Transcript: Generational Divides with Nick Gillespie: Are the Parents Alright?
Opening Video: Are the Parents Alright?
Nick Gillespie (00:00:00):
People say parenting has gotten harder and parents are reporting more stress. But what was it like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago?
Lenore Skenazy (00:00:08):
That you gotta step back. And actually when parents step back, it allows kids to step up more.
Reshma Saujani (00:00:13):
Motherhood in America is broken by design. I think it’s so hard to have these conversations about what your parenting style should be when we are living in a culture that shames moms.
Lenore Skenazy (00:00:23):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:00:24):
I think that most people do want to evolve. They do want to parent a little bit differently than their parents do.
The Debate Begins
Nick Gillespie (00:00:34):
Becoming a parent for the first time is a steep learning curve. There’s nap schedules, wake windows, feeding schedules, there’s getting all the correct gear, learning how to install a car seat. But the learning curve certainly doesn’t stop there. The kids get older and then there’s screen time, bedtime, snack time, timeouts. Becoming a parent is taking crash courses on a million decisions again and again and again. Where we get most of our parenting advice has changed. It’s no longer from grandparents and friends and pediatricians. Instead, there’s been an explosion in the advice industry. Move over Dr. Spock. There are now countless parenting books, courses, and sleep training consultants.
(00:01:19):
And then there’s the public forums like Reddit, you can search almost any question and find that someone else has asked it somewhere on the internet, with many faceless strangers chiming in with advice and anecdotes. Yet despite all of this information at our fingertips, people say parenting has gotten harder and parents are reporting more stress.
(00:01:41):
But what was it like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago? Well, we’re not going to go back that far, but we do have three generations today to talk about parenting. A baby boomer, a Gen Xer, and a millennial. First, I want to welcome Lenore Skenazy. Lenore, you were a columnist minding your own business-
Lenore Skenazy (00:02:00):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:02:01):
... when you went viral in 2008 for a column you wrote about letting your kid ride the subway alone in New York City. He was nine. It ended up going vi- viral and getting you labeled as the world’s worst mom. Now you advocate for more independence for kids with your organization, Let Grow. You wrote a book about raising free-range kids and it’s grown into a cultural and political movement. You were recently name checked in a Doonesbury cartoon.
Lenore Skenazy (00:02:29):
(Laughs) Yes.
Nick Gillespie (00:02:29):
I’m delighted to have you today as a fellow baby boomer and as a fellow parent. Tell us about your parenting credentials. How many kids do you have and how old are they?
Lenore Skenazy (00:02:38):
Oh, are those my credentials? Um-
Nick Gillespie (00:02:39):
Those are your credentials.
Lenore Skenazy (00:02:39):
... I, I thought having written that book. Um, so I have two sons. They are 30 and 28.
Nick Gillespie (00:02:44):
Okay. Next, Reshma Saujani is with us. Reshma, you are an organizer and an advocate with focus on women and girls. You founded Girls Who Code in 2012 after a run for Congress, and more recently you founded and lead Moms First, an organization that is mobilizing for paid family leave and high quality affordable childcare, among other things. You also have a po- podcast called “My So-Called Midlife.” Uh, that’s a big clue that you are Gen X, right? Thank you so much for joining us today. I know from the podcast you have two boys, how old are they?
Reshma Saujani (00:03:21):
I have two sons, uh, Shaan and Sai, they are six and 11.
Nick Gillespie (00:03:26):
Six and 11.
Reshma Saujani (00:03:27):
I know. Sandwich generation.
Nick Gillespie (00:03:29):
Yeah. Finally, I want to welcome Kristin Gallant. You’re a parent coach and the co-founder of Big Little Feelings, which has a gigantic social media presence that offers classes for parents and things on things like how to manage explosive feelings. Potty training, I guess those two things are both explosive and, uh, also for how parents wrangle toddlers. You co-host a podcast called After Bedtime with your Big Little Feelings co-founder, Deena Margolin. We’re glad that you can join us today. You’re a millennial and you have three kids. How old are they?
Kristin Gallant (00:04:06):
I have a nine-year-old Talula, a seven-year-old Juniper, and then a little boy named Fox-
Reshma Saujani (00:04:12):
Aw.
Kristin Gallant (00:04:12):
... like the animal.
Nick Gillespie (00:04:14):
How, and how old?
Kristin Gallant (00:04:14):
He’s three.
Nick Gillespie (00:04:15):
Three. Okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:04:15):
He’s three.
Nick Gillespie (00:04:16):
All right, so we got a good age range.
Kristin Gallant (00:04:18):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:04:18):
And on a personal note, I recently became a father again for the third time. I’m a baby boomer. I’ve got a six-month old at home and two adult children. All right. I’m gonna start off with a bit of a softball. In one sentence, what is the goal of parenting? Kristin, your kids are the youngest, uh, and so you’re really in the trenches. You take this one first. What’s the goal of parenting?
Kristin Gallant (00:04:42):
I’m gonna be rebellious and give you two sentences.
Nick Gillespie (00:04:44):
Okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:04:45):
Okay. One, I believe the goal, what the goal is not-
Nick Gillespie (00:04:49):
Okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:04:51):
... of parenting is raising a child to be what we want the child to be or what we thought we never could be. What I think parenting is, is raising a child to be the best, happiest, most successful, most resilient version of their true individual selves.
Nick Gillespie (00:05:09):
Okay. Great. Uh, Reshma, how about you? What do you think about, you know, what’s the goal of your parenting?
Reshma Saujani (00:05:14):
I’m gonna continue the rebellion.
Kristin Gallant (00:05:15):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:05:17):
So the goal of parenting should not just be what’s good for the kids, but what should be what’s good for the parents, and I think that that’s freedom and choice.
Nick Gillespie (00:05:24):
Ooh. Freedom and choice-
Reshma Saujani (00:05:26):
For parents.
Nick Gillespie (00:05:26):
... for the kids and the parents.
Reshma Saujani (00:05:28):
But mostly freedom and choice for the parents.
Nick Gillespie (00:05:30):
Okay. Uh, and freedom and choice to, like, develop their own-
Reshma Saujani (00:05:36):
Like, to set up a structure-
Nick Gillespie (00:05:37):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:05:37):
... of parenting that gives them freedom and choice.
Nick Gillespie (00:05:40):
Okay. Great. Lenore, your kids are grown up-
Lenore Skenazy (00:05:43):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:05:43):
... at least chronologically, right?
Lenore Skenazy (00:05:45):
Yeah. I’d say even, even every which way-
Nick Gillespie (00:05:46):
Okay.
Lenore Skenazy (00:05:48):
... at this point. Uh, after some rough times, doesn’t mean it’s all straightforward.
Nick Gillespie (00:05:50):
Yeah. And, uh, so, I mean, you’re dealing with adult kids. The job never ends, but it gives you a different bit of perspective. What do you, what do you think about the way that, uh, Reshma and Kristin talked about goals? Do you agree with that? Or what would you add or subtract?
Lenore Skenazy (00:06:03):
Yeah, freedom and choice made sense, letting them sort of become who they are and that’s what you’re talking about too. I would soft pedal the idea of they have to become the very best at every, you know, e- even happiness, that’s, that’s hard to ask for, but yeah, I mean, you’re, it’s going to be hard to find rebellion among us if we think that parents get to raise the kids as the kids are unfolding.
Nick Gillespie (00:06:26):
Let me, let me focus or follow up on something that you said though. Would you, would you accept an average kid?
Kristin Gallant (00:06:32):
Absolutely. I think when I say true happiness, what I, cause that’s a high bar. Everybody’s happiness is a different level. What I mean is true content ness. I mean resiliency. I mean, there are setbacks. I mean, if they want to be a ski instructor, they’re a ski instructor-
Nick Gillespie (00:06:47):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:06:47):
... if they want to, what their true self should be and not the most successful, shiny-
Nick Gillespie (00:06:53):
Okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:06:53):
... happy version of themselves.
Nick Gillespie (00:06:56):
Do you, um, uh, Reshma, do you buy that or what, and when you say freedom and choice for parents-
Reshma Saujani (00:07:04):
Yeah, I’m listening to all this. I mean, listen, I don’t spend my time thinking about kids as much as I spend my time thinking about moms, because I think part of like when we, as we talk about the generational differences, I think the pressures on parents and mothers are so much bigger, right? There’s that stat that like parents today, mothers today spend more time with their kids than, you know what I mean, in the 1970s than-
Nick Gillespie (00:07:24):
Right. And-
Reshma Saujani (00:07:25):
... stay at home moms did.
Nick Gillespie (00:07:27):
Working moms today, spend more-
Reshma Saujani (00:07:28):
Working moms today spend more time with their children-
Nick Gillespie (00:07:29):
... time with their kids.
Lenore Skenazy (00:07:29):
8 hours a week.
Reshma Saujani (00:07:29):
Right. And so-
Lenore Skenazy (00:07:32):
Yeah, yeah. 8 hours a week.
Reshma Saujani (00:07:32):
... we talk a lot about, how do we parent our kids and we don’t talk enough about, well, how did we get here, right? And so to me, like, motherhood in America is broken by design. I, I say that, you know, we’ve been conned for the past 250 years since the ink dried on the Constitution and you know, what do I mean by that?
Lenore Skenazy (00:07:51):
That’s a long time.
Reshma Saujani (00:07:51):
It’s a long time.
Lenore Skenazy (00:07:51):
(laughs) Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:07:52):
But like, if you just think about design-
Lenore Skenazy (00:07:54):
Even older than the boomers here too.
Reshma Saujani (00:07:55):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:07:55):
Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:07:55):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:07:55):
But like-
Lenore Skenazy (00:07:55):
Hard to believe. (Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:07:57):
... why does the school day end at 3:30-
Nick Gillespie (00:07:59):
Why does it start at 9:00?
Reshma Saujani (00:07:59):
... and works ends at 6:00?
Nick Gillespie (00:07:59):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:07:59):
Why [inaudible 00:08:03]. (Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:08:02):
Why, why, why do we-
Nick Gillespie (00:08:03):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:08:04):
... like, even the scheduling of society has been made to put pressure on the caregiver which is most of the time, a mother. You know, why are parents spend more for childcare than their mortgage? Like, you’re putting people into financial strain-
Nick Gillespie (00:08:19):
And then-
Reshma Saujani (00:08:19):
... and we make it so damn hard.
Nick Gillespie (00:08:20):
Okay.
Reshma Saujani (00:08:20):
I mean, that’s the point, right?
Nick Gillespie (00:08:21):
Yeah. Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:08:21):
It’s like we, we not, we don’t just, we, we, we have so much cultural pressure. I mean, the amount of, another article that I read about the declining birth rate and like why I should have children and, like, bake sourdough bread at the same time.
Nick Gillespie (00:08:32):
Is that different than the, the motherhood paradigm that you grew up in? Or-
Lenore Skenazy (00:08:37):
The motherhood paradigm I grew up in, which I think we both grew up in, was, uh, really different in that there was a lot of trust that the kids were going to be okay without constant input from the parents in terms of watching every game, driving them to afterschool activities, making every snack-
Reshma Saujani (00:08:56):
Right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:08:56):
... answering every question and high-fiving every achievement. And now you’re getting the grades from school every day and you have to talk about, “I saw you got a B+ on the soccer and the-”
Reshma Saujani (00:09:06):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:06):
“... Spanish quiz.”
Reshma Saujani (00:09:06):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:09:06):
Mm-hmm.
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:07):
There’s just so much more expected of us as if kids would feel bereft or they would end up like undeveloped.
Nick Gillespie (00:09:17):
Just that one macaroni painting was not preserved forever.
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:18):
Right. Well, the macaroni paintings were preserved forever, right?
Nick Gillespie (00:09:21):
Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:21):
So-
Nick Gillespie (00:09:22):
They break down slower-
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:23):
Right, but the mom-
Nick Gillespie (00:09:23):
... than plastics, yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:24):
... wasn’t saying, “Oh, I like the way you put that piece of macaroni. Wanna do another?” That’s really, I love it.
Reshma Saujani (00:09:29):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:29):
It looks like a smile. Doesn’t that remind you of a smile? Smile starts with S-
Reshma Saujani (00:09:33):
Mm.
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:33):
... right. That was not happening.
Reshma Saujani (00:09:34):
Mm.
Nick Gillespie (00:09:35):
Let me, uh, just to kind of adjacent to this, um, you know, how important is parenting?
Reshma Saujani (00:09:41):
(Laughs).
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:41):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:09:42):
Because this kind of follows, no, it, it cal- uh, it kind of follows from what you’re talking about and there’s the, um, Judith Harris book “The Nurture Assumption” from the late 90s-
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:51):
Uh, uh, uh, wait a minute. I wrote down Judith Harris.
Nick Gillespie (00:09:54):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:54):
That’s my note.
Nick Gillespie (00:09:54):
No, but this, this was a-
Reshma Saujani (00:09:54):
(Laughs).
Kristin Gallant (00:09:54):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:09:55):
... a big book in the late ‘90s-
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:56):
Yeah, mm-hmm.
Nick Gillespie (00:09:56):
... and it basically argued that-
Lenore Skenazy (00:09:58):
Before you were born.
Nick Gillespie (00:09:59):
... parents have-
Reshma Saujani (00:09:59):
I know.
Nick Gillespie (00:09:59):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:09:59):
The boomers book.
Nick Gillespie (00:10:01):
... have much, much less influence on how kids turn out and pass it, it’s mostly like they kind of select a peer group, but even-
Lenore Skenazy (00:10:08):
No, it’s that there’s so many influences-
Nick Gillespie (00:10:09):
... but-
Lenore Skenazy (00:10:09):
... on them, not just the parents-
Nick Gillespie (00:10:11):
Right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:10:11):
... is what the point was.
Nick Gillespie (00:10:11):
I mean, uh, uh, uh-
Lenore Skenazy (00:10:13):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:10:13):
... do, do you feel, um, do you feel a pressure to be the biggest influence in your kids’ life at every moment?
Kristin Gallant (00:10:21):
So I think that this is where our generation and we’ll get to social media, I think this is where the misconception is huge. I do not think you need to be at every single sports game. Research does not support that. I do not think that you have to walk over and do macaroni art and then talk about it and then say, “That’s an S.” That’s a teacher’s job. I’m not teaching my kid S’s. Now, on the flip side, what we do know is that we are the only mammals that are born, perhaps also orangutans, but-
Reshma Saujani (00:10:49):
(Laughs).
Kristin Gallant (00:10:49):
... we’re the only ones who are born underdeveloped. So a deer when they are born, they just run off, okay. And so our children, when they are born, they can’t lift their head, they’re just explosive growth happening at the beginning of their life between ages zero and five, and how they grow and how they develop is shaped relationally. Now, where people get this completely misconstrued, and I wish and my, my dream is to, to shout this from the rooftops, this does not mean you have to have the highest pressure and have little cut up cucumber shapes.
Reshma Saujani (00:11:24):
(Laughs).
Kristin Gallant (00:11:24):
Never. You don’t have to be at every baseball game. All these things that we are doing pressure on ourselves, if you can relationally stay connected, if you cannot shape-
Nick Gillespie (00:11:33):
Can I just, real quickly?
Kristin Gallant (00:11:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:11:34):
What, what does it mean to be relationally connected?
Kristin Gallant (00:11:37):
Relationally connected means there’s different types of parenting styles and we’ll get to that based on this whole gentle parenting trend, which gentle’s the wrong word. If you really boil this down, you do not need to be around your child 24 hours a day. You don’t need to be around your child 18 hours a day. You can go to work and when you come home from work, you are excited to see your child, you are not following your child around, shaming them, saying, “What’s wrong with you? What’s this?” Um, shaping the image of themselves, you’re hard on them, you are punishing them, you’re sending to their room. You’re shaping their brain developmentally, right? And so when you say, “Hey, you’re a bad kid, get in your room, I never want to see you again and you’ll never amount to anything,” that’s probably going to form the neural pathways like, “Hey, I’m worthless. I’m never going to amount to anything.” We all know people as-
Reshma Saujani (00:12:21):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:12:21):
Mm-hmm.
Kristin Gallant (00:12:22):
... adults who are sitting in their shame-
Nick Gillespie (00:12:23):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:12:23):
... who can’t get themselves up at the end of the day. And so it’s actually a pretty low bar, I think.
Lenore Skenazy (00:12:28):
(laughs) I think so too.
Kristin Gallant (00:12:29):
You have to respond correctly-
Lenore Skenazy (00:12:30):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:12:30):
... 30 to 50% of the time of saying like, “Hey, you’re, you’re cool, I’m here, I’m here for you, I’m always here for you.” And that’s it.
Nick Gillespie (00:12:36):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:12:36):
That’s really it.
Reshma Saujani (00:12:37):
Yeah. I want to, I want to talk about-
Nick Gillespie (00:12:37):
Go.
Reshma Saujani (00:12:38):
... I think that this is an important part, but I think to like even... Sorry, Nick-
Nick Gillespie (00:12:41):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:12:41):
... to even get there, that’s why I think it’s so important that we lose sight of the structure. You know, my parents were refugees. They came here with $10 in their pockets and like they were trying to, you know, my father had to change his name, find a job, pay the bills, like, there was so much pressure. And then it was the ‘80s where quite frankly, we were one of the few brown families in a white working class neighborhood, and that in itself was like a, a, a hard challenge and adjustment. And so I think that like to even get to the place where you can put down your shoes, take off your coat, walk through the door and be ready-
Kristin Gallant (00:13:14):
Mm-hmm.
Reshma Saujani (00:13:15):
... I need to have support.
Kristin Gallant (00:13:17):
Correct.
Reshma Saujani (00:13:18):
Right. And so to me that’s why-
Nick Gillespie (00:13:20):
Well, can I ask-
Reshma Saujani (00:13:20):
... we have to start thinking-
Kristin Gallant (00:13:21):
Correct.
Reshma Saujani (00:13:22):
... about how are we providing families the support, childcare, flexibility, race, right, belief-
Kristin Gallant (00:13:28):
You cannot have one without the other.
Reshma Saujani (00:13:29):
You... Right. You can’t have one without the other.
Nick Gillespie (00:13:29):
So let me, let me-
Reshma Saujani (00:13:29):
[inaudible 00:13:30] absolutely.
Nick Gillespie (00:13:29):
... ask then just as we close-
Reshma Saujani (00:13:29):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:13:32):
... out this-
Reshma Saujani (00:13:32):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:13:33):
... section and, and again, to go back to the idea of how do things change over generations or even, you know, parents, you know, we were children once, many of us stay children forever, but we’re always kind of fighting the last battle.
Reshma Saujani (00:13:46):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:13:46):
But like how has parenting changed, you know, from the way you were raised to what you want for your kids?
Reshma Saujani (00:13:52):
You know what, I think I was just telling you the story. My parents, my mother didn’t read my essays at school.
Lenore Skenazy (00:13:59):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:13:59):
She didn’t know what classes I was taking. She barely knew what my teachers names were. You know, if something happened at school and I got, I don’t know, beat up, called a name, then they were in it, right? But for the most-
Nick Gillespie (00:14:11):
Or if your grades were terrible-
Reshma Saujani (00:14:12):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:14:13):
... like, markedly terrible?
Reshma Saujani (00:14:14):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:14:15):
Can you imagine-
Reshma Saujani (00:14:16):
Well I-
Lenore Skenazy (00:14:16):
... her with markedly grades? (Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:14:17):
Well, yes, I was. I spent a lot of time-
Nick Gillespie (00:14:18):
So, so-
Speaker X (00:14:18):
[inaudible 00:14:19].
Reshma Saujani (00:14:18):
... in detention. No, I did. I did. No, no, but you’re-
Nick Gillespie (00:14:18):
... [inaudible 00:14:20] like a report card.
Reshma Saujani (00:14:18):
Yes-
Nick Gillespie (00:14:18):
Like, instead of every day-
Reshma Saujani (00:14:18):
100%-
Nick Gillespie (00:14:18):
... you know, it’d be like-
Reshma Saujani (00:14:18):
100%.
Nick Gillespie (00:14:18):
... one, twice a-
Reshma Saujani (00:14:24):
Right, right.
Nick Gillespie (00:14:24):
... or-
Reshma Saujani (00:14:24):
Hu- 100%.
Nick Gillespie (00:14:24):
... once or twice a month.
Reshma Saujani (00:14:26):
They weren’t negligent-
Nick Gillespie (00:14:26):
Right, right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:14:27):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:14:27):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:14:27):
... but they were like, “If I need to intervene, I will intervene.”
Nick Gillespie (00:14:29):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:14:29):
So like to me, iron- and I turned out just fine.
Lenore Skenazy (00:14:33):
Well, that-
Reshma Saujani (00:14:33):
... so ironically-
Lenore Skenazy (00:14:34):
... that is my point-
Reshma Saujani (00:14:34):
... I was, I was trying [inaudible 00:14:35]-
Nick Gillespie (00:14:34):
That’s really up-
Lenore Skenazy (00:14:34):
(laughs) Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:14:34):
... to your kids to-
Reshma Saujani (00:14:34):
I was (laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:14:34):
... say anything.
Reshma Saujani (00:14:38):
I was telling Nick the story that when I was doing a parent-teacher conference the other week, his teacher starts by saying, “Well, Sai told me that you never open up his backpack.” You know, and I was like, “Oops,” you know-
Kristin Gallant (00:14:46):
[inaudible 00:14:47].
Reshma Saujani (00:14:46):
Right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:14:47):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:14:47):
But my point is, is like I’ve adopted a lot of m- the parenting style that I-
Lenore Skenazy (00:14:52):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:14:53):
... was raised with-
Nick Gillespie (00:14:53):
Mm-hmm.
Reshma Saujani (00:14:54):
... to my kids, which is very not in vogue with what I see on social media and how my friends raise their kids.
Nick Gillespie (00:15:00):
Okay. So it’s less-
Lenore Skenazy (00:15:00):
And you did that-
Nick Gillespie (00:15:00):
... hovering-
Lenore Skenazy (00:15:00):
... because?
Reshma Saujani (00:15:00):
I’m not a-
Nick Gillespie (00:15:00):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:15:03):
... helicopter parent.
Lenore Skenazy (00:15:04):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:15:04):
I’m not so intensive, I’m not up in the business for on every little thing, right. Like and I, and I think what I, what I’ve raised in our two boys, which is important because they’re boys, who will say to me, “Mom, I have swimming today, tomorrow, can you grab my swimsuit?” Or, “Mom, I need $20 because it’s the book fair.” Like, they are on top of their lives-
Nick Gillespie (00:15:23):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:15:23):
... and what they need.
Lenore Skenazy (00:15:23):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:15:24):
Right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:15:24):
It’s amazing. You-
Reshma Saujani (00:15:24):
[inaudible 00:15:26].
Kristin Gallant (00:15:25):
I’m gonna push back a l-
Nick Gillespie (00:15:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:15:26):
I would like to push back a little bit on this-
Nick Gillespie (00:15:28):
Okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:15:28):
... because-
Reshma Saujani (00:15:28):
Yes.
Kristin Gallant (00:15:28):
... I do think in, in this generation, this generation-
Reshma Saujani (00:15:32):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:15:33):
... I, I think that can be your story, but I also see a lot of stories where it was inc- almost similar situation with immigrants who came over-
Reshma Saujani (00:15:39):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:15:40):
... and it’s the opposite. It was high achievement, it was you better be the best, you better be a doctor, a lawyer, or this or that.
Reshma Saujani (00:15:47):
Oh, I had that too.
Lenore Skenazy (00:15:47):
She is a lawyer.
Kristin Gallant (00:15:48):
I don’t care about your wellbeing, I don’t care about your mental health and-
Lenore Skenazy (00:15:51):
But they were trusting her.
Kristin Gallant (00:15:52):
... my thing is, what I think the difference is between the generational styles of, and this is my opinion-
Nick Gillespie (00:15:57):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:15:57):
... is, I think that those generations wanted a child that A, behaved no matter what in, so outwardly-
Nick Gillespie (00:16:06):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:16:06):
... they behaved. They were well-behaved, they were quiet, they did well in school, that was the goal. The goal was not-
Lenore Skenazy (00:16:11):
[inaudible 00:16:11] (laughs) Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:16:11):
... later on in life, and then later on in life, those kids would be successful and they’d be three things successfully, right. Doctor, lawyer-
Reshma Saujani (00:16:17):
Engineer.
Kristin Gallant (00:16:18):
... I’m missing one. Sure. Engineer.
Reshma Saujani (00:16:19):
That’s okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:16:19):
Okay. And then I think-
Reshma Saujani (00:16:20):
[inaudible 00:16:21].
Kristin Gallant (00:16:20):
... that the only difference is with our generation, we are not so focused on an outward behavior of how a child appears to the world. We’re focusing on their inner mental health, their inner true resiliency that will lead to actually good behavior, but their own mental health, we’re not detrimenting their mental health for how they should be outward facing. Same with when they grow up, then they’re also-
Nick Gillespie (00:16:46):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:16:46):
... not fitting into a box.
Nick Gillespie (00:16:47):
So let’s, Lenore, talk a little bit about this from the boomer perspective, uh, because your parents then would have been like the greatest generation.
Lenore Skenazy (00:16:57):
They were.
Nick Gillespie (00:16:58):
Did they, did they have an internal or did they speak to your internal emotional states at all?
Lenore Skenazy (00:17:04):
Never in those words.
Nick Gillespie (00:17:05):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:17:06):
But I feel like I was raised by two loving parents, and the thing that I got most from them, and it sounds like you got from your parents too, and probably you did too, because here you are, is a lot of trust. Um, a lot of trust that I could handle things, a lot of trust-
Reshma Saujani (00:17:19):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:17:20):
... that I would do well enough in school, that I would have friends, that if I was taking free time and just drawing in my room or I spent a lot of time looking for four leaf clovers, that this wasn’t going to make, you know, make me a, a disaster as a grownup. And so it was trust in me, trust in the neighborhood, trust in their parenting and it wasn’t, it wasn’t questioning whether every interaction was, uh, emotionally correct or not.
Nick Gillespie (00:17:46):
Mm-hmm.
Lenore Skenazy (00:17:47):
It was just sort of, I mean, when you were going to ask, you never asked me (laughs) what’s the, what’s the purpose of parenting?
Nick Gillespie (00:17:52):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:17:52):
I’m like to raise kids.
Reshma Saujani (00:17:53):
Mm-hmm.
Lenore Skenazy (00:17:54):
That, that’s what they were doing. And it wasn’t that they didn’t care who we were or how we turned out.
Reshma Saujani (00:17:58):
Yeah. I also think it was such an interesting conversation because I also think just personally, right?
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:02):
Mm-hmm.
Reshma Saujani (00:18:02):
I have to be really centered. I have to wake up every morning and feel like, you know, I have the time, quite frankly, to be emotionally centered and present and focused in order to even be able to ask that of my child. Do you see what I’m saying?
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:21):
Absolutely.
Reshma Saujani (00:18:21):
And so I, this is what I think-
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:23):
That’s what we weren’t asking.
Reshma Saujani (00:18:23):
That that way-
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:23):
Nobody was saying-
Nick Gillespie (00:18:23):
[inaudible 00:18:26].
Reshma Saujani (00:18:23):
Right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:25):
Am I centered today?
Reshma Saujani (00:18:26):
Right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:26):
Can I deal with-
Reshma Saujani (00:18:26):
And that-
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:27):
... my child? What am I going-
Reshma Saujani (00:18:28):
C- c-
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:28):
... to say to them? How are they going to react?
Reshma Saujani (00:18:30):
Right but, but that-
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:30):
How is this going to impact their mental health? It was like, here’s breakfast.
Reshma Saujani (00:18:33):
Right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:33):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:18:34):
And you’re just trying to make it through the day. And I think the point though is like, I also think that like, and I do think like it is important for us. I’m like, I’ve been trying to do this exercise just personally, like to my body, how does my body feel today?
Lenore Skenazy (00:18:46):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:18:47):
How am I feeling today? Because I know when I get centered, I’m going to get out of bed and even if like no one’s brushing their teeth or putting on their clothes or like giving me a hard time, right, I’m going to show up the way that I want to show up. But that means that I have to have the time, right? And that’s why I think it’s so important-
Nick Gillespie (00:19:03):
Did you feel that, I’m, I’m curious if you-
Reshma Saujani (00:19:04):
[inaudible 00:19:05].
Nick Gillespie (00:19:05):
Just to close out this section, then we’re going to move on to-
Reshma Saujani (00:19:07):
Mm.
Nick Gillespie (00:19:07):
... a new topic, but did you feel that way as a boomer parent that, you know, first and foremost it was-
Lenore Skenazy (00:19:13):
[inaudible 00:19:14].
Nick Gillespie (00:19:14):
You’re you’re-
Lenore Skenazy (00:19:14):
Even older than I am.
Nick Gillespie (00:19:15):
Well-
Lenore Skenazy (00:19:16):
Come on. It sounds like I raised a boomer.
Nick Gillespie (00:19:18):
Baby boomer who was a parent?
Reshma Saujani (00:19:18):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:19:19):
All right Like that when you woke up-
Reshma Saujani (00:19:21):
World War I.
Nick Gillespie (00:19:22):
... the first thing you had to do was kind of do like an internal check system on you.
Lenore Skenazy (00:19:26):
No, but that’s also me. I’m just too lazy.
Nick Gillespie (00:19:28):
Well, well, this is what I’m saying is that the, the generational shifts-
Lenore Skenazy (00:19:31):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:19:31):
Might be d-
Lenore Skenazy (00:19:31):
Well and-
Nick Gillespie (00:19:32):
... might be substantially different because-
Lenore Skenazy (00:19:36):
I think you’re, I think you’re right in that I feel like basically you wake up and you, you deal with your kids, but also I loved having, we had a nanny (laughs) and so however I was feeling that day, I left for work and somebody else, um, looked after them-
Nick Gillespie (00:19:48):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:19:49):
... and then when I came home. We related, but I also thought that if they weren’t with me that was okay if they spent time on the way home and went and, you know, played at the park, that was okay. It was basically a, a, a easier (laughs) I’d say.
Kristin Gallant (00:20:04):
Well, I want to say though, I think, um, because I love your experience as a, as a boomer parent and I think that.
Lenore Skenazy (00:20:08):
(Laughs).
Kristin Gallant (00:20:09):
... and I’m, I’m not-
Lenore Skenazy (00:20:09):
[inaudible 00:20:09].
Kristin Gallant (00:20:09):
... I’m not taking that away from now. But I, I do, I will say, I mean, my parents were boomers and a lot of people that I, that are now parenting, we are parenting reacting to the boomer generation and-
Nick Gillespie (00:20:19):
Yeah, who of course were also reacting to their parents.
Kristin Gallant (00:20:22):
Correct. Exactly. It is one-
Nick Gillespie (00:20:22):
Who were seen as emotionally unavailable but highly demanding.
Kristin Gallant (00:20:28):
100%. And now we’re trying to do things the opposite. In, in, in many of the parents that I am seeing, what they, what they experienced having boomer parents was pressure, pressure to be the best, pressure to be quiet, pressure to behave, pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure. So it feels a little different than my childhood was not, the nanny’s going to pick you up and then maybe you go to the park. Mine was, you’re going here and then you’re going to the math tutor, then you’re going to softball because you’re going to get a full ride for softball for college-
Nick Gillespie (00:20:57):
Mm-hmm.
Kristin Gallant (00:20:57):
You better get that full ride-
Nick Gillespie (00:20:58):
Okay, yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:20:58):
... or else. And it was pressure, pressure, pressure.
Nick Gillespie (00:20:59):
Yeah. And, and if I may, just to round out this section, my experience as a, a boomer child-
Kristin Gallant (00:21:05):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:21:06):
... was in keeping with some of what you were talking about, when I went out, you know, if I was out with my parents, I should not embarrass them.
Kristin Gallant (00:21:12):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:21:12):
Of course.
Nick Gillespie (00:21:13):
I should present myself-
Kristin Gallant (00:21:14):
That was the-
Nick Gillespie (00:21:15):
... and like follow certain things, but it was not necessarily that turn and this is also partly class based, they were not like, “And you have to be an astronaut or a doctor or a lawyer.”
Kristin Gallant (00:21:24):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:21:24):
It was like, you just have to be independent.
Kristin Gallant (00:21:26):
You behave.
Lenore Skenazy (00:21:27):
You just have to ask a debate show.
Nick Gillespie (00:21:28):
Yeah. Yes. That was their goal.
Lenore Skenazy (00:21:30):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:21:30):
And sadly they didn’t get seen. Okay, we’re going to close that out and we’re going to go to a, uh, new sec- uh, new segment. If the goals of parenting are, are our ideals, things can get messy once we’re actually in the room with real live kids. You know, this is kind of the parenting equivalent of Mike Tyson saying “Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face, right?”
Lenore Skenazy (00:21:52):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:21:52):
Right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:21:52):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:21:52):
And the kid’s diaper explodes, whatever, all, all your theories are, you know, beside the point. So let’s get into some of the strategies or philosophies of parenting and I want to start with one of the most prevalent in parenting today or parenting discourse. This is, uh, what is often called gentle parenting. The phrase is attributed to a British author, herself a parent of four, Sarah Ockwell-Smith, and she describes it to put it really, really simply as treating kids with the same empathy and respect we give other adults.
(00:22:25):
This idea has taken root in parenting but it’s also been very divisive. People disagree about how to apply these ideas and practice, and whether this philosophy can achieve the results it promises. Uh, but I think we can all agree that it’s in the ether so let’s talk about it a little bit. Uh, Reshma-
Reshma Saujani (00:22:42):
Yes.
Nick Gillespie (00:22:43):
... when you hear the phrase gentle parenting, what does it mean to you and has it influenced you as a parent?
Reshma Saujani (00:22:51):
Yeah, I mean, listen, I, I mean, Kristin’s an expert on this, so I, I mean, I’m, I’m gonna let her speak to that, but I, I think from my perspective, it’s like I feel like when I hear the term, it assumes that you have bandwidth, it assumes that you kind of have the support. And we already talked about again, in this world where we, we don’t have childcare, we don’t have paid leave, you know, we don’t actually provide, you know, we’re the wealthiest nation that gets-
Lenore Skenazy (00:23:16):
You are so good at staying-
Reshma Saujani (00:23:17):
... the least Amount of money into childcare.
Lenore Skenazy (00:23:17):
... on point.
Nick Gillespie (00:23:17):
Yeah,
Lenore Skenazy (00:23:17):
Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh.
Nick Gillespie (00:23:17):
Wait, wait, wait, but-
Reshma Saujani (00:23:22):
But like my point, but to-
Nick Gillespie (00:23:23):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:23:24):
... to keep going on this, so, so look, as I said before, like my parents were refugees. I was not gentle parented. I was disciplined the old-fashioned.
Nick Gillespie (00:23:32):
[inaudible 00:23:33].
Reshma Saujani (00:23:32):
My, my parents were just trying to put food on the table and pay the bills and like just survive, right?
Kristin Gallant (00:23:37):
You say-
Reshma Saujani (00:23:37):
And so like-
Kristin Gallant (00:23:37):
... you were disciplined in a traditional way, what does that mean? Does that mean physical? Does that mean more like timeouts alone? What, I mean, if you’re comfortable sharing like what-
Reshma Saujani (00:23:44):
Okay, you want me to, you want me to like [inaudible 00:23:46] my parents, like you know what I mean?
Kristin Gallant (00:23:47):
(laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:23:47):
And I was trying to like, you know, right. I mean, I think you, yeah I think, I, I think we were, I think we were-
Kristin Gallant (00:23:53):
Discipline difference.
Reshma Saujani (00:23:54):
We were disciplined.
Kristin Gallant (00:23:55):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:23:55):
You know, and what, whatever that means, we know what that means I should say.
Kristin Gallant (00:23:58):
Harshly disciplined, sure.
Reshma Saujani (00:23:59):
Um, but that’s what, but that’s what people did that then.
Kristin Gallant (00:24:02):
Yes.
Reshma Saujani (00:24:02):
People spanked.
Kristin Gallant (00:24:02):
Mm-hmm.
Reshma Saujani (00:24:03):
You know what I’m saying? I was terrified of my, like, my, my meaning, my father said be home at 10 o’clock, I was home at 10 o’clock-
Kristin Gallant (00:24:09):
Mm-hmm.
Reshma Saujani (00:24:09):
Right? Like-
Lenore Skenazy (00:24:10):
When I was home at 10 o’clock, not because anybody was disciplining me, just because I was a good kid.
Reshma Saujani (00:24:14):
Yeah. I mean, but that’s what I’m saying. I think it was a, from my, I was a good kid too, and I was scared as hell as my dad.
Lenore Skenazy (00:24:20):
Right. Um, you’re still scared.
Reshma Saujani (00:24:22):
Right (laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:24:23):
But so-
Reshma Saujani (00:24:24):
No, I just don’t feel like it’s-
Nick Gillespie (00:24:25):
So gentle, gentle parenting is-
Reshma Saujani (00:24:28):
Yeah, what is exactly?
Nick Gillespie (00:24:30):
... is not something that like the, you were not treated as a, a miniature adult by your parents. Do you treat your kids-
Reshma Saujani (00:24:36):
Because I find this conversation-
Nick Gillespie (00:24:37):
... as-
Reshma Saujani (00:24:37):
... so interesting because I think you assume, and going back to class, that people who are barely trying to get by and the vast majority of people in America don’t have the economic luxury of actually thinking about these things. They’re just trying to get by, and I think my parents were in that position. I think most families that I speak to are in that position. And so for me, having more resources, having more support and looking at this as someone who’s kind of, again, leading a movement of moms, I think it’s so hard to have like these conversations about what your parenting style should be when we are living in a country that doesn’t have structure and we are living in a culture that shames moms-
Nick Gillespie (00:25:25):
Yes.
Reshma Saujani (00:25:26):
... right whoosh, we haven’t gotten to, right? Like right now the prominent conversation when I open up Instagram is, are you a trad wife or a girl boss?
Nick Gillespie (00:25:32):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:25:32):
Right? Are you gonna, you know, like milk a cow, you know, or are you gonna hustle so hard that you don’t see your kids? In some ways that’s like an indication of how we tell people to parent. Work, work, work, work, work, right, and spend the least amount of time with your child. So to me, I wanna get to a place in my own parenting, which just goes back to like the body checks, right? And the meditation is like, how do I get to a place where I’ve centered-
Nick Gillespie (00:25:55):
What about-
Reshma Saujani (00:25:56):
... where I can show up to be the parent that I will be?
Nick Gillespie (00:25:59):
You know, what about, I mean, a lot, you know, you are kind of presuming and I, I, you know, my-
Reshma Saujani (00:26:02):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:26:03):
... kids have all, you know, been to daycare and-
Reshma Saujani (00:26:06):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:26:06):
... um, but that itself is not necessarily a choice that every mother wants to make. A lot of women want to stay home with their kids-
Reshma Saujani (00:26:13):
100%.
Nick Gillespie (00:26:13):
... and some fathers and things like that.
Reshma Saujani (00:26:15):
So is that freedom and choice when I said-
Nick Gillespie (00:26:16):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:26:16):
... in the beginning.
Nick Gillespie (00:26:16):
Okay.
Reshma Saujani (00:26:17):
I think we have to create a society that allows people to use... I told you, I was at an event last night with a bunch of childcare providers who all provide daycare, night daycare.
Lenore Skenazy (00:26:24):
Oh, wow.
Reshma Saujani (00:26:24):
You also forget that there are so many-
Lenore Skenazy (00:26:26):
Called night-
Reshma Saujani (00:26:26):
... parents who are shift workers or who are in families that are, are by shift workers, meaning the mother works from nine to five and the father works from five to 12. They don’t see each other, right? And so we have to, I think, create a parenting style that, that works for a lot of people and we also have to not shame people for the things that they have to do to simply just survive and get by.
Lenore Skenazy (00:26:48):
Maybe it’s not a parenting style. (laughs) Maybe it’s just trusting parents-
Reshma Saujani (00:26:52):
Yes.
Lenore Skenazy (00:26:52):
... that they’re doing the best they can-
Reshma Saujani (00:26:53):
I love it.
Lenore Skenazy (00:26:53):
... and probably be okay.
Reshma Saujani (00:26:54):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:26:54):
So Kristin-
Reshma Saujani (00:26:55):
[inaudible 00:26:56].
Nick Gillespie (00:26:56):
Um, what do you, what do you think about, um, you’ve said, uh, recently on your podcast that you hate the phrase gentle parenting-
Kristin Gallant (00:27:02):
I do.
Nick Gillespie (00:27:03):
... but the way that you talk about it-
Kristin Gallant (00:27:05):
Mm-hmm.
Nick Gillespie (00:27:05):
... seems very much in the, in the universe of gentle parenting.
Kristin Gallant (00:27:09):
Sure.
Nick Gillespie (00:27:09):
That you are not just telling your kids “Because I said so,” or you’re like, don’t, “Yeah, I don’t wanna hear it, just go to your room.”
Kristin Gallant (00:27:17):
I’m not spanking them, yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:27:19):
Yeah. So, um, talk about how, how do, how do you, what, what are you aligned with in terms of gentle parenting and then what is like, okay, I don’t, I don’t get this.
Kristin Gallant (00:27:29):
I mean, listen, I think this is probably one of the biggest discussions of right now, of our generation-
Nick Gillespie (00:27:33):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:27:33):
... right now of parenting. Gentle parenting, um, isn’t technically in, in research a term. So there’s no way for anybody out there to say that gentle parenting is the best way to parent or based on outcomes, because gentle parenting is a made up term.
Nick Gillespie (00:27:47):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:27:47):
People are taking gentle parenting in many different ways.
Reshma Saujani (00:27:50):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:27:50):
Many different ways. So according to research, and I’ll make this as brief as I can, there are three core ways of parenting. There’s authoritative parenting, that’s probably what the boomers did, that’s low warmth, that’s high control.
Lenore Skenazy (00:28:03):
Oh, no.
Reshma Saujani (00:28:03):
And high spanking.
Kristin Gallant (00:28:04):
So this is high spanking.
Lenore Skenazy (00:28:06):
It’s not that no.
Kristin Gallant (00:28:07):
In general, in general. And it’s also right now, right? It’s also-
Lenore Skenazy (00:28:09):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:28:10):
... 50% of the country.
Lenore Skenazy (00:28:10):
[inaudible 00:28:11] forever.
Kristin Gallant (00:28:11):
This is on punishments. Strict rules, do what I say, don’t disobey.
Nick Gillespie (00:28:15):
We’ve got authoritative.
Kristin Gallant (00:28:16):
[inaudible 00:28:17] That’s authoritative, okay? Permissive is next. This is where many people think that is what gentle parenting is.
Lenore Skenazy (00:28:23):
People think that that’s what free reign parenting is.
Kristin Gallant (00:28:24):
Now anyone who has written a book or is, is doing a parenting account or is a therapist, they are not talking about permissive parenting. That is not what gentle parenting is. Permissive parenting is high warmth, low boundaries. Kids are doing whatever they want, kids are running the show, parents are loving, they’re emotional, they’re tuned, but there’s absolutely no structure, there’s no boundaries, it’s chaos. The outcomes of that, by the way, the children, low frustration tol- tolerance, more impulsivity, more behavioral problems, poor self-esteem.
(00:28:55):
And that’s where the whole debate online when you see the boomers and the people coming in being like, “Gentle parenting is raising snowflakes.”
Nick Gillespie (00:29:03):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:29:03):
No, permissive parenting-
Nick Gillespie (00:29:06):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:29:06):
... absolutely is-
Nick Gillespie (00:29:07):
Okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:29:07):
... without a doubt.
Nick Gillespie (00:29:07):
Okay. And on the search strategy.
Kristin Gallant (00:29:09):
Authoritative parenting, which is what any therapist or any credentialed person on the internet or any of these books are saying authoritative, high empathy, high boundaries and structure. So we are not letting our kids get away with the show. We are the leader of the ship. While your child is upset about your boundary, your rule, your thing, you say to them, “It’s okay to be sad. It’s okay.” You’re emotionally connected to them. And that is where we see the best outcomes based on decades of actual research. This shouldn’t actually necessarily be a debate anymore because there’s so much research that shows they come out emotionally attuned, they come out more resilient, they have lower anxiety and depression, a better child parent relationship and, and to your point-
Lenore Skenazy (00:29:56):
Mm.
Kristin Gallant (00:29:56):
... research also shows you only have to get that right 30 to 50% of the time.
Nick Gillespie (00:30:02):
No, I like that. I wish-
Kristin Gallant (00:30:02):
And I want to scream all of this from the rooftops.
Nick Gillespie (00:30:02):
... can we take that a couple percentage points slower?
Lenore Skenazy (00:30:02):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:02):
Social media-
Lenore Skenazy (00:30:02):
[inaudible 00:30:08] a lot more yeah yeah yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:09):
... makes it seem like you’ve got to do it this exact way and exactly perfectly and around the clock and with somebody who stays home all the time. No, have a nanny-
Lenore Skenazy (00:30:17):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:18):
... have daycare, go to your job, go out to-
Lenore Skenazy (00:30:19):
Yes.
Nick Gillespie (00:30:20):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:20):
... Dinner.
Nick Gillespie (00:30:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:21):
Fill your own self up first. I hope you have more structure. That’s a huge part of it.
Lenore Skenazy (00:30:24):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:24):
But if you are showing up 30 to 50% of the time that you’re with your children as a whole in that way, you’re going to have those positive outcomes.
Reshma Saujani (00:30:32):
Can you do a little demonstration of what, like, I’m the child?
Kristin Gallant (00:30:35):
Sure.
Reshma Saujani (00:30:35):
I want to know like what, like what would it be? Thank you.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:37):
I’d love to.
Reshma Saujani (00:30:38):
Thanks.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:38):
Go ahead.
Reshma Saujani (00:30:38):
Go for it. Well, I’m a child, so what did I do?
Kristin Gallant (00:30:39):
Oh, what are you doing?
Reshma Saujani (00:30:39):
(Laughs) Uh, what did I do? Ow, hey, she’s hitting [inaudible 00:30:46] oh right okay right.
Nick Gillespie (00:30:48):
You did- You didn’t clean up. You didn’t clean up the-
Reshma Saujani (00:30:49):
I don’t want to clean my room.
Nick Gillespie (00:30:49):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:50):
I hear you don’t want to clean your room right now.
Reshma Saujani (00:30:52):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:52):
Okay? Is it because you’re tired from being... How old are you?
Reshma Saujani (00:30:56):
I’m six.
Kristin Gallant (00:30:57):
You’re six.
Reshma Saujani (00:30:57):
I don’t want to clean my room. I like it messy. Go away.
Kristin Gallant (00:31:02):
Go away. I hear you. I hear you. I will give you some space because I’m hearing you need some space. After we clean up your room, here’s what we’re going to do. I know you like the game, I don’t know, freeze dance or whatever it is.
Reshma Saujani (00:31:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:31:14):
We’re going to go put-
Reshma Saujani (00:31:14):
(Laughs).
Kristin Gallant (00:31:15):
... on the thing and if you get five blue stuffies or five blue things in your room into this bin, you get a point. But if I get five red stuffies into this bin, I get a point. Now this is a little more extreme. You got to have a lot more energy to do something like this.
Reshma Saujani (00:31:29):
And this is a lot of time.
Kristin Gallant (00:31:30):
But if you don’t want to do this-
Reshma Saujani (00:31:30):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:31:31):
... what I would just say is, “I hear you. I know it’s hard. It’s time to go clean up your room right now.”
Reshma Saujani (00:31:35):
Okay.
Nick Gillespie (00:31:35):
Okay. Lenore, comment on this-
Kristin Gallant (00:31:35):
Time to clean up your room.
Nick Gillespie (00:31:35):
From a, a kind of free-range that-
Kristin Gallant (00:31:35):
Lenore’s-
Nick Gillespie (00:31:41):
Ex- explain-
Kristin Gallant (00:31:42):
... side.
Nick Gillespie (00:31:42):
... quickly what free-range parenting is.
Lenore Skenazy (00:31:45):
Free-range parenting is-
Nick Gillespie (00:31:46):
And then how does that intersect with what we’re talking about?
Lenore Skenazy (00:31:49):
Free ranger parenting has a lot of trust. It has a lot of trust that the kids are gonna be okay, that it’s not all up to you, that they have a lot of, uh, jeans, experiences, other friends, teachers, so many influences on them so that every little exchange between you and your child does not make that big a difference, right? It’s not going to emotionally shape them or cripple them even if you said the wrong thing. And I love your 30 to 50% has to be right. But I even think like 30 for 50%, it’s like, I said four stuffies. If I’d said three stuffies, then she would have had more time-
Kristin Gallant (00:32:16):
No.
Lenore Skenazy (00:32:17):
... and it would have been a better-
Kristin Gallant (00:32:17):
No, no, no.
Lenore Skenazy (00:32:18):
... relationship. So even thinking in percentages makes me so nervous. And so Free Range Parenting trusts that things are going to be pretty good and especially if you trust them with a little bit of, uh, being able to roll with some punches, being able to roll with you being curt sometimes and with you being a stupid-
Kristin Gallant (00:32:40):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:32:40):
But what, what do you do with that, you know, the, the room is not clean.
Lenore Skenazy (00:32:44):
I know this, I cannot tell you. I really cannot tell you what to do with the broccoli eating, with the tantrums, all the stuff that you understand, cleaning the rooms. All I can tell you is that when you have the time, or even if you don’t have the time, you’re told to spend all this time with your kid knitting every-
Kristin Gallant (00:33:00):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:33:01):
... synapse, making every, every interaction emotionally, uh, significant and the correct amount of empathy with the correct amount of authoritativeness. And I say, Let Grow says that you got to step back. And actually when parents step back, it allows kids to step up more.
Kristin Gallant (00:33:19):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:33:19):
And we’re told that everything is so important that you must be with them-
Kristin Gallant (00:33:22):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:33:23):
... all the time and if you’re not with them somebody else, you have to, you know, outsource it to a teacher, a coach.
Kristin Gallant (00:33:29):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:33:29):
So-
Lenore Skenazy (00:33:29):
And really-
Nick Gillespie (00:33:30):
Can I-
Lenore Skenazy (00:33:30):
... please give yourself some grace that it’s like it’s, it’s not a project.
Reshma Saujani (00:33:37):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:33:37):
It’s, it’s a person you’re in a relationship with.
Reshma Saujani (00:33:39):
Yeah. And also it’s a, this is why I think there’s such a, like a, almost like a concert, like a-
Lenore Skenazy (00:33:43):
A- A conspiracy against moms.
Reshma Saujani (00:33:46):
No. Well, I was also gonna say-
Lenore Skenazy (00:33:46):
I get that. (Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:33:48):
... a trip, but I, but I think there’s also this, uh, nostalgia for traditionalism because if you have to like show up or say the thing, right?
Lenore Skenazy (00:33:55):
Mm-hmm.
Reshma Saujani (00:33:56):
And that is really on you, again, let’s go back as the mom because she’s normally the one that’s caregiving, then she can’t really be working because that takes a lot of time. And I think that’s, again, I’m saying that is why I think in society right now there is that nostalgia back to encouraging women-
Nick Gillespie (00:34:12):
Who, who is-
Reshma Saujani (00:34:12):
... to not work, to stay at home.
Nick Gillespie (00:34:14):
... pushing that nostalgia because when you look, you know, the trad wife-
Reshma Saujani (00:34:18):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:34:18):
... movement, which is traditionalist. I mean-
Reshma Saujani (00:34:21):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:34:21):
... it’s in the name, it’s not like it’s a bunch of m- uh, you know, um, uh, mustache twirling-
Reshma Saujani (00:34:28):
Yeah. (laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:34:28):
... You know, patriarchs who are-
Reshma Saujani (00:34:29):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:34:29):
... doing that. Like where is that-
Reshma Saujani (00:34:30):
Well, it’s complicated because I, I think part of this, I think part, like you said, you know, as we’ve talked about, like in the 70s there’s a huge infusion of women in the workplace, and I think that there was like, again, a culture movement about being a girl boss, you know what I mean? Working really hard, getting the corner office, don’t worry about your kids, they’re gonna be fine, you just go get your dreams. And I think the backlash to that was the trad wife and one of the things we have a film coming out, “No Country for Mothers” in June.
Lenore Skenazy (00:34:55):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:34:55):
It’s just, we’ve had these binaries since the beginning of time. They’re not new. Like Phyllis Schlafly is like the OG trad wife. So, but part of, part of I think-
Nick Gillespie (00:35:06):
Who figured out a way to spend as little time-
Reshma Saujani (00:35:07):
Time with her family.
Nick Gillespie (00:35:07):
... with her kids as-
Reshma Saujani (00:35:07):
Yeah. I think what-
Nick Gillespie (00:35:07):
She’s real-
Reshma Saujani (00:35:07):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:35:07):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:35:13):
And I, so I think what you’re saying, which I think is important is like, trust the kids to kind of figure it out and be on their own.
Lenore Skenazy (00:35:17):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:35:17):
They don’t actually need someone i.e. The mom, right?
Lenore Skenazy (00:35:22):
With them all the time.
Reshma Saujani (00:35:22):
With them all the time.
Nick Gillespie (00:35:23):
But this-
Lenore Skenazy (00:35:23):
They do not need the mother with them all the time.
Nick Gillespie (00:35:25):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:35:26):
It’s really good if they’re not with the mother all the time, and one of the things that Let Grow pushes for is not only more independence going out and doing things in the real world, helping out-
Reshma Saujani (00:35:35):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:35:36):
Going to the grocery, but also free play.
Reshma Saujani (00:35:38):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:35:38):
So that they’re always.
Speaker X (00:35:39):
[inaudible 00:35:42].
Reshma Saujani (00:35:42):
It doesn’t have to-
Kristin Gallant (00:35:42):
The room example.
Reshma Saujani (00:35:43):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:35:44):
My first instinct, what I wanted to say was, is the room really important to you? Yeah. Like can I swear on this? Probably not, but like F the room if it’s not important to you.
Reshma Saujani (00:35:50):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:35:51):
When you say like, “I have work, I have this-”
Reshma Saujani (00:35:53):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:35:53):
“I’m supposed to keep up with my marriage, supposed to keep up this, I’m supposed to keep up with this,” is the room more important to you than the myriad of other things, then here’s what I would recommend you do. If it’s not, because what you’re saying is the room’s gonna be messy.
Reshma Saujani (00:36:05):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:36:05):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:36:05):
Okay. So-
Kristin Gallant (00:36:05):
And that’s cool for me. Like I would rather-
Nick Gillespie (00:36:08):
Do you wanna do you wanna move-
Kristin Gallant (00:36:08):
... do that. But you’re [inaudible 00:36:09] your battles.
Nick Gillespie (00:36:10):
Okay, quick final point.
Lenore Skenazy (00:36:11):
One, one last thought is, and I have to quote the great Peter Gray, uh, who is one of the co-
Nick Gillespie (00:36:15):
Explain who that is. Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:36:16):
Uh, Peter Gray was one of the co-founders with me of Let Grow and he’s a professor at Boston College and he spent his whole life studying the importance of different age kids playing together-
Kristin Gallant (00:36:25):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:36:25):
... figuring things out. And what I like most about him in, in this discussion is that he said there’s a lot of parenting books out there and parenting experts because parents write them. (laughs).
Kristin Gallant (00:36:35):
Hm.
Lenore Skenazy (00:36:36):
But there’s so many other influences on our kids and to pretend like every interaction and every decision we make will make or break the child is one of the things that’s-
Reshma Saujani (00:36:43):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:36:44):
... driving us crazy, is one of the things that’s making moms feel like, “Oh my God, I better wake up and be my best self-”
Reshma Saujani (00:36:49):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:36:49):
“... and spend as much time as I can with the kid.” And really, you’ve got to trust that they are born to-
Reshma Saujani (00:36:55):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:36:55):
... born to rise.
Reshma Saujani (00:36:56):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:36:56):
Right? Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:36:57):
Can I ask, here’s a, uh, just a, a kind of exit question real quick on this. One of the things that happens in starting with the baby boom, not as parents but as kids after World War II and they’re kind of the first fully formed adolescent generation where youth and being a kid-
Reshma Saujani (00:37:14):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:37:14):
... as opposed to being a little adult, you know, comes into being if you go back and look, you see a lot of anxiety and stories about how the kids are running the house. Have we, isn’t that what we’re still talking about? Is that like the real fear is that the kids are calling the shot in houses, and that that somehow upsets the natural law.
Lenore Skenazy (00:37:34):
That’s what he’s talking about with permissive parents.
Kristin Gallant (00:37:35):
Permitted parenting.
Lenore Skenazy (00:37:36):
Yes.
Kristin Gallant (00:37:36):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:37:36):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:37:36):
Where I think most people are getting it wrong where they think that that’s what gentle parenting is and it’s-
Nick Gillespie (00:37:41):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:37:41):
... all about [inaudible 00:37:43].
Nick Gillespie (00:37:44):
But it has it’s goodness and you don’t want it to be authoritarian where it’s like, you know, you’re being-
Kristin Gallant (00:37:47):
Strict, harsh.
Nick Gillespie (00:37:48):
... run by Benito Mussolini that you want authoritative where-
Kristin Gallant (00:37:54):
You want a happy medium, Guys, you just want to have the- I mean-
Nick Gillespie (00:37:55):
Do we-
Kristin Gallant (00:37:55):
Just make it make sense, do you want your partner to, to look at you and to sort of shame you and you had a bad day and you’re crying hysterically and your partner looks at you and says, “Stop it. You’re overreacting. Get in your room. I don’t want to see your face.” Just make it make sense.
Nick Gillespie (00:38:06):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:38:07):
Like it doesn’t take that much to be like, “Oh, that was hard.”
Nick Gillespie (00:38:09):
Very quickly-
Kristin Gallant (00:38:10):
[inaudible 00:38:11].
Nick Gillespie (00:38:11):
Yes or no, do we have more snowflakes now than we did when any of us were kids?
Lenore Skenazy (00:38:17):
What I’ve read is that as kids, independence and free play have been going down literally over the decades, their anxiety and depression have been going up.
Reshma Saujani (00:38:27):
I would say personally for myself, I think not just children, but I would say adults too, I think we are lacking moral courage in our country. I don’t think people actually know how to be brave. I think we’re so used and need to feel good all the time that the, when we feel bad, i.e. When we have to stand up for what’s right and that feels like rejection-
Nick Gillespie (00:38:51):
What what, does a kid have-
Reshma Saujani (00:38:51):
... we can’t do it.
Nick Gillespie (00:38:51):
... to do to say it for what’s right? I mean, I mean-
Reshma Saujani (00:38:51):
Kids have to stand up all the time for what’s right. What, what do you mean by that?
Nick Gillespie (00:38:52):
I just mean, uh, we’re talking about like, can they get through the day without falling apart?
Reshma Saujani (00:38:56):
Yeah, but I think kids are, listen, there’s a-
Nick Gillespie (00:38:59):
I mean, are they less resilient because-
Reshma Saujani (00:39:00):
I think they are less resilient, but I mean, we’re talking about six year olds, but we’re also talking about 13, 14 year olds. Yeah. My, my point is, is like you, we’re, we, you ha- I was, I was taught at a very young age how to be brave, which meant how to speak up for myself if somebody was harming me, how to like articulate what I need, um, and a little bit of like what’s right and wrong.
Nick Gillespie (00:39:21):
And the problem with-
Reshma Saujani (00:39:22):
I think we have to teach that.
Nick Gillespie (00:39:23):
... that is that we no longer expect the kid to stand up for themselves, but they go to the adult in the room or they just suck it up or-
Reshma Saujani (00:39:31):
Well, I think we’re, I, and I talk about this with girls, I think we socialize girls at a very young age to be perfect, and so when they’re bad at gymnastics-
Nick Gillespie (00:39:39):
I do think, I, I don’t doubt that-
Reshma Saujani (00:39:40):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:39:40):
But doesn’t it seem like we do that a lot less than we did when Lenore and I were in neat-
Reshma Saujani (00:39:45):
I actually feel like we do it more.
Nick Gillespie (00:39:47):
Really?
Reshma Saujani (00:39:48):
I don’t know, maybe that’s-
Lenore Skenazy (00:39:49):
What, shaming?
Reshma Saujani (00:39:50):
No, I think that-
Nick Gillespie (00:39:50):
Expecting girls to be quiet and submissive.
Reshma Saujani (00:39:52):
Well, Nick, we didn’t have, we didn’t have Instagram back then. You know, when, when the founders of Instagram and Facebook designed the like button, they based it off of a focus group of girls, because they knew that girls were taught at a very young age to care about what other people thought and if they put a button on there-
Kristin Gallant (00:40:10):
Be smaller. Shrink more.
Reshma Saujani (00:40:12):
They put a button on there that would be like, “I like that outfit. I want the hat.” So yes.
Kristin Gallant (00:40:16):
I, I would love to, I have a little bit of a hot take, but this is probably the place for it.
Nick Gillespie (00:40:20):
Sure.
Kristin Gallant (00:40:20):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:40:20):
I’m just going to say that the people who are outraged that this generation is snowflakes are snowflakes themselves.
Kristin Gallant (00:40:28):
True.
Reshma Saujani (00:40:28):
I think that they are men, sometimes women who cannot handle when life throws hard things at them. I think they erupt at the barista when there is a wrong coffee order.
Kristin Gallant (00:40:40):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (00:40:41):
I think they are the ones flipping people off in traffic. I think maybe there’s some people in office. I think that those people were raised in really harsh environments where they actually cannot handle hard moments. They actually crumble. They’re the ones who are spanking their children, they’re the ones who are out of control, they’re yelling at their wife and they can’t handle the smallest setback or emotion. I think that when you have permissive kids, sure, maybe they’re looking at those kids and being like, “Those kids are out of control.” But the research shows time and time and time again, if you have high empathy, but boundaries. Boundaries are the most important thing. If you have really firm boundaries with your kid, your kid’s going to have firm boundaries out there in that world.
Nick Gillespie (00:41:20):
So what you’re saying is-
Reshma Saujani (00:41:20):
So they’re going to go out in the world-
Nick Gillespie (00:41:21):
Parents like Lenore-
Reshma Saujani (00:41:22):
... And say, “No, that doesn’t work for me.”
Nick Gillespie (00:41:23):
... have you raised all these snowflake men who are erupting at baristas?
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:28):
All they do is erupt at baristas.
Nick Gillespie (00:41:30):
Okay.
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:30):
It’s so strange that they go into Starbucks specifically to erupt. (laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:41:33):
All right, yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:36):
I just want to put in a good word for free play. Let’s just-
Kristin Gallant (00:41:37):
Free play. I’m with you on the-
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:40):
Free play.
Kristin Gallant (00:41:40):
... all the way.
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:42):
Free play. Because if kids have time-
Kristin Gallant (00:41:43):
All the way.
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:43):
... when they have to figure out what to do-
Kristin Gallant (00:41:45):
All the way.
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:46):
... who they’re going to play with, nobody wants to play with the jerk. The jerk ends up-
Kristin Gallant (00:41:49):
Social-
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:49):
... not erupting.
Kristin Gallant (00:41:50):
... boundaries.
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:51):
Right right right.
Kristin Gallant (00:41:52):
Standing up for themselves.
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:52):
But it’s not us setting boundaries-
Nick Gillespie (00:41:54):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:54):
... all the time.
Kristin Gallant (00:41:54):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:41:55):
A lot of the times it is self-correcting and we’ve really taken sort of their natural life out of kids lives and, and replaced it with us doing exactly the right thing, being authoritarian but not authoritative and it’s so hard.
Nick Gillespie (00:42:08):
We’re going to go into a lightning round now. Um, I’m going to ask you a question-
Lenore Skenazy (00:42:11):
Yes.
Nick Gillespie (00:42:14):
... that I want a quick yes-
Lenore Skenazy (00:42:14):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:42:14):
... or no answer so we know where you all fall. Participation trophies, are these a bad thing or, you know, I look at, I have only had participation trophies in my life-
Lenore Skenazy (00:42:26):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:42:27):
... um, but you know, this is something people talk about. Everybody wins. Everybody, is that bad for kids?
Lenore Skenazy (00:42:32):
No, I think failure is great. For me, the point is there’s a trophy that means there’s an adult watching and I like free play without adults there.
Kristin Gallant (00:42:41):
Failure is a good lesson.
Nick Gillespie (00:42:42):
Uh, kid leashes.
Lenore Skenazy (00:42:45):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:42:45):
This was a big, this was a big baby boomer thing. Uh, Lenore started that.
Lenore Skenazy (00:42:46):
It was a big no, you don’t have those. Oh no-
Nick Gillespie (00:42:50):
... look back in the early 50s.
Lenore Skenazy (00:42:51):
... no, no, no, no. No I’ve seen the-
Nick Gillespie (00:42:51):
There were a lot of kids on leashes.
Lenore Skenazy (00:42:55):
Uh, you know, they’re not going to be on a leash when they’re 18. I wouldn’t worry about it.
Nick Gillespie (00:42:58):
Okay. I, I-
Lenore Skenazy (00:42:59):
I don’t-
Nick Gillespie (00:42:59):
We’re all agreed, right?
Lenore Skenazy (00:43:00):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:43:00):
Uh, sleep training. Is sleep training essential or is it, you know, a lunatic fantasy of control?
Lenore Skenazy (00:43:08):
No, it’s actually when I read a book.
Kristin Gallant (00:43:09):
I’m not answering that if this is going on the internet.
Lenore Skenazy (00:43:11):
(Laughs).
Kristin Gallant (00:43:11):
Okay. That’s what I’ll say.
Nick Gillespie (00:43:12):
I’m not sure what that means.
Kristin Gallant (00:43:13):
Sleep, sleep is the craziest thing that you’ll see on the internet.
Lenore Skenazy (00:43:16):
It’s really hard. And I, I did read, I think I read Ferber. I think we ferberized our kid where you let them cry.
Nick Gillespie (00:43:22):
And that’s cried out and then they learned it’s easier to stay asleep than to-
Lenore Skenazy (00:43:24):
But I didn’t know what to do.
Nick Gillespie (00:43:25):
So these are-
Lenore Skenazy (00:43:27):
There are experts. That’s why I’m not the expert.
Nick Gillespie (00:43:28):
Okay. Uh, circumcision, male circumcision.
Kristin Gallant (00:43:32):
Wow.
Nick Gillespie (00:43:32):
Let’s, let’s be clear.
Kristin Gallant (00:43:34):
Personal choice.
Lenore Skenazy (00:43:35):
For Jews.
Reshma Saujani (00:43:35):
I mean, we do it too, Hindus, so I guess sure.
Nick Gillespie (00:43:43):
Okay. I guess-
Lenore Skenazy (00:43:43):
But again, it’s a choice, right?
Nick Gillespie (00:43:43):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:43:44):
What a strange question, Nick.
Kristin Gallant (00:43:44):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:43:44):
Why? Why? This is one of the-
Reshma Saujani (00:43:45):
People might have a really-
Nick Gillespie (00:43:47):
One of the biggest, uh, you know, uh, uh, kind of strange developments.
Reshma Saujani (00:43:50):
Oh, it’s another culture war? Sorry, I didn’t even know it was.
Nick Gillespie (00:43:52):
No, no, I mean, starting sometime around the 30s or 40s, the vast majority of boys born in America were circumcised at birth, regardless of religion, usually at the hospital or in the doctor’s office shortly after.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:44:04):
That’s now approaching something like only 50%.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:07):
Yeah. It’s like a wave.
Nick Gillespie (00:44:08):
[inaudible 00:44:09].
Lenore Skenazy (00:44:09):
I would say if your, if your, if your culture or religion dictates it, there you go.
Nick Gillespie (00:44:14):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:14):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:44:15):
Um, are kids worse off today than 30 years ago?
Lenore Skenazy (00:44:19):
Wait, what was 30 years ago?
Kristin Gallant (00:44:20):
Are they worse off than that?
Lenore Skenazy (00:44:21):
Like so in the 90s?
Kristin Gallant (00:44:22):
Yes, because of 1996. So I believe because of social media and screens, anxiety and depression skyrocketing, yes.
Lenore Skenazy (00:44:28):
And I saw it going up before the screens and before social media and I’d say yes, and it’s because of less independence, less responsibility, less free play.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:36):
And I, I mean, like if I had a daughter, I would say yes because she would have less rights than I had when I was born.
Nick Gillespie (00:44:42):
How, how does that...
Reshma Saujani (00:44:43):
We’ve lost our reproductive rights.
Nick Gillespie (00:44:44):
Okay.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:45):
So she has less rights.
Nick Gillespie (00:44:47):
Um, she’s more likely to graduate from college. She’s more likely to graduate from a STEM course.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:50):
I mean, maybe.
Nick Gillespie (00:44:54):
She’s more likely to graduate from law school.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:54):
Actually-
Nick Gillespie (00:44:54):
Medical school.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:55):
Let me, let, let-
Nick Gillespie (00:44:55):
So.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:55):
Let me go back here.
Nick Gillespie (00:44:56):
Okay.
Reshma Saujani (00:44:56):
So I absolute... So our reproductive rights have been taken away. Congress is trying to pass the SAVE Act, which means if you change your name, it’s harder for you to actually vote.
Nick Gillespie (00:45:04):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:45:04):
They’re trying to make birth control illegal. In 13 states, STEM, uh, afterschool programs that are designated for girls are quite frankly being outlawed. And you have a whole bunch of people in culture right now that think girls shouldn’t be engineers. So I disagree.
Nick Gillespie (00:45:18):
Yes or no, are kids over scheduled?
Kristin Gallant (00:45:20):
Yes. Duh.
Reshma Saujani (00:45:22):
Duh. Yes.
Nick Gillespie (00:45:23):
Okay. All right. Thank you very much. That’s it for the flash round. This has been a lot of fun. Uh, let’s move on to another big shift, how and where kids spend their times. Here’s a few quick numbers. Parents spend a lot more time with their kids than they used to. In 2018, mothers spent nearly five hours a week in the presence of their children and that compares to one hour, 45 minutes in 1975. 60% of kids at age 11 have a smartphone. Uh, in fact, the Surgeon General’s office just issued a warning about the health impacts of scrolling and excr- excessive screen time for kids and teens. That’s highly contested. I will say, uh, and according to a recent study from the Institute for Family Studies-
Reshma Saujani (00:46:05):
Ah.
Nick Gillespie (00:46:05):
... they found that 60% of 17 year olds, of 17 year olds are not permitted to roam further than their neighborhood unsupervised. 60% of 17-
Reshma Saujani (00:46:15):
No I-
Nick Gillespie (00:46:18):
... year olds. Many of us remember childhoods where we roamed alone or with friends and by 17, which is the driving age, the maximum driving age in all states, uh, many are, have, are at 16, uh, you know, we’re driving to nearby towns. We didn’t have phones. Our parents didn’t know where we were for hours on end. So coming back to this question-
Reshma Saujani (00:46:40):
Mm-hmm.
Nick Gillespie (00:46:40):
... should kids be freer to roam than they are now? And part of this is a, a response to a structural change, which is as both parents are working more often, kids are in more institutional settings-
Lenore Skenazy (00:46:55):
And there’s so many schools that won’t let the kid get off the school bus once again at 3:30 in the afternoon. It’s like, so just quit your job and go wait at the school bus because they’re not gonna let them walk four blocks or sometimes four houses home. I heard from a mom who, whose kid dropped, gets dropped off at the end of the driveway-
Reshma Saujani (00:47:12):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:47:13):
... and the mom has to come out and say, “I’m here.”
Reshma Saujani (00:47:14):
Mm-hmm.
Lenore Skenazy (00:47:15):
“I’m here,” because the assumption is that anytime a child is unsupervised, they are automatically in danger. And the statistic I love from that Institute for Family Studies, uh, survey of 25,000 American parents that just came out is that the majority of 14 year olds are not allowed off their block. So you talk about a structure that’s going to keep women down-
Reshma Saujani (00:47:40):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:47:41):
... and keep parents crazy, it’s when the assumption is that you must be, some adult must always be with a kid and, and 14 year old-
Nick Gillespie (00:47:49):
And can I just ask real quickly, it’s not like it would be better if let’s say we change gender roles so that it’s the father-
Lenore Skenazy (00:47:56):
No.
Nick Gillespie (00:47:56):
... staying waving at the end of the driveway.
Lenore Skenazy (00:47:57):
The the-
Nick Gillespie (00:47:57):
Your point-
Lenore Skenazy (00:47:57):
Now, now I’m-
Nick Gillespie (00:47:57):
Is-
Lenore Skenazy (00:47:59):
... talking about for the kid.
Nick Gillespie (00:48:00):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:48:00):
Right. For the kid, it is better to have some independence time. What, um, there’s, there’s a professor now studying independence is actually therapy for kids with a diagnosis of anxiety and the way he describes it is like, you know, if you’re scared of dogs, there’s exposure therapy. You first just look at a picture of a dog and then you’re across the street from a dog and then you pet the dog and then you realize, “Oh my God, this is, this is a really cute and wonderful thing.” Now you want a dog.
Kristin Gallant (00:48:27):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:48:27):
Well, right now we’ve kept kids away from real life because they’re always having an adult there who will say, “Say, you know, say something nice or I’ll pay for this or don’t do that.” And, and so kids are afraid of life and what they need is exposure back to it and that’s exposure without us there.
Nick Gillespie (00:48:44):
Do you just-
Kristin Gallant (00:48:44):
[inaudible 00:48:45].
Nick Gillespie (00:48:45):
... wait, just real quickly, um, when you were growing up-
Lenore Skenazy (00:48:48):
Yes.
Nick Gillespie (00:48:48):
... do you feel like you had that ability-
Lenore Skenazy (00:48:51):
Of course....
Nick Gillespie (00:48:51):
... to roam?
Lenore Skenazy (00:48:52):
Of course, I had that ability to roam. Let me just tell you one other statistic which I wanted to contrast with 14 year olds are not off, allowed off their block.
Nick Gillespie (00:48:59):
Right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:48:59):
But there was a book, maybe you see me quote it, um, called Your six-year-old, Loving and Defiant. And it just has a checklist of what normal six year olds were doing back in 1981 and it was, can you tell your right foot from your left foot? Can you, you know, uh, I don’t know, have you lost a baby tooth? And one of the things was, does your child go four to eight blocks in any direction to school, to the store, to a friend’s house? So a six-year old was going eight blocks and now a 14-year old is not allowed off their block.
Nick Gillespie (00:49:27):
And we might add-
Lenore Skenazy (00:49:28):
That’s a [inaudible 00:49:29].
Nick Gillespie (00:49:28):
And I’m going to come to you in a second-
Lenore Skenazy (00:49:29):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:49:30):
... and we might add that if you look at any possible negative outcome to a child in terms of crime, abduction-
Lenore Skenazy (00:49:35):
Crime, yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:49:37):
You know, just accidents, et cetera.
Lenore Skenazy (00:49:39):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:49:39):
In 1981, it was infinitely higher-
Lenore Skenazy (00:49:42):
Yes.
Nick Gillespie (00:49:42):
... than it is now.
Lenore Skenazy (00:49:42):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:49:43):
So older kids in a safer America are more leashed to their backyard-
Lenore Skenazy (00:49:48):
Thank you.
Nick Gillespie (00:49:49):
... if even. If, if they’re even allowed out-
Speaker X (00:49:51):
[inaudible 00:49:51].
Nick Gillespie (00:49:51):
... in their yard.
Reshma Saujani (00:49:53):
Can I, can I, I want to, because Nick, you said something and I want to make sure you’re not saying, because oftentimes you said this has been happening since both people have entered the workforce. So I just want to make sure that we’re not saying that the reason why people are, are less likely to roam is because more women are working.
Nick Gillespie (00:50:07):
No, what I’m saying is that if both parents are working, then where do the kids go?
Reshma Saujani (00:50:14):
Well, I, I don’t know-
Kristin Gallant (00:50:15):
Like if they’re in daycare-
Reshma Saujani (00:50:17):
Well, daycare, yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:50:18):
... which is, you know-
Nick Gillespie (00:50:19):
Well, no, but they’re daycare and school-
Reshma Saujani (00:50:20):
But, but-
Nick Gillespie (00:50:20):
And then after school.
Reshma Saujani (00:50:22):
Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Kristin Gallant (00:50:23):
If they’re at school, they’re-
Reshma Saujani (00:50:23):
But I don’t think that-
Nick Gillespie (00:50:23):
No, no, no. Hold on. Let Reshma.
Kristin Gallant (00:50:23):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:50:27):
I don’t think that that’s necessarily what’s happening because I think that it’s oftentimes, because, because remember, like, there’s a lot of women or men who are quite frankly not working full time. So is this really about the fact that they’re in institutional places as you call them because a lot of kids are quite frankly, in home care. So they’re in neighborhoods, so they’re not all in institutionalized daycare. I think a lot has happened is because we have a tremendous amount of fear-
Kristin Gallant (00:50:50):
Yes.
Reshma Saujani (00:50:51):
... and distrust, because when I, again, open my social media feed-
Kristin Gallant (00:50:55):
Yes, yes.
Reshma Saujani (00:50:55):
... which is where most people look at their information-
Nick Gillespie (00:50:57):
Yes.
Reshma Saujani (00:50:57):
... someone is being molested, someone is being abducted, someone is being killed. And the thing that we didn’t talk about, like look, I was a latchkey kid and it wasn’t because my mother did all this research and independent-
Nick Gillespie (00:51:07):
No, no, no.
Reshma Saujani (00:51:08):
... research about how it’s because-
Nick Gillespie (00:51:08):
It’s because she was working.
Reshma Saujani (00:51:09):
She couldn’t afford daycare, right? So like, but there was trust, there was trust that my sister could walk six blocks-
Nick Gillespie (00:51:15):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:51:15):
... pick me up, we would walk home and nobody would abduct us.
Kristin Gallant (00:51:19):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:51:19):
That, that trust does not exist. Secondly, we’re not talking-
Nick Gillespie (00:51:22):
Okay.
Reshma Saujani (00:51:22):
... about the experience of race-
Kristin Gallant (00:51:23):
That’s very true.
Reshma Saujani (00:51:24):
... and it is very important-
Nick Gillespie (00:51:24):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:51:25):
... to talk about the experience of both race and class. You know, for our film, we interviewed this, this mother, Nadia, who lived in a predominantly white neighborhood and one of the parents called her and she said, “Oh, the boys are gonna walk home to the party.” And Nadia said, “No, no, no. And you might feel comfortable because your son is white, but my son is black. And if he’s walking nine blocks in this predominantly white neighborhood, the chances of something happening to him are much higher.” And so I wanna know, you know, that 60% of 17 year olds are, is that reaction to a very understandable fear by parents and mothers that my kid, that something could happen to my children.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:02):
Sure.
Reshma Saujani (00:52:03):
People don’t have trust. People do not have trust.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:05):
So where does, I mean, this is a question of them, where does that come from because, and, and Lenore, a lot of your work has documented the fact that most of the risks to children and-
Lenore Skenazy (00:52:16):
Are from people they know.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:17):
You know, the, there’s-
Lenore Skenazy (00:52:17):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:52:18):
No.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:19):
No, I mean, but, you know, and, and again, you have to, you know, look at this, you know, through a gender lens, through a class lens-
Reshma Saujani (00:52:25):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:25):
... or race lens.
Reshma Saujani (00:52:26):
Yep.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:27):
But in each of those circumstances, people are much more fearful. This was something I wrote about in the 90s all the time.
Reshma Saujani (00:52:34):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:34):
As children were no... There was no risk of being abducted by a stranger. People in the 90s went bananas and by the end of the 90s, we were like-
Reshma Saujani (00:52:44):
Oh yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:44):
... “Oh, we, you know, kids need to have-”
Reshma Saujani (00:52:45):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:46):
“... you know, chips put in them-”
Kristin Gallant (00:52:47):
Do we remember-
Nick Gillespie (00:52:48):
“... so that we can track them.”
Kristin Gallant (00:52:49):
... the milk cartons?
Reshma Saujani (00:52:49):
I remember the milk cartons.
Nick Gillespie (00:52:49):
So let me just say-
Kristin Gallant (00:52:49):
The start of the milk cartons-
Nick Gillespie (00:52:50):
Well, this is where, where does that fear come from?
Reshma Saujani (00:52:52):
Yes, perception, not reality. Yeah. I think that fear, I’m sorry, but I think a lot of that is culturally based because we, there is a sort of, a large segment of the population that believes that a woman’s place is at home.
Nick Gillespie (00:53:08):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (00:53:09):
And so if mothers were at home, the kids would be good. And so you have to actually put that fear out there that like, that there are these like creepy weepies, right, that are gonna be out there like doing something to your children. But the only way that, the only way to be a good mom-
Lenore Skenazy (00:53:23):
Is to walk them home from the bus.
Nick Gillespie (00:53:27):
No, no, no. I think the, the, the way to be a good parent is to say, is to call BS on the idea that-
Reshma Saujani (00:53:32):
I agree with you.
Nick Gillespie (00:53:33):
The only thing that out there, you know, it’s-
Reshma Saujani (00:53:34):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:53:35):
... it’s, it’s just like child molesters everywhere.
Reshma Saujani (00:53:37):
Right? Well- But that’s not what, I agree with you, but the pers- but the message that we’re signaling-
Nick Gillespie (00:53:42):
The message is... right.
Reshma Saujani (00:53:43):
... to in particular women and men, right, is that to be a good mother means that you’re at home.
Kristin Gallant (00:53:49):
I also think especially-
Nick Gillespie (00:53:50):
Or to be a good parent that your kids are accounted for, that there’s a, we have a panopticon childhood now where you have to be accountable every minute-
Reshma Saujani (00:54:00):
Yeah, I mean-
Nick Gillespie (00:54:00):
... of every day.
Reshma Saujani (00:54:01):
And it’s not just, it’s not just circumstance, sorry that helicopter parenting has arisen at the same time that fear is enhanced-
Kristin Gallant (00:54:07):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (00:54:07):
... you know, at this, because it is a sense that you just gotta constantly be circling your child or something bad is gonna happen to them.
Kristin Gallant (00:54:13):
And, and-
Reshma Saujani (00:54:13):
And worse-
Nick Gillespie (00:54:14):
But, and, and, and, and I’m sorry to, uh, I, I wanna hear from you in a second, but also the flip side of helicopter parenting I think as a phenomenon was less about protecting your kids from child molesters and it was making sure that they had every opportunity so they would go to Yale rather than UConn, right? They would go to Harvard rather than University of Massachusetts and it’s like-
Reshma Saujani (00:54:35):
Right.
Nick Gillespie (00:54:36):
... you gotta be in there and you gotta be in the enrichment programs and we don’t talk about afterschool prog- or, you know, in the same way they’re enrichment programs and you are in a competitive, you’re doing competitive debate, you’re doing sports leagues year round-
Lenore Skenazy (00:54:49):
Yes, right.
Nick Gillespie (00:54:49):
... always to notch up and that part is not something that is coming from, you know, lower or even middle classes. It’s, it’s-
Lenore Skenazy (00:54:57):
Yeah, it’s coming from that.
Nick Gillespie (00:54:57):
... in elite that is trying to maintain its edge. Um-
Lenore Skenazy (00:55:00):
Wait, it’s not just the elite.
Nick Gillespie (00:55:01):
Yeah.
Lenore Skenazy (00:55:02):
I just wanna say that there was this giant study that Cornell, Cornell, uh, an Ivy League school did that-
Nick Gillespie (00:55:07):
A land grant college actually. (Laughs).
Lenore Skenazy (00:55:08):
There you go. Right. Labor school. Um, uh, did six years ago and it found that literally across the economic spectrum, all parents thought that the more activities you could put your kid in, the better off they were going to be. So whether you could afford them or not, whether they were free from the school or not, everybody wanted their kids to be more supervised and it’s not just the fear of abduction, it’s the fear of your kid falling behind.
Kristin Gallant (00:55:31):
That’s right.
Lenore Skenazy (00:55:31):
And then there’s this spiral. Well, if everybody’s getting SAT prep-
Kristin Gallant (00:55:33):
Yep.
Lenore Skenazy (00:55:33):
... and my kid doesn’t-
Kristin Gallant (00:55:35):
Yep yep.
Lenore Skenazy (00:55:35):
... then my kid is 200 points lower.
Reshma Saujani (00:55:37):
This is an excellent point. And so you can’t roam if you’re constantly in activity-
Nick Gillespie (00:55:40):
Yes.
Reshma Saujani (00:55:40):
... after activity-
Lenore Skenazy (00:55:40):
Correct.
Reshma Saujani (00:55:40):
... after activity after activity.
Lenore Skenazy (00:55:42):
Right. Which is why [inaudible 00:55:44].
Nick Gillespie (00:55:45):
Let me, let me, let’s end this segment and go onto the next one, but, uh, Kristin, uh, yeah, quick point.
Kristin Gallant (00:55:50):
Okay. Just as the millennial who’s literally living this and see this, I, I think it is 100%-
Nick Gillespie (00:55:55):
Oh, your kids are too young for the full horror-
Kristin Gallant (00:55:57):
Well, one night-
Nick Gillespie (00:55:57):
... of this to become a-
Kristin Gallant (00:55:58):
... she’s nine, she’s in-
Nick Gillespie (00:55:58):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:55:59):
... all-star, she’s in competitive, everything in seven, whatever.
Reshma Saujani (00:56:00):
(Laughs).
Kristin Gallant (00:56:01):
Um, but I think almost 100% of this comes from social media.
Reshma Saujani (00:56:05):
Yes.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:06):
All we see on social media, I just saw it the other day, really sad story about the FedEx worker who-
Reshma Saujani (00:56:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:10):
... abducted the three-year-old child.
Reshma Saujani (00:56:12):
Yeah, yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:12):
Back in 1980, you wouldn’t have heard of that.
Reshma Saujani (00:56:14):
No.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:14):
You wouldn’t have heard of somebody across the country-
Reshma Saujani (00:56:16):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:17):
... and this wouldn’t have been the major-
Nick Gillespie (00:56:17):
No, but you would have heard of it.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:17):
The community would have-
Nick Gillespie (00:56:17):
You would have heard about-
Kristin Gallant (00:56:21):
But you would have had the perspective of-
Nick Gillespie (00:56:22):
You would have heard about busload of children being kidnapped and buried underground and-
Kristin Gallant (00:56:25):
Don’t talk about it, don’t talk about it.
Nick Gillespie (00:56:28):
... in California or you would have heard about Eton Pats-
Kristin Gallant (00:56:29):
We are, but if you also-
Nick Gillespie (00:56:30):
... and, and Adam Walsh.
Reshma Saujani (00:56:30):
[inaudible 00:56:33].
Kristin Gallant (00:56:33):
You would hear about it on the news for your what, 30 minute-
Reshma Saujani (00:56:37):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:37):
... nightly news hour. What you’re not doing is consuming a fear scroll-
Reshma Saujani (00:56:41):
Right, that’s true.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:43):
Correct. 24 hours a day you’re waiting in an elevator waiting now.
Reshma Saujani (00:56:45):
And then when you click on it once, it sends you everything.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:49):
Statistics show is that-
Reshma Saujani (00:56:50):
For you.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:50):
... is that sexual abuse happens 90% of the time amongst people who know your child.
Reshma Saujani (00:56:56):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (00:56:57):
So these are not abductors in a white candy van. These are people who know your child. These are people, it’s a complete-
Reshma Saujani (00:57:03):
Right..
Kristin Gallant (00:57:03):
... fear of letting them go down the street.
Lenore Skenazy (00:57:06):
I’m going to-
Reshma Saujani (00:57:06):
Quick stat.
Lenore Skenazy (00:57:06):
Are you going to start? I’m going to try one PSA, um, that’s really helpful for parents because 90% of the terrible things that happen to kids are at the hands of people they know. Teach them the three Rs-
Reshma Saujani (00:57:15):
Mm-hmm.
Lenore Skenazy (00:57:15):
Rather than stranger danger. The three Rs are recognize nobody can touch you, wear your bathing suit covers. Two is resist, run, kick, scream, and three is report. You can tell me anything that happened, even if they said keep it a secret, I won’t be mad at you. Those three things are going to keep your kids a lot safer than-
Reshma Saujani (00:57:31):
Keeping them in the house.
Lenore Skenazy (00:57:32):
... never letting them outside.
Nick Gillespie (00:57:33):
All right, let’s go to a new, uh, section. A lot of chatter has been made about how kids interact with screens and the internet and that’s important and we’re going to touch on that, but I also want to start with how social media and the internet has impacted parents and we know part of this is the anxiety of reading, oh my God, like FedEx, okay, I’m going to use UPS, I can use UPS.
Lenore Skenazy (00:57:57):
[inaudible 00:57:58].
Nick Gillespie (00:57:57):
Postal workers, they’re the worst of the bunch, right?
Lenore Skenazy (00:57:59):
They kill everybody.
Nick Gillespie (00:58:00):
Yeah. So, um, uh, parents now have access to influencers on places like Reddit and elsewhere via virality goes nuts. Lenore knows this. Uh, imagine how much more viral you would have been-
Lenore Skenazy (00:58:13):
(Laughs).
Nick Gillespie (00:58:14):
... now as a world worst mom. Is this kind of social media helping to improve parenting and have more online connection with parents? Uh, there’s a lot of people who post perfectionist idyllic version, visions of motherhood, of fatherhood of parenthood, but there’s also people who try to post authentic parenting content, and there’s a lot of advice on how to get your kids to eat broccoli.
(00:58:38):
Lenore, in your experience, has social media made knowing how to parent-
Lenore Skenazy (00:58:44):
Can’t know how to parent.
Nick Gillespie (00:58:45):
... harder.
Lenore Skenazy (00:58:46):
Uh, you can’t know how to parent. I mean, it’s not a thing (laughs). It’s, it’s not an extracurricular. It’s this relationship. So the idea of reading like the exact script you’re supposed to say when your kid is melting down or their cookie broke or something like that is just, it’s a lot to expect parents to, um, comport with and also to remember. I mean, how are you supposed (laughs) to remember all this stuff? Exactly what you’re supposed to say-
Nick Gillespie (00:59:08):
But you don’t find any useful content there?
Lenore Skenazy (00:59:10):
I’m sure, you know, I’m not reading it because my kids, as we’ve discussed, they’re, they’re either eating their broccoli or not at this point, they’re in the, you know, lately-
Nick Gillespie (00:59:16):
Blissfully you’re kind of unaware of that.
Lenore Skenazy (00:59:19):
Blissful unawareness is good, but also, um, I just feel like there’s a lot of emphasis on parenting period. (laughs) And what I’d love us to do is realize like it’s not all up to us, take a chill pill, it’s gonna be okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:59:32):
Now I, can I just-
Nick Gillespie (00:59:33):
Yeah, Kristin, yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:59:33):
Because I have a, well, I have a hot, I have a hot sort of take back to that.
Nick Gillespie (00:59:36):
You were full of hot takes.
Kristin Gallant (00:59:37):
I actually have to push back just a little bit.
Lenore Skenazy (00:59:39):
Okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:59:39):
Because I love what you’re saying and I actually agree fully.
Lenore Skenazy (00:59:43):
(Laughs).
Kristin Gallant (00:59:43):
And-
Lenore Skenazy (00:59:43):
And you’re pushing back. (laughs)
Kristin Gallant (00:59:44):
For someone like you who was parented the way you were parented and now parent the way you parent-
Lenore Skenazy (00:59:48):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (00:59:48):
... it’s very easy to say just whatever comes to you, this is how you parent and you trust. For people who grew up in abusive households, who people grew up-
Lenore Skenazy (00:59:55):
Okay.
Kristin Gallant (00:59:56):
... in dark households, who people grew up in being parented in ways that they do not want to parent their children. If they were to say, “Nah, I’m just gonna sit back and there’s no one way to parent and I’m not gonna learn how to parent it at all,” those people are going to completely pass down all of the generational habits that they are unintentionally trying not to. They’re gonna ha- feel strong urges to hit their kids if they were hit.
Lenore Skenazy (01:00:19):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (01:00:20):
They’re gonna feel strong urges to do all the things their parents didn’t. Now, what I think is different is we don’t need to be obsessive. We don’t need to be-
Lenore Skenazy (01:00:26):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (01:00:26):
... on social media 100% of the time. We don’t need to get this right 100% of the time. But I do have to push back on the whole like, “Ma, kind of put your hands off and do-
Lenore Skenazy (01:00:34):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (01:00:34):
... What comes to you.” That’s what my parents did. I did not turn out fine.
Nick Gillespie (01:00:36):
I wanna, I’ll come-
Kristin Gallant (01:00:36):
I did not turn out fine.
Nick Gillespie (01:00:38):
... back to you in a second.
Kristin Gallant (01:00:38):
Okay.
Nick Gillespie (01:00:39):
Uh, Kristin, Big Little Feelings has four million followers on Instagram. Are the people who are coming there, are they coming mostly from dysfunctional families or, you know, why, why do people look to you for advice?
Kristin Gallant (01:00:53):
I think some are. I think that most people, um, not just in our generation, but also previous generations and previous generations, they do want to evolve. They do want to parent a little bit differently than their parents do. So we do have many that came from a traumatic background and they need to truly rewire how they instinctually parent, like we were just talking about. They would, they would erupt, they would do things that do not in line with how they want to parent. But we also just have people who are raised in ways that we were raised. Like, “Hey, stop crying, get in the corner, be not seen, not heard.” And they just want to do things a little differently with their kids.
Nick Gillespie (01:01:30):
Right. I mean, this is part of, uh, we put down social media, but, you know, we have, I, I brought three books that represent-
Lenore Skenazy (01:01:37):
Yes.
Nick Gillespie (01:01:37):
... three-
Lenore Skenazy (01:01:37):
Eras.
Nick Gillespie (01:01:38):
... generations.
Lenore Skenazy (01:01:38):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (01:01:39):
Uh, you know, Dr. Spock, which was the, you know, the bestselling book for the baby boom and beyond. “What to Expect When You Expecting.” This was-
Lenore Skenazy (01:01:47):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (01:01:47):
... the Bible that I use with my kids.
Lenore Skenazy (01:01:49):
I use mine too.
Nick Gillespie (01:01:50):
And now with my youngest, uh, son-
Lenore Skenazy (01:01:53):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (01:01:53):
... Emily Oster, you know, but people are always looking for expert advice. Tell me how does, how does, you know, how do you find good advice or bad advice online? How do you sift through who’s the right expert?
Reshma Saujani (01:02:09):
Yeah, I mean, look, I, I think going back to your point about like, is all social media bad? And I would say you’re right. It’s not. I mean, one of the things I think that was really powerful about the pandemic is that it opened up everyone’s living rooms, right? And you realize that-
Lenore Skenazy (01:02:22):
That’s true.
Reshma Saujani (01:02:22):
... oh, it’s not just me.
Lenore Skenazy (01:02:23):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (01:02:24):
I’m not a bad parent-
Lenore Skenazy (01:02:25):
[inaudible 01:02:26].
Reshma Saujani (01:02:25):
... or a bad mom. We’re all trying to struggle and balance. Even in the-
Nick Gillespie (01:02:29):
And, and a lot of recognized experts were talking out of both sides of their mouth-
Reshma Saujani (01:02:34):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (01:02:34):
... to put it-
Reshma Saujani (01:02:34):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (01:02:34):
... kindly.
Reshma Saujani (01:02:35):
Yeah. And, and so that, to that point too, like, you know, for, for our work, we obviously do a lot of work on childcare, but just allowing people to be like, “Wait, I’m spending 10,000. I’m spending four.”
Nick Gillespie (01:02:44):
Yeah.
Reshma Saujani (01:02:44):
Like the out- you realize the outrage and I think that that instills like community. I mean, I think that what you’re saying is really important. Listen, I’m a nerd. I always want to get better at what I do. I want to get better at tennis, you know what I mean? I want to get better, be a better swimmer. I want to be a better parent. I think we all do. I mean, what a gift to be a mother. It’s like the best title I could ever imagine to have. And so I think the question is like, how do you create the conditions such that everyone has the opportunity to do that?
Kristin Gallant (01:03:14):
I, I also think that social media, one, one problem with it, because I completely agree with that and I think if we were really in charge of our own social media instead of sort of fed it, that’s what we would see. We would follow the things only that we’re interested in and not follow. The problem that I see in modern motherhood, especially towards women on social media is what we are being fed, first of all, is the most... When I say grotesque, I mean the most viral content is being shown to you. What’s that? It’s divisive. It’s something that makes you go, “Stop this or you’re going to ruin your kid today.” And that’s what’s being shown to you. The more-
Reshma Saujani (01:03:47):
Yes.
Kristin Gallant (01:03:47):
... explosive, the more-
Reshma Saujani (01:03:48):
Yes.
Kristin Gallant (01:03:49):
... divisive it is, the more it’s going to make you feel terrible, that’s what you’re being shown. Then on the other side, you’re also seeing 20 different kinds of women.
(01:03:58):
You’re seeing a woman who is perfectly organizing our house over here-
Reshma Saujani (01:04:00):
Yes.
Kristin Gallant (01:04:01):
... but then somebody is baking a sourdough over here.
Nick Gillespie (01:04:03):
[inaudible 01:04:04].
Kristin Gallant (01:04:03):
Somebody is a fitness mom over here.
Nick Gillespie (01:04:05):
[inaudible 01:04:06].
Kristin Gallant (01:04:05):
Somebody is really into emotional health over here. Somebody is really into cooking over here.
Nick Gillespie (01:04:09):
But so that’s just, that’s-
Kristin Gallant (01:04:09):
So we as women think-
Nick Gillespie (01:04:11):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (01:04:11):
... I need to do-
Reshma Saujani (01:04:12):
(Laughs).
Kristin Gallant (01:04:12):
... all of these things, but these are on person, one person, one person, one person, one person. So it’s up to us to say, “I am not a sourdough baker.”
Reshma Saujani (01:04:22):
Right.
Kristin Gallant (01:04:22):
“I am not a fitness model.”
Reshma Saujani (01:04:24):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (01:04:24):
“What I am, I’m into social emotional regulation and I’m into like not organization, but I’ll watch it-”
Reshma Saujani (01:04:29):
Because this is kind of-
Kristin Gallant (01:04:30):
That’s the pressure-
Reshma Saujani (01:04:31):
Can I-
Kristin Gallant (01:04:31):
... that I see as a problem.
Reshma Saujani (01:04:33):
Can I add to that? I think that’s such an important point. The problem is, is like we don’t get to choose because-
Kristin Gallant (01:04:36):
Yes.
Reshma Saujani (01:04:36):
... the way that the algorithms are-
Nick Gillespie (01:04:38):
What do you mean you don’t get to choose?
Reshma Saujani (01:04:38):
Because-
Nick Gillespie (01:04:40):
You can block people and change it.
Reshma Saujani (01:04:41):
No I mean-
Nick Gillespie (01:04:42):
... this is-
Reshma Saujani (01:04:42):
You actually cannot.
Nick Gillespie (01:04:43):
We need to-
Reshma Saujani (01:04:43):
We actually tried-
Nick Gillespie (01:04:45):
... as social media people, we need to become much more-
Kristin Gallant (01:04:48):
You got to turn it off.
Nick Gillespie (01:04:48):
No here’s the problem.
Kristin Gallant (01:04:48):
[inaudible 01:04:49].
Reshma Saujani (01:04:48):
You got to turn it off because the thing is, is at the end of the day we are humans and sometimes I’m curious and I see a panda bear kissing a frog and I click on it because it’s interesting.
Nick Gillespie (01:05:00):
And then you’re signing up.
Reshma Saujani (01:05:00):
And that’s all I do [inaudible 01:05:02] all day long.
Nick Gillespie (01:05:00):
This is-
Reshma Saujani (01:05:05):
The point is like it takes an enormous-
Kristin Gallant (01:05:06):
(Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (01:05:06):
... amount of discipline, right?
Nick Gillespie (01:05:07):
Yeah, well no, but this is what-
Reshma Saujani (01:05:08):
And that’s-
Nick Gillespie (01:05:08):
... this is the promise in the same way of like you can, you know, there’s a, you know, a shelf full of books in the, the three or four bookstores left in America. They’ve got a giant parenting section.
Reshma Saujani (01:05:19):
Yeah.
Nick Gillespie (01:05:20):
And you have to pick and choose. Lenore-
Kristin Gallant (01:05:21):
But I think-
Lenore Skenazy (01:05:22):
Your book started out as 300 pages and then the next edition was like 400 and the next was 500 because they kept coming up with new problems for you to worry about.
Nick Gillespie (01:05:30):
Well, it’s also people-
Lenore Skenazy (01:05:31):
‘Cause that’s how books sell.
Nick Gillespie (01:05:32):
... writing in, writing in and saying, “Well what about this?”
Lenore Skenazy (01:05:34):
[inaudible 01:05:35].
Nick Gillespie (01:05:34):
“What about this?”
Kristin Gallant (01:05:36):
But I also say that these books are not designed to be addictive. And so that’s what we always do say too.
Nick Gillespie (01:05:40):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (01:05:40):
I don’t need you to follow me, I don’t need you to follow-
Lenore Skenazy (01:05:41):
Yeah.
Kristin Gallant (01:05:42):
Every single thing. What I would like you to do, especially if you were raised in a household that was traumatic, that is not the way you want to parent, pick one thing and then follow it and let the rest go.
Reshma Saujani (01:05:49):
But also it’s not, it’s not designed to make you-
Kristin Gallant (01:05:49):
This is not addictive. You’re not going-
Reshma Saujani (01:05:49):
And to fell bad-
Kristin Gallant (01:05:49):
... to follow 100 books.
Reshma Saujani (01:05:55):
Feel bad about your... We had to go back to why was the like button designed.
Kristin Gallant (01:05:58):
Right. Right.
Reshma Saujani (01:05:58):
It was designed-
Kristin Gallant (01:05:59):
[inaudible 01:06:00] feel bad.
Reshma Saujani (01:06:00):
Because we knew that in particular women and girls will feel bad about themselves.
Kristin Gallant (01:06:03):
Yes.
Reshma Saujani (01:06:03):
So we don’t always click on the things that teach us. We click on the things that judge us because that is, it is innate and it has to be unlearned.
Nick Gillespie (01:06:11):
As we wrap up, one final, final question for all of you and we’ll start with Reshma. What did your parents do that most screwed you up that you-
Reshma Saujani (01:06:20):
Oh my God.
Nick Gillespie (01:06:20):
... tried to avoid carrying into your own parents?
Kristin Gallant (01:06:24):
Sorry (Laughs).
Reshma Saujani (01:06:28):
You know, uh, my, growing up in a, like in South Asian Indian immigrant family, uh, we weren’t very affectionate. So one of the things that I do is like a side hug. You can do it. And then I… So when people try to hug me, I do, I just don’t give them... So I, I, you know, I think I try to infuse a lot more touching, hugging, kissing with my children.
Nick Gillespie (01:06:51):
Right. Thank you. Lenore.
Lenore Skenazy (01:06:53):
Um, the only thing I can think of off the bat is, and bat is the operative word, (laughs) is that we didn’t do any sports. You know, sports were, back then they still weren’t for girls. And so, um, I have two boys, but you know, one of them was really into sports.
Nick Gillespie (01:07:07):
[inaudible 01:07:11].
Lenore Skenazy (01:07:10):
Um- Yeah, have we got another hour.
Kristin Gallant (01:07:15):
Um, what most my parents did that most screwed me up I think, um, A were sort of extreme punitive, um, measures, physical, physical punishment. Um, but at a core also trying to change me into being a normal, good girl. I have ADHD, I was a daydreamer, I wasn’t good in school, I wasn’t as good at my sister, what’s wrong with you? Those deeply stayed with me into my adulthood, um, and I really, I, I think I had one person who believed in me. I needed more belief in me to be exactly who I am today, which is everything I was punished for as a child, as a girl, pushing back, not following rules, breaking rules, being loud, being aggressive I am now rewarded for as a CEO and I wish that, that’s probably what screwed me up most was to try to be a good girl.
Nick Gillespie (01:08:13):
Right.
Reshma Saujani (01:08:14):
Wow-
Nick Gillespie (01:08:14):
In a very-
Kristin Gallant (01:08:15):
In a narrow sense.
Nick Gillespie (01:08:16):
... specific way. Okay. Thank you again, Kristin, Lenore Reshma.
Lenore Skenazy (01:08:20):
Thanks.
Nick Gillespie (01:08:21):
It was a pleasure to have you join us today.
Kristin Gallant (01:08:22):
Thank you.
Reshma Saujani (01:08:22):
Thank you guys.
Lenore Skenazy (01:08:22):
This is great.
Credits
Nick Gillespie (01:08:26):
That’s it for this week. A big thank you to the audience for tuning in. This episode was made possible thanks to a generous gift from Liberty Ears Foundation. Our work is also made possible by listeners like you, the Rosenkranz Foundation and supporters of Open to Debate. Robert Rosenkranz is our founder. Our CEO is Lia Matthow. I’m Nick Gillespie. We’ll see you next time on Open to Debate.