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Transcript

What's The New Fresh Hell In Public Health? · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  [upbeat music] Hey, I have three kids. They eat so much. We try to eat real food. We try to cook when we can.
• 0:10
  We try not to waste too much 'cause it drives me nuts, and it's expensive, and also for obvious climate reasons, which is why the Mill Food Recycler changed our lives a couple years ago.
• 0:23
  It is an odorless, effortless, and fully automated food recycler. Look, we've had this thing front and center in our kitchen for, again, a couple years now it feels like, and it is just such a game changer.
• 0:37
  Way less waste, less smell, way less garbage, which by the way saves you money. No leaky bags.
• 0:44
  Look, you got peels, bones, stalks, whatever leftovers, dump them in the Mill, and Mill dries and grinds them while you sleep. Again, it doesn't smell, which I don't understand. It's sleek. It's actually sexy.
• 1:00
  Here's a question people ask, "How often do you empty it?" Good question. It's every three weeks. I don't know, maybe, and there's a bunch of us.
• 1:07
  Plus, there's a little app where you can control it if you want and set a schedule, and it shows you how much food your family keeps out of landfills. A delight.
• 1:15
  Look, you can get $75 off right now when you go to our special partner site. I'm gonna read you the link, but you should know it's also in the show notes, and you can just click it.
• 1:26
  It is mill.com/lp/important-not-important. That is [laughs] mill.com/lp/important-not-important. I couldn't remember that, so we put it in the show notes.
• 1:44
  It's right there for you. Check it out. Huge thanks to Mill for sponsoring our work and doing the right thing, and thanks to all of you listeners for supporting our partners.
• 1:54
  [upbeat music] I had to unsubscribe from someone's Substack 'cause she's a pediatrician, and she'll pose these questions, and sometimes they are, like, so absurd, and one is, "Does white noise damage your child's hearing?"
• 2:06
  And I was like, "I don't care." [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.
• 2:17
  We'll be talking about/crashing out over topics like- AI homework detection, and they just don't do their homework...
• 2:26
  pride flags, and dirty sports uniforms, and how many plastic Gatorade water bottles is it possible for one child to lose. It's not an advice show.
• 2:34
  It's a you're not alone, and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kinda show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches. And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important.
• 2:45
  You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website notrightnow.show..show.
• 2:51
  And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet, and then drop us a nice little five-star review.
• 3:00
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questionsatnotrightnow.show. [upbeat music] We have a guest today, and her name is Dr.
• 3:18
  Devika Bhushan. Devika is a mom, a pediatrician, public health leader, a mental health activist, an immigrant, and an author.
• 3:26
  She serves on adjunct faculty at Stanford and is a senior advisor to a boatload of mental health startups.
• 3:33
  Devika serves on the National Board of Directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and was previously California's acting surgeon general and first chief health officer, where and when she bravely and publicly shared her own journey with bipolar disorder.
• 3:48
  Really pretty incredible stuff. We're obviously super excited to have her on the show today, so please enjoy our conversation with Devika.
• 3:57
  [upbeat music] How old is your son now, Devika, so we know the ballpark of what you're dealing with kid-wise, parenting-wise? Four-year-old. Oh, okay. Oh. All right. Hello. All right. Okay. Oh, that's right. Yes.
• 4:09
  A COVID baby, yes? Good stuff. Um- Yeah, yeah. COVID baby. Awesome, awesome. Um- Very exciting. Two of Quinn's three kids are sick right now- Mm-hmm... so we were comparing notes on kids' sickness.
• 4:20
  So how is illness treating you guys so far this autumn? I have 100% of my child is sick. He's, like, coughing all night. You know- Oh... it's one of those really fun segments.
• 4:33
  Among us, like, when kids are sick, who jumps into action versus who is more let it roll? 'Cause my husband, like, my kid will have a cold or a chest cough, and he'll say, "Does he need to go to the pediatrician?"
• 4:44
  I'm like, "Absolutely not." The pediatrician is for when medicine is involved, and I can just tell in my gut when it's a medicine thing versus not a medicine thing, and I'm just curious- Yeah...
• 4:52
  in your family is more likely to jump the gun and try to find some cure for a cough, you know, versus just letting it roll on.
• 5:00
  Yeah, I mean, the one sort of non-medical intervention that we do like to use 'cause it's evidence-based is honey. Oh, yeah. It shortens the duration of cough.
• 5:09
  But yeah, in terms of running to the doctor, generally when kids are getting really dehydrated or when they're having any kind of trouble breathing with it.
• 5:19
  So those are the two, but yeah, I'm in your camp of most colds will, will just ride themselves out. Yeah. I figure if they have four limbs, we're doing okay. We're gonna make it.
• 5:28
  My older son has a heart murmur, and every year the pediatrician is like, "It's still there," and we still get it checked out, but I'm like, "What's gonna happen?" I guess, what's the end game?
• 5:38
  I'm kinda like I'm over it a little bit, and he still does sports. I don't know. His color looks good. Do tell me if I'm ignoring something really potentially dangerous, but otherwise...
• 5:46
  Like, he's gotten a couple, you know, echocardiograms or whatever. Like, we have a cardiologist that he checks on, butI don't know.
• 5:53
  What else that you- I'm Over It could have definitely also been the name of this podcast, besides Not Right Now.
• 5:58
  There's like a l- I'm trying to think of the long list of things that I'm over, but continue with actual medical advice. I like that name, I'm Over It.
• 6:05
  Devika, what is new with you at work in public health, and what is...
• 6:10
  I feel like a lot of your, when I see your Substack posts, you are reacting to something that's going on in the news, and I'm like, I feel like you just saw a news article or someone else's cockamamie post about ignoring science that, like, pissed you off and you're reacting to.
• 6:23
  So I'm just curious, what's in your world right now that's either making you feel optimistic or really making you mad?
• 6:29
  There is so much misinformation and disinformation out there, and that is definitely in the camp of making me mad. But I feel like there's a lot of really good people who are trying to band together
• 6:40
  to still do really good work. So an example of a project I'm really excited about is I'm working with Dr.
• 6:48
  Bruce Perry, who is a child trauma expert, to really distill down the basics on what we know about stress and resilience- Mm... and how that applies to early childhood.
• 7:00
  And we're creating a series of children's books because, you know, when you're in early parenting, none of us really have time to dig into long form books, courses, all of the myriad of resources that are out there that are really high quality.
• 7:16
  But all of us have some time to read to our kids, right? Mm-hmm.
• 7:19
  So wouldn't it be so amazing if that experience was also packed with nuggets of information that could actually help you respond to those hard moments in ways that build your kids' resilience, and coping tools, and long-term skills?
• 7:33
  And so that's what we're trying to do. It's a six-part series.
• 7:36
  So the first three books are for the preschool age group, and then the second set of books is about getting kids in the early elementary, early reader period to continue learning about all of these great things.
• 7:50
  And it's done through the world of a family of dragons. And who doesn't love dragons? Mm-hmm. Adults to preschoolers. So I'm really excited about it. That's awesome. Do they love tacos, these dragons?
• 8:03
  [laughs] You know, I do like that book. We haven't incorporated any tacos into this particular series. Just saying, those, the end of that book gets pretty stressful, so there's something there about- [laughs] Yep...
• 8:14
  there is some trauma related. You read it enough times- Yeah...
• 8:16
  with your kids and you start to extrapolate on the whole thing, kind of like how when you realize Thomas the Train is horrific at his job, and how- [laughs]... does he still have one?
• 8:23
  Yeah, just saying, there's something there. Well, that's super cool. So we're in a news cycle right now that is absurd. And like right now, as of today, like I was doing a lot of like grocery shopping.
• 8:34
  And I w- today was one of those days where I was actually putting everything away, putting the laundry away quickly 'cause I was like I cannot be on the news too much 'cause the president is like threatening to assassinate people now.
• 8:44
  But I was like, wow, they really have pushed down, it's like the Maha news. Like, if RFK is in the news for anything right now, it's 'cause of his former affair with that journalist.
• 8:53
  And I feel like so things are maybe a little bit more under the radar, but maybe not- Mm... just 'cause the news cycle's so crazy. And so I guess I'm just wondering like what battles you are waging, you know, online.
• 9:03
  Like, what's happening either actively or what's coming up that people are just like playing the fool with, whether it's like vaccines or untested remedies, things like that.
• 9:13
  I'm just curious what the fresh hell is right now. The fresh hell. I like that phrase. You're full of really good one-liners. I really appreciate them.
• 9:21
  Well, I do have to say, I think across the board, vaccine hesitancy and distrust is growing, and it's really alarming because we're seeing so many outbreaks of measles, for example, in this country.
• 9:33
  And measles had been nearly eradicated in the Americas, and now we've sort of lost our elimination status, thanks only to misinformation and disinformation, right?
• 9:43
  And we're seeing, I mean, very well-intentioned caregivers and parents who
• 9:51
  are believing things like fluoride in the water is bad for them, or there are secret ingredients in vaccines that are actually going to hinder a child's immunity, right?
• 10:03
  Like, the exact opposite of what we've been working so hard over the last several decades to try to help people understand, right?
• 10:12
  And just the fact that people are listening to the federal leadership on many of these points of misinformation and disinformation because they're in positions of power, right?
• 10:26
  And they have the bully pulpit, but they are giving out information that actually is either personally enriching or otherwise tainted in some way, and just isn't what we need to rely on for good, high quality, evidence-based health and wellness information.
• 10:44
  So it's a really troubling time all around. You mentioned listening to the news and trying to keep your head out of it. I myself try not to get too bogged down in the latest
• 10:57
  and greatest of whatever is trending, honestly, because it is very easy to start feeling very infuriated and helpless, right?
• 11:06
  And so I try to limit my doses of the information that's coming in, but then I try to really do what I can to shore up community, build partnerships with the kinds of folks who I know are doing really good work in this domain.
• 11:22
  You know, pay attention to what the American Academy of Pediatrics and other industry groups are coming out with and trying to bolster their efforts, right? For example, the AAP sued RFK Jr.
• 11:35
  and Health and Human Services for spreading all of this blatant misinformation about what the vaccine, the COVID vaccine does during pregnancy, for example. That was one piece of that lawsuit.
• 11:48
  And they've come out with their own vaccine guidance because of, you know-Fraying trust in the processes that lead to federal recommendations and so being able to band together with other people and in coordinated counterattacks, if you will, counter resistance to all of the very systematized ways in which public health information and trust is starting to be frayed across the board.
• 12:18
  I think you can't do it, you know, working on your own. You really have to be in partnership and in collaboration with so many others who are wanting the right information to find people.
• 12:30
  Do you guys, b- both you guys, like, where you live and, like, where your kids go through, do you guys encounter a lot of folks who believe goofy stuff, basically?
• 12:39
  And, like, how do you manage that when you encounter someone in the wild who you're like, "Oh, wow, you are drinking...
• 12:45
  Like, you went and got unpasteurized milk," or, you know, "You're taking a weird medication that is not authorized," or you have some strange ideas about that kind of stuff. Like, how do you handle that?
• 12:55
  I'd love to hear your response to that, Quinn.
• 12:57
  [laughs] But I have to say, when it's in the wild and it's, you know, f- maybe acquaintances, maybe friends, maybe family members, one thing I've learned to do, honestly, is if they're not looking for my opinion or my input
• 13:10
  and they're doing something that maybe I wouldn't do, I sometimes just let that be. Mm-hmm. Yeah. What about you, Quinn? It's a struggle.
• 13:18
  I mean, I have the wonderful job of all I do is work on existential things, so i- it's really great.
• 13:23
  As my wife says, you know, when, when we go to parties, which we don't, she tells people, um, "I have a climate change podcast," and then everybody walks away. [upbeat music] Hey, I have three kids. They eat so much.
• 13:38
  We try to eat real food. We try to cook when we can.
• 13:41
  We try not to waste too much 'cause it drives me nuts, and it's expensive, and also, for obvious climate reasons, which is why the Mill Food Recycler changed our lives a couple years ago.
• 13:54
  It is an odorless, effortless, and fully automated food recycler. Look, we've had this thing front and center in our kitchen for, again, a couple years now it feels like, and it is just such a game changer.
• 14:09
  Way less waste, less smell, way less garbage, which by the way, saves you money. No leaky bags.
• 14:16
  Look, you got peels, bones, stalks, whatever leftovers, dump them in the Mill, and Mill dries and grinds them while you sleep. Again, it doesn't smell, which I don't understand. It's sleek. It's actually sexy.
• 14:32
  Here's a question people ask. How often do you empty it? Good question. It's every three weeks. I don't know, maybe, and there's a bunch of us.
• 14:39
  Plus, there's a little app where you can control it if you want and set a schedule, and it shows you how much food your family keeps out of landfills. A delight.
• 14:47
  Look, you can get $75 off right now when you go to our special partner site. I'm gonna read you the link, but you should know it's also in the show notes, and you can just click it.
• 14:58
  It is mill.com/lp/important-not-important. That is [laughs] mill.com/lp/important-not-important. I couldn't remember that, so we put it in the show notes.
• 15:16
  It's right there for you. Check it out. Huge thanks to Mill for sponsoring our work and doing the right thing, and thanks to all of you listeners for supporting our partners. [upbeat music] But [sighs]
• 15:29
  I wrestle with this, and I thought about this, you know, doing a little research on you in not a creepy way and how, you know, shared your story, your mental health story, and how important it is to shine a light on things, and it made me think of one of my climate heroes, this scientist, Dr.
• 15:42
  Katharine Hayhoe down in Texas, who's amazing.
• 15:45
  Wonderful scientist, a science communicator, Christian, tries to really stay in touch with that block of people to try to help them make better decisions for themselves and for the planet and their communities.
• 15:56
  And her biggest thing is, like, when people say, "What can I do about it?" She says, "Talk about it.
• 16:01
  We have to normalize it for yourself at home, in your communities, on the news, wherever it might be, at your workplace."
• 16:07
  And I think you can do that in a way that's not obnoxious while also, like you said, not hitting people over the head for it if they didn't ask for it, right?
• 16:16
  Everyone's joking about how the Thanksgiving dinner table's gonna go in a week, right? And everyone's got that one uncle. But it's a fine line, right?
• 16:25
  So we had someone say in our life, "Oh, yeah, well, I'm going over to..." I, I think this was, like, last year when it was all the rage. "I'm going over to this person.
• 16:34
  She's got raw milk in her fridge, and she sells it out of there, and I'm gonna go get it and have some."
• 16:39
  It's a relative that seems like a smart person, gr- a great mom as far as m- I can tell, and I was proud of myself for not immediately reacting and saying
• 16:48
  something obstinate, but I feel like there's probably a version where you can say, "I don't know." What do you say? "Well, I probably wouldn't do that," or maybe, "Don't do that to your kids"? It's a hard one, right?
• 16:56
  Mm-hmm. It's a hard one. And I think the difference between that and vaccines is, as I try to always tell people, is but what your choice is actually affecting me and my children, and that's what makes it different.
• 17:10
  And, you know, look, well, I guess smoking 'cause second-hand smoke too.
• 17:13
  You know, I think there's a difference between these personal choices that are you're gonna do what you're gonna do, and things that are gonna affect everybody else.
• 17:20
  When Clara, I don't even know if I've told you this one, when we were in LA for 15 years, and, let's see, my second oldest was, like,
• 17:29
  one and a half, and my kids right now are 10, 11, 12, so at one point they were three, under three.
• 17:34
  My second oldest was, like, one and a half, and she got whooping cough, probably from some daycare or something like that or, you know, a little gym class or something, and we'd just had our third kid.
• 17:47
  And this is back in the day when the CDC found out, and they called every day. "How's it going?" This and this, and they were basically like, "You have to wall off two sides of your house essentially." Mm-hmm.
• 17:54
  "Do not let those children be near each other," because that's how it works.You know, that's public health. Yeah. And we can talk about all the policies changed this and this.
• 18:02
  So I guess that's my very long answer, surprise, Claire, to- Mm-hmm... how I would address those things when they come up, is if it's a personal choice and it's purely personal, then okay.
• 18:11
  If it's something that's directly putting someone's kids in harm, I'm gonna have a pretty hard time not saying something. But when it concerns, like, actual public health, I do try to set the record straight, at least.
• 18:21
  Well- And make it clear. Things, as I do to my children, things that are not dad's opinion and are just facts. So I don't know. Can I tell you my one raw milk story? And this is, like, gonna lead- Please.
• 18:31
  Please, shorter than mine... this is gonna lead to my, my question or topic about maternal guilt, sort of. But I have a loved one whose spouse is sort of, you know, dabbles in I don't know what. He has some...
• 18:44
  I don't know, he listens to a lot of podcasts, let's just say that, podcasts I don't listen to that deal with health.
• 18:49
  And last year she told me that on spring break, her husband was really ill, like, really sick with a, you know, horrible GI thing, and they were traveling and he couldn't drive.
• 18:58
  And, you know, I was like, "God, I mean, he must have norovirus." And then she said it turned out, da, da, da, da, he'd been drinking raw milk, and that was what made him sick.
• 19:07
  And I have kind of been through it with this relative and sort of accepting that we have different beliefs and I love them and I don't wanna... It's not worth getting into it. So I, so I just said, "Oh, wow."
• 19:20
  And she said, "Yeah." And I said something along the lines of, "It's too bad that his choice has affected you so much and your kids." And she's like, "Yeah."
• 19:30
  And that was just, like, a way of kind of being like his little experiment really, it wasn't just him. You know? It was, it didn't affect the whole community. Mm-hmm.
• 19:38
  But, you know, when it all comes down and your wife is driving the four kids through the panhandle 'cause you drank some weirdo milk that you heard about, you know, like, that's a whole other thing.
• 19:47
  But my transition is not seamless, but Devika, I was thinking of you with the Tylenol causes autism thing. Because everything's always mom's fault no matter what. You know? Obviously- Right... Quinn must be nice.
• 19:59
  And that just made me so mad all over again because what was the takeaway? Just tough it out if you have a headache, or just tough it out if you have a, you know, horrible, you know, virus or whatever it is.
• 20:11
  And it made me think about your posts about breastfeeding also, because I really love that you are a voice for the folks who can't or choose not to breastfeed, and, like, just reminding people that babies get fed.
• 20:23
  Of course, right now there's a formula recall, [laughs] so that's, like, bad timing, basically.
• 20:28
  But, you know, w- do you mind talking a little bit about, like, why that's something that you like to talk about and remind people about when you are on Substack and other places? Yes, absolutely.
• 20:38
  About a year ago, almost two years ago now, actually, I wrote a, a piece for Slate where I talked about my own personal journey in terms of being pregnant and then planning for a postpartum period where I started to think very seriously about not breastfeeding at all.
• 20:57
  And that was because my treatment team, including my psychiatrist, I live with bipolar disorder, and sleep protection is a huge piece of staying well.
• 21:07
  Postpartum, like for many other folks with health challenges, is a very challenging period, and you can have a relapse risk somewhere in the ballpark of 50%. So it was a very serious risk that I was looking to head off.
• 21:22
  And one of the things that we could do was, of course, get additional help at night so that lots of good quality sleep could happen.
• 21:32
  But the other thing was that if you can give feeding away from you as a mother as you're recovering, that is one of the biggest things that keeps people awake, right?
• 21:43
  So if you're breastfeeding, for example, in order to just establish a supply, you need to be up every couple of hours, including overnight, whether you're pumping or going direct to breast with your infant.
• 21:56
  All of those interrupted hours of sleep basically add up to bad news bears- Mm... if you have a health condition that relies on good quality sleep.
• 22:07
  So I made the decision that we were gonna do 100% formula feeding from the get-go.
• 22:12
  And initially it was a hard pill to swallow because as a pediatrician, as an OB, you know, in the medical establishment, there is a very serious dogma and bias towards breast is best.
• 22:26
  But when you start to break that down and say, "Where do these guidelines really come from, and what does the best randomized data actually show us?" Mm.
• 22:35
  And people like Emily Oster have done a great job of sounding the alarm on this, that actually the guidelines are not reflecting the best evidence.
• 22:43
  They're actually summarizing data that is observational and has a lot of confounding variables, like for example, education and wealth have a lot to do with some of the outcomes that are s- reported to be associated with breastfeeding.
• 22:56
  But when you break it all down, and I'm happy to share a link to my Slate article where I summarize this, but essentially there are two benefits for babies in the randomized data from breastfeeding relative to formula feeding, and that is a 4% reduced risk of gut infections and a 3% reduced risk for eczema in the first year of life.
• 23:16
  Hmm. That is it. There's no other impacts for maternal infant bonding, for longer term health impacts like diabetes or obesity or anything else, including cognitive outcomes.
• 23:29
  And then for moms, there is a lower risk of breast and ovarian cancer. That's well worth looking into and paying attention to.
• 23:36
  But otherwise, everything else that we hear, the whole bag of, you know, all of the putative benefits are actually, when you strip it away, not worn out by the best data.
• 23:48
  And so why are we making parents and specifically mothers feel so incredibly ashamed when they're either unable to or choose not to, for a variety of reasons, give-This bodily milk essentially to their babies. Oh.
• 24:04
  We're making people feel like we are setting their kids up for a lifetime of poorer health and cognitive outcomes when that's just not the case.
• 24:14
  And so when you really sit down with, it's really part of this greater narrative of, you know, mothers are responsible for
• 24:22
  so much that really when you sit down and you look at it, we can't blame mothers for everything that goes wrong [chuckles] Oh, we do... in early or midlife. Yeah, we do.
• 24:36
  We used to say that schizophrenia was caused by having a cold mother, right? Oh. Like we used to say like these very wild things in medicine. It was called a schizophrenogenic mother.
• 24:48
  And in this whole Tylenol thing, you know, if you don't treat the fever or the infection or the, you know, the pain syndrome, that inflammatory burden and that actually fever response can be harmful to the fetus in and of itself.
• 25:03
  And so we're setting up all of these not only false narratives that are shaming and blaming of mothers, but we're actually giving people the wrong conclusions, and we're giving them the wrong thing to do, right?
• 25:18
  And so I think this whole thing about vilifying formula feeding, it's just wrong. [upbeat music] I'm gonna tell you a little story here.
• 25:26
  When the iPhone first came out 2007, one of the first apps I tried to convince a coworker to help me develop was what I was calling, and people were calling, a read it later app.
• 25:37
  And that's 'cause we worked all day at ESPN, and we used to print up all the old ESPN Page 2 columns we loved, and then we would go and hide and read them on the company toilet.
• 25:48
  Wouldn't it have been great though, is what I said, if we could just do that on our new touchscreen phones instead of printing them up? Anyways, 150 years later, I have tried every read it later app.
• 26:00
  All of them migrating my archives over and over. But a couple years ago, I found Reader from the creators of Readwise and never looked back. It's so good, it's so fast, it's so smart.
• 26:13
  It works in my browser to save articles and read them and highlight them. It works on my phone and my iPad. I put it on my phone on my home screen instead of social media stuff. It's great. Reader can save it all.
• 26:25
  And because they also built Readwise, all the highlighting and syncing is flawless. Text to speech? Sure. Ghostreader GPT so you can ask questions of your stuff? Sure.
• 26:36
  Here's how you can try it for free and Readwise, too. Right now they're offering you guys, my listeners, two free months of Readwise and Reader when you sign up instead of just one month.
• 26:46
  So when you sign up, you get them both. The link to sign up and get that extra month is in the show notes of course, and it's right here. It's readwise.io/quinn, Q-U-I-N-N. That's readwise.io/quinn.
• 27:01
  Again, it's right there in your show notes. It really is the future of reading. I can't recommend it enough. Probably the most essential thing I use every day. Check out Reader today. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
• 27:14
  When I gave birth to my first kid, I got induced at a Westfield, and it was a really long, terrifying process. And I was on magnesium- Mm-hmm... and I had a balloon, and it took days, and it was terrifying.
• 27:26
  And when I gave birth, I was really shell-shocked, and I couldn't imagine that recovery process and breastfeeding on top of that. And I was so glad my husband was there to feed him, just literally.
• 27:37
  And then, of course, when we got home and took care of that. But I have a friend who [chuckles] his wife, his poor wife just gave birth to this massive 10-pound baby.
• 27:46
  And of course, like she was induced, and then she labored for 46 hours, and then she got the emergency C-section. And I just like always put a little like, "She needs a formula friend.
• 27:56
  I'm here for you," because I have no regrets. I love it when people talk about breastfeeding going well for them, but also when people are- Yes... killing themselves. And I know it's hard. It's really hard.
• 28:07
  But like when your kids are a little bit older, like Quinn's and mine, you don't walk around seeing like the best swimmers on the swim team were breastfed or like the smartest kids were breastfed. That all falls away.
• 28:17
  Like you stop paying attention to that. I don't know, Quinn, did you guys have to deal with any kind of... I, I don't know if we got into breastfeeding at all. Maybe Dana had a good, a nice easy time with it.
• 28:26
  No, I mean, she can obviously speak to it more. From what I, uh, well, frankly, what we both have and blacked out since we had three under three. Beggars can't be choosers.
• 28:35
  We had a bunch of, I've said it on the show plenty of times, and we've been very public. We had a bunch of miscarriages. We had a bunch of IVF that bas- We spent every dollar trying to make them. Made the first one.
• 28:43
  My wife was told, of course, 'cause she was over, at the time, 33 or something, that it was a geriatric pregnancy, of which we didn't just realize that's what it meant. We were just like... She was like, "I'm sorry."
• 28:53
  [chuckles] "What are you talking about?" But it was a shit show, and then we had to do IVF for the second one if we ever wanted another one.
• 28:59
  And then, of course, the third one was an accident while she was breastfeeding, which we're told that's pretty difficult.
• 29:06
  Not impossible, but pretty difficult, especially for people who science had been like, "You can't make a child," essentially, you know, two years before that. But she, we definitely had plenty of latching issues.
• 29:15
  We were really lucky to have a lactation nurse come and help out with that kind of stuff. You know, at one point, I don't remember what she was eating.
• 29:22
  It seemed so innocuous, but one of them had a, e- ended up having terrible gas, and so we did lactose-free formula for a while. And it's like, great, fine.
• 29:30
  But of course, like we could hear the bullshit, and especially among older generations for sure, but we were like, "Well, we have to do it."
• 29:37
  But the other part was, and this is part of the rest of my job, is trying to help folks understand the broader externalities of our choices, whether that's climate investing or medicine or public health or food, and how these things all intersect.
• 29:51
  Which is, you know, my wife had to have a pretty brutal C-section for the first one and, and then we were in the hospital for a week, and then the baby not latching after that.
• 30:01
  But when we got home, after you've had nurses who are incredible taking care of you for a week, and you're exhausted, and you've basically had the alien surgery, essentially, because, I mean, it's incredible how traumatic it is to then take sleep away, right?
• 30:15
  All these externalities of all these different things affect you. And even if it goesQuote unquote, you know, normally no major procedures like we had with our second and our third.
• 30:24
  Again, that fact of sleep, like we know so much about sleep and how it affects you.
• 30:29
  We know so much more now, not enough about postpartum depression and struggles, about how those can affect you, that it is both completely predictable that we make people have babies feel shit about not breastfeeding, but at the same time, it's just such a wildly poor choice to not say what works best for you in your overall life and family life right now is probably what you should do.
• 30:50
  Because everything else considered, like you're saying, it's fine. Yeah. Like they're being fed. As long as they're not drinking out of lead pipes, right? We have like, we know the things that are a problem.
• 30:58
  This is not a problem. Let's deal with all the other shit that are actual problems. This is not a problem. There's plenty of other ones. So- That's right. That was our experience- That's right...
• 31:05
  really, which is like we went back and forth based on what we need to do. She loved to do it, but couldn't do it all the time. My wife had to go back to work after a week. So we did what we could. You know? Right.
• 31:15
  We were very lucky to be able to do that. We weren't, didn't have little kids during this formula shortage, which again, is just like a purely infrastructure problem that we've created on our own. So I don't know.
• 31:24
  We, we were lucky, but it drives me crazy. There was an article, I was telling Quinn to read it, and I don't know if you saw it, Devika. It was in The New York Times Magazine about this woman who frankly is mentally ill.
• 31:34
  I'm diagnosing her myself from afar, even though I have no medical degree.
• 31:37
  But she's addicted to having babies, basically, and she had maybe like 12 or 13 babies, and then she lied to her husband basically about using an egg donor to implant a surrogate.
• 31:48
  But with one of her babies that she had when she was like in her late 50s, I wanna say, she got some kind of experimental medicine over the internet so that she could induce lactation.
• 31:59
  And I was like, okay, this is not [laughs] this... Can we call this not normal? Is that... I mean, I don't know at what point, like all, none of it is working, none of it is sounding great.
• 32:10
  But I was like, maybe that's a case where formula, if you have to have this, you know, if you're making your adult children watch your 14th baby while you are, you know, in ARP yourself, like it's okay to have formula if you gotta do it.
• 32:23
  But, you know, she really likes babies more than I do. I'll just say that. I guess you can never accuse me of being too sentimental, but that's just her choice.
• 32:31
  So Devika, did you, kind of shifting topics a little bit, but I know your son's just a little guy, but I'm just curious like how much you have talked with him, if you have at all, about y- Mm-hmm...
• 32:42
  you know, you talked about, you know, your bipolar disorder, like mental health stuff. Like how much have you talked to him about that kind of stuff so far? Are you kinda waiting till he's a little bit older? Well,
• 32:52
  I believe in being as open as you can, because there are things I need to do daily to make sure I'm healthy and good for myself, but also for him. And I mentioned earlier that sleep protection is a big piece of that.
• 33:05
  So these days, for better or for worse, our little guy, four years old, likes to sleep with somebody at night, okay? So that somebody is my husband, right?
• 33:16
  So the two of them are off in their room, and I'm in my own room sort of ensconced in my, you know, pillows and my eye mask and my earbuds, and I usually go to bed, you know, we all go to bed around the same time, and then I usually get about an hour extra of sleep in the morning, and the two boys in the house wake up early.
• 33:35
  And my son knows that I need sleep to feel my best, so he knows about that on that level. But he also knows that
• 33:44
  his dad is a heavy sleeper, and he doesn't get woken up if there's a little person next to him moving around, kicking him, et cetera.
• 33:53
  And he knows that I'm a light sleeper, and that's apart from me having bipolar disorder, but he knows that's the reason I'm not the adult that's sleeping next to him.
• 34:02
  Because we never wanted for him to feel like, you know, the choices that we're making to help me stay healthy, we never want him to feel like he's being rejected. Mm.
• 34:12
  So there's, there has to be a very tactical and a very practical reason for the differences where they exist in terms of my husband being present and me not, or me parenting in a different way or around different circumstances.
• 34:26
  We try to be really open about that. And actually earlier this year, I also developed a second chronic health condition, more in the physical health domain, so arthritis. And- Oh... you know, that kept me...
• 34:38
  Yeah, it was painful and terrible, and, you know, there were a couple of weeks where I literally could not bear weight. I couldn't walk. So of course that changed what I was able to do as far as being a parent to my son.
• 34:51
  And so we were, again, very open and frank with him about, "Hey, Mama's got a new health thing that she's figuring out. Her toes are hurting, her toes are swollen, and we're gonna figure this out.
• 35:03
  But for right now what that means is that you're gonna walk to school with Papa.
• 35:07
  And you can come hang out with Mama, but sometimes she's gonna need to stay in bed, and sometimes she's not gonna feel super, you know, energetic or peppy. She might be in pain."
• 35:17
  So all of that stuff is very absorbable, I think, for a then three-year-old or a four-year-old.
• 35:23
  And I think it's really important if there's gonna be any shifts in the household, whether they're health related or finances related or any other major change, that kids know what's going on because, not to overwhelm them with information, but just to be
• 35:43
  factual, help them work through whatever change looks like is gonna happen, whether it's temporary or more permanent, just so they have the facts and they're not making things up.
• 35:54
  'Cause the worst thing that can happen is, you know, a parent has to recede, let's say, from a major, you know, a hands-on parenting role. And kids then make up stories about what that's about.
• 36:07
  And a lot of those stories, if you don't confront it directly, can be stories like, "I wasn't good enough," or- Mm... "I made this happen," right?
• 36:15
  Kids have a lot of magical thinking, so I think it's really important to meet them exactly where they're at, answer their questions, be factual, and try to have it be very age appropriate. ButBut intentional Mm-hmm.
• 36:30
  Yeah. I had a little sort of crack the ice with my sons a little bit. God, I... The things that you do, I don't even know why I was doing this.
• 36:37
  I have a pill case now, 'cause I'm just at the age now where I take so many pills that I have to be like an old lady- Yeah... and put them in. Yeah. And so I was like- Yeah...
• 36:45
  shaking it around, and I talked about the pills I take. And I was like, "I take pills for my hair and pills for my skin and pills for my depression." And my son was like, "You take pills for depression?"
• 36:55
  And I said, "Yeah." You know, and he was, God bless him, not incredibly curious about it. He's got a level of self, you know, centeredness that can kinda make life easier.
• 37:05
  But I was like, "I'm here for you guys if you wanna talk about it." Because between my husband and me, one of them, they're probably gonna have depression and/or anxiety.
• 37:12
  And, you know, I don't wanna get in their head too much about it, but at the same time, you know, I don't want them to ignore it or... I don't know. Yeah. I wanna normalize it, I suppose. You know? I don't know.
• 37:22
  Quinn, how much have you guys- Yeah... talked to your kids about that kinda stuff? I mean, our kids know that they're gonna be very damaged, to be clear. Like, they see their parents operate on a daily basis.
• 37:32
  No, I mean, jokes aside, which are half jokes, you know, we try to be... I take... What do I take, Claire? Prozac? What's my thing? [laughs] I think Prozac. I don't fucking know.
• 37:40
  I had a mini heart attack two years ago c- for stress, which is awful. And I exercise, meditation, all the different things. They do it, but not enough. They weren't enough.
• 37:49
  And so finally I said, "I, yeah, I gotta do something. I got three kids here." It's one of those moments where you go, "Well, I have to figure this out." There, there's not a- Oh...
• 37:55
  this can kick the can the down the road. So I'm very open to that. And part of that, again, is also they're old, they're wrestling with stuff. They were, you know, homeschooled during COVID kids.
• 38:05
  They've got, you know, shooting drills in their classrooms, and they know that I work on climate change and politics and all that kinda stuff. They know that things are hard.
• 38:13
  They're shielded from a lot of it because they're w- wealthy or healthy, relatively healthy white kids. But, you know, one's got pretty crippling anxiety, some depression, and so we're really open about that and stuff.
• 38:25
  So it's all to say that we are where we can be and where it makes sense to be to let them know that, I guess, the primary thing we always try to come back to is if you are f- feeling something, like everybody else has something going on.
• 38:38
  This is not... You are not alone in whatever the thing is you're dealing with. E- E- Everybody got something going on, whether they share it or they don't.
• 38:47
  So w- I guess that is sort of the primary function of us using those examples as much as we can on top of just, like, explaining why a certain situation might be the way that it is. Does that make sense?
• 38:59
  And then I just tell them to- Yeah... we joke all the time. Like, it's half joking. When they're like, "I, I wanna stay awake," I'm like, "You cannot because I need to go to sleep, and Mom's been asleep for an hour.
• 39:07
  I need you to stop asking questions and go to sleep." [laughs] Which is a health thing, but also please stop talking.
• 39:14
  You would've liked us last night, Quinn, 'cause Steve, my husband's been out all last week and this week doing work stuff, and I've been filled with resentment and not been handling it gracefully.
• 39:23
  So when he comes home, I'm like, "You're it. Like, you're doing it." But then my younger son, like, he's been with me so much that he kind of is, like, a little bit extra when the new guy, my husband, taps in.
• 39:33
  So I heard this argument the other night where James wouldn't stay in bed. He's our kid with ADHD, and he, like, popped out quickly, you know? He's like, "I can't sleep." And Steve was like, "Try harder."
• 39:44
  And s- James was like, "How can I try harder at falling asleep?" And then last night, there's another round of this, 'cause he takes a pill, clonidine- Oh...
• 39:52
  to try to quiet his mind when he sleeps, and he popped out of bed 10 minutes after Steve put him to bed. And he said, "Mom, I don't think the pill's working." And I said, "What do you want me to do about it?"
• 40:03
  And he said, "I don't know." And I texted Steve, and I was like, "Can you come in and just deal with it?"
• 40:07
  And I just, I've run out of gas at the end of the night, and I'm just like, "I cannot put the ability for you to fall asleep in your head."
• 40:13
  And I think my husband i- identifies with that more, so he has more patience and will do more of the back rub, you know, and things like that and hanging out. But I'm more like, "Good luck.
• 40:22
  You know, you can always put a light on and read." But yeah, I'm not the nice guy when it comes to bedtime like that.
• 40:27
  And I, you know, I'm, I'm much meaner than I ever thought I could be, but, um- Because you're fucking tired. It is fucking hard. Yeah.
• 40:34
  Quinn and I have compared notes about all the accoutrement that we need to fall asleep.
• 40:37
  Like, I have a special machine that blows dry air under the sheets 'cause I sweat so much, and he has, like, a litany of special pillows. [laughs] So you mentioned, like, AirPods or airbuds. Yeah.
• 40:47
  Take us through your list. T- like, what's non- Okay... negotiable on a basic night? Okay. Well, it's not just what happens at night for me, right? So in the daytime, I have to make sure I see the sun- Mm-hmm...
• 40:59
  when it's out- Mm-hmm... 'cause that helps set your circadian rhythms. And then at night, I turn the lights fairly low all throughout the house.
• 41:07
  If I'm watching TV, I'm going to be using blue light blocking glasses, right? Because that prevents the blue light from entering your brain- Mm-hmm... and waking your brain up and telling yourself that it's day.
• 41:20
  So all of those things are really important, so all of the light sensitivity, then the dark, you know, inducement. And then the actual wind down is pretty routine.
• 41:31
  So it's, you know, me reading, uh, to my kid, settling down. We cuddle. He usually falls asleep next to me, and then we swap him over to his bed. And then I put on my...
• 41:41
  I have this very luxe eye mask that has holes as sort of like a cutout area for your eyeballs because- Amazing... I would find that... You know those flat ones? Mm-hmm.
• 41:51
  I would wake up, and, like, my eyelashes in the morning would be, like, separated. They would have a distinct, like, part in them, right? So I had to get these, like, basically pillowed eye masks- Mm...
• 42:02
  which are absolutely key, right? And through the morning it's- Will you send us the link to l- the link to whatever that is? Yeah. People love that. Yes. I will definitely send that over.
• 42:10
  I can send you my blue light blocking glasses link as well. And then I have these great, very soft earbuds that I, like, put into my ears. I can't hear anything once those are on.
• 42:22
  If someone walks into the room, tries to say something to me, I have no idea what they're saying. I just hear, like, background noise, like a groan. Mm-hmm. So it's great. You're basically sensorily totally deprived.
• 42:31
  You can sleep [laughs] through anythingI hate the feeling of ear- Yeah... like, that my husband and I don't co-sleep 'cause he snores. He probably has sleep apnea. I can't hold his hand through that journey.
• 42:40
  That's on him. But I hate the feeling of earplugs. It just- Yeah... I, I just yearn to, to pull them out. So I just get rid of the noise maker. And also my machine- Mm-hmm...
• 42:49
  it's like a white noise, but yeah, it's a whole, like, routine. Quinn has a little... I'll never stop thinking, what, and you have a little pillow for just between your feet, right? Claire, do you want me to start?
• 43:00
  I can go over the whole list. [laughs] Like our beloved guest, anyone who says their nighttime t- routine starts at night is an amateur. Like, this, this is, the entire day- Yeah... plans up to it.
• 43:10
  At this time of year, it's actually, sometimes it's even... This time of year is fine, because I, it's like a cheat code. It's been dark out for an hour already here.
• 43:17
  But, I mean, in the summer I'm, like, dimming our house lights at 5:00, and my kids are like, "It's light out for another four fucking hours, buddy. This has gotta stop."
• 43:25
  And I'm like, "Sorry, this is for me," but also, you know, trying to teach you, but mostly for me. The room's gotta be arctic. Like, it's gotta be very cold, which is just, that's non-negotiable.
• 43:35
  We've got one of the little mattresses, the cool things, 'cause my wife also, like, super hot. And then, yeah, the pillows are straightforward.
• 43:42
  It's two different systems, Claire, thank you for asking, depending on whether my wife is there or not. [laughs] It's when my wife... I, like, I don't know which one is really, you might use the word egregious.
• 43:53
  Is it the one that I'm using while she's there? Because there is another human, do I need all of these? Which is- Right... I have a special foam one with a little divot for my head.
• 44:01
  But I don't put my head on it, I put another one on top of it. It's like a cooling pillow, so it's just kind of a support.
• 44:06
  Then there's another one to the side which is kind of the backup, and I switch them every once in a while. And then I- Oh... stole my wife's pregnancy pillow 12 years ago, the body pillow.
• 44:15
  That's on the side, a big foam guy. And then, yes, I've got a foam one between my knees, and I added the one to my feet, which I gotta say is a game changer. It's really great.
• 44:24
  But when she's not here, oh yeah, then there's literally four more in various positions w- in an effort to essentially recreate her. Poorly, I should add, but I have to do what I can.
• 44:33
  Same thing, very loud sound machine, to the point where I could see how people are like, "It's gonna hurt your hearing." And I'm like, "I don't care. Like, I don't care. I need to sleep."
• 44:44
  I had to unsubscribe from someone's substack 'cause she's a pediatrician, and she'll pose these questions, and sometimes they are, like, so absurd. And one is, "Does white noise damage your child's hearing?"
• 44:54
  And I was like, "I don't care." Yeah, exactly. We solved that. I don't care. Great work, everybody. [laughs] No. Yeah. I have a, I call it my baby pillow.
• 45:00
  It's not real- it's not a baby at all, but I, like, hold it, and, like, it's my comfort pillow, you know? Mm-hmm. And I actually have it hidden in my room. I put it behind the pillow so no one would see it.
• 45:09
  But every once in a while, my kid's head will touch it, and I will slap him away, and, "Do not, that is not for you." Mm. "You can touch my glasses. You can touch my medicine." Mm-hmm.
• 45:18
  "You can touch the knives, but don't touch my pillow, 'cause you are disgusting." No. When we moved recently, somehow the pillows got mixed up. I c- can't explain how, like, upset I was.
• 45:26
  I was just going through the children's rooms, taking all of them, saying, "I'm taking all these till I figure out which ones are mine, and then you can have them back." Oh, my God. Yeah.
• 45:33
  Every time you move, and your particular pillow, the one that you need- Mm-hmm... under your head- Pillows... gets dislodged- Yeah... it is so troubling. Yeah. It's not great. I booked a, a trip to Sweden next year.
• 45:44
  I decided to go for a midlife crisis, and I'm going on this women's hiking trip, and I've been thinking about, can I pack my pillow? Can I take it, like, internationally?
• 45:52
  Is that absurd, though, for a hiking trip to take, like, a feathered pillow? Like, that might be... I may just have to, like, tough it out.
• 45:59
  But I'm like, but my elbows'll be rattling around, and what am I gonna do with my arms while I'm sleeping? Mm-hmm. No, like, it- No, it, it... My entire life revolves around sleep.
• 46:07
  And I didn't know if I would get there, but I'm really proud of it. And every time I get in bed, I think, "I should've done this an hour ago." Except it's only 8:00 at the time. Yeah.
• 46:17
  My problem is that sometimes I get into bed, and then I'm so happy that I'm in bed that I, like, wake up more, you know, 'cause I'm like, "I did it," you know?
• 46:24
  And I'm just so excited that I, you know, got to the place I wanted to go to that I'm not tired anymore. Can I mention this just from a public health perspective for a minute, though? Because,
• 46:33
  again, we know how important sleep is to, to teenagers, to babies, to toddlers, to, to moms, to dads, to, uh, elderly folks, this and this, and the sleep hygiene, all that, which so many people are incapable of doing for of potpourri of socioeconomic reasons, right?
• 46:49
  But this is a lot of what I will work on in the rest of my job, is air conditioning in classrooms, air conditioning at homes, because the worst part about global warming isn't actually, health-wise, the heat during the day, it's that your body doesn't cool down at night a lot of times.
• 47:02
  So many places don't have air conditioning at night, and this and that. And these fundamental things that, like, we're so addicted to, correctly probably, are completely unavailable in so many ways to so many folks.
• 47:12
  So, so it is something that I think about, not just because I benefit from it and need it, but also the fact that s- so many people don't have these.
• 47:20
  Like, to jack your air conditioning down, or have these m- insane pillows, or whatever it might be. To not- Yeah... be able to have five people sleeping in your room, right? Again- Yes... it's hard, and it compounds.
• 47:32
  It makes everything much, much more difficult. You're right. Getting good sleep or doing any sustainable self-care really requires a lot of privilege, and that's 100% true across the board, right?
• 47:46
  Whether we're talking about the ability to sleep in your own room independent of five other humans, right?
• 47:52
  Having enough space in a place to have the noise level controlled, or the temperature exactly as you would like it. Like, all of these things are vast privileges, and it's out of reach for so many.
• 48:05
  I wanna, like, pivot to something, like, a little bit more fun and cute, 'cause your son is a little guy, and Quinn's and my kids are- Yes... old. Awful. Oh, old. Like- Yes. Sorry. Old. [laughs] Yeah. Old, full stop.
• 48:16
  Tell us a little bit what Rumi's into lately. What are he and his friends talking about? Our kids are all, like, they, you know... His, Quinn sent me a picture of, I showed the boys, his kids are...
• 48:25
  Our kids are all into Six Seven, and I don't know if Rumi is even, knows that. But just tell us what he's up to, what he's into these days, what he's up to- Mm-hmm... what he likes.
• 48:32
  Like, what's the word with him right now?So he is in a very adorable phase of life, right? Because he's still very innocent, he experiences so many things as if it's for the first time, it's like- Mm...
• 48:45
  unmuted joy and excitement and exhilaration and frustration and, you know- Sure... all of the hard emotions in the wheel as well. But he's just so fully present when he's experiencing anything. So he loves color.
• 49:00
  His favorite color is, used to be rainbow. Mm-hmm. It has now morphed into seven specific colors. So you can see that- [laughs]... he doesn't like to choose. He's like, "Why, why do I have to choose?
• 49:09
  I like gold- Yeah, but why should he have to choose?... and silver- Fuck that... and pink, and," uh, right, why do we make kids choose favorite colors?
• 49:15
  It's a, it's actually a very interesting thing that we make them do. Anyway, so he loves color, he loves glitter, he loves dressing up. He is- Mm...
• 49:23
  fairly gender bendy, so you know, he loves painting his nails, and sometimes he'll wear h- like a, an Elsa dress on top of shorts because he's in an Elsa dress mood. And you know, things like that.
• 49:35
  So he's just, he's a very joyful and embracing life, full, very extroverted kind of little person. And recently actually, at bedtime, when we set the clocks back. Mm-hmm.
• 49:46
  You'll remember that day is like a shit show for parents and for kids, universally. Be recovered, I feel like. We're still thinking about it. Yeah.
• 49:53
  But that day, he comes to bed at 7:00 PM, but you know, it's, on the clock it says 8:00, and he is wired. Mm-hmm.
• 50:00
  And every now and again, almost every day he'll surprise us with something new that he's learned that we haven't taught him- Wow... because he's in school for the first time.
• 50:09
  He's in proper elementary school this year, in transitional kindergarten, which is California's pre-K. And he just started singing this song to himself.
• 50:19
  He's like, "I can relax, I can take a moment to breathe," and he starts doing this deep breathing. And it turns out their teacher, who's a godsend,
• 50:32
  has had them doing this sort of self-grounding, reflective, beautiful, mindful song every single day after they come in from recess to be able to reset and shift their energy.
• 50:45
  And so he literally in that moment, he was like, "I feel wired." He was, he was probably thinking, he was saying to himself, started singing this song.
• 50:52
  He sings it about six or seven times, and gets himself calmed down, and falls asleep [laughs]. Oh, my God. I was like, "Okay, school has been so worth it." [laughs] Wow. Shut it down.
• 51:03
  You know, literally like every day or every other day, honestly you guys, he's coming home with something interesting, new, a new word, a new concept. But like that moment took the cake, you know? Yeah.
• 51:14
  I was like, "Woo." Yeah. This public school system, I am all about it. It's so good. Oh, that's so sweet. That's incredible. That's incredible. Oh, my gosh, that's so adorable.
• 51:23
  James, our younger son, he's the one with ADHD, so he, you know, has had a couple of years of school where, you know, he's had a hard time settling down.
• 51:31
  That was one of his parent-teacher conference moments, was that he's loud sometimes. And I was like, "Yes, he is."
• 51:36
  But he had this like cup of like little sticks in his bedroom for a long time, where he had to write down like, like good aspects of himself. And it was like, "I am kind, I am patient," you know?
• 51:46
  And it like just broke my heart, even though it's so sweet, but at the same time, like just watching, having it be there, I don't know why, it just, like I, it's so sweet, it makes me sad, and I don't know why that is the response.
• 51:55
  But h- have you ever taken him for a pedicure, like at a salon? Not an actual salon pedicure, but we give each other pedicures at home all the time, so that's something that we do that's fun together.
• 52:07
  I will say, at least where I go, nobody is more popular than a little boy or a little boy presenting kid at the s- at the nail salon. Like, they just love a little boy.
• 52:16
  I don't know what it is, but my kids get treated like little princes, and the ladies are so nice to them. Oh, I love it. And yeah, it's fun to go together. And my- We'll have to go... my kids, um, yeah, you should go.
• 52:26
  Like, my older one is too cool now for school, but my younger one, he let me take him, and I promised him you don't have to get polish.
• 52:31
  He just got, so he got all cleaned up, but he got the chair and the nice drink and things like that.
• 52:37
  I took him to the magazine store and bought him a magazine ahead of time, so it was a nice little way to, to kill an hour together, so. What a dream. Yeah. That's amazing. I'm pretty nice for once in a while.
• 52:47
  Quentin, you've never taken your kids, uh, to anything? Oh, no, we do it all the time. No, I do, and again, like, uh, you know, clear and I caveat everything, but lucky to be able to do it. I take them not only- Yeah...
• 52:57
  'cause for all those reasons, it's fun, but because I didn't get a manicure and pedicure until five years ago, and I'm a runner, uh, all of the stuff. And
• 53:09
  not for any sexist reasons, more time, I was like, "I have a foam roller." My wife's like, "They're not the fucking same thing. You're wrong, that, you're dumb." And I eventually went and I thought,
• 53:19
  "I am the dumbest person alive. Like, why haven't I been doing this for my entire life?"
• 53:24
  So now when we propose it, I'm like, "You're welcome," that someone is telling you need to start doing this, 'cause like you said, a magazine with your feet in the bath and the hand, like it's the greatest thing in the world.
• 53:35
  How lucky are you? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, oh no, we'll do it for sure. It's fantastic. Yeah, it's great.
• 53:40
  I have a toenail that doesn't always behave, and the lady, I always see the same lady, and sometimes she'll fix it for me, and she'll show me that she dug it out, like triumphantly. Oh. Yeah.
• 53:50
  And like we, you know, we have a very special relationship. Devika, I know that- Love it... you work on some serious stuff. You think about a lot of serious downer shit sometimes.
• 53:59
  What do you do when you want to just, you know, make a, you know, Calgon, take me away. What do you do for yourself when you're like, "I just, it's just time to decompress." What do you have on the docket for yourself?
• 54:11
  Yeah, well, I'm a big fan of massage. Mm. So I love a good deep tissue massage. Again, takes money, takes time, you know, requires privilege, but very intrinsically relaxing for me.
• 54:24
  And I am a big fan of romance novels and reality TV. It's one of those things that just puts my brain in a very relaxed state. Oh. So that's what I like to indulge in. Let's go deeper. Love it.
• 54:39
  Reality TV, what's your poison? Yeah, be specific.Okay, so I like Love is Blind. I don't like the most recent- Oh, yeah...
• 54:46
  season because I feel like there's no one that I really connect with and really wanna root for but the first several seasons of Love is Blind, my husband and I were all about, because they were very relatable people and then couples that you were rooting for and hoping they would make it through all of the mess that they have to walk through in that show.
• 55:08
  So it's shows that are like, that get your heart to feel something and are very just warm and fuzzy at the heart- Oh... at the root of it.
• 55:17
  So it's not reality TV for reality TV's sake, it's reality TV that helps you feel warm fuzzies. Oh.
• 55:24
  And then I like, you know, a good drama that does that too, so things like This Is Us, Parenthood, those kinds of TV shows give me a lot of joy as well.
• 55:32
  Quinn, you, sit this out for a second 'cause you don't watch Love is Blind. Yeah, perfect. I don't think you even know what it was. No, go get 'em. I should bring Willow on.
• 55:38
  Do you follow- All she wants to do is talk about this. Do you follow Cameron and Lauren from season one? Like the beautiful couple? Oh, my God, they were the best.
• 55:46
  Yes, the best couple- And yeah, they just had a baby, right?... in the history of television, I think. You know? Yeah. And I'm slightly overstating the case, but they were our favorite couple on the whole enterprise.
• 55:57
  I mean, my- But yeah... so Quinn, they were the f- well, I follow them on Instagram, and I don't normally care about this. Quinn, they were like the ground zero couple, basically.
• 56:04
  And I have a theory that the couples that last are the most boring ones, to be honest, and that just makes sense, I think.
• 56:09
  But it was very endearing because they're a interracial couple and she's beautiful, Black excellence, and he is a white guy who I think has like an engineering or science background, and he just loves her.
• 56:23
  And they had a cute, like, social media presence, and people would always ask them when they were gonna get pregnant, and which I hate 'cause it's like none of your business, you know? Mm-hmm.
• 56:31
  And having a baby is not easy, especially when you met in this cockamamy way. But they just had a baby, and like, I, I love them. I think we just root for them 'cause they just seem like a real people, basically.
• 56:41
  We root for them. Yeah. That's right, yeah. Mm. It's who you can get really behind, whose stories you can fall in love with and support. Yeah. Quinn, do you watch any reality TV or are you too good for all of it?
• 56:55
  Hold on. Those are two different questions. I d- you- there's no need to do one of your fucking drive-bys just 'cause I'm sitting here. [laughs] I will pretend you stopped with, "Do you watch any reality TV?"
• 57:05
  [laughs] And the answer is, I think these qualify, but we will watch... My wife and I have watched Top Chef since inception. Oh. Kristen's an incredible new host. She slid right in. That's great.
• 57:16
  Occasionally even too tense for us in a world where we're picking soft and fuzzy, like you were saying, which is when we will just stream any episode of British Bake Off at any given moment, which is truly like, that is my safe place, is- Oh...
• 57:30
  genuinely, we put it on, there are three segments. Every word they say in every show is the same. Every segment is the exact same. The structure of the season's the same.
• 57:43
  It is so easy, it is so great, and by halfway through the second segment, I'm asleep, and my one little tiny gummy has kicked in, and I'm like, "I can shut it down now," and that's it. That, so that's my- I, I-...
• 57:55
  reality TV... I almost don't count that as reality TV. That's so, you know, like educational and warm.
• 58:01
  You know, it's almost like Go, it's Call the Midwife where you're like, I'm lear- there's a little bit of drama, but I'm mostly learning things, you know? But I- Sure, okay...
• 58:07
  I kinda did an accidental drive-by on my informational drive-by. I like to dump things on my kids quickly and move on, you know?
• 58:14
  And we were out to breakfast with two friends a couple weeks ago, and they happen to be Democratic socialists.
• 58:20
  And so we were talking about, you know, the new mayor of New York, and they happen to, you know, partake in cannabis a lot, so we were talking about that.
• 58:27
  And my friend asked me if I was still partaking, and I said, "No, it's not, you know, not working for me well, so I'm off it." And Paul, my older son, who you never know when he's listening, right?
• 58:39
  But the lesson is, they're always listening when you think they're not. He said, "You..." What did he say? He said, "You take cannabis?" And I said, "I have," and he- Did he ask it like that? You take cannabis?
• 58:49
  Which is incredible. Something like that. Yeah, something like can- like, "You take cannabis?"
• 58:53
  And I was like, "I have," and I thought he was scandalized by that, but what really scandalized him was that we are friends with communists, 'cause they're reading about the Red Scare right now in school. Perfect.
• 59:01
  So he was like extra... Yeah, so I really rocked his world that day. And then afterwards, I was like, "Do you have any questions about any of this?" And he said, "No." So, you know, I'm always like, "Here's the big bomb.
• 59:12
  You wanna talk about it?" And he's like, "Nope, I'm good." So, you know, whether death- [laughs]... mental health, like they have no follow-ups, so, you know, for better or for worse. So.
• 59:20
  There are advantages to the way you do it, and we do, we call them drive-bys, 'cause they're, her children will be minding their business for once, and she'll walk by and just be like, "Kids get raped on Roblox all the time," and then just keep walking.
• 59:31
  And again, they definitely, they weren't prepared for it. They don't wanna hear it. They're not gonna have questions. I think there's pluses and minuses to it, you know? I think that's smart- Yeah...
• 59:39
  as opposed to like, "Hey, guys, let's sit down. We wanna give you some context. We wanna talk about this whole thing. Let's ask some questions." Yeah. No one's judging you.
• 59:46
  We tried talking about eating disorders yesterday 'cause we're talking about actresses who are very thin right now. And I was trying to explain anorexia and how it's more than just trying to weigh a certain amount.
• 59:58
  You know, it involves your head and the way that you see yourself, and you know you are hurting yourself. And it totally went over my younger kid's head.
• 1:00:05
  He said, "Well, I won't have anorexia 'cause I'm the smallest kid in my class, and I'm always trying to gain weight." And I [laughs] was like- Hmm... that's not it, but also, fine. It's dinner time. I'm tired.
• 1:00:16
  We're not gonna get into this. But we'll see. It's just kinda cute sometimes how they're like, "We're fine. We're okay. We'll get it."
• 1:00:21
  Oh, and the other thing is that we were talking about dementia, 'cause my mom has a, she's going through it.
• 1:00:27
  And we were talking about how she's changed and how it manifests, and [laughs] my son said, "Is it a symptom of her dementia that she always wants to go eat at Walker Brothers," her favorite restaurant?
• 1:00:37
  I was like, "No, that's just where she likes to eat." Like, maybe she's more comfortable there 'cause she knows the food, but that's not, dementia doesn't make you wanna go to a certain restaurant all the time.
• 1:00:45
  But-Anyway, you never know. That's amazing. Can you let us know, our listeners know, like, where they can find you, your Substack, like what else you're working on, when we can look for this series of books? Absolutely.
• 1:00:56
  So the best place to find me is on Substack. It's askdrdevikab, D-E-V-I-K-A-B,.substack.com. The book publication timeline is still being finalized.
• 1:01:11
  It'll hopefully be sometime next year, but you'll get all the details on that in the Substack. And I'm also on other social media platforms, Instagram, Threads, et cetera, as Dr. Devika B, D-R D-E-V-I-K-A-B.
• 1:01:27
  So I look forward to staying connected with all of you, and I really appreciate both of you for having me on. This has been really fun. Thank you for chatting with us. Thank you for your time.
• 1:01:36
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