May 28, 2025 • 30 mins
Emily Oster returns to the podcast to answer pregnancy and early parenting questions from Ground Control Parenting listeners! Emily, an economist known for her data-driven approach to parenting, brings clear, compassionate, and evidence-based guidance to the most common (and confusing) early parenting concerns. She helps parents cut through the noise and make decisions with more confidence and less guilt.
Carol gets Emily’s take on many timely topics, including pregnancy anxiety, postpartum care, sleep training, discipline and screen time—with plenty of insight, thoughtful discussion, and lots of laughs along the way. This engaging, thoughtful conversation will help parents and caregivers feel more informed and empowered.
Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
Carol gets Emily’s take on many timely topics, including pregnancy anxiety, postpartum care, sleep training, discipline and screen time—with plenty of insight, thoughtful discussion, and lots of laughs along the way. This engaging, thoughtful conversation will help parents and caregivers feel more informed and empowered.
Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and
now a podcast creative for parents raising black and brown children.
I'm the creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In
this podcast series, I talk with some really interesting people
about the job and the joy of parenting. Here at
Ground Control Parenting, we strive to give parents and caretakers
the resources you need to make the best parenting decisions
(00:27):
possible for you and your family. The more information you
have and the more you understand how to use this information,
the more you're able to make confident decisions and of
less parenting stress. So I'm especially happy to welcome back
today's guest, an economist who shares this goal and offers
really helpful ways to achieve it. Emily Oster is an
unapologetically doubted driven economist who uses her expertise to analyze
(00:52):
and interpret data, empowering parents with evidence based guidelines to
make confident decisions for themselves and their families. Emily is
the JJ E. Goldman Sachs University Professor of Economics at
Brown University and a New York Times best selling author
whose books include Expecting Better, Cripsheet, The Family Firm.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
And her latest The Unexpected.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Emily is also the CEO of parent Data, a comprehensive
website that provides a data driven guide through trying to conceive, pregnancy, parenting,
and beyond. Emily received her undergraduate and doctoral degrees from
Harvard University. She and her husband, Jesse Shapiro, who is
also an economist of Great Renown, have two daughters.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Welcome back to Ground Control Parenting, Emily. Thank you for
having me back.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
In part one, we explored your data driven approach to parenting.
In part two, we're going to apply it to real
questions for moms and moms to be Thank you to
everyone who contributed, and I'm going to try to include
as many as possible in this conversation. So let's get started.
I want to start with questions about pregnancy. I want
to start at the beginning, which you covered in Expecting Better.
(01:59):
Your analysis of recis search on what pregnant women should
and should not do, turn some of the conventional pregnancy
wisdom on its head. For example, your findings about light
drinking and eating sushi and cheese are basically okay, But
what led you to debunk those myths? What led you
to challenge those common restrictions.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, so I think it really was a question of why,
of wanting to understand why and also.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Wanting to understand why.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
The advice often differed. So, you know, we take something
like sushi. There are plenty of doctors who will tell
you it's fine to have sushi. There are plenty of
countries where it is common to eat sushi during pregnancy,
and so there's a sort of feeling of like, well,
it can't be that this is so terrible, or at
least I'd like to understand are you know, are these
countries and doctors wrong, or are are these people wrong?
(02:48):
And for me, like really digging into like why are
you saying? This was the way into understanding why people
might differ and into you know, the choices that I
wanted to make. I mean in some sense that that's
the whole thing is just like I need to understand
what is the actual reason I'm avoiding this before I
can decide whether it is worth avoiding it. And the
(03:09):
other thing was there were so many things on these
lists to avoid you got to understand like is is
delhi ham the same as cigarettes?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Like are they equally? Like should I just pick one?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Or is it like you know, and I think that
one's sort of obvious, like we kind of have a sense.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Of cigarettes are probably worse.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
But when you get into all these other things, you
say like, well, you know, is it really like our
hot dogs?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And like is this all the same reason? Is it
different reasons? And so that that was just I just
I had I had to understand.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And let me guess that on your regular visits to
the doctor, you weren't getting Yeah, I mean, I don't
think there's time.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
There's probably some feelings of frustration in the first book
because I was very frustrated with my first doctor. But
I think even with people who are very interested in
engaging with their patients to sit down and explain, you know,
here's the detail behind all of these restrictions is just much.
And I actually think this is why for some ob
is they really like expecting better, because it's like you
(04:04):
get the patient who comes in who's like, well, I
see this list and I want to understand what it's like. Okay,
you got to read something like I don't have time
in this fifteen minute visit to go through like all
the studies.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
But here's a book. Here's a book.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So this question came up a lot interestingly or maybe
not so surprisingly among us soon to be first time moms.
What's your advice for women who are struggling to manage
the anxiety and uncertainty, especially surrounding high risk pregnancies.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
This is very hard because the thing is you can
say sort of what can you do so you have
a high risk pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You can make sure that you have good care.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
You can make sure that you have you know, if
you need to see a maternal fetal medicine specialist that
you have access to that, make sure that you trust
your ob There are some basic things which you probably
people are already doing. And then the question is, well,
what can I do for just the part where I'm
anxious and actually in the unexpected. We talk about this
a lot, because this is of course a very very
(04:59):
common if something has gone wrong in the sort of
first pregnancy, that you just are living with the anxiety
that that will happen again, and that anxiety is really hard.
And my co author on that book, Nate Fox, talks
about the idea of radical acceptance, of just sort of
being able to hold that you are anxious, being able
to hold the possibility that something wrong might happen, and
(05:21):
at the same time.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Just moving forward. Although that is true, and.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I think that sort of holding those two things, like
holding the hope that everything is great, but at the
same time just living with the like accepting.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I am very anxious.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I am very worried about this. I have another friend,
Erica Chitty, who's a doula, is just a wonderful person
who actually when she works with her clients, showed me
she has them to do an exercise where they write down,
like what's the worst thing that can happen, and then
they write down, like what's the best thing that can happen,
And just that putting those things out there is sometimes
(05:56):
very helpful for people in terms of processing those emotions.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
And a related question, I know that you've talked about
and you mentioned your friend Eric Tittius definitely talked a
lot about Black women face higher childbirthing risks. The question
that comes is how you can best advocate for yourself
in the deliver room while things are going on. I mean,
because you read about you know, you make a birthing
plan and then you know things happen in the.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Listening Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I will say First, I
very much appreciate and also hate this question because I
think the frame of this is like, what can you
do to prevent yourself from being injured into it's your job?
And I think it's sort of like, well, it's not
why it's not your job, Like your job is to
bake the baby, your job should not also be So
I think like, like, it's absolutely a good question to ask,
(06:45):
and also like, let's just name like that is a
Crommey premise right for a question. Absolutely, the basic answer
is having obviously you know, having providers that you trust,
but also ideally having someone else in the delivery room
who is going to be in a position to advocate.
So this is a situation in which I think having
a doula would be my number one recommendation. Finding a
(07:07):
doula who you trust to is going to be in
the delivery room with you. Is someone else to have
your eyes in ears, who knows how a birth works,
who can be aware of what's going on. Of course,
having a partner there is great too, but your partner's
probably never been at a birth either.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
So I think more you know, more support people, and
it honest conversation with your ob at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Great Now moving on to the next serious of questions
about the fourth trimester, which was new to me.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
This is a concept that's come up after by all
of mine. You didn't have sea no like, oh you know, no, I.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And the fourth trimester is three months after the baby's birth,
and a lot happens. I mean, your world gets rocked
in so many different ways. So what are the most
practical things that new parents can do to prepare for
this time, which is unsettling for even the most prepared.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
The number one thing I tell people to do is
to schedule meetings with your partner at regular intervals over
that first period, and schedule them before the baby's born.
So there should be a meeting on your calendar for
two weeks after the baby is born where you can
talk about how things are going. Because this period of
time is totally overwhelming. You are really exhausted. You are
(08:21):
going to be very angry with each other some of
the time. I mean maybe not everybody's relationships like that,
but most people find this part very stressful, and we
don't give ourselves opportunities to like say like, hey, this
is what's going good, this is what's not going good,
what are what can we change? And you won't ever
take those opportunities if you haven't scheduled them. So I
(08:42):
tell people like two weeks, six four weeks, six weeks,
like you know, eventually you can move them to a month,
but like having an opportunity to like check in about
how stuff is going over that period is really that
is my most important piece of advice. People are always
looking for advice that's like what's the swaddle I should get?
You should have a swat, but like you can always
get that from Amazon.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Like any stuff you can you can get in two days.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
The thing you want to have is sort of any
supports that you can have in place, and an opportunity
to like revisit how things are going.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So I love that that makes so much sense to
me for so many reasons.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
First that you do it before the baby. Yes, you
can't start scheduling them mac of the baby you're busy. No,
And assuming that both parents are working before the baby
or have worked for the baby, everybody's going to respect
a meeting schedule. It's not like you're having a glass
of wine to chat about stuff. You're putting it in
on the calendar. It's a meeting agenda and they have
an agenda, yes, and you have perhaps you write the agenda.
You have tech points like what do we stay last time?
(09:41):
So it takes you all out of the fog that
you would likely be in in the sleep deprived and
new person mode, and it just gets you back to
the Okay, let's sit down and talk about this.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
We're trying to run a small to medium sized enterprise
and we gotta have meetings.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
This is truly a startup.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Really start up to start up like things have happened.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Are we just launched or just launched? It's not clear.
You're not going to not have meetings after we're launch exactly.
That is so great. We'll be right back after these messages.
Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So you know you mentioned this in the last episode
about that so on your wish list of things to
study in more depth postpartum depression, and so many young
women now are really focused on this. Back again, in
the dark ages when I had children, certainly it existed,
it just was not as identified. It wasn't as as
it should have been, but it was not. But now
(10:35):
I think it's very good that it's talked about. But
it has a consequence of making people very worried about it.
I mean as a thing that is going to happen.
So are there any early signs that people can look
out for to see if they're experiencing it?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
So there is a thing which is sort of supposed
to be administered at your six week postpartum is it?
Which is called the Edinburgh Depression Scale, And it's just
like you can get a copy of it online, is
a copy in one of books, which is just a
sort of like a fifteen question thing that you score,
and that is the thing we use to screen people
for depression. I think every adult in the household should
(11:10):
be doing that every couple of weeks postpartum. I actually
think waiting for the six week visit when this sometimes
doesn't happen anyway, it's too late, and you're actually also
not doing dad who or the other mom or whoever, like,
if there's another partner in the household, they should actually
also be doing this, because depression among non birthing parents
does happen, even though it's not as common. So I
(11:31):
think just having again a sort of structured way to say, Okay,
we're going to evaluate how we're going to like give
ourselves a chance to evaluate this.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I think that's the most important. That's the most important thing.
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
The kinds of signs of depression that you might imagine
are the sort of not feeling happiness about the baby,
having trouble getting up, you know. But again like having
an actual set of questions as opposed to just how
am I feeling, which is a very difficult thing to
access in any given given moment.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I think there's a there's.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
A sort of glass half full part of this, which
is like if people do have symptoms of depression, there
is a lot we can do. And so just reminding
people like, you're not doing this for nothing. This is
not like go screen yourself for depression so you can
just know you're depressed and then continue to be depressed. Actually,
the tremendous number like range of options which are by
(12:22):
the way, consistent with breastfeeding if that's something you want
to continue to do. So there's just like a lot
of there are a lot of options here if people
are experiencing depression.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, no, that's good to know.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's good to know that you should start to test
earlier because so much of what constitutes postpotum depression. You said,
you're feeling like you're not bonding, you're really angry. You
could just be that way because you have had no
sleep for sores on end and you have exhaustion. Is
a form of forture, right.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
It is true that postpartum depression people are at higher
risk if their baby doesn't sleep well or if they
don't have support so being tired. In fact, one of
the treatments people will sometimes say further or mild postpartum
depression is figure out a way to you know, how
can you put in scaffoldings so you're getting more sleepy.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So sleep is a really really important but it sort
of blurs the lines.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Between how much of this is just typical like I'm
tired because I have a newborn, and how much of
it is really like there's something that is.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
More clinical going on.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So that's why the test is a good idea, So
that parents who are worried about this beforehand would worry
even more having these feelings. At least there's some way
you can go to sort of see how these feelings
actually rate.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So, yeah, that's good to know. So moving on to
infant care, So a.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Big issue among young mothers everywhere is this two part
issue about sleeping, co sleeping and sleep training. Oh yes,
and it's so you know, having been so far away
from babies for so long reading about this, at first
I had to struggle to remember what I did.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
But I do really in terms of co sleeping, it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Is so easy if it's'cially a breastfeeding to have the
baby there, and but but I remember vividly having nightmares
of rolling over and squishing away.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I mean truly, I didn't really sleep well when the
baby is sleeping next to me.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So it's a hotly debated topic co sleeping.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
You break down the risks and the benefits. Yeah, I mean,
so I think think about co sleeping.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
There are two like camps on the internet about co sleeping.
There's the people who are like CoA sleeping is the
most natural thing in the world. People have been coasleeping
since they were in caves, and like if you're not
go sleeping, you're not bonding, and everybody have to go sleep.
And then they're the sort of like if you go sleep.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
With your baby, it will die.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
And so those are like both very extreme and neither's
really right. So it is true that there are some
risks to co sleeping. So if you look at kind
of if you there are risks to suffocation, they're even
when done as safely as possible.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
There are some small increased risks to sleeping with the baby.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
In your bed, but they are very small, and particularly
they're very small if you co sleep in like the
safest way possible, which means you know mom and dad
are not drinking and smoking, that you are doing the
baby is sort of sleeping on their back, that you
not surrounded by blankets and pillows. So there are ways
that people can do this more safely, and when doing
(15:06):
this as safely as possible, there are some small risks,
but they're very small. And I think that's the messaging
I would like parents to hear is they think part
of what has happened in the way that we're messaging
this is that people get the impression that like this
is they get this sort of like this is incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
And we don't recommend it, but then a lot of.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
People do it anyway because it's really hard not to
actually And in particular the sleep recommendations we give people,
which is you should keep the baby in.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Your room but not in your bed are incredibly hard.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
So actually having the baby in another room is not
as difficult as having them in your room when you
can hear them and then they can.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Smell you and et cetera.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Like people end up with the baby in their bed,
but we haven't told them how to do that as
safely as possible. And then you get really extreme things
where people are trying very hard not to go sleep,
they're staying up and they're falling asleep with their kid
on the sofa, which is like by far the most
dangerous thing. So, you know, I feel like co sleeping
is a place where it's like it's happening in the
shadows all the time.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
We should tell people how to do it as safely
as possible.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
We should make them aware of the risks, and then
we should, you know, let people make the choices that work.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Right, the work for them.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I will say, as your kid gets sort of older,
kind of past six months, certainly the risks of close
sleeping go down a lot. And then it's sort of
just a question of do you want the baby in
the bed with.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You or not? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, no, just for everybody, it is it is. You're right,
it's so easy. I mean, particularly if you're breastfeeding. But
I can not only do I remember being a little
scared of squashing the baby, but in the very earliest days,
I would wake up and just make sure the baby's
little just was going up and down. I mean, the
baby there all the time just makes you much more
aware of that you have a living.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yes, although I will say, my kids are in another
room and I had the monitor, and I'm like, you
stare at the monitors, So, yeah, that is that.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Fourth trimester, does you exactly?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
It's it's like you're putting yourself. I mean, it's yes, really,
I have such vivid memories.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
It's so true.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I mean, and I'm like, kids are in their twenties
and their thirties, and I can assure everyone whose kids
are younger, they get there.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
It's amazing. You can't imagine.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
You can't imagine. Yeah, and you'll forget a little right,
you know you do. Although I will say I had
I once had dinner with two couples who didn't know
each other, and they were both in their you know,
sort of couples in their sixties with kids in their thirties,
and they got in a fight about sleep training. Like
one couple on slip rain one come on and they're
(17:25):
just like fighting at this like professional dinner about like
whether these people had ruined their children with sleep training,
and she's like and then of course their kids were adults,
and so they were like, well, I have a good
relationship with my kid, and like I get to see
my grandkid all the time, and your kids aren't even married.
Oh no, oh yeah, it's just like this went off
the rail.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Oh no oh this And so it was like, so
I was like this. I was like, I guess we'd
never get over there.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well, I guess the beauty of a fuzzy memory on
all that this is that I be able to hold
up my end of the argument. It's like, I don't know,
they're alive now, they're good fine, and sleep training, sleep training,
you know how to get them to actually go to
sleep on their own. You mentioned just in the last episode,
just as a quick a joke almost about how you're
(18:12):
worried that you kid's gonna hate you forever. But I
remember vividly the one night that a friend came over
and made me not go and get the baby baby
was crying and just stood sat with me and sort of.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Walk me through it.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Literally, I remember some things you do, remember walking to
the crib and thinks she's gonna hate me from now on.
She's just gonna not even want me to pick her up.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yes, And as it turns out, the data does not
support that. So you look at data and we hear
this is a place where I actually have some of
this randomized trial data where we talked about it in
the last episode, where they've randomized some kids into sleep
training and some and some not. And you don't see
any differences an attachment or short term long term like
it doesn't matter. Sleep training does seem to improve sleep
some and improve some mood for parents, improves marital satisfaction,
(18:53):
doesn't doesn't harm your baby, doesn't mean it's for everybody.
And I think that's a really important thing to say.
Some people here like the only way to ever get
your kid to sleep were the only appropriate way to
do this is with sleep training, and that's not and
that's not true, but it can be very effective for
a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Good to know, yes, And I can attest they do
not hate you forever tech you.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So here's one that I had not even thought about.
I mean, I've read about this as a concept. But microplastics,
there's now the late obviously there are microplastics in the
air and our food, and parents are getting very concerned
about the impact on their children.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Is that something that people should be worried about.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
This is a complicated question because like, like I don't
want to say it's great that we're all consuming a
lot of plastics.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
That doesn't seem good.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I think a lot of this is overstated. So you know, people,
you know, like you eat a credit cards worth of
plastics every day. I think it turns out that's actually
math there. It's like that's not true. So some of
this stuff is sort of very overstated.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
The night internet scrolling over.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Exactly, the little over, the midnight internet scrolling, and and
then you know, the sort of what what are the
links between that and health actually very unclear at this point,
you know, any kind of relationships, see they are really
confounded by you know, different people having different characteristics, and
so I think the evidence is kind of is kind
of weak. It's certainly not to the point where you
(20:10):
would say, you know, you should do everything to like
move to the middle of nowhere to avoid plastics forever,
Like that's definitely not true. I also think it's not
really a realistic like for most people, avoidance of plastics
is not actually a realistic option, and so we're sort
of caught in this place where like, yes, I think
that it would be good from a regulatory standpoint if
people thought a little bit more about like how we
(20:31):
can have less plastics in the water, And from a
parenting standpoint, I'm not sure this is worth your attention
because it is not in your control. I think that's
that's actually really hard, Like here's this thing you're worried about,
but you can't do anything about it, and really you
just need to like put it in the worry box,
right and be like I'm going to take my twelve
minutes every day to worry about like microplastics and other
(20:52):
things in my water, and then the rest of the
time I'm just like focus on things.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Like control, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
It's that rational kind of just I like the concept
of a worriorbox. Put it in the worry box, and
when you have time, you have time, you can open
it and.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
You can spend some time obsessing.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So moving on to child raising discipline, that the varying
conflicting advice on discipline, from gentle parenting to different behaviorist approaches.
Is there data that talks about the most effective long
term strategies for setting boundaries?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
So I think there's there's data that talks about that
sort of focuses on what I would say is sort
of like medium term success. So if you said, like what,
you know, what what are the discipline strategies that improve
you know, family functioning over a period of a year
or two, you know, there we see these kind of
like strategies like one two.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Three magic or which is what I don't know when
to do? So one to three magic is it's actually
very simple.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
The idea is that that you have a system for
bad behavior. You have a system of counting and then timeouts.
So you know, if your kid is doing something hitting
or you say, yeah, that's that's a warning, or that
you count I guess one, two, three, and then if
they haven't stopped, you give them a timeout.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I see, okay, definitely I grew up with the I'm
counting to three. But the what's the magic part? The
magic is that it works.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Oh that's it. The magic is that it is effective.
It is machic. I thought it was something with a
child in three.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
And you want to know one, two, three, and you
go to a timeout, and magically your kid is very
like I think, so this is just that's the name
of this of this particular strategy, and you know that
that has been shown in trial data to be effective
at improving family functioning and improving behavior. It's a version
of what is used in a lot of schools. And
so you know, is that a thing you like, you
(22:38):
have to do? No, that is the best kind of
evidence based discipline approach that we.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
That we have.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I think, you know, a thing we don't have is
kind of the people would love, which is impossible to
ever have. Is like, you know, what is the thing
that like generates emotional health.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You know, in your in your thirties.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And the answer is probably there's too many other things
going on, and whether you use timeouts or not is
not really an important part of that. But one of
the claims you will see, which I think is a
sort of frustrating one because it's hard to refute, is
you know, if you do this kind of whatever it is,
if you do this kind of discipline, you know, you're like,
maybe it seems like it works fine now, but you
(23:17):
know when your kid is forty, like something bad is
going to happen and it's going to be the fault
of the of the discipline program.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
And it's like that's a very phris is, Like I
can't refute that, No one could refute that.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I'm then I'm just constantly waiting as my children age
to find out like what I'm messed up?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
And so well, isn't that fundamentally where we all we are.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I'm always telling my daughter this, and I'm, you know,
like I'm just waiting to find out.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
What I messed up.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
It's the most interesting job that you work really hard
at it for many, many, many years, and you have
no real idea totally how you're doing, how you're doing
until it's far too late to me.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Exactly, and then you don't even know what it was
you did that wasn't you know, And they're like, this
is all your fault, and I guess.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I guess it probably is. I don't know what it
was though.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
However, I do think that taking approaches that apply some
rationale with a goal of just being confident what you're doing,
at least if you feel good about what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
If you're going to take the hit anyway totally. At
least you can know I did the thing that was
that I think was the was.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
The best right exactly each and my kids and there,
my older children, my adult children. When they come back
at me with things that they think I did incorrectly,
I am I'll hear it, but I'll say, you know what,
at the time, I really felt confident it was the
best thing to do.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I'm sorry it didn't work out that right.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Let's see if I can I can try to help
you fix it maybe, But I think the confidence is
I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
It's it is. It's such a.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Throwing a new life into your life is such a disruption, crazy,
and so the extent of which you can stay relaxed
and keep your head about you is key. Just a
couple of more questions, and I feel like talking to
sort of the odds, like I'm asking.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Like you're going to be able to just like solve
all these problems.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I realized that I am not the answer woman for
every single thing. But I love that everyone who I
both leaving you are I love hearing your thoughts on it.
So screen time, which is right up there with discipline
as the thing that most young parents are really worried
about because you hear as one person asks, does this
mean as soon as a child comes home, I have
(25:15):
to remove all the TVs from my house?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
It's like great. So fundamentally, I'll ask.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
You the bigger question, which I think I know the
answer to, and then ask you to give me your thoughts.
Are strict limits necessary or are we overreacting?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I think we are often overreacting, for sure. I do
think there are space for limits. And the way that
I always tell parents to think about this is like,
when your kids watching screens are not doing something else,
the question is what else they would they be doing?
And if they're watching screens for nine hours a day
instead of sleeping or you know, spending any time with you,
or eating healthy meals or going to school, that's obviously
too much screens.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
If they're watching screens for.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
An hour a day while you, you know, make dinner after
other things are done, like that's perfect good use of screens.
And so rather than thinking about as a kind of
like screens are all bad, screens are all good. We
want to figure out how screens fit in our lives
and when they fit in our lives, and then we
can implement that and then we can hold those boundaries.
(26:13):
Whatever are the boundaries that are that we are setting
for ourselves, those are the boundaries we should we should hold.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
So there's lots of I think even in your book
you talk about that everybody is pretty much clear that
from zero to two or three, there's no you're not
learning from screens. But are you doing any harm? The
evidence is really not clear there.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I mean, I think it just to be clear, you
can find plenty of evidence where they show that, like,
you know, kids who watch four hours of screens, you know,
four hours of television a day before the age of one,
you know, show worse cognitive outcomes later than kids who
watch less than four hours of TV before the age
of one. But like those are not the same kids,
you know, And I think, like if I told you
this kid watches four hours, if this you know, nine
month old watches four hours of TV a day, this
(26:57):
one doesn't, It's like, well, yeah, I bet those are
not this same families.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And so it's just really hard.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
To learn and that a lot of other things are
so many at the cognitive exactment.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So I think it's really not you know, our evidence
to suggest that screens are damaging, and that age.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Range is not is not really very good. Again, so
the answer is just calm down, everyone.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Calm down, think about it, deliberately, implement whatever the plant
works for you, and then just move on right and
later you can apologize if they tell you it's your.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Fault exactly, but you can do it confident. So this
is from a family who anticipates well the parents speak
different languages.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Have you done any work on bilingualism?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
If the parents want their child to be bilingual, it's
the best approach for one to speak one language exclusively
and the other to.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Speak yeah the other yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
So generally, if you want your kid to speak both languages,
one parent speaks one language, one's parents speaks the other
language to the kids in a consistent manner. There are
a few things that parents want to be aware of.
One is that, like, your kid will develop language not
more slowly, but in any in.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Either of the languages, it will appear to be more slow.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
So like if your kid, if you're only teaching them English,
they'll like, you know, number of words you expect them
to have is you know two x what you like
twice as much as if you're teaching them to languages.
And this is something people get, you know, when when
your kid goes to childcare, they'll be like, they don't
know them any English words. It's like, okay, well they
speak to them and special French and but yeah, this
(28:22):
is a very good way to get This is sort
of one of the few ways you can get.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Your kid to be sort of truly fluent.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
But you have to be very consistent with it, and
many people struggle with kind of keeping up the consistency
of you know that kind of that kind of approach.
And eventually your kid, if they are in English speaking schools,
is only going to speak English. But they will they
may have this right sort of to use.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
It, but they will talk to you in English.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
So interestingly, the final question, which came from a lot
of different sources, and it's mostly a question about you
and your work, and that is what's the next frontier?
What are the next what does parent data? And what
are you looking now? I saw on the website that
you're doing a study on conception.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Yeah, so we have a new vertical on the website
about trying to conceive and so sort of thinking a
by taking these same data oriented tools kind of back
one step into you know, what do we know about
the time maing of the conception, and then also a
lot of the data on infertility, and I think this
is you know, the sort of infertility space is another
one where there's a lot of fear and anxiety and
(29:28):
also a lot of open space for misinformation. And so
we're trying to put out really good evidence based information
so people can make decisions if they are faced with
that issue.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
That I'm sure will be very good news for a
lot of people, a lot of families or families to
be Emily Ostro, thank you so much for joining mean
it's been such a delight as I know.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
It would be. Appreciate you so much.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I hope everyone listening enjoyed this conversation that you'll come
back for more. Please subscribe, rate and a review where
you find your podcast and tell your friends. For more
parenting info and advice, please check out the Ground Control
Parenting website at Wwwgroundcontrolparenting dot com. You can also find
us on Facebook and Instagram at ground Control Parenting and
on LinkedIn under Carol Sutton Lewis. Until the next time,
(30:15):
take care and thanks for listening.
Hello, and welcome to Ground Control Parenting, a blog and
now a podcast creative for parents raising black and brown children.
I'm the creator and your host, Carol Sutton Lewis. In
this podcast series, I talk with some really interesting people
about the job and the joy of parenting. Here at
Ground Control Parenting, we strive to give parents and caretakers
the resources you need to make the best parenting decisions
(00:27):
possible for you and your family. The more information you
have and the more you understand how to use this information,
the more you're able to make confident decisions and of
less parenting stress. So I'm especially happy to welcome back
today's guest, an economist who shares this goal and offers
really helpful ways to achieve it. Emily Oster is an
unapologetically doubted driven economist who uses her expertise to analyze
(00:52):
and interpret data, empowering parents with evidence based guidelines to
make confident decisions for themselves and their families. Emily is
the JJ E. Goldman Sachs University Professor of Economics at
Brown University and a New York Times best selling author
whose books include Expecting Better, Cripsheet, The Family Firm.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
And her latest The Unexpected.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Emily is also the CEO of parent Data, a comprehensive
website that provides a data driven guide through trying to conceive, pregnancy, parenting,
and beyond. Emily received her undergraduate and doctoral degrees from
Harvard University. She and her husband, Jesse Shapiro, who is
also an economist of Great Renown, have two daughters.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Welcome back to Ground Control Parenting, Emily. Thank you for
having me back.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
In part one, we explored your data driven approach to parenting.
In part two, we're going to apply it to real
questions for moms and moms to be Thank you to
everyone who contributed, and I'm going to try to include
as many as possible in this conversation. So let's get started.
I want to start with questions about pregnancy. I want
to start at the beginning, which you covered in Expecting Better.
(01:59):
Your analysis of recis search on what pregnant women should
and should not do, turn some of the conventional pregnancy
wisdom on its head. For example, your findings about light
drinking and eating sushi and cheese are basically okay, But
what led you to debunk those myths? What led you
to challenge those common restrictions.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah, so I think it really was a question of why,
of wanting to understand why and also.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Wanting to understand why.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
The advice often differed. So, you know, we take something
like sushi. There are plenty of doctors who will tell
you it's fine to have sushi. There are plenty of
countries where it is common to eat sushi during pregnancy,
and so there's a sort of feeling of like, well,
it can't be that this is so terrible, or at
least I'd like to understand are you know, are these
countries and doctors wrong, or are are these people wrong?
(02:48):
And for me, like really digging into like why are
you saying? This was the way into understanding why people
might differ and into you know, the choices that I
wanted to make. I mean in some sense that that's
the whole thing is just like I need to understand
what is the actual reason I'm avoiding this before I
can decide whether it is worth avoiding it. And the
(03:09):
other thing was there were so many things on these
lists to avoid you got to understand like is is
delhi ham the same as cigarettes?
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Like are they equally? Like should I just pick one?
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Or is it like you know, and I think that
one's sort of obvious, like we kind of have a sense.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
Of cigarettes are probably worse.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
But when you get into all these other things, you
say like, well, you know, is it really like our
hot dogs?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And like is this all the same reason? Is it
different reasons? And so that that was just I just
I had I had to understand.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And let me guess that on your regular visits to
the doctor, you weren't getting Yeah, I mean, I don't
think there's time.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
There's probably some feelings of frustration in the first book
because I was very frustrated with my first doctor. But
I think even with people who are very interested in
engaging with their patients to sit down and explain, you know,
here's the detail behind all of these restrictions is just much.
And I actually think this is why for some ob
is they really like expecting better, because it's like you
(04:04):
get the patient who comes in who's like, well, I
see this list and I want to understand what it's like. Okay,
you got to read something like I don't have time
in this fifteen minute visit to go through like all
the studies.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
But here's a book. Here's a book.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
So this question came up a lot interestingly or maybe
not so surprisingly among us soon to be first time moms.
What's your advice for women who are struggling to manage
the anxiety and uncertainty, especially surrounding high risk pregnancies.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
This is very hard because the thing is you can
say sort of what can you do so you have
a high risk pregnancy.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
You can make sure that you have good care.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
You can make sure that you have you know, if
you need to see a maternal fetal medicine specialist that
you have access to that, make sure that you trust
your ob There are some basic things which you probably
people are already doing. And then the question is, well,
what can I do for just the part where I'm
anxious and actually in the unexpected. We talk about this
a lot, because this is of course a very very
(04:59):
common if something has gone wrong in the sort of
first pregnancy, that you just are living with the anxiety
that that will happen again, and that anxiety is really hard.
And my co author on that book, Nate Fox, talks
about the idea of radical acceptance, of just sort of
being able to hold that you are anxious, being able
to hold the possibility that something wrong might happen, and
(05:21):
at the same time.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Just moving forward. Although that is true, and.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I think that sort of holding those two things, like
holding the hope that everything is great, but at the
same time just living with the like accepting.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
I am very anxious.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
I am very worried about this. I have another friend,
Erica Chitty, who's a doula, is just a wonderful person
who actually when she works with her clients, showed me
she has them to do an exercise where they write down,
like what's the worst thing that can happen, and then
they write down, like what's the best thing that can happen,
And just that putting those things out there is sometimes
(05:56):
very helpful for people in terms of processing those emotions.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
And a related question, I know that you've talked about
and you mentioned your friend Eric Tittius definitely talked a
lot about Black women face higher childbirthing risks. The question
that comes is how you can best advocate for yourself
in the deliver room while things are going on. I mean,
because you read about you know, you make a birthing
plan and then you know things happen in the.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
Listening Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I will say First, I
very much appreciate and also hate this question because I
think the frame of this is like, what can you
do to prevent yourself from being injured into it's your job?
And I think it's sort of like, well, it's not
why it's not your job, Like your job is to
bake the baby, your job should not also be So
I think like, like, it's absolutely a good question to ask,
(06:45):
and also like, let's just name like that is a
Crommey premise right for a question. Absolutely, the basic answer
is having obviously you know, having providers that you trust,
but also ideally having someone else in the delivery room
who is going to be in a position to advocate.
So this is a situation in which I think having
a doula would be my number one recommendation. Finding a
(07:07):
doula who you trust to is going to be in
the delivery room with you. Is someone else to have
your eyes in ears, who knows how a birth works,
who can be aware of what's going on. Of course,
having a partner there is great too, but your partner's
probably never been at a birth either.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
So I think more you know, more support people, and
it honest conversation with your ob at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Great Now moving on to the next serious of questions
about the fourth trimester, which was new to me.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
This is a concept that's come up after by all
of mine. You didn't have sea no like, oh you know, no, I.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And the fourth trimester is three months after the baby's birth,
and a lot happens. I mean, your world gets rocked
in so many different ways. So what are the most
practical things that new parents can do to prepare for
this time, which is unsettling for even the most prepared.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
The number one thing I tell people to do is
to schedule meetings with your partner at regular intervals over
that first period, and schedule them before the baby's born.
So there should be a meeting on your calendar for
two weeks after the baby is born where you can
talk about how things are going. Because this period of
time is totally overwhelming. You are really exhausted. You are
(08:21):
going to be very angry with each other some of
the time. I mean maybe not everybody's relationships like that,
but most people find this part very stressful, and we
don't give ourselves opportunities to like say like, hey, this
is what's going good, this is what's not going good,
what are what can we change? And you won't ever
take those opportunities if you haven't scheduled them. So I
(08:42):
tell people like two weeks, six four weeks, six weeks,
like you know, eventually you can move them to a month,
but like having an opportunity to like check in about
how stuff is going over that period is really that
is my most important piece of advice. People are always
looking for advice that's like what's the swaddle I should get?
You should have a swat, but like you can always
get that from Amazon.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Like any stuff you can you can get in two days.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
The thing you want to have is sort of any
supports that you can have in place, and an opportunity
to like revisit how things are going.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
So I love that that makes so much sense to
me for so many reasons.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
First that you do it before the baby. Yes, you
can't start scheduling them mac of the baby you're busy. No,
And assuming that both parents are working before the baby
or have worked for the baby, everybody's going to respect
a meeting schedule. It's not like you're having a glass
of wine to chat about stuff. You're putting it in
on the calendar. It's a meeting agenda and they have
an agenda, yes, and you have perhaps you write the agenda.
You have tech points like what do we stay last time?
(09:41):
So it takes you all out of the fog that
you would likely be in in the sleep deprived and
new person mode, and it just gets you back to
the Okay, let's sit down and talk about this.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
We're trying to run a small to medium sized enterprise
and we gotta have meetings.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
This is truly a startup.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
Really start up to start up like things have happened.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Are we just launched or just launched? It's not clear.
You're not going to not have meetings after we're launch exactly.
That is so great. We'll be right back after these messages.
Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
So you know you mentioned this in the last episode
about that so on your wish list of things to
study in more depth postpartum depression, and so many young
women now are really focused on this. Back again, in
the dark ages when I had children, certainly it existed,
it just was not as identified. It wasn't as as
it should have been, but it was not. But now
(10:35):
I think it's very good that it's talked about. But
it has a consequence of making people very worried about it.
I mean as a thing that is going to happen.
So are there any early signs that people can look
out for to see if they're experiencing it?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
So there is a thing which is sort of supposed
to be administered at your six week postpartum is it?
Which is called the Edinburgh Depression Scale, And it's just
like you can get a copy of it online, is
a copy in one of books, which is just a
sort of like a fifteen question thing that you score,
and that is the thing we use to screen people
for depression. I think every adult in the household should
(11:10):
be doing that every couple of weeks postpartum. I actually
think waiting for the six week visit when this sometimes
doesn't happen anyway, it's too late, and you're actually also
not doing dad who or the other mom or whoever, like,
if there's another partner in the household, they should actually
also be doing this, because depression among non birthing parents
does happen, even though it's not as common. So I
(11:31):
think just having again a sort of structured way to say, Okay,
we're going to evaluate how we're going to like give
ourselves a chance to evaluate this.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I think that's the most important. That's the most important thing.
You know.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
The kinds of signs of depression that you might imagine
are the sort of not feeling happiness about the baby,
having trouble getting up, you know. But again like having
an actual set of questions as opposed to just how
am I feeling, which is a very difficult thing to
access in any given given moment.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
I think there's a there's.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
A sort of glass half full part of this, which
is like if people do have symptoms of depression, there
is a lot we can do. And so just reminding
people like, you're not doing this for nothing. This is
not like go screen yourself for depression so you can
just know you're depressed and then continue to be depressed. Actually,
the tremendous number like range of options which are by
(12:22):
the way, consistent with breastfeeding if that's something you want
to continue to do. So there's just like a lot
of there are a lot of options here if people
are experiencing depression.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Yeah, no, that's good to know.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's good to know that you should start to test
earlier because so much of what constitutes postpotum depression. You said,
you're feeling like you're not bonding, you're really angry. You
could just be that way because you have had no
sleep for sores on end and you have exhaustion. Is
a form of forture, right.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
It is true that postpartum depression people are at higher
risk if their baby doesn't sleep well or if they
don't have support so being tired. In fact, one of
the treatments people will sometimes say further or mild postpartum
depression is figure out a way to you know, how
can you put in scaffoldings so you're getting more sleepy.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
So sleep is a really really important but it sort
of blurs the lines.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Between how much of this is just typical like I'm
tired because I have a newborn, and how much of
it is really like there's something that is.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
More clinical going on.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
So that's why the test is a good idea, So
that parents who are worried about this beforehand would worry
even more having these feelings. At least there's some way
you can go to sort of see how these feelings
actually rate.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
So, yeah, that's good to know. So moving on to
infant care, So a.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Big issue among young mothers everywhere is this two part
issue about sleeping, co sleeping and sleep training. Oh yes,
and it's so you know, having been so far away
from babies for so long reading about this, at first
I had to struggle to remember what I did.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
But I do really in terms of co sleeping, it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Is so easy if it's'cially a breastfeeding to have the
baby there, and but but I remember vividly having nightmares
of rolling over and squishing away.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I mean truly, I didn't really sleep well when the
baby is sleeping next to me.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
So it's a hotly debated topic co sleeping.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
You break down the risks and the benefits. Yeah, I mean,
so I think think about co sleeping.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
There are two like camps on the internet about co sleeping.
There's the people who are like CoA sleeping is the
most natural thing in the world. People have been coasleeping
since they were in caves, and like if you're not
go sleeping, you're not bonding, and everybody have to go sleep.
And then they're the sort of like if you go sleep.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
With your baby, it will die.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
And so those are like both very extreme and neither's
really right. So it is true that there are some
risks to co sleeping. So if you look at kind
of if you there are risks to suffocation, they're even
when done as safely as possible.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
There are some small increased risks to sleeping with the baby.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
In your bed, but they are very small, and particularly
they're very small if you co sleep in like the
safest way possible, which means you know mom and dad
are not drinking and smoking, that you are doing the
baby is sort of sleeping on their back, that you
not surrounded by blankets and pillows. So there are ways
that people can do this more safely, and when doing
(15:06):
this as safely as possible, there are some small risks,
but they're very small. And I think that's the messaging
I would like parents to hear is they think part
of what has happened in the way that we're messaging
this is that people get the impression that like this
is they get this sort of like this is incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
And we don't recommend it, but then a lot of.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
People do it anyway because it's really hard not to
actually And in particular the sleep recommendations we give people,
which is you should keep the baby in.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Your room but not in your bed are incredibly hard.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
So actually having the baby in another room is not
as difficult as having them in your room when you
can hear them and then they can.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Smell you and et cetera.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
Like people end up with the baby in their bed,
but we haven't told them how to do that as
safely as possible. And then you get really extreme things
where people are trying very hard not to go sleep,
they're staying up and they're falling asleep with their kid
on the sofa, which is like by far the most
dangerous thing. So, you know, I feel like co sleeping
is a place where it's like it's happening in the
shadows all the time.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
We should tell people how to do it as safely
as possible.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
We should make them aware of the risks, and then
we should, you know, let people make the choices that work.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Right, the work for them.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I will say, as your kid gets sort of older,
kind of past six months, certainly the risks of close
sleeping go down a lot. And then it's sort of
just a question of do you want the baby in
the bed with.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
You or not? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, no, just for everybody, it is it is. You're right,
it's so easy. I mean, particularly if you're breastfeeding. But
I can not only do I remember being a little
scared of squashing the baby, but in the very earliest days,
I would wake up and just make sure the baby's
little just was going up and down. I mean, the
baby there all the time just makes you much more
aware of that you have a living.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
Yes, although I will say, my kids are in another
room and I had the monitor, and I'm like, you
stare at the monitors, So, yeah, that is that.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Fourth trimester, does you exactly?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
It's it's like you're putting yourself. I mean, it's yes, really,
I have such vivid memories.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
It's so true.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
I mean, and I'm like, kids are in their twenties
and their thirties, and I can assure everyone whose kids
are younger, they get there.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
It's amazing. You can't imagine.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
You can't imagine. Yeah, and you'll forget a little right,
you know you do. Although I will say I had
I once had dinner with two couples who didn't know
each other, and they were both in their you know,
sort of couples in their sixties with kids in their thirties,
and they got in a fight about sleep training. Like
one couple on slip rain one come on and they're
(17:25):
just like fighting at this like professional dinner about like
whether these people had ruined their children with sleep training,
and she's like and then of course their kids were adults,
and so they were like, well, I have a good
relationship with my kid, and like I get to see
my grandkid all the time, and your kids aren't even married.
Oh no, oh yeah, it's just like this went off
the rail.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Oh no oh this And so it was like, so
I was like this. I was like, I guess we'd
never get over there.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well, I guess the beauty of a fuzzy memory on
all that this is that I be able to hold
up my end of the argument. It's like, I don't know,
they're alive now, they're good fine, and sleep training, sleep training,
you know how to get them to actually go to
sleep on their own. You mentioned just in the last episode,
just as a quick a joke almost about how you're
(18:12):
worried that you kid's gonna hate you forever. But I
remember vividly the one night that a friend came over
and made me not go and get the baby baby
was crying and just stood sat with me and sort of.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Walk me through it.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Literally, I remember some things you do, remember walking to
the crib and thinks she's gonna hate me from now on.
She's just gonna not even want me to pick her up.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Yes, And as it turns out, the data does not
support that. So you look at data and we hear
this is a place where I actually have some of
this randomized trial data where we talked about it in
the last episode, where they've randomized some kids into sleep
training and some and some not. And you don't see
any differences an attachment or short term long term like
it doesn't matter. Sleep training does seem to improve sleep
some and improve some mood for parents, improves marital satisfaction,
(18:53):
doesn't doesn't harm your baby, doesn't mean it's for everybody.
And I think that's a really important thing to say.
Some people here like the only way to ever get
your kid to sleep were the only appropriate way to
do this is with sleep training, and that's not and
that's not true, but it can be very effective for
a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Good to know, yes, And I can attest they do
not hate you forever tech you.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
So here's one that I had not even thought about.
I mean, I've read about this as a concept. But microplastics,
there's now the late obviously there are microplastics in the
air and our food, and parents are getting very concerned
about the impact on their children.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Is that something that people should be worried about.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
This is a complicated question because like, like I don't
want to say it's great that we're all consuming a
lot of plastics.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
That doesn't seem good.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I think a lot of this is overstated. So you know, people,
you know, like you eat a credit cards worth of
plastics every day. I think it turns out that's actually
math there. It's like that's not true. So some of
this stuff is sort of very overstated.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
The night internet scrolling over.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Exactly, the little over, the midnight internet scrolling, and and
then you know, the sort of what what are the
links between that and health actually very unclear at this point,
you know, any kind of relationships, see they are really
confounded by you know, different people having different characteristics, and
so I think the evidence is kind of is kind
of weak. It's certainly not to the point where you
(20:10):
would say, you know, you should do everything to like
move to the middle of nowhere to avoid plastics forever,
Like that's definitely not true. I also think it's not
really a realistic like for most people, avoidance of plastics
is not actually a realistic option, and so we're sort
of caught in this place where like, yes, I think
that it would be good from a regulatory standpoint if
people thought a little bit more about like how we
(20:31):
can have less plastics in the water, And from a
parenting standpoint, I'm not sure this is worth your attention
because it is not in your control. I think that's
that's actually really hard, Like here's this thing you're worried about,
but you can't do anything about it, and really you
just need to like put it in the worry box,
right and be like I'm going to take my twelve
minutes every day to worry about like microplastics and other
(20:52):
things in my water, and then the rest of the
time I'm just like focus on things.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Like control, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
It's that rational kind of just I like the concept
of a worriorbox. Put it in the worry box, and
when you have time, you have time, you can open
it and.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
You can spend some time obsessing.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So moving on to child raising discipline, that the varying
conflicting advice on discipline, from gentle parenting to different behaviorist approaches.
Is there data that talks about the most effective long
term strategies for setting boundaries?
Speaker 3 (21:21):
So I think there's there's data that talks about that
sort of focuses on what I would say is sort
of like medium term success. So if you said, like what,
you know, what what are the discipline strategies that improve
you know, family functioning over a period of a year
or two, you know, there we see these kind of
like strategies like one two.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Three magic or which is what I don't know when
to do? So one to three magic is it's actually
very simple.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
The idea is that that you have a system for
bad behavior. You have a system of counting and then timeouts.
So you know, if your kid is doing something hitting
or you say, yeah, that's that's a warning, or that
you count I guess one, two, three, and then if
they haven't stopped, you give them a timeout.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
I see, okay, definitely I grew up with the I'm
counting to three. But the what's the magic part? The
magic is that it works.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Oh that's it. The magic is that it is effective.
It is machic. I thought it was something with a
child in three.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
And you want to know one, two, three, and you
go to a timeout, and magically your kid is very
like I think, so this is just that's the name
of this of this particular strategy, and you know that
that has been shown in trial data to be effective
at improving family functioning and improving behavior. It's a version
of what is used in a lot of schools. And
so you know, is that a thing you like, you
(22:38):
have to do? No, that is the best kind of
evidence based discipline approach that we.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
That we have.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
I think, you know, a thing we don't have is
kind of the people would love, which is impossible to
ever have. Is like, you know, what is the thing
that like generates emotional health.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You know, in your in your thirties.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
And the answer is probably there's too many other things
going on, and whether you use timeouts or not is
not really an important part of that. But one of
the claims you will see, which I think is a
sort of frustrating one because it's hard to refute, is
you know, if you do this kind of whatever it is,
if you do this kind of discipline, you know, you're like,
maybe it seems like it works fine now, but you
(23:17):
know when your kid is forty, like something bad is
going to happen and it's going to be the fault
of the of the discipline program.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
And it's like that's a very phris is, Like I
can't refute that, No one could refute that.
Speaker 3 (23:27):
I'm then I'm just constantly waiting as my children age
to find out like what I'm messed up?
Speaker 2 (23:32):
And so well, isn't that fundamentally where we all we are.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
I'm always telling my daughter this, and I'm, you know,
like I'm just waiting to find out.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
What I messed up.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
It's the most interesting job that you work really hard
at it for many, many, many years, and you have
no real idea totally how you're doing, how you're doing
until it's far too late to me.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Exactly, and then you don't even know what it was
you did that wasn't you know, And they're like, this
is all your fault, and I guess.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
I guess it probably is. I don't know what it
was though.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
However, I do think that taking approaches that apply some
rationale with a goal of just being confident what you're doing,
at least if you feel good about what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
If you're going to take the hit anyway totally. At
least you can know I did the thing that was
that I think was the was.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
The best right exactly each and my kids and there,
my older children, my adult children. When they come back
at me with things that they think I did incorrectly,
I am I'll hear it, but I'll say, you know what,
at the time, I really felt confident it was the
best thing to do.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
I'm sorry it didn't work out that right.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Let's see if I can I can try to help
you fix it maybe, But I think the confidence is
I mean.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
It's it is. It's such a.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Throwing a new life into your life is such a disruption, crazy,
and so the extent of which you can stay relaxed
and keep your head about you is key. Just a
couple of more questions, and I feel like talking to
sort of the odds, like I'm asking.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Like you're going to be able to just like solve
all these problems.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I realized that I am not the answer woman for
every single thing. But I love that everyone who I
both leaving you are I love hearing your thoughts on it.
So screen time, which is right up there with discipline
as the thing that most young parents are really worried
about because you hear as one person asks, does this
mean as soon as a child comes home, I have
(25:15):
to remove all the TVs from my house?
Speaker 2 (25:16):
It's like great. So fundamentally, I'll ask.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
You the bigger question, which I think I know the
answer to, and then ask you to give me your thoughts.
Are strict limits necessary or are we overreacting?
Speaker 3 (25:30):
I think we are often overreacting, for sure. I do
think there are space for limits. And the way that
I always tell parents to think about this is like,
when your kids watching screens are not doing something else,
the question is what else they would they be doing?
And if they're watching screens for nine hours a day
instead of sleeping or you know, spending any time with you,
or eating healthy meals or going to school, that's obviously
too much screens.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
If they're watching screens for.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
An hour a day while you, you know, make dinner after
other things are done, like that's perfect good use of screens.
And so rather than thinking about as a kind of
like screens are all bad, screens are all good. We
want to figure out how screens fit in our lives
and when they fit in our lives, and then we
can implement that and then we can hold those boundaries.
(26:13):
Whatever are the boundaries that are that we are setting
for ourselves, those are the boundaries we should we should hold.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
So there's lots of I think even in your book
you talk about that everybody is pretty much clear that
from zero to two or three, there's no you're not
learning from screens. But are you doing any harm? The
evidence is really not clear there.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
I mean, I think it just to be clear, you
can find plenty of evidence where they show that, like,
you know, kids who watch four hours of screens, you know,
four hours of television a day before the age of one,
you know, show worse cognitive outcomes later than kids who
watch less than four hours of TV before the age
of one. But like those are not the same kids,
you know, And I think, like if I told you
this kid watches four hours, if this you know, nine
month old watches four hours of TV a day, this
(26:57):
one doesn't, It's like, well, yeah, I bet those are
not this same families.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
And so it's just really hard.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
To learn and that a lot of other things are
so many at the cognitive exactment.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
So I think it's really not you know, our evidence
to suggest that screens are damaging, and that age.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Range is not is not really very good. Again, so
the answer is just calm down, everyone.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Calm down, think about it, deliberately, implement whatever the plant
works for you, and then just move on right and
later you can apologize if they tell you it's your.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Fault exactly, but you can do it confident. So this
is from a family who anticipates well the parents speak
different languages.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Have you done any work on bilingualism?
Speaker 1 (27:37):
If the parents want their child to be bilingual, it's
the best approach for one to speak one language exclusively
and the other to.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Speak yeah the other yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
So generally, if you want your kid to speak both languages,
one parent speaks one language, one's parents speaks the other
language to the kids in a consistent manner. There are
a few things that parents want to be aware of.
One is that, like, your kid will develop language not
more slowly, but in any in.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
Either of the languages, it will appear to be more slow.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
So like if your kid, if you're only teaching them English,
they'll like, you know, number of words you expect them
to have is you know two x what you like
twice as much as if you're teaching them to languages.
And this is something people get, you know, when when
your kid goes to childcare, they'll be like, they don't
know them any English words. It's like, okay, well they
speak to them and special French and but yeah, this
(28:22):
is a very good way to get This is sort
of one of the few ways you can get.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Your kid to be sort of truly fluent.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
But you have to be very consistent with it, and
many people struggle with kind of keeping up the consistency
of you know that kind of that kind of approach.
And eventually your kid, if they are in English speaking schools,
is only going to speak English. But they will they
may have this right sort of to use.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
It, but they will talk to you in English.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
So interestingly, the final question, which came from a lot
of different sources, and it's mostly a question about you
and your work, and that is what's the next frontier?
What are the next what does parent data? And what
are you looking now? I saw on the website that
you're doing a study on conception.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Yeah, so we have a new vertical on the website
about trying to conceive and so sort of thinking a
by taking these same data oriented tools kind of back
one step into you know, what do we know about
the time maing of the conception, and then also a
lot of the data on infertility, and I think this
is you know, the sort of infertility space is another
one where there's a lot of fear and anxiety and
(29:28):
also a lot of open space for misinformation. And so
we're trying to put out really good evidence based information
so people can make decisions if they are faced with
that issue.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
That I'm sure will be very good news for a
lot of people, a lot of families or families to
be Emily Ostro, thank you so much for joining mean
it's been such a delight as I know.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
It would be. Appreciate you so much.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I hope everyone listening enjoyed this conversation that you'll come
back for more. Please subscribe, rate and a review where
you find your podcast and tell your friends. For more
parenting info and advice, please check out the Ground Control
Parenting website at Wwwgroundcontrolparenting dot com. You can also find
us on Facebook and Instagram at ground Control Parenting and
on LinkedIn under Carol Sutton Lewis. Until the next time,
(30:15):
take care and thanks for listening.
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