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The Mom Guilt Economy · Not Right Now

• 0:00
  I was like, "So they just send you home with this kid? With it-" Totally. "None of these people come with you? That seems crazy to me-" [laughs] "... 'cause we don't have any idea." And it always reminds me- Yeah...
• 0:09
  of the Mike Tyson quote, "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face." [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.
• 0:21
  We'll be talking about/crashing out over topics like- AI homework detection, and they just don't do their homework...
• 0:30
  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.
• 0:38
  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.
• 0:49
  You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes, or at our website, notrightnow.show..show.
• 0:55
  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.
• 1:04
  And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions@notrightnow.show. [upbeat music] Hello, hello.
• 1:20
  What a wonderful conversation we had today, joined by a very special guest at the end. But our main guest was Chabeli Carrazana. She is a reporter at The 19th, one of my favorite organizations.
• 1:32
  It is a nonprofit independent newsroom covering gender politics, policy, and power. Can't recommend reading them or supporting them more than we do.
• 1:41
  Chabeli is maybe the only economy and childcare-specific reporter in the US, which is funny, 'cause we don't really have support for those things. She's the author of their Mom Guilt Economy newsletter.
• 1:52
  She's been an economy reporter for over a decade. She is a mom. She was at the Miami Herald and the Orlando Sentinel.
• 1:58
  She went to the University of Florida, and she lives in Orlando, and apparently is a corgi, I'm just realizing, that we didn't talk about. Goddammit. Anyways, mom of two. A fantastic conversation about what has changed.
• 2:09
  Obviously, Claire and I had our kids 1,000 years ago, so we didn't have TikTok feeds trying to sell us shit.
• 2:15
  We just had, you know, Santa Monica moms trying to sell us shit, which I, now I'm thinking about, are probably the same thing, just on your phone. Anyways, great convo.
• 2:24
  Please enjoy, please listen, and of course, support The 19th. [upbeat music] You have two kids, right? Are they in school, daycare, at home? Oh, they're in daycare. Totally. It's- Okay... it's a, it's a blessing. Yeah.
• 2:37
  Yes. They're one and a half and four. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah, we're in it. We're so deeply in it. So- Mm-hmm...
• 2:46
  I gotta be honest, like, you are, and this is not to diminish it, mine are 11, 12, and 13, which means at some point they were three under three, as I have told ad nauseam here. I will give you,
• 2:59
  today, I will give you my 11 and 12-year-old for free. I will... And I will take those babies off your hands. In fact, I might even pay you to take them today. Oh, okay.
• 3:10
  That, that's not filling me with a lot of confidence and hope for the future. No, here's the thing. You gotta control what you can control. You know? Totally. It's, it's gonna be a thing, just like I tell them.
• 3:20
  Everybody's gotta go through fucking middle school at some point. Nobody escapes unscathed, but also, I am not escaping this- Yeah... unscathed. Anyways, hey. Uh- Welcome. I, I love daycare.
• 3:30
  I know that your mom had an in-home daycare, right? I could- I c- I feel like hopefully- My grandmother, yeah. Wow. Your grandmother did. So was that the house you grew up in?
• 3:38
  Or you would go there and visit her, and she would be, you know, have the daycare room? How did that go? It was the house I grew up in.
• 3:45
  And so my mom was, she was an engineer by trade in Cuba, but when we moved here, we moved here when I was five, she couldn't work as an engineer in the US, so she worked as a school crossing guard.
• 3:57
  And so she would hear from the families who needed help or n- you know, had a younger child, at an elementary school, I should say. And so, you know, she's like, "Well, my mom can take care of them."
• 4:07
  And that's how we started. You know, kids would just come over to our house. W- I mean, my grandmother would take care of them as young as two months, maybe less. Mm-hmm. And she'd have a couple of little, little ones.
• 4:19
  And I mean, this is for 100 bucks a week or something, you know? She was just trying to help some folks out- Yeah... and it kept her busy. But oh yeah, we would have, I don't know, 10 kids in my house.
• 4:28
  And I was the oldest, so I was the ringleader. I was like, "This is what we're doing, everyone." How old, and how old were you w- "This is our, this is what we're doing today." How old were you at the time?
• 4:36
  I was maybe 10. So you weren't, like, an adult. Maybe even younger. Maybe, like, func- You were functional. No, I was just the oldest functioning child.
• 4:43
  So when we did it over the summers and we'd have a lot of kids, it would just be like, "Okay, so we're gonna practice our recital show, 'cause we're gonna have a recital show at the end of the summer." As you do.
• 4:53
  Obviously. Mm-hmm. Obviously. Mm-hmm. And we're gonna make our costumes. And I just kept them busy, and they kept me busy, but that's what I grew up around. Yeah. Just walk around, the walk around the block.
• 5:02
  I was just reading some parenting Reddit, and someone was saying, like, "Is it normal? Should I be alarmed that the daycare is taking the children on walks around the block?" Mm.
• 5:11
  And everyone was like, "That's, like, what you do [laughs] in daycare [laughs] is walk around the block. You know, where, where else are you gonna go with them?" No, totally. You're lucky if that's what they do, truly.
• 5:21
  B- Oh, we would, like, have them in the front. I mean, we did all kinds of crazy things with them, but we would have them out in the front. We had a fire once. Oh, yeah, yeah. We had a whole lot- On purpose?...
• 5:28
  of experience. Not on purpose. Oh, well. We, the, the daycare that we chose was through a referral, and we had no idea what we were looking for. We had no...
• 5:40
  And the internet wasn't what it was at the time, and it was so... You know, I feel like it's so personal w- based on whether- Yeah... what you could afford and whatever.
• 5:47
  So we had one referral from a friend of ours that we... I liked how they were raising their kids, you know what I mean? They, I liked their- Yeah... values as people, so I was like...
• 5:55
  So then we chose, we toured another one that was, like, a block away, which is impossible to resist.
• 6:01
  But the lady, I'm not kidding, the basement smelled like cigarettes and weed, and that was where they put the babies down to nap. They just had them play in the basement.
• 6:09
  And I, w- but I was so new and trying to be open-minded that I was like, "Well, I don't know." I just didn't wanna be a, a Karen narc, you know? But then- Yeah...
• 6:18
  I saw the lady, the in-home who we were recommended to, and she was a former teacher. She had these policies and philosophies and things like that, and I was like, "There, there's no doubt.
• 6:30
  I don't even wanna look any further." And she, it was like having another parent, only one who knew what they were doing, you know? Thank God. Yeah. I don't know what we would do without that lady.
• 6:38
  And look how they turned out. Do you still feel like you chose correctly, Claire? I do. Well, honestly, I do.
• 6:44
  I mean, I don't think this is that, even that controversial, but there's really something to be said for having kids who have already pre-learned how to wait in line, wash their hands, wait their turn, like when they start preschool or kindergarten, who've already had that dry run, you know?
• 6:57
  They, there's that kind of peer pressure that is healthy or socially... I don't know, am I off about, am I topic or is that, or off, off base, or do we all agree that that's pretty good? No. No, 1,000%.
• 7:09
  I just think we all grew up on cigarette smoke, so your kids weren't too good for that. [laughs] Yes.
• 7:14
  Well, you know, I feel like it was back in the olden days of the internet where it was like, can you be a good mom and send your kids to daycare? I feel like that conversation isn't being had as much, ironically. Right.
• 7:23
  But maybe I, my kids are just too old, you know, 'cause they think trad wives have made it so extreme. But I, no, and she, she ended up...
• 7:31
  First of all, she could always tell when he had an ear infection way before we knew it, and she would just announce it.
• 7:36
  She's like, "He has an ear infection," and we're like, "We'll go see," and we'll take her to the pediatrician, and of course he has one.
• 7:41
  And she was from Ghana, and we would, when he was sick, she would, she'd have us come get him, and she would have him tied to her back with just a bed sheet, no- Oh, cool... you know, no expensive... Yeah.
• 7:51
  And she was just the best. Diana's Daycare, still open in Chicago, recommend. So anyway- Wow... like the in-home daycares. Shout out to Diana. Shout out to Diana. Yeah. She's still doing it. Yeah. Respect.
• 8:01
  Aw, I love that. You get, you build such close relationships with those kids, too. Like, when my grandmother passed away, a lot of those kids came to see her, you know, in her final- Mm-hmm...
• 8:10
  days, and that was really beautiful for her. She, I mean, she helped raise, I don't know, 20 children. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm sure. So how was having your own kids?
• 8:20
  Like, w- I mean, I know that watching your grandma do an in-home daycare is not the same thing as getting early education, you know, a master's degree in early education.
• 8:27
  But what really took you by surprise after having seen... You know, I did not grow up around little kids, so everything was- Yeah... a surprise to me, kind of. Like you- Yeah, were you like, "I got this"?
• 8:35
  You had- We're gonna do a recital. Yeah, d- Well, like ignorantly, I was like, "I got this." Mm-hmm. Like, I, I got a diaper on lock, you know? I can do that, no problem.
• 8:43
  I, I generally, gen- [laughs] generally know how to speak to kids. I really enjoy kids. I, I think they're really interesting and fun. But, but no, I didn't know anything.
• 8:51
  I mean, it's like parenting is the most humbling, isn't it, when you go into it? Like, nobody prepares you for any piece of it.
• 8:58
  And I did the classes and I did the, you know, like [laughs] I study, I think I bought some like course on... I thought I was prepared and I wasn't. I mean, it was all...
• 9:07
  I think that's part of the, the whole thing with it is like how little- Yeah... preparation you get from your OB or your fr- I mean, even your friends, or maybe I just wasn't ready to hear it, honestly.
• 9:17
  Yeah, I mean, obviously systemically we do a terrible job of that and mostly- Awful... on purpose. Mm-hmm. We keep choosing to do that, obviously. It is a, it is a choice. But e- I grew...
• 9:26
  So same, I, I was the second of 32 cousins. We all grew up in town. We're all super tight. Grew up around kids. Again, I raised half those children, and I was like, "I fucking..." And I got four, I have three siblings.
• 9:37
  I'm second. I do think the comfort level of a lot of children in the house was different for me than for my wife- Yeah... who just had one brother and no cousins- Yeah... or anything. But- [laughs] But you're right.
• 9:50
  It doesn't matter. I mean, I remember our first one, we were in the hospital for a week for some various, it was emergency C-section and some infections and stuff.
• 9:58
  But even then, after whatever, five or six days, I was like, "So they just send you home with this kid? With that- Yeah... none of these people come with you? That seems crazy to me 'cause we don't have any idea."
• 10:10
  And it always reminds me- Yeah... of the Mike Tyson quote, "Everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face." You can take all those courses. [laughs] It doesn't mean anything. Yeah.
• 10:19
  No, there, that, nothing beats the real life. Well, also your baby didn't take that course, so they're not- No... on board, you know? No. Fuck that course. No. They didn't show up for that. Well- Uh-...
• 10:29
  and also similarly, my son was also in the hospital when he was born for the first week of his life. He had surgery immediately after he was born that his...
• 10:36
  Then he was yellow as, as a banana, so we had to bring him back and put him under the lights.
• 10:41
  He went through so many things and I was like, wait, so now not only are we supposed to care for this child, but also know how to treat him or keep him, you know, he's like- You're a doctor now... post-surgery. Mm-hmm.
• 10:49
  It was crazy. Yeah. My husband is actually a doctor, and he had no clue what he was doing. [laughs] Imagine. Yeah. Was this your first or second? That was my first, yeah. My second is a whole other...
• 11:02
  I have like a, like a classic second child, second child. She's a, she's a girl. She, she bosses us around. She owns the place. She's one and a half, belly out, telling us what to do. That's a whole- Different...
• 11:13
  different experience. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No. Yeah, well, they are, they have their own, they were born to people who are already parents, but it is something really strange.
• 11:21
  My second born, he had jaundice when he was born, and so w- I had the strange experience of going home also before him, and so that's...
• 11:29
  And it, but at least I already had a toddler at home to keep him, keep us busy, and it was like kinda nice to see him and spend some time with him before the baby came home.
• 11:35
  But isn't that a weird experience to go home and be like, "I'm a new mom. Baby's not here. I guess we'll just, I don't know, look at his crib or whatever until he comes home"? I mean, sh, that's so sad, too.
• 11:47
  You're just like, "What do I do?"
• 11:48
  There's so much questioning [laughs] that happens at every stage of this, and yeah, I was really, really humbled by, as a type A eldest daughter, always prepared, straight A student, of how little preparation I actually genuinely had.
• 12:03
  But that's good. It's good to be humbled. But it was, yeah, it was I think the hardest period of our... My husband calls it the dark ages.
• 12:08
  I was just in therapy yesterday and my, I'm kinda still getting to know this therapist, and we were talking about our relationship, and she was like, "When were, like, the hardest times of your relationship?"
• 12:16
  And I was like, "On the, when we had our first baby and COVID." But hands down. There's a lot of little micro issues, but you know, those... Yeah. And they're not on u- they're not dissimilar.
• 12:25
  You know, no one knows what they're doing. Everyone's terrified. Everything seems like an emergency, you know?
• 12:30
  But I think it's interesting that, that knowing what you, you know, you, you think you know what you know, and then you have kids, and I think that's a good transition into this piece that you just published about the things that parents are being marketed to buy before they have kids.
• 12:44
  And I think that we probably- I can imagine that the three of us just probably felt the same way before we, kids were on our radar, that we're like, "We're not gonna fall victim to bullshit.
• 12:55
  We're not gonna buy stupid things." [laughs] And then before you know it, literally someone told me, he was like, "I wouldn't, I don't know if it's safe to let your baby wear hand-me-down shoes."
• 13:03
  And again, and in retrospect, I was like, what the fuck? What's gonna happen? You can't even get lice- So if like this-... from shoe- Like, come on. Yeah. Yeah. You know?
• 13:10
  And you, and it's, I think getting married can be very similar, where you, before you get sucked into the vortex, you're like, "I'm a normal person," and then before you know it, you know, you're like firing all your best friends because they're not in line with the plans.
• 13:23
  But yeah, tell me about where that, about that piece and sort of what, what you learned.
• 13:27
  I feel there's so many things to talk about, but what you learned about what makes people so vulnerable to being told they need things that they won't or won't need for very long, or actually will probably just cause them more stress.
• 13:38
  Yeah, so I, the o- origin of that story was about two years ago, I was about to go on leave with my, for the birth of my daughter, my second child, and my editor had just come back from leave from the birth of her daughter.
• 13:49
  So we were, like, in this baby phase, and we were talking about products and, I don't know, the baby registry or something, 'cause I, I was about to, to have whatever.
• 13:57
  And so we kind of, this moment of realization where we were like, "Wait, did you feel like it was really intense? Were you getting all these ads?" "Oh, yeah, I was getting all these ads. I still get them."
• 14:07
  And we kind of had that moment of realizing we both had this experience, but why is, why aren't we talking about this? So much of the conversation often is, "What product worked for you?
• 14:16
  Do you have any solutions, any ideas?" We're, we're troubleshooting, but we're not talking about the system, right? Or the thing- Right... the, the thing that created the conditions for all of this.
• 14:25
  And that's the conversation her and I were having, and by the end of it, we were both kinda jumping a little bit in our seats, 'cause we're like, oh, oh my gosh, it's journalism. We're gonna turn this into journalism.
• 14:34
  [laughs] Fucking nerds. I love it. That's the best. Totally, totally. Totally. And we couldn't stop thinking about it, and I went on leave, I came back, and she's like, "Fuck, let's do it."
• 14:45
  And so we just started out b- a, testing our hypothesis. You know, we're calling moms, talking to moms, hearing from them. We talked to, oh, I don't know, close to three dozen experts and moms and influencers.
• 14:58
  Influencers who are moms, experts who are moms, moms who are moms. And I mean, the really fun thing is when everyone starts saying the same thing. Everyone had a 2:00 AM, I almost bought X thing story.
• 15:10
  Everyone, it started to repeat over and over again, the same story, the same vulnerabilities, the same anxieties, and that's when we were like, oh, we're onto something here, for sure. Mm. How can we un- unpack this?
• 15:22
  That's how it started. Can I ask a question? So is this all mechanically via, like, Instagram or I guess TikTok too, possibly? I'm just, 'cause Claire and I were so long ago doing this that those- Yeah...
• 15:34
  vehicles didn't exist, and so I'm sitting here- Yeah... trying to think of, like, what our version of that was. 'Cause there was similar stuff, but not as, like, an IV of it like you guys have.
• 15:44
  I could tell you how I was influenced. First of all, it would be, like, scoping out other people's registries, and then- 100%... because it's, you know- Yeah... so I would be like, who, oh, what is this? You know.
• 15:54
  And then of course Amazon would, you know, and I registered, like, at Target too, but they would like, yeah, they would suggest for you, oh, you're looking at bathtubs, you probably need this elephant or this whale-shaped faucet cover.
• 16:04
  That to me is one of those products- Oh... that I'm like, that's so dumb. Like, why don't you just- I have-... not let your kids sit directly- I still have it. Oh yeah, sorry. It's amazing. I took it. It's mine. Yeah.
• 16:12
  And the cute cup, right, for pouring water on the head, 'cause no, there's not an extra cup in the house. You have to have- Oh... the special cup, you know? And blah. Yeah.
• 16:19
  No one really tells you before you have kids how great it is to get rid of stuff. And so, you know- Oh... or to not have to, you know, ca- anyway. So that was how it came to me.
• 16:28
  I definitely, yeah, social media was not the same thing- Yeah... at least. I didn't have the same algorithm type thing. How quickly did your feed- Did y'all get mailers? Sorry. Sorry. We're not 1,000.
• 16:38
  What do you mean, did we get mailers? There's, there's- Were there smoke signals? I know what you mean, though. You, 'cause you get on the list of the OB, you know, the OBGYN- Yes...
• 16:48
  when you put your name in for like- That's what I mean... whatever the fuck. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes, yes. And that's how you start thinking you need cord blood. That starts immediately at the doctor's office.
• 16:56
  The cord blood. That's when they make a new order. I just remembered, we have cord blood somewhere. Yeah. I think I still pay for that. I think it's in the fucking freezer in storage.
• 17:03
  Well, I hope one of your kids, I hope one of your kids needs it so you can use it, and then you'll feel good that you, you used it. I'm gonna do the Bryan Johnson thing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take it. It's mine now. Yeah.
• 17:11
  And look normal, and then you end up d- like, having a disease. Who would've thought? Mm-hmm. Perfect.
• 17:15
  Yeah, that was, I can't believe they haven't busted that myth yet and/or figured out, just put it out there that there's gotta be some cord blood that you can borrow, whatever, whatever. It doesn't matter. It's fine.
• 17:24
  Yeah, so mailers, yes. Hand me down cord blood. Yeah. And I was very susceptible to formula samples. I als- I was like, in- influence me. Baby, keep me, you know, make me use this stuff. Mm-hmm.
• 17:35
  But ours was also, like, word of mouth. Like, f- friends, if you had friends doing it or just done it, it was a lot of, like, you go in their house, you see all this shit, and you're like, oh God, I didn't even think.
• 17:44
  Like, we need this thing- Right... and we need that thing, and we need this thing. Yeah. Yeah, that's like the IRL version of it. Right. Yeah. IRL, yeah.
• 17:51
  Well, and I try to remember how you get to know the high-end stuff at the time. At fi- uh, to me, I'm sure it's been close to the UPPAbaby I said was the bougiest of the strollers. Oh, yeah. You know? And- Still is.
• 18:02
  Yeah. O- and wow, well, I can't believe that my kid still is living and walking around even though we pushed him- Fucking things are so expensive... around in a... We had only a City Mini, 'cause we're keeping it real.
• 18:12
  Mm-hmm. One of the moms- Sorry, go ahead...
• 18:13
  I talked to said she was like, one of the moms said she was just walking around New York City and, you know, and everybody had an UPPAbaby, and so she's like, "Shit, I need an UPPAbaby. They all have an UPPAbaby."
• 18:22
  You know, and but yeah, I think that part of it is really real, is just somebody has a baby that sleeps through the night and you're like, well, what did they do? Did they buy something for that? Mm-hmm.
• 18:31
  What did they, what do they have? Yeah. You know, if you have s- anyone that you look around and you start to compare your kids, and I think we all do that, although we, you know, probably shouldn't.
• 18:39
  But you're like, oh wow, what's, what, what are they doing that's different that they have a easier experience than me? Yeah.
• 18:46
  So these, for, for your research, a lot of these people were getting influenced through Instagram and TikTok, or were there other k- kind of surprising places? Instagram's the big one.
• 18:55
  I think Instagram's the big one because that's where they mostly described, like scrolling and seeing a lot of moms. I think a lot of the mom content still really lives on there.
• 19:03
  Somebody else described it to me as, moms love Instagram 'cause they love pretty things. They love taking pictures- Eh... of things, and like, all the memories.
• 19:10
  And it, it continues to be a, I think, a really strong platform for them, so that's where they saw a lot of it.
• 19:15
  Was just like, you're scrolling, and then suddenly you're fed another video from a creator that you're not following or have never followed, but it's a similar kind of video. And now you linger on it- Mm-hmm...
• 19:23
  for three minutes, and you get another one, or three seconds, and you get another one. And it's just like a, like a vortex. It's a vortex.
• 19:30
  Have you noticed in your reporting, it feels like the, the, the biggest, big pressure points for selling people are things that are most, people are most sensitive about what their babies are eating, sleeping, and public transportation.
• 19:40
  You can kinda know to buy anything- Yeah... if this can, if these things apply to your kid. Are there other areas?
• 19:45
  I know for instance, data, it's like you can buy, people are buying socks for their babies that will blare an alarm if they're gonna, you know, their heart rate drops during the night or something like that, so you can rescue them.
• 19:55
  What, what are other parts that, are there areas of influence that you think are bubbling up that people are spending money on that they don't maybe need to? Yeah.
• 20:03
  I mean, the sleep one is the big one, but that one can run a really wide gamut. It, it can be things like, you know, the courses. There's every course on the planet- Mm-hmm...
• 20:14
  for every variation of teaching a kid how to sleep, right? That's, that's number one, I think.
• 20:18
  There's the bassinets, but then there's other, other little things like you're mentioning, like the, the sock to monitor the breathing, or the eye of Sauron baby monitor that watches over them [laughs] and follows their chest movements and that whole thing.
• 20:31
  And then there are some really crazy ones in the sleep. My favorite, favorite, favorite from this story was this one mom in Long Island, Sarah Mohler. She said she bought, I don't even know what it's called.
• 20:42
  It's like a vibrating paddle that she would put under the mattress to kind of, I guess, simulate, you know when you kind of pat, pat them on the butt to get them to go to sleep? To simulate that. Yeah.
• 20:52
  But it was so violent [laughs] that it just shook the crib across her house, like across the laminate floor. It was just like tap dancing. And I'm just like, what? How did you get there?
• 21:01
  So there's, there's a lot of really crazy stuff in the sleep category, but then there's miscellaneous things. Someone reminded me of the, this the other day, and I actually did buy this.
• 21:10
  There's this rubber duck that you can buy [laughs] to put- Okay... in the bath, and it's a thermometer. Yeah. Yeah. Why did I think I couldn't suss out on my own if the water was- I was gonna say-... a good temperature?
• 21:22
  You should try putting your elbow in the water. That's always, that always worked for me. But also it's cute, and also it sounds fun, you know? I, it doesn't work. That's it.
• 21:29
  At least the model we had didn't work either, you know? So I'm no different than you, but- No... no better But I was like, I was like, totally, I need that.
• 21:39
  And then- So, Shavalia, this is where I tell you instead of a sock, what we did, our very f- for our first kid, which we, we spent years trying to make and so many miscarriages and IVF and all the things, and every dollar we had- Mm-hmm...
• 21:50
  and all this stuff, and we lived in this, finally got him, comes home after a week, and it's been, you know, a couple months and, and we decide to do some, some sleep training.
• 22:00
  And we lived in this, this little house up in the Hollywood Hills, and, and our bedroom, my wife and my, our bedroom was basically directly next to, to his room, which, which was her office. And
• 22:14
  suddenly we woke up one morning, and we hadn't been up during the night, and we were like, "Oh my God, it, it happened." Is he dead? "This is amazing. Thank you." So I said- Yeah... I, I was like, "This is so exciting.
• 22:26
  We should go see him." She goes, "Well, I wanna have a coffee first." I was like, "All right. Well, I'm like pumped to see this guy," 'cause his crib was like ins- right inside the door. And she's like, "No, no, no, no.
• 22:34
  I have to have a coffee before we go in because he's dead, and if I don't have a coffee... So the rest of my life is gonna change the second I open that door, and I wanna have a coffee first."
• 22:43
  And I was like- That's so funny... holy shit. Yeah. But she was 100% sure. She was like, "No, I'm gonna enjoy this last coffee." Yeah. Yeah. No, no. I think we, do we all have a story like that? I have one like that.
• 22:54
  I mean, my kid just sleeping, and I'm like, "Oh my God. Oh my God" [laughs] checking to see if he's breathing, but you don't wanna touch him too much 'cause if they are actually sleeping, you're not fucking with that.
• 23:02
  Correct. Yeah. And then you get the paddle. You know, we get, I, I don't know why we didn't do this the first time, but we, with our first kid, we were like, we have to be awake.
• 23:09
  We have to lear- we have to hear the moment he wakes up. We have to he- we can't let him make a peep. Yeah, I don't know why it was like, so one of us would sleep in the room with him to immediately respond to him. Ah.
• 23:18
  And then with the second kid, we were like, how about we just hear him if he hollers enough, and that will be nature's way of letting us know, you know? And I was like, why did we... You, you know, that's fine.
• 23:29
  I, there's, I feel like so much of parenthood is not being able to troubleshoot the most obvi- like I, with our second-born also, he used to always fuss and fume and have the witching hour right around dinner time. Yeah.
• 23:39
  And it would be so stressful. You know, it was like the one bad thing about him. He was otherwise the most fun baby.
• 23:44
  And then I think after, even after he, he was past the witching hour thing, I was like, why didn't we just move dinner time? Why did I not, like why did we not eat an hour earlier? No. I don't know why.
• 23:54
  You know, we just lacked that capacity to- Well, that would be unacceptable. I mean, how many crazy things do we do because we don't know?
• 24:00
  I think I remember the first night with my son when we brought him home, my husband and I were, he woke up, and we're like, "Oh shit, what do we do now?"
• 24:07
  So we turned on all the lights, and we both got up with him, and we're like try- I'm like, "What are we doing? Why are we- Yeah... both like, this is crazy. If he wasn't awake before, he's definitely awake now." Yeah.
• 24:19
  Now. Yeah. Jesus. Yeah.
• 24:21
  I do remember, though, I still feel fondly about, well, first of all, a cousin of mine just had a baby, and she registered for this thing called a Baby Brezza, which is like a margarita m- mixer, but for baby formula.
• 24:31
  And I just, I was like- Yep... it's such a dumb invention. And, and I'm so happy for her to have access to it, so I, I bought it for her.
• 24:38
  And she told me to tell me, after he was born, that breastfeeding was a bust, and she was using the machine. And I was like, that is a dumb product, and I'm so glad to get it into your hands. Mm-hmm.
• 24:47
  And hopefully someone else will use it again someday. Literally anything that saves you 30 seconds, you're like, "Yeah, sure." Sure. Great. Another thing on the counter. Let me ask you a little bit about your work.
• 24:57
  Big fan of The 19th. Give them quite a lot of money. You're the second reporter I've had on one of my podcasts- Awesome... 'cause huge fan. The other is... Oh, God. I'm such a fucking monster.
• 25:06
  The woman who writes the menopause newsletter that's so great. Um- Jennifer Gerson. Thank you. Oh my God, what a delight, and I read every one of those. They're, they're- I love her. She's fantastic. You,
• 25:18
  again, you grew up in, literally in childcare, right? A- as you, you were the childcare for, for many of these children. [laughs] You keep going through this beat, and I, I'm just looking at The 19th here.
• 25:31
  You start, i- it, it goes back 30 pages to, it says your first article was August 2nd, 2020. Great timing- Yeah... on America's fir- first female recession. Great time to start a nonprofit. Super chill. Ugh.
• 25:44
  Anyways, good God. No. All right. Yeah. It's distracting. Anyways, how has it been being on this beat now in the thing yourself? Yeah. You know? I- is it, do you ever regret it?
• 25:56
  Are you ever, "I can do this really well right now be- even better than before, but I'm in it, and what does the future of it look like?" I'm, I'm so curious. 'Cause you're not- Yeah... just reporting on it.
• 26:05
  Again, like Claire and my questions are, Claire's got a fucking high schooler now, you know?
• 26:10
  It's like ours are not, there's some things that don't change, but there's some things that are a little dated, and you're not just reporting on it in such an excellent way. You're really
• 26:18
  putting this chronicle together of this- Mm-hmm...
• 26:21
  moment in time, not just the systemic things that are as old as time i- in this country, but how those things are changing because, again, of capitalism and, and all this kind of shit.
• 26:32
  Well, thank you for that, and thank you for giving us money especially. That's awesome. [laughs] Fuck yeah. Such a huge fan. [laughs] Thank you. Yeah. So when I started at The 19th, I didn't have kids yet.
• 26:43
  And you know, similarly I w- you know, we went through a really tough period at trying to have kids, and a lot of miscarriages and, and all of that.
• 26:49
  And so I was reporting on it before, mostly because I was really interested in low income workers and obviously gendered work. That's what I was covering. Mm-hmm. Childcare was not part of my beat initially. Mm-hmm.
• 27:00
  We added it to my title a couple years down the road because we were covering it so heavily. 2020, cast your mind back, c- every childcare center's closed. People are struggling with it.
• 27:09
  It's really becoming a very visible problem- Mm-hmm... for everyone, right?
• 27:14
  So, so at the time I, it was just interesting to write about it and I knew it from my own personal experience, but then once I became a parent in 2020, Jesus, 2, then it became really personal because my kids were in childcare and I was, like, seeing these problems firsthand.
• 27:28
  And it made it easier for me to know what questions to ask and where to look, and to understand the problem in a really intimate way, which, you know, I think a lot of the times when I'm having conversations with folks it's just a conversation.
• 27:38
  I'm just... I'm not interviewing them, I'm just talking to them mom to mom about what they're experiencing. I don't think there's any other- And they probably trust you for that, right? I, I'm, I would hope. Yeah.
• 27:47
  I'm always like, "Oh, yeah. No, my kid has, is on ear infection number eight. What about yours?" [laughs] True story. Eight ear infections- Yeah... in six months. Talk to me about that. Yeah.
• 27:55
  Speaking of daycare, I mean, that's the one bad thing about daycare is it's breathtaking how much they can be sick all at, at once. But anyway. Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. Literally breathtaking.
• 28:04
  And so what's been really, really cool about building out this beat is there's nobody else in the country that's covering the economy in childcare.
• 28:10
  I'm the only person that has that title, and I think, unless there's any new one, sorry if you're new, but, but I think of, I think I'm the only one.
• 28:18
  And I'm getting to do it at a time where it's really rapidly changing, right? Mm-hmm. We are seeing so much more public awareness, public interest, political interest, political momentum.
• 28:29
  It's part, I mean, I think in 2028 it's gonna be a big thing in the presidential election. I, I think we're seeing it more now.
• 28:35
  I mean, we had the first, 2024, we had the first time childcare was ever asked in a, in a, in a debate, in a, I think it was in the vice presidential debate.
• 28:43
  So we're seeing it really change, and it's really cool to get to, to chronicle it, but also to point out how much of all of this is capital G gender, you know? It's like- Mm-hmm... what ha- who's doing this work?
• 28:54
  Why has it been ignored and undervalued for so long? What happens when it falls apart? How is it affecting people's lives, people's careers, women's careers? Yeah. So it's been, it's been really cool to build it out.
• 29:05
  I have no shortage of story ideas all the time, but [laughs] but we just sort of try to pick our spots. Can I go back to one?
• 29:10
  So it looks like, and again, I hesitate, and I said this on my other podcast the other day and it was very sad. Flashback to 2020 with me for a moment.
• 29:17
  September 11th, 2020, it seems to me was the first specific, at least a headline. "New federal rules could make it harder for parents to take paid leave.
• 29:26
  New guidelines from the Department of Labor on the family's first Coronavirus Response Act," first, says, "Parents whose children- " Oh my God "...
• 29:32
  have access to in-person learning are no longer eligible for paid leave." What do you feel like has changed and has changed about how you cover that beat since this? Oh, man. Well, I mean, I think w- I, hmm.
• 29:47
  How do I even answer that? I mean, you're really casting my mind back to try to remember- No, and, a- and I don't want-... that many beats ago... I don't want specifics. It's more just like- No, no. Yeah...
• 29:54
  so for instance, Virginia, we elected a, our first female governor who has kids. Right. They don't have childcare anymore, but we did start to pass some paid leave stuff, right? Yeah. So some things have changed.
• 30:04
  Some things definitely have not, or, or for the worse. Hmm. It's more just like, how would you- Mm-hmm... talk about that now, knowing everything- About-... you know, owning this beat, about paid leave?
• 30:16
  I think we have undervalued paid leave in such an insane way in the United States that maybe I didn't have the context for at the time. I mean, we're the only industrialized nation that doesn't do it.
• 30:28
  And, and the states have really been the places where we've made some progress, but talking about how foundational it is, not just for the workers, 'cause so much of it is put in this worker context, right?
• 30:38
  You know, people need this. Moms need this. Women need this. Y'all, everybody needs this. Mm-hmm. And everyone's gonna need it in some way. Your business will be better for it.
• 30:46
  It will, workers are, I mean, people are looking for this now. It's, it's, it's an expectation that has been built up, I think, now, and when a company doesn't have it you're like, "No- How about that?
• 30:56
  You know, and I think supporting other people, even if you don't have a kid and you're in work, you know, you're in a, a company or whatever,
• 31:04
  to have the time that they need to do the things that they need in their life and support their families. There will come a time when that will be you. It- Mm-hmm...
• 31:11
  maybe it's your, you have a f- uh, a parent or something who needs help, and you need- 100%... the time away with them.
• 31:16
  I mean, all of this is part of how we build a workforce that actually supports people in their lives and isn't just about churn. You know, let's churn out whatever it is that we're churning out.
• 31:26
  I think after COVID, people have become a lot more attuned to that, and they demanded it more full-throatedly than they were previously.
• 31:35
  I think COVID really opened up a lot of our eyes to how much those supports are needed, otherwise everything falls apart. And we did see it momentarily fall apart for several months. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
• 31:44
  I feel like things are so dire, and there's so little... If there, if there is good news, it's not floated very much right now.
• 31:50
  And, I mean, I do that to my own algorithm, but what initiatives are you seeing, or what leadership are you seeing that gives you hope and isn't just more, like, the government's still fucking with us.
• 32:00
  It's harder than ever, you know, we're doomed kind of thing? I mean, I think the big one in the childcare space is universal childcare. I mean, we saw New Mexico do it, and they didn't just do it overnight.
• 32:10
  They built to it over several years. They built the fund that was gonna fund it. They got everybody on board. They're doing the thing now. They, they went for, what's our high, sky-high dream that we can have?
• 32:21
  What's the thing that everybody has been saying for years? What if we just treated childcare like we treat public education, right? That's been the question that's come up over and over again.
• 32:30
  New Mexico's actually trying to go after that. And, you know, and I think, and similarly, New York City's the other big one, right?
• 32:36
  The fact that we're having these two, a state and, you know, s- the largest city or the major city in the, in our country doing it, I mean, I think that's really hopeful for a lot of folks.
• 32:46
  I think when New Mexico, that, when the New Mexico story broke, I think that was, like, our top story of the year, was people wanting to read more about that because it felt like- That's wild...
• 32:54
  such a pie in the sky thing. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So I think that's where there's hope, is that we can have big ideas on childcare, and we can execute on them.
• 33:01
  And I think there's fairly a lot of que- you know, a lot of fair questions to ask about how that execution's gonna look like moving forward. I think there's still- Is it sustainable?...
• 33:09
  kind of building the plane- Right? Yeah... while they fly. No, I mean- Yeah, totally... it's amazing talking to Virginia legislators over the past year, again, who are, like every state house, part-time.
• 33:16
  They meet for fucking 60 days a year when the moon is at a certain crescent. It's a nightmare, so they don't have time to keep track of this shit.
• 33:22
  But bringing that up to them, people who, who didn't even know it was a thing yet, were j- Yeah... to see this reaction, to, b- for them to be like, "What do you... That's, that's not possible. It's not a thing." Right.
• 33:32
  Like- Right... either politically not possible or logistically. And it's like, well, they're gonna fucking try, and I'm glad someone's trying. And what is- They're going for it. Mm...
• 33:41
  trans- what is transferable for that, even if it flames out in most places? What can we learn from it? Yeah. They're going for it.
• 33:47
  I mean, I, I think the biggest thing we can learn for it is that there's political momentum for it. I mean, part of the reason Mom Dani was elected mayor of New York City was because of universal childcare.
• 33:57
  That was one of the key things that led to one of the most consequential elections we've seen in recent years, was huge turnout, people really feeling energized around a politician. We haven't had that in a long time.
• 34:08
  And childcare was part of it.
• 34:10
  So I think, I think that's what we can take from that, is people have been saying in poll after poll after poll, we just did our poll where that came out as well, we want the government to do something about this, to spend more money, to get radical, to think of new ideas.
• 34:25
  Voters have been saying that for years. But now we're finally seeing it kind of catch up, in some places where poli- politicians are actually responding to that.
• 34:34
  And then again, people are saying, "Yes, that's what we were looking for." So I think it's, that's why I say I think 2028's gonna be really interesting. What are you working on? What are you reporting on now?
• 34:43
  Oh, goodness. All kinds of things. Today specifically [laughs], you know, there's a, there's a childcare center in Richmond, Virginia, that, where the workers went on strike, and it has closed down. Super rare.
• 34:55
  That's not something we typically see- Yeah... childcare at all, to see strikes. And so again, again, I think it's, like, indicative of, like, this bigger problem.
• 35:02
  At the federal level, the really big thing is Head Start. So Head Start, the program for really low-income children, the Trump administration wants to gut that entire program. 1,400 regulations would be demolished.
• 35:15
  So we're sort of in, in the middle of waiting to see what happens with that. The comment period just closed. Got, I think, over 35,000 comments sent in. People outraged about that change. It would change ratios.
• 35:28
  It would change safety. It would change everything about Head Start, essentially.
• 35:32
  And so that's, I think, the big one that we are watching to see, 'cause there's been a lot of threat to Head Start over the past couple years, and this is, yeah, this is a big one if this goes through.
• 35:42
  Have you read Annie Lowrey's new book, The Time Tax? She's the- I haven't read her book, but I have seen her talking about it. She was talking about it with Ezra Klein, obviously, about- Of course...
• 35:53
  like, like the- Can you imagine how nerdy their k- We-... their dinner table conversations are? I, I genuinely can't, and I also sort of wanna hear- 100%... be a little bit of a fly on the wall. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:03
  Totally. So I thought about it- Totally. But, um-... because you, you had a Reddit k- like AMA thing. Mm-hmm. And you talked about someone saying- Yeah...
• 36:09
  "With, without government-owned or controlled childcare facilities, how would the cost of childcare be lowered by any governing body?" And you talked about- Yeah...
• 36:16
  one of Annie and me, who should not write a book, things- Mm-hmm... which is the paperwork and bureaucracy of, like you said, only about 20% of families who qualify for- Mm-hmm...
• 36:27
  the childcare vouchers actually even get them because one- Right... like Title I, there's not even enough fucking funding to cover these things, and two- Yep... who has time to do this?
• 36:36
  And we make it more complicated on purpose if in the language that they need at all. So it's so easy to be like, "Wow, they're gonna build government childcare centers."
• 36:46
  It's like we are so far from untangling this, this, this problem, right? It's, it's crazy to me. I mean, we put in, like, what? $12 billion into childcare annually, a drop in the bucket compared to what we put into.
• 37:00
  And, and yet so many people are not even accessing that fund.
• 37:04
  You know, it's like these really, really low-income families who are struggling to get by, we're making it even harder for them to even qualify, when, in the case of Head Start, there's work requirements and all, all this proof and paperwork that you need to show.
• 37:16
  That's why I thought what Annie was talking about was really interesting, was, like, if you actually, like, I'm gonna do it. I should do it. Look at what these forms look like- Mm-hmm...
• 37:24
  and how the kinds of things they ask for. That was what was blowing my mind. I should read her book. But, yeah, like, we, you can't say we checked that box be- just because we have a program that helps some people.
• 37:36
  If those people can't even access the program, then, I mean, we really need to think on that. Right.
• 37:40
  We're proactively, truly, like, proactively not helping them by, by n- by knowingly continuing with the system and all of the elements in between, including, again, like you said, y- you take one look at those forms and, and the summer camp form feels like a joke at that point, which- [laughs]...
• 37:58
  are a nightmare. But this is something that people who, again, have no time, have very little education, don't have the resources to ask someone to go- Right... to get advice for. It's, it's crazy. It's crazy. Yeah.
• 38:10
  Anyways. And are likely not getting it in their language to begin with. Correct. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Correct. Clare, what's it like in Chicago? What is the sort... And I know you're just outside of it, but what is sort of
• 38:22
  childcare look like with the mayor currently, and families, and stuff like that? I am not as plugged into our, Brendan Johnson, the mayor in Chicago.
• 38:32
  The Evanston, where I live, has its own strife right now because we, if you look up in the news, our former president of the school board was just put in, just plead guilty to child abuse and also deep corruption with our school board, and our s- we are closing schools right now in Evanston, and the public schools, and we have some of the highest property taxes in the country.
• 38:54
  So it is pretty humbling and embarrassing that we, you know, I don't know what to s- what there is to say about it.
• 39:02
  I, I know hardworking people on the school board right now who are trying to fix some really deep problems, and I feel, yeah, I'm out of my depth to analyze it for sure, but that's, like, the most immediate thing right now is that there's this crisis going on close to home.
• 39:16
  You know, and then of course there's like, why don't we have free, free preschool? We should, but d- I, you need to pay me more to investigate exactly why, what, what would probably make that happen.
• 39:25
  No, 100%, but that's, but that's obviously indicative of the whole thing.
• 39:28
  It's not like they're, they're in a position to start forking out money for more Bright Beginnings or Head Start or, or whatever it [laughs] might be, much less, like, real facilities and staff to do that if you're having to close schools.
• 39:39
  It's crazy. Yeah.
• 39:40
  Well, and there's parents, I, I follow along with the school board meeting kind of responses, and one of the issues right now I think is allocations to special education, and then asking for an audit on that, and that is just deeply depressing, to say the least.
• 39:54
  So yeah. Yeah. That's what the home front is all about. There's something, I have a friend, this is, I, I'm not making light of anyone's
• 40:02
  journey of childcare, but there's a woman I knew at c- my kids' old school who would always complain about this leadership and the teachers, just bitching and moaning constantly, and I kind of wanted to be like, "Show me any school system where there isn't something deeply wrong," unfortunately.
• 40:15
  For better or for worse, get into it. It's not, that's a- Well-...
• 40:17
  that's another one, I think, that people who don't have kids don't understand that we are so used to exchanges, like transactions, where I give you this and you give me that, and you think, you know, the deep amount of not empathy for Nicole Hannah, is this, am I getting her name, Nicole Hannah-Jones, is that, is that right?
• 40:34
  Yes. From The New York Times. Okay. Yes. You, you, she is living out a, a choice that I think we are all faced, and she's being punished- Mm... for being honest and brave about it.
• 40:42
  And I, and, but the point is, I think we're so used to being like, "I'm gonna give you my money and my values, and then you'll give me the education that is what I want." And you're like, there's no, none of this.
• 40:50
  There's no guarantees of anything. You're lucky if it's an open building that, you know, that has heat on in the winter, and the rest, you know.
• 40:58
  Anyway, that's a, I just went on a long rant, but point is, Quinn, things are, are tricky here, as they are everywhere else. But like, they, exactly. Like you said, just like everywhere else, you know.
• 41:07
  That's like the real school choice conversation we should be having, is like how much choice do any of us have on any of these things, right?
• 41:13
  I think reporting on childcare, one of the things that always strikes me is, like, how little choice we have in the matter, and these are, like, the most vulnerable, tiniest little children, right?
• 41:21
  I was on, I got on waitlists when my, when I was 10 weeks pregnant with my son, three or four of them. I only ever got off one, and that's the school he went to, you know? [laughs] Yeah.
• 41:31
  I, it wasn't the school I, no, it wasn't my top choice. It wasn't one, the one down the street, which would've been a, a, a dream, because we have no choice. It's just whatever we can do- Yeah...
• 41:39
  whatever, in a, in a system, I mean, where it's like scarcity mindset with so many of these things, and I think it also trickles down a little bit to education more broadly. But
• 41:46
  we just don't, we lose our ability to have choice, to really put our kids where we want, to teach them the things that we want, because there's no resources. Those resources are constantly under assault,
• 41:56
  and that's the world we live in pretty much anywhere you are in the country. Yeah. Well, and it's hard, I think circling back to your reporting on the things we buy, I think it's very hard.
• 42:07
  I say this, I mean, I'm struggling with this every day all the time, but to, to be like the outcome is not a result of our choices, you know, for better or for worse.
• 42:16
  And I just was having my, I had some friends drop by yesterday who don't have kids, and we were talking about the Cornell frat situation- Mm-hmm...
• 42:26
  like right before my 14-year-old son got home from school, and I hadn't spoken to him about it yet in detail, 'cause I just didn't feel educated enough.
• 42:35
  And as Quinn knows, I'm always, like, kind of blasting him from the side with, like, different warnings, you know, on, like, best practices and things like that. So I was like, "I haven't talked to him about it yet."
• 42:45
  So he comes home, and my friend, you know, just fresh out of high school, I forget, he was at some club, like the engineering club or some dorky comics club- And my friend says, "Paul, make sure that you're, if you're ever on a sex thread," basically where people are talking about raping someone, "you, [laughs] you're a standup guy and you report it."
• 43:04
  And he was like, "Okay." And anyway, so I grateful for the community.
• 43:10
  You know what we really need, like, when, when the schools are not standing up for us and childcare is unavailable, is get some people without kids who will come and help you raise your kids so that they can have the conversations that you don't want to.
• 43:23
  So I think they'd be less in their, they're, they'd be less in their heads about it than we would be. Well, it was just so funny 'cause he also was like, "Mom, can I tell you about my grades?"
• 43:32
  And he was playing with the puppy as well. It's like he's really getting like a well-rounded education from- Yeah... you know, from his whole environment. So yeah.
• 43:39
  Anyway, the point is that I think we are so worried about,
• 43:43
  you know, if you don't choose, if you ch- if you choose the best school, you're letting down, or, you know, the most expensive school, you're letting down your community school.
• 43:50
  If you don't buy your kid XYZ, you know, stroller, car seat, you are consciously making a choice for them to have less than, you know?
• 43:59
  And if you are purposely choosing to put them in a worse school, what kind of parent are you to enroll them, them in this great experiment? It's just lose-lose on so many fronts and it gets very dispiriting. A-
• 44:10
  and it's really, I mean, like, for women especially, we are just so programmed to just guilt them. Whatever decision you make- Right... it's gonna somehow be the wrong one. [laughs] You're, you're not thinking- Right...
• 44:20
  through every scenario, you're not, you know, to, you know, to the Nicole Hannah-Jones example.
• 44:24
  I think, like, part of, part of the thing that we really wanted to hammer with this story was just, like, how gendered all of this has been for so long, how much women are targeted specifically.
• 44:33
  One of the things that really stands out to me from the reporting was this sociologist who I spoke to who said, "We asked like 120 parents, like, about parenting and the things that matter to them, and all of the moms, or many of the moms said, 'My children are at the center of my universe.
• 44:48
  They are part of my identity.' We tie it so much with who we are as people. Not a single one of the dads said that." Quinn, I would be so curious to hear from you about this.
• 44:57
  No, I'm not, I'm, I'm not putting you on the spot. I just think one of the moms had told me, you know, when I had kids, my, my Instagram became about, like, moms and parenting and baby products.
• 45:07
  My husband's remained about woodworking and golf. Nothing's [laughs] changed.
• 45:10
  He, he was not getting that, like, onslaught of products, and I, I wa- I mean, I know, I mean, I know you had kids in the Stone Ages, so it might be different, but- Thank you... um- Thank you.
• 45:21
  No, here's where- The Holocenic period. [laughs] Thanks for asking. I have a parenting podcast that I co-host, right? And, and I started it for two reasons. One, my other one is very sad a lot of the time.
• 45:34
  Also, it can be really amazing. But I am very in it, and I had been reading Claire's work, which is so
• 45:42
  honest and candid, which is not usually the way this shit goes on Instagram or anywhere, maybe Reddit, but even then you don't really get the personal version of that a lot.
• 45:53
  Sometimes, and Claire has actually shared some amazing Reddits with me. That's a side conversation. She's much more of a lurker.
• 45:59
  So objectively, I do think it's really important for, for more men and more dads, whatever version, however it looks, stepdads, whatever you might be, to,
• 46:10
  one, spend more time, even though apparently, I mean, they're like, "Oh, you spend more time than your dads did." I'm like, "Low fucking bar, guys." [laughs] Great, but also- And helpful... let's be honest.
• 46:19
  But two, to talk about it more, right? Because it is- Yeah... difficult for everyone.
• 46:24
  My wife has always been, so my wife's a screenwriter, she's very successful, she works very hard, she's doing all this, she's always been our breadwinner.
• 46:29
  It's allowed me to do this saving the world type shit, it's great. But at the same time, it's like we're very equal on a lot of things, as much as we can within the house. My daughter, ugh, teenage girls, good God.
• 46:41
  Teenage boys also. Good news about teenage boys. They are as dumb as you remember. E- however smart they are. Great. They're so simple and so dumb. They're, they're just like puppies.
• 46:51
  Teenage girls are as you remember, like, massively insecure and, and struggling. The other day, my, my wife was telling me this story this morning. My daughter, who's the middle child, she asked my wife about something.
• 47:02
  This is version number 700. My wife gave an answer, and my daughter said, "That's the patriarchy." And my wife was like, "N- thank you, but no.
• 47:11
  What it is, is you asked dad, and he fucking said no, and you didn't tell me that, and then you came to me and I asked and said some- yes, but dad said no." She's like, "That's not the same fucking thing." The point is-
• 47:23
  No... that's just her being a liar. The point is, I ha- my feed is dads trying to make rec sports rec sports again, which is a big one. Love it. And I am a f- I am actually a really big believer in that.
• 47:34
  It is dads like... [laughs] There's a really great one. There's this British dad who plays, sits his teenage sons in the car and plays, like, millennial hip hop music for them. And, well, sorry, no.
• 47:47
  The kids play it, and he has to guess what the song is within 10 seconds, and he's so fucking proud of himself. I'm like, "That's all I can do. This is really great for me." It's so specific.
• 47:56
  My kids are like, "No, we, we know who Biggie is at this point. I get it." But I'm like, that's a version of- At this point... relating, but that's
• 48:04
  my feed, a- aside from all my other political and, and, and world saving shit, is it's, it's that kind of thing, you know?
• 48:09
  It's commiseration, which we always wanted this show to be as much as possible, because like- Totally... you should not come to us for advice. Sometimes we'll say, "This is what I do- No...
• 48:20
  and how it went wrong," or maybe went right, but we didn't- Yeah... control that. But in this moment, and I, Claire even has a line in here about how is AI feeding into all this? Like, in this moment- Hmm...
• 48:31
  parenting has always been hard. Parenting is relatively much easier for Claire and I than, than, than so many people in this country right now. It's a lot. There's the Cornell- Yeah...
• 48:41
  shit, which they see on the news before we do. There is- Scary... five years ago, again, I've said this before, like, my kids were, were, were younger.
• 48:49
  Di- I ch- didn't show them the New York Times page that said 100,000 dead, even though-... it was actually 10 times as much at minimum, right? Like, I d- but I don't have that choice anymore.
• 49:03
  Even though we don't really even do screens at home, they're on fucking YouTube the entire day at school. Yeah. And their school system's rigged.
• 49:10
  It's, so I think the least you can do as a, as a dad is be involved and make that your feed in some way because, like, otherwise their attention is everywhere else, and- Yeah... that's not often their choice. You know?
• 49:25
  Like, these, the way these systems are designed, again, against kids' best interests, what we know about their brains, against women, against moms, against people who wanna be moms, peop- who tried to be moms but couldn't.
• 49:36
  Whatever the fuck it is- Yeah... it's designed against you. So if dads, like, can't interject and be some so- sort of antidote and fill their feed with these things, then I don't know, like, what's the fucking point?
• 49:48
  So that's like- Yeah... I don't wanna be on, like, a pedestal about it, but I'm like, that's what I see. And I've got four friends who I share a hallway with. It's like a,
• 49:56
  you know, it's like a dorm here, and we're all dads, and our kids are close, but it's, yeah, it's fucking hard. Yeah. It's fucking hard, and that's a good thing. And we need more of that.
• 50:02
  We need more of dads being involved in that, yeah. I love the rec sports thing too, by the way. Um, it's, it's crazy to me. We had a whole fight last night.
• 50:09
  I was, so brief story, but this is applicable, I think, because Claire and I have talked about this with the older generation. So coaching my 11-year-old's team, and it is, it is rec.
• 50:20
  So we've got rec baseball, fall ball, which in itself is pretty relaxed. There's majors and minors. We're not d- we're not doing majors. We're, we're doing mi- we're not even doing the travel. We're so far from that.
• 50:33
  And last night, we don't have any umpires, so I'm umpiring, and I'm telling both sets of fans before the game, "Here's the deal.
• 50:39
  Whatever call I make, I want you to know my intention is for I want this kid to wanna play again next year. And so I, I do not want anyone to be miserable out here. There's gonna be balls and strikes and all this."
• 50:50
  Make one call, and you got 70-year-old grandpas who are trying to live through their fucking 11-year-olds screaming at you about what the real rules are. Sure.
• 50:57
  I'm like, "They can't actually do that because it's rec baseball, and that's not what the rules, I'm happy to show you, and you can scream about it," but it's like- [laughs]... we can't leave anything alone.
• 51:06
  The, the way- Yeah... the, the way we try to financialize and professionalize these kids so early, again, if an old person like me can interject in a pra- it's probably not appropriate.
• 51:18
  I'm sure there were some F-bombs involved last night. I don't know, man. That's all I know how to do. Yeah. So yeah. We don't get made to feel as guilty as much.
• 51:26
  100%, it never will be that way, but we should take that as being left off the hook and interject ourselves more, I hope. Does that make sense?
• 51:37
  Use all, use all that free brain space and the lack of guilt- There's no brain space... to just, like- There's a lack of guilt, but there's no brain space. Yeah. I don't know, man. It's, it's a fucking nightmare.
• 51:47
  It's crazy. But that's why I'm so curious again about the feeds and the AI stuff. Mm. We had baby newsletters 15 years ago. Yeah. I, my Instagram has figured out, I don't know if it's from my, probably...
• 52:00
  I shouldn't even try to figure out. I remember when you used to get COVID and you'd try to figure out where you got it, and then you're like, "There's no point in this, like, wasting my brain on this." Yeah.
• 52:07
  But my, my Instagram has already figured, has figured out that I have a kid in rowing, and so I'm getting ads for rowing shorts, which is, you know.
• 52:15
  I mean, it could be worse, I suppose, but, like, um- I just Googled this stroller, now I'm fucked. Yep. Yeah. I Googled upper baby- There you go... and they're like, "Congratulations, you're back."
• 52:25
  Seriously, I already see- Father up here... formula, cord blood, stroller, sleep. Oh, I'm definitely getting a cord blood today. Yeah. You're right. That's really funny. 100%. They're like- Like, who was it?...
• 52:34
  "Quinn, you got back on the saddle. Congrats." Yeah. Ready to go. It's funny 'cause we- Yeah... Claire knows we do have one in the freezer, and my wife's like, "You can do whatever you want with it, but don't involve me.
• 52:42
  I don't want any fucking part of it." Yeah. So, you know. It's all right. Don't involve me. Jamila, do you lurk anywhere parenting wise in terms of social media? Like, 'cause I do look on Reddit sometimes.
• 52:53
  Sometimes it's served to me and I don't like it, and other times it's deeply interesting. Teachers subreddit can be depressing 'cause I feel like all, half the time it's just, "These kids are fucked. They're so dumb."
• 53:03
  And then I like the nannies subreddit. I just think it's really interesting. I don't have a nanny, would never hire a nanny. Oh. But I just think it's- That's a good one... you know, just, yeah.
• 53:11
  What do you, what do you kind of drift in and out of- Yeah... knowing that social media is not reporting, but, you know, you can pick up on- Totally... trends and things like that? I'm totally a Reddit lurker.
• 53:20
  Like, for sure. I love the, I love the mom subreddits. They're fascinating. The crazier, you know, headline question, the more I'm clicking on that thing. What is it that you're asking about?
• 53:28
  But I'm still part of the, I don't know if it's Baby List or one of these, like, registry websites. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They have, they have a forum attached. Uh-huh. Yeah. Famous. And that shit gets crazy. Yes.
• 53:43
  I still get the emails for them, and it's like, "My husband left me with my three-day-old," and I'm just like, click. Uh, you know? [laughs] And it's like a fucking stroller website. I was like, "Let them-" Right.
• 53:54
  And you're like, "I'm going right down." Totally. And it's, you know, it's like a whole narrative, and I'm, and I'm like, "And I'm seated for it. Let's read the whole thing." Mm-hmm. Yeah.
• 54:01
  So I lurk a lot on the message boards. Those are funny. That's so funny that you mention that.
• 54:05
  This is, like, a deep cut, but for anyone who's out there who was, like, in the original Evil Witches Facebook group, whenever someone had a question that was, like, very ABC, one, two, three babies, like Baby 101, they call it a BabyCenter question, and oh- BabyCenter...
• 54:17
  like it varies. It's, yeah. That's funny.
• 54:19
  'Cause, 'cause every now and then you would find some real drama, and there's something about the formatting of that site that, like, takes you right back to, I think, the early aughts, you know? Just like- Yes.
• 54:28
  It's transformative. Like, it's- Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's so special. Yeah. No, that's a good one. That's a good deep cut. I'm, yeah. I don't know, Quinn, if men have any- Oh my gosh...
• 54:35
  that's when we talk about, like, the matriarchy- Girl, I lived on BabyCenter. Come on. You know, the motherhood. No, no, no, no, no. I, I have been trying to be a dad since I was, like, 11. You know? Yeah.
• 54:42
  I was so pumped to find BabyCenter in my life. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Boy, this is, this is deep cuts. This is deep cuts. Yeah. A lot of things that were shoved down for a long time. Totally. Yeah.
• 54:53
  Uh, I think I, th- thank you so much for being on the show.
• 54:56
  I think, is there anything else that you're working on that you wanna promote, or anything else that you, you know, while you're, while we have you on here, you want, that you're super psyched about, either in terms of reporting or just- Anything in general?
• 55:07
  I mean, the next thing I think we're gonna look at is mental load, and you know how all the- It's going well, right?... invisible labor that women do, we are so unloaded. Mm-hmm.
• 55:16
  There's just so little on our plates at this moment in time. So I think that's interesting. But- Okay... but we just launched a newsletter for this particular project. It's a five edition newsletter.
• 55:27
  You'll get the story and pieces, but you'll also get a little intro from me, where, where I'll talk about the reporting. We spent over a year working on this story. And we want people to commiserate with us.
• 55:37
  We want it to be a commiserating space, so tell me your drama- Yes... tell me the things that you struggled with. So- Perfect... that's the mom guilt economy. Awesome.
• 55:44
  The mom guilt econ- So on Friday, I think, I took James, my y- my 11-year-old son, to his football game, and it's JV first and then varsity after.
• 55:54
  And so his game would start at 6:00, and I was making arrangements so that he could be taken home after the varsity game, 'cause he wanted to stay and watch it.
• 56:02
  And he's like, "Wait, why aren't you gonna stay and watch the game?" And I said, "I don't care." And he said, "But you know kids on that team."
• 56:09
  And I said, "I didn't care when your brother was on the t- wasn't on the team."
• 56:13
  And he could not wrap his brain around the fact that I didn't wanna stand around and watch a bunch of children, none of whom are my child or related to me, play tackle football.
• 56:21
  And it was kind of like ni- you know, as always for me, it was sort of nice to be like, "Wake up. Sorry that...
• 56:27
  You know, I know you are the center of the universe, but the universe is slightly smaller or slightly bigger than you maybe thought it was." Smaller and bigger. I think it benefits our kids. Yeah.
• 56:35
  I think it benefits them- Yeah... to know that we are people. I keep... Yes, this morning I was like, "Jack, what does Mama do? What does Mama do for work? Remember, I know Papa's a doctor, but what does Mama do?"
• 56:44
  Uh-huh. So we're trying to get him to- And he's like-... to realize, like, his- "Well, let's see. Women can't be doctors, so how do, what's the..." So not that one. Yeah. Yeah, obviously not that one.
• 56:52
  He's like, "Well, you're at home all day. That must be it." So [laughs] but yeah. That, it's hard when your job is, looks a lot like the same version of buying stuff on Amazon.
• 57:01
  That's a hard one, I feel like, sometimes, you know? Yeah. So we tell him, "Mama writes stories. Mama writes stories." Mm-hmm. Mama does write stories. Yeah. Very important ones. Oh, and hold on. We have a special guest.
• 57:12
  Hold on. I want you to meet, this is Willow Beck. Willow is our production director, and Willow- Hi, everyone Hi, Willow... is in Canada and pregnant. Okay. And so I told... Yeah, I know. Get your shit straight.
• 57:25
  Pull it together. Okay. I told her, I messaged her. I was like, "When Willow, we're literally about to ask her to recommend baby and kid stuff that, that actually is, is good, that is not a nightmare." Oh, thank God.
• 57:37
  So let me start here. Willow, one, how are you feeling today? And two, what have you been recommended that you're like, "I think I'm gonna fucking do that"? Oh my God. I'm feeling pretty good today. Thank you for asking.
• 57:48
  I'm 20 weeks pregnant with a baby boy. Wow. Claire, I'm joining the boy mom. Yay. Congratulations. Welcome. Yay. Boy mom. One of us. You know, it's like I've gone through... It's a whirlwind.
• 58:02
  It's like an emotional like of things that I think that I need. Yeah. And then later I'm like, "This is crazy." Like I'm like- Yeah... "I don't need to spend, you know, a grand on a stroller travel system, the best one."
• 58:15
  There's so many. We didn't even talk about how you will pro- I imagine you have relatives who are dying to buy something for you. Yeah.
• 58:21
  So you have to come up with a glider, 'cause your grandma will combust if you're like, "I want money for college instead." Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, exactly. Totally. Yeah. No. Well- No.
• 58:31
  My parents would be like- It's the things-... "Why is this list so short? Add more stuff to it." Yeah. The aunt already got the thing I wanted. Yeah. That's on top of the stuff that I already know is crazy, but I'm...
• 58:41
  But there's still the pressure to get it. I was telling Quinn the other day about, like, wipe warmers. Don't do that. Mm-mm. Don't do that. No. Yeah.
• 58:48
  'Cause then your baby is gonna be a little bitch when you try to, when you don't have the wipe warmer- Mm-hmm... and you try to wipe his ass, and he's not used to the cold one. So don't do that one. Okay.
• 58:57
  And you don't wanna raise a little bitch, so- Yeah... let's get that. No. No. Exactly. I'm like, we need to build some sort of resilience. Yeah, that's resi- that's grit. Well, have you- That's grit right there.
• 59:05
  Welcome to the real world, kid. One, have you bought anything? Or two, is there any, if you have any sort of list or top of mind, is there anything you're like, "Well, we do need to get this thing"?
• 59:14
  Well, we did get, like, a stroller car seat travel system thing, just because that's... Well, the car seat's, like, the one thing you can't or you're not supposed to get used, and it was on sale- Mm-hmm...
• 59:23
  for, like, a lot, so we, we bit the bullet and got that. Yeah. That's fine. Approved. Yeah. Other than that, it's just, like, secondhand clothes really is all we have so far. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now I'm panicking.
• 59:36
  Now I will say- I'm like, I should get more stuff [laughs]... either, either, I, I'm gonna say either out of sh- out of shame or pride, depending on how you see it, we used- [laughs]...
• 59:43
  we had some hand-me-down car seats. Yeah. And I definitely found both sides of the coin on it, and people said, as... I think we went down along with if it's not expired and it doesn't look broken, it's fine to use.
• 59:53
  Yeah. But we, you know, I guess TBD on that one. You can find arguments to support you either way on that one, so. Yeah, it gets, you get so confused, and also a lot of it is what do you wanna live with looking at?
• 1:00:04
  My son still has a, uh, what you even call it? What is the thing that sleeps- Not diorama Car, like- The fucking... Mobile. Mobile, yeah. Mobile. Thank you. Wow. Mm-hmm. Okay. Wow.
• 1:00:14
  Between the four of us, we have four brain cells. And it's still hanging in his room. He never even saw it, basically. I was like, that was a me choice. Aw. That was a what kind of parent do I wanna be?
• 1:00:23
  What do I wanna look at, you know? That's incredible that it's still in his room. Yeah. That's amazing. That's pretty pure. It's just invisible to him. I don't think you need one of those. The Willow kids. Okay. No.
• 1:00:31
  Yeah. Or I'll send you mine, my son's, yeah.
• 1:00:33
  Family- Um- Or Willow, are there any, like, family things where your parents are like, "Oh, we've been waiting for our kid to say, 'We can't wait to give them this steel trap fucking crib from when you were born in the Yukon'"?
• 1:00:44
  Like, any shit like that- And-... where you're like, "Oh man, here we go"? Um, CBD, I know that... My, my parents are very utilitarian. They don't have anything. They don't care. They didn't keep anything from- Mm...
• 1:00:54
  when I was a child. Mm-hmm. They don't care. But- That must be fucking nice. Yeah.
• 1:00:56
  But my mother-in-law is the opposite of that, and she had t- just let, once we told her that we were having a baby, she's like, "Oh, thank God, because I've already been collecting things." And- Mm.
• 1:01:07
  Yeah, she already had a bassinet- Telling Willow's the best is steady there... ready to go. Uh-huh. Yeah. So we'll see. I haven't seen all the things yet. She's coming in a couple weeks. I'm sure it'll be- Mm.
• 1:01:14
  Oh, but you will You will Oh, you will. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that shit better be out and in use whenever she comes to be with that baby. I know. Wishes.
• 1:01:22
  Well, so there's, there's a whole nother part of parenting where no one really tells you about, you get all this stuff and then you have to put it to the side so you can have the baby, and then raise the baby.
• 1:01:32
  And then eight months later you discover, like, all of these little onesies from, like, when they were three months old or whatever, that you forgot to take out, or toys that you'd forgotten to take, 'cause you're like, a newborn doesn't need toys.
• 1:01:42
  And then all of a sudden you're like, "Well, he doesn't wanna play- Yeah... with this," or whatever. So it's a lot of, I feel like inventory. Literally inventory is, is parenthood. So much inventory. Totally.
• 1:01:51
  That mental load. Mental load. Ugh. Sorry, Willow. I'm excited to see you. I never get to see you, and I'm excited to give you all of this horrible gloom and doom advice, you know, that you won't- Poor Willow.
• 1:02:03
  Poor Willow's been editing this podcast- I was gonna say-... for whatever, two years now [laughs]... and she still wants to have a baby...
• 1:02:08
  Claire, I feel like I talk to you every week for three hours, 'cause I listen to every episode [laughs] multiple times. I'm so sorry. But Willow- It's such a g- You're in- Oh, go ahead. Yeah... you're in Canada.
• 1:02:16
  No, I was gonna say, you're in Canada, so you have paid leave? Yes. Yes. We- Okay... it's a, it's a complicated system.
• 1:02:22
  I can get into it if you want all the details, but- It's already leagues ahead of ours, so that's number one most important [laughs] thing is having just the time. Yeah. There's nothing more important than time.
• 1:02:32
  What would I recommend, y'all? Mm-hmm. Oh, man. 'Cause your, sorry, your youngest is one? Is that right? She's almost two, yeah. She's one and a half. The only thing I bought her,
• 1:02:42
  I, I did buy the, like, bottle washer thing. It's like a giant- I just told Willow not to do that. Okay. Okay. You, you don't necessarily need it- Mm...
• 1:02:51
  like if you have a dishwasher or something, but that, that motherfucker's running day and night. We just had it going. I just got so overstimulated by washing bottles 100 times a day- Mm...
• 1:03:03
  with my son, that when I had my daughter I was like, "We're gonna get rid of that." So [laughs] so we got- I get it... the big time bottle washer.
• 1:03:09
  We didn't have one, and like, I, th- d- the bottle wa- the dishwashing really was one of the things that laid me low, I feel, during maternity leave- Mm-hmm...
• 1:03:18
  was the constant emptying the dishwasher, getting distracted 'cause the baby's crying. So, like, I didn't have one. Anything that would've made that life better for me, I would say go for it.
• 1:03:27
  It is, it'll shock you how- Yeah... pre-kids you can do your laundry and be like, "I did my laundry for the week," and then you have a kid and you're like, "I'm doing laundry every day, every minute." Every day.
• 1:03:37
  Constant. Every day. There's never, you never stop. And I'm sorry. Again, there's good parts, too, but now we're talking about the things- Well, fuck all those So. No. I would say- You know it, Lon...
• 1:03:45
  the, this, my, yeah [laughs] you're right. You're, you're pulling the strings.
• 1:03:49
  The biggest thing I think, especially as my kids are older now, and again, pulled in 400 different directions, has been, like, the self-awareness. You talked about us having four total brain cells.
• 1:03:58
  I got, a couple years ago, on Amazon, a friend, John August, recommended there's a, a hard-boiled egg maker, and you, it tells you exactly how much water to put in, like six eggs, and then it goes off, and the sound it makes is like a nuclear facility going down, which is exactly what you fucking want.
• 1:04:17
  I don't want one that's come back and check and see how they're doing. I'm like, no, just make me the fucking eggs and tell me when it's done. Piece of plastic on my counter. It does one job.
• 1:04:25
  I don't need, I need, my self-awareness is like, otherwise I'm walking away all day. Those eggs are cooking- Yeah... the entire day. It's like the, The Other Mommy trailer.
• 1:04:33
  Have you guys watched that, where she's burning- Mm-hmm... the thing in the background? Yeah, that's- Yeah... that's me.
• 1:04:37
  So anything, Willow, that's assume you have never been more tired and dysfunctional in your entire life, and so is your husband. Mm-hmm. Anything like that. But, but Willow, you can buy it as you go.
• 1:04:49
  You don't have to- Mm-hmm... front end it. Yeah. You know? Yeah. You don't know yet what is gonna be hard for you or overstimulating or gonna drive you nuts.
• 1:04:55
  Give it time to play out, and then you can get the things- Yeah... that match rather than... Yeah. You are, yeah, you are able to go to Target after the baby is born. They don't close it. So y- they- Yeah.
• 1:05:06
  I don't know if you've heard of Amazon Prime, but it really is gonna save you. It's great. It's true.
• 1:05:10
  You get, you for- you act like a hurricane's coming and you're like, "I have to have all the diapers for his first year of life," you know, in the house immed- you know, beforehand and, you know, you, yeah, you forget, but you're like, "Maybe I don't wanna do it this way."
• 1:05:21
  Or we never used a changing pad. For some reason we had, like, all these changing pads, and I was like, I don't know, we just changed him somewhere else.
• 1:05:28
  But for some reason in my head we were gonna be, like, move it all around the house and, you know, putting it this and that, and you just don't know what your life is gonna be like, you know? So. Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:05:35
  That's good advice. I agree. Uh, what was I gonna ask? I don't even know. This is how dumb I am at this point in my life. You used a brain cell. I genuinely... Yep, that was it.
• 1:05:43
  I, I do think, I think that wrapping le- learning how to swaddle babies is incredibly overrated, and you sh- it's like stick shifts. Velcro or zippers. That's fine if you're good at that. Yeah. But yeah. Fuck that.
• 1:05:53
  Yeah, yeah, the 100%. Yeah, the Velcro one. We definitely- W- There were definitely ladies who I don't remember, and I'm glad, who gave my wife shit for doing the, the zipper and the Velcro ones.
• 1:06:01
  They were like, "You have to swaddle him yourself." It's like, "No." No. "No, we're not gonna fucking do that." [laughs] No. No. Just straitjacket them. Yeah. Just like... Yeah. Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
• 1:06:10
  What about the- Yeah... the wraps? Because this thing called a ba- They seem really complicated, but- They are. Oh my God. Oh, my. We got, I- Tricky...
• 1:06:16
  I got, like, an 18-foot-long piece of muslin to wrap James or Paul Jimmy at, with, and I remember watching the v- like, the DVD, I s- like, of how to make that work. You know, I'm, like, sobbing.
• 1:06:29
  We're ho- you know, and I'm- Not a DVD. It was just- Cute. I- Rubbing the scratches out of it before you put it in.
• 1:06:37
  Do it most, do, just imagine how, just imagine a really stupid version of yourself in the future and make life- Mm... easier on that person. So stupid. You know? And, like- I did the ba- Yeah... regular carrier.
• 1:06:48
  I loved carrying the kids. And even those are, like, not super simple until you've done them a bunch of times, but, like- No... you gotta sit him in. No one's, like, holding it with one- Yeah... and, and do this...
• 1:06:56
  and then the straps. Yeah. But it's easier than the wrap. The wrap is crazy. There's no directions. It's a piece of cloth. No, the wrap is insane. No. The video is insane that comes with it. The DVD.
• 1:07:05
  It's cute and aesthetic, sorry, or a cassette player or whatever. But on the carriers, get the one with back support. Mm-hmm. 'Cause you're gonna have those- Mm-hmm. Yeah...
• 1:07:13
  they're gonna have them in there, and it's gonna wreck your back. Get the one with back support. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm.
• 1:07:18
  Yep You know what you should give every, they should give every single new mom is like a certificate to a physical therapy place because like you get so fucked with like between the, you know, the, the crib and the bathtub and, you know, all of that kind of thing more than- Yeah...
• 1:07:32
  more than anything else. But- I remember- The ripping open of the vagina... when I was gonna ask. Yeah, right. The tearing of everything.
• 1:07:37
  Willow, what do Canadians, do they send you home with anything in the hospital or from the hospital, like a care package of stuff? I'm not, I'm not- We don't do that. We just send you with a bill. Yeah. I'm not...
• 1:07:46
  You don't do that? Okay. Because my TikTok algorithm is telling me that I will get stuff from the hospital, but I don't know if they're- No, you will. We won't. We don't. We won't. The hospital- But you will. Okay. Okay.
• 1:07:57
  Then yes, I think that they do. They send you the Perry bottle- Yeah... and like all of the diapers for you. No, we're just like, "Oh, you can't latch? You're a bad mom. Get fucked." Oh, yeah. No.
• 1:08:06
  We'll send you home with some stitches and yeah, a bill. That's amazing. Do we have any other questions for Willow since I roped her into this? Thoughts?
• 1:08:13
  Willow, anything you wanna ask a bunch of experienced moms and I'll stay out of it? Oh my gosh. I mean, I have a lot.
• 1:08:18
  One, one thing as when you were talking about all the laundry you have to do, Claire, and I already, you know, brought this up to Quinn that we were like, "Well, we're considering doing cloth diapers," but then he said, "Well, that just means you're gonna be doing 10 times the laundry."
• 1:08:30
  So it kind of like- I need to talk about this. Okay. Do you wanna talk about cloth diapers? I need- No, I will go ahead... to talk about this. I'll defer to you. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
• 1:08:39
  So I did a story about diapering and went down a rabbit hole and was like, when I'm a mother, I will be a cloth diaper mother. Okay? I bought an entire universe of cloth diapers.
• 1:08:48
  It was like all of the insides and then the outsides, and I was, I was all in. I took classes, I was ready, I was locked. I was gonna be this person. You know what I never realized? They don't absorb. So when- Ugh. Ooh.
• 1:09:04
  Day one of cloth diapering, I put it on my son, he pees in it, and now he's wet. Like actual wet. All day. Wet wet. Versus a diaper will absorb it and they're not gonna be like, like sloshing in there.
• 1:09:17
  Oh, he was sloshing. We were... It was like a water park. [laughs] And I was like, why did I never think of this? This never occurred to me.
• 1:09:26
  So I think in concept it's a wonderful, beautiful thing, and if other people do it and then love it, and please don't hate me, but, but it just didn't make sense to me. It didn't work for us. I was like, my...
• 1:09:34
  I can't put him in this overnight. He'll just wake up constantly 'cause he's wet. Wet, wet, wet. So- Okay. Yeah. Okay. Mm. See, that's what they don't tell you.
• 1:09:41
  Unlike the commercials where they dump the cranberry juice in the diaper and they're, "Look, it can absorb literally anything you put into it." And it can. And it can, but the other ones can't.
• 1:09:50
  [laughs] Well, you've left the door open for, you know, like maybe it will work for you. I don't personally know a single person who cloth diapers, so that maybe will, you know... But yeah.
• 1:10:03
  I feel like with all things, leave the window, the door open for it's, you know, maybe you want a formula or maybe you wanna breastfeed and don't give yourself a hard time if you end up formula feeding.
• 1:10:13
  You know, all of the- Formula's fucking great... all of the above. Yeah. Yeah. We don't have it available in this country, but formula's great. We just have it. I, I c- Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:10:21
  I, I mean, like car seats, I feel if you already are dealing with car seats, which I think are the most complicated, ass ache part of like gear part of new babyhood, if you can do that and have extra brain space for cloth diapers, then go for it.
• 1:10:35
  But I never, uh, we went, we, we knew our limits I think early on and we didn't, we didn't try. But, um, yeah, and also- There's still a mobile above your son's bed.
• 1:10:44
  I'm gonna take a picture of it and you guys will see it and it's so nice. Oh, Willow, now that you've announced to the world that you're having a boy, biggest thing about diapering, penis down. Mm. Penis down.
• 1:10:53
  Very important. Tuck it. Otherwise, in- the second you put that fucking diaper on, water works- Okay... everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Every time. But you'll, you will also just be...
• 1:11:01
  You will get peed on, so there's no- All the time... you know, it's gonna happen at some point no matter. Yeah. But don't buy... There's little tiny dunce caps you can buy for the penis to keep the pee from splashing.
• 1:11:10
  What? It's called a, like a pee-pee... I forgot. But oh, pee-pee teepee. Wow. Teepee? I wonder if they've changed the name since then, since- Ooh, yeah... 'cause then like that might be- Oh, can't use that one anymore...
• 1:11:19
  cancelable. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Anyway. Mm-hmm. Don't do, d- whatever. Not- anything that's a little tiny thing, don't do that. Mm-hmm. Don't waste your brain space or your physical space on anything like that.
• 1:11:30
  But anyway, I gotta go eat some lunch in a little bit, so are we... Willow, do you feel prepared to have this baby? We're good. You're ready. Yeah. I'm excited.
• 1:11:36
  We'll listen to the rest of the conversation and I'm sure we'll be good to go. It's really uplifting. Just listen to this when you're giving birth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll really prepare you. You're welcome. Yeah.
• 1:11:45
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