November 12, 2024 • 50 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah open with a discussion of what they wishes parents could be less stressed about (or fixated on, as the case may be!). Then, Sarah interviews Gabrielle Blair, longtime (18 yrs!) blogger at Design Mom and coauthor of The Kids Are All Right, along with her husband. Gabrielle feels strongly that current parents worry too much about some of the wrong things, and offers her valuable perspective as a mom of 6.
In the Q&A, a listener writes in about kids' activities - is it true that one has to develop soccer talents as a toddler to play in high school? Do the hosts wish they had pushed their kids more in younger childhood?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in sort of early mid November
of twenty twenty four. Sarah is going to be interviewing
Gabrielle Blair, who many people know from Design Mom if
you've read that blog over a great many years. She
is also the author of a new book called The
Kids Are All Right about how should we should stress
less over how our kids are doing? Which is music
(01:04):
to my ears for sure. Sarah, what do you hope
that people would stress less about their children?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I mean, I think school is probably the biggest thing,
and I mean she does talk about a lot, and
I really really appreciated the idea that success doesn't have
to look like one specific thing, because I mean I
hear elementary school parents talking about well, this high school
for this college and this whatever, and it's just like,
oh my gosh, like yes, but also, can we like
(01:32):
not worry about it so much and just kind of
let whatever happens happens to some extent, And obviously that's
that's hard. It's hard to do, but I guess I
just wish there was already less talking about it and pressure.
But specifically, I wish people would stress less about projects
for their elementary school children because I have taken the
attitude that like it's for them to do, maybe with
(01:55):
a little bit of like prodding to actually do it,
but that like my involvement in designing said project or
helping carry out said projects should be none to very little. Yeah,
And yet what I see being turned in and talked
about and shown even on the big What's Up chats
does not at all look like that's everybody's point of
(02:20):
view or attitude, And then that just makes it hard
for the kids that are trying to do things independently.
So I just wish school would be even explicit to
be like projects are for the kids, They are not
a family activity to take up all of your Sunday.
They are for the kid to learn to put together
a timeline and figure out how to do stuff. And
(02:42):
if said kid is maybe in first grade and not
capable of doing that, maybe they don't need to be
doing a project.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Maybe there's an idea. Yeah I am, it's like you
already did fifth grade. Like this is not a judgment
of you, Like, yes, you can do a fifth grade project,
which you should because you were in fifth grade thirty
years ago. Like let's just take that out of the equation, right,
Like so yeah, I don't know. I mean, college is
obviously the college application process is something people stress a
(03:10):
lot about. And I've mentioned this on my blog that
we wanted to kind of lower the stress level of
that a little bit in our family. And one thing
we did is that Jasper was very diligent about getting
an application into one of our major state universities that
has rolling admission, and so he got that in in
(03:31):
mid September and thus got his acceptance approximately a week later.
And so he has that, like he has an admitted
student there, he can apply anywhere else he wants to.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Like that's his business.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
He's deciding what to do, but we have that, and
so it just like lowers the stress of senior year
a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It's not like, oh am I going to get into college.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I won't know until April, Like he knows now that
he has a good option. So I'm like, that was
intentional and I'm very glad he did that, But it
is good for everyone to have less stress around here. Yeah,
I like the phrase on a parenting list serve I
was on for a while. People will use the phrase
(04:11):
all the time, this too shall pass, which is so
true because whatever you are dealing with in the moment
maybe incredibly intense, Like I don't want to say that
it's not worth feeling stressed about, like that it's not
a really big thing at the time, because it probably is.
But something else is going to be a problem in
six to twelve months, and that thing won't be a problem.
And so I think having that mindset is helpful for
(04:37):
a lot of this, and that people are who they are,
Your kids are who they are, You are, not who
you are solely because of random choices your parents made
about what they put in your lunch, I mean, or
whether they did your fifth grade project for you.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I think the fact that both Laura and Gabrielle, who
have a lot of kids, both of them saying like
we should all listen, like, because I just think the
more kids you have, the more you are going to
embrace the fact that like you're doing the same thing
for each of them are roughly the same, Like their
environment is not that different, and they turn out so
(05:14):
wildly different that you have to recognize that some of
this is just not it's not up to us.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Not up to us No, well, which is good, Like
you don't get too much of the blame, but you
don't get too much of the credit either, so I
can kind of have to accept that as it is.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
All right.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Well, let's hear what Gabrielle Blair has to say about
the kids being all Right.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Well, I am so excited to be here today with
Gabrielle Blair, a total bro. She has been flogging at
the Design Mom's Face for eight three years now and
is the author of now three books. The latest Kids
are all Right is what we're going to talk about today,
and I'm just so excited to this conversation. Welcome Gabrielle.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I'm so glad to be here. I really appreciate the invitation.
Thank you awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So I really enjoyed your book, and I think that
our listeners will as well. And I had to laugh
because it kind of opens up with we did not
want to write a parent because with your hot I'm
interested in hearing more about that as well. Yeah, did
you not want to write a parenting book?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Well, I mean, I've been talking about parenting online for
eighteen years now, right, so it's not like a new
topic to me. But one thing I've learned in those
eighteen years, and something that I'm sure you know well,
is that parenting is a really fraught topic and it's
so personal and feels so high stakes because we're talking
about an actual human being that we're raising, right Like,
(06:39):
It's like no one wants to mess up their kids,
so it feels like so high stakes. And to try
and offer advice to someone when I don't really know
their situation, right, I don't know their child, I don't
know their spouse or partner or non partner status. I
don't know their job or financial situation. I just don't
know anything. So I'm of like offering up advice or
(07:03):
some kind of guidance. It just feels like there's so
much risk that I'm going to do as much harm
as good, or maybe more harm than good. So I
was really resistant to this project for a long time.
We've been asked for a parenting book. For over a decade.
People have been asking us to write a parenting book,
and I was just really, really resistant. And that was
just one of the reasons. But like, it's just such
(07:24):
a fraught thing that, you know, my last book, which
seems like those would be way more sensitive topics, but
I actually feel much more vulnerable about this book than
my last one. And partly also because it's very personal.
You're talking about your family, It's a very personal thing.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So what made you decide that it was time for
this book and remind listeners of your perspective? And I
forget the exact number of kids you have, but you
have been at this for a while, and my guess
is you felt like something was missing from the parenting
sphere that I feel like this book emphasizes so.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Right, So what was happening is so I'm a mother
of six. We have six kids. Our oldest is twenty seven,
our youngest is fourteen, and we have been parenting in
public for most of those years, right, And what I've
noticed and what we were writing this book in response to,
is really parental stress. Parents are so stressed out right now.
(08:21):
They're so anxious, and in fact, I've watched them become
more and more anxious, just as i've you know, over
these years that I've been online. I think as a culture,
we're making parenting harder and harder and harder, you know,
like more and more difficult with every passing year. And
I had more kids than most of my peers, and
(08:41):
I had them earlier the most of my peers. So
I've been someone that people could come to for guidance
just because I had like more years under my belt, right,
you know, more parenting years. And I feel like I
can say with confidence to parents right now that like
it's going to be okay, and I can tell them
why it's going to be okay, that I'm not just
like trying to give them platitudes that I'm really going
(09:02):
to say here, let me explain where the stress is
coming from. Let me try and show you how we
kind of bypassed a lot of that stress whenever we could,
and that you can too, and that so much of
this is just totally manufactured by our society and is
not real so much of what we're stressing about. So
if I could do one thing with this book, it
(09:22):
would be relieve the parental stress, you know, help parents
enjoy this situation more than just be stressed out about it.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Which is so interesting because I feel like so many
parenting books that I have read are the opposite. They're like,
here's how you can do this better to win at
this game, and you finish it and you're like, I'm inadequate,
and then your book is like, stop it, you guys,
just everybody chill. And I think that this is like
a great time for that. Have you been paying attention
(09:54):
to some of the literature about stressed parents these days?
And do you have kind of a response.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Yes, I don't know if you in particular referring to
the recent New York Times article about that there's like
an epidemic of parental stress at this point. Yeah, and yeah,
so I've been totally aware of those. Of course, I
did not understand those articles were going to come out
just weeks before our book came out, so like we
did not know that was going to be like the
topic on everyone's mind. But it is and I think
(10:20):
it was a real reassurance to me that like, oh,
this isn't just in my head. People need this message.
People need this message. And if you're a parent that
is stressed out and feel overwhelmed and the books are
making you feel more overwhelmed, I really think this book
will help you. I truly hope it will.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
So your thought is like, yes, this stress is real,
and it doesn't have to be this way.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
And it doesn't have to be this way, Like, obviously
we're going to have some amount of worry and stress.
That's just life. I understand that. I'm not trying to
eliminate I don't think it's possible to eliminate everything. But again,
so much of our stress as parents is manufactured, meaning
like it's sort of forced on us, Like, oh, you've
got to be really stressed out about school. You've got
(11:02):
to be really stressed out about extra any extra curricular activities.
You've got to be stressed out about you know what
about your college. You know, your kid is just born,
and you're like, well, where are they going to preschool?
Because that's gonna affect where they go to college. Like
you're just like, we're so stressed out about it and
we don't need to be. It turns out we don't
need to be and I can. And again, we want
to explain why. It's not like we're just saying we're relaxed,
(11:24):
it's going to be fine. We're really saying you can
relax and this is why, and this is why, and
this is how.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So we're going to take a quick break and then
we're going to get specific and you're going to give
us those answers, and we are going to start with
activities because I think that's a hot button item for
a lot of our listeners right now. All right, we'll
be right back. All right, we are back, And Gabrielle,
(11:57):
you have a whole chapter in here about kids sports,
and I will give you my confession and that I
am kind of in it, not in a super stressful way. Actually,
my kids play at the competitive level, but like on
the very low end of that where there's no real
future thoughts. It's more about now and what they're enjoying
right now. And it still takes up a lot of time.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
It still takes up a lot of time.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So what are your thoughts on the industrial complex of
kids sports and activities right now?
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Well, I mean, for me, this started literally over two
decades ago when we had our oldest child in tea ball.
It was our first kind of like experience doing sports.
And I was frustrated even then as I'm watching, like
the stress around this, Like one, it required a lot
of family time, and we already had two younger kids
at the time, and so this was not an easy
(12:50):
thing to even just like get out of the house
and there are practices and there's prevving the snacks and
there's a tournament that goes extra long or whatever it is.
And I remember feeling like really like, oh, the coach
is like mad, or the other parents are mad if
we're going to be late to something or we're going
to miss a practice like this was like very serious,
this tea ball for a lot of these families, And
(13:12):
I was so frustrated because I was like, these kids
are four and five, Like what is happening? What do
we think is happening here? Do we really think we're
training the next pro athletes? Statistically? We definitely are not,
Like we definitely are not the chance that anyone in
this group becomes pro And no one did you know,
like the chance to any of these kids even play
(13:33):
in high school is actually pretty low, right, So it
was really frustrated and that it was like a part
time job just to have your kid try teaball. So
we really, my husband and I had to really sit
down and I had to say, look, I played sport
like I was heavy into track and filled. My husband
was heavy into tennis, like we played sports, and I
played sports growing up, so did my husband. I value sports.
(13:55):
I don't mean to say that I don't, But what
are we doing here? Like what our goal? Why do
we have our kid in tea ball? What is happening?
And is this just it? Is this just like yep,
to be in sports. It's going to be twenty hours
a week from here on out for the rest of
your life. And if you have multiple kids, tough luck
for you. This is now a full time job. And
I couldn't, you know, like, I just couldn't handle that.
So we said, why would we want our kids to
(14:17):
do sports? What did we get out of it? What
do we want them to get out of it? Every
family will be different. Your family might be like, oh no,
we want to do sports eighty hours a week, like
this is what we do, This is our family, our
kids love it, our parents love it. Right, if you're
happy with your sports situation, I'm not asking you to
change it, But if you are overwhelmed, I'm giving you
permission to say there are other options. So we ended
(14:38):
up saying, Okay, we definitely want our kids to know sports.
They live in America. Sports are a big deal here.
You kind of need to know how basketball works, and
how baseball works, and how football works, and now soccer.
You know, like you need to know some of this
step right, and the Olympics come and it's a big
cultural event and you know, you just want it. Obviously,
we'd want you to be familiar with We want our
kids to be familiar with sports. Okay, Well that's friend,
(15:01):
and that's not the only goal. The other things, like
we want them to understand teamwork and good sportsmanship and
just general like find something they like to do with
their bodies that they could do their whole life that
they you know, they like the movement and the athleticism.
So if those are the goals, a twenty hour a
week sports team isn't actually required to meet those goals.
(15:24):
There's a lot of ways you could meet those goals.
They may be meeting them in pe classes. You may
get it from going to the park, meeting other family
friends at the park when the summer once a week
and you're like, oh, let's have a pickup t ball game,
you know, baseball game there, and the kids are learning
the rules there. There may be like a general sports
camp that they can do for a week where they
get introduced to a few different things. You could hire
(15:46):
the teenagers in your neighborhood that are like the friendly
kids to like, hey, can you teach my kids how
to play tennis this summer? You know. I mean, there's
a million ways to go about this without having taking
over your life. And of course, if your kid is
really interesting in the sport and really good at a sport,
and they show some real interest and passion there, then
of course you can follow that lead and maybe it
(16:07):
does become a bigger part of your family life. But
you don't have to assume that's what's going to happen,
and you don't have to really make sacrifices for this thing.
I see so many families make major sacrifices for a
sport for many, many years, and by the time the
kid is even in high school, they're so burned out
on the sport. They're not interested, they don't ever want
(16:28):
to play it again. This does not become a lifelong
passion for them. They're just like done with it. And
you're going, what was that about, Like the sport has
now kind of been ruined for this kid and your
family spends so much time on it that you missed
out finding out what your kid actually likes.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, because there is this like a cost there. It's
all the activities or the family togetherness and whatever that
you're not doing. And I think your statistics analysis in
the beginning where you're like on the t vault team,
the likelihood of anyone doing this professionally remembering that is important.
And then also like what you said about the few
kids that are going to end up making it through
(17:05):
and this becomes part of their lives are the ones
that are going to be the very intrinsically motivated ones
from the beginning. And then you probably wouldn't even like
be listening. You'd be like, well, this doesn't apply to
me because my kid's obsessed, and like doesn't the one
to like rein it in.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Totally totally, and I shouldn't just throw sports under the bus.
Because the reality is I've seen this happen with music
with families where they're like, oh my gosh, they did,
you know, took a second job so they could afford
to buy a piano and they're taking let you know,
and their kids are getting up at six a m.
To practice for an hour before the school and on
and on, and you have to go, are you assuming
(17:38):
your kid's going to be a professional violinist or pianist
or whatever it is. Again, statistically, that's not going to happen.
Just understand what you're doing here, Like, just understand what
your goals are, what your aims are, and really make
sure like are you doing this for you or for
your kids? You know, like, really understand what's happening before
you make those sacrifices, because you just end up feeling
(18:02):
bitter and burned out and stressed out and it's totally unnecessary.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
You had a cute goal around music in your book
that you talked about, which is like, actually, I need
to show that part to my husband because I think
he has the same vision. Do you remember what you
wrote in there?
Speaker 4 (18:17):
I assume we're talking about having family jam sessions. Okay, yeah,
I mean like when we like, we grew up in
both musical families, my husband and I, and we grew
up in a lot of music was connected to religion,
and it was like, oh, you needed to learn to
play the piano so you could like accompany the church
hymns or things like that. Was like a sort of
(18:39):
a cultural thing, although very of course, very few people
actually do that, but and that was sort of the
maybe the goal for our families growing up, you know,
for us doing lessons, we didn't have that goal for
our kids. We didn't think it was necessary for them
to learn how to like accompany church music. So we're like, well,
why are we doing this? And we had a few
different things in mind. The studies about that, like learning music,
(19:02):
learning the language, these kinds of things can open up
your brain and help to do better in other areas.
So we thought, oh, that's really great. But more than that,
we just enjoy music. It's a beautiful part of life.
And we wanted to be able to just do kind
of a call family jam sessions where everyone's together and
we can just pick up whatever instruments nearby. We try
(19:23):
to keep a variety of instruments around and enjoy music together,
playing and singing learning a song together. And so once
that was the goal. Once we understood what the goal was,
then suddenly if our kid was just butting heads with
us and like not really loving piano or whatever piano lessons,
(19:45):
not mining to practice, we could go, Okay, well, is
it another instrument you'd like to do? Do we need
a different teacher here, or maybe you've learned enough, like
if you can like read the piano music enough just
to like plink out the tune when we're learning a
new song. Okay, well that's an Yeah, we're not expecting
you to become a concert pianist. If you were going
to be that, you would have given us signs that
(20:07):
that's what was gonna happen, that's what you were interested
in doing. And it's interesting because the instrument our kids
have done tons of different instruments. They've tried still in
role in school projects, school orchestras, they've done bands, they've
done piano lessons, they've done some string instruments. We've really
tried a bunch of different things, because you know, you
have to try a lot of stuff to figure out
(20:28):
what you like music wise. But it's interesting that the
one they've landed on. They almost all well all of
them played guitar, and I don't think we actually did
lessons for that. Maybe for a couple of weeks for
one of our kids. They picked it up from YouTube,
learning chords from each other. My husband knew several courts,
you know, could teach them some and that's the one
(20:49):
that maybe gets used the most in our house of
all the instruments. So it's interesting, no matter how what
you're doing lesson wise, your kids may end up somewhere
else and that's totally fine. But also I feel like
we were pretty good at reaching that goal. Our family
job sessions are delightful. There are a lot a lot
of fun, and we could get there without having a
(21:10):
lot of stress around our music lessons.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
I love that that's kind of a goal for us.
We have family jams on Thanksgiving, my kids are working
on it, but that's kind of it. I want that
like tiny bit of like literacy, and that shouldn't take
a ton of stress to get to versus aiming for
some super high level, which could be a lot for
everyone involved. Right right, So let's take that kind of
like parallels on the activities would be the academic side
(21:35):
and your kids did some really interesting and unconventional things,
and I want to hear. I want to hear both
how you felt while they were happening, tell people a
little bit about some of those like interesting ups and downs,
and now also how you see it in retrospect, because
I'm curiously it's different.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
So I think when we talk about parental stress, the
major portion of it is around, like people are get
very stressed out about school, Like maybe they've got a
new job, they're moving into a new city, and the
very first thing they're doing is looking up school districts
and school ratings and figuring out where they should live.
Like this is just like a major part of stress
for parents, and that extends all the way through college applications,
(22:18):
from preschool and on, and we have certainly felt it.
We talk about in the book that there's a cultural
myth that we've titled the Reliable Paths of Success, and
it is a myth that has such a stronghold that
even when we sort of became aware of it and
try to break away, we would get pulled in. We'd
(22:39):
get pulled in, Like it's just it's got a gravity
to it that just grabs you and keeps you there.
And I totally understand because we aren't given a guide
book as parents. There is no instruction manual, and so
this myth is really appealing because the idea is that
if you just stick to this path and keep your
kid on this reliable path to success, if they get
(22:59):
in the right preschool and then eventually the right middle school,
and then they take the right ap classes and do
the right sports, that they will get into the top
college and then they will have a happy life. Like
this is this compelling, compelling myth because you want instructions,
You want someone to say, here's the full proof way.
Of course, it's not full proof. It never was, but
(23:20):
it even is less reliable than it if it was
reliable at some point. It's even less now, Like you
could get a perfect score on the SAT and be
the top of your class, be the valedictorian, and still
not get into Harvard. Like that's a common story. Like
it's there is no guarantee anymore on this reliable quote
unquote path to success. But what happened is, and I
(23:44):
think a lot of stress for parents is if your
kid veers from that path, it's extremely stressful. If they
come home with bad grades, You're like, they're off the path.
What do we do? How do we get them back
on the path? You know, like it feels terrifying if
they dropped out of a high school. You're like, whoa
red alarm bells? Right, It's just like, holy cow, that's
the worst thing possible. And our kids ended up stepping
(24:04):
off the path a few times. One of the times,
the first time that really they stepped off the path
and we realized, oh, okay, there's no going back, is
when we extended our time. We had moved to France
and we extended our time. We thought we're going to
be there eight for a year, and we'd specifically built
it around this path to success. We said we're going
to leave in the middle of the seventh grade for
(24:25):
our oldest and get back in the middle of the
eighth grade. So they're like going to be in both yearbooks.
They're not going to like miss anything, and they'll definitely
be back before high school starts, so they'll have like
a clean transcript us playing transcript for high school. But
then we extended, and we extended a few times, and
we had this talk like, oh, this means they're going
(24:46):
to have a messed up transcript, like we've now taken
them off the path in a way that they can't
get back to the path, like it's over. And we
weren't sure if that was the right you know, like
we were terrified. But if we looked at like what
was actually happening in front of us, us our family
was thriving in France, we had more family closest, more
time together, the kids are learning a new language, We're
(25:07):
you know, expounding our horizons, opening our minds. Of course
we should have stayed, you know, like it was it
was the right thing to do, but it was so
terrifying to kind of permanently take our kid off that path.
So that was the first time that was really scary.
Then we've had other times. We've had kids that skip
their senior year because they decided to go be a
(25:29):
a pair in another country, and we've had things like that.
The scariest was having a kid drop out of high school.
And I had mentioned that earlier. It is in fact
cause for alarm, your brain freaks out. I'm a college graduate.
My husband's not just a college graduate, but two masters
and a PhD from Columbia, Like, like he's you know,
education is vital for us. Our parents are educated, but
(25:51):
on both sets have graduate degree, like we just have
like education. They're teachers and professors. It's like education is
so important. And we had a kid drop out of
high school. You're like, what, And this is a kid
that had great grades. This is a kid that teachers love.
There was no had like fallen in with a bad
crowd or you know whatever stereotypical thing. He was just like, no,
I'm done, I'm done. I'm out of here. And we
(26:13):
were totally freaked out, totally freaked out because like, whoa,
what do you do when you're like.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I feel my heart rate going up just thinking about
It's terrifying.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
It was terrifying. And I don't mean that it wasn't
like there's real worry, right, But then we have to
like every time that happens, my husband and I have
to go, Okay, well, no one's died, it's okay. Like
being stressed out is not helping. What can we actually do?
What actions can we take? We ended up talking to
a trusted high school counselor some of the counsel's families
(26:46):
who are trying to get into schools like a college
application counselor a friend recommended this person. We said, okay, great,
we'll talk to them, and it was instantly a million
times better just by like looking at some other options.
I can tell you now, and we say in the book, like,
I don't want to stress anyone out. This kid had
a full right scholarship to one of the top universities
(27:07):
in the country and graduated with honors and is great.
The kid is great, Like like, it all worked out.
So I'm going to tell you the end first, so
you don't have to be listening and be stressed out
for this kid. But what we learned in that lesson is, oh,
that reliable path of success is one path. It's one
path of thousands of millions. It's one path. The chance
(27:30):
that it's going to be the right path for your
kid pretty small. It might though it is the right
path for some kids. And what we're doing as a
culture is we're trying to take every kid and fit
them on this path, and we're trying so hard to
do that, and instead what we discovered is, oh, there's
all these million paths and we just have to find
the one that fits our kid. And we did, and
(27:51):
anyone can and it really is going to be okay.
And in our kid's case, we learned about community college,
which is it seems like we should know, we didn't.
We had experience community college our parents had, and it
was just sort of a new thing to us. And
not only did we fall in love with community college,
like our kids experience, there was fantastic, great teachers, great classes,
(28:16):
and a diversity of age and experience in the classes
that you're not going to get at a standard university,
right because everyone at a standard university starts in they're
all eighteen or nineteen, and you know anyway, So loved
our experience there, but it was even better than that.
Many states, and I think most states have programs where
if you enter community college and take a specific course
(28:38):
of classes and pass those classes, you're guaranteed entrance into
a top university in the state. And California offers that,
and it's an incredible program. It's what our child did,
and not only did they have an amazing time in college,
it cost half of what college normally. Would we cut
(28:59):
our college class completely in half, Like, imagine that, take
fifty percent of your college costs and just make them disappear.
Because community college is incredibly affordable. I think our tuition
for the semester, I'm trying to remember. I think it
was like three hundred dollars, like insane.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
I used to work as a residency program director, so
you know, they'd graduated medle school school, they're going into residency,
and the number that started in community college was sizable.
And these are people that are already graduating med schools,
so like they're going to be doctors. They're going to
be fine, right, And actually that was pretty eye opening
to me, having maybe preconceived notions because of my trajectory,
(29:36):
right right, So yeah, I think that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
So it's totally true. And I mean the community college
path is really fascinating because so many like our kid,
went to Berkeley Community College, which was right next to
Berkeley University, the famous, well known, prestigious university. Many of
the classes they took were taught by professors of the
prestigious university that we're also teaching at the community college,
(30:03):
picking up an extra class here and there, whatever it is.
Professors aren't always paid very well. They have to pick
up extra work. That's its own commentary for another's talk.
But I'm just trying to say that it was a
quality education. It was not what we expected. We didn't
know anything about it, and boy were we educated. Boy
did we get an education about community college and we
(30:24):
loved it. So that's an option. But it's also this
illustration of American culture loving to give fresh starts, second chances,
clean slates. We really love that. So if you mess
up in high school and you feel like life is over,
it's just not true. There are so many fresh starts
(30:44):
and second chances that you'll get. And it's the same thing.
If you mess up in college, there's a graduate school.
And if college just isn't for you, there are trade schools,
there are internships, there are other kinds of training. We
love a fresh start, and so just keep that in mind.
If your kid is messing up or you feel like, oh,
they got off the path and I'm so stressed out,
(31:04):
there are a million paths. You're going to find them
when that fits your kid. And there are a million
successful people the medical students that you're talking about, there
are a million successful people that you know right now
that if you go ask their background, you're going to
find out they were not on that path. They did
not take the reliable path to success. They took a
different path. And you'll be shocked to find out how
(31:27):
many people that you're looking around saying, oh, they have
a successful life, they're a happy person, did not take
that path. And once you really understand that, a lot
of your parental stress can disappear, can just evaporate. Because
our kid graduated, like I said, top university, full scholarship.
He never took an sat or ACT, didn't take any
AP tests, never applied to a college besides the filling
(31:51):
out a form for community college, which is not like
college apps, like the stressful college apps, none of that.
Just bypassed all of that and still had a fantastic trajectory.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
And I assume it's not, well, we're going to take
a quick break in a second. But I know it
wasn't just your kid, Like I know, this is like
an option.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
And it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
That you mentioned America loving the second chances because I
feel like it's it's also America that's obsessed with the
one path. So it's an interesting dichotomy there.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Book.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
I think you're you're very very right. Okay, we're going
to be right back because we went over, but coming
right back in a second. All right, we are back.
And one other part of your book that I found
(32:41):
fascinating was the part about what we owe each other
as parents and kids. And I will admit I hadn't
given a lot of thought to it, but it made
me think both about my own parents and my kids.
And yeah, so do you want to I don't want
to like spoil it, but.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Let me dive in, let me die. Yeah. So I
hadn't thought a lot about this either. What kind of
triggered it for me is I had read this article
about a grown man who was suing his parents for
being born, and his parents for both lawyers. This is
going to make it sound like he hates his parents
or something. No, they knew what was happening. They have
(33:19):
a loving relationship. They were like proud of him for
trying this, basically saying. So he's suing his parents basically saying,
you forced me to be here, and I don't want
to be here. I don't like this life that I've
got for myself, Like this is not what I want.
And so he's suing his parents for forcing him to
be alive, forcing him to come to their family, or
however you want to describe that I was fascinated by
(33:41):
the idea. Partly it was I've had my own history
of mental health issues with depression, and I know what
it feels like to be like, yeah, I don't want
to be here like this is, this is I'm not
interested in this, which is part of the you know,
the lives of depression that feeds your brain. But anyway,
so I was very interested in that whole concept and
(34:04):
it really got me thinking about although I don't know
what happened with the lawsuit, and I don't really care,
it didn't really matter. I was really interested in this
idea that like, it's true, I forced my kids to
come here, like to come to earth or however you like,
or to be born, or however you like to phrase it.
They didn't have a choice in it. Our kids don't
get to choose their parents, their social status, their financial status,
(34:28):
the city they live in, and it might not be
the right fit for them, like the thing that you
brought them into, Like we brought our kids into a
family with lots of kids. Maybe one of them would
have thrived more as an only child. I don't know,
you know, Like we brought them into a family that
has moved quite a bit. Maybe they would have preferred
us stable growing up at the same house childhood like
(34:50):
I had and my husband had all sorts of things
like that, they don't get a choice in any of this,
and the idea that our kids somehow like owe us
birthday cards or Mother's Day flowers or anything, you know,
anything like that, you know, it became clear to me like, oh,
they definitely don't. And I already felt that. I remember
feeling like kind of uncomfortable that, like I didn't want
(35:12):
them to feel like they had to do that for me,
Like I didn't need that. I'm not. We talked about
love languages. I don't know how they really are, but like,
I don't gifts from my kids is not something that
I need. Is not one of my love languages. So
I guess I probably already felt that, but it just
made it so clear to me, like, look, you forced
your kids to be here. You owe your kids what
the best of you that you can give them, and right,
(35:32):
you know, like whatever you can offer them, you owe
that to them because you force them to be here.
And in the same way, in reverse, they don't really
owe you anything now they're here. They're a human, so
We're going to say, look, you got to be a
decent human. You owe that to humanity, right, you got
to Oh, you owe that. You're here, you're stuck. You
got to be a decent human. And I'm going to
(35:53):
say you owe that to all your fellow human beings.
But the idea that your kids like owe you something
is you know or that like, well, I was in
labor for twelve hours, so you need to be you know,
nicer to me. Like they didn't ask you to be
in labor for twelve hours. They had nothing to do
with it, Like they didn't ask you to make you know,
you might feel like I'm working two jobs to sacrifice
(36:14):
for my kids. Okay, that's good. I mean, I'm so
glad you're helping them. But they didn't ask you to
do that, Like, they didn't ask for any of this.
And so this idea that they would owe us something, oh,
that kids owe parents, I think is totally wrong, and
I think our society gets that wrong. We owe our
kids and we will owe them for the rest of
(36:35):
their lives, for the privilege of getting to raise them
and see them grow and get the front row seat
to their life. And it's worth it. It's worth owing them
to me. It's worth it. It's worth owing them for
the rest of my life that I got to have
this front row seat, because it is really freaking awesome
to get to see your kids grow and learn and
(36:56):
to get to see a human being come like I
don't to see their shape taking form, to see like
what they like, what they're interested in, the kind of
questions they come up with, how their brain works. It's amazing.
It's so amazing and interesting and what a privilege that
parents get to do this and be grateful to your
(37:17):
kids for giving you the chance, you know, Like that's
really the attitude to take.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
And my takeaway and then you went into as well,
was like I want to have a relationship with my
kid where they want like since I don't expect it
and they don't owe it. Instead it's like how can
we grow up together or like you know, I go
into old age and they go into adulthood so that
they're excited to hang out with me later on, Like
that's what I want to cultivate. I love a long
(37:45):
view of it. And then the fact that there's no
like given there.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
It's not a given and in fact, there's some discourse
happening right now that I'm seeing it is a chatter
on threads on Twitter about kids who are as strange
from their parents, and that's a thing that's happening where
kids go, I don't want a relationship with my parents anymore.
And we discussed this in the book. There is a
chapter called the long View of Parenting, and we discuss
(38:11):
how we had learned in a parenting class. It had
been pointed out to us we've never understood this before
that from eighteen on, your child determines the relationship unless
you have some kind of financial tie like you're paying
their their rent or their tuition or something, that the
child really determines the relationship. And by that I mean
they decide if you will see them, when you will
(38:32):
see them, how long you will see them. And we
know that's true. You can even think about it like
in your own life and think like, oh yeah, like
if you have a partner or a spouse who doesn't
like your family, you probably don't see your family as much.
You know, like you determine what that relationship is with
your parents, and anyway, your kids can decide they don't
(38:55):
like you and they don't want to be with you,
and they might decide that if you've made life really
streng ul for them and made them feel like they're
never enough and they are not living up to you,
this imagined person you had in your head or you
know whatever, like for lots of reasons, I might go,
I don't like being with you. This is stressful, and
they will cut off the relationship or not talk for
(39:17):
years to their parent. I don't want that. I don't
want that at all. I mean, we know, these first
eighteen years are intense, the intense parenting years, and the
books focus on those eighteen years, the parenting books and
the discussion, and it's you know, with reason, of course
it makes sense, but we should also be aware that
you're gonna have a relationship with your kids for another
(39:38):
forty or sixty or more years after those eighteen years.
Don't ruin it. Don't ruin those forty or sixty years
by being so stressed out in those eighteen years. Enjoy
your kids, Enjoy hanging out with them. Like, notice how
awesome your kids are. I guarantee they're awesome. It's like, again,
it's this whole human being that's an not you, that's
(40:01):
just interesting and they live with you and like, appreciate them,
understand you, learn about them, figure out what they like,
encourage their passions, help them be the best version of themselves,
and try and make a good relationship. Because again, you
want this to extend. It would just break my heart
if my kids just didn't want to hang out with
me anymore and didn't want to come home. Ever, how
(40:23):
heartbreaking would that be for a parent? And I think
it would be heartbreaking for most parents. So anyway, and
this stress, when we talk about parental stress, it's not
just about relieving parents stress. That's real, but it's also
about helping them improve their relationship with their kids because
the stress has real world consequences. It really can hurt
(40:44):
your relationship with your kids.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
I believe it. I love that. So many things to
think about, and I like the kind of long view
that we don't pay a lot of attention to do
because we're so obsessed with what preschool. You know, we
get distracted, right right, So we always end on this
podcas with a love of the week, which is something
that is making us happy. And I'm going to go
first to give you a minute to think of yours.
(41:07):
But also because it was inspired by what you were
just talking about. My love of the week is learning
from my kids' musical tastes. So I have a twelve,
ten and seven year old, it's really well she's almost seven,
but yeah, you get what I'm saying. It's more the
older too. But like I have them to thank for
knowing about Charlie Xcax and Brat and Sabrina Carpenter. I
(41:29):
legitimately enjoy all of it. So I appreciate them giving
me their perspective.
Speaker 4 (41:35):
Oh I love that. I love that. I feel this
same like, I'm so grateful to my kids for teaching
me about Chapel Roll and I'm like, I love me
with so much.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
It's totally.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
My happy thing. It made me so happy is we
vote from abroad, so we have we live in your calling.
I'm calling in from France and so our fifth child
turn eighteen this year. I got to vote for the
first time, and so we get to print out all
the stuff. It's a different process, but anyway, getting to
see her vote and another daughter is voting for anyway,
(42:06):
just seeing my kids who are living all over the
world right now and sending our votes in and just
feeling like we're still taking part in our democracy, and
it made me really happy to see those. We went
and bought stamps for the envelopes and we bought the
Olympic stamps that showed that like the torch in the
balloon from the Paris Olympics. Anyway, that's the stamp. It
(42:28):
was just like fun to like do.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
The whole thing like French twist your balance.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
Our special like our special stamp to send our vote in.
And it made me really happy.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Super cool. And I would say this is a great
reminder for everyone to vote, except this does air after
election days, so I hope everyone voted. Oh my gosh,
Well it's been a pleasure. Can you remind our listeners
where to find you, Gabrielle?
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Absolutely. You can find me at design mom on Instagram,
on threads. I'm really active on both of those. I'm
at design mom dot com and yeah, find me awesome.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
And the book is The Kids Are all Right, Kids
Are all Right, and it's fun. It's a quick read.
I recommend it if you're feeling stressed about parenting. Seriously,
this will talk you down. You'll feel bad.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
Well, thank you so much, love these questions, love our conversation.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Well that was great. We are back after that interview
with Gabrielle Blair.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
So, Sarah, this question was sort of, I think primarily
addressed to you because your kids do more competitive sports
than mine. But this person writes in I have an
elementary school student who loves soccer but doesn't have the
skills many of the other kids his age have. I
keep hearing stories of athletes who started a sport when
they were three. If I hope my kids will be
(43:44):
competitive enough to play sports through high school, how important
is it for them to be good at the sport
in elementary school or as a toddler, Sarah, is there
anything you wish you did earlier with your daughter in gymnastics?
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Oh? Man, I love that you want him to be
happy playing later on if he loves it now. But
I also feel like is probably time to maybe also
think about what your expectations are and whether there are
some things that you're hoping more for yourself. Like I
don't like I glean that I'm you have this picture
(44:19):
of like what high school could look like, but like
that might not even be what the kid wants when
they're in high school. Like it's just so hard to know,
So maybe just leaving things a little bit more open
because you also just don't know. Maybe he'll develop talent
later on, maybe he won't, maybe he'll hate sports, maybe
he'll be in choirir, maybe he'll know who knows. So
I guess I think the better attitude is, like, I
(44:40):
hope to be able to provide my kid with the
tools and training to play sports in high school if
they would like, and if opportunities come up for extra
training and they are truly interested in Sure you could
do extra when they're younger, but just be careful, because
I think you don't want to be creating this thing
where the kid feels like they have to please you
and they're doing it like to meet some agenda that
(45:02):
they feel like, is that the right thing to do?
You'd want to do what they want to be doing.
And sports aren't great. But Laura's kids are doing lots
of amazing things and being active and they aren't necessarily
in organized sports. So remember that, you know, if you're
thinking of sports as like a necessary part of a
kind of like healthy life or something like, kids can
(45:24):
do movement in so many other different ways. They could
be in dance, they could be just like going to
the my friends kids go to Orange Theory with her.
You know, they don't do sports, but like that's their
way of getting Like there's no one right way of
doing things, and I think that if you are trying
to push your kids into some athlete type of category,
it may or may not work. I mean, I consider
(45:44):
myself a pretty athletic adult. I did do competition share,
which I consider a sport while in middle school in
high school. But if you had tried to put me
in a ball sport, like it just never like I'm terrible,
I hate it, it would have been so sad. And
yet I think that as an adult, like I'm pretty
sporty and I don't think I missed out on anything
(46:04):
by not doing that. So I guess just be careful
what you're wishing for and pushing. And at the same time,
you are right that certain sports, and you mentioned soccer
that's definitely one of them, do have a higher barrier
to entry if you want to do them at specific
levels later on. There are still rec leagues where you
can do soccer at any age with no tryouts, so
(46:25):
at least in my area there is. I do live
in a very soccery area, but you know, a high
schooler could join the Community Optimist club team having never
played before, and they would get to experience it. If
you want your kid to be able to do club sports,
they probably need to have some experience. But you asked
about Annabelle, and I think that's actually relevant here. She personally,
(46:46):
she doesn't regret not doing gymnastics earlier. She regrets not
leading into dance because she was in ballet as a
younger kid and then flounced out quit, didn't want anything
to do with it, and then started like wat dance
mom and getting into dance. And she does do dance now,
but not at a super competitive level, partly because she
doesn't have as much of the background. Instead, she had
(47:07):
more of a gymnastics background and ended up on a
gymnastics team, not at a super high level, but still
at a competitive level. And she wishes that she had
stuck with dance. But do I regret anything. No, First
of all, like as children go, everybody has different levels
of whether you can convince them of things. I don't
want to get into specifics, but let's just say not
a very She is her own person, Like, she's not
(47:29):
going to do stuff that you are urging her just
because you feel like it, And it would have been
the saddest, most horrible battle if I had pushed it,
and maybe she wouldn't be in anything at all if
that was the case, Like I can't even imagine. So no,
I don't think I did anything wrong. I always offered
all the options. Do you want to trap for this?
Do you want to do that? But if the answer
was like a hard no, then I think my job
(47:51):
is to say, great, look into what else you can do?
That's a long year.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah, I agree with all that. I'd also add, yeah,
that you can do rec league soccer. It's varsity team
at your high school is not the only option. I mean,
maybe you have a JV team, maybe you have a
freshman team, right, Like, it depends how big a soccer
team there is at your high school. And then there's
rec leagues, there's club sports whatever that you could do
various different places. So if he still likes soccer, there's
(48:19):
a way he can play soccer. I would not worry
about that too much. There are also some high school
teams that take more kids. So we've had the for
you know, the experience this fall of my fourteen year
old joining the high school cross country team, which he had.
Maybe I shouldn't be saying this public had not really
run that much prior to joining the team, But at
(48:43):
this point, like two months into training in the season,
I mean, by virtue of being fourteen and doing it
every day, he's gotten a lot faster and developed a
lot of endurance, definitely way faster than I am at
this point. You know, is he going to be running varsity?
I don't know that he ever will, but he likes
(49:04):
it and he likes being on the team. So there's
still even if you don't necessarily have the training since
age three thing going on, there might still be ways
you can be involved in high school sports if you
choose the right sport.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
I guess I will just put it that way. Running's
good for everybody, so.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Yes, and becoming high up in any one sport often
does mean you're spending a lot of like you're sacrificing
something else, So I guess just don't forget about that either.
Like if any part of me is like, oh, I
hope Annabel like goes to the more competitive dynastics track,
I'm like, well, actually, in some ways I don't hope that,
because that might mean like less opportunity to do so
many other things. So I guess there's not like a
(49:45):
right answer here anyway.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's good to do athletic active things,
but there are a lot of ways you can do that.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
And I certainly didn't play any sports as a high schooler,
and I probably exercise way more than a lot of
people who did do sports as a high schooler. So yeah,
it's whether you come to something lifelong when you choose
it yourself, so I always keep that in mind too.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Well.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
This has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Sarah interviewed Gabrielle Blair about how the kids are all
right and we should stress less about our children in general.
We will be back next week with more on making
work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both Worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in sort of early mid November
of twenty twenty four. Sarah is going to be interviewing
Gabrielle Blair, who many people know from Design Mom if
you've read that blog over a great many years. She
is also the author of a new book called The
Kids Are All Right about how should we should stress
less over how our kids are doing? Which is music
(01:04):
to my ears for sure. Sarah, what do you hope
that people would stress less about their children?
Speaker 3 (01:11):
I mean, I think school is probably the biggest thing,
and I mean she does talk about a lot, and
I really really appreciated the idea that success doesn't have
to look like one specific thing, because I mean I
hear elementary school parents talking about well, this high school
for this college and this whatever, and it's just like,
oh my gosh, like yes, but also, can we like
(01:32):
not worry about it so much and just kind of
let whatever happens happens to some extent, And obviously that's
that's hard. It's hard to do, but I guess I
just wish there was already less talking about it and pressure.
But specifically, I wish people would stress less about projects
for their elementary school children because I have taken the
attitude that like it's for them to do, maybe with
(01:55):
a little bit of like prodding to actually do it,
but that like my involvement in designing said project or
helping carry out said projects should be none to very little. Yeah,
And yet what I see being turned in and talked
about and shown even on the big What's Up chats
does not at all look like that's everybody's point of
(02:20):
view or attitude, And then that just makes it hard
for the kids that are trying to do things independently.
So I just wish school would be even explicit to
be like projects are for the kids, They are not
a family activity to take up all of your Sunday.
They are for the kid to learn to put together
a timeline and figure out how to do stuff. And
(02:42):
if said kid is maybe in first grade and not
capable of doing that, maybe they don't need to be
doing a project.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Maybe there's an idea. Yeah I am, it's like you
already did fifth grade. Like this is not a judgment
of you, Like, yes, you can do a fifth grade project,
which you should because you were in fifth grade thirty
years ago. Like let's just take that out of the equation, right,
Like so yeah, I don't know. I mean, college is
obviously the college application process is something people stress a
(03:10):
lot about. And I've mentioned this on my blog that
we wanted to kind of lower the stress level of
that a little bit in our family. And one thing
we did is that Jasper was very diligent about getting
an application into one of our major state universities that
has rolling admission, and so he got that in in
(03:31):
mid September and thus got his acceptance approximately a week later.
And so he has that, like he has an admitted
student there, he can apply anywhere else he wants to.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Like that's his business.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
He's deciding what to do, but we have that, and
so it just like lowers the stress of senior year
a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It's not like, oh am I going to get into college.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I won't know until April, Like he knows now that
he has a good option. So I'm like, that was
intentional and I'm very glad he did that, But it
is good for everyone to have less stress around here. Yeah,
I like the phrase on a parenting list serve I
was on for a while. People will use the phrase
(04:11):
all the time, this too shall pass, which is so
true because whatever you are dealing with in the moment
maybe incredibly intense, Like I don't want to say that
it's not worth feeling stressed about, like that it's not
a really big thing at the time, because it probably is.
But something else is going to be a problem in
six to twelve months, and that thing won't be a problem.
And so I think having that mindset is helpful for
(04:37):
a lot of this, and that people are who they are,
Your kids are who they are, You are, not who
you are solely because of random choices your parents made
about what they put in your lunch, I mean, or
whether they did your fifth grade project for you.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I think the fact that both Laura and Gabrielle, who
have a lot of kids, both of them saying like
we should all listen, like, because I just think the
more kids you have, the more you are going to
embrace the fact that like you're doing the same thing
for each of them are roughly the same, Like their
environment is not that different, and they turn out so
(05:14):
wildly different that you have to recognize that some of
this is just not it's not up to us.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Not up to us No, well, which is good, Like
you don't get too much of the blame, but you
don't get too much of the credit either, so I
can kind of have to accept that as it is.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
All right.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Well, let's hear what Gabrielle Blair has to say about
the kids being all Right.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Well, I am so excited to be here today with
Gabrielle Blair, a total bro. She has been flogging at
the Design Mom's Face for eight three years now and
is the author of now three books. The latest Kids
are all Right is what we're going to talk about today,
and I'm just so excited to this conversation. Welcome Gabrielle.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
I'm so glad to be here. I really appreciate the invitation.
Thank you awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
So I really enjoyed your book, and I think that
our listeners will as well. And I had to laugh
because it kind of opens up with we did not
want to write a parent because with your hot I'm
interested in hearing more about that as well. Yeah, did
you not want to write a parenting book?
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Well, I mean, I've been talking about parenting online for
eighteen years now, right, so it's not like a new
topic to me. But one thing I've learned in those
eighteen years, and something that I'm sure you know well,
is that parenting is a really fraught topic and it's
so personal and feels so high stakes because we're talking
about an actual human being that we're raising, right Like,
(06:39):
It's like no one wants to mess up their kids,
so it feels like so high stakes. And to try
and offer advice to someone when I don't really know
their situation, right, I don't know their child, I don't
know their spouse or partner or non partner status. I
don't know their job or financial situation. I just don't
know anything. So I'm of like offering up advice or
(07:03):
some kind of guidance. It just feels like there's so
much risk that I'm going to do as much harm
as good, or maybe more harm than good. So I
was really resistant to this project for a long time.
We've been asked for a parenting book. For over a decade.
People have been asking us to write a parenting book,
and I was just really, really resistant. And that was
just one of the reasons. But like, it's just such
(07:24):
a fraught thing that, you know, my last book, which
seems like those would be way more sensitive topics, but
I actually feel much more vulnerable about this book than
my last one. And partly also because it's very personal.
You're talking about your family, It's a very personal thing.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
So what made you decide that it was time for
this book and remind listeners of your perspective? And I
forget the exact number of kids you have, but you
have been at this for a while, and my guess
is you felt like something was missing from the parenting
sphere that I feel like this book emphasizes so.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
Right, So what was happening is so I'm a mother
of six. We have six kids. Our oldest is twenty seven,
our youngest is fourteen, and we have been parenting in
public for most of those years, right, And what I've
noticed and what we were writing this book in response to,
is really parental stress. Parents are so stressed out right now.
(08:21):
They're so anxious, and in fact, I've watched them become
more and more anxious, just as i've you know, over
these years that I've been online. I think as a culture,
we're making parenting harder and harder and harder, you know,
like more and more difficult with every passing year. And
I had more kids than most of my peers, and
(08:41):
I had them earlier the most of my peers. So
I've been someone that people could come to for guidance
just because I had like more years under my belt, right,
you know, more parenting years. And I feel like I
can say with confidence to parents right now that like
it's going to be okay, and I can tell them
why it's going to be okay, that I'm not just
like trying to give them platitudes that I'm really going
(09:02):
to say here, let me explain where the stress is
coming from. Let me try and show you how we
kind of bypassed a lot of that stress whenever we could,
and that you can too, and that so much of
this is just totally manufactured by our society and is
not real so much of what we're stressing about. So
if I could do one thing with this book, it
(09:22):
would be relieve the parental stress, you know, help parents
enjoy this situation more than just be stressed out about it.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Which is so interesting because I feel like so many
parenting books that I have read are the opposite. They're like,
here's how you can do this better to win at
this game, and you finish it and you're like, I'm inadequate,
and then your book is like, stop it, you guys,
just everybody chill. And I think that this is like
a great time for that. Have you been paying attention
(09:54):
to some of the literature about stressed parents these days?
And do you have kind of a response.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Yes, I don't know if you in particular referring to
the recent New York Times article about that there's like
an epidemic of parental stress at this point. Yeah, and yeah,
so I've been totally aware of those. Of course, I
did not understand those articles were going to come out
just weeks before our book came out, so like we
did not know that was going to be like the
topic on everyone's mind. But it is and I think
(10:20):
it was a real reassurance to me that like, oh,
this isn't just in my head. People need this message.
People need this message. And if you're a parent that
is stressed out and feel overwhelmed and the books are
making you feel more overwhelmed, I really think this book
will help you. I truly hope it will.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
So your thought is like, yes, this stress is real,
and it doesn't have to be this way.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
And it doesn't have to be this way, Like, obviously
we're going to have some amount of worry and stress.
That's just life. I understand that. I'm not trying to
eliminate I don't think it's possible to eliminate everything. But again,
so much of our stress as parents is manufactured, meaning
like it's sort of forced on us, Like, oh, you've
got to be really stressed out about school. You've got
(11:02):
to be really stressed out about extra any extra curricular activities.
You've got to be stressed out about you know what
about your college. You know, your kid is just born,
and you're like, well, where are they going to preschool?
Because that's gonna affect where they go to college. Like
you're just like, we're so stressed out about it and
we don't need to be. It turns out we don't
need to be and I can. And again, we want
to explain why. It's not like we're just saying we're relaxed,
(11:24):
it's going to be fine. We're really saying you can
relax and this is why, and this is why, and
this is how.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
So we're going to take a quick break and then
we're going to get specific and you're going to give
us those answers, and we are going to start with
activities because I think that's a hot button item for
a lot of our listeners right now. All right, we'll
be right back. All right, we are back, And Gabrielle,
(11:57):
you have a whole chapter in here about kids sports,
and I will give you my confession and that I
am kind of in it, not in a super stressful way. Actually,
my kids play at the competitive level, but like on
the very low end of that where there's no real
future thoughts. It's more about now and what they're enjoying
right now. And it still takes up a lot of time.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
It still takes up a lot of time.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
So what are your thoughts on the industrial complex of
kids sports and activities right now?
Speaker 4 (12:26):
Well, I mean, for me, this started literally over two
decades ago when we had our oldest child in tea ball.
It was our first kind of like experience doing sports.
And I was frustrated even then as I'm watching, like
the stress around this, Like one, it required a lot
of family time, and we already had two younger kids
at the time, and so this was not an easy
(12:50):
thing to even just like get out of the house
and there are practices and there's prevving the snacks and
there's a tournament that goes extra long or whatever it is.
And I remember feeling like really like, oh, the coach
is like mad, or the other parents are mad if
we're going to be late to something or we're going
to miss a practice like this was like very serious,
this tea ball for a lot of these families, And
(13:12):
I was so frustrated because I was like, these kids
are four and five, Like what is happening? What do
we think is happening here? Do we really think we're
training the next pro athletes? Statistically? We definitely are not,
Like we definitely are not the chance that anyone in
this group becomes pro And no one did you know,
like the chance to any of these kids even play
(13:33):
in high school is actually pretty low, right, So it
was really frustrated and that it was like a part
time job just to have your kid try teaball. So
we really, my husband and I had to really sit
down and I had to say, look, I played sport
like I was heavy into track and filled. My husband
was heavy into tennis, like we played sports, and I
played sports growing up, so did my husband. I value sports.
(13:55):
I don't mean to say that I don't, But what
are we doing here? Like what our goal? Why do
we have our kid in tea ball? What is happening?
And is this just it? Is this just like yep,
to be in sports. It's going to be twenty hours
a week from here on out for the rest of
your life. And if you have multiple kids, tough luck
for you. This is now a full time job. And
I couldn't, you know, like, I just couldn't handle that.
So we said, why would we want our kids to
(14:17):
do sports? What did we get out of it? What
do we want them to get out of it? Every
family will be different. Your family might be like, oh no,
we want to do sports eighty hours a week, like
this is what we do, This is our family, our
kids love it, our parents love it. Right, if you're
happy with your sports situation, I'm not asking you to
change it, But if you are overwhelmed, I'm giving you
permission to say there are other options. So we ended
(14:38):
up saying, Okay, we definitely want our kids to know sports.
They live in America. Sports are a big deal here.
You kind of need to know how basketball works, and
how baseball works, and how football works, and now soccer.
You know, like you need to know some of this
step right, and the Olympics come and it's a big
cultural event and you know, you just want it. Obviously,
we'd want you to be familiar with We want our
kids to be familiar with sports. Okay, Well that's friend,
(15:01):
and that's not the only goal. The other things, like
we want them to understand teamwork and good sportsmanship and
just general like find something they like to do with
their bodies that they could do their whole life that
they you know, they like the movement and the athleticism.
So if those are the goals, a twenty hour a
week sports team isn't actually required to meet those goals.
(15:24):
There's a lot of ways you could meet those goals.
They may be meeting them in pe classes. You may
get it from going to the park, meeting other family
friends at the park when the summer once a week
and you're like, oh, let's have a pickup t ball game,
you know, baseball game there, and the kids are learning
the rules there. There may be like a general sports
camp that they can do for a week where they
get introduced to a few different things. You could hire
(15:46):
the teenagers in your neighborhood that are like the friendly
kids to like, hey, can you teach my kids how
to play tennis this summer? You know. I mean, there's
a million ways to go about this without having taking
over your life. And of course, if your kid is
really interesting in the sport and really good at a sport,
and they show some real interest and passion there, then
of course you can follow that lead and maybe it
(16:07):
does become a bigger part of your family life. But
you don't have to assume that's what's going to happen,
and you don't have to really make sacrifices for this thing.
I see so many families make major sacrifices for a
sport for many, many years, and by the time the
kid is even in high school, they're so burned out
on the sport. They're not interested, they don't ever want
(16:28):
to play it again. This does not become a lifelong
passion for them. They're just like done with it. And
you're going, what was that about, Like the sport has
now kind of been ruined for this kid and your
family spends so much time on it that you missed
out finding out what your kid actually likes.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yeah, because there is this like a cost there. It's
all the activities or the family togetherness and whatever that
you're not doing. And I think your statistics analysis in
the beginning where you're like on the t vault team,
the likelihood of anyone doing this professionally remembering that is important.
And then also like what you said about the few
kids that are going to end up making it through
(17:05):
and this becomes part of their lives are the ones
that are going to be the very intrinsically motivated ones
from the beginning. And then you probably wouldn't even like
be listening. You'd be like, well, this doesn't apply to
me because my kid's obsessed, and like doesn't the one
to like rein it in.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Totally totally, and I shouldn't just throw sports under the bus.
Because the reality is I've seen this happen with music
with families where they're like, oh my gosh, they did,
you know, took a second job so they could afford
to buy a piano and they're taking let you know,
and their kids are getting up at six a m.
To practice for an hour before the school and on
and on, and you have to go, are you assuming
(17:38):
your kid's going to be a professional violinist or pianist
or whatever it is. Again, statistically, that's not going to happen.
Just understand what you're doing here, Like, just understand what
your goals are, what your aims are, and really make
sure like are you doing this for you or for
your kids? You know, like, really understand what's happening before
you make those sacrifices, because you just end up feeling
(18:02):
bitter and burned out and stressed out and it's totally unnecessary.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
You had a cute goal around music in your book
that you talked about, which is like, actually, I need
to show that part to my husband because I think
he has the same vision. Do you remember what you
wrote in there?
Speaker 4 (18:17):
I assume we're talking about having family jam sessions. Okay, yeah,
I mean like when we like, we grew up in
both musical families, my husband and I, and we grew
up in a lot of music was connected to religion,
and it was like, oh, you needed to learn to
play the piano so you could like accompany the church
hymns or things like that. Was like a sort of
(18:39):
a cultural thing, although very of course, very few people
actually do that, but and that was sort of the
maybe the goal for our families growing up, you know,
for us doing lessons, we didn't have that goal for
our kids. We didn't think it was necessary for them
to learn how to like accompany church music. So we're like, well,
why are we doing this? And we had a few
different things in mind. The studies about that, like learning music,
(19:02):
learning the language, these kinds of things can open up
your brain and help to do better in other areas.
So we thought, oh, that's really great. But more than that,
we just enjoy music. It's a beautiful part of life.
And we wanted to be able to just do kind
of a call family jam sessions where everyone's together and
we can just pick up whatever instruments nearby. We try
(19:23):
to keep a variety of instruments around and enjoy music together,
playing and singing learning a song together. And so once
that was the goal. Once we understood what the goal was,
then suddenly if our kid was just butting heads with
us and like not really loving piano or whatever piano lessons,
(19:45):
not mining to practice, we could go, Okay, well, is
it another instrument you'd like to do? Do we need
a different teacher here, or maybe you've learned enough, like
if you can like read the piano music enough just
to like plink out the tune when we're learning a
new song. Okay, well that's an Yeah, we're not expecting
you to become a concert pianist. If you were going
to be that, you would have given us signs that
(20:07):
that's what was gonna happen, that's what you were interested
in doing. And it's interesting because the instrument our kids
have done tons of different instruments. They've tried still in
role in school projects, school orchestras, they've done bands, they've
done piano lessons, they've done some string instruments. We've really
tried a bunch of different things, because you know, you
have to try a lot of stuff to figure out
(20:28):
what you like music wise. But it's interesting that the
one they've landed on. They almost all well all of
them played guitar, and I don't think we actually did
lessons for that. Maybe for a couple of weeks for
one of our kids. They picked it up from YouTube,
learning chords from each other. My husband knew several courts,
you know, could teach them some and that's the one
(20:49):
that maybe gets used the most in our house of
all the instruments. So it's interesting, no matter how what
you're doing lesson wise, your kids may end up somewhere
else and that's totally fine. But also I feel like
we were pretty good at reaching that goal. Our family
job sessions are delightful. There are a lot a lot
of fun, and we could get there without having a
(21:10):
lot of stress around our music lessons.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
I love that that's kind of a goal for us.
We have family jams on Thanksgiving, my kids are working
on it, but that's kind of it. I want that
like tiny bit of like literacy, and that shouldn't take
a ton of stress to get to versus aiming for
some super high level, which could be a lot for
everyone involved. Right right, So let's take that kind of
like parallels on the activities would be the academic side
(21:35):
and your kids did some really interesting and unconventional things,
and I want to hear. I want to hear both
how you felt while they were happening, tell people a
little bit about some of those like interesting ups and downs,
and now also how you see it in retrospect, because
I'm curiously it's different.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
So I think when we talk about parental stress, the
major portion of it is around, like people are get
very stressed out about school, Like maybe they've got a
new job, they're moving into a new city, and the
very first thing they're doing is looking up school districts
and school ratings and figuring out where they should live.
Like this is just like a major part of stress
for parents, and that extends all the way through college applications,
(22:18):
from preschool and on, and we have certainly felt it.
We talk about in the book that there's a cultural
myth that we've titled the Reliable Paths of Success, and
it is a myth that has such a stronghold that
even when we sort of became aware of it and
try to break away, we would get pulled in. We'd
(22:39):
get pulled in, Like it's just it's got a gravity
to it that just grabs you and keeps you there.
And I totally understand because we aren't given a guide
book as parents. There is no instruction manual, and so
this myth is really appealing because the idea is that
if you just stick to this path and keep your
kid on this reliable path to success, if they get
(22:59):
in the right preschool and then eventually the right middle school,
and then they take the right ap classes and do
the right sports, that they will get into the top
college and then they will have a happy life. Like
this is this compelling, compelling myth because you want instructions,
You want someone to say, here's the full proof way.
Of course, it's not full proof. It never was, but
(23:20):
it even is less reliable than it if it was
reliable at some point. It's even less now, Like you
could get a perfect score on the SAT and be
the top of your class, be the valedictorian, and still
not get into Harvard. Like that's a common story. Like
it's there is no guarantee anymore on this reliable quote
unquote path to success. But what happened is, and I
(23:44):
think a lot of stress for parents is if your
kid veers from that path, it's extremely stressful. If they
come home with bad grades, You're like, they're off the path.
What do we do? How do we get them back
on the path? You know, like it feels terrifying if
they dropped out of a high school. You're like, whoa
red alarm bells? Right, It's just like, holy cow, that's
the worst thing possible. And our kids ended up stepping
(24:04):
off the path a few times. One of the times,
the first time that really they stepped off the path
and we realized, oh, okay, there's no going back, is
when we extended our time. We had moved to France
and we extended our time. We thought we're going to
be there eight for a year, and we'd specifically built
it around this path to success. We said we're going
to leave in the middle of the seventh grade for
(24:25):
our oldest and get back in the middle of the
eighth grade. So they're like going to be in both yearbooks.
They're not going to like miss anything, and they'll definitely
be back before high school starts, so they'll have like
a clean transcript us playing transcript for high school. But
then we extended, and we extended a few times, and
we had this talk like, oh, this means they're going
(24:46):
to have a messed up transcript, like we've now taken
them off the path in a way that they can't
get back to the path, like it's over. And we
weren't sure if that was the right you know, like
we were terrified. But if we looked at like what
was actually happening in front of us, us our family
was thriving in France, we had more family closest, more
time together, the kids are learning a new language, We're
(25:07):
you know, expounding our horizons, opening our minds. Of course
we should have stayed, you know, like it was it
was the right thing to do, but it was so
terrifying to kind of permanently take our kid off that path.
So that was the first time that was really scary.
Then we've had other times. We've had kids that skip
their senior year because they decided to go be a
(25:29):
a pair in another country, and we've had things like that.
The scariest was having a kid drop out of high school.
And I had mentioned that earlier. It is in fact
cause for alarm, your brain freaks out. I'm a college graduate.
My husband's not just a college graduate, but two masters
and a PhD from Columbia, Like, like he's you know,
education is vital for us. Our parents are educated, but
(25:51):
on both sets have graduate degree, like we just have
like education. They're teachers and professors. It's like education is
so important. And we had a kid drop out of
high school. You're like, what, And this is a kid
that had great grades. This is a kid that teachers love.
There was no had like fallen in with a bad
crowd or you know whatever stereotypical thing. He was just like, no,
I'm done, I'm done. I'm out of here. And we
(26:13):
were totally freaked out, totally freaked out because like, whoa,
what do you do when you're like.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I feel my heart rate going up just thinking about
It's terrifying.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
It was terrifying. And I don't mean that it wasn't
like there's real worry, right, But then we have to
like every time that happens, my husband and I have
to go, Okay, well, no one's died, it's okay. Like
being stressed out is not helping. What can we actually do?
What actions can we take? We ended up talking to
a trusted high school counselor some of the counsel's families
(26:46):
who are trying to get into schools like a college
application counselor a friend recommended this person. We said, okay, great,
we'll talk to them, and it was instantly a million
times better just by like looking at some other options.
I can tell you now, and we say in the book, like,
I don't want to stress anyone out. This kid had
a full right scholarship to one of the top universities
(27:07):
in the country and graduated with honors and is great.
The kid is great, Like like, it all worked out.
So I'm going to tell you the end first, so
you don't have to be listening and be stressed out
for this kid. But what we learned in that lesson is, oh,
that reliable path of success is one path. It's one
path of thousands of millions. It's one path. The chance
(27:30):
that it's going to be the right path for your
kid pretty small. It might though it is the right
path for some kids. And what we're doing as a
culture is we're trying to take every kid and fit
them on this path, and we're trying so hard to
do that, and instead what we discovered is, oh, there's
all these million paths and we just have to find
the one that fits our kid. And we did, and
(27:51):
anyone can and it really is going to be okay.
And in our kid's case, we learned about community college,
which is it seems like we should know, we didn't.
We had experience community college our parents had, and it
was just sort of a new thing to us. And
not only did we fall in love with community college,
like our kids experience, there was fantastic, great teachers, great classes,
(28:16):
and a diversity of age and experience in the classes
that you're not going to get at a standard university,
right because everyone at a standard university starts in they're
all eighteen or nineteen, and you know anyway, So loved
our experience there, but it was even better than that.
Many states, and I think most states have programs where
if you enter community college and take a specific course
(28:38):
of classes and pass those classes, you're guaranteed entrance into
a top university in the state. And California offers that,
and it's an incredible program. It's what our child did,
and not only did they have an amazing time in college,
it cost half of what college normally. Would we cut
(28:59):
our college class completely in half, Like, imagine that, take
fifty percent of your college costs and just make them disappear.
Because community college is incredibly affordable. I think our tuition
for the semester, I'm trying to remember. I think it
was like three hundred dollars, like insane.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
I used to work as a residency program director, so
you know, they'd graduated medle school school, they're going into residency,
and the number that started in community college was sizable.
And these are people that are already graduating med schools,
so like they're going to be doctors. They're going to
be fine, right, And actually that was pretty eye opening
to me, having maybe preconceived notions because of my trajectory,
(29:36):
right right, So yeah, I think that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
So it's totally true. And I mean the community college
path is really fascinating because so many like our kid,
went to Berkeley Community College, which was right next to
Berkeley University, the famous, well known, prestigious university. Many of
the classes they took were taught by professors of the
prestigious university that we're also teaching at the community college,
(30:03):
picking up an extra class here and there, whatever it is.
Professors aren't always paid very well. They have to pick
up extra work. That's its own commentary for another's talk.
But I'm just trying to say that it was a
quality education. It was not what we expected. We didn't
know anything about it, and boy were we educated. Boy
did we get an education about community college and we
(30:24):
loved it. So that's an option. But it's also this
illustration of American culture loving to give fresh starts, second chances,
clean slates. We really love that. So if you mess
up in high school and you feel like life is over,
it's just not true. There are so many fresh starts
(30:44):
and second chances that you'll get. And it's the same thing.
If you mess up in college, there's a graduate school.
And if college just isn't for you, there are trade schools,
there are internships, there are other kinds of training. We
love a fresh start, and so just keep that in mind.
If your kid is messing up or you feel like, oh,
they got off the path and I'm so stressed out,
(31:04):
there are a million paths. You're going to find them
when that fits your kid. And there are a million
successful people the medical students that you're talking about, there
are a million successful people that you know right now
that if you go ask their background, you're going to
find out they were not on that path. They did
not take the reliable path to success. They took a
different path. And you'll be shocked to find out how
(31:27):
many people that you're looking around saying, oh, they have
a successful life, they're a happy person, did not take
that path. And once you really understand that, a lot
of your parental stress can disappear, can just evaporate. Because
our kid graduated, like I said, top university, full scholarship.
He never took an sat or ACT, didn't take any
AP tests, never applied to a college besides the filling
(31:51):
out a form for community college, which is not like
college apps, like the stressful college apps, none of that.
Just bypassed all of that and still had a fantastic trajectory.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
And I assume it's not, well, we're going to take
a quick break in a second. But I know it
wasn't just your kid, Like I know, this is like
an option.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
And it's interesting.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
That you mentioned America loving the second chances because I
feel like it's it's also America that's obsessed with the
one path. So it's an interesting dichotomy there.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Book.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
I think you're you're very very right. Okay, we're going
to be right back because we went over, but coming
right back in a second. All right, we are back.
And one other part of your book that I found
(32:41):
fascinating was the part about what we owe each other
as parents and kids. And I will admit I hadn't
given a lot of thought to it, but it made
me think both about my own parents and my kids.
And yeah, so do you want to I don't want
to like spoil it, but.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Let me dive in, let me die. Yeah. So I
hadn't thought a lot about this either. What kind of
triggered it for me is I had read this article
about a grown man who was suing his parents for
being born, and his parents for both lawyers. This is
going to make it sound like he hates his parents
or something. No, they knew what was happening. They have
(33:19):
a loving relationship. They were like proud of him for
trying this, basically saying. So he's suing his parents basically saying,
you forced me to be here, and I don't want
to be here. I don't like this life that I've
got for myself, Like this is not what I want.
And so he's suing his parents for forcing him to
be alive, forcing him to come to their family, or
however you want to describe that I was fascinated by
(33:41):
the idea. Partly it was I've had my own history
of mental health issues with depression, and I know what
it feels like to be like, yeah, I don't want
to be here like this is, this is I'm not
interested in this, which is part of the you know,
the lives of depression that feeds your brain. But anyway,
so I was very interested in that whole concept and
(34:04):
it really got me thinking about although I don't know
what happened with the lawsuit, and I don't really care,
it didn't really matter. I was really interested in this
idea that like, it's true, I forced my kids to
come here, like to come to earth or however you like,
or to be born, or however you like to phrase it.
They didn't have a choice in it. Our kids don't
get to choose their parents, their social status, their financial status,
(34:28):
the city they live in, and it might not be
the right fit for them, like the thing that you
brought them into, Like we brought our kids into a
family with lots of kids. Maybe one of them would
have thrived more as an only child. I don't know,
you know, Like we brought them into a family that
has moved quite a bit. Maybe they would have preferred
us stable growing up at the same house childhood like
(34:50):
I had and my husband had all sorts of things
like that, they don't get a choice in any of this,
and the idea that our kids somehow like owe us
birthday cards or Mother's Day flowers or anything, you know,
anything like that, you know, it became clear to me like, oh,
they definitely don't. And I already felt that. I remember
feeling like kind of uncomfortable that, like I didn't want
(35:12):
them to feel like they had to do that for me,
Like I didn't need that. I'm not. We talked about
love languages. I don't know how they really are, but like,
I don't gifts from my kids is not something that
I need. Is not one of my love languages. So
I guess I probably already felt that, but it just
made it so clear to me, like, look, you forced
your kids to be here. You owe your kids what
the best of you that you can give them, and right,
(35:32):
you know, like whatever you can offer them, you owe
that to them because you force them to be here.
And in the same way, in reverse, they don't really
owe you anything now they're here. They're a human, so
We're going to say, look, you got to be a
decent human. You owe that to humanity, right, you got
to Oh, you owe that. You're here, you're stuck. You
got to be a decent human. And I'm going to
(35:53):
say you owe that to all your fellow human beings.
But the idea that your kids like owe you something
is you know or that like, well, I was in
labor for twelve hours, so you need to be you know,
nicer to me. Like they didn't ask you to be
in labor for twelve hours. They had nothing to do
with it, Like they didn't ask you to make you know,
you might feel like I'm working two jobs to sacrifice
(36:14):
for my kids. Okay, that's good. I mean, I'm so
glad you're helping them. But they didn't ask you to
do that, Like, they didn't ask for any of this.
And so this idea that they would owe us something, oh,
that kids owe parents, I think is totally wrong, and
I think our society gets that wrong. We owe our
kids and we will owe them for the rest of
(36:35):
their lives, for the privilege of getting to raise them
and see them grow and get the front row seat
to their life. And it's worth it. It's worth owing them
to me. It's worth it. It's worth owing them for
the rest of my life that I got to have
this front row seat, because it is really freaking awesome
to get to see your kids grow and learn and
(36:56):
to get to see a human being come like I
don't to see their shape taking form, to see like
what they like, what they're interested in, the kind of
questions they come up with, how their brain works. It's amazing.
It's so amazing and interesting and what a privilege that
parents get to do this and be grateful to your
(37:17):
kids for giving you the chance, you know, Like that's
really the attitude to take.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
And my takeaway and then you went into as well,
was like I want to have a relationship with my
kid where they want like since I don't expect it
and they don't owe it. Instead it's like how can
we grow up together or like you know, I go
into old age and they go into adulthood so that
they're excited to hang out with me later on, Like
that's what I want to cultivate. I love a long
(37:45):
view of it. And then the fact that there's no
like given there.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
It's not a given and in fact, there's some discourse
happening right now that I'm seeing it is a chatter
on threads on Twitter about kids who are as strange
from their parents, and that's a thing that's happening where
kids go, I don't want a relationship with my parents anymore.
And we discussed this in the book. There is a
chapter called the long View of Parenting, and we discuss
(38:11):
how we had learned in a parenting class. It had
been pointed out to us we've never understood this before
that from eighteen on, your child determines the relationship unless
you have some kind of financial tie like you're paying
their their rent or their tuition or something, that the
child really determines the relationship. And by that I mean
they decide if you will see them, when you will
(38:32):
see them, how long you will see them. And we
know that's true. You can even think about it like
in your own life and think like, oh yeah, like
if you have a partner or a spouse who doesn't
like your family, you probably don't see your family as much.
You know, like you determine what that relationship is with
your parents, and anyway, your kids can decide they don't
(38:55):
like you and they don't want to be with you,
and they might decide that if you've made life really
streng ul for them and made them feel like they're
never enough and they are not living up to you,
this imagined person you had in your head or you
know whatever, like for lots of reasons, I might go,
I don't like being with you. This is stressful, and
they will cut off the relationship or not talk for
(39:17):
years to their parent. I don't want that. I don't
want that at all. I mean, we know, these first
eighteen years are intense, the intense parenting years, and the
books focus on those eighteen years, the parenting books and
the discussion, and it's you know, with reason, of course
it makes sense, but we should also be aware that
you're gonna have a relationship with your kids for another
(39:38):
forty or sixty or more years after those eighteen years.
Don't ruin it. Don't ruin those forty or sixty years
by being so stressed out in those eighteen years. Enjoy
your kids, Enjoy hanging out with them. Like, notice how
awesome your kids are. I guarantee they're awesome. It's like, again,
it's this whole human being that's an not you, that's
(40:01):
just interesting and they live with you and like, appreciate them,
understand you, learn about them, figure out what they like,
encourage their passions, help them be the best version of themselves,
and try and make a good relationship. Because again, you
want this to extend. It would just break my heart
if my kids just didn't want to hang out with
me anymore and didn't want to come home. Ever, how
(40:23):
heartbreaking would that be for a parent? And I think
it would be heartbreaking for most parents. So anyway, and
this stress, when we talk about parental stress, it's not
just about relieving parents stress. That's real, but it's also
about helping them improve their relationship with their kids because
the stress has real world consequences. It really can hurt
(40:44):
your relationship with your kids.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
I believe it. I love that. So many things to
think about, and I like the kind of long view
that we don't pay a lot of attention to do
because we're so obsessed with what preschool. You know, we
get distracted, right right, So we always end on this
podcas with a love of the week, which is something
that is making us happy. And I'm going to go
first to give you a minute to think of yours.
(41:07):
But also because it was inspired by what you were
just talking about. My love of the week is learning
from my kids' musical tastes. So I have a twelve,
ten and seven year old, it's really well she's almost seven,
but yeah, you get what I'm saying. It's more the
older too. But like I have them to thank for
knowing about Charlie Xcax and Brat and Sabrina Carpenter. I
(41:29):
legitimately enjoy all of it. So I appreciate them giving
me their perspective.
Speaker 4 (41:35):
Oh I love that. I love that. I feel this
same like, I'm so grateful to my kids for teaching
me about Chapel Roll and I'm like, I love me
with so much.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
It's totally.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
My happy thing. It made me so happy is we
vote from abroad, so we have we live in your calling.
I'm calling in from France and so our fifth child
turn eighteen this year. I got to vote for the
first time, and so we get to print out all
the stuff. It's a different process, but anyway, getting to
see her vote and another daughter is voting for anyway,
(42:06):
just seeing my kids who are living all over the
world right now and sending our votes in and just
feeling like we're still taking part in our democracy, and
it made me really happy to see those. We went
and bought stamps for the envelopes and we bought the
Olympic stamps that showed that like the torch in the
balloon from the Paris Olympics. Anyway, that's the stamp. It
(42:28):
was just like fun to like do.
Speaker 3 (42:29):
The whole thing like French twist your balance.
Speaker 4 (42:33):
Our special like our special stamp to send our vote in.
And it made me really happy.
Speaker 3 (42:39):
Super cool. And I would say this is a great
reminder for everyone to vote, except this does air after
election days, so I hope everyone voted. Oh my gosh,
Well it's been a pleasure. Can you remind our listeners
where to find you, Gabrielle?
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Absolutely. You can find me at design mom on Instagram,
on threads. I'm really active on both of those. I'm
at design mom dot com and yeah, find me awesome.
Speaker 3 (43:01):
And the book is The Kids Are all Right, Kids
Are all Right, and it's fun. It's a quick read.
I recommend it if you're feeling stressed about parenting. Seriously,
this will talk you down. You'll feel bad.
Speaker 4 (43:14):
Well, thank you so much, love these questions, love our conversation.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Well that was great. We are back after that interview
with Gabrielle Blair.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
So, Sarah, this question was sort of, I think primarily
addressed to you because your kids do more competitive sports
than mine. But this person writes in I have an
elementary school student who loves soccer but doesn't have the
skills many of the other kids his age have. I
keep hearing stories of athletes who started a sport when
they were three. If I hope my kids will be
(43:44):
competitive enough to play sports through high school, how important
is it for them to be good at the sport
in elementary school or as a toddler, Sarah, is there
anything you wish you did earlier with your daughter in gymnastics?
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Oh? Man, I love that you want him to be
happy playing later on if he loves it now. But
I also feel like is probably time to maybe also
think about what your expectations are and whether there are
some things that you're hoping more for yourself. Like I
don't like I glean that I'm you have this picture
(44:19):
of like what high school could look like, but like
that might not even be what the kid wants when
they're in high school. Like it's just so hard to know,
So maybe just leaving things a little bit more open
because you also just don't know. Maybe he'll develop talent
later on, maybe he won't, maybe he'll hate sports, maybe
he'll be in choirir, maybe he'll know who knows. So
I guess I think the better attitude is, like, I
(44:40):
hope to be able to provide my kid with the
tools and training to play sports in high school if
they would like, and if opportunities come up for extra
training and they are truly interested in Sure you could
do extra when they're younger, but just be careful, because
I think you don't want to be creating this thing
where the kid feels like they have to please you
and they're doing it like to meet some agenda that
(45:02):
they feel like, is that the right thing to do?
You'd want to do what they want to be doing.
And sports aren't great. But Laura's kids are doing lots
of amazing things and being active and they aren't necessarily
in organized sports. So remember that, you know, if you're
thinking of sports as like a necessary part of a
kind of like healthy life or something like, kids can
(45:24):
do movement in so many other different ways. They could
be in dance, they could be just like going to
the my friends kids go to Orange Theory with her.
You know, they don't do sports, but like that's their
way of getting Like there's no one right way of
doing things, and I think that if you are trying
to push your kids into some athlete type of category,
it may or may not work. I mean, I consider
(45:44):
myself a pretty athletic adult. I did do competition share,
which I consider a sport while in middle school in
high school. But if you had tried to put me
in a ball sport, like it just never like I'm terrible,
I hate it, it would have been so sad. And
yet I think that as an adult, like I'm pretty
sporty and I don't think I missed out on anything
(46:04):
by not doing that. So I guess just be careful
what you're wishing for and pushing. And at the same time,
you are right that certain sports, and you mentioned soccer
that's definitely one of them, do have a higher barrier
to entry if you want to do them at specific
levels later on. There are still rec leagues where you
can do soccer at any age with no tryouts, so
(46:25):
at least in my area there is. I do live
in a very soccery area, but you know, a high
schooler could join the Community Optimist club team having never
played before, and they would get to experience it. If
you want your kid to be able to do club sports,
they probably need to have some experience. But you asked
about Annabelle, and I think that's actually relevant here. She personally,
(46:46):
she doesn't regret not doing gymnastics earlier. She regrets not
leading into dance because she was in ballet as a
younger kid and then flounced out quit, didn't want anything
to do with it, and then started like wat dance
mom and getting into dance. And she does do dance now,
but not at a super competitive level, partly because she
doesn't have as much of the background. Instead, she had
(47:07):
more of a gymnastics background and ended up on a
gymnastics team, not at a super high level, but still
at a competitive level. And she wishes that she had
stuck with dance. But do I regret anything. No, First
of all, like as children go, everybody has different levels
of whether you can convince them of things. I don't
want to get into specifics, but let's just say not
a very She is her own person, Like, she's not
(47:29):
going to do stuff that you are urging her just
because you feel like it, And it would have been
the saddest, most horrible battle if I had pushed it,
and maybe she wouldn't be in anything at all if
that was the case, Like I can't even imagine. So no,
I don't think I did anything wrong. I always offered
all the options. Do you want to trap for this?
Do you want to do that? But if the answer
was like a hard no, then I think my job
(47:51):
is to say, great, look into what else you can do?
That's a long year.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Yeah, I agree with all that. I'd also add, yeah,
that you can do rec league soccer. It's varsity team
at your high school is not the only option. I mean,
maybe you have a JV team, maybe you have a
freshman team, right, Like, it depends how big a soccer
team there is at your high school. And then there's
rec leagues, there's club sports whatever that you could do
various different places. So if he still likes soccer, there's
(48:19):
a way he can play soccer. I would not worry
about that too much. There are also some high school
teams that take more kids. So we've had the for
you know, the experience this fall of my fourteen year
old joining the high school cross country team, which he had.
Maybe I shouldn't be saying this public had not really
run that much prior to joining the team, But at
(48:43):
this point, like two months into training in the season,
I mean, by virtue of being fourteen and doing it
every day, he's gotten a lot faster and developed a
lot of endurance, definitely way faster than I am at
this point. You know, is he going to be running varsity?
I don't know that he ever will, but he likes
(49:04):
it and he likes being on the team. So there's
still even if you don't necessarily have the training since
age three thing going on, there might still be ways
you can be involved in high school sports if you
choose the right sport.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
I guess I will just put it that way. Running's
good for everybody, so.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Yes, and becoming high up in any one sport often
does mean you're spending a lot of like you're sacrificing
something else, So I guess just don't forget about that either.
Like if any part of me is like, oh, I
hope Annabel like goes to the more competitive dynastics track,
I'm like, well, actually, in some ways I don't hope that,
because that might mean like less opportunity to do so
many other things. So I guess there's not like a
(49:45):
right answer here anyway.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's good to do athletic active things,
but there are a lot of ways you can do that.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
And I certainly didn't play any sports as a high schooler,
and I probably exercise way more than a lot of
people who did do sports as a high schooler. So yeah,
it's whether you come to something lifelong when you choose
it yourself, so I always keep that in mind too.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
Well.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
This has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Sarah interviewed Gabrielle Blair about how the kids are all
right and we should stress less about our children in general.
We will be back next week with more on making
work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
and you.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
has been the best of both Worlds podcasts. Please join
us next time for more on making work and life
work together.
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