March 12, 2019 • 53 mins
This week Bryn and Maeven discover the power of lying and then do it a lot, very badly. Peter visits the local elementary school to see the bilingual program in action. Beth and Peter discuss midwifery care in the U.S, take listener questions about “sanctimommies” and Veganism and then Peter introduces his hit new character: the male doctor who only understands what you’re talking about if your are talking about penises.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I, oh, hello, it must be we knows parenting. I'm
Peter McNerney. Oh here we are. How did we get
here that we knows parenting? I blocked out until this moment,
(00:22):
and here we are. Maybe we were drugged and kidnapped.
I don't know. All I know is that I'm a
happily married wife and mother of two children. Everything's perfect,
no problems. We've definitely been drugged. Who knows? Were recorded
the dark? We could be somewhere else. We could be.
(00:44):
Actually we're not, because I don't know. I've lost my mind.
How are you? I'm great? Cool? Okay, you just went
to the gym before recording? I did. I really needed to, because, um,
as you know, I have a constant stress rash that
forms on my eyelids as like a beacon of when
I'm not taking care of myself, and I could feel
(01:06):
it today creeping back up at work after like a
few days of calming it down, and I was like, Okay,
I have to go record a podcast with my husband.
I gotta go do something for me while he's putting
the kids to bed so that I can chill out
and go ahead of not be cranky on the pod.
(01:27):
You sound delightful. Yeah, so far, so good. Yeah, we're
gonna keep it that way. I'm feeling good. Sleepy, I've
got some whiskey in some coffee. Sleepy is just given
with this podcast, and that's what listeners have to accept
and understand, and that's what they're here for. That they're
here to hear the drowsed arguments at the end of
(01:49):
a long day, the drowsy musings of two very stressed adults. Well,
it was a pretty good week. I have a big
thing for me is So we're we've applied Bryn to
the dose community. Did we apply? We did? You filled
out the form? Yeah, I hope that's okay. No, it's good.
I just had no idea if we're going to make
(02:10):
the deadline. We did. We did. I did it while
I was there, Okay. I filled it out before I
went and then turned it in and right it was over. Okay.
So so you went and to do the school visit,
which I ended up not being able to go to.
You had a big meeting, and big Hollywood meeting. Hollywood's
like has best there. We got to meet when the
most important thing happening this week. That's when we made
(02:32):
it we need her ear um, that's what. Yeah. So
I had big wheelings and dealings going on left and right,
and so I said, hey, Peter, my house husband, work wife,
can you deal with our familial obligations? Well, work wife
is a different thing, isn't it work? Yeah, you're my
(02:53):
working wife. Yeah, you could say I'm your working woman.
I'm you're my regular working woman. I went there for
a really strange thing happened when I got there. This
is not parenting related at all. A little bit. I
parked and I don't like to stand around with strangers
because I'm afraid of everyone. If you come to our
live show in April, please come talk to me afterwards.
(03:16):
And if I'm nervous, it's because I'm afraid of you. Okay,
So you went to do a school visit at Dos Caminos,
the Spanish language do a language language. So I parked
outside and I was waiting for it dificulse of the
time before I went in, and a car pulls up
next to me, and I look over and this guy
looks at me and he gives me a face like huh.
(03:37):
In my mind I read it as, Oh, are you leaving?
Can I take your parking spot and so that's not
what was happening at all. No. No, Well I shook
my head and I was like no, and then he
looked at me again, like with bright eyes, and I
was like and then I pointed down like I'm staying here,
and then he gave me a nervous look and he
drove away. I was like, that was weird. And then
(03:57):
I went in and then he came in and he's like, Peter,
I produced us this commercial that you were in three
years ago. And I was like, oh cool, and his
kid is applying to the same program. But all week
I can't stop thinking about it, which was how do
you drive by somebody who's parked sitting in their car
(04:19):
and see them so quickly like that's that guy that
I haven't seen in three years. Well, the thing is
because you once had them in a commercial you're involved
in and they have an enormous recognizable head. Who's they?
Who's they? Who's this giant headed person? Who could I
(04:39):
possibly be describing anyway? Very nice guy? And uh, I
hope our kids go to school. So we sat in
it on a bunch of classes, and this program is
really I'm really sold on it. Um kids in every class.
So it's it's K through five, and in every class,
half of the kids are from Spanish speaking in homes
(05:01):
as a first language and the other half for English
as a first language. Uh. And so it the ideas
every other day is in Spanish and every other day
is in English, and on those days that there's enough
dominant speaking kids to sort of model the style that
other kids sort of learned from being surrounded by it.
So I sat in for like a few minutes on
a kindergarten class of first grade class up through fifth grade,
(05:23):
and they really you can really see these kindergarteners like
doing their morning phonics and the English speaking kids doing
Spanish or struggling and they have to think through it.
And then as you go up you can see by
fifth grade there's all these fifth graders doing this research
project and it was sort of in English and in Spanish,
and all of these kids were just speaking totally fluent Spanish,
(05:46):
just doing their regular work and it didn't matter what
language it was anymore. And I was like, this is
this is great? What do you mean? It didn't matter
what language they were doing the project and they can
research in English or they can research in Spanish. It
sort of was irrelevant at that point what the language was,
because you're not focusing on a language, your focused on
a research project or your focus on math. And it
(06:09):
was truly fluent at that point, at least from the
kids I saw, and it was cool. That's cool. So
we applied. We'll see if our kid gets in and
we'll see if we continue to live in this town.
Beth really has your sight set on l A and
I while I am more anxious about it, I'm trying
to point positivity at the idea and not be a crank.
(06:33):
How am I doing? That? Was the most optimistic I've
ever heard you towards it. So yeah, I feel pretty
good about that direction that we're heading. Good in this moment,
we're doing pretty well. What else had we had Grandpa?
Your mom and my dad came to visit and the
same day at two different points. How is that for you?
(06:54):
It was good? I like sort of like the bursts
of grandparents, like where someone comes in, visits for like
a few hours and then leaves because that's enough time
before everyone's just tired and then you just have to
like be in each other's space. Do you know what
I mean. Yeah, well it's you know, it's not really
a grandparents specific thing as it is I think any
(07:17):
other person. Yeah, I just come from a family where
people think that our family gatherings are like everyone needs
to be like sitting in the same space all the time,
staring at each other, you know what I mean. Yeah, Well,
what's interesting about your family is they really like to
be around each other. But it's not a big game family. No,
(07:40):
it's not a big game family. Well, they've gotten more
into games at certain points. It's true. You're not a
big game person, and I've come to accept that. I
like certain games, but I don't like to be gaming
NonStop when I'm on vacation mode. That's the difference. I
like having a task. I like, I'm like, at some
point i'm with these people, I'd love to maybe just
(08:01):
have a human conversation and you know, talk to them
here what they've been up to you and your human standards. Yeah,
I know, it's nuts. Um, should we talk about lying? Yeah? Well,
do you want to go put on the next segment? No,
let's talk about it now. Okay, let's talk about it now.
(08:23):
It's pressing. Okay, Well, what you have to know listeners
is both of our children are liars. They're big goddamn liars,
and they think that they're getting away with things. I
don't think they do. Actually, the brand's lying mode is
that he introduces incriminating information that he didn't need to
(08:44):
give us, such as pulling out a toy that he's
just stolen from daycare, or you know, running into the
room and saying, don't come in here. Yeah, don't come
in the kitchen right now, mommy, um um, there's nothing
you need to see in the fridge. But it's like
he knows he's alerting us, Like I think a part
of him is like, um, I'm just gonna do this
(09:07):
bad thing over here, Okay, Like he's not. You know what,
I relate to the way he lies because this is
how I live, And I think it is that as
soon as he realizes, oh no, this is a bad thing,
I don't want people to know, he's already having the
conversation in his head. He's already been confronted because he's
confronted himself. You're saying that you and him both lie
(09:29):
so impulsively that you're not even comprehending that it's a lie.
Until it's out of your mouth, and then you're sort
of just like backtracking like, yeah, this is fine, I'm
just gonna keep talking. Yeah, and then I started defending myself. Um,
and that as I'm defending myself, that's when you learn
the whole what had happened. Does it comfort you that
I can't possibly keep anything from you? Um? Yeah, I
(09:53):
don't really worry about you, like doing uh, something majorly
wrong because I think you're guilty. You're not, I don't.
I don't worry about you, like sneaking around and doing
something behind my back on an ongoing process, maybe for
like a day, like it's probably to see a movie. Yeah,
(10:14):
you you do do that, but then you inevitably want
to brag about the movie and then the truth comes out.
Yeah exactly, I can't even hide that. Yeah. But so
that's ouburn lies. And how Mayven lies is she started
doing this thing where she just playfully lies about things,
Like you'd be like, oh, that shirt is red, and
she's like, no, it's pink, and then she'll just stick
(10:36):
to the lie while smiling at you. Um. Oh yeah. Well,
both of our kids, even if they just get something wrong,
you try to correct them they're like, nope, the new
reality is the first thing I said without thinking about it.
But now she's starting to enjoy the lie of it
and like giggling and she don't doing this thing the
other day. Or she goes, I'm not looking at you.
(10:57):
I'm not looking at you. She's like looking right at me, obviously,
and she's sort of just like and she goes, what,
I'm not looking at you. She's like, she's like so
playful about it. She's like, what do you come on,
I'm not looking at you. She sounds like a thirteen
year old girl. Girl flirting, You're so stupid. I'm not
(11:19):
even looking. It's very flirting. She's just like, I'm not
looking at you. So Brin's big lie was he had
a couple of toys that he brought home. They were
clearly not here is They're clearly from daycare. Yeah, I'm
still not sure we got the whole story on that.
He's because he had like two he's still three things total,
but little you know, Kreddy toys in his pocket. So
(11:41):
I was like, these from daycare and he's like, um uh,
this kid who actually it's his mom's daycare, so he
lives there. He's like he said I could have it.
I was like, okay, so that's fine, I'll just ask
him tomorrow if that happened. And brinkles, Oh no, um,
don't ask him. And then I was like, oh, well
(12:02):
he said you could have it, right, because yeah, okay,
well I'll just ask him about it, make sure that
that's true. And he's like, no, just don't and I said,
Bryn got so frantic, and he's like scrambling, and then
there's it's like four minutes of this and then finally
he lightbulb goes off and it's he goes, um, you
can't ask him because it's a secret. And then he
(12:23):
was just like satisfied look on his face and he
calmed down. He's like, who dodged a bullet there? His
excuses are so bad, like he doesn't know how to
like draw the parallels and lines between like what he's
saying happened, because he's like no, no, no, don't ask um.
It's just this is what he's doing to me. He's like,
the toy isn't from daycare, and I was like, where's
(12:45):
it from. He's like, it's from pre K. I've found
it on the ground and it's changing wildly. I don't
know whose toy this is. And then I finally said, like,
well should I ask the um, the woman who runs daycare?
And he's like no, oh, and that's like you know what, Britain.
I'm like, I know you're lying. I know that that's
(13:06):
not true. And then at one point he finally just
then goes, Daddy, you're right, I was lying. And then
he like he smiles with himself, like I'm so proud
of me for coming clean. Yeah. He's like, we figured
it out, we got to the bottom of it, and
now we can move on. That's it, Daddy, I figured
it out. I was lying. I think all of his
(13:26):
takeaways from this are not very educational, but he like
one of the other things he's been doing since this
whole discussion about the various stolen toys is that he well,
he'll stop me mid conversation when I tell him something
like like I say we're out of the snack or something,
and he's like, are you telling me lies? He does
he does it's like plateful, you lie at me? Are
(13:50):
you telling lies? Right now? Oh? My gosh, are you
as excited at as I am that Britain has started
the Britain Show. Oh yeah, the brind Show. You can
check it out on my Instagram. Hopefully there'll be some
more episodes. I required episode two tonight. He just holds
the phone and turns out and goes, hey, everyone, welcome
to my video. We'll me and breakfast is my sister may.
(14:14):
He's really nailed the presentational manner what he did today.
He turned out and goes he goes welcome, he goes, hello, baby.
I was like, that's that's me. I've been saying that
on the podcast. How does he? I guess I say
that to him a lot of things. He's copying from
the story Parers podcast. No, no, I say it on
this podcast. I'm like, yeah, baby, maybe he said it
(14:36):
on the story Parers podcast. No I don't. Maybe in
real life. It's definitely been said in real life. Well,
he's stolen my incredible, incredibly famous catchphrase. Baby. This next
segment is called do you knows what they said? Um?
(14:58):
This is where we share some things that are kids. Yeah,
you know what? I thought it was time to catch
up on Brian's journaling. I gotta say, okay us a
little journal just the little thought that I had I
gotta say, predictably, it's been a little tough to keep
up on the journal. It's tough to keep a four
(15:19):
year old up on doing the journal every day, so
we did a lot of spurts. But there's some funny
ones in here I'd like to share with you. Beth,
are you ready? Okay, I'm ready, Janu, how do you
feel about sitting at the dinner table? Bryn sad because
I don't want dinner or snack or breakfast. Maven shakes
her said head slowly intense right for this? What have
(15:46):
you done lately that you're proud of brit with no
hesitation lights? Because I get dead in them? And I say,
do you know what proud means? And he says no.
He said a lot of weird things about blood lately.
About blood. Yeah, Like he's we'll talk about something like
smashing or someone dying, and he's like, in blood come
(16:09):
into Like he we watched some of uh, what's it
called Blue Planet and then there's a part where there's
like a decaying whale carcass where the sharks are chewing
at it. He's like, there's blood coming out there eating blood. Yeah,
He's like the ocean is turning into blood. Like he's
(16:29):
just like very into it, does not totally understand what's happening.
Like when he talked about the the I have an
Instagram video him being like, oh, I can try. I
go to the bottom and then I'm dead. And then
he goes, I hope I don't get a headache when
I'm dead. It would be bad to be sick when
you're dead. I'm like, I don't think he totally gets it, January,
(16:51):
what jobs look interesting to you? He's princess. I want
my name to be Lucas when I grow up. Maven
says a daddy. She wants her job to be a daddy.
I said, what jobs look interesting to you? And she
just said a daddy. I love that answer, A daddy?
(17:15):
All right, Janu, which book character would you like to meet?
Brit I just want to be myself in the book.
That's existential. Wow, he's really projecting some things onto the question, right.
I mean I looked at I was like, Oh, he
loves the story. Who's his favorite character in the story? Well, him,
(17:38):
because in his mind he's there because you're you're asking
him like two questions in a row about like what
he wanted to be, and he was like, why aren't
I enough right now? Dad? What you was forcing me
to do? The journal? Dad? Um? You know what this
this next question really supports the theory I've been pushing
(18:01):
brand into these questions because the question is what do
you hope for? And Brince says nothing, and I'm never
going to ask a question again. Yeah, at a certain
point he was just resistant to the idea of question.
I think I gave I go until he gets sick
of it. Then I stopped. And they always do describe
(18:22):
a time you felt bad for someone else. I don't
want to do that question. There was more of that,
all right, and then I think we took a break
and we came back a few days later. Alright, Ready,
I like it when my family blank together, and Bryn
just said, my family works a lot. He is very
(18:44):
fascinated by us going to work because our schedule is
somewhat unpredictable to him still, so he sees one of
us just be like, all right, I gotta go by
and he's like, it's a Saturday night, what's happening? What? Like? Yeah,
it is sort of the same each week, but it's
not super Monday through Wednesday is the most routine. He
(19:04):
has three days in row. It's always the same. He's
starting to wrap his head around it because you teach
Thursday nights and that's the one night that I definitely
picked him up from daycare, so he was He started
to be like, why do you pick us up on Thursdays?
Like he's and I keep explaining, keeping like, well daddy
works on Thursday nights, and then he keeps just re
asking the question. He's slowly wrapping his head around work. Um,
(19:31):
I said, do you know what I do for a
living and he goes, you're you're a writer? Yeah, because
I told him I explained that too, he should understand
what I do. He listens to the Story Prizes podcast. Well,
it's just sort of constant noise. Thanks for that glowing review. No,
(19:51):
I mean it's he's just hearing your voice NonStop, no
matter what. Actually, this week he got really into the podcast.
I wanted to hear a lot of episodes and then
he started going each story He's like, is that you?
And he understands that I'm playing different parts and that's new. Ah,
what rules at school don't make sense to you? Britain
(20:15):
says I don't like being safe. I feel like that
is a response to me trying I forget, like there's
something I was probably getting mad at him for where
I kept trying to explain that I'm trying to keep
him safe, and I was probably getting really pissed, and
I was just, oh, yeah, I understand that when you
think of rules. Yeah, I'm like, I'm just trying to
(20:37):
keep you alive. Buddy just wants you to be safe.
Every time he hears us go that's not safe, it's
something annoying to him. Yeah, he's like, I'm just trying
to climb on the stove, guys, chill out. I walked
in the kitchen and he he had his whole butt
in the washing machine. He goes, Daddy, look, and I'm like, no,
(20:59):
I really in those moments, I have to If I
go I'm angry, then he'll want to do it. So
instead I have to be like, oh boy, that's really funny.
But hey, you know what, here's a fun fact. I'm
letting you in on that's really dangerous. Why don't we
just get you out of that pool? Yeah? What did
(21:19):
you do this week to keep your body strong and healthy?
Bran I ate chips and chocolate. Funny, I have the
exact same answer. Too true. This just got too real, Oh,
it just got real. Ready for this one? This is
(21:40):
my favorite answer. When were you brave Britan yesterday? That's it.
If you had three wishes, what would they they would be?
If I had three wishes, they would be blank, blank
and blank. I just have two wishes about a scary
monster and a stinky dirt socks snake. I think those
(22:03):
are good wishes. He's like, I don't need three. I
got two in their perfect hear the ship out of
all of you. Mission accomplished in two. And here's a
little call back to our previous segment, when did you
feel like lying but told the truth? Brince said yesterday
about my friend gave daddy pig to me. This is
(22:26):
after he came clean about lying. So I couldn't believe
this question was here because we had just gone over it. Um, great,
all right, and we're wrapping it up and already talked.
Actually already I spoiled this one already. Describe what one
of your parents does for a job, and Britain goes
you work writing that's not true? Oh boy, So what
(22:51):
did we Oh? Here's one more ready, which one of
your senses seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, or tasting is your favorite?
Why Brin's answer cats, did you learn anything about your
son from this? My darling wife? Um? No, and this
(23:13):
has been he knows what they said, And now it's
time for did you knows? This is where we learn
about a thing, read about a thing, and then share
a thing that we learned about. I read about Beth.
So I wanted to talk about an article from Courts
(23:34):
which is q Z dot com and the title of
the article is the reason childbirth is over medicalized in
America has its roots in racial segregation. Um So, just
for contexts, I'm not anti medicine, but um there are
statistics to back up the fact that we do sort
(23:55):
of have an a higher level of medical interventions in
childbirth in this country than we do in other countries.
And this article talks specifically about how in the UK,
Scandinavian countries and France they have much higher rates of
midwives and um they go on later, I believed who
(24:19):
give some statistics about how that can make things safer
during during childbirth, specifically for people at low risk. Obviously,
there are people that really do need the medical attention.
But right right, and they're not denying that to them.
I don't think in those countries, it's just um they're yeah,
(24:40):
they're not like willy nilly making everyone have like a
midwife at home or whatever, but they're offering that as
an option for women who are not having at risk pregnancies.
So anyway, Um, they talk a bit about the history
of uh, losing the midwife tradition in our country, which
(25:02):
is very heavily rooted in the introduction of you know,
hospitals and medicine and trying to turn hospitals into a
profitable business. And the basically the medical community went on
they waged sort of like a campaign against midwives in
order to discredit them so that more women would come
(25:24):
to hospitals. And so they sort of did this like
stereotypical campaign, like uh depicting midwives you know, in racist ways,
because many of the midwives in this country had been
women of color, or they would characterize them as like witchy,
like you know, women who don't you know, understand modern science, etcetera.
(25:50):
They like, you know, really made them seem like dumb,
ignorant whatever. Um, so hold on here, there's Yeah, there
was just a jump in there. I found one really
interesting detail in there was that sort of in America
trying to like prove itself as a as an established
like medical uh community in comparison to Europe and all
(26:16):
then like they had a better reputation as medical doctors.
And so part of that realizing that the a huge
number of people coming into the hospital were pregnant women,
so just turning that into a profitable endeavor, which you
basically talked about. Yeah, I found the statistic I think
I was looking forward, which is it's just a European
(26:38):
countries that lean more heavily on midwives also have better
outcomes for babies and their mothers. Maternal mortality rates are
a fraction of America's. So, um, you know, obviously the
hospitals in our country do help a lot of women,
and there's a lot of situations where like we really
value having access to those interventions. But I do think
(27:00):
like they're treating as a medical issue. Yeah, from the
get go is does not those interventions do not necessarily
help a woman and her baby have a healthier outcome.
So there's this quote later in the article from this
woman or who is a midwife and she works with hospitals,
and she says she faces it says she faces challenges. However,
(27:23):
many of them financial ones. Since she doesn't turn any
patients away, she has often left with uncovered costs. Medicaid
pays for midwives, but since she doesn't deliver the baby,
she loses the bulk of the pregnancy care fee. Um so,
so this actually happened to us kind of. So what
happens is are with my first labor, we're trying to
(27:44):
do a home birth, and we hired these midwives who
gave us an incredible amount of their time and attention
and care and just like literally teaching us like what
was about to happen, because we live in a country
that doesn't teach us that. And they really coached us
on a lot of things about body stuff and prep
for the birth and after the birth, taking care of yourself.
(28:04):
Just like they were such a wealth of information. And
then what happened was my water broke and it suddenly
became a little more high risk. And your water broke
without going into without having contractions. So because labor contractions
send it started, there's a risk of infection if you
don't start having contractions at a certain point, and if
(28:24):
I had tried to do home birth, there's a possibility
that something could have gone wrong or they would have
at a certain point needed to send me the hospital,
which means my pro I had two backup plans. My
primary backup plan would be too just go to the hospital. Luckily,
we had a backup plan with hospital midwives who would
(28:45):
deliver in the hospital, and so they wouldn't like let
me in unless I went in within twenty four hours
of my water breaking, because they didn't want to deal
with like a high risk pregnant like birth situation. They
wanted that to go to an O B G I,
So they have there's a lot of checks and balances
here that I really appreciate in terms of what could
go wrong. But anyway, so what happened was that we
(29:06):
did end up going to the hospital because we were like, well,
we don't want to do it at home and then
take the risk that it's going on too long and
and end up in some random e er in like
a very scary emergency situation. So we're like, let's go
to the hospital. Let's just like suck it up. So
there's like a bummer but anyway, what happens then is
that the fee that midwives are normally able to take
(29:27):
from the way our current health care system works, they're
they're luckily is like one safeguard that helps women who
are thinking of hiring midwives is that you the insurance
companies do have to pay for a birth. And I
think this is in most states, like they have to
pay for that like at least the bare minimum cost
(29:48):
of a birth, which which is I think, like I
don't know, ten dollars or whatever, so so they there
in most states, midwives can find a way to get
that feed. It just takes like a lot more paper work.
But in this case, because they have been caring for
us for all these months for free, basically we then
(30:08):
go to the hospital and the hospital takes that fee
because they did the birth. So it the way the
current system is set up is like it really burns
midwives and like alternative healers and a lot of people
like acupuncturist people that like I think, really help people
a lot in terms of their health because so much
of what was great about my my pregnancy health care
(30:31):
with my midwives and my duelas is just the information
about like nutrition and ways I could be taking care
of myself and taking care of my body, and just
like things that no O B G y n has
ever taken more than like five seconds to answer a
question and to have people who really well in my experience,
(30:51):
it's just like I'm not trying to trash ob dance.
I think they're I'm sure a lot of them are great.
I'm just saying in in the New York City healthcare system,
especially like the way you get rushed in and out
of appointments. I literally had my O B G o
n canceled on me like four times during pregnancy. He
(31:12):
didn't show up to my appointment because he was like
delivering another baby or whatever. And that was a doctor
I only had for like three or four months until
I found my Midwise, that's like your experience specifically is
a great example of that. Just like and then at
least the way you painted picture, whenever you did see
(31:33):
this guy, you did you did not feel like it
was somebody asking you how you're doing. I finally had
one meeting with him, where again he was like rushing
in from a birth and he like looked around the office.
I was the least pregnant person, and he was like, well,
I have to admit her to our system so that
she remains a patient here, but I have to give
priority to these women who are much more pregnant than her,
(31:53):
who have more issues to deal with. And so he
kind of like shoot me in and out and he
was like, okay, I can only see quickly, and it
was just like he did like a very quick exam.
Was like, there's really nothing for you to know right now.
You just have to like keep being pregnant and chill out.
And he was like, do you have any questions? And
I was like, well, I don't know. Is there's something
I shouldn't eat? Like I was like, you know, like
(32:14):
tell me something about my body, what's happening right now?
And one keeping pregnant. So all he said, he goes,
he just goes, don't eat too much fish. And then
that was the end of the whole like that was
the whole thing. As the only advice in five visits
to my O. B. G u An's office, that was
(32:36):
the one bit of advice I had was given. Did
I did? I remember going to that office with you?
But I didn't go back with you, did I? I
don't think you ever went there. I don't know. I
went there once. I the other like under his care,
I was able to get referred to a hospital for
(32:57):
sonograms and stuff, but he wasn't really involved in any
of that. Like, so you I feel like you came
to those visits maybe. Yeah. When once we hooked up
with the midwives, then I was like involved and learned
along so much. Yeah. Well, I mean I think we've
talked about this before, but the other crazy thing about
the midwives is like they would talk us through like
our relationship as parents, Like there was like an emotional
(33:20):
component too, which is like just incredibly valuable, and like
no one is giving that to people when they're about
to have the most fragile human like enter their lives,
you know what I mean, Like the most fragile human,
when you're about to admit the most fragile human. No,
it's just like it's a terrifying experience for people in
our culture. Is just like you'll figure it out. Yeah,
(33:44):
And of course, like I'm sure so many of you
people listening right now of course have your own stories
and I'm sure you've done every version of it that's
been really great, really terrible, and I'm sure there's terrible
midwives and really wonderful O BG yants. Um right in,
tell us tell us your experience, because I feel like
it's not a thing you hear, Like there's so many
(34:06):
parenting things where I had heard none of this. Maybe
this is because I'm a man and another certain age,
like none of my friends had given babies, But this
feels like given baby. What did I say, I don't know.
None of my friends had given babies, have had them,
had had them at that point. Um, So it feels
(34:27):
like a sort of a hidden part of our society. Yeah. Well,
and again I don't want to demonize O B G
I ants who provide a lot of valuable health care
to women. But it's just like any other feminist issue.
It's not about any women having like all women having
to do the same thing or one thing being the
right choice. It's just about us having options and and
(34:49):
and that doesn't even just apply to women's issues. Is
just our healthcare system in this country doesn't give us
access to a lot of healthy resources that could actually
help us. Well, there's I mean, there's plenty of cittist
takes the backup the fact that this country over medicates
a lot of mothers by treating a pregnancy as a
medical condition. First, well, there's also just a full lack
(35:12):
of interest because they're like I was just reading some
statistic about endometriosis or something where like it's it's never
studied at all compared to things like rectile dysfunction, but
it's like a very painful chronic disease that women suffer from.
And apparently there was some evidence that that supported that
(35:36):
viagra would help ease like endometrios is cramping or something
like it would help ease the pain. And it was
put forth before a panel of like five men for
like approval for study or something by the FDA, and
they didn't. They didn't deem it of like public use
(35:56):
or something. They use some sort of like heavy term
to be like this doesn't him of interest to the public,
Like I can't relate to this at all. That's like
that just have to do with my penis all the time,
like just being like no, no, no, we need more
penis drugs. That's interesting, but no, next on the agenda,
(36:17):
more penis drugs. Oh, here here is my penis. Should
I keep doing this? Penis doctor character what's his m o.
He's just, he's just it doesn't understand what you're talking
about until it's about penises. Penis. The way you play him,
it feels like he doesn't even know what a penis is.
(36:37):
He just heard other people talking about. I know what
a penis is. That's why I talk about it so much,
because I definitely have one, and I definitely know how
it works. And I'm not I'm not I've I'm not
at all lying. Okay, well sir, we need to study
some women's bodies over here. What are you talking about?
What women's body? Who's that? Your dad got you this job,
(37:05):
didn't he? Oh? Penises, yes, yes, yes, pis. This next
segment is called Listeners Want to Knows. It's where we
should take some questions or comments from our listeners. Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah yeah. Listeners want to knows. Yeah yeah yeah
(37:26):
yeah yeah yeah yeah. Listeners want to knows? Should we
try things? So? I didn't realize we had that theme
song for this, but oh my god, well it was
worth it. It's a really good joke I just made. Okay,
that was way more than I thought you were going
to say, but it was worth it. Yeah, yeah, Okay,
this comes to us from Allison, who's written to us before. Hi,
(37:52):
Peter and Beth, you guys are always talking about how
lucky you feel that Britain's best friends parents are awesome?
Ever heard of the term sanct to mommy? Wikipedia says
it is a portman toe portmanteau. That's when we take
two words and putting together of two words sanctimonious and mommy.
(38:15):
The word is a colloquial colloquialism used to refer to
a person, usually a female, who has very opinionated views
on child rearing and presents them upfront without any sense
of humility. Anyway. I feel like I've come across many
of these types of parents since having my daughter, and
it makes me not want to venture out into the
world of other parents because I just don't really have
(38:36):
the time, slash energy to battle judgment where I live.
Many moms, women seem to make being a pinterest stay
at home mom their life goal, which I don't relate to,
but it's totally fine if it works for them. And
then moving back home to l A, where this is
a whole other level of judgment and shaming, I find
myself not really wanting to branch out and be social
with mom groups in the area. I usually get a
(38:58):
sense of weird competition, stages of development, and things like
which kid has the most organic, gluten free, fat free,
sugar free diet. Don't get me wrong, I like to
stay healthy for the most part, but I believe in
staying insane. But I feel like if I utter frozen
Dino buddies, which I think are delicious, by the way
I get those, judge looks like how dare I poison
(39:19):
my child? Part of me is like whatever, man, But
the other part of me doesn't want to fully take
that attitude for the sake of my daughter. And yes,
I'm fully aware how completely neurotic I sound. My question
is any of this stuff present where you guys live?
If so, how do you navigate through this? I know
you have your Facebook mom group, Beth, but do you
(39:39):
physically see any of these people and set up play
dates and stuff? Keep up the great work. Thanks to
million U kim them the compliments. Thank you, Allison. So
I haven't experienced this much in person around here, but
that I also have to contextualize that, which with the
fact that I never go out and meet ms or
(40:00):
take our kids anywhere. Oh yeah, we don't talk to
people we don't. We know like three people and we
say hi to them in the halls of our building
and go about our business. But the people we know
are nice. I'll say, I do experience this more online,
and usually it's more subtle, like I don't know, I actually,
(40:22):
I guess I have to say I don't experience this
that much in my day day life. The thing I
experienced much more than this is the total opposite, which
is like well intentioned women or like I guess, like
sort of anxious women who assume that you're doing that
or they're like scared of being judged, so they constantly
(40:46):
apologize for their kids. Like I've definitely found myself doing
this where you're just like but like sometimes I think women,
it's hard to like just talk honestly about your kids
without like unintentionally triggering that emotion in someone because like
so they're expecting you to judge them. Yeah, because like
(41:07):
I because I think, like, by I don't know, by
average standards, like I think we're not like I would
not think someone would expect us to be like high
and mighty about our kids in any way because like
we do feed them garbage, dinobites or whatever. She said,
like we and we have a podcast where we talk
about how we're yeah, and I sort of like I
(41:28):
think that's like also like a good way to disarm it,
which maybe is why I've like avoided more of this.
But like I do try to, like off the bat,
just be like, oh, we don't know what we're doing,
like we're I don't know. I'm like because when I
meet moms around here, I'm like, I don't I the
way I talk to them, just like I don't know,
do you like take your kids places? What are you doing?
(41:50):
How do you do this? You give them a life?
But then sometimes what I'm talking about with these women
getting like unintentionally triggered into thinking I'm comparing is I
think they take my like casual will interest in a
topic as if like I'm very concerned for my kids
like involvement in those things, so they overvalidate you. Well, no,
then they're like, oh, I don't know, I never thought
(42:11):
about that. We haven't even thought about we I guess
we need like and it's just like I'm like, oh,
I'm sorry, I didn't really I didn't mean to make
this seem like something we all have to care about,
like just making a conversation, you know, there is, Yeah,
there is definitely a gender divide on this, and I
think men like the joke and the stereotype is that
the we're the ones being like, well, I don't know,
(42:32):
and so we have the luxury of sort of embracing
the trope that we're not supposed to know. And I
so think so we not not everybody, but I definitely
fall into this like that like, oh, well, me not
knowing and me being a little naive about things is
charming and I don't feel judged. And we're trying to
(42:54):
cultivate that more with women and just be more like, hey,
isn't it funny how we're all a mess, like not
like I don't know, I don't I don't always want
to go too hard into that because then like everything
with women swings like a pendulum, like wildly into like
some sort of judgment zone. But like, you don't want
to be like I don't know. You don't want to
(43:17):
make anyone feel like they have to be any kind
of way because it's been so drilled into our heads
to be like constantly trying to keep up with the
other women around us. Yeah, and I can feel it
because obviously, if you guys are listening to this podcast,
you know our big thing is there's no right way,
and you you do you, but there is that like
I don't want to be the person that's like it
(43:38):
doesn't matter. I don't care. Obviously do it matters a lot,
But that's how tightly do you hold on to what?
I think it's picking the battles of what actually does matter.
And the thing is, you know, I think we grew
up with sort of grounded parents and so we know,
at the end of the day, we ate a lot
of crappy food, we washed out of crappy TV, but
(44:01):
it was balanced out with other quality things. Yeah, and
it was it worked out, like so we know, like
those are not necessarily the battles we need to pick,
like if we I was talking to someone about this
because they felt bad because they missed their daughters like
dress up week at school, and I already talk about this,
but it was like their school was having something. It
(44:23):
was a preschool is having some sort of themed week
about like every day was a different theme and the
kid was supposed to dress up, which is just a
parenting nightmare, Like why give me five tasks? Like five
elaborate tasks. So I'm sure it was simple enough whatever,
it doesn't matter, but like this person obviously felt guilty
because they're like, I've sent my daughter to school like
wearing none of these things. I had no idea, like,
(44:46):
and I know that feeling, and like, I don't know.
I'm just like trying to learn not to beat myself
up for stuff like that, because like when when I
missed the Dos Caminos thing, I was like, it's you
start like revving yourself up, like, oh, I guess I'm
supposed to feel guilty about this or bad, and then
I was. Luckily that was one that didn't really strike
a nerve with me, but there's others. I was wondering
(45:08):
about that with you, because my fear when you told
me you couldn't come is that you were getting ready
to be defensive about me judging you for skipping it,
which did not happen. I didn't care and that didn't happen,
But that was my first thought, is that that I
feel like you probably put more pressure on yourself, know what.
(45:31):
The only thing that was stressing me out was the
idea that I would book a meeting with someone like
taking time out of their trip to New York, and
then you would get an audition and then try to
pressure me to go to the disk community. I'm also
very aware of that. Um. But it worked out great. Um.
(45:51):
But yeah, I think it's a great example of like,
that's we stressed enough. We didn't overstress about that because
like this is important. It was fine, But I think
there are certain like I'm struggling to come with examples
off the top of my head, but there's certain things
I would probably trigger either one of us for various
reasons that are not that important. Yeah. So I think
(46:17):
we're pretty lucky how much we don't run into that.
But part of that is how not social we are. Yeah,
and that we don't, I don't know, walk always amongst
a certain class of people. I mean. Also, most of
our close friends again are younger than us or artists
and have babies later. So we're the we're the leaders,
(46:39):
were the standard of parenting. So sorry everyone. Yeah, people
look to us as an example of um, fucking up
and feeling okay about it, owning owning these kids that
we unintentionally had. All right, I got one more quick
email right for this. This is a short one. This
is a quick to the point question. Hello, Beth and Peter,
(47:00):
love your podcast. I do have a question, though, have
your thought about raising your kids vegetarian slash vegan? I
am a vegetarian aspiring vegan, and I was wondering how
you feel about the whole ordeal. Also, how would you
feel if Brenn or Maven decided to go vegetarian vegan.
I've heard some people doing it as young as seven
(47:21):
or two, two or ten. Would you let them do
that and go the extra effort cooking of cooking meat
free meals? Audioska, I am kae cool name. Um, Yeah,
that's interesting. I I am sort of open to the
(47:44):
idea of being vegetarian, but like it. I don't. I
think I would cook for my kids and provide vegetarian
options if I had to. I mean, obviously, that's like
kind of coming from a place of privilege where I
feel like I could just buy a block of tofu
and like throw it at them. If I was on
a stricter income, I would think I would be more
frustrated by this quirk of my child. Um, but it's fine.
(48:12):
I do think, like I've heard stories from people who
are vegetarian for many, many years, is that like at
a certain point, I feel like you do kind of
need you need like a blood meal. I feel like
like some people, I think, especially women, like there their
health can get really bad. And I think sometimes I'm
not saying you need to eat meat like every meal
of the day or whatever, but I do think once
(48:33):
in a while, like sprinkling it in is better for
your health. There's a way to do it. There are
i know, very successful vegetarians, um, but it's it takes
a lot of figuring out. I guess I just meant
like for the average person like who is sort of
grabbing a meal here and there, like it just starts
to deplete some of the nutrients in your bodies. I'm
(48:54):
not saying it can't be done. Obviously, you can survive
on vegetarian diet and you can thrive, and you can thrive.
But I've actually been thinking about this more lately because
as you know, I've become more sensitive to foods and things,
and I'm like, I we both did well. I did
sort of like a half ast whole thirty for like
seven days, and then I kind of did it again
because I was trying to figure out some food allergies
(49:16):
and I realized, like, I don't want to eat that
strictly all the time, but I do think my body
starts to feel like ship pretty quickly if I'm not
putting real food in my body, like, um, you know,
fruits and vegetables and things that clearly grew from something. Um,
So I do I want to lean more into that.
(49:36):
I think I might try to lean more pasketarian though, UM. Yeah, Well,
my my view on it is I don't want to
put in the effort. I don't judge anyone for any
choices they make about food. Um, it's a very selfish
view of that. Like, I know there's great moral reasons
(49:57):
to do it. You know, there's good healthy reasons, but
I I'm not I'm not interested. But one of the
things I learned from doing the whole dirty thing is
like the idea that it's more of an effort is
a little bit of an illusion. Like it does take
technically more effort because it's a change from what you've
(50:18):
been doing. Transition is the transition is an effort. But
like the like batch cooking things and like like throwing
some olive oil on a vegetable and throwing the oven
is not like it's not even more work than ordering delivery,
you know what I mean, by the time you like
put all the foods into the seamless or whatever, like,
it's actually not more work. You're trying to accommodate your
(50:42):
of food specific issues. I learned more about practical cooking
and like getting a healthy dinner together from just thinking
about you, because when it's me, I'm like, I don't
I don't value my body the way I should, and
my blood pressure says so. But knowing that you had
(51:04):
to come home like I've I've been enjoying it, and
I realized it's not that hard. You just need to
like dig in for a little while to figure out
some some basic stuff so we know we could do it. Um,
I'm not going to If Brendan Maven were like, I
feel very strongly about this, I'm going to do it,
I would do it and I'd figure out how to
(51:25):
be a vegetarian cook. And that's the only time I
think that I could possibly become a vegetarian is because
I'd have to do it for other people and it
would be easier just to eat with their I mean,
part of what stresses me out about it is just like,
as you know, in the past, I have fainted many
times and I don't know why I laughed at that.
(51:45):
If I don't like, if I don't get enough protein,
it's like it becomes a problem, and I it's hard.
It's just really hard to get protein when you're like vegetarian,
like to get the right combination plus a food, allergies, etcetera.
It's just like a complicated thing when you're on the
go trying to get food in your body to not
(52:06):
like pass out in the streets. Yeah, that's my anxiety
around it. I just love chicken. You wanna go eat
some ice cream? Yeah? Alright, shows over, let's do it.
This has been another episode of We Knows Parenting. Oh gosh.
(52:28):
If you want to reach out and talk to us,
we Knows pod at gmail dot com is the email
that you can use. You can also go to we
Knows Parenting dot com to buy some merch to also
get the information about our live show happening in Brooklyn,
New York on Tuesday, April. Chuck Bryant of Stuff you
Should Know will be there. Abby Crutch field. Oh fiel Fia,
(52:51):
oh Fiara Eisenberg will be there, incredible special guests. Buy
your tickets now, come see us. So we'll hang out
afterwards and say hello and on a little field NYC
dot com. Guys, we don't get to hang out with
people crying out with us those tickets. Where can we
find us on the social media's Beth. You can find
us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter at we Knows pod or
(53:12):
the We Knows parenting page. Um, and you can check
us out on iTunes and rate, review and subscribe. That
would really help us out. Yeah, and we'll, as Brenn
would say, we'll see you next time, baby,
I, oh, hello, it must be we knows parenting. I'm
Peter McNerney. Oh here we are. How did we get
here that we knows parenting? I blocked out until this moment,
(00:22):
and here we are. Maybe we were drugged and kidnapped.
I don't know. All I know is that I'm a
happily married wife and mother of two children. Everything's perfect,
no problems. We've definitely been drugged. Who knows? Were recorded
the dark? We could be somewhere else. We could be.
(00:44):
Actually we're not, because I don't know. I've lost my mind.
How are you? I'm great? Cool? Okay, you just went
to the gym before recording? I did. I really needed to, because, um,
as you know, I have a constant stress rash that
forms on my eyelids as like a beacon of when
I'm not taking care of myself, and I could feel
(01:06):
it today creeping back up at work after like a
few days of calming it down, and I was like, Okay,
I have to go record a podcast with my husband.
I gotta go do something for me while he's putting
the kids to bed so that I can chill out
and go ahead of not be cranky on the pod.
(01:27):
You sound delightful. Yeah, so far, so good. Yeah, we're
gonna keep it that way. I'm feeling good. Sleepy, I've
got some whiskey in some coffee. Sleepy is just given
with this podcast, and that's what listeners have to accept
and understand, and that's what they're here for. That they're
here to hear the drowsed arguments at the end of
(01:49):
a long day, the drowsy musings of two very stressed adults. Well,
it was a pretty good week. I have a big
thing for me is So we're we've applied Bryn to
the dose community. Did we apply? We did? You filled
out the form? Yeah, I hope that's okay. No, it's good.
I just had no idea if we're going to make
(02:10):
the deadline. We did. We did. I did it while
I was there, Okay. I filled it out before I
went and then turned it in and right it was over. Okay.
So so you went and to do the school visit,
which I ended up not being able to go to.
You had a big meeting, and big Hollywood meeting. Hollywood's
like has best there. We got to meet when the
most important thing happening this week. That's when we made
(02:32):
it we need her ear um, that's what. Yeah. So
I had big wheelings and dealings going on left and right,
and so I said, hey, Peter, my house husband, work wife,
can you deal with our familial obligations? Well, work wife
is a different thing, isn't it work? Yeah, you're my
(02:53):
working wife. Yeah, you could say I'm your working woman.
I'm you're my regular working woman. I went there for
a really strange thing happened when I got there. This
is not parenting related at all. A little bit. I
parked and I don't like to stand around with strangers
because I'm afraid of everyone. If you come to our
live show in April, please come talk to me afterwards.
(03:16):
And if I'm nervous, it's because I'm afraid of you. Okay,
So you went to do a school visit at Dos Caminos,
the Spanish language do a language language. So I parked
outside and I was waiting for it dificulse of the
time before I went in, and a car pulls up
next to me, and I look over and this guy
looks at me and he gives me a face like huh.
(03:37):
In my mind I read it as, Oh, are you leaving?
Can I take your parking spot and so that's not
what was happening at all. No. No, Well I shook
my head and I was like no, and then he
looked at me again, like with bright eyes, and I
was like and then I pointed down like I'm staying here,
and then he gave me a nervous look and he
drove away. I was like, that was weird. And then
(03:57):
I went in and then he came in and he's like, Peter,
I produced us this commercial that you were in three
years ago. And I was like, oh cool, and his
kid is applying to the same program. But all week
I can't stop thinking about it, which was how do
you drive by somebody who's parked sitting in their car
(04:19):
and see them so quickly like that's that guy that
I haven't seen in three years. Well, the thing is
because you once had them in a commercial you're involved
in and they have an enormous recognizable head. Who's they?
Who's they? Who's this giant headed person? Who could I
(04:39):
possibly be describing anyway? Very nice guy? And uh, I
hope our kids go to school. So we sat in
it on a bunch of classes, and this program is
really I'm really sold on it. Um kids in every class.
So it's it's K through five, and in every class,
half of the kids are from Spanish speaking in homes
(05:01):
as a first language and the other half for English
as a first language. Uh. And so it the ideas
every other day is in Spanish and every other day
is in English, and on those days that there's enough
dominant speaking kids to sort of model the style that
other kids sort of learned from being surrounded by it.
So I sat in for like a few minutes on
a kindergarten class of first grade class up through fifth grade,
(05:23):
and they really you can really see these kindergarteners like
doing their morning phonics and the English speaking kids doing
Spanish or struggling and they have to think through it.
And then as you go up you can see by
fifth grade there's all these fifth graders doing this research
project and it was sort of in English and in Spanish,
and all of these kids were just speaking totally fluent Spanish,
(05:46):
just doing their regular work and it didn't matter what
language it was anymore. And I was like, this is
this is great? What do you mean? It didn't matter
what language they were doing the project and they can
research in English or they can research in Spanish. It
sort of was irrelevant at that point what the language was,
because you're not focusing on a language, your focused on
a research project or your focus on math. And it
(06:09):
was truly fluent at that point, at least from the
kids I saw, and it was cool. That's cool. So
we applied. We'll see if our kid gets in and
we'll see if we continue to live in this town.
Beth really has your sight set on l A and
I while I am more anxious about it, I'm trying
to point positivity at the idea and not be a crank.
(06:33):
How am I doing? That? Was the most optimistic I've
ever heard you towards it. So yeah, I feel pretty
good about that direction that we're heading. Good in this moment,
we're doing pretty well. What else had we had Grandpa?
Your mom and my dad came to visit and the
same day at two different points. How is that for you?
(06:54):
It was good? I like sort of like the bursts
of grandparents, like where someone comes in, visits for like
a few hours and then leaves because that's enough time
before everyone's just tired and then you just have to
like be in each other's space. Do you know what
I mean. Yeah, well it's you know, it's not really
a grandparents specific thing as it is I think any
(07:17):
other person. Yeah, I just come from a family where
people think that our family gatherings are like everyone needs
to be like sitting in the same space all the time,
staring at each other, you know what I mean. Yeah, Well,
what's interesting about your family is they really like to
be around each other. But it's not a big game family. No,
(07:40):
it's not a big game family. Well, they've gotten more
into games at certain points. It's true. You're not a
big game person, and I've come to accept that. I
like certain games, but I don't like to be gaming
NonStop when I'm on vacation mode. That's the difference. I
like having a task. I like, I'm like, at some
point i'm with these people, I'd love to maybe just
(08:01):
have a human conversation and you know, talk to them
here what they've been up to you and your human standards. Yeah,
I know, it's nuts. Um, should we talk about lying? Yeah? Well,
do you want to go put on the next segment? No,
let's talk about it now. Okay, let's talk about it now.
(08:23):
It's pressing. Okay, Well, what you have to know listeners
is both of our children are liars. They're big goddamn liars,
and they think that they're getting away with things. I
don't think they do. Actually, the brand's lying mode is
that he introduces incriminating information that he didn't need to
(08:44):
give us, such as pulling out a toy that he's
just stolen from daycare, or you know, running into the
room and saying, don't come in here. Yeah, don't come
in the kitchen right now, mommy, um um, there's nothing
you need to see in the fridge. But it's like
he knows he's alerting us, Like I think a part
of him is like, um, I'm just gonna do this
(09:07):
bad thing over here, Okay, Like he's not. You know what,
I relate to the way he lies because this is
how I live, And I think it is that as
soon as he realizes, oh no, this is a bad thing,
I don't want people to know, he's already having the
conversation in his head. He's already been confronted because he's
confronted himself. You're saying that you and him both lie
(09:29):
so impulsively that you're not even comprehending that it's a lie.
Until it's out of your mouth, and then you're sort
of just like backtracking like, yeah, this is fine, I'm
just gonna keep talking. Yeah, and then I started defending myself. Um,
and that as I'm defending myself, that's when you learn
the whole what had happened. Does it comfort you that
I can't possibly keep anything from you? Um? Yeah, I
(09:53):
don't really worry about you, like doing uh, something majorly
wrong because I think you're guilty. You're not, I don't.
I don't worry about you, like sneaking around and doing
something behind my back on an ongoing process, maybe for
like a day, like it's probably to see a movie. Yeah,
(10:14):
you you do do that, but then you inevitably want
to brag about the movie and then the truth comes out.
Yeah exactly, I can't even hide that. Yeah. But so
that's ouburn lies. And how Mayven lies is she started
doing this thing where she just playfully lies about things,
Like you'd be like, oh, that shirt is red, and
she's like, no, it's pink, and then she'll just stick
(10:36):
to the lie while smiling at you. Um. Oh yeah. Well,
both of our kids, even if they just get something wrong,
you try to correct them they're like, nope, the new
reality is the first thing I said without thinking about it.
But now she's starting to enjoy the lie of it
and like giggling and she don't doing this thing the
other day. Or she goes, I'm not looking at you.
(10:57):
I'm not looking at you. She's like looking right at me, obviously,
and she's sort of just like and she goes, what,
I'm not looking at you. She's like, she's like so
playful about it. She's like, what do you come on,
I'm not looking at you. She sounds like a thirteen
year old girl. Girl flirting, You're so stupid. I'm not
(11:19):
even looking. It's very flirting. She's just like, I'm not
looking at you. So Brin's big lie was he had
a couple of toys that he brought home. They were
clearly not here is They're clearly from daycare. Yeah, I'm
still not sure we got the whole story on that.
He's because he had like two he's still three things total,
but little you know, Kreddy toys in his pocket. So
(11:41):
I was like, these from daycare and he's like, um uh,
this kid who actually it's his mom's daycare, so he
lives there. He's like he said I could have it.
I was like, okay, so that's fine, I'll just ask
him tomorrow if that happened. And brinkles, Oh no, um,
don't ask him. And then I was like, oh, well
(12:02):
he said you could have it, right, because yeah, okay,
well I'll just ask him about it, make sure that
that's true. And he's like, no, just don't and I said,
Bryn got so frantic, and he's like scrambling, and then
there's it's like four minutes of this and then finally
he lightbulb goes off and it's he goes, um, you
can't ask him because it's a secret. And then he
(12:23):
was just like satisfied look on his face and he
calmed down. He's like, who dodged a bullet there? His
excuses are so bad, like he doesn't know how to
like draw the parallels and lines between like what he's
saying happened, because he's like no, no, no, don't ask um.
It's just this is what he's doing to me. He's like,
the toy isn't from daycare, and I was like, where's
(12:45):
it from. He's like, it's from pre K. I've found
it on the ground and it's changing wildly. I don't
know whose toy this is. And then I finally said, like,
well should I ask the um, the woman who runs daycare?
And he's like no, oh, and that's like you know what, Britain.
I'm like, I know you're lying. I know that that's
(13:06):
not true. And then at one point he finally just
then goes, Daddy, you're right, I was lying. And then
he like he smiles with himself, like I'm so proud
of me for coming clean. Yeah. He's like, we figured
it out, we got to the bottom of it, and
now we can move on. That's it, Daddy, I figured
it out. I was lying. I think all of his
(13:26):
takeaways from this are not very educational, but he like
one of the other things he's been doing since this
whole discussion about the various stolen toys is that he well,
he'll stop me mid conversation when I tell him something
like like I say we're out of the snack or something,
and he's like, are you telling me lies? He does
he does it's like plateful, you lie at me? Are
(13:50):
you telling lies? Right now? Oh? My gosh, are you
as excited at as I am that Britain has started
the Britain Show. Oh yeah, the brind Show. You can
check it out on my Instagram. Hopefully there'll be some
more episodes. I required episode two tonight. He just holds
the phone and turns out and goes, hey, everyone, welcome
to my video. We'll me and breakfast is my sister may.
(14:14):
He's really nailed the presentational manner what he did today.
He turned out and goes he goes welcome, he goes, hello, baby.
I was like, that's that's me. I've been saying that
on the podcast. How does he? I guess I say
that to him a lot of things. He's copying from
the story Parers podcast. No, no, I say it on
this podcast. I'm like, yeah, baby, maybe he said it
(14:36):
on the story Parers podcast. No I don't. Maybe in
real life. It's definitely been said in real life. Well,
he's stolen my incredible, incredibly famous catchphrase. Baby. This next
segment is called do you knows what they said? Um?
(14:58):
This is where we share some things that are kids. Yeah,
you know what? I thought it was time to catch
up on Brian's journaling. I gotta say, okay us a
little journal just the little thought that I had I
gotta say, predictably, it's been a little tough to keep
up on the journal. It's tough to keep a four
(15:19):
year old up on doing the journal every day, so
we did a lot of spurts. But there's some funny
ones in here I'd like to share with you. Beth,
are you ready? Okay, I'm ready, Janu, how do you
feel about sitting at the dinner table? Bryn sad because
I don't want dinner or snack or breakfast. Maven shakes
her said head slowly intense right for this? What have
(15:46):
you done lately that you're proud of brit with no
hesitation lights? Because I get dead in them? And I say,
do you know what proud means? And he says no.
He said a lot of weird things about blood lately.
About blood. Yeah, Like he's we'll talk about something like
smashing or someone dying, and he's like, in blood come
(16:09):
into Like he we watched some of uh, what's it
called Blue Planet and then there's a part where there's
like a decaying whale carcass where the sharks are chewing
at it. He's like, there's blood coming out there eating blood. Yeah,
He's like the ocean is turning into blood. Like he's
(16:29):
just like very into it, does not totally understand what's happening.
Like when he talked about the the I have an
Instagram video him being like, oh, I can try. I
go to the bottom and then I'm dead. And then
he goes, I hope I don't get a headache when
I'm dead. It would be bad to be sick when
you're dead. I'm like, I don't think he totally gets it, January,
(16:51):
what jobs look interesting to you? He's princess. I want
my name to be Lucas when I grow up. Maven
says a daddy. She wants her job to be a daddy.
I said, what jobs look interesting to you? And she
just said a daddy. I love that answer, A daddy?
(17:15):
All right, Janu, which book character would you like to meet?
Brit I just want to be myself in the book.
That's existential. Wow, he's really projecting some things onto the question, right.
I mean I looked at I was like, Oh, he
loves the story. Who's his favorite character in the story? Well, him,
(17:38):
because in his mind he's there because you're you're asking
him like two questions in a row about like what
he wanted to be, and he was like, why aren't
I enough right now? Dad? What you was forcing me
to do? The journal? Dad? Um? You know what this
this next question really supports the theory I've been pushing
(18:01):
brand into these questions because the question is what do
you hope for? And Brince says nothing, and I'm never
going to ask a question again. Yeah, at a certain
point he was just resistant to the idea of question.
I think I gave I go until he gets sick
of it. Then I stopped. And they always do describe
(18:22):
a time you felt bad for someone else. I don't
want to do that question. There was more of that,
all right, and then I think we took a break
and we came back a few days later. Alright, Ready,
I like it when my family blank together, and Bryn
just said, my family works a lot. He is very
(18:44):
fascinated by us going to work because our schedule is
somewhat unpredictable to him still, so he sees one of
us just be like, all right, I gotta go by
and he's like, it's a Saturday night, what's happening? What? Like? Yeah,
it is sort of the same each week, but it's
not super Monday through Wednesday is the most routine. He
(19:04):
has three days in row. It's always the same. He's
starting to wrap his head around it because you teach
Thursday nights and that's the one night that I definitely
picked him up from daycare, so he was He started
to be like, why do you pick us up on Thursdays?
Like he's and I keep explaining, keeping like, well daddy
works on Thursday nights, and then he keeps just re
asking the question. He's slowly wrapping his head around work. Um,
(19:31):
I said, do you know what I do for a
living and he goes, you're you're a writer? Yeah, because
I told him I explained that too, he should understand
what I do. He listens to the Story Prizes podcast. Well,
it's just sort of constant noise. Thanks for that glowing review. No,
(19:51):
I mean it's he's just hearing your voice NonStop, no
matter what. Actually, this week he got really into the podcast.
I wanted to hear a lot of episodes and then
he started going each story He's like, is that you?
And he understands that I'm playing different parts and that's new. Ah,
what rules at school don't make sense to you? Britain
(20:15):
says I don't like being safe. I feel like that
is a response to me trying I forget, like there's
something I was probably getting mad at him for where
I kept trying to explain that I'm trying to keep
him safe, and I was probably getting really pissed, and
I was just, oh, yeah, I understand that when you
think of rules. Yeah, I'm like, I'm just trying to
(20:37):
keep you alive. Buddy just wants you to be safe.
Every time he hears us go that's not safe, it's
something annoying to him. Yeah, he's like, I'm just trying
to climb on the stove, guys, chill out. I walked
in the kitchen and he he had his whole butt
in the washing machine. He goes, Daddy, look, and I'm like, no,
(20:59):
I really in those moments, I have to If I
go I'm angry, then he'll want to do it. So
instead I have to be like, oh boy, that's really funny.
But hey, you know what, here's a fun fact. I'm
letting you in on that's really dangerous. Why don't we
just get you out of that pool? Yeah? What did
(21:19):
you do this week to keep your body strong and healthy?
Bran I ate chips and chocolate. Funny, I have the
exact same answer. Too true. This just got too real, Oh,
it just got real. Ready for this one? This is
(21:40):
my favorite answer. When were you brave Britan yesterday? That's it.
If you had three wishes, what would they they would be?
If I had three wishes, they would be blank, blank
and blank. I just have two wishes about a scary
monster and a stinky dirt socks snake. I think those
(22:03):
are good wishes. He's like, I don't need three. I
got two in their perfect hear the ship out of
all of you. Mission accomplished in two. And here's a
little call back to our previous segment, when did you
feel like lying but told the truth? Brince said yesterday
about my friend gave daddy pig to me. This is
(22:26):
after he came clean about lying. So I couldn't believe
this question was here because we had just gone over it. Um, great,
all right, and we're wrapping it up and already talked.
Actually already I spoiled this one already. Describe what one
of your parents does for a job, and Britain goes
you work writing that's not true? Oh boy, So what
(22:51):
did we Oh? Here's one more ready, which one of
your senses seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, or tasting is your favorite?
Why Brin's answer cats, did you learn anything about your
son from this? My darling wife? Um? No, and this
(23:13):
has been he knows what they said, And now it's
time for did you knows? This is where we learn
about a thing, read about a thing, and then share
a thing that we learned about. I read about Beth.
So I wanted to talk about an article from Courts
(23:34):
which is q Z dot com and the title of
the article is the reason childbirth is over medicalized in
America has its roots in racial segregation. Um So, just
for contexts, I'm not anti medicine, but um there are
statistics to back up the fact that we do sort
(23:55):
of have an a higher level of medical interventions in
childbirth in this country than we do in other countries.
And this article talks specifically about how in the UK,
Scandinavian countries and France they have much higher rates of
midwives and um they go on later, I believed who
(24:19):
give some statistics about how that can make things safer
during during childbirth, specifically for people at low risk. Obviously,
there are people that really do need the medical attention.
But right right, and they're not denying that to them.
I don't think in those countries, it's just um they're yeah,
(24:40):
they're not like willy nilly making everyone have like a
midwife at home or whatever, but they're offering that as
an option for women who are not having at risk pregnancies.
So anyway, Um, they talk a bit about the history
of uh, losing the midwife tradition in our country, which
(25:02):
is very heavily rooted in the introduction of you know,
hospitals and medicine and trying to turn hospitals into a
profitable business. And the basically the medical community went on
they waged sort of like a campaign against midwives in
order to discredit them so that more women would come
(25:24):
to hospitals. And so they sort of did this like
stereotypical campaign, like uh depicting midwives you know, in racist ways,
because many of the midwives in this country had been
women of color, or they would characterize them as like witchy,
like you know, women who don't you know, understand modern science, etcetera.
(25:50):
They like, you know, really made them seem like dumb,
ignorant whatever. Um, so hold on here, there's Yeah, there
was just a jump in there. I found one really
interesting detail in there was that sort of in America
trying to like prove itself as a as an established
like medical uh community in comparison to Europe and all
(26:16):
then like they had a better reputation as medical doctors.
And so part of that realizing that the a huge
number of people coming into the hospital were pregnant women,
so just turning that into a profitable endeavor, which you
basically talked about. Yeah, I found the statistic I think
I was looking forward, which is it's just a European
(26:38):
countries that lean more heavily on midwives also have better
outcomes for babies and their mothers. Maternal mortality rates are
a fraction of America's. So, um, you know, obviously the
hospitals in our country do help a lot of women,
and there's a lot of situations where like we really
value having access to those interventions. But I do think
(27:00):
like they're treating as a medical issue. Yeah, from the
get go is does not those interventions do not necessarily
help a woman and her baby have a healthier outcome.
So there's this quote later in the article from this
woman or who is a midwife and she works with hospitals,
and she says she faces it says she faces challenges. However,
(27:23):
many of them financial ones. Since she doesn't turn any
patients away, she has often left with uncovered costs. Medicaid
pays for midwives, but since she doesn't deliver the baby,
she loses the bulk of the pregnancy care fee. Um so,
so this actually happened to us kind of. So what
happens is are with my first labor, we're trying to
(27:44):
do a home birth, and we hired these midwives who
gave us an incredible amount of their time and attention
and care and just like literally teaching us like what
was about to happen, because we live in a country
that doesn't teach us that. And they really coached us
on a lot of things about body stuff and prep
for the birth and after the birth, taking care of yourself.
(28:04):
Just like they were such a wealth of information. And
then what happened was my water broke and it suddenly
became a little more high risk. And your water broke
without going into without having contractions. So because labor contractions
send it started, there's a risk of infection if you
don't start having contractions at a certain point, and if
(28:24):
I had tried to do home birth, there's a possibility
that something could have gone wrong or they would have
at a certain point needed to send me the hospital,
which means my pro I had two backup plans. My
primary backup plan would be too just go to the hospital. Luckily,
we had a backup plan with hospital midwives who would
(28:45):
deliver in the hospital, and so they wouldn't like let
me in unless I went in within twenty four hours
of my water breaking, because they didn't want to deal
with like a high risk pregnant like birth situation. They
wanted that to go to an O B G I,
So they have there's a lot of checks and balances
here that I really appreciate in terms of what could
go wrong. But anyway, so what happened was that we
(29:06):
did end up going to the hospital because we were like, well,
we don't want to do it at home and then
take the risk that it's going on too long and
and end up in some random e er in like
a very scary emergency situation. So we're like, let's go
to the hospital. Let's just like suck it up. So
there's like a bummer but anyway, what happens then is
that the fee that midwives are normally able to take
(29:27):
from the way our current health care system works, they're
they're luckily is like one safeguard that helps women who
are thinking of hiring midwives is that you the insurance
companies do have to pay for a birth. And I
think this is in most states, like they have to
pay for that like at least the bare minimum cost
(29:48):
of a birth, which which is I think, like I
don't know, ten dollars or whatever, so so they there
in most states, midwives can find a way to get
that feed. It just takes like a lot more paper work.
But in this case, because they have been caring for
us for all these months for free, basically we then
(30:08):
go to the hospital and the hospital takes that fee
because they did the birth. So it the way the
current system is set up is like it really burns
midwives and like alternative healers and a lot of people
like acupuncturist people that like I think, really help people
a lot in terms of their health because so much
of what was great about my my pregnancy health care
(30:31):
with my midwives and my duelas is just the information
about like nutrition and ways I could be taking care
of myself and taking care of my body, and just
like things that no O B G y n has
ever taken more than like five seconds to answer a
question and to have people who really well in my experience,
(30:51):
it's just like I'm not trying to trash ob dance.
I think they're I'm sure a lot of them are great.
I'm just saying in in the New York City healthcare system,
especially like the way you get rushed in and out
of appointments. I literally had my O B G o
n canceled on me like four times during pregnancy. He
(31:12):
didn't show up to my appointment because he was like
delivering another baby or whatever. And that was a doctor
I only had for like three or four months until
I found my Midwise, that's like your experience specifically is
a great example of that. Just like and then at
least the way you painted picture, whenever you did see
(31:33):
this guy, you did you did not feel like it
was somebody asking you how you're doing. I finally had
one meeting with him, where again he was like rushing
in from a birth and he like looked around the office.
I was the least pregnant person, and he was like, well,
I have to admit her to our system so that
she remains a patient here, but I have to give
priority to these women who are much more pregnant than her,
(31:53):
who have more issues to deal with. And so he
kind of like shoot me in and out and he
was like, okay, I can only see quickly, and it
was just like he did like a very quick exam.
Was like, there's really nothing for you to know right now.
You just have to like keep being pregnant and chill out.
And he was like, do you have any questions? And
I was like, well, I don't know. Is there's something
I shouldn't eat? Like I was like, you know, like
(32:14):
tell me something about my body, what's happening right now?
And one keeping pregnant. So all he said, he goes,
he just goes, don't eat too much fish. And then
that was the end of the whole like that was
the whole thing. As the only advice in five visits
to my O. B. G u An's office, that was
(32:36):
the one bit of advice I had was given. Did
I did? I remember going to that office with you?
But I didn't go back with you, did I? I
don't think you ever went there. I don't know. I
went there once. I the other like under his care,
I was able to get referred to a hospital for
(32:57):
sonograms and stuff, but he wasn't really involved in any
of that. Like, so you I feel like you came
to those visits maybe. Yeah. When once we hooked up
with the midwives, then I was like involved and learned
along so much. Yeah. Well, I mean I think we've
talked about this before, but the other crazy thing about
the midwives is like they would talk us through like
our relationship as parents, Like there was like an emotional
(33:20):
component too, which is like just incredibly valuable, and like
no one is giving that to people when they're about
to have the most fragile human like enter their lives,
you know what I mean, Like the most fragile human,
when you're about to admit the most fragile human. No,
it's just like it's a terrifying experience for people in
our culture. Is just like you'll figure it out. Yeah,
(33:44):
And of course, like I'm sure so many of you
people listening right now of course have your own stories
and I'm sure you've done every version of it that's
been really great, really terrible, and I'm sure there's terrible
midwives and really wonderful O BG yants. Um right in,
tell us tell us your experience, because I feel like
it's not a thing you hear, Like there's so many
(34:06):
parenting things where I had heard none of this. Maybe
this is because I'm a man and another certain age,
like none of my friends had given babies, But this
feels like given baby. What did I say, I don't know.
None of my friends had given babies, have had them,
had had them at that point. Um, So it feels
(34:27):
like a sort of a hidden part of our society. Yeah. Well,
and again I don't want to demonize O B G
I ants who provide a lot of valuable health care
to women. But it's just like any other feminist issue.
It's not about any women having like all women having
to do the same thing or one thing being the
right choice. It's just about us having options and and
(34:49):
and that doesn't even just apply to women's issues. Is
just our healthcare system in this country doesn't give us
access to a lot of healthy resources that could actually
help us. Well, there's I mean, there's plenty of cittist
takes the backup the fact that this country over medicates
a lot of mothers by treating a pregnancy as a
medical condition. First, well, there's also just a full lack
(35:12):
of interest because they're like I was just reading some
statistic about endometriosis or something where like it's it's never
studied at all compared to things like rectile dysfunction, but
it's like a very painful chronic disease that women suffer from.
And apparently there was some evidence that that supported that
(35:36):
viagra would help ease like endometrios is cramping or something
like it would help ease the pain. And it was
put forth before a panel of like five men for
like approval for study or something by the FDA, and
they didn't. They didn't deem it of like public use
(35:56):
or something. They use some sort of like heavy term
to be like this doesn't him of interest to the public,
Like I can't relate to this at all. That's like
that just have to do with my penis all the time,
like just being like no, no, no, we need more
penis drugs. That's interesting, but no, next on the agenda,
(36:17):
more penis drugs. Oh, here here is my penis. Should
I keep doing this? Penis doctor character what's his m o.
He's just, he's just it doesn't understand what you're talking
about until it's about penises. Penis. The way you play him,
it feels like he doesn't even know what a penis is.
(36:37):
He just heard other people talking about. I know what
a penis is. That's why I talk about it so much,
because I definitely have one, and I definitely know how
it works. And I'm not I'm not I've I'm not
at all lying. Okay, well sir, we need to study
some women's bodies over here. What are you talking about?
What women's body? Who's that? Your dad got you this job,
(37:05):
didn't he? Oh? Penises, yes, yes, yes, pis. This next
segment is called Listeners Want to Knows. It's where we
should take some questions or comments from our listeners. Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah yeah. Listeners want to knows. Yeah yeah yeah
(37:26):
yeah yeah yeah yeah. Listeners want to knows? Should we
try things? So? I didn't realize we had that theme
song for this, but oh my god, well it was
worth it. It's a really good joke I just made. Okay,
that was way more than I thought you were going
to say, but it was worth it. Yeah, yeah, Okay,
this comes to us from Allison, who's written to us before. Hi,
(37:52):
Peter and Beth, you guys are always talking about how
lucky you feel that Britain's best friends parents are awesome?
Ever heard of the term sanct to mommy? Wikipedia says
it is a portman toe portmanteau. That's when we take
two words and putting together of two words sanctimonious and mommy.
(38:15):
The word is a colloquial colloquialism used to refer to
a person, usually a female, who has very opinionated views
on child rearing and presents them upfront without any sense
of humility. Anyway. I feel like I've come across many
of these types of parents since having my daughter, and
it makes me not want to venture out into the
world of other parents because I just don't really have
(38:36):
the time, slash energy to battle judgment where I live.
Many moms, women seem to make being a pinterest stay
at home mom their life goal, which I don't relate to,
but it's totally fine if it works for them. And
then moving back home to l A, where this is
a whole other level of judgment and shaming, I find
myself not really wanting to branch out and be social
with mom groups in the area. I usually get a
(38:58):
sense of weird competition, stages of development, and things like
which kid has the most organic, gluten free, fat free,
sugar free diet. Don't get me wrong, I like to
stay healthy for the most part, but I believe in
staying insane. But I feel like if I utter frozen
Dino buddies, which I think are delicious, by the way
I get those, judge looks like how dare I poison
(39:19):
my child? Part of me is like whatever, man, But
the other part of me doesn't want to fully take
that attitude for the sake of my daughter. And yes,
I'm fully aware how completely neurotic I sound. My question
is any of this stuff present where you guys live?
If so, how do you navigate through this? I know
you have your Facebook mom group, Beth, but do you
(39:39):
physically see any of these people and set up play
dates and stuff? Keep up the great work. Thanks to
million U kim them the compliments. Thank you, Allison. So
I haven't experienced this much in person around here, but
that I also have to contextualize that, which with the
fact that I never go out and meet ms or
(40:00):
take our kids anywhere. Oh yeah, we don't talk to
people we don't. We know like three people and we
say hi to them in the halls of our building
and go about our business. But the people we know
are nice. I'll say, I do experience this more online,
and usually it's more subtle, like I don't know, I actually,
(40:22):
I guess I have to say I don't experience this
that much in my day day life. The thing I
experienced much more than this is the total opposite, which
is like well intentioned women or like I guess, like
sort of anxious women who assume that you're doing that
or they're like scared of being judged, so they constantly
(40:46):
apologize for their kids. Like I've definitely found myself doing
this where you're just like but like sometimes I think women,
it's hard to like just talk honestly about your kids
without like unintentionally triggering that emotion in someone because like
so they're expecting you to judge them. Yeah, because like
(41:07):
I because I think, like, by I don't know, by
average standards, like I think we're not like I would
not think someone would expect us to be like high
and mighty about our kids in any way because like
we do feed them garbage, dinobites or whatever. She said,
like we and we have a podcast where we talk
about how we're yeah, and I sort of like I
(41:28):
think that's like also like a good way to disarm it,
which maybe is why I've like avoided more of this.
But like I do try to, like off the bat,
just be like, oh, we don't know what we're doing,
like we're I don't know. I'm like because when I
meet moms around here, I'm like, I don't I the
way I talk to them, just like I don't know,
do you like take your kids places? What are you doing?
(41:50):
How do you do this? You give them a life?
But then sometimes what I'm talking about with these women
getting like unintentionally triggered into thinking I'm comparing is I
think they take my like casual will interest in a
topic as if like I'm very concerned for my kids
like involvement in those things, so they overvalidate you. Well, no,
then they're like, oh, I don't know, I never thought
(42:11):
about that. We haven't even thought about we I guess
we need like and it's just like I'm like, oh,
I'm sorry, I didn't really I didn't mean to make
this seem like something we all have to care about,
like just making a conversation, you know, there is, Yeah,
there is definitely a gender divide on this, and I
think men like the joke and the stereotype is that
the we're the ones being like, well, I don't know,
(42:32):
and so we have the luxury of sort of embracing
the trope that we're not supposed to know. And I
so think so we not not everybody, but I definitely
fall into this like that like, oh, well, me not
knowing and me being a little naive about things is
charming and I don't feel judged. And we're trying to
(42:54):
cultivate that more with women and just be more like, hey,
isn't it funny how we're all a mess, like not
like I don't know, I don't I don't always want
to go too hard into that because then like everything
with women swings like a pendulum, like wildly into like
some sort of judgment zone. But like, you don't want
to be like I don't know. You don't want to
(43:17):
make anyone feel like they have to be any kind
of way because it's been so drilled into our heads
to be like constantly trying to keep up with the
other women around us. Yeah, and I can feel it
because obviously, if you guys are listening to this podcast,
you know our big thing is there's no right way,
and you you do you, but there is that like
I don't want to be the person that's like it
(43:38):
doesn't matter. I don't care. Obviously do it matters a lot,
But that's how tightly do you hold on to what?
I think it's picking the battles of what actually does matter.
And the thing is, you know, I think we grew
up with sort of grounded parents and so we know,
at the end of the day, we ate a lot
of crappy food, we washed out of crappy TV, but
(44:01):
it was balanced out with other quality things. Yeah, and
it was it worked out, like so we know, like
those are not necessarily the battles we need to pick,
like if we I was talking to someone about this
because they felt bad because they missed their daughters like
dress up week at school, and I already talk about this,
but it was like their school was having something. It
(44:23):
was a preschool is having some sort of themed week
about like every day was a different theme and the
kid was supposed to dress up, which is just a
parenting nightmare, Like why give me five tasks? Like five
elaborate tasks. So I'm sure it was simple enough whatever,
it doesn't matter, but like this person obviously felt guilty
because they're like, I've sent my daughter to school like
wearing none of these things. I had no idea, like,
(44:46):
and I know that feeling, and like, I don't know.
I'm just like trying to learn not to beat myself
up for stuff like that, because like when when I
missed the Dos Caminos thing, I was like, it's you
start like revving yourself up, like, oh, I guess I'm
supposed to feel guilty about this or bad, and then
I was. Luckily that was one that didn't really strike
a nerve with me, but there's others. I was wondering
(45:08):
about that with you, because my fear when you told
me you couldn't come is that you were getting ready
to be defensive about me judging you for skipping it,
which did not happen. I didn't care and that didn't happen,
But that was my first thought, is that that I
feel like you probably put more pressure on yourself, know what.
(45:31):
The only thing that was stressing me out was the
idea that I would book a meeting with someone like
taking time out of their trip to New York, and
then you would get an audition and then try to
pressure me to go to the disk community. I'm also
very aware of that. Um. But it worked out great. Um.
(45:51):
But yeah, I think it's a great example of like,
that's we stressed enough. We didn't overstress about that because
like this is important. It was fine, But I think
there are certain like I'm struggling to come with examples
off the top of my head, but there's certain things
I would probably trigger either one of us for various
reasons that are not that important. Yeah. So I think
(46:17):
we're pretty lucky how much we don't run into that.
But part of that is how not social we are. Yeah,
and that we don't, I don't know, walk always amongst
a certain class of people. I mean. Also, most of
our close friends again are younger than us or artists
and have babies later. So we're the we're the leaders,
(46:39):
were the standard of parenting. So sorry everyone. Yeah, people
look to us as an example of um, fucking up
and feeling okay about it, owning owning these kids that
we unintentionally had. All right, I got one more quick
email right for this. This is a short one. This
is a quick to the point question. Hello, Beth and Peter,
(47:00):
love your podcast. I do have a question, though, have
your thought about raising your kids vegetarian slash vegan? I
am a vegetarian aspiring vegan, and I was wondering how
you feel about the whole ordeal. Also, how would you
feel if Brenn or Maven decided to go vegetarian vegan.
I've heard some people doing it as young as seven
(47:21):
or two, two or ten. Would you let them do
that and go the extra effort cooking of cooking meat
free meals? Audioska, I am kae cool name. Um, Yeah,
that's interesting. I I am sort of open to the
(47:44):
idea of being vegetarian, but like it. I don't. I
think I would cook for my kids and provide vegetarian
options if I had to. I mean, obviously, that's like
kind of coming from a place of privilege where I
feel like I could just buy a block of tofu
and like throw it at them. If I was on
a stricter income, I would think I would be more
frustrated by this quirk of my child. Um, but it's fine.
(48:12):
I do think, like I've heard stories from people who
are vegetarian for many, many years, is that like at
a certain point, I feel like you do kind of
need you need like a blood meal. I feel like
like some people, I think, especially women, like there their
health can get really bad. And I think sometimes I'm
not saying you need to eat meat like every meal
of the day or whatever, but I do think once
(48:33):
in a while, like sprinkling it in is better for
your health. There's a way to do it. There are
i know, very successful vegetarians, um, but it's it takes
a lot of figuring out. I guess I just meant
like for the average person like who is sort of
grabbing a meal here and there, like it just starts
to deplete some of the nutrients in your bodies. I'm
(48:54):
not saying it can't be done. Obviously, you can survive
on vegetarian diet and you can thrive, and you can thrive.
But I've actually been thinking about this more lately because
as you know, I've become more sensitive to foods and things,
and I'm like, I we both did well. I did
sort of like a half ast whole thirty for like
seven days, and then I kind of did it again
because I was trying to figure out some food allergies
(49:16):
and I realized, like, I don't want to eat that
strictly all the time, but I do think my body
starts to feel like ship pretty quickly if I'm not
putting real food in my body, like, um, you know,
fruits and vegetables and things that clearly grew from something. Um,
So I do I want to lean more into that.
(49:36):
I think I might try to lean more pasketarian though, UM. Yeah, Well,
my my view on it is I don't want to
put in the effort. I don't judge anyone for any
choices they make about food. Um, it's a very selfish
view of that. Like, I know there's great moral reasons
(49:57):
to do it. You know, there's good healthy reasons, but
I I'm not I'm not interested. But one of the
things I learned from doing the whole dirty thing is
like the idea that it's more of an effort is
a little bit of an illusion. Like it does take
technically more effort because it's a change from what you've
(50:18):
been doing. Transition is the transition is an effort. But
like the like batch cooking things and like like throwing
some olive oil on a vegetable and throwing the oven
is not like it's not even more work than ordering delivery,
you know what I mean, by the time you like
put all the foods into the seamless or whatever, like,
it's actually not more work. You're trying to accommodate your
(50:42):
of food specific issues. I learned more about practical cooking
and like getting a healthy dinner together from just thinking
about you, because when it's me, I'm like, I don't
I don't value my body the way I should, and
my blood pressure says so. But knowing that you had
(51:04):
to come home like I've I've been enjoying it, and
I realized it's not that hard. You just need to
like dig in for a little while to figure out
some some basic stuff so we know we could do it. Um,
I'm not going to If Brendan Maven were like, I
feel very strongly about this, I'm going to do it,
I would do it and I'd figure out how to
(51:25):
be a vegetarian cook. And that's the only time I
think that I could possibly become a vegetarian is because
I'd have to do it for other people and it
would be easier just to eat with their I mean,
part of what stresses me out about it is just like,
as you know, in the past, I have fainted many
times and I don't know why I laughed at that.
(51:45):
If I don't like, if I don't get enough protein,
it's like it becomes a problem, and I it's hard.
It's just really hard to get protein when you're like vegetarian,
like to get the right combination plus a food, allergies, etcetera.
It's just like a complicated thing when you're on the
go trying to get food in your body to not
(52:06):
like pass out in the streets. Yeah, that's my anxiety
around it. I just love chicken. You wanna go eat
some ice cream? Yeah? Alright, shows over, let's do it.
This has been another episode of We Knows Parenting. Oh gosh.
(52:28):
If you want to reach out and talk to us,
we Knows pod at gmail dot com is the email
that you can use. You can also go to we
Knows Parenting dot com to buy some merch to also
get the information about our live show happening in Brooklyn,
New York on Tuesday, April. Chuck Bryant of Stuff you
Should Know will be there. Abby Crutch field. Oh fiel Fia,
(52:51):
oh Fiara Eisenberg will be there, incredible special guests. Buy
your tickets now, come see us. So we'll hang out
afterwards and say hello and on a little field NYC
dot com. Guys, we don't get to hang out with
people crying out with us those tickets. Where can we
find us on the social media's Beth. You can find
us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter at we Knows pod or
(53:12):
the We Knows parenting page. Um, and you can check
us out on iTunes and rate, review and subscribe. That
would really help us out. Yeah, and we'll, as Brenn
would say, we'll see you next time, baby,
We Knows Parenting News
Hosts And Creators
Beth Newell
Peter McNerney
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