How did that? Oh that created me? That's why I
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: think that it's just like my brain would explode in
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: thinking about it, right and even to this day, because
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: whenever I would ask my mom about her experience when
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: you know she was at this point with her young child,
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: she'd be like, well, and kind of remember this there.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: I remember this jump a jump thing that you seem
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: to really like. And I'm like, really, that's all. There
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: is so much more than a jump out, Like you
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: can only get four minutes out of a jump of
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: jump at this age, like you've got to tell me
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: what else was happening.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: But for her, it's like so far in the rear
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: view mirror.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: She's like, yeah, there's a jump a jump, and I
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: don't know, we just kind of got through it, And
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: I'm like, it's like, how did you go to work
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: the way you did and put on your nylons and
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: put on your suit and put on your heels and
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: like deal with the fact that I was puking my
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: brains out at some point in the middle of the
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: night because you had to be there with me when
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: I was two two years old and projectile vomiting, because
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: I'm sure I did it, but somehow, like you got
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: out the door by seventh three in the morning, How
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: the heck did.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: You do that? I also, yeah, I do wonder.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I vomited a lot as a kid, Like, well, you know,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: how did you get up and like go teach like
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: teach classes after How.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Did that happen? I don't know, and we'll never know,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: but your kids, your kids won't know, and my kids
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: won't know. There my kids will just like I'm.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Just gonna be like, oh, yeah, one time you vomited
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: up for some mushrooms, but anyway, I don't know, it
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: was pretty good. We're just did me any more mushrooms
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: after that? So that's that's all all right. So the
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: book is called More. It's absolutely amazing. It will be
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: linked in the notes to this, and I just tremendously
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: appreciate you being here.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: It's such an honor.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: I've been such a fan of your work, and when
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: you wrote me back on email, I did a little
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: dance and I was really stoked. So thank you for
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: making that happen.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: Well, good luck with the book launch. Thanks for listening.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, subscribe to parent Data
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: in your favorite podcast app and rate and review the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: show in Apple podcasts. You can subscribe to the whole
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: newsletter for free at www dot parentdata dot org.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: Talk to you soon.