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Your Kids Don't Care About Your Success · 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
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  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] Your kids don't care if you published a book or if you taught a class or if you won an award. Like, they don't give a fuck.
• 2:03
  [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this. We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like... Lost Chromebook chargers and lost democracy.
• 2:18
  Crying over spilled milk, and also are we drinking dairy anymore? It's not an advice show. 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.
• 2:30
  And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important. You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website notrightnow.show..show.
• 2:41
  And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet, and then drop us a nice little five-star review.
• 2:49
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions@notrightnow.show.
• 2:55
  [upbeat music] Claire, we have an announcement to tell the pe- I mean, they probably already heard 'cause, God, this when this will come out, but we're the best parents. The judges said- Yes... we're the best parents.
• 3:13
  Let's treat this like the Oscars. You know how they're just like, "Where were you when you found out the news?"
• 3:18
  Well, I actually got an email from Signal, and then it started listing the names, and I got distracted, and I was like, "I assume I'll find out if we did win."
• 3:25
  And then the system worked, and we got a great text from you and Willow, and thank you to everyone who voted for us, who took a second to go through that crazy website and sign up for whatever this is. What do we get?
• 3:36
  I think what we get is spending money on trophies, basically. Can we use a logo? Sure. Logos are free. All right. I'll send you the logos. Apparently, they're free f- from the entry fee, but I'm proud of us. It's great.
• 3:49
  It's great. Gold star in parenting. I immediately... As my children yelled at me this morning, I was like, "Nope. Nope, I'm the best," the judges said. Yeah. Sorry. No. You know what?
• 3:59
  I haven't even told my family yet 'cause I, I was too busy congratulating my younger son on his cartoon for the kids' newsletter club to think about myself.
• 4:06
  But no, I love it 'cause every time I see one of those gold ribbons on, like, a Substack that says, "Substack of 2024," I always feel, like, a sense of jealousy, so this- Mm...
• 4:14
  is the same as that, but at least it's something, s- some form of acknowledgement- Yeah... of our hard work sitting here talking to each other and then, you know, clicking buttons that we did. Proud of us.
• 4:24
  That we did it. I'm very- Yeah... excited about that. Thank you to the Signal Awards. What else can we win? That's the question. Now I'm like, "Let's fucking go. Let's sweep whatever these awards are."
• 4:35
  Aren't they gonna do Best Podcast at the Golden Globe? I heard something like that. We gotta- Are they?... get one of those. Oh, God, that'd be fucking great. Golden Globes. We can- Go ahead...
• 4:41
  totally pay people off for that one. That's easy. Yeah, 100%.
• 4:45
  No, I, I was laughing 'cause I was thinking about was it the Oscars some years ago where they gave that Oscar to The Flash for, like, Fan Favorite or something like that, and the movie had just come out a year ago.
• 4:56
  Anyways, very confusing, so as always, pleased when someone says I did a good job but also ready for the downfall on the other side of it, which I'm sure is coming somehow.
• 5:06
  This could not be a better segue into our content today, which I'm really excited about. Mm-hmm. But at the same time, you mentioned you wanted to talk about Love Is Blind- [laughs]... for a moment.
• 5:15
  Remind me what Love Is Blind is. Just Love Is Blind is a show on Netflix. I would say for me personally, it's, like, one of my dumbest shows. I don't watch the Housewives.
• 5:23
  Love Is Blind is the show on Netflix where couples meet each other in these pods without seeing each other, and ostensibly, the experiment is, like, whether you can fall in love with someone without seeing them, although they can tell each other any...
• 5:36
  It's ki- the premise is so dumb. It's very relaxing.
• 5:39
  I find it like a baseball game level of, like, background noise, and then occasionally something so fucked up will happen that you'll have to text your friends about it or go- Yeah...
• 5:48
  look at the Reddit, the Love Is Blind Reddit to make sure other people confirm what you think.
• 5:52
  But there was a couple, they hadn't seen each other yet, and they were meeting, and typically they start asking to the, "Do you want kids? What kind of life do you want?"
• 6:00
  You know, like, things that kinda make sense.And the one couple started off by saying, "If you had kids, would you..." Basically it said, "If you had kids, do you believe in corporal punishment?" And yeah.
• 6:10
  And the guy was like- Wait, I'm sorry. What? Who asked, who asked the question, the guy or the girl? Or the guy or the guy, whatever it is. I think it was the guy. I don't know how these, how the show works.
• 6:17
  They don't do gay relationships on that show. That would be too outside the box. Way too interesting for Love Is Blind to have a gay couple. Okay, so the guy asked this? I think the guy asked this. And, or the...
• 6:27
  I, on this I don't remember which one asked it. Okay. One of them said, "I was raised..." I think she might have said it, because then he said, "I was raised getting spankings," basically.
• 6:35
  And, you know, there's certain people who think that if I was raised getting spankings and I turned out, you know, fine or w- or ostensibly fine, that means all children should be spanked.
• 6:45
  And this couple agreed on ahead of time that if they had kids they would spank it.
• 6:50
  Which to me is this, you know, that is just a wild place to go before you've even met each other face-to-face, to agree to, like, that if you do create a child, you will...
• 6:59
  And, and I was telling you, I was like, I mean, I understand why people wanna spank kids. I hundred percent... But, like, you don't start off, like, before the kid, thinking of the spanking. You know what I mean?
• 7:09
  Usually the kid kind of comes around. No, it's like the whole you don't shake a baby thing. Of course I want to. No parent at no point ever thinks, "Um, yeah, I would never want to shake a baby." Like- I... No.
• 7:18
  You would never. You're like, "What kind of idiot would do that?" And then you're like, cut to, you know, you're like, "I see it. I understand now."
• 7:23
  And then the thing that was extra dark was that the girl, I think, asked the guy... No. Again, sorry, the man asked the woman, and I did read on a Reddit thread that maybe this guy is closeted.
• 7:34
  That was, like, one theory that people had about this guy. Mm. But he asked the girl, he's like, "What would you do if one of your kids turned out to be, came out of the closet?"
• 7:41
  And she was like, "Well, I wouldn't be thrilled, but I would, you know, of course, you know, do the bare minimum of not, like, kicking it out of the house per se."
• 7:50
  And again, I was like, they are plotting ahead of time before this child is born to spank it and to probably love it a little bit less if it was gay. Mm. And these people had not shaken hands, hugged.
• 8:03
  Anyway, it's just an interesting strategy. I just have to say. I've never kinda came at it that way. I guess on the one hand there's like, let's cut to the chase here. What kind of person are you? You know? Mm-hmm.
• 8:14
  And that answers a lot of questions. 'Cause I'm a big fan of the idea of if this, then what else, right? Mm-hmm.
• 8:21
  Which is, you know, if you're like, "Yeah, I would 25% reject my child for being any form of queer after I spent a few years beating them," I'm pretty sure I've got... I don't need to know what you look like.
• 8:36
  Either I'm down for that or I'm not. You know? Mm-hmm. But at the same time, like you said, that goes hard. That's not, "Hey, we're in our 40s- Oh... we're dating, we should talk.
• 8:46
  Listen, do you wanna have k- let's get this part out of the way. Do you wanna have kids?" Totally different conversation when you're 20 and you're both idiots. You can't figure it out.
• 8:52
  When you're 40 you're like, maybe you've already got 'em, right? Or one of us has a ticking clock or one of us has a medical thing. Whatever it might be, right? But to jump from, let's assume we do.
• 9:03
  How much should we beat them and when? And at what age- Right... is a good age to, to tell them- Yeah... we love them less?
• 9:08
  And I think there's actually, like, some interesting conversations that could be had about, like, how you feel about certain childcare things that could be a deal breaker. You might as well get to it.
• 9:17
  And I think there's, like, a conversation to be had about not spanking as a discipline, but I think a lot of us have used our hands sometimes rougher than we wanted to once or twice. And we're not saying it was good.
• 9:28
  I certainly wouldn't wanna look back on that part of, those moments of my life, you know, in, like, the defending l- your life version of heaven and watch that.
• 9:35
  But I certainly was never like, "This works great, especially because my parents did it to me, and therefore I must do it." Like, to that... It's such a weird... Ugh.
• 9:43
  It's just a we- that's very dark to be like, "I can't wait to have this kid," and then beat the shit out of it. And like you said, like, you're saying that on the record, like, in front of TV cameras. You know?
• 9:52
  So anyway, this is why you need Reddit, so that you can go to a thread and read someone's, like, theory that this man was closeted and abused by his parents and that's why he feels this way.
• 10:01
  Which is probably completely not true and libelous, but at the same time that's not stopping me, 'cause I've won an award, so I can say whatever the fuck I want. Yeah. Go fuck yourself. That's the deal now.
• 10:09
  The gloves are even more off- Yeah... than they were before. [laughs] Mm-hmm. Yeah. And as we know, like, uh, so much domestic abuse stuff is passed down and this and that. But again, you are on TV.
• 10:22
  It is a weird ch- it's just a weird choice. Yeah. And I guess the sad thing is, like, there's definitely people watching who are like, "Yes, right on. For sure." Like, that, that- Completely... conversation all the time.
• 10:31
  Yeah. They're like, "Last Tuesday- Uh... I did that. I kicked my kid out. And right after- Mm-hmm... I beat them." It's, uh, Jesus Christ. Can I do- Yeah... one last question that's not a part of our topic?
• 10:42
  Even though you really just keep nailing the segues into this. Claire, subjectively, what is the best season? Oh, it is fall. Well, fall with an... Well, it's summer. It is summer. Sorry to say that.
• 10:55
  I would say fall, but fall has allergy season, so I'm gonna say summer. Not because, like, I'm a beach girl or whatever, but I have come to realize that I photosynthesize, and so that's maximum sunlight. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 11:05
  So I need that. Mm-hmm. Like, medically. So that's why I'm going with summer. Not because I love the heat or anything like that. But fall is second.
• 11:14
  And to me spring is sort of like a nonexistent season, and then Ch- Chicago winter is about nine months. So how about you? I feel like you know what you wanna say. What's the answer? I've gone back and forth.
• 11:23
  I mean, again, I think this is... W- w- actually, hold on. What's the fall allergy? I think it's ragweed. Oh. It started in college actually, at Georgetown.
• 11:30
  It's always September, like, when the trees start to fall and it gets a little dusty out. That's usually the worst time- Okay... of year for that stuff. Okay. So... And the bees. Bees? Well, bees are important. Yeah.
• 11:40
  We need bees. Well, I am allergic to bee stings, so they are- Oh. You know, I don't want them to die, but I don't- Six, seven... like... I keep... Oh, wow, okay. All right.
• 11:49
  Did you see there was a Wall Street Journal article about- Fucking kill me... six, seven? No. But I don't wanna read it. All right. 'Cause I don't... No. I don't want- No... any part of it. God, fucking kill me.
• 11:56
  I don't think you'll learn anything. No. I think, again, it's subjective to everyone. I think it really matters- Oh...
• 12:03
  how old you are and whether you have only ever lived in one place or maybe one or two, and how different are they?I've been all over the place. Yeah. I've definitely been all over the place.
• 12:13
  Places where, like, when I was at Colgate in central New York, again, like you said, winter is 10 months, you know? Ugh. And when it's 50 degrees, girls are sunbathing 'cause they're like, "This is what we've got."
• 12:24
  And the summer is incredible, but it's six weeks- Oh, yeah... and then that's it. And I've done LA, right? And I've done, like, the Middle East, so I get, like, endless summer.
• 12:31
  I think there's things I like about summer, but it's uncomfortable, you know, at times. Yeah. It feels a little difficult to escape. I- Where fall into winter, man, cozy season, sign me up, all day. I'm in. Yeah.
• 12:45
  No, I do like the leaves on the ground, like, the smell in the air. I don't like in the summer when it is so hot that your choices are, like, misery outside or, like, the freezing cold inside, for sure.
• 12:55
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• 13:12
  It has helped me literally just remember things I read, but also start to tie it all together, to find themes and ideas that connect to how I live and parent and how I show up as a partner, but also in my work and to express my ideas.
• 13:28
  I've got 300-something books in there, a couple thousand articles, a ton of old tweets. Here's how it works. You highlight stuff in Kindle or whatever, or Readwise's reader app.
• 13:39
  It saves it to Readwise, and then every day, the app is on your phone or whatever, and it's like, "Hey, here's five of your past highlights. Would you like to review them in 10 seconds?" And you do.
• 13:48
  But here's what's fun. You can also do more. And you can search it all. I can't imagine having this in college. I would've probably graduated easier.
• 13:58
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• 14:07
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• 14:17
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• 14:24
  Readwise and their reader, which is called Reader, the link to sign up and get that extra month is in the show notes, and it's also here. I'm gonna read it to you. It is simple. It is readwise.io/quinn.
• 14:37
  That's readwise.io/quinn. Again, it's right in the show notes for you. Just click it. Please check out Readwise today.
• 14:44
  Support our partners, and never forget what you read ever again, which is not something I thought I'd ever say. [upbeat music] Yeah.
• 14:53
  Chicago is crazy 'cause I think it snowed last two Halloweens maybe, but it's not unusual to have snow on Halloween and then have the one year cancel the marathon 'cause it turned out to be 85, and people are dying on the route.
• 15:03
  Oh, yeah. So, you know, it's l- and also where you live, summer is oppressive. Like, that's swampy-ass shit.
• 15:08
  It totally is, and same time [laughs] it's funny, it was fucking hot and swampy, and one of my mother-in-law's friends visited from Gainesville, Florida, and she was like, "Oh, such a relief to be here."
• 15:21
  [laughs] And I was like- I bet it is... "I bet it is, actually. I bet it's fucking terrible down there." So we've got it. Yeah.
• 15:26
  But I tell you, right here, like, where we are, we get all four seasons, and it's pretty great. So it's hot and nasty, and then it ends, and this fall's outrageous. Like, it's outrageous, so. Yeah. Yeah. No, it is nice.
• 15:37
  The boys just transitioned to fall uniforms at school, so we have to start pulling up the pants. Mm. And James, [laughs] poor J- he's size... He's 10 years old.
• 15:45
  He's very skinny, and he put on a size eight pants that, like, went up to his... You know, they started at his ankles. Mm-hmm. But they were also still too big for him in the waist. Like, he just has, you know. Yep.
• 15:55
  That's fine. I remember talking to- Sorry... an evil witch one time about being a teacher parent, and she said that before she had kids, she would kind of judge kids whose clothes didn't fit very well.
• 16:05
  She's like, "Why can't their parents stay on top of their clothing sizes?" And she's like, "Now my son's ankles are hanging out. His clothes don't fit at all." And she's like, "I can't give a shit."
• 16:12
  How many times a day- 100%... I say, "I don't know what to tell you. We have what we have. It's 7:00 in the morning. I don't know what the fuck to tell you"? I told you, this is so funny to me.
• 16:20
  Our kids were adjacent to some drama with their friends who forgot their f- th- there was some football pants confusion and who'd had and didn't have pants, and as you can imagine, there was a lot of drama around it at the time as- Sure, yeah...
• 16:33
  anything about kids and equipment in sports is always drama. But they were driving to football, and out of nowhere this kid said, "If you forget your pants, that changes everything." Just wisdom for the ages.
• 16:45
  That, the, like, it- I mean, put it, write it in stone, you know? From the mouths of babes. Yeah. How could they accumulate so much wisdom in such little time? Yeah. It does change everything. It really does.
• 16:56
  I actually got married in my buddy's pants, 'cause for some reason, we got married twice. We had the, like, the official one, Justina and I, like, three hours before- Mm...
• 17:04
  our quote, unquote, "real wedding" 'cause f- whatever reason. State of Virginia, whoever can marry you. And for the early one, I couldn't find my fucking pants.
• 17:12
  All my groomsmen were all getting ready, and I just looked at my buddy and said, "Executive privilege. Give me the pants." So got married- Yeah... in those.
• 17:18
  And then I guess we fixed it for the real one 'cause we both had pants on. But, you know, you do what you gotta do. Claire, so we won an award.
• 17:25
  We're getting all kinds of good vibes from mostly, like, ourselves and the few friends, like you said, who did it, and the judges who decided on us. That's fantastic. My other show, I got a silver and bronze.
• 17:38
  Don't worry, I'm not thinking about why those weren't gold every minute of every day. [laughs] Which is- They don't have me... part of my whole thing. Th- that's it. The answer is- [laughs]... it's because it's just me.
• 17:49
  You don't have to dial too deep on that. Willow said something the other day. She was... We were talking about, like, other shows we could do and this and that, and she was like, "I mean,
• 17:56
  sometimes it really just comes down to who people wanna listen to." I was like, "Oh, got it." No, I go, "I, you can just say it. You can just say it." Like, it's enough of me. You know, we all get the message.
• 18:06
  But it made me think of, did you feel a sense of, like, approval from that?
• 18:10
  And, like, basically, where do you, at our age now-Look for approval and how has that changed as both you've aged, become a parent, and then been a parent? 'Cause those are all really different, right?
• 18:25
  Because again- Yeah... like for instance, again, and this will oversimplify and we get into it, going in reverse, being a parent, I don't give a fuck about basically everything.
• 18:33
  I mean, in case you can't tell about by this point. When you become a parent, all your friends who have kids, friends who don't have kids, your parents, your in-law, like it never fucking ends. What book should I read?
• 18:43
  I'm doing it wrong. The book says this. You're arguing with your spouse. As you've aged, like, all this different stuff, when you're a kid, when you're a teen, et cetera. So let's start with you. Yeah.
• 18:54
  Where do you look for approval now? Or do you? I don't look for approval. No. Well, I'll tell you what.
• 19:00
  I do look for approval every time I send out an email to, like, 10,000 plus people because, you know, if you hear back, "Good job," that means you're literally doing your job.
• 19:09
  And it doesn't have to be, you know, something over the top. Someone just told me that they got a kick out of my survey that I sent out earlier today, and it made their mood better, and that's, like, awesome, you know?
• 19:20
  Mm-hmm. Or if I get an email from a school dad, like, that was one that was nice. He was like, "Thanks for everything you do for the community," which is not much, but it was extremely nice.
• 19:29
  It was just a nice thing to say, meaning this parenting newsletter. I'm not doing shit for anyone, just for the record.
• 19:35
  And of course, the rare times that the kids compliment me, often it's prompted, you know, but once in a while they tell me...
• 19:41
  And I don't, you know, I don't get a lot of it from them, but it has been quite a journey 'cause I definitely was someone who needed a lot of validation.
• 19:49
  Like, first-born, parents always had me doing things like extra credit, you know, I think we talked about my grade point average, and becoming a writer. I mean, I said this for a long time.
• 20:00
  I liked being a writer with my own byline 'cause I like my name being on it. That's, like, my words. That's why I never joined, like, a TV room.
• 20:06
  Also, never was invited or tried to, so that's, you know, maybe that wouldn't have worked out.
• 20:12
  And that was pretty intense during the, like, early internet years 'cause you could get a roundup, like a link from Gawker or something like that, and feel really good about- Mm...
• 20:19
  you know, the traffic, you know, things like that. But being a writer is a lot of ups and downs, and so I will...
• 20:26
  I mean, in the span of a day, in the span of an hour, I can go from being like, "Hey, you did a pretty good job," to being like, "You are such a fucking idiot." Like, no one... You're doing a bad job, you know.
• 20:35
  And I think I've evened out because, first of all, I'm old now. I'm just an old lady in the ocean just trying to, like, you know, just keep moving.
• 20:42
  But, you know, when I was writing a book, like for instance, I would be kind of wondering where my book review was in The New York Times, you know, like, I've never earned out.
• 20:50
  And so I'm just saying that, like, when you work in that kind of creative field, you can get your high fives and then you can get, like, big, you know, slaps of reality about, you know, what a nothing burger you are.
• 21:00
  So having kids was a hard adjustment to realize that your kids don't care, like, if you published a book or if you taught a class or if you won an award. Like, they don't give a fuck.
• 21:10
  And so it's been an adjustment to, like, move from that needing of a certain kind of validation. And I have, uh, more thoughts, but let me pause and hear from you 'cause that's the professional validation.
• 21:19
  I haven't even talked about, like, personal validation. But how about, were you always, you know, looking...
• 21:25
  You're not a firstborn, so I don't know if you're, like, as thirsty for approval as some of us firstborns tend to be. No, I tried to really think about this a lot this morning.
• 21:32
  I think a couple things, like, when I was in the last more, like, Wild West version of my professional career before this where I was doing a lot of different stuff, like philanthropic stuff, investing stuff, doing some screenwriting things, like this and that, I would get feedback on, again, screenwriting or whatever, and someone'd say, "Oh, you take notes well."
• 21:53
  And it occurred to me that, one, I don't necessarily think that's true. Two, if there's anything, I think it's from having mostly good
• 22:06
  sports coaches in my life who would be like, "You gotta fix your fucking batting stance," or, "You gotta fix your arm." Like, with, again, mostly the intention being to make you better so that we will win more.
• 22:21
  Like, th- that's it. It's not a personal thing. Again, mostly, not all the time. So I think that was helpful.
• 22:27
  And obviously, you know, looking around at who could be successful in that stuff and who's not in the creative stuff, which is so subjective, right?
• 22:35
  There's some, like, objective highs and lows, but in between, it's so subjective. And knowing that, look, these people are just trying to get something made, too, right?
• 22:42
  They're like, "Can you make it better so that it can be better?" So that this isn't about you sometimes, not all the times. Certainly not all the time. But I think definitely when I was younger, so there was that.
• 22:53
  I mostly participated in sports that were objectively measurable. You were fast or you were not. This is your batting average or this is not. And so you were
• 23:07
  much more exactly and acutely able to measure both your performance and also your contribution to things.
• 23:17
  And you're like, you either made it in the lineup or you didn't, and there's not a whole lot of, like, confusion as to why, you know?
• 23:22
  You're either on the relay or you're not, and it's because, like, you're not that fast. You can't swim that fucking stroke, whatever it might be. In school, it'd be the same thing.
• 23:30
  You'd be like, "Ugh, it's too bad I'm not valedictorian." It's like, well, you haven't opened a book in three months, you fucking idiot.
• 23:36
  So I think most of my validation came kind of al- almost automatically from p- participating in those things. Same thing with playing music forever.
• 23:44
  Like, you would go and you'd try out for whatever chair, and it's like, you either did your shit and you have some reservoir of talent that you've built on or you have not, and then it's ranked.
• 23:52
  So it was interesting to me 'cause again, I think a lot of that was automatic. Outside of those things, I think it was probably some combination of, and again, these are, like, categorical, but, like, girls,
• 24:06
  again, coaches seeking approval beyond the measurable things. Like you said, someone just saying, "Good job," and you're like, "I'll take that all day." And- Mm-hmm...
• 24:16
  th- this is what I came back to, and again, I feel like this conversation, we could have four of them.The difference between, especially when you're young, and I think we're just probably so different now, is explicit
• 24:27
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• 26:24
  [upbeat music] Like, I would imagine- Mm-hmm... getting approval from the Ken Griffey Jr. poster on my wall, being like, "He would probably think I had a great game today, so I'll take that." You know?
• 26:38
  It's completely insane. Mm-hmm. But it was something, right?
• 26:41
  Or we've talked about, like, changing your instant messenger away message to, you know, hoping that someone would see and be like, "Oh yeah, she's pretty cool for liking that indie band" 'cause of the one lyric you found on Napster, you know?
• 26:55
  Yeah. So that is, I think, how I... That was, like, the foundational pieces for me. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm.
• 27:03
  Yeah, I mean, it's interesting to have something, like, with metrics like that 'cause I was not like, like that. I had grades, but I didn't have a sport per se. And, you know, there's a name.
• 27:12
  They talk about eldest girl syndrome, and it's also called supergirl syndrome, and I've felt it, but I never realized it's like a...
• 27:18
  It's first, it's where first-born daughters are sort of given from their fathers an expectation that you can excel, and there's no reason why you can't do as well as a boy or better than a boy- Mm...
• 27:28
  which is true and in a good place. But I do think at least with my particular path, it ended up with a lot of anxiety, you know, as well, and burnout.
• 27:37
  And so I definitely don't put that kind of pressure on my kids 'cause I just... First of all, it's a zero-sum game. You'll never win. There's no winning anyway.
• 27:45
  But let's say the winning is getting into a good college, you know, or a certain kind of college. There's so many random things that go into that.
• 27:52
  And let's say you graduate, that doesn't mean you'll have a great job, doesn't mean you'll be happy, doesn't mean anything. But I'm aware that's my privilege speaking, that I can say, "Well, my kids will be fine.
• 28:01
  We'll figure it out." But I don't think I would force... Not force. I don't think I would push my kids to do these.
• 28:08
  Like, I remember my parents told me that it would be great if I could graduate in the top 20 people of my class, not 20%, and my class had, like, 600 people in it, and I think I eked in at number 19 or number 20.
• 28:20
  And, like, in looking back, I just think about, I can't believe I, like, was like, "Okay, I'll aim for that, and I will do it," you know?
• 28:27
  But again, my mom was, like, always on my side, like, always pushing me, having extra kind of classes and things like that. So I just don't wanna do that for someone else. I put so much pressure on myself.
• 28:36
  I could not enjoy putting that kind... Not enjoy, but feel putting that on someone else, you know?
• 28:41
  Especially 'cause they have their own ways of feeling good about themselves, and it doesn't need to be, you know, marked by particular grades or things like that.
• 28:49
  But yeah, with James, it's kind of funny what you mentioned about the sports stuff because I saw it happen this year in football. He plays a lot of imaginary football.
• 28:56
  I don't know if you did that when you were a kid, or baseball, like, where you- All of it, all the time. He'll... I wo- Yeah. I'll watch him... I mean, it's just so normal in our house.
• 29:04
  Like, he'll play a whole football game in his head. Like, he'll throw himself.
• 29:07
  It's very common to wake up in the mo- morning and hear him, like, crashing around 'cause he's like, you know, diving for balls and things like that. And- Mm... and, you know, like, more power to him.
• 29:16
  I love that for him.
• 29:17
  But this year he had to play football with some actual big kids, you know, and actually follow coaches and plays and listen, and he realized that he's much smaller than a lot of the kids in his imagination, and I could tell that it was a real...
• 29:31
  He didn't care for that humbling process, which I completely understand. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But also I'm like, if you are serious about... Not serious about sports, 'cause I don't care about him being...
• 29:40
  I don't want him to be a professional athlete, which he finds undermining, of course. But anything in life, you have to suck at things.
• 29:46
  I became a writer 'cause I put in the proverbial 20,000 hours of, you know, like, practice and fun and grinding, and he needs to feel the same way.
• 29:53
  So that's a safe way to kind of feel, like, out of your element, I think, and not feel like you're excelling, which is, you need that.
• 29:59
  Otherwise, who needs, like, a bunch of white men around who's feel like they only won 'cause they've won every single game in their imagination. But- Mm-hmm... how about your kids? Do they...
• 30:06
  different ways of speaking about, like, the validation they need and how they like it? Yeah. I mean, they all struggle with it differently.Slash, you know, take it in differently or seek it out differently.
• 30:18
  There's that idea like you should quote unquote compliment them like 10 times as much as you correct. Well, I don't remember if that's kids or dogs, but it doesn't matter. It probably applies to the same thing.
• 30:27
  Essentially, you know, don't correct them all the time, which is fair, but also they're fucking idiots, so you gotta do some correcting or else they're gonna walk into the fire. I don't know what to tell you.
• 30:35
  But I texted you the other week. I was like, when a kid has woken up and left on every single light in the house, it's really hard to not lead with, "Can you not do that?"
• 30:42
  No, every day I walk in from school and I'm like, "You know you're not supposed to be doing these four fucking things."
• 30:49
  Like, can I come in the door again and you not consciously choose to do things you're fully aware you're not supposed to be doing? Do them when I'm not gonna walk in. I don't fucking know.
• 30:59
  It's different, you know, when I think about, like, they're doing different stuff. Got our first volleyball game tonight. That'll be interesting. That's a very team sport, right? Mm-hmm. I mean, among the most.
• 31:08
  You literally are five people- Yeah... trying to keep a ball in the air. That's very different- It's fast... from fucking track or something like that.
• 31:14
  I also think it's so different 'cause, like, as much as we really don't do screens m- much at all, the influences and opinions and perspectives, again...
• 31:25
  Well, I mean, of course, for girls it's a nightmare, but now also for boys. Without even going as far as fucking Andrew Tate, going, "Okay, I watched this three-hour insanity on YouTube.
• 31:36
  Am I going out to live my life that way, and is that what they would think and my friends would think who've also watched this?" You always try to do what your... Get approval from your friends and shit like that, right?
• 31:44
  Mm-hmm. Like, I didn't have FOMO my whole life. No, sorry, reverse. I had FOMO for- [laughs]... quite a while, right? Y- you know- Mm-hmm... I w- I was the kid. And I told my 12-year-old this the other day. I said, "Man,
• 31:56
  I remember getting voted most popular in middle school and, like, taking the picture in the yearbook, like, in my Speedo 'cause I was like, 'I'm fucking shredded and this should be memorialized.'" You're welcome.
• 32:06
  But going home and having raging insecurities, you know? And this is what I try to tell him about. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Middle school is miserable for everyone, but obviously for some people it's much, much worse. Anyways.
• 32:16
  But- Did you make him look at the picture of you being shredded, by the way, to be like, you know, try to be like this, more like this? No, I framed it on his wall. He, I make him look at it every morning.
• 32:25
  I'm like, "You're this or you're nothing. Gold medal. Gold medal." But, you know, I think it's the same in so many fundamental ways for them, but also different- Mm...
• 32:34
  'cause of all these invasive influences of what you're supposed to be and how you're supposed to be.
• 32:38
  So, like, I think there's some things from, like, your volleyball, your sports, or music, or whatever it is, and we always tell them, we're like, "Whether it's putting your shoes away in the morning," especially with the ADHD kid, or just in general- Uh-huh...
• 32:49
  "do a favor to your future self." And that comes up to- Yeah...
• 32:53
  like, when you were at the band tryout, you can't go back and put in, like, the 20 minutes of practice you could've done every day, 'cause you're gonna get objective approval right now one way or another. And- Yeah...
• 33:06
  some of it's in the hands of who's doing the approving, of course, but some of it's, like, just the work you put in, and- Yeah... you're gonna learn a lesson every time. But I think the day-to-day stuff is harder.
• 33:16
  I definitely try not to, like you said, fucking ride him about stuff. Very early on, I mean, I was so obsessed with my times and my batting average and all this different stuff. Grade point average, not so much.
• 33:28
  Was it above one and a half? Great. We're still here. Right. We're allowed to come to school.
• 33:32
  But everything else, I could knew to the 100th of a second, and I tried to very consciously, kinda like when I very consciously... I thought about this the other day.
• 33:39
  I think the number one thing I do as a parent is I don't drink. I really think that's- Mm-hmm... like, the fundamental decision made, 'cause there's... Everything else beyond that's not great.
• 33:49
  But I remember when they started getting into, again, measurable stuff, sports, whatever, school, I was like, "Here's the deal. I'm not gonna give a shit or even look into
• 34:00
  what a quote-unquote good time is or something like that- Uh-huh... unless you say, 'This is the time I'm interested in. Can you help me remember it?'" Uh-huh. "Or print it out for..." Whatever the fuck.
• 34:11
  I was like, "I refuse to be the parent when you get out of the pool and it's like, 'Why didn't you go half a second faster? Why didn't you- Yeah... make third chair in fucking trumpet?'" No.
• 34:19
  Yeah, no, I have a friend who just ran the Chicago Marathon, and she's my age, and she has two kids, and she is mad at herself 'cause she wanted to be sub four, four hours, and I think she finished in 4:02.
• 34:30
  And, you know, for me, I'm like, "He- I think that sounds pretty good." You know? But, like, that would kill me that, to, you know, not be able to enjoy your success.
• 34:38
  It was funny, I gave Paul a compliment last night, and sometimes when he's really psyched, he, like, pounds himself on the chest. I don't know if that's a boy thing or not, like a monkey.
• 34:45
  Long story, but there was some fuckup in my shower where the handle fell off, and Steve replaced it, but he replaced it in a hurry where normally you have to turn the shower up to turn the water on, and then it ha- you know, whatever.
• 34:56
  So Paul told me last night that he fixed it himself, and I said, "How'd you do that?" And he said, "Oh, I just unscrewed it and screwed it back on."
• 35:01
  I was like, "That's awesome," and I patted him on the head and I said, "You're your father's son," 'cause Steve is a handy guy. And he, you could tell that was, like, a good...
• 35:08
  He felt good about that, that, like, he got complimented for being a... Well, first of all, masculinity, we could talk, that's gonna be a different c- conversation, but nothing to me is better than a man who can, like...
• 35:18
  Any person, not me, but I really appreciate Steve for being handy, and I try to praise him for that in front of the boys especially, 'cause I happen to notice that most men I know who go off about masculinity cannot fucking do anything themselves.
• 35:30
  They can't replace a, you know, a light bulb or anything like that. And so I want the boys to be, like, you know, bullshit less, fix things more if possible.
• 35:40
  So I was happy that Paul seemed pleased that I saw him doing that. So, you know, one little compliment. We'll see if that continues. Knowing that there are other
• 35:51
  potential sources of approval, again, explicit or implicit, out there that are additive to yours and Steve's, or even different in some way but you support it, from books or movies, like even characters in movies or TV or whatever it might be,
• 36:07
  how much do you, if at all-Sort of proactively supply those.
• 36:13
  And so there was a, the writer Austin Kleon, who's great, but he wrote a really good post about, and I might have talked about this, about like making his house sort of a library and how he sets traps.
• 36:22
  Like he'll just leave books around his house, certain books. Mm-hmm. And he's like, "I don't push them on my kids 'cause they'll never fucking read them, but maybe they'll pick them up." Mm-hmm.
• 36:29
  I'm like, do you do that at all? You mean traps for the kids to like accidentally do something good? No, or something they could learn from or a character they could learn from.
• 36:38
  Or do you do more, I found this and I'll put it in the show notes. It didn't seem like some raging thing, which probably meant it's actually good and I liked it a lot.
• 36:45
  A book about like mental health for like adolescent athletes, and it's really great. And that I specifically gave my kid 'cause he was having a hard time. I was like, "There's some really good shit in here.
• 36:56
  Take what you will from it, man." Is that a picture with a kid and a lion also at the same... Is it like, "My parents gave the boys a book about mental health in athletes," and they were like, "The fuck is this?"
• 37:05
  I have no idea. Yeah. I have no idea. No. Honestly, not too much. I guess I should. We were pretty free and easy about that kind of stuff 'cause they're at church, you know, they're on the football team. Ah, yes. Church.
• 37:15
  You know? Right. So I'll try to mention if I do something, you know, one of us does something amazing, and also Paul has compulsory volunteer time right now for confirmation, which it's not hard for him to do.
• 37:26
  He likes it, actually. So anyway, I feel like it's baked in a little bit now where we're not thinking about it- Mm-hmm... where maybe we should.
• 37:32
  Although now I might have to start going to church with Paul, which I don't wanna do, but ICE is fucking in town and targeting our church because there are a lot of Spanish-speaking people who go there.
• 37:42
  So I was telling a theologian friend, I was like mad at Donald Trump for making me go to church like as a protest. And she, as a theologian, she said, "Every time you go to church it should be a protest."
• 37:52
  And I was like, "I know, but..." Ugh. Not right now. Not... Goddammit. That's not why I'm here. Yeah. Yeah.
• 37:57
  Let me ask you this to broach it, because I think I mentioned like I was a religious major and still read and study all that stuff, but we're fucking heathens. Like we don't do any of it.
• 38:05
  Our whole thing is you can read about all that shit, participate in what you want if you want. Don't hurt anybody, et cetera, et cetera.
• 38:11
  Like how much is going to Catholic school and just going to church in general and upcoming confirmation and stuff like that, how much is that the, in the, like 24/7 implicit source of approval?
• 38:25
  'Cause Catholicism's like on the start, like you're playing with two strikes. So how much is that hanging around? 'Cause we don't have it, but we do try to, you know, again, like the moral pieces of it for sure.
• 38:37
  No question. Yeah. But we're not just like, "Well, Jesus wouldn't want you to do that." Right.
• 38:42
  Well, it's funny when you're like born and raised Catholic, 'cause I think in some ways you're much more flippant about it, and you're a cafeteria Catholic when you're like that and you're like, "Well, I'm not doing that.
• 38:49
  That's stupid," you know. And I mean, I've gone to confession and told the priest like, "Well, I've done things that I know you won't like, but I'm not sorry about it," and he's like, "Thanks for being here," honestly.
• 38:58
  And so our kids go to a, you know, I would say pretty c- liberal parish compared to other parts of the country, so I think that they are getting thoughts of...
• 39:08
  It's more community service and empathy than it is fire and brimstone as far as I- Great... you know.
• 39:13
  So, you know, I was not thrilled that there was a Baby Bottles for Life volunteer thing that Paul will not take part in, but it is, there was an option for them and a friend of mine was like, "Do you think the babies are alive or not alive?"
• 39:26
  And I was like, "You know what they're talking about. When they say for life, they're not talking about-" Yeah... living babies." But Catholics kind of Catholic, you know, we don't have to do that part of it.
• 39:35
  That's fine.
• 39:36
  So, you know, they're not super religious on their own, but at the very least, like an hour, 45 minutes a week w- being forced to just kind of sit there and then at least for a couple minutes of that 45 minutes you list off people who might need praying for, that's good.
• 39:50
  You know? Sure. I think that's a good routine if you- Yeah. I, there's nothing wrong with that i- in the slightest.
• 39:54
  Like m- more people should be proactively, constructively like building empathy into their everyday lives, like wherever the fuck you're doing it, even if it's in like a... My God, I almost said a record store.
• 40:03
  Goddammit. Well, dude, he volunteered.
• 40:05
  And again, this is like fun for him 'cause he is around these kids who do that as well, but there's a thing called Buddy Baseball where some of the kids who go to the, you know, special education school play baseball with the league here, and each kid, you know- That's so cool...
• 40:17
  has a buddy. Yeah. And so Paul just had this kid, and he kinda helped run around with him and cheer for him. You know? I'm like, "You're better than I am by far. Good job, kid." Yeah. It's, yeah. It's not even close.
• 40:27
  The day I like fully reveal that to them, I don't think they'll be very surprised.
• 40:31
  I think a lot about, and I go back to our conversation about do you say no to your kids, and I laughed at you, but I do think vis-a-vis this and like approval from your parents and like how to live, and I probably not as clear
• 40:44
  from my parents, even though my mom- Mm... was like the best person. I just don't think it was as explicit, lay down the law- Yeah... as far as saying no. Like I believe in and try to set a floor of these are our like
• 40:58
  values and codes as practically emphasized as I can. Mm-hmm. And I think that's where you have to say no sometimes. And where I try to say to them, you know, if they do something dumb, I just go, "We don't do that.
• 41:11
  We're not that." Yeah. "So sorry."
• 41:13
  Again, I think I told you, our 12-year-old, like nicest kid, best kid, so much better of a person than I am, and wrote something to a friend on his iPad, and as I told him, I read every message and will for a long time, and I just saw it and I just said, "Hey, the first lesson is you should know we don't do that, and second lesson is anything you write down anywhere is gonna be shared," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 41:35
  Right? And they just fucking took it. I was like, "That's the floor," you know? Yeah. And of course I do all that stuff. Was he more mad or sad? Did he cry or get mad at you, or is he ashamed? What was his reaction?
• 41:46
  It was, he was very much, "Yeah. No, I know, that you're fucking right." I fucked up. And then 20%, which I think is fair, he was like, "The person I was talking shit about deserved it." And I was like- Okay...
• 41:59
  "Totally might be true. 100%. Totally get it. I don't know this person, whatever." I was like, "But we don't put it in writing. Like we're not doing that-" Mm... "and we don't talk about people like that, sorry.
• 42:08
  You know, you feel however you... I'm not saying like your feelings aren't real," but I'm like, "We're not fucking doing that."
• 42:12
  That's just, again, that basic shit, and same thing, like you said, fucking practicing empathy on a weekly basis.It is great. If you can do that, great, you know? So I try to set my approval as, like, a baseline.
• 42:25
  Does that make sense? Yeah right. I think it's kind of funny that we're talking about our approval, 'cause also our kids are pretty much at the age where our approval is, like, really losing value as a currency, um.
• 42:34
  Right, and I was gonna ask you, but that's kinda what I mean about, like, setting up accessory sources of it in some ways- Yeah... which is watch, like, uh, I'm gonna be like, "We're watching Saving Private Ryan.
• 42:44
  Here's the deal." Right. "These guys didn't wanna do this fucking job."
• 42:46
  They talk about it the entire movie, that they, not only did they not wanna serve, one of them's an English teacher, that they don't wanna go do this job. Why the fuck is this guy worth saving?
• 42:55
  But three of his fucking brothers died. And I'm gonna be like, "What is the lesson you got out of this?" And our dad is, like, going through some shit, and he's making us watch this movie? Mm-hmm. Correct.
• 43:05
  The note behind the note is- Yeah. Yeah. No, wait, can I tell you a funny anecdote real quick? 'Cause it sort of ties into social approval. Yeah. But also the internet.
• 43:13
  I went on a walk this morning with a friend of mine, this woman I've known since... Literally she bullied me in middle school, and now we are old women together who walk by the lake together.
• 43:21
  And she was telling me how her daughter, who's in sixth grade, just got a phone because she, you know, gets around on her own.
• 43:27
  And my friend didn't, she wanted to be very careful, obviously, and she did that thing where she had a contract for her daughter, and had another high school friend of ours who works in sex ed at the children's hospital review the contract.
• 43:39
  Mm. And she thought she had dotted all her I's and crossed all her T's. And then it turned out that her daughter was chatting with some girl who'd given her phone number through Roblox Chat.
• 43:48
  And so immediately my friend Julia is, like, freaking out about whether this girl is real or a sex predator or not. No, it turns out- [laughs]... it's just a lonely girl across the country.
• 43:58
  And then Julia says, "Does she not have any friends of her own? Like, why is she talking to you all the time?"
• 44:03
  And then she realizes that her daughter says to the fourth-grade girl, "Why don't you have any friends of your own? Why are you talking to me all the time?"
• 44:09
  So Julia goes from being, like, terrified for her daughter's, you know, life, to being mortified that her daughter is, like, being an asshole to someone who she just met through a game, you know?
• 44:19
  And meanwhile, I'm just marveling over how Julia and I met, like, swimming at the YMCA before, like, I think cordless phones were the latest, you know, technology at the time. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
• 44:30
  So it's the kind of thing where I was, like, laughing, although it wasn't funny, but just, like, marveling over...
• 44:34
  It had this, like, Curb Your Enthusiasm feeling of it as well, where like you don't want your kid to be bullied, but also, like, you don't want your kid to be an asshole, 'cause that's also annoying. Mm-hmm.
• 44:43
  So that's, like, why I have Steve occasionally look at Paul's texts, 'cause I was like, I think I, with my woman eyes, would be mortified by what he's saying as a 12-year-old.
• 44:51
  But Steve, as a former 12-year-old boy, like- Totally... he can parse it better. No, at some point you gotta pass that baton.
• 44:55
  And not because it's not the right thing, but because you don't want any fucking part of that shit, man. You don't want any part. [laughs] And again, I'm setting the floor.
• 45:01
  I'm like, 90% of the stuff you guys are saying, one, I don't understand. Two, I don't want to understand. But I n- I know enough to catch the things that shouldn't be. And here's the deal, you know I was doing it. Sorry.
• 45:13
  Uh. Like, I don't know what to fucking tell you. Yeah, I don't know. I just think it's really interesting to think about, like, where we got approval, why we sought it out, and from whom.
• 45:22
  It's goes to the meeting your heroes thing, where like maybe you sought out approval for someone and then they turned into, you know, like the teenager you worshiped growing up, but it turns out they're a- Yeah...
• 45:29
  fucking terrible person.
• 45:31
  I mean, it is hard for me to parse it because the, just right now I'm on Substack, which becomes, like more in your face tells you what a, like, success you are or are not as a writer and how many, like, literal friends you have.
• 45:41
  And then you have social media. And like, I don't want to be a business manager for myself. I don't wanna be monitoring my own popularity. It's actually killing me. Mm. But also, like, it has come to this is where it is.
• 45:53
  Like, I- Yeah... kind of would be foolish to not care a little bit. But I was talking to Steve, 'cause he used to have a lot of social anxiety, and he was like, "You feel like you don't give a shit anymore."
• 46:01
  And I was like, "Oh, well, I've crossed over y- to not giving a shit-" Yeah... "a long time ago."
• 46:05
  But he was like, "I used to feel a lot more self-conscious around the other dads at our school, and now I'm just more, much more relaxed." I'm like, "That's great." You know,
• 46:13
  I feel, like, a certain contracting of my social circle right now, and I'm not happy about it per se, but also just I feel like I have a lot less energy to care about more people at once, and I can kinda sprinkle a little bit more.
• 46:24
  But I feel sad about that, 'cause I used to pride- Sure...
• 46:26
  myself on being, like, a really good, consistent friend to a lot of people, and now I'm a little bit more like, "I, I care about you and I love you, but I'll be demonstrating it in a more, hmm, subtle way perhaps for a little while."
• 46:36
  But it's weird- Mm... from someone who used to care very fucking deeply about how many friends she had and whether someone was mad at her. I was always aware people were mad at me, and now I'm like, well, probably not.
• 46:46
  Probably everyone's too busy to be mad at me. And if they are mad at me, they should tell me, and if they're not telling me, then I can't... It's not my problem.
• 46:52
  So anyway, [laughs] it's a wild journey, and I feel for- It is... Charlotte that she's, like, right entering that portal right when all that really starts to get very potent. Yeah.
• 47:00
  It's fucking gnarly, and I don't, again, don't envy it for her. I would love to protect her for it, but at the same time, hopefully you come out of it with a slightly better skin about it. I don't know.
• 47:10
  There's no way to fucking skip it, man. Yeah. What's something stupid that you did as a youngster 'cause you wanted social approval? Oh, you said you have a hard out in 20 minutes.
• 47:21
  I, like, Jesus Christ, Claire, are you fucking kidding? [laughs] Name just one. Just name one. It doesn't have to be, like, a big epic, you know.
• 47:30
  Like, I stayed up all night with some friends in college once and we drove to Kings Dominion and stayed overnight in Richmond, and we spent way too much money in a hotel.
• 47:37
  But also it was, like, one of those adventure, you know, like, that wasn't even that damn- That's pretty innocent, but still, that's an example. Like, we could've gotten car wreck, you know, or anything like that. Mm.
• 47:47
  So I'm sure you have more spicy ones. Oh, no, I, I do, for sure. I mean, a friend texted me. Uh, one of my, you know, my circle is kind of intentionally small, but they're all sort of lifers.
• 47:58
  But o- one of them texted me the other day about how good a Lord of the Rings movie is. And I was like, well, this is every fourth text between us.
• 48:04
  We went and saw them when they came out, this and this, and it reminded me very quickly, and again, like, watching my kids, that when we went to go see them, we went to the big theater from here. We were
• 48:17
  19, 20, I don't know, something like that, 18, 19, 20. It was about 25 minutes away on the highway, and we drove in our cars-Hundred plus miles an hour Wait- Wait for it- And then-...
• 48:30
  directly next to each other and thought it would be cool if the... Whoever was driving this car could pass something into the window of whoever is the passenger in that car. And again- Oh...
• 48:43
  instantly I went from, like, his text to that in 10 seconds, and then I was like, "I would f- fucking murder my chill." If they survived it, if they survived that, that accident.
• 48:53
  But, but because I was like, "What am I gonna be? The person who says no to this?" It didn't even cross my fucking mind. And- Yeah... yeah, I don't know. I don't know.
• 49:01
  Like, I definitely had the, again, the FOMO applied to the same thing you're saying, which is, is this person mad? Are they having a good time? I am not kidding, where I still have some... This is how insane I am.
• 49:10
  Are you ready? Mm. We went to that Wicked concert thing, right? That's gonna premiere in a couple weeks, I think November 5th or 6th, great. And I thought to myself,
• 49:21
  while they were doing it and watching these incredible people, not just the two women, but everybody involved, the composer, everybody. At one point I thought to myself, "I wonder if Cynthia's having a good time." Mm.
• 49:35
  Why? Well, does she feel like this is enough for her? Does she feel like- Yeah... this is below me? That's her- Well, she- It is her job, too. That's her job. She- Also, she's- Yeah...
• 49:43
  clearly flying through the air having a great time. But, you know, it's the same thing.
• 49:47
  I- Well- I think I told you one time we had a big cancer fundraiser at our house, and I was mad 'cause it was hot out, and I thought people would be mad at me. And my buddy was like- Oh, yeah...
• 49:54
  "You don't control the weather. Like, why are you still... No one fucking cares." No, I can't.
• 50:00
  That's why I don't really host as much anymore 'cause, like, I have had that anxiety of one person might not be having a good time, and it's 'cause I failed to prepare them with, like, enough information about my other friends there or something like that.
• 50:11
  And yes, the responsibility of other people's good time was certainly something I cared a lot about.
• 50:16
  And yeah, I, you know, and I think having kids also especially, like we've talked about this before, Steve is much more concerned about the kids not being sad. Yeah.
• 50:25
  And I wouldn't say I'm not concerned about it, but you know, he was gonna go to a work dinner, for instance, on Friday with this, and it was gonna be, like, a big deal in a fancy restaurant, and he was excited, and now he's gonna back out I think 'cause he feels bad about missing James's last football game of the year.
• 50:38
  And that's, like, really good fathering, but also on the other hand, there could be a made case that James is the smallest kid on the JV squad, and it's the last game of the year.
• 50:47
  But you know, he could not take the math of all of his years of being a really good pa- parent instead of he'd be... I mean, it's a lot like social approval.
• 50:54
  You could get all the great comments in the world, and then one criticism, especially if it's from yourself, will completely negate all of that. Like- Oh, sure...
• 51:02
  I can still remember a couple years ago, like, the email I got from an evil witch telling me, an evil witch reader telling me that I was ableist 'cause I was, like, making fun of how Paul can't use a knife and fork.
• 51:11
  And I kind of replied, you know, sort of jokingly, sincerely, and she was like, she doubled down, was like, "No, you better check yourself. I'm concerned about your child." And I was like, "Fuck off."
• 51:20
  But again, why does that stick in my head compared to the plenty of nice- Mm... not, you know, appropriate now, a number of nice things that, things people have said to me. But yeah. Yeah.
• 51:28
  This is part of als- like, why I don't write books anymore because, like, publishing a book is a dream come true, and that's great.
• 51:36
  Also, no one tells you, like, if you haven't published a book that, like, unless you are Stephen King or Malcolm Gladwell or what's her name who wrote Eat Pray Love who, like, cut her hair and did all those drugs with her wife and al- almost killed her.
• 51:49
  Like, you have to do so much work after that, and that is very humbling as well. You think you're done when you publish the book, and now you have to go out and convince people to buy it.
• 51:58
  So I used to be a lot more active about the hustle, and I can't anymore. And the weirdest thing is that I feel guilty about it.
• 52:05
  And I think we talked about that with a caller from a while ago is you're like, "Why do I feel so guilty that I'm not, like, trying to get more approval in various ways?" And then you're like, "Also there's ice."
• 52:14
  You know? Also there may be not an election in 2028. You know? Like, all of these things, so. Sorry, don't care.
• 52:22
  Yeah, and it is on a spectrum for sure that's constantly out of our control, and yeah, I mean, I totally get all that. It is, it's not fun. Have you taken your kids to a protest, a march? We did.
• 52:34
  One of my favorite pictures of my kids, which feels kinda dark to say, I'll send to you, is of them at a guns rights march when they were, like- Mm... four. And I thought,
• 52:45
  "Boy, if I was ever gonna put a picture of my kids online, like, this is pretty awesome." And we never, we did not. I'll send it to you. But yeah- Cool... we've taken them to a bunch. No Kings is this weekend. Yes.
• 52:54
  Let's fucking do it. Yeah, no, 100%. We're doing all that shit. We are so not right now about No Kings also. What is it? Is it Saturday? Saturday. Yeah.
• 53:03
  I mean, this is both pathetic and also it's the truth, and I've talked with other moms who, like, want to go, other parents.
• 53:09
  And they're like, "Well, Paul's got an eye doctor appointment at 11:40, and then we're going out to the suburbs from 2:00 to 4:00 for someone else's party, and then Paul has this zombie scramble and a fall social afterward."
• 53:19
  So you're like, "When am I, when is the time to stand up?" To protest our dictator? Yeah, I- Yeah... I got a full, what is the quote from, from Old School? "I don't know, we got a pretty busy Saturday.
• 53:28
  I don't know if we'll have time." [laughs] Yeah, no, that's real. We all laughed at it when we were fucking 22, and now you're just like, "Yeah, 100%."
• 53:36
  In the middle I've got two baseball games, one of which I'm coaching, a swim practice. I'm supposed to go to a Weema Mary conservation thing. And I'm like, "Okay, I will fit it in. I will try to fit it in." Yeah.
• 53:48
  But it's not- Yeah... about approval. It's just me just going I, I, I'm trying. We talked about this I think last week or two weeks ago about, yeah, the, I mean, that's approval.
• 53:54
  And that's a very Catholic thing actually is, like, the do you need approval if you're doing something good? You know, is it inherently better to do it in private or not? You know- Do they call that the third thing?
• 54:04
  You don't need the third thing, the approval from it, right? Yeah. But if you're telling other people about it and then joining, you know, there's a big difference behind that, so.
• 54:11
  But yeah, there's that weird FOMO about, well, should we march? Should we not? Does the march do anything? Do we suck if we don't? You know, and then you're like, is this about me more?
• 54:19
  But this is also, by the way, like, why we built our What Can I Do site because everybody fucking shows up differently. We would like you to show up different ways.
• 54:27
  But if you only donate from your sweatpants, it's something. I will fucking take it. Would I like you- Yeah... to show up with your body? For sure. We'll give you ways to do that.
• 54:34
  Mm.If you can't make the march, you can't make the march, you know? Yeah. I did wanna make one point, just to go back to you were saying the book stuff and all that kind of things. Yeah.
• 54:42
  You know, Dana's got Wicked coming out. We knew how the first one did. Will the second one measure up to that? What does that even mean? Et cetera, et cetera.
• 54:48
  Every other thing, she's ever made this and this, going to restaurants. I'm of two minds, right? Mm-hmm. But I do really believe in the first one, which is
• 54:59
  yes, people obviously, especially with the internet, can just be m- mean, and most of the comments left online are gonna be negative ones because that's- Yeah...
• 55:08
  who's gonna make the time to do it, even if it's in good faith or not. I do believe, though, that you should go into, as you are choosing
• 55:16
  your occupation, vocation, however you wanna show yourself in public, if you are putting yourself or your work or your hobby in public, you are making
• 55:34
  an implicit contract that you are putting it out there to be judged. If you are going to open a restaurant,
• 55:41
  people are going to review it, 'cause you're saying, "Please come spend your money on my food that I think is good enough for that money."
• 55:48
  And people are gonna say it is or it isn't, and that's what you're putting out there. And it's the same thing as making a movie, making a book- I know... all this kind of shit.
• 55:54
  And you have to find a way to navigate that, 'cause there's no way... It's easy to be like, "Oh, this critic's a fucking asshole and sexist." Of course they are. Like, that's what we've built here.
• 56:02
  Like, I don't know what to tell you. But you have- Yeah... to find ways to know that's what you're getting into, and how can you deal with that? And it's harder for some people than others. Yeah.
• 56:10
  I remember being in a screenwriting class very early. Dana was like, "Go to this one. It's good. This guy's smart." And I remember this young woman being like,
• 56:17
  "What if you write something you feel like is really good, but you don't want anybody to read it, and you just put it in a drawer?" And the guy was like, "It's fine. Like, you won't have a career-" No. "...
• 56:27
  because literally no one will read it, and so-" Yeah. "... it cannot get made." But if you're not up for all the rest, like you said, with the book stuff, then you're not, and you gotta make that call. Yeah.
• 56:36
  But that is what you're doing. Yeah. If you're like, "I'm gonna put my art out there. I'm gonna play trombone or my little band at the community gathering-" Mm-hmm. "... they might not bring you back, or they-" Yeah.
• 56:46
  "... might think it's great." But you're signing up for that. Yeah. Right. Or doing your pottery in private. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah.
• 56:51
  They gave a little spiel to the kids' newspaper club yesterday morning about editing and getting editors' notes and how, like, even the best writers need editors. And i- it turns out, it's a small world.
• 57:01
  One of the other volunteers in the newspaper club is a former editor of mine. I used to write for the Chicago Tribune. So we're staying, like, we're still friends even though she had...
• 57:09
  And she was never a hard editor, but she sent me work back, you know- Sure... comments back, being like, "This is not good enough." And that's how you get better, and if you are smart, you, like, seek that out, you know?
• 57:17
  But at the same time, I can't bring myself right now to log into my email d- for Evil Witches, 'cause, like, maybe there was an error in my survey that I sent out, and I'm gonna have to deal with that and then carry that around, you know?
• 57:28
  And, uh- Mm-hmm. As you should. [laughs] Yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, it is... It's kinda funny too, 'cause, like, Steve's validation is that he puts on these videos that he does.
• 57:37
  There's a comedy show that John Green and I actually founded together that still goes on today, but I don't produce it. But Steve puts on, he shows, like, short films that are funny.
• 57:45
  And I go, and sometimes I go and I cheer for him, and other times, this is gonna sound so mean, but maybe this is true. I can't go 'cause I just, like, don't wanna go drive downtown to applaud, like, for Steve.
• 57:55
  Like, I can just applaud for him at home and not do it in front of other people. Like, it's... I don't know how to explain it.
• 58:00
  I've had all these feelings about men and validation, and forgive me for generalizing as always, but I'm like, men really need approval and attention. And I already...
• 58:08
  Now I gave birth to two who, like, need it clinically- Mm-hmm... not to mention my dad, who also needs attention and, you know.
• 58:14
  So sometimes I have to, like, m- that's wh- Steve does exercise with a really nice lady who, like, laughs at all his jokes and listen to his stories. And I'm like- Great... "Thank God for Erin."
• 58:23
  Erin is the nice woman that I'm not, who- Mm-hmm... listens to him and doesn't text while he's talking, things like that. I get it.
• 58:29
  Yeah, again, that's the accessory avenues of approval that are available if they are constructive and safe, and that's what you realize you're signing up for, right?
• 58:39
  And the same thing again, like, if you're telling the kids, like, "You're gonna do a sport, you're gonna play music, you're gonna do theater, and you might not get the role you want, but you might get a lesser one."
• 58:46
  Look, some kids have some, quote-unquote, "reservoir of talent" in some, whatever it might be. Some do not. Some can add to that with hard work. Some cannot. Sorry, you're gonna find out- Yeah...
• 58:57
  eventually, like, that something's just not your thing, right? Right. I was huge, and I was terrible at fucking basketball. Sorry, Coach. [laughs] It's not gonna work out. Yeah. But there's also times where they're like,
• 59:08
  "Here's the work you can do to improve it. Like, you gotta-" Mm-hmm "... choose to do that, and then you can see that, and I will approve of you more be- 'cause you're doing better."
• 59:18
  But again, I think it's the subjective things. I think it's the friends that is so gnarly and feels so existential all the fucking time, especially in- Mm-hmm... middle school and high school.
• 59:27
  I think it is obviously the internet stuff, where again, like, you take away these lessons.
• 59:32
  I wish that you, like, were more of a dirtbag like I am when it comes to watching shows and stuff like that, 'cause if you had watched this show, Unknown Number, which I think I talked about in Yes Right Now, it's about a girl who's getting bullied by a stranger on the...
• 59:45
  Like, someone who's been texting her saying, "Your boyfriend hates you. You should-" Hmm "... kill yourself." Right. Can I spoil it for you? Can I just tell you what the spoiler is if I told you?
• 59:52
  I'm not happy about it, but go ahead. Okay. Everyone, if you haven't listened, listen, turn it off or... It's her mom. Her mom has been doing it to the whole time, and this is a true thing that happened.
• 1:00:01
  And so imagine just being a normal girl in the year 2025, probably getting some kind of social message, social media message telling you you should kill yourself, either explicitly or, you know, implicitly, and then to find out that it's your fucking mom.
• 1:00:15
  I c- can't even wrap my brain around that. We all hate our kids sometimes, but I'm not gonna pick up my phone and create a fake account and tell my kid to commit suicide over it. That's too much.
• 1:00:25
  Every- everyone has their line, you know? Anyway. But is that just an allegory for the parents who are like, "Well, if you were a little thinner"? Like- That-... that's the fucking road you're putting them on.
• 1:00:34
  The craziest thing is that, like, this girl ends up finding out in front of her mom.
• 1:00:38
  Like, they have the police, like, footage where they tell the girl, "Your mom has been the one the whole time," and the mom is, like, trying to hug her basically and love on her, and this poor girl, I've never seen a more shell-shocked child just being like, "What the fu- what the fuck is happening?"
• 1:00:52
  And anyway, it isThat is a wild one for real. They're already being told that you should kill yourself. Knowing that's a thing that happens is already pretty hard, you know?
• 1:01:02
  But usually you don't think it's coming from inside the, the actual house. Why do you watch things like this?
• 1:01:09
  This was based, first of all, on a good, a really good article in The Cut in New York Magazine that I recommend to people. Sure. And then, yeah, I, I think- I'm not asking in a judgy way. I'm asking in a, I couldn't...
• 1:01:20
  I'm asking f- for me, like I cannot expose myself to anything remotely dark at this point. Someone's like, "It's a beautiful indie movie about marriage drama." I'm like, "Nope."
• 1:01:28
  Oh, you would actually really like it because a big part of the show is how the school administrators are so, so stupid that they don't think it's possible to take the phones away from the kids.
• 1:01:39
  Instead, they're going to have security cameras and watch all the kids, and they're gonna do time stamps between when these, this girl...
• 1:01:45
  They can't just take the phones away, and that is a huge part of the show is, like, how ineffectual the school administration is. So, and I watched it 'cause I was like, how can they make this interesting again?
• 1:01:56
  And they did. They managed to make a sh- like a show where you already have the crazy spoiler. They still managed to make it interesting all over again. Um- Well, that's the highest measure, right?
• 1:02:03
  Are you gonna watch Titanic? You know how it's- Yeah, or The S-... you know how it goes. Yeah, or The Sixth Sense. You still wanna watch it. And so there's no good answer. There's no satisfactory answer.
• 1:02:12
  This woman seems just frankly, like, mentally ill, basically. And this girl, between when this happened and, like, the current day, she has a little nose ring, and she's very still, like, processing it.
• 1:02:22
  And I just was like, I'm so glad you got that nose ring. Like, you really deserve, you deserve it. Mm. You need something after getting through that, and it's gonna be a hard road ahead. [laughs] It is wild.
• 1:02:31
  So anyway, I know that you think I'm crazy for watching these kind of things, but, you know. No, I don't. Again, I'm not, it's not a judging you.
• 1:02:36
  It's a me, my immediate aversion to truly, again, the past six, seven, eight years, like anything [laughs] remotely stressful. Yeah.
• 1:02:45
  Well, I, as a mother and as an evil witch who, you know, who's talked right now about things like, you know, shoving your child into his room, for instance, and things that are not perfect.
• 1:02:55
  I have a list, a running list of, like, truly bad moms. It's pretty short. Mm-hmm. But you're like, "That bitch is a bad mom.
• 1:03:00
  It's not just that she didn't breastfeed or that she went back to work, like this is a bad mom," and it brings me comfort.
• 1:03:06
  So this lady is, like, on the list now as someone who bullied her daughter and also possibly, you know, sexually made overtones to her teenage boyfriend. So anyway, I'm doing good compared to her. Great. Yeah. That's it.
• 1:03:19
  That's it. Again, set the bar low. That's the key. Set the bar low. And I won an award too, so it could be- You won a fucking award. Yeah. And yeah, for the low cost of $599, you can claim the trophy.
• 1:03:29
  [laughs] Well, w- to go back to that, by the way, you mentioned the validation, and I do like it. I do have something fun to put on LinkedIn, like that, that is true. 100%. But, you know.
• 1:03:38
  But also I've paid to play in enough contests and things like that too sometimes where you're like, well, we weren't chosen necessarily from all of the podcasts in the whole world, but I- Can I tell you what?
• 1:03:48
  We don't need to do that. We don't need to participate in that kind of shenanigans. We're the best podcast. Stop. Yeah. True. Yeah. For child raising. That's it. Yes. That's it.
• 1:03:57
  You didn't enter, it's 'cause you were scared. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So- 'Cause you are probably watching your kid like a weakling, you know, instead of buckling in for an hour and a half chat.
• 1:04:08
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