Speaker 1: Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heeart Radio podcast.
Speaker 2: This week's Thursday Therapy. We're going to take a different
Speaker 2: spin on it and we're going to talk all about
Speaker 2: millennial with Kate Kennedy. So she actually got started, she
Speaker 2: actually got to quit her job because she made this
Speaker 2: famous doormat, and then she then quit her job. Now
Speaker 2: is writing books, has podcasts all about pop culture and
Speaker 2: millennial things. So considering, wait, are we have a millennial?
Speaker 3: What? Oreay?
Speaker 2: I actually need to know? That was one of my questions. No,
Speaker 2: I think we're we're supposed to be, but I don't
Speaker 2: count as a what nineteen eighty three is a what?
Speaker 2: Oh we had no more millennials? So it says, yeah,
Speaker 2: what's the cutoff? Ninety six? Friend, Yeah, we're goa nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one, eighty two, but just into eighty two. I
Speaker 2: don't feel like I am a millennial. Oh friend, you are.
Speaker 2: If you dance to Usher on Super Bowl, you're a millennial.
Speaker 2: Let's get Kate on. Okay, So take us back because
Speaker 2: when I was your bio, I was like, wait, what what?
Speaker 2: You started selling doormats at sea and you were doing
Speaker 2: what job?
Speaker 3: Then I worked in like corporate market research and like
Speaker 3: TV ratings and stuff and with like marketing effectness for advertisers.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of buzzwords. But I, like a lot
Speaker 3: of millennials, wanted to monetize my hobbies, you know, follow
Speaker 3: my dream my dumb dreams, And I started a doormat
Speaker 3: company when I was nervous about like burning down my apartment.
Speaker 3: You know that episode of Friends or a Phoebe where
Speaker 3: Rachel burns down BB's apartment with a straight or a
Speaker 3: hair straightener. So I started putting turn off your curling
Speaker 3: iron and turn off your straighter on doormat. So it's
Speaker 3: like a welcome map, but instead it reminds you of
Speaker 3: stuff on your way out. And called you a remind doormat.
Speaker 3: And they kind of took off for like forgetful people
Speaker 3: like me, And so, yeah, I left my job and
Speaker 3: I've kind of been swinging from vines of self employment
Speaker 3: ever since.
Speaker 2: You just I mean, at first of all, I love
Speaker 2: that because you're trying to almost like you're inventing yourself
Speaker 2: as you go. That's at least what I'm trying to do. Good.
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm talking to a soulmate when I
Speaker 2: read your bio. First of all, I'm a huge fan
Speaker 2: of alliteration, So Kate Kennedy really hits me, feels real
Speaker 2: good to me. But for the dummies over here, alliteration
Speaker 2: is what like the same letter like Roman Russell, exactly
Speaker 2: like Roman Russell. So that's called hush fan alliteration. I
Speaker 2: love Lily Lionne Lockhart, legend wild.
Speaker 1: He's the middle. That's her good.
Speaker 2: Anyways, it was funny because I was like reading your
Speaker 2: bio and I'm like, I actually feel like you're my soulmate.
Speaker 2: Like it's this like jack of all trades, like just
Speaker 2: kind of going with the flow, seeing where it takes you.
Speaker 1: And I like that about you. How old are you?
Speaker 1: I'm thirty six. Hey, so you're younger on the millennial side.
Speaker 1: Then no, wait, you're not.
Speaker 3: I'm like the exact median, So it's eighty.
Speaker 2: It's like eight right here, I've got eighty one to
Speaker 2: ninety six, Techne ninety six. Yeah, a gen Z is
Speaker 2: ninety seven to twenty twelve. But I feel like that's
Speaker 2: the millennial way we create. We create, we curate, we do,
Speaker 2: and we pave yeah and then we just figure it out. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and we like they linked along the way.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: I think what's so cool about millennials is like we
Speaker 3: were the first to you know create and thus to
Speaker 3: define what it meant to like have an online PERSONAA.
Speaker 3: Like we came of age during the Information Age, the
Speaker 3: most seismic, you know, technological shift of the twentieth century,
Speaker 3: the Internet, so like we built our dreams in a
Speaker 3: world that no longer exists. So I think there's some
Speaker 3: people that like really rooted themselves in the traditions and
Speaker 3: some people that were like, well, now all these opportunities
Speaker 3: are out there, like let me see if I can
Speaker 3: shape shiftft and pivot and kind of maximize it. And
Speaker 3: I hate when people view it as like job hopping
Speaker 3: or whatever. It's like, why wouldn't we harness opportunities available
Speaker 3: to us? So yeah, I've just tried a lot of stuff,
Speaker 3: and podcasting and writing is what's stuck.
Speaker 2: The one after millennials, So they're called gen zs. Would
Speaker 2: you rather be a gen Z millennial or Generation X,
Speaker 2: which is exes sixty five to eighty I married an X.
Speaker 3: Yeah, X is like they don't have people coming at
Speaker 3: them from both sides, like Boom or State millennials and
Speaker 3: Gen Z kind of makes fun of how cringey we are.
Speaker 3: But gen X, I feel like kind of chills in
Speaker 3: the middle. So I feel like that's nice for their
Speaker 3: Like Moniker, I don't know. I love being a millennial.
Speaker 3: The whole point of the book is like it's not
Speaker 3: inherently cringey to have been born between eighty three and
Speaker 3: ninety six. Like people give us a hard time for
Speaker 3: skinny jeans and side parts and whatever the hell else
Speaker 3: we do talking about like our Harry Potter houses or something.
Speaker 3: But I think that we're really dynamic because when we
Speaker 3: came of age and yeah, i'd be a millennial.
Speaker 1: I so I never identified Mila millennia.
Speaker 2: I should talk for a living, talking for a living, Gate,
Speaker 2: you don't like being a millennial.
Speaker 1: I just have never identified as one. I'm sorry. Did
Speaker 1: you watch a Super Bowl and in that way?
Speaker 2: Yeah? But I think it's like I was doing different
Speaker 2: things during Usher than like Kate was well when she
Speaker 2: was listening. Not something I'm gonna comment on at Eastern
Speaker 2: Michigan University, like Usher means something different to me than
Speaker 2: it does to her.
Speaker 3: I mean I was grinding in middle school.
Speaker 1: Wow, Kate middle school. I feel like everyone that's true.
Speaker 2: We did no I was the TUTSI roll. We rolled,
Speaker 2: We didn't grind this. This is the most forty year
Speaker 2: old moment.
Speaker 1: I two rolled. I get it cut.
Speaker 2: But I did see this is very sidebar and we're
Speaker 2: going to get to your book. I promised, and we're
Speaker 2: going off on tangents. But I saw this really funny
Speaker 2: TikTok where it was like, you know, you're a millennial
Speaker 2: or basically mom too. When it's like she's like, we
Speaker 2: we raised the roof. We like, we did see roll.
Speaker 2: We like, there's who who said that? Somebody said it
Speaker 2: did it? Was it?
Speaker 1: You?
Speaker 2: Probably? But I can't. I wish people could see what
Speaker 2: you do when you're doing to dell.
Speaker 1: Their roof. We tootsy rolled, we like.
Speaker 2: There was so many of them, and I mean I
Speaker 2: was I was crying, laughing, like because I'm like, that's
Speaker 2: a millennial.
Speaker 1: That's just what we did.
Speaker 2: But I don't know, I personally prefer I like being
Speaker 2: a millennial. I don't know if I love gen zs.
Speaker 2: They seem a little give to me without working hard enough.
Speaker 2: It's kind of my some of them that I've come across,
Speaker 2: not to stereotype all of them. I think it is
Speaker 2: hard though, like what you're saying, and like you're stuck
Speaker 2: in between because I know I quit teaching. I remember
Speaker 2: my dad had a real moment with me because he
Speaker 2: thought I had ruined my life because I wouldn't get
Speaker 2: summers off direct quote, and and because dad said I
Speaker 2: would never make it if I didn't go to college.
Speaker 2: So I'm a failure. I went to college, and what
Speaker 2: am I doing with that big question mark? But it
Speaker 2: is interesting because I felt like I remember the job
Speaker 2: hopping being the thing, right, like a little shaming about
Speaker 2: the job hopping, and it was like, explain these jumps
Speaker 2: in your resume, and do people even do resumes anymore?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't did job iping too.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, you know, in prior generations, maybe you
Speaker 3: could have a job for twenty five years because you
Speaker 3: could get like a pension.
Speaker 1: They were like benefits.
Speaker 3: But now, you know, especially a lot of millennials graduating,
Speaker 3: like the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, like
Speaker 3: you know, after the you know, late two thousands, like
Speaker 3: stock market crash, and like a ton of people got
Speaker 3: laid off, a ton of people couldn't find a job
Speaker 3: when they entered the workforce. So it's kind of a
Speaker 3: funny rhetoric that, like, we need to be loyal to
Speaker 3: companies on principles, but on principle, but what if companies
Speaker 3: have never been loyal to you, Like, shouldn't you look
Speaker 3: out for your best interest and go from job to
Speaker 3: job where it suits you. I don't really think that
Speaker 3: that's a bad thing, but traditional values kind of label
Speaker 3: it as a bad thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was definitely not happy with me, thought I
Speaker 2: made the worst decision of my life. I remember, and
Speaker 2: now teaching. Can you imagine like my teacher friends, I'm
Speaker 2: just like, bless their souls.
Speaker 1: It's a lot, Oh, I got a lot. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: In your book, One in a Millennial, what you like?
Speaker 2: What's the thing that listeners are going to take the
Speaker 2: most from reading your book?
Speaker 3: I think it's a kind of sits the intersection of
Speaker 3: two experiences, the generational one being a millennial, but also
Speaker 3: the a gender one related to being a female and
Speaker 3: how like the pop culture and me that I loved
Speaker 3: made me a product of my time as a millennial.
Speaker 3: But I also think there's a theme throughout girlhood, throughout
Speaker 3: womanhood where your interests are kind of dismissed, minimize. You're
Speaker 3: told things are insignificant, or you're told you simply emotionally
Speaker 3: responding to things as you being dramatic, and I kind
Speaker 3: of wanted to honor and really I kind of call
Speaker 3: it like, you know, verbally man spreading on the pages,
Speaker 3: like all of the experiences I felt like I should
Speaker 3: shrink or not be proud of or the things I
Speaker 3: loved that you know, we're too mainstream to be sophisticated.
Speaker 3: I kind of just wanted to own and encourage people
Speaker 3: to like like what you like instead of, you know,
Speaker 3: caring about being liked.
Speaker 2: But that's the problem though with our generation, though, is
Speaker 2: we're kind of based off of likes because of the
Speaker 2: social media that we came into.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're very like, very external validation driven and in
Speaker 3: social media just yeah, app compounds to the issue, and
Speaker 3: I think that's kind of part of it. Is Like,
Speaker 3: don't you feel like as you've gotten older, there's you
Speaker 3: more confidence in ownership and like who you are, but
Speaker 3: you at least I can only speak for myself. I
Speaker 3: spent my whole life so deeply concerned with how people
Speaker 3: perceived me, and now I just kind of want to
Speaker 3: hug myself, you know, and be like like your top
Speaker 3: forty music dress up like this.
Speaker 1: Wise girls live your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wear what you want. I wonder this, do you
Speaker 2: feel like? This?
Speaker 1: Is something I wonder often.
Speaker 2: So Janna and I both have three kids and they're
Speaker 2: all basically the same ages, and our girls lead the charge.
Speaker 1: They are eight years old now, and.
Speaker 2: I wonder do you feel like our dog will ever
Speaker 2: feel what we have felt? Because I actually resonate with
Speaker 2: what you're saying. I think it was like almost like
Speaker 2: dream but dream private because exactly it was a very
Speaker 2: like it was a man a man's man's world. I
Speaker 2: mean it was just I mean that's just culture, right,
Speaker 2: that's fact, not opinion. So it's interesting because I wonder, then,
Speaker 2: do you think our daughters?
Speaker 1: Do you have kids?
Speaker 2: Kate?
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh you do? What do you have?
Speaker 3: I just had a baby in August? So I have
Speaker 3: a five month six month old son.
Speaker 2: Noll. Okay, congratulations the three of us for even talking
Speaker 2: publicly while being recorded in postpartum, all three of us.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, I am just sweating all the time
Speaker 2: right now, not ever since I gave birth, and I
Speaker 2: never stopped.
Speaker 1: It's okay, I was just telling her.
Speaker 2: I was like, I stink like the smellingness because I'm
Speaker 2: six Sorry, jeez, I'm three months postpartum.
Speaker 1: I can't talk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm eight months and still sweating. So and
Speaker 2: then I decided to wear like an actual sweater suit
Speaker 2: today to try to be festive. So do you feel
Speaker 2: like then our kids grow up even knowing that like it.
Speaker 2: It feels refreshing to me that they may never like
Speaker 2: our girls specifically, may never feel that way because we've
Speaker 2: really taken the narrative in a different direction. I think
Speaker 2: every like generation has their own pluses and minuses. Like
Speaker 2: I think one great thing about growing up now it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you have the con of social media at a formative age,
Speaker 2: but you have the plus of mental health being an
Speaker 2: open conversation. I think what's unique about being a millennial is, like,
Speaker 2: you know, we had all the social media came out
Speaker 2: of nowhere like halfway through our adolescence, and we weren't
Speaker 2: talking about mental health. So the harsh level of comparison
Speaker 2: paired with like, you know, me not understanding the difference
Speaker 2: between butterflies and like an anxiety disorder, like that didn't
Speaker 2: work in our favor. So I have hope for younger
Speaker 2: people that there's a more more transparency around like how
Speaker 2: you're internalizing the things young girls go through and hopefully
Speaker 2: more working through it than avoiding it than feeling ashamed.
Speaker 2: But I also like researched a lot for this book
Speaker 2: about that age you're talking about eight, And I thought,
Speaker 2: and I think the themes of girlhood like kind of
Speaker 2: transcend generations. I read this book called The Confidence Code
Speaker 2: for Girls, and it talks about how from ages nine
Speaker 2: to fourteen, girls confidence like nose dives and young boys rises.
Speaker 3: And I think that tween age is so interesting. And
Speaker 3: I came back a book I came across a quote
Speaker 3: that like stopped me in my tracks. It was if
Speaker 3: life was one long grade school, girls would rule the
Speaker 3: world because girls are like so disproportionately amazingly confident, and
Speaker 3: then these things like in society kind of break down
Speaker 3: that confidence as they go through puberty. And I think
Speaker 3: there's still a big message there, like for myself as
Speaker 3: a parent too, in terms of thinking like keeping that
Speaker 3: that kind of confidence of girlhood alive and not making
Speaker 3: them feel like they need to age out of certain
Speaker 3: hobbies or interests or I don't know, you know that
Speaker 3: age when all of a sudden, you're not looking at
Speaker 3: the world and where you're like staring into a mirror.
Speaker 3: You're like in dressing rooms, you're so you're aware of
Speaker 3: boys and all these things. I wrote a lot about
Speaker 3: that time period in Girlhood because I think that's something
Speaker 3: everybody and relate to. Things really do change. But I
Speaker 3: love that wistful age of yeah, seven eight, when you're
Speaker 3: like on a fact finding mission about the world that
Speaker 3: you don't have access to yet and.
Speaker 1: I'm so unafraid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the quote that I always go back to
Speaker 2: is who were you before the world told you any different?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: So it's like, yeah, And that's where it's I'm very
Speaker 2: mindful of, like trying to be careful the words that
Speaker 2: I say, especially because I'm like, I don't want to
Speaker 2: be the reason why, you know, my kids feel a
Speaker 2: certain way, because I'm the one telling them things. Right. So,
Speaker 2: when I was getting on Jolly the other day for
Speaker 2: not she just leaves gobs of toothpaste in the sink,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, for the love of God, animals, please wash.
Speaker 2: But I'm like, you know, and I'm like, but I
Speaker 2: have to watch it too. Because I'm like, god, what,
Speaker 2: like what are you thinking? You know, like that's what
Speaker 2: I want to say, because it's just it's I don't
Speaker 2: understand how they they're just so messy, but I'm really
Speaker 2: their fear at her age, right, So I was afraid
Speaker 2: all the time to leave a mess because it was
Speaker 2: so catas strophic. On the other side of things, anything
Speaker 2: that was just childlike or innocent would just became catastrophic
Speaker 2: and I should know better and very like shaming mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And so it's very I I do the same thing.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that, oh, very early, probably like six six, Yeah,
Speaker 2: very interesting. But it is like how do you then
Speaker 2: like you don't want to go opposite, like, oh, just
Speaker 2: leave the leave the mess.
Speaker 1: I know, I know. Then you're just they're not. I
Speaker 1: don't know. So that's just like that's hard.
Speaker 2: I feel like we're all I think our age essentially,
Speaker 2: especially when it comes to parenting, feels like we're like
Speaker 2: bowling without bumpers and we're just trying to like keep
Speaker 2: it like if we hit any pins, it's a win.
Speaker 2: It's kind of how I feel right now, because you know,
Speaker 2: like there's just so much coming at us, so much
Speaker 2: coming at them. We're parenting. We have nobody to lean
Speaker 2: into that's ever parented with the amount of information that
Speaker 2: comes at us or technology, so we are essentially like
Speaker 2: the We're the ones everyone will look to to start
Speaker 2: to ask, but we know nothing and everything at the
Speaker 2: same time.
Speaker 3: Totally when I had when I became a mom, everyone
Speaker 3: told me about mother's instinct, which I do have like
Speaker 3: in some cases, but I feel like my desire to
Speaker 3: look for the right answer will like override my instinct,
Speaker 3: and like my instinct is to google it.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like over analyzing everything because we just because
Speaker 2: our scar tissue gets.
Speaker 1: In the way.
Speaker 2: But let us not forget. We had map Quest, okay,
Speaker 2: and I love the lime wire. We had LimeWire and
Speaker 2: all the things, you know, because map Quest got me
Speaker 2: so busted. One time, my best friend and I printed
Speaker 2: out directions to Michigan State and left them on the
Speaker 2: desk and her mom found them and then asked what
Speaker 2: we were doing that night, and We're like totally going
Speaker 2: to Becky's and she was like, that's interesting, what's this
Speaker 2: paper copy?
Speaker 3: Early lessons of never having a paper trail and I
Speaker 3: got in trouble for printing out the lyrics to Shaggy's
Speaker 3: it Isn't Me and I laughed thinking about my mom
Speaker 3: seeing in the printer tray like shorty calm butt naked
Speaker 3: like banging on the bathroom floor. You remember that song?
Speaker 3: I don't know I rented.
Speaker 1: I think I wanted to memorize it. Why were you
Speaker 1: printing nick ka, This is a question memori know. We
Speaker 1: never she wanted to memorize it.
Speaker 3: Did you guys use AOL instant messenger?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's how I talked to him, like the high
Speaker 2: school boyfriends, and the away message mattered, Oh it did.
Speaker 2: It was like when we broke right, I'm done away message.
Speaker 1: That's so something that would be, that's like, that's you.
Speaker 1: Mine was like I'm the best day ever.
Speaker 2: B RB.
Speaker 3: Some people use them to share like how busy they were,
Speaker 3: like you know, school, feball church, hit the cell. And
Speaker 3: then some people you like, would put up vague emo
Speaker 3: quotes like my hopes are so high that your kids
Speaker 3: might kill me, So won't you kill me? So well
Speaker 3: die happy? You remember like dashboard, which is so extreme,
Speaker 3: But I did that. I would like be passive aggressive
Speaker 3: about my feelings toward boys via away message Kate hot
Speaker 3: girl move was going idle and being like, I'm so busy.
Speaker 1: I'm great out on your buddy list.
Speaker 2: That's what I can't wait to teach Jolie. It's like
Speaker 2: they like, you don't need to do all that, Like
Speaker 2: it's just don't be available, you know, because that's when
Speaker 2: they want you if you're two And just like I
Speaker 2: wish I just enjoyed high school. I was always up
Speaker 2: on my high school sweetheart and worrying about making sure
Speaker 2: he was okay. And I'm like, I should just been
Speaker 2: with my girlfriends. Well we learned it later. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 2: pass away later. Yeah, okay. Kate, so you have a
Speaker 2: book once in a millennial you also have a podcast
Speaker 2: be there in five?
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Which I just enjoy feels very millennialist, a millennial ish.
Speaker 2: What is what's your like dream of all dreams? If
Speaker 2: you could like unapologetically no filter, what does Kate want
Speaker 2: to do next?
Speaker 1: WWKD?
Speaker 3: You know what's so crazy? And this isn't even like
Speaker 3: a promotional shtick. Is like writing that one and Emilia
Speaker 3: was my dream and like I'm kind of a random person,
Speaker 3: non celebrity podcaster who had trouble getting through a lot
Speaker 3: of gatekeepers to like get my work out there, and
Speaker 3: being able to write a book about like things, all
Speaker 3: things girlish and frivolous and pop culture related is just
Speaker 3: like such a moment of pride for me. And it's
Speaker 3: been really really cool. Like to your point about LimeWire,
Speaker 3: like the cover is a burned CD. I mean it's
Speaker 3: just so I love being able to share the experiences
Speaker 3: I've learned from my listeners over the years. And I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm sure you guys can relate. Podcasting is a great gig.
Speaker 3: It's a really cool job, and I hope to be
Speaker 3: able to do it for a while. But with internet careers,
Speaker 3: you never know. So what's next for me is sustainability
Speaker 3: of what I have when I get to the church.
Speaker 2: Said amen, And Kate, where can our listeners find you?
Speaker 3: You can find me at my podcast be there in
Speaker 3: five wherever podcasts are, and my Instagram is at Kate
Speaker 3: Kennedy and yeah by one on a one know wherever
Speaker 3: books are sold. Or the audiobook Nine Months Pregnant, That
Speaker 3: was a journey.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: So we're a little out of breath then, because I
Speaker 2: would I was, I was doing mine when I was like,
Speaker 2: still nauseous, and I was.
Speaker 1: Like and then he like that wanted to like you.
Speaker 1: It's tough.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you Kate so much for coming on mine down.
Speaker 2: We appreciate, We appreciate you, and everyone go download her
Speaker 2: podcast and then get her book, One in a Millennial.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys, Thanks girl, Appreciate you, k Kye.
Speaker 1: I Love Kate