(00:00:01):
When I was recovering from my restrictive eating disorder,

(00:00:04):
I first had a supportive husband and he was understanding.

(00:00:07):
But then one night we got into a fight and then he screamed at me that I was fat,

(00:00:12):
obese,

(00:00:12):
disgusting.

(00:00:14):
And he punched me multiple times in the areas I had gained weight, especially my stomach.

(00:00:19):
My mother said, maybe he hit you because he was concerned about your sudden weight gain.

(00:00:24):
I wondered what police would do if they heard each of our sides and if they would

(00:00:27):
side with my husband.

(00:00:29):
Also,

(00:00:30):
while my eating disorder,

(00:00:31):
who I was unbelievably lucky to find and was very expensive,

(00:00:34):
understood my weight was not in my control.

(00:00:37):
No other doctors did.

(00:00:39):
I had to work very hard to convince myself I did not deserve this abuse by finding

(00:00:43):
fat women who were loved and cherished in cishet relationships.

(00:00:47):
I listened to and read Virginia Soulsmith when almost everyone around me had

(00:00:51):
completely opposite ideas about food and eating.

(00:00:54):
I always think of her daughter who struggled with eating due to her disability,

(00:00:58):
and I hope their family as well after all they went through.

(00:01:01):
I just want to say thanks to Virginia for putting some of her personal life online

(00:01:05):
and all the visibly fat women who reinforced there was nothing wrong with me for

(00:01:09):
wanting to be treated with respect,

(00:01:10):
dignity,

(00:01:11):
and compassion.

(00:01:13):
Hi, I'm Zon Valines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

(00:01:18):
For the entire month of October,

(00:01:19):
I am releasing a podcast every single week to see how folks like it.

(00:01:23):
If you prefer more podcasts and like this piece of things, feedback really helps.

(00:01:28):
Engaging with a podcast in any way at all does so much.

(00:01:31):
You can heart react it on Substack or Instagram,

(00:01:34):
leave a positive review,

(00:01:35):
leave a comment,

(00:01:36):
or share it.

(00:01:37):
Doing all of the above is even better.

(00:01:38):
And if you become a paid Liberating Motherhood subscriber,

(00:01:41):
you'll get at least one bonus podcast every month.

(00:01:44):
You can subscribe at zon.substack.com.

(00:01:47):
I should also add that feminist writers and creators are under constant attack.

(00:01:52):
Social media algorithms deliberately suppress our work or punish us for saying the

(00:01:56):
things that we all know to be true.

(00:01:58):
The most effective way to fight back is by giving the algorithm what it wants,

(00:02:01):
which is engagement.

(00:02:02):
Show that feminist content is popular and profitable.

(00:02:05):
Just press that little heart react button, please.

(00:02:08):
And thanks for being here and listening.

(00:02:11):
I'm here today with my delightful guest, Virginia Soulsmith.

(00:02:14):
Hi, Virginia.

(00:02:15):
Hi, thank you for having me.

(00:02:17):
I am so excited to have you here.

(00:02:19):
So I'm going to tell you guys a little bit about Virginia.

(00:02:22):
Virginia Sol Smith is the New York Times bestselling author of Fat Talk,

(00:02:26):
Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture,

(00:02:29):
and The Eating Instinct,

(00:02:30):
Food Culture,

(00:02:31):
Body Image,

(00:02:31):
and Guilt in America.

(00:02:33):
As a journalist,

(00:02:34):
she has reported from kitchen tables and grocery stores,

(00:02:37):
graduated from beauty school,

(00:02:39):
and gone swimming in a mermaid's tail.

(00:02:41):
Virginia began her career in women's magazines,

(00:02:44):
alternatively challenging beauty standards and gender norms,

(00:02:47):
and upholding diet culture through her health,

(00:02:49):
nutrition,

(00:02:49):
and fitness reporting.

(00:02:51):
Motherhood inspired a reckoning and led to her first book,

(00:02:54):
The Eating Instinct,

(00:02:55):
Food Culture,

(00:02:56):
Body Image,

(00:02:57):
and Guilt in America.

(00:02:59):
Her work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine,

(00:03:01):
Harper's,

(00:03:02):
Scientific American,

(00:03:03):
and many other publications.

(00:03:06):
Virginia now writes the popular anti-diet newsletter,

(00:03:08):
Burnt Toast,

(00:03:09):
and hosts the Burnt Toast podcast.

(00:03:11):
She also has literally the best email autoresponder I have ever seen.

(00:03:15):
And it has inspired me to get my own shit together,

(00:03:19):
which I have not done yet,

(00:03:21):
but I truly do intend to do at some point in the very distant future.

(00:03:25):
I mean, it's a process.

(00:03:30):
It's always a process.

(00:03:31):
But yeah, if you ever send Virginia an email, you will get the most

(00:03:35):
amazing and inspirational and competent auto-response

(00:03:39):
Just mind blown.

(00:03:40):
It's amazing.

(00:03:42):
We got to set our boundaries and also help people find the information they need.

(00:03:46):
You know, it's a both end.

(00:03:47):
Yeah, I love it.

(00:03:48):
It's just such a good lesson and like living well.

(00:03:51):
So Virginia,

(00:03:52):
I've been following your work for so long that I don't even really remember how you

(00:03:56):
entered my consciousness.

(00:03:58):
It's sort of like I was born into feminism and then you were there.

(00:04:02):
You just like appeared.

(00:04:03):
It's like you hit a certain point in your feminist awakening and then like Virginia

(00:04:06):
Sol Smith appears.

(00:04:07):
Yeah.

(00:04:09):
So I'm really glad for all the ways you've made me a better and more thoughtful person.

(00:04:14):
But for people who aren't as familiar with your work, how would you describe it?

(00:04:18):
Tell us what you do.

(00:04:21):
So I investigate diet culture and anti-fatness,

(00:04:25):
which is the systemic oppression of people in larger bodies.

(00:04:30):
And that very much intersects with is rooted in feminism and is sort of its own,

(00:04:36):
I guess,

(00:04:37):
subset of advocacy work.

(00:04:41):
And I comment this,

(00:04:42):
you know,

(00:04:42):
as you said in my bio,

(00:04:43):
I worked in women's magazines for a long time.

(00:04:46):
where I was very much identifying as a feminist and deeply uncomfortable with some

(00:04:52):
of what we did and also not seeing the forest for the trees at all and perpetuating

(00:04:57):
a lot of harm.

(00:04:58):
And when I did start to begin to read voices outside of that bubble,

(00:05:04):
begin to learn more about what FAP liberation work,

(00:05:07):
the history of that work,

(00:05:09):
I had to really reckon with the harm I had caused as,

(00:05:12):
at the time,

(00:05:13):
a straight-sized woman

(00:05:15):
cis white feminist and really look at all the ways that that had caused me to

(00:05:21):
perpetuate harmful stereotypes.

(00:05:23):
I mean, in so many ways, but specifically around fatness.

(00:05:26):
And so now I really interrogate anti-fatness as sort of the main thing we work on.

(00:05:33):
But I often find that once you start untangling that bias and once you start naming

(00:05:39):
and navigating diet culture,

(00:05:40):
you start to see recurring themes

(00:05:43):
in the ways that diet culture teaches us to follow an external set of rules,

(00:05:48):
measure our self-worth by other people,

(00:05:50):
you know,

(00:05:50):
uphold capitalism,

(00:05:52):
uphold patriarchy and white supremacy.

(00:05:54):
And you start to see a similar behaviors and expectations in other forms of culture.

(00:06:01):
So I would say at this point,

(00:06:02):
burnt toast has broadened out a bit and we still,

(00:06:04):
diet culture and anti-fatness is the core of our work,

(00:06:07):
but we do look quite a bit at the institution of marriage.

(00:06:10):
We look at, um,

(00:06:12):
Attitudes around work and parenting and family life and just all sorts of different

(00:06:16):
aspects of culture to see where that diet mentality,

(00:06:20):
that's what I call it,

(00:06:22):
is still continuing to show up for us.

(00:06:24):
Yeah, I mean, you have this feature.

(00:06:27):
where you talk about various phenomena as diets, even though they're not obviously diets.

(00:06:33):
Like you had one about screen time as a diet.

(00:06:36):
And I love that framework for understanding things.

(00:06:40):
And it's really made its way into my brain as I parent two young children,

(00:06:45):
the ways in which I see this culture of deprivation showing up in parenting norms,

(00:06:51):
that the best way to be a good mom is to deprive yourself of things.

(00:06:54):
And the best way to be a parent

(00:06:57):
is to completely eliminate any harm from your children's life and to deprive

(00:07:01):
yourself of things in so doing.

(00:07:02):
And I've never made that connection until I started reading your newsletter and now

(00:07:09):
it's just everywhere.

(00:07:11):
I appreciate that.

(00:07:12):
You know, it's a somewhat polarizing framing I have found.

(00:07:16):
I often hear even from really devoted longtime readers,

(00:07:19):
like,

(00:07:19):
can you stop saying everything is a diet?

(00:07:23):
And I get it, right?

(00:07:24):
It's annoying to be like,

(00:07:25):
oh,

(00:07:25):
here's another system I have to look at and interrogate my relationship with.

(00:07:30):
And it's not so, you know, I always want to be really clear.

(00:07:34):
It's not that I'm saying just because I'm identifying things

(00:07:38):
diet characteristics of something that you can't participate in it at all or that

(00:07:43):
you might not have a different relationship with it.

(00:07:45):
It's that I'm saying if we step back and look at why do we feel like we have to

(00:07:49):
police our children's screen time so vehemently,

(00:07:53):
there is a kernel of we're worried about their well-being.

(00:07:56):
Just like if you go on a regular diet, there's a kernel of I'm worried about my health.

(00:08:00):
But there's also a lot of elements of performance and perfectionism and

(00:08:05):
expectations and gender norms and conditioning that all come into play.

(00:08:10):
And you can start to say,

(00:08:11):
and wait,

(00:08:11):
it doesn't actually feel that great to do and it makes me feel bad.

(00:08:14):
And then when I can't maintain this like strict schedule of screen time that I've

(00:08:18):
set up for us,

(00:08:19):
I feel guilty because I failed.

(00:08:21):
And that's just like when you go off a diet and you feel like it's your fault,

(00:08:24):
but actually the plan was bad from the beginning.

(00:08:26):
So there are all these ways that it shows up over and over,

(00:08:29):
particularly in women's lives and in mothers' lives.

(00:08:32):
And I think it's helpful to name,

(00:08:35):
even if you don't say,

(00:08:36):
okay,

(00:08:37):
I'm not saying people should have no screen time limits or,

(00:08:39):
you know,

(00:08:40):
like,

(00:08:40):
even if you don't want to go to the opposite extreme with every one of those

(00:08:43):
examples,

(00:08:44):
it's useful to say,

(00:08:45):
like,

(00:08:46):
is this really serving me or am I participating in something that doesn't align

(00:08:49):
with my values?

(00:08:50):
Yeah.

(00:08:51):
Yeah.

(00:08:51):
I mean,

(00:08:52):
it's interesting to me how there is so much moralizing around things that are just

(00:08:56):
not moral issues.

(00:08:58):
Like the size of your body has zero moral weight.

(00:09:01):
But I think that we all know that so much of this anti-fatness is rooted in this

(00:09:06):
like moral panic about what it means to be fat.

(00:09:09):
And we see the same with

(00:09:10):
screen time and parenting styles and all of these like performative,

(00:09:14):
exhausting things that are demanded of us constantly that distract us from what

(00:09:18):
really matters.

(00:09:20):
Absolutely.

(00:09:20):
And then at its core, it really is about

(00:09:23):
controlling our time, controlling our bandwidth.

(00:09:28):
I mean,

(00:09:28):
she's hugely problematic now,

(00:09:30):
but Naomi Wolf in The Beauty Myth saying that the most potent political sedative in

(00:09:34):
history is putting women on diets.

(00:09:37):
That's literally true, and it's true with all of these versions of diets.

(00:09:41):
If we are focused so much on the project of our own bodies,

(00:09:46):
if we are focused so much on the project of parenting according to really high

(00:09:50):
exacting standards,

(00:09:51):
it doesn't leave us much bandwidth.

(00:09:54):
to meet our own personal needs,

(00:09:55):
and it doesn't leave us energy to fight for larger societal change.

(00:09:59):
So it kind of keeps us right where they want us,

(00:10:02):
which is like hungry,

(00:10:04):
deprived,

(00:10:05):
busy,

(00:10:05):
exhausted,

(00:10:06):
and not looking beyond the immediate crisis in front of us.

(00:10:12):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:10:15):
Speaking to that a little bit,

(00:10:17):
I went and read reviews of your books because it always helps me to understand

(00:10:23):
essentially how assholes are reacting.

(00:10:25):
Sure, sure.

(00:10:25):
And,

(00:10:26):
you know,

(00:10:26):
the praise was like nearly universal except from people who really obviously had

(00:10:31):
significant problems with fat people.

(00:10:34):
And, you know, they were talking about like glorifying obesity and all of this kind of stuff.

(00:10:38):
So, I mean, this is like the most common criticism anyone who works at this space hears.

(00:10:43):
You're an extremist.

(00:10:44):
You're encouraging people to be unhealthy, like blah, blah, blah.

(00:10:47):
And it kind of speaks to the moral panic.

(00:10:49):
So I want to frame this question with a story from my own life that I think I've

(00:10:54):
shared on the podcast before that kind of helps illustrate how this is not none of

(00:11:00):
this is what it seems.

(00:11:01):
So I'm a thin person.

(00:11:03):
I've always been a thin person,

(00:11:05):
but I used to be more toward like the emaciated end of the spectrum.

(00:11:09):
My husband jokes that when he met me, I was living on Dr. Pepper and cigarettes.

(00:11:13):
And that's really not far off.

(00:11:15):
Like maybe sprinkle in some Cheetos and SpaghettiOs to get some vitamins.

(00:11:21):
But totally unhealthy lifestyle.

(00:11:24):
And-

(00:11:25):
Every time I went to the doctor,

(00:11:26):
I was lavished with praise for my healthy lifestyle,

(00:11:31):
a lifestyle that they never asked me about.

(00:11:34):
They were praising me solely because I was thin.

(00:11:37):
You know, my lifestyle was terrible.

(00:11:39):
It's never been about health because if it was, we would ask about that instead.

(00:11:48):
Talk to me about how you respond to this concern trolling and this idea that like,

(00:11:53):
you know,

(00:11:54):
not abusing fat people essentially is somehow glorifying something unhealthy or in

(00:12:00):
any way harmful.

(00:12:01):
Yeah.

(00:12:02):
Gosh, it's such a good question.

(00:12:04):
How I respond,

(00:12:05):
it depends quite a bit on who is the source of the concern trolling and,

(00:12:11):
frankly,

(00:12:12):
how much empathy I have on any given day.

(00:12:14):
Because I do believe anti-fatness in diet culture hurts all of us.

(00:12:21):
And the most vehement anti-fat trolls are very often the

(00:12:25):
people who were really directly harmed by this.

(00:12:28):
Maybe they were a fat kid who was horribly bullied or put on diets by their

(00:12:33):
parents,

(00:12:34):
teased for their weight,

(00:12:35):
shamed.

(00:12:36):
They experienced this.

(00:12:38):
And,

(00:12:39):
you know,

(00:12:40):
what I argue for in my work is when kids go through those experiences,

(00:12:43):
what we want them to learn is the world is the problem,

(00:12:46):
you are not the problem,

(00:12:47):
and our job is to protect you and fight for a better world.

(00:12:51):
But all too often what people learn is I am the problem,

(00:12:54):
my body is the problem,

(00:12:55):
and if I'm going to function in this world,

(00:12:57):
I have to do everything I can to conform to this world's expectations of thinness.

(00:13:03):
A lot of the people who are lashing out and saying you don't care about health,

(00:13:06):
they're coming from this damaged place.

(00:13:08):
So when I have,

(00:13:11):
you know,

(00:13:11):
when I'm like well rested and have had a snack and can find my compassion,

(00:13:16):
I can try to approach it from that place.

(00:13:18):
When it's a man, you know.

(00:13:22):
Trolling,

(00:13:22):
sending me comments,

(00:13:24):
filling up my DMs,

(00:13:25):
you know,

(00:13:26):
sending me a three-page email detailing all the ways they think I'm a bad person

(00:13:30):
and a mother,

(00:13:31):
you know,

(00:13:32):
whose children should be taken away and all that kind of stuff.

(00:13:35):
Yeah, then I have a lot less compassion, obviously.

(00:13:39):
And when they start talking,

(00:13:40):
you know,

(00:13:40):
the direct physical commentary and that sort of thing,

(00:13:44):
we don't have to engage with that.

(00:13:46):
That's not...

(00:13:47):
what we're here to do because you're not going to get anywhere with that person

(00:13:52):
because their mind is made up.

(00:13:54):
But I think starting from this place of like,

(00:13:57):
okay,

(00:13:57):
this is their damage talking,

(00:13:59):
that's helpful.

(00:14:00):
And then as to what they're actually arguing,

(00:14:03):
it falls apart so quickly because as you're saying,

(00:14:06):
if we really care about health...

(00:14:09):
We can have every conversation we want to have about how to meaningfully improve

(00:14:13):
someone's health without ever talking about their weight.

(00:14:16):
We can talk about how they're eating.

(00:14:18):
We can talk about their access to food.

(00:14:20):
What is their bandwidth like for grocery shopping and cooking?

(00:14:23):
If they don't have time and resources for that, what are some alternatives?

(00:14:26):
Like what strategies are they using?

(00:14:29):
We can talk about movement without talking about weight.

(00:14:31):
You can talk about what do you love to do?

(00:14:33):
How do you love to move your body?

(00:14:34):
What's doable for you?

(00:14:35):
Oh, what are some barriers?

(00:14:37):
Like,

(00:14:37):
yeah,

(00:14:37):
going to a gym can feel really terrible as a fat person or as a woman because of

(00:14:41):
the way your body is objectified.

(00:14:43):
What are some other options?

(00:14:45):
Like there's so many meaningful conversations we can have about lifestyle that

(00:14:50):
doesn't have to involve weight.

(00:14:52):
And then the other piece of this is if we as a society actually want to care about health,

(00:14:59):
There are so many systems that we are not putting into place.

(00:15:02):
We do not have fully funded food stamps.

(00:15:04):
We do not have universal healthcare.

(00:15:07):
We do not have paid family leave, like et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

(00:15:11):
So if we really wanna care about health here,

(00:15:14):
we need to start functioning as a society that prioritizes health.

(00:15:18):
And until then,

(00:15:20):
blaming individual people for what their body looks like without learning anything

(00:15:26):
about their story,

(00:15:27):
without understanding any of the context of their lives,

(00:15:30):
I mean,

(00:15:30):
that's just a waste of everybody's time.

(00:15:31):
That's not a productive or health-promoting conversation ever.

(00:15:36):
So I wonder if there's a corollary to this blaming other people thing,

(00:15:39):
and this has just kind of popped into my head,

(00:15:41):
so it's not very well thought out,

(00:15:43):
of,

(00:15:44):
you know,

(00:15:45):
Pretty much all of us, all women at least, are taught that our bodies are wrong.

(00:15:50):
You know,

(00:15:50):
we're either too fat or at risk of becoming too fat,

(00:15:54):
and we have to police it constantly.

(00:15:56):
And so I wonder if some of this,

(00:15:58):
like,

(00:15:58):
well,

(00:15:59):
they can change their body if they just try hard enough.

(00:16:03):
Is actually self-talk of if I try hard enough,

(00:16:06):
I will either get thin or stay thin rather than forcing a person to accept like

(00:16:11):
whatever the body you have now is like the body you have to learn to live with.

(00:16:15):
What do you think about that?

(00:16:18):
Yeah, no, I think that's very much it.

(00:16:20):
You know,

(00:16:21):
there's this thing called the National Weight Control Registry,

(00:16:26):
which is a database that obesity researchers use of like every person they can find

(00:16:33):
who has kept off,

(00:16:34):
I think it's like around 100%.

(00:16:37):
or some significant amount of weight and kept off and maintained that weight loss

(00:16:40):
for at least five years.

(00:16:41):
In other words,

(00:16:42):
these are the unicorns because all of the research shows that it is impossible that

(00:16:48):
80 to 90% of people who go on diets regain the weight and then some within five

(00:16:54):
years.

(00:16:54):
So obesity scientists are always determined to find a way for that not to be true.

(00:17:00):
And so they study these people who are like the rare unicorns who fall into that

(00:17:04):
like 10 to 5% of people who keep it off.

(00:17:08):
And when you actually look into what they're doing,

(00:17:11):
It's pretty alarming.

(00:17:12):
They're living with a tremendous amount of restriction.

(00:17:15):
They're following really obsessive workout routines.

(00:17:19):
Maintaining that weight loss is at least a part-time job for most of those folks.

(00:17:23):
It's not effortless.

(00:17:25):
It's not something that fits into their lifestyle.

(00:17:27):
They are giving up travel.

(00:17:28):
They are giving up family gatherings.

(00:17:31):
They are skipping birthday cake.

(00:17:32):
They are committed to this lifestyle in order to maintain their thinness.

(00:17:38):
And I think the unicorns are not the only ones living like that.

(00:17:41):
I think a lot of folks are so caught up in the perpetual labor of the project of

(00:17:46):
their body that what they're really reacting to when they get angry at me and my

(00:17:53):
work or when they get angry at any fat person is,

(00:17:56):
you've given yourself permission not to live like this.

(00:17:58):
You've given yourself permission not to be on this hamster wheel with me.

(00:18:02):
Like, how dare you?

(00:18:03):
Yeah.

(00:18:04):
Oh, yeah, I love that.

(00:18:05):
I think that's really true.

(00:18:07):
And I like it that you mentioned Naomi Wolf, again, problematic.

(00:18:11):
Problematic.

(00:18:12):
Hate mail.

(00:18:13):
We all know it.

(00:18:13):
But like, you know, problematic people can say useful things.

(00:18:17):
You know,

(00:18:17):
I agree that these body image issues are one of the key forces we use to oppress

(00:18:21):
girls.

(00:18:22):
I think constantly about

(00:18:24):
Yeah.

(00:18:46):
Right.

(00:18:47):
So like I want better for my two kids.

(00:18:50):
I and I I'm not committed to like helping them think they're pretty or whatever.

(00:18:55):
I want them to think that being pretty, being thin, being appealing or unimportant.

(00:19:00):
So I want to tell you a little bit about how we talk about bodies and do something

(00:19:05):
I almost never do,

(00:19:06):
which is invite feedback on my parenting.

(00:19:08):
Okay.

(00:19:09):
So,

(00:19:10):
you know,

(00:19:11):
I know so many of my listeners are looking for ways to help their children through

(00:19:15):
this.

(00:19:15):
So I'm going to give kind of what I do and you can tell me what you think and think

(00:19:19):
about what we can add and like how we can just make this better for our kids.

(00:19:23):
Mm hmm.

(00:19:24):
So what we do generally is we talk to our daughters about how bodies come in all

(00:19:27):
shapes and sizes and another person's body is not our business.

(00:19:31):
I've explained to them that some of the people we love most are fat and they're

(00:19:35):
awesome people and they have a variety of lifestyles and we use that word.

(00:19:39):
But then I also explained to them why a lot of people do not want to be called fat.

(00:19:44):
We don't do diet talk or really talk about like our body's appearance at all in

(00:19:47):
front of our kids.

(00:19:48):
Like my husband doesn't even say like you look pretty in front of our kids because

(00:19:51):
I just feel like it's not very helpful.

(00:19:54):
um we don't do the like you're so pretty stuff with them and we try to interrupt

(00:19:58):
and redirect it when other people do it so I don't know tell me if this sounds like

(00:20:03):
a good start and what your general tips are for parents and talking about this body

(00:20:07):
image stuff particularly as their kids get older oh I think it's an amazing start I

(00:20:12):
think you're doing a really good job and it sounds quite similar to how I'm raising

(00:20:17):
my own kids and what we sort of see in the research that you know tends to work I

(00:20:22):
think um

(00:20:24):
You know, what I know, what I have observed, my oldest is in middle school now.

(00:20:29):
And obviously,

(00:20:31):
you know,

(00:20:32):
as kids get older,

(00:20:33):
I think to whatever extent we can lay the foundation when kids are little,

(00:20:37):
it's such a gift because...

(00:20:41):
Little kids who are comfortable with the word fat,

(00:20:43):
like they have this flexibility and this flexible thinking around it,

(00:20:47):
where,

(00:20:48):
you know,

(00:20:48):
my kids will identify diet culture and bring it back to me.

(00:20:51):
And they'll be like,

(00:20:51):
oh,

(00:20:51):
the teacher said today,

(00:20:53):
like,

(00:20:53):
and throw something out,

(00:20:54):
but they won't be internalizing it.

(00:20:56):
They'll be like, Mama, can you believe?

(00:20:58):
It's like kind of eye roll moment for them.

(00:21:01):
And that's really cool to see.

(00:21:05):
I think the layer that's hard to hold together with that,

(00:21:08):
though,

(00:21:09):
is our kids are still going to struggle sometimes because they're in the world and

(00:21:13):
they're getting these messages.

(00:21:14):
And our foundation is everything.

(00:21:17):
And there's also going to be times when it's just not enough because, you

(00:21:22):
the you know the desire to fit in or the you know the desire to be accepted like

(00:21:26):
all of that is so powerful at certain stages of kids lives and the other thing that

(00:21:33):
i think a lot about and i don't have a definitive take on this but i think

(00:21:40):
sometimes like i also really downplay the importance of pretty with my kids i never

(00:21:45):
lead with that when i talk about their appearance

(00:21:48):
I'll praise like their creativity and putting an outfit together like oh that's

(00:21:51):
cool that you've you know put that with that but I won't sort of comment on their

(00:21:55):
prettiness but my own mother didn't do that either she's a hardcore feminist and I

(00:22:00):
can remember at certain points being like now I feel like stupid that I want to be

(00:22:05):
pretty or like but can't she just say I'm pretty like I like there's a there was a

(00:22:10):
point where I can remember wanting it

(00:22:12):
And feeling embarrassed to tell her that I wanted it.

(00:22:15):
And we don't want to shut off that because we want our kids to sort of feel safe

(00:22:21):
expressing their insecurities and their needs to us.

(00:22:24):
And so I do sometimes...

(00:22:28):
I'm trying to think.

(00:22:29):
I guess I don't say you're so pretty very often.

(00:22:31):
I can't remember a time I've said that recently.

(00:22:35):
But I do, like my older daughter and I paint our nails together.

(00:22:40):
Like I do,

(00:22:42):
if there's an aspect of beauty work they're interested in,

(00:22:45):
I don't make it forbidden or shut it down.

(00:22:48):
Because if we do that,

(00:22:49):
we're kind of doing the same thing the parents who banned sugar are doing.

(00:22:52):
We're making it way more interesting.

(00:22:54):
We're making it a little bit transgressive to want it.

(00:22:57):
And there's just going to be more of a fixation.

(00:22:59):
So if instead,

(00:23:00):
like,

(00:23:01):
if your kid's having a princess phase,

(00:23:02):
like,

(00:23:03):
you can say,

(00:23:03):
you know,

(00:23:04):
like,

(00:23:04):
say things like,

(00:23:05):
so what job does your princess have?

(00:23:06):
And, you know, like, let's be...

(00:23:08):
critical of monarchy and all of that but you can also just let them wear the

(00:23:11):
costume you know because like if we if we take some of the power out of these

(00:23:16):
things i think there's value in that as well i had um i had a reader ask me

(00:23:20):
yesterday because i wrote something about like patriarchy and daughters um she said

(00:23:25):
that her four-year-old was encountering like a lot of beauty culture

(00:23:29):
in daycare and that this was way younger than she expected it to be.

(00:23:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(00:23:33):
And she was like, well, so should I ban makeup until a certain age?

(00:23:37):
And it's like, well, is there an age at which beauty culture becomes safe?

(00:23:40):
Like, no.

(00:23:41):
If anything,

(00:23:42):
it's like better to be messing around with it as a four-year-old who maybe doesn't

(00:23:46):
have all the other context versus a 16-year-old who's now desperate to adhere to

(00:23:51):
certain beauty standards,

(00:23:52):
you know?

(00:23:53):
Yeah.

(00:23:54):
Like one feels creative and messy and one feels more disturbing to me.

(00:23:58):
Like we'll project our own stuff onto kids.

(00:24:01):
Like our kids will come out dressed in like a really cool outfit and they just feel

(00:24:06):
like it's artistic.

(00:24:07):
And we're like, they're trying to be beautiful for a man because we would be doing.

(00:24:12):
Right, right, right, right.

(00:24:13):
Yeah.

(00:24:14):
Yeah.

(00:24:14):
That's the,

(00:24:15):
that's the other interesting thing is once you've started creating this other

(00:24:19):
culture in your family,

(00:24:21):
very often kids are engaging with this stuff in a much more playful way.

(00:24:25):
Like I know kids who are,

(00:24:26):
you know,

(00:24:27):
using they,

(00:24:27):
them pronouns and exploring gender and then going through a dress phase and then

(00:24:31):
going through a overalls phase.

(00:24:32):
And like, it's just all play.

(00:24:34):
And I think that's really lovely that there can be like lots of room for play.

(00:24:40):
Yeah.

(00:24:41):
And I think that when I participate in beauty labor myself and that's visible to my

(00:24:48):
kids,

(00:24:49):
I will often say something like,

(00:24:51):
you know,

(00:24:52):
I'm blow drying my hair.

(00:24:53):
It's a lot of work.

(00:24:53):
I like how it looks,

(00:24:54):
but I also am annoyed that I'm doing this before I go to your school event and most

(00:24:58):
of the dads aren't going to have to go to this effort.

(00:25:00):
Yeah.

(00:25:01):
You know, I will often name, yes, I'm doing this labor.

(00:25:05):
It's optional.

(00:25:06):
I'm participating.

(00:25:07):
I get some pleasure from it.

(00:25:09):
I also don't like the double standard.

(00:25:11):
And like,

(00:25:12):
I'm sure my kids are sometimes just like,

(00:25:13):
can you just brush your hair and stop talking?

(00:25:16):
Yeah.

(00:25:16):
I'm telling you so much about it.

(00:25:18):
We have similar things where I'm like,

(00:25:19):
here's going to be the first layer,

(00:25:20):
and here's going to be the second layer,

(00:25:22):
and they're like,

(00:25:24):
shut up.

(00:25:25):
But I do think letting them – one of my kids has blue hair and has been on the blue

(00:25:29):
hair train for a long time,

(00:25:30):
and so we do spend a lot of time and money in hair salons for that for her,

(00:25:34):
but I don't feel like –

(00:25:35):
She's upholding a very specific beauty standard.

(00:25:38):
Like it's obviously just something cool she's exploring.

(00:25:41):
And so I think just having space for them to try it on and not panic and assume

(00:25:48):
that if they're trying it on,

(00:25:49):
they're going to stay there forever,

(00:25:51):
I think is important.

(00:25:52):
Yeah.

(00:25:53):
Because I will tell you, I had such a Barbie.

(00:25:55):
I was such a Barbie girl, such a princess girl.

(00:25:58):
And my mother was horrified.

(00:26:00):
And you know what?

(00:26:01):
Like, here we are.

(00:26:02):
It's okay.

(00:26:03):
Yeah.

(00:26:04):
All right.

(00:26:04):
So I'm coming into this interview with you after a horrible,

(00:26:09):
horrible night with my toddler,

(00:26:11):
which is actually on topic.

(00:26:13):
So, you know, she's going through this like big developmental leap.

(00:26:16):
So she's waking up in the middle of the night and doing all kinds of weird things.

(00:26:19):
And

(00:26:20):
last night she woke up at two cackling maniacally and that's when i knew i was in

(00:26:25):
trouble i was like you never want to hear that cackle at two in the morning and and

(00:26:31):
she goes i'm hungry and like of course the first thing i want to do is gaslight her

(00:26:36):
and say no you're not yeah yeah so she's like i'm hungry and so i go and i get her

(00:26:41):
a piece of cheese and she's like no i want a cookie

(00:26:45):
And we like don't even have any cookies in the house currently.

(00:26:47):
And I'm like, I'm sorry, we're out of cookies.

(00:26:49):
And she proceeds to wail like a starving child.

(00:26:54):
She tells my husband, mommy is depriving me of food.

(00:26:59):
Mommy won't feed me.

(00:27:01):
She's like sobbing to herself.

(00:27:02):
I want a cookie.

(00:27:03):
And she's like genuinely distressed.

(00:27:07):
And the thing that it got me thinking about, you know, at 2 a.m.

(00:27:11):
when my brain is not working well,

(00:27:13):
is that one of the biggest struggles in parenting is encouraging healthy eating

(00:27:18):
while not instilling like disordered eating or bodily shame and how it looks.

(00:27:22):
seems really easy in theory.

(00:27:24):
You know,

(00:27:24):
you present a wide range of healthy foods,

(00:27:26):
you let them decide what to eat,

(00:27:27):
you don't stigmatize dessert,

(00:27:28):
you don't moralize about food,

(00:27:30):
blah,

(00:27:30):
blah,

(00:27:30):
blah.

(00:27:31):
But then there's the real world where kids do just the wildest things about food,

(00:27:36):
like waking up at 2am and insisting that they are going to die without a cookie.

(00:27:41):
And also where their food impulses are not always good for them.

(00:27:46):
And I guess at least not necessarily reflective of what their bodies need.

(00:27:50):
So

(00:27:51):
Like, how do we balance this?

(00:27:54):
I often find myself being like,

(00:27:56):
well,

(00:27:56):
I want to give them choice,

(00:27:57):
but also like,

(00:27:58):
could we please not eat the whole bag of Cheetos like every day?

(00:28:01):
Right, right, right, right.

(00:28:04):
This is one of those, one of those things that.

(00:28:08):
I don't think there's ever a perfect answer.

(00:28:11):
And a lot of the work is understanding that day-to-day,

(00:28:15):
it's not going to look perfect or even anywhere close to it.

(00:28:19):
The day-to-day,

(00:28:19):
if it's working,

(00:28:22):
it sort of looks like you're messing it up a lot of the time because of what you're

(00:28:26):
saying,

(00:28:26):
because kids are just so idiosyncratic and there's so much going on at these

(00:28:32):
different micro stages of development.

(00:28:35):
And so,

(00:28:36):
like,

(00:28:36):
if you'd had cookies in the house,

(00:28:38):
I would have absolutely given the cookie at 2 in the morning.

(00:28:40):
Because at 2 in the morning, all I care about is getting back to sleep as fast as possible.

(00:28:44):
And, like, fine, you want to eat five cookies and go to bed?

(00:28:47):
Great.

(00:28:48):
I don't care.

(00:28:49):
And it doesn't really matter.

(00:28:50):
Like, she's a toddler.

(00:28:51):
It's not going to impact anything.

(00:28:53):
You know, in 10 years, you're going to be like, yeah, remember that weird night she ate cookies?

(00:28:56):
Like, it's just...

(00:28:58):
not going to be but it but it's hard in the moment because and again this is some

(00:29:02):
of the diet culture conditioning is everything feels like so weighted and so

(00:29:06):
important and there is so much talk about how like how they eat in the early years

(00:29:11):
sets this template and like you have to lay this foundation and I honestly think a

(00:29:16):
lot of that is bullshit I think that um

(00:29:20):
There's sort of like good big picture goals we can be striving towards,

(00:29:25):
and you just can't get caught up in the minutia of what it looks like.

(00:29:28):
And so if most of the time you're offering a range of foods,

(00:29:33):
you're not demonizing,

(00:29:34):
you know,

(00:29:35):
treats,

(00:29:35):
you're like making cookies and broccoli have equal moral value.

(00:29:40):
you're doing it right and whether your child eats the broccoli whether they you

(00:29:44):
know like all of that is you just have to kind of trust that it's going to work

(00:29:48):
itself out which i realize is not super tangible or practical but i think what we

(00:29:55):
do know quite clearly from the research is that as long as children have enough

(00:29:59):
food to eat they're not in a food insecure household nutrition works itself out

(00:30:04):
They can get what they need.

(00:30:06):
They can get all the macro and micronutrients they need from a really wide range of foods.

(00:30:10):
They don't need as much protein as Instagram tells you they do.

(00:30:15):
Carbs are not the enemy.

(00:30:16):
They're actually like the engine for how kids' brains run.

(00:30:19):
They need lots of carbs, so that's fine.

(00:30:22):
And palates are ever evolving.

(00:30:25):
So foods they love right now,

(00:30:27):
they may not touch in six months and foods they wouldn't get anywhere near right

(00:30:30):
now in five years might be their favorite thing.

(00:30:32):
We were just reminiscing about how one of my kids used to love spinach and goat

(00:30:36):
cheese and lemons.

(00:30:37):
She wouldn't touch that if I paid her now.

(00:30:39):
Like, but there was this whole phase when she was like four where she loved that meal.

(00:30:43):
And I felt like such a successful parent.

(00:30:45):
Yeah.

(00:30:46):
it's like it didn't it's just you don't know these things are changing all the time

(00:30:50):
now she likes other foods I never would have predicted she would eat um so yeah

(00:30:56):
sorry I don't know if this is giving you anything no that's that's helpful well

(00:31:00):
it's interesting in parenting and I think it's especially helpful for like

(00:31:03):
first-time parents of little kids to hear yeah that like things change we have this

(00:31:08):
like motto in my family our oldest um

(00:31:12):
was like the wildest, messiest eater you can possibly imagine.

(00:31:16):
And the way she would signal that she was done with every meal is she would throw

(00:31:21):
her food on the ceiling.

(00:31:23):
And, you know, I mean, I love the power move of that.

(00:31:26):
We really respect the power move there.

(00:31:28):
Yeah.

(00:31:29):
We would have to like get a ladder.

(00:31:30):
And like,

(00:31:31):
I just remember,

(00:31:32):
I have so many pictures of my husband,

(00:31:33):
like on a ladder,

(00:31:34):
like scrubbing the ceiling after every meal and

(00:31:37):
And, you know, everybody you ask them, like, you need to discipline that child more.

(00:31:40):
And,

(00:31:41):
you know,

(00:31:42):
you try to grab the food,

(00:31:44):
you try to plead,

(00:31:45):
you try to offer courts,

(00:31:46):
nothing works.

(00:31:47):
But now she's eight and she doesn't throw her food on the ceiling anymore.

(00:31:52):
Yeah.

(00:31:52):
It worked out.

(00:31:53):
Yeah.

(00:31:53):
Like every time we have like a hard moment with our kids,

(00:31:56):
my husband looks at me and he's just like,

(00:31:58):
you know,

(00:31:58):
she doesn't throw her food on the ceiling anymore.

(00:31:59):
Yeah.

(00:32:00):
Yes, it will pass.

(00:32:02):
It will pass.

(00:32:02):
I think that's really helpful.

(00:32:04):
And the other thing I would say like to your comment about like,

(00:32:06):
but we don't want them to eat the whole bag of Cheetos or whatever.

(00:32:09):
I think it's also okay to let them have,

(00:32:12):
like,

(00:32:13):
we don't need to protect them from negative food experiences either.

(00:32:16):
Like,

(00:32:17):
There's a lot of power in sometimes eating a whole bag of something and being like,

(00:32:21):
oh,

(00:32:21):
okay,

(00:32:21):
I do feel kind of like my stomach hurts a little.

(00:32:24):
And not making that like a fear-mongering thing.

(00:32:26):
You can say like, yeah, you're probably a little over full.

(00:32:29):
Your body knows what to do with the food.

(00:32:30):
Like you'll poop, you know, in a few hours and feel fine.

(00:32:33):
Yeah.

(00:32:34):
It's going to work itself out.

(00:32:36):
But that's how they build that intuitive eating wisdom.

(00:32:39):
That's how they start to learn.

(00:32:41):
You can't just feed them correctly all the time and expect them to then know to do

(00:32:46):
exactly what you did.

(00:32:47):
That's not how learning happens.

(00:32:50):
It's really funny that you say that because we have for a couple of weeks suspected

(00:32:55):
that my oldest might be lactose intolerant.

(00:32:59):
And like suspicion has been like slowly building.

(00:33:01):
And then one day we were like, oh, like, I think that's it.

(00:33:04):
Yeah.

(00:33:04):
And so she was sitting at the kitchen table the other day and she's like,

(00:33:08):
I want a glass of milk.

(00:33:09):
And I was like, well, I think that milk might be upsetting your tummy.

(00:33:12):
And then she looks at me and she's like, I want a glass of milk.

(00:33:15):
I'm like, okay.

(00:33:16):
So my husband brings her the milk over and she drinks the milk.

(00:33:19):
And then like 10 minutes later, she's like, mommy, my tummy hurts.

(00:33:23):
And I'm like, see, this is what I think is going on with you.

(00:33:26):
Yeah.

(00:33:26):
Yeah.

(00:33:27):
And she's like, oh.

(00:33:28):
Yeah.

(00:33:29):
Oh.

(00:33:29):
And it was just, like, it was such, like, a powerful teaching moment.

(00:33:33):
And now she,

(00:33:34):
like,

(00:33:34):
has been talking about,

(00:33:36):
you know,

(00:33:36):
well,

(00:33:37):
I have to decide if I want the milk more or,

(00:33:39):
like,

(00:33:39):
not a tummy ache more.

(00:33:41):
Yeah.

(00:33:41):
And then that's so empowering for her to manage that as,

(00:33:44):
like,

(00:33:45):
a choice she can make versus,

(00:33:46):
like,

(00:33:47):
you just taking it away.

(00:33:48):
And then she's sad she doesn't get milk anymore.

(00:33:50):
And now that's, like, a power struggle between you.

(00:33:53):
Yeah.

(00:33:54):
I think that's that's really useful to have that.

(00:33:59):
Just again,

(00:34:00):
I'm not saying anyone in danger,

(00:34:01):
obviously,

(00:34:02):
if your child has a peanut allergy,

(00:34:03):
I'm not saying let them experiment with peanuts.

(00:34:06):
But with it, you know, this is why I love Halloween.

(00:34:09):
I think like experiences, holidays where you can let kids like go nuts and eat a ton of candy.

(00:34:15):
It's just like it can be a great tool for helping them.

(00:34:19):
And I also I will say I don't want parents being like,

(00:34:21):
don't you feel bad you ate all that candy?

(00:34:23):
Like, no, no, no, no, no.

(00:34:25):
Just let them enjoy it.

(00:34:27):
Let them because the other thing is it's good for us to see they can eat a ton of

(00:34:30):
candy and be fine,

(00:34:32):
which is also fundamentally true.

(00:34:33):
So it's about like giving them.

(00:34:37):
Whenever you're in doubt coming back to, I'm in charge of what food's available right now.

(00:34:42):
They're in charge of whether they eat it and how much they eat of it.

(00:34:45):
That's like a very helpful clarifying principle to keep coming back to.

(00:34:49):
Yeah.

(00:34:50):
So it's easy for us to have this principle at home.

(00:34:53):
I feel like getting like a healthy food environment in a single house is an

(00:34:57):
attainable goal for most families.

(00:35:00):
And then they go to school or daycare or they have babysitters or they start making friends.

(00:35:07):
And the attitudes they encounter are just like wild.

(00:35:11):
And keeping them at home in a bubble is not an option.

(00:35:14):
And like withdrawing them from a school that has like an imperfect attitude toward

(00:35:17):
food is not an option.

(00:35:19):
But it's like everywhere, like schools use food as rewards.

(00:35:23):
They mandate the kids eat things in certain orders.

(00:35:27):
You know,

(00:35:27):
different families have different attitudes about food and they often vocalize them

(00:35:31):
really loudly.

(00:35:34):
What can parents do to push back on these

(00:35:38):
negative messages that our kids are just like inundated with,

(00:35:41):
you know,

(00:35:41):
not as a one-off with like that one friend you see once a month,

(00:35:45):
but like every day.

(00:35:47):
Well,

(00:35:47):
I think,

(00:35:49):
especially with younger kids,

(00:35:51):
it's important to remember that you still have the most influence,

(00:35:56):
that your family's home culture matters the most.

(00:35:59):
And you can really view a lot of these as opportunities to,

(00:36:03):
to get curious and to have conversations that will reinforce your values so like

(00:36:09):
yeah it's a bummer that when you go to Sophie's house her mom always you know puts

(00:36:13):
out fruit and never cookies like at our house we always have cookies and families

(00:36:17):
have different attitudes about this stuff and you don't need to demonize it but you

(00:36:22):
can sort of be curious and say like yeah how'd you feel was that enough food for

(00:36:25):
you oh you're still hungry okay yeah let's make sure next time you go we'll pack

(00:36:28):
some extra snacks or something um

(00:36:32):
you can just use it as a way to start

(00:36:35):
giving your kids more language around this without demonizing what the other

(00:36:39):
families are doing.

(00:36:40):
I would say,

(00:36:42):
and same with like comments teachers make,

(00:36:45):
I would say times to actually get in and advocate and set boundaries on behalf of

(00:36:51):
your child are if anyone's commenting directly on your child's body or eating

(00:36:56):
habits negatively,

(00:36:58):
particularly if they're fat shaming,

(00:36:59):
if they're saying,

(00:37:00):
you know,

(00:37:01):
They're big or they,

(00:37:02):
well,

(00:37:03):
wow,

(00:37:03):
they would just want to eat cookies nonstop or anything like that that's really

(00:37:06):
clearly rooted in anti-fatness.

(00:37:09):
I would definitely either have a one-on-one conversation with the adult in question.

(00:37:15):
If you're in the room, you can jump in and cut it off.

(00:37:18):
You know, and always emphasizing we trust our, we have no concerns about our child's body.

(00:37:21):
We trust them to eat how they need to eat.

(00:37:23):
We're not worried about this.

(00:37:25):
This is not a problem for us.

(00:37:27):
So at least your child is hearing you reinforce that it's not a problem.

(00:37:31):
The other areas where you would set boundaries are if you're a kid in school,

(00:37:35):
this tends to happen more middle school years,

(00:37:38):
the health class will send home a food log or a fitness log or calorie tracking and

(00:37:43):
you can opt out of those assignments.

(00:37:44):
You can let the school know that you don't think those are safe assignments for

(00:37:48):
middle schoolers who are the highest risk age group for eating disorder

(00:37:52):
development.

(00:37:54):
And that would be something I would try not to let your child participate in.

(00:37:58):
But like the one-off sort of stuff or the like this family does it differently than

(00:38:02):
us stuff or the comments grandma makes about her own weight,

(00:38:07):
all of that I put more in a,

(00:38:08):
okay,

(00:38:09):
this is a chance for me to revisit my values with my kids.

(00:38:12):
And if you're doing that often,

(00:38:14):
you're going to see your kids are going to be like,

(00:38:16):
oh,

(00:38:16):
yeah,

(00:38:16):
that was weird.

(00:38:17):
You know, why doesn't grandma eat bread?

(00:38:18):
You know, but like they're not internalizing it, which is what we want.

(00:38:23):
All right.

(00:38:24):
So I am hearing more lately from women who have gotten hip to like weight stigma

(00:38:30):
and health at every size and all that kind of stuff,

(00:38:34):
but who still want to change their bodies.

(00:38:36):
Sometimes it's because they have an actual medical condition and they need to limit

(00:38:41):
something or change the way they're eating or whatever.

(00:38:44):
But a lot of times it's still really just that they want to lose weight.

(00:38:50):
And they'll reach out to me and ask, well, like, is there a healthy way to diet?

(00:38:55):
Is there a non-diet way to diet?

(00:38:56):
Like, is there a loophole here?

(00:38:59):
And it's interesting because,

(00:39:01):
like,

(00:39:01):
it's this weird dynamic of they had the diet rule and now they have the,

(00:39:06):
like,

(00:39:06):
anti-diet rule that they're trying to find a way to break so that they can go back

(00:39:10):
to dieting.

(00:39:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(00:39:12):
Like, can you talk a little bit about this?

(00:39:14):
Do we just really have to give up our diets?

(00:39:17):
Like, do we just have to stop hating our bodies?

(00:39:20):
Well, no, you can keep hating your body because body autonomy is what we're fighting for here.

(00:39:27):
So we all have the right to hate our own bodies as much as we want to.

(00:39:33):
I mean, I'm saying that glibly, but I really do believe it.

(00:39:35):
If you're fighting for body autonomy,

(00:39:37):
you are fighting for the right for everyone to make choices,

(00:39:40):
whether that's to get a boob job,

(00:39:42):
to lose weight,

(00:39:43):
to dye their hair,

(00:39:44):
to shave our legs.

(00:39:45):
We all have the right to decide how much diet and beauty culture we're going to

(00:39:50):
participate in,

(00:39:51):
how much of this labor we're willing to do.

(00:39:54):
And there are very real costs to not doing this labor.

(00:39:57):
There are very real,

(00:39:58):
especially for multiply marginalized folks,

(00:40:00):
like,

(00:40:01):
you know,

(00:40:01):
this impacts how hireable you are for jobs.

(00:40:04):
This impacts how much money you make.

(00:40:05):
This impacts clothing access,

(00:40:07):
how you're treated by doctors,

(00:40:09):
how safe you feel moving through the world.

(00:40:11):
So there are a lot of times when choosing dieting or choosing any beauty labor is a

(00:40:18):
logical survival strategy in patriarchy.

(00:40:20):
So I would never tell anyone that they don't have to do it.

(00:40:24):
or that they're failing at fat liberation work if they decide to do this for themselves.

(00:40:29):
Because our personal choices belong to us.

(00:40:33):
Our bodies belong to us.

(00:40:35):
That's quoting Kate Mann, a good friend of mine, an amazing scholar on anti-fat bias.

(00:40:40):
But our bodies, my body belongs to me, your body belongs to you.

(00:40:43):
We make our own choices.

(00:40:45):
Along with that, though, I think we all have a responsibility to think about how we are

(00:40:54):
portraying and performing those choices.

(00:40:57):
So if you're going to decide that for you going on Ozempic is the right choice

(00:41:01):
because of health reasons,

(00:41:02):
because of,

(00:41:04):
you know,

(00:41:05):
stuff people said about your body over years that you just can't unhear because

(00:41:09):
again,

(00:41:09):
logical survival strategy under patriarchy,

(00:41:12):
How are you still fighting anti-fatness?

(00:41:14):
How are you standing up for fat people?

(00:41:17):
Are you,

(00:41:17):
when you go to public places,

(00:41:19):
considering how accessible the seating is and maybe saying to the restaurant owner

(00:41:23):
or the manager of the doctor's office,

(00:41:25):
like,

(00:41:25):
hey,

(00:41:25):
you don't have chairs here that fat people can fit into.

(00:41:28):
Are you thinking about when you're picking what clothing stores to shop at,

(00:41:34):
are you letting them know you appreciate that they carry plus sizes or commenting

(00:41:37):
that they don't carry plus sizes?

(00:41:39):
There are so many ways we can show up as allies and advocates in this work that

(00:41:44):
have nothing to do with our personal choices.

(00:41:46):
You don't have to have your personal shit worked out to be a good fat liberation activist.

(00:41:51):
And so, yeah, you make your own choices.

(00:41:54):
I honor your right to make those choices.

(00:41:56):
And I hope you're not

(00:41:58):
And glamorizing those choices to younger girls and women around you.

(00:42:02):
And I hope you're looking out for ways to stand up for fat people.

(00:42:05):
I love that answer because there's so much like moralizing about being the perfect feminist.

(00:42:12):
Yeah.

(00:42:13):
And also moralizing,

(00:42:14):
especially directed at other women,

(00:42:16):
like,

(00:42:16):
oh,

(00:42:16):
she's a fat feminist because look at like X,

(00:42:19):
Y,

(00:42:20):
and Z.

(00:42:21):
That she did.

(00:42:21):
Exactly.

(00:42:23):
And it's just, it's wasted breath.

(00:42:25):
It's wasted breath.

(00:42:25):
We're not the enemy.

(00:42:26):
Yeah.

(00:42:27):
We're not the problem.

(00:42:28):
We're all just trying to survive a shit system.

(00:42:31):
So, yeah.

(00:42:33):
All right.

(00:42:33):
So I want to talk to you about this notion of like lots of things as diets because

(00:42:38):
I got one for you,

(00:42:39):
maybe.

(00:42:39):
Oh, good.

(00:42:40):
I don't know.

(00:42:41):
So I'm 40 and I'm currently being inundated with messaging telling me that

(00:42:46):
literally everything is perimenopause.

(00:42:49):
And also conversely with content telling me that nothing is perimenopause.

(00:42:55):
It seems it's all I'm supposed to think about.

(00:42:57):
Yep.

(00:42:58):
And also that I am supposed to blame like literally every belief and impulse I have

(00:43:03):
on perimenopause because,

(00:43:04):
of course,

(00:43:05):
as a woman,

(00:43:05):
I am dominated by my crazy woman hormones.

(00:43:08):
Right.

(00:43:09):
So is perimenopause content a diet?

(00:43:12):
Oh, my God.

(00:43:13):
I love this.

(00:43:15):
Yeah.

(00:43:15):
I think – I mean –

(00:43:18):
oh, this is an interesting one.

(00:43:21):
I have to think about this.

(00:43:22):
I think, well, number one, perimenopause content includes a lot of straight up dieting, right?

(00:43:28):
Like there's so much pressure to, I'm a little older than you, I'm 44.

(00:43:32):
And I can tell you like the noise is only going to get louder from here.

(00:43:35):
Like there's so much pressure to lose weight and specifically to be lifting tons of

(00:43:40):
heavy weights and eating tons of protein all while wearing a weighted vest.

(00:43:44):
Like that's like the trifecta of perimenopause.

(00:43:47):
Like

(00:43:49):
prevention or survival, I don't even know.

(00:43:52):
And so there's a lot of straight-up diet culture in perimenopause content that we

(00:43:56):
can very quickly say,

(00:43:57):
yes,

(00:43:57):
that is a diet.

(00:43:58):
Dr.

(00:43:58):
Mary Claire Haver,

(00:44:00):
who has authored diet books and sells supplement lines and is like the queen of

(00:44:03):
perimenopause,

(00:44:05):
definitely a diet.

(00:44:07):
The whole notion of is everything that's wrong with me perimenopause or is nothing

(00:44:12):
wrong with me perimenopause is

(00:44:15):
Is none of it merry menopause?

(00:44:17):
That's super interesting because on the one hand,

(00:44:20):
it's like,

(00:44:21):
oh,

(00:44:22):
we don't fucking know because nobody researches women's health very well.

(00:44:25):
Right.

(00:44:28):
I do want more conversation and discourse around this.

(00:44:32):
I want, you know, people to have better body literacy and that's not a diet.

(00:44:38):
Body literacy is, you know, part of body autonomy.

(00:44:40):
You need to understand what's going on with your body so that you can decide what

(00:44:43):
you want to do with it or,

(00:44:44):
you know,

(00:44:45):
or not do with it.

(00:44:46):
So that seems really powerful.

(00:44:48):
But you're also completely right that it's super reductive,

(00:44:51):
that every time I'm angry,

(00:44:53):
I was so angry this week.

(00:44:54):
Oh, my gosh.

(00:44:55):
I was walking around in just a rage state because of the Trump press conference

(00:44:59):
about Tylenol and autism,

(00:45:00):
which I realize would take us down a whole rabbit hole we don't have time for.

(00:45:04):
I know.

(00:45:04):
I know.

(00:45:05):
I just like everybody I've talked to.

(00:45:07):
Yes.

(00:45:08):
Out of my body enraged.

(00:45:10):
And as I was literally so enraged about that,

(00:45:13):
there was part of me that was like,

(00:45:14):
maybe I do need an estrogen patch.

(00:45:16):
Maybe I'm having like a disproportionate amount of anger to this.

(00:45:20):
And then I was like, no, I'm not having a disproportionate amount of anger.

(00:45:24):
Yeah.

(00:45:25):
This is an objectively horrible thing that just happened that I had to hear this

(00:45:29):
most triggering of men articulate these horribly ableist and misogynistic things.

(00:45:35):
I am appropriately livid.

(00:45:37):
This is not my hormones.

(00:45:38):
This is actually just me being angry.

(00:45:41):
And so that's,

(00:45:42):
I think,

(00:45:42):
a really interesting piece of it that we're like then gaslighting ourselves about

(00:45:47):
our emotions because we're like,

(00:45:48):
well,

(00:45:48):
I guess that's perimenopause.

(00:45:49):
Like, no, you can just be angry.

(00:45:52):
Yeah.

(00:45:52):
It's like the same thing we do with postpartum depression.

(00:45:55):
Yes.

(00:45:56):
You're not sleeping.

(00:45:56):
Your partner's not participating.

(00:45:58):
There's a giant hole in your body that's healing and you're exhausted.

(00:46:02):
Well, have you been screened for postpartum depression?

(00:46:04):
And then, you know, as soon as you're out of that window, it's, well, maybe it's perimenopause.

(00:46:08):
Yeah.

(00:46:09):
Yeah.

(00:46:09):
And look, if an estrogen patch will help me like...

(00:46:13):
manage my rage better so that I can get more done on this front like great like I

(00:46:18):
you know and if SSRIs are helping people function day to day like huge fan of an

(00:46:22):
SSRI love that for people but let's not dispute that there are also like very real

(00:46:28):
reasons to be feeling these feelings.

(00:46:31):
Yeah.

(00:46:31):
Yeah.

(00:46:31):
Well,

(00:46:32):
the heavy lifting stuff in perimenopause is like especially interesting to me

(00:46:35):
because like,

(00:46:36):
so I'm like a generally like very active person.

(00:46:39):
Like I have big dogs that I take on a bunch of walks and like I do a lot of

(00:46:42):
gardening and like dancing,

(00:46:43):
but I hate weightlifting.

(00:46:45):
I mean, I, I'm not one of those people who gets an exercise high.

(00:46:49):
The longer I lift weights, the angrier I get.

(00:46:51):
Yeah.

(00:46:53):
And my husband is kind of the opposite where he doesn't have like a lot of natural

(00:46:59):
activity in his life.

(00:47:00):
Like I'm very outdoorsy.

(00:47:01):
He's not.

(00:47:02):
He's like a true fitness bro.

(00:47:05):
You know, he's got the protein shakes and the kettlebells and all of that.

(00:47:11):
And so I have been, you know.

(00:47:14):
being sort of brainwashed by this like weightlifting content that keeps popping up

(00:47:18):
on my socials.

(00:47:20):
And I finally,

(00:47:20):
you know,

(00:47:21):
asked him,

(00:47:21):
I was like,

(00:47:22):
do you think that I need to start lifting weights so that,

(00:47:25):
you know,

(00:47:25):
my like uterus doesn't fall out of my vagina and my like body doesn't fall apart?

(00:47:31):
And he was like, well, why?

(00:47:33):
Like, what's your goal?

(00:47:35):
Like, why do you want to do something that makes you unhappy?

(00:47:38):
Why do you want to be angry for more?

(00:47:41):
And I kept kind of giving,

(00:47:43):
like,

(00:47:43):
vague answers of,

(00:47:44):
like,

(00:47:45):
well,

(00:47:45):
for health and for,

(00:47:47):
you know,

(00:47:47):
fitness.

(00:47:48):
Mm-hmm.

(00:47:49):
And he was like, I think you're worried about eventually getting fat.

(00:47:54):
So no.

(00:47:56):
And like it's true because that's like the hidden thing in the back of all of this

(00:48:01):
that,

(00:48:02):
you know,

(00:48:02):
you definitely shouldn't be fat now.

(00:48:05):
But if you get fat later, that's even worse.

(00:48:07):
Then you'll die.

(00:48:08):
You won't be able to walk.

(00:48:10):
Right.

(00:48:11):
Right, right.

(00:48:12):
Yeah, no, absolutely.

(00:48:13):
The reason I think we can so clearly say that that's a diet mentality versus

(00:48:18):
something you really need to do is because on the flip side,

(00:48:22):
I am someone who really enjoys weightlifting and hates most other kinds of

(00:48:26):
exercise.

(00:48:27):
And I regularly have a voice in my head saying, you can't just lift weights because you like it.

(00:48:32):
You have to be out there doing cardio, which you hate, because that will make you less fat.

(00:48:38):
So that's how we know.

(00:48:40):
Yeah.

(00:48:40):
That's the diet culture.

(00:48:41):
Because no matter what you're doing for exercise,

(00:48:43):
there's a voice in your head telling you you're not doing enough.

(00:48:46):
You're doing the wrong kind.

(00:48:47):
If you're enjoying it, it definitely can't be the right kind.

(00:48:50):
But the kind that makes you miserable, that's the kind that will lead to thinness.

(00:48:53):
So that's what you should do.

(00:48:54):
Yeah.

(00:48:55):
Because it needs to be hard.

(00:48:56):
Yeah.

(00:48:56):
No, if you like it, then it just is not – it doesn't count.

(00:49:00):
You just, like, enjoy the thing.

(00:49:01):
We don't get that.

(00:49:03):
No.

(00:49:03):
Not a lot.

(00:49:05):
That's a no.

(00:49:06):
Yeah.

(00:49:06):
So that's the diet culture.

(00:49:07):
Yeah.

(00:49:09):
Yeah.

(00:49:09):
I mean, I'm sure people would argue like, oh, but weightlifting does blah, blah, blah.

(00:49:12):
And cardio does like, they all have benefits.

(00:49:14):
So what,

(00:49:15):
you know,

(00:49:17):
what is the thing you're going to do and like doing and makes you feel good in your

(00:49:19):
body?

(00:49:20):
It kind of doesn't matter.

(00:49:21):
Like fitness is actually not the goal, right?

(00:49:24):
If longevity is the goal,

(00:49:25):
if health is the goal,

(00:49:26):
like that doesn't have to have anything to do with weight.

(00:49:29):
So we don't need to worry about that piece.

(00:49:30):
But the part that makes us feel like, oh, we've got to do something different or more.

(00:49:35):
That's for sure.

(00:49:36):
Diet culture.

(00:49:36):
Yeah.

(00:49:37):
Yeah.

(00:49:38):
So you recently wrote about Emily Oster's slide to the right.

(00:49:43):
For listeners,

(00:49:43):
unfamiliar with Oster,

(00:49:45):
she first gained popularity with her book Expecting Better,

(00:49:48):
which was a kind of modest argument for not policing women's bodies so much during

(00:49:53):
pregnancy.

(00:49:54):
It wasn't nearly as strong as a lot of people seem to think, but, you know, it's fine, whatever.

(00:49:59):
She's become less scientific over time and much more right-leaning.

(00:50:04):
And I think she's taking some of her fans with her in a way that seems to me like

(00:50:09):
really dangerous and really manipulative.

(00:50:13):
Talk to me about this trend of like these apparently feminist influencers like

(00:50:19):
sliding right and how we can continue to like critically assess people's work

(00:50:23):
rather than just being like,

(00:50:24):
well,

(00:50:24):
she was an authority on this,

(00:50:25):
so she must be an authority on everything.

(00:50:28):
I mean,

(00:50:29):
I think that's like the fundamental piece of it is when we like one piece of

(00:50:34):
content or one book someone's writes,

(00:50:37):
we really have a tendency to then expect them to match up with us on everything.

(00:50:41):
And, you know, I agree with you.

(00:50:44):
Expecting Better was not as radical as it could have been.

(00:50:47):
It was also, though, for its time, quite revolutionary feeling.

(00:50:52):
And as someone who had kids at the same time as Emily...

(00:50:55):
was going through a lot of trauma around breastfeeding.

(00:50:57):
Like I really appreciated her voice in those years.

(00:51:00):
Like I really needed anyone to say that it was okay if I didn't breastfeed my kid

(00:51:03):
because I couldn't and I felt horrible about it.

(00:51:06):
And so I think I, you know, I am really grateful for that work.

(00:51:10):
And I will also say,

(00:51:12):
Going back to Trump and autism and Tylenol,

(00:51:14):
she did a great job this week on Instagram being extremely forceful about how wrong

(00:51:20):
he was about all of that,

(00:51:21):
how misleading it was,

(00:51:23):
and specifically saying like this is policing women's bodies and this is unhelpful.

(00:51:27):
And so I do appreciate that.

(00:51:29):
And I just want to name that like those are some things I think she's done really, really right.

(00:51:33):
And choosing to run a podcast at the Free Press,

(00:51:36):
which is run by Barry Weiss,

(00:51:38):
who's a conservative,

(00:51:40):
libertarian,

(00:51:42):
neocon type of journalist creator,

(00:51:46):
was a really unfortunate choice.

(00:51:48):
Choosing to take funding from conservative billionaires for her research, unfortunate choices.

(00:51:54):
What I think it shows is that there's a...

(00:51:58):
And specifically,

(00:51:59):
she then started making at least one podcast episode,

(00:52:03):
sort of a recurring theme in her work is about the childhood obesity epidemic and

(00:52:08):
pushing a version of feeding kids that is very different from what I have a kid

(00:52:13):
for.

(00:52:14):
It's much more about,

(00:52:15):
like,

(00:52:15):
your goal is to get them to eat as many vegetables as possible,

(00:52:18):
and that is a measure of being a good mom,

(00:52:19):
which...

(00:52:21):
is very counter to her claims about like being grounded in science and you know

(00:52:26):
correlation is not causation and all of these sort of principles that guided her

(00:52:30):
early work and that she was re-upping this week when she was saying this is why the

(00:52:33):
tylenol research is not saying what he's saying it is like she doesn't seem to

(00:52:37):
apply that same lens of critical thinking to issues of weight and health and food

(00:52:42):
so that's problematic

(00:52:45):
And what I think she represents is this larger problem of,

(00:52:48):
as I would put in a similar category with her,

(00:52:51):
someone like Mel Robbins,

(00:52:54):
even like Dr.

(00:52:55):
Becky at times.

(00:52:56):
That's going to be a controversial one.

(00:52:58):
But I think I'm just going to have a tendency.

(00:53:01):
Like Dr.

(00:53:01):
Becky real quick,

(00:53:02):
because I know people are going to like come for you if you dare come for Dr.

(00:53:06):
Becky.

(00:53:07):
Yeah.

(00:53:08):
So I will say that I have come for Dr. Becky and I think Dr. Becky is a real problem.

(00:53:12):
So if you want to come for somebody, come for me, not for Jen.

(00:53:14):
Okay.

(00:53:16):
And I agree with her about Dr. Becky.

(00:53:18):
And I've also published my own critiques of Dr. Becky.

(00:53:22):
What I see with all of these folks is...

(00:53:27):
A very thin,

(00:53:28):
smart white woman who is very marketable because beauty standards are being adhered

(00:53:34):
to and because they're extremely smart and articulate.

(00:53:36):
I'm not downplaying that.

(00:53:38):
And they're able to present themselves as experts on the problems of your life and

(00:53:46):
have solutions for the problems of your life.

(00:53:49):
And are going to make things easier for you.

(00:53:52):
If you follow X,

(00:53:53):
Y,

(00:53:53):
and Z guidelines,

(00:53:54):
you know,

(00:53:55):
if you use these scripts that Dr.

(00:53:56):
Becky gives you,

(00:53:58):
if you just let them like Mel Robbins said,

(00:54:00):
if you,

(00:54:01):
you know,

(00:54:01):
like follow these tips Emily's got,

(00:54:03):
like,

(00:54:03):
there's all this promise of we can solve everything with these super easy

(00:54:07):
strategies that you can just do yourself in your own daily life.

(00:54:11):
which number one is a diet mentality, right?

(00:54:14):
It's saying like, this is a personal project.

(00:54:16):
You can take this on.

(00:54:17):
If you just follow our rules, everything's going to be fine.

(00:54:20):
Oh, you didn't follow the rules.

(00:54:21):
Oh, that's why it didn't work.

(00:54:22):
So that's the diet thing.

(00:54:23):
And number two is completely ignoring the larger social economic,

(00:54:30):
like state of the world context,

(00:54:33):
which is we're trying to raise kids in patriarchy and capitalism and white

(00:54:37):
supremacy.

(00:54:37):
We're living under a dictator.

(00:54:39):
Like we are trying to,

(00:54:41):
to hold our lives together at this like end of, you know, world is burning moment.

(00:54:47):
So just taking deep breaths and gentle parenting or just letting them,

(00:54:53):
you know,

(00:54:53):
like just using these kinds of self-help phrases

(00:54:56):
is not actually what we need because it's not getting at the larger problems.

(00:55:00):
And that's what I really see in Emily's work is there's a lot of focus on like,

(00:55:04):
what is the specific good choice that an upper middle class wealthy mother can make

(00:55:08):
to better herself and her children and completely ignoring the fact that that

(00:55:12):
advice is only going to work for people with lots of resources,

(00:55:16):
with lots of privilege.

(00:55:18):
Yeah.

(00:55:19):
And even then probably not work most of the time because I am a very wealthy white,

(00:55:22):
you know,

(00:55:23):
privileged mom and it doesn't work for me.

(00:55:25):
It's like the one weird trick model of parenting.

(00:55:28):
Yes.

(00:55:28):
You know,

(00:55:29):
the thing that drives me just bonkers about Dr.

(00:55:31):
Becky is she'll give you this like really nice sounding script and then she'll say,

(00:55:36):
and then hold the boundary.

(00:55:38):
And it's like,

(00:55:40):
It's not the script that's the hard part.

(00:55:42):
And then hold the boundary.

(00:55:44):
Because what's wrapped up in that is,

(00:55:47):
you know,

(00:55:47):
forcing your kid into the car seat or listening to the two hour meltdown.

(00:55:52):
And they never say that they never say and then hold the boundary means.

(00:55:57):
you scoop up your fighting child out of the playground.

(00:56:02):
Yeah.

(00:56:03):
And if you're doing this as like a black mom on a playground,

(00:56:05):
someone might call CPS because it looks like child,

(00:56:07):
but you know,

(00:56:08):
like,

(00:56:08):
yeah,

(00:56:09):
yeah.

(00:56:09):
You can only do that in certain contexts at certain moments with certain amounts of privilege.

(00:56:14):
Yeah.

(00:56:14):
I mean, I remember this moment when one of my kids was much younger and like had a therapist and

(00:56:20):
She was giving advice for something or other.

(00:56:22):
And she was like, and then hold the boundary.

(00:56:23):
And I'm like, okay, but what does that mean?

(00:56:25):
Like, what does hold the boundary mean?

(00:56:28):
And I had to,

(00:56:28):
like,

(00:56:28):
interrogate her for,

(00:56:30):
like,

(00:56:30):
a good 30 minutes to get her to admit it meant force her to do it,

(00:56:34):
like,

(00:56:35):
at all costs.

(00:56:36):
Yeah.

(00:56:36):
Like, why?

(00:56:37):
okay, why are we making the hardest part invisible?

(00:56:39):
But that's like a whole other conversation.

(00:56:42):
It would be really interesting if Dr.

(00:56:43):
Becky Reels were accompanied by a real-time soundtrack of somebody doing that.

(00:56:50):
So you could hear the meltdown.

(00:56:51):
Yeah, the meltdown, the threats, the screaming.

(00:56:55):
The back and forth,

(00:56:56):
the ways that kids can like lawyer up on you and start negotiating their way out of

(00:57:00):
it.

(00:57:00):
Like, it's just like the script falls apart real fast.

(00:57:03):
Yeah.

(00:57:04):
I have one kid who just like goes into lawyer mood and it's like trying to survive

(00:57:08):
a deposition.

(00:57:09):
Yeah.

(00:57:11):
I'm like, I don't have to answer your questions anymore.

(00:57:14):
I'm going to speak to counsel.

(00:57:16):
Thank you.

(00:57:17):
I would like my own attorney.

(00:57:18):
Yeah.

(00:57:21):
All right.

(00:57:21):
So I'm on this new thing where I am anti-anti-hopeful.

(00:57:27):
I am tired of the people who are telling us that everything is hopeless and that we

(00:57:31):
should give up and it's too late and all of that because I think that just inspires

(00:57:34):
us to like not do anything.

(00:57:38):
So because I think demoralized people can't act and don't act.

(00:57:42):
So I've been thinking about what I can do to inspire action through hope.

(00:57:47):
How do you maintain a sense of hope?

(00:57:49):
Is there anything you currently feel hopeful about?

(00:57:51):
And do you have thoughts on effective activism moving forward?

(00:57:56):
I think community gives me hope.

(00:57:59):
Um,

(00:58:00):
I have really been,

(00:58:02):
especially in the last two years since my divorce,

(00:58:05):
I have really leaned into my local community,

(00:58:07):
like deepened my friendships,

(00:58:11):
my like sense of connectedness to my community.

(00:58:14):
Um,

(00:58:17):
And, you know, I try to turn that into local action as well.

(00:58:20):
Like there's several like local advocacy groups I support directly,

(00:58:25):
you know,

(00:58:25):
like getting ready to volunteer at my kid's school book fair,

(00:58:28):
like just like stuff where I can be like,

(00:58:32):
the larger stuff is so bad,

(00:58:34):
but I can have some real impact here,

(00:58:37):
hopefully.

(00:58:38):
And I feel a lot of hope when I'm with my friends.

(00:58:41):
I feel a lot of hope when I can participate in community like

(00:58:45):
Last weekend,

(00:58:45):
I went to Farm Aid,

(00:58:46):
which is a huge music festival that raises money for farm laborers and family

(00:58:51):
farms.

(00:58:52):
And being in an audience,

(00:58:54):
all singing Neil Young,

(00:58:55):
screaming about billionaires,

(00:58:57):
that gave me hope.

(00:58:59):
Just finding these ways to have moments in community is really helping me right now

(00:59:05):
because it's reminding me that we can...

(00:59:10):
It's obviously there are so many people who are voting and acting differently than

(00:59:15):
I want them to.

(00:59:16):
But there are a lot of us in this fight.

(00:59:19):
And that is what I most need right now.

(00:59:22):
Yeah.

(00:59:23):
I mean, I think I'm in a similar position.

(00:59:24):
There are so many good people out there in the world and we just have to find them

(00:59:29):
and connect with them.

(00:59:30):
Yeah.

(00:59:31):
Yeah.

(00:59:32):
And I will say too,

(00:59:33):
one other piece of this is like,

(00:59:35):
now that my kids are a little older,

(00:59:36):
being able to talk with them pretty directly about a lot of stuff that's going on

(00:59:40):
in the world.

(00:59:41):
It's like...

(00:59:42):
That gives me hope,

(00:59:43):
not because,

(00:59:43):
I mean,

(00:59:43):
I do think my own children are spectacular,

(00:59:45):
of course,

(00:59:45):
but like talking to,

(00:59:47):
like talking to my kids' friends too,

(00:59:48):
like just seeing them start to engage with this stuff.

(00:59:55):
That's another layer to it for me.

(00:59:56):
Like,

(00:59:56):
okay,

(00:59:57):
there's,

(00:59:58):
I feel awful about the world we're handing the next generation,

(01:00:01):
but also they're so smart and great.

(01:00:03):
And,

(01:00:04):
you know,

(01:00:04):
like it does make you feel like,

(01:00:06):
okay,

(01:00:06):
well,

(01:00:06):
we're doing something right if we're raising,

(01:00:08):
you know,

(01:00:09):
good kids right now.

(01:00:10):
Yeah.

(01:00:10):
I mean, this upcoming generation is amazing.

(01:00:14):
I see so many like positive interactions.

(01:00:18):
I was watching some kids play on one of my kids' playgrounds the other day.

(01:00:22):
And like somebody said something about somebody's body not looking good.

(01:00:25):
And this other little girl like appeared out of nowhere.

(01:00:28):
And she was like, her body is allowed to look however it wants.

(01:00:31):
Yes.

(01:00:32):
It's perfect.

(01:00:33):
And we just support her in being whoever she wants to be.

(01:00:37):
Yes.

(01:00:38):
Moments like that are so good.

(01:00:40):
It's so good when that happens.

(01:00:42):
Yeah.

(01:00:42):
I love it.

(01:00:44):
They're going to be okay, but they've got their work cut out for them.

(01:00:47):
Yeah, exactly.

(01:00:49):
Well, Virginia, this has been amazing.

(01:00:51):
Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

(01:00:54):
Thank you for having me.

(01:00:54):
This has been an absolute delight.

(01:00:56):
Listeners, I will put all of Virginia's information in the show notes.

(01:01:01):
I am again releasing a podcast episode every week this month.

(01:01:04):
We'll see how long I'm able to sustain that.

(01:01:07):
So if you like that pace, let me know.

(01:01:08):
I will be back next week with Alex Bolin,

(01:01:12):
who will be talking about myths about motherhood and the tyranny of the good

(01:01:15):
mother.