Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on
Speaker 1: the Clay Travis and Buck Sexton podcast network on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: I think after the last few days, we need a
Speaker 1: palette cleanser, So let's talk about sex. People aren't having it.
Speaker 1: Study after study shows a downward trend in the number
Speaker 1: of people having sex. One study in twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: showed twenty six percent of adult Americans hadn't had sex
Speaker 1: in the last year. A large study from two thousand
Speaker 1: to twenty eighteen showed an increasing number of people eighteen
Speaker 1: to thirty four reported having no sex or far less
Speaker 1: frequent sex than years prior. Nearly forty percent of young
Speaker 1: adults surveyed in California in twenty twenty one had no
Speaker 1: sexual partners in the prior year at all. I know
Speaker 1: California is weird, but still, I feel like in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties and maybe nineties, sex was very much in
Speaker 1: and now out. All of the comedies of that age
Speaker 1: put sex front and center. For example, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: bring back the gratuitous nudity of the movies of the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, but it's almost like sex has become passe.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about our declining birth rates in
Speaker 1: later episodes, but that's not what I mean here. I
Speaker 1: literally mean people are not having sex, and this is
Speaker 1: having a serious negative impact on our society. In November
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one, I wrote a piece for The
Speaker 1: Spectator magazine called Life After Sex. The pandemic was obviously
Speaker 1: pretty un sexy, I wrote, quote, life could not have
Speaker 1: been less sexy lately, the neighborhood busybody calling the police
Speaker 1: on your backyard party, half of everyone's face covered by
Speaker 1: a mask, everyone drinking too much, staying in their pajamas
Speaker 1: all day, and putting on the quarantine fifteen end quote.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just that. We've been going through some
Speaker 1: pretty significant societal changes, I wrote, quote. Social changes are
Speaker 1: also ratcheting down the sexy fifty seven genders only sounds
Speaker 1: cool to a teenager. An adult hearing someone as a
Speaker 1: pan buy trans non binary fem will just tune out
Speaker 1: and go search up porn hub for something that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Porn use, of course, is way up. People might not
Speaker 1: want to have actual sex, but they're not giving up
Speaker 1: their porn. It's a new world. Click click relief far
Speaker 1: easier than making it work in the new normal, whatever
Speaker 1: that is this month sexy is so old fashioned. End quote.
Speaker 1: There's really something to that we used to accept without
Speaker 1: too much introspection, what we found generally attractive for men. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Victoria's Secret model type was what the majority of
Speaker 1: men would turn to look at in the street. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean men aren't attracted to the ninety nine point
Speaker 1: nine percent of us who don't look like these models,
Speaker 1: but it was just acceptable to say these women are
Speaker 1: beautiful and most men will find them attractive.
Speaker 2: It was obvious.
Speaker 1: It was right around the time of that Spectator piece
Speaker 1: that Victoria's Secret decided to change their whole guiding philosophy
Speaker 1: around this. They announced and I wrote, that they'll be
Speaker 1: phasing out They're impossibly gorgeous and fit angels. Instead, they'll
Speaker 1: be going with leading icons and change makers, including the
Speaker 1: soccer star Megan Rapino, the transgender model Valentina Simpeo, the
Speaker 1: plus size model Paloma Alsessor, and seventeen year old skier
Speaker 1: Eileen Goo. These new icons won't be posing in lingerie,
Speaker 1: but sharing their inspirational stories in a ten episode podcast,
Speaker 1: So Hot. End quote. Women don't put on lingerie to
Speaker 1: be inspired, and men don't look at women in lingerie
Speaker 1: to see a change maker. Lingerie is made for sex.
Speaker 1: That obvious statement is no longer obvious. People can be
Speaker 1: attracted to whatever they want, and there's a wide range
Speaker 1: of what people like. But I really oppose the whole
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to like idea for both men and women.
Speaker 1: When the show mad Men was all the rage, women
Speaker 1: loved Don Draper. He was handsome, he was a man's man,
Speaker 1: but also, you know, kind of a lothario who was
Speaker 1: bad to his women. So there were all these hand
Speaker 1: ringing think pieces from self described feminists about how they
Speaker 1: were attracted to him, like TIHI but you know, felt
Speaker 1: so bad about it. By the way, no man in
Speaker 1: history has ever felt bad about who he was attracted to.
Speaker 1: Never ever. I was not attracted to Don Draper. He
Speaker 1: seemed like too much of a project to me. In fact,
Speaker 1: my celebrity crush is Drone from FOUDA kind of a
Speaker 1: hot moment for that right now.
Speaker 2: But he's like the protector.
Speaker 1: Guy, and he's a badass, and like my husband, he's Israeli.
Speaker 1: That's sulking. Don Draper guy really did nothing for me.
Speaker 1: And I also didn't feel like there was anyone that
Speaker 1: I was supposed to like or not supposed to like,
Speaker 1: and so it lets me like who I like. But
Speaker 1: so now it feels like men are getting that same
Speaker 1: pressure about what they're supposed to like. And that helps
Speaker 1: explain why sex is on the decline. We like what
Speaker 1: we like and being made to feel bad about that
Speaker 1: really doesn't work. We're not going to find some do
Speaker 1: good or attractive just because we're supposed to. I say
Speaker 1: that women have always gotten the advice to not be
Speaker 1: attracted to what they're actually attracted to. I think when
Speaker 1: we see women not consider attraction in the guy that
Speaker 1: they're marrying, that's a problem, and it's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons we see mismatched libidos and marriages. You should marry
Speaker 1: a man who's good to you, who's a good provider,
Speaker 1: who will take care of his family. Yes, yes to
Speaker 1: all of that, but he should also be a man
Speaker 1: you want to have sex with. A marriage without sex
Speaker 1: is a friendship. I sometimes talk about how sex is
Speaker 1: the most important part of a marriage, and it actually
Speaker 1: makes people annoyed because they say no, so many other
Speaker 1: things matter, you know, trust matters, or compatibility matters, and
Speaker 1: of course, all of that matters. When I say most
Speaker 1: important thing in a relationship, I don't say only important
Speaker 1: thing in a relationship. A lot of other things matter,
Speaker 1: but sex is really front and center. Otherwise what you
Speaker 1: have is a friendship. One of the wild things I
Speaker 1: discovered during that during while I was writing that Spectator
Speaker 1: piece is that there was a study conducted during the
Speaker 1: pandemic that found that cohabiting couples actually masturbated more and
Speaker 1: had sex less during the lockdowns. I mean, that's crazy,
Speaker 1: But I'll side note this by bringing it back to
Speaker 1: my first episode, where my monologue was in favor of marriage,
Speaker 1: that married people have more sex than anyone. I bring
Speaker 1: this message to college kids all the time. It's a
Speaker 1: lie that marriage is the end of a sex life.
Speaker 1: In a lot of cases, it's very much the beginning.
Speaker 1: So what's the point sex is good? Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: point sex is good. One of my favorite things to
Speaker 1: hit is that we have to point things out, even
Speaker 1: if it's just to ourselves. Treat sex as important. It's useful,
Speaker 1: look for better sleep and better health, lower stress, and
Speaker 1: it's just a good time. So you know, go do
Speaker 1: it right now or after this show is over. Coming
Speaker 1: up next in interview with Mary Katherine Ham join us
Speaker 1: after the break. I would say that when I was
Speaker 1: thinking about guests that I would have in the future,
Speaker 1: and when I thought about interviewing MK, it was one
Speaker 1: of those where I thought, it's twenty to thirty minutes
Speaker 1: going to be enough because I have a lot of
Speaker 1: things I want to cover with her, but we'll do
Speaker 1: our best to get to everything. And it's so nice
Speaker 1: to have you, Mary Catherine.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: So the overall theme of this show is going to
Speaker 1: be how to be happier, how to improve your life,
Speaker 1: but also how to do things like find the right
Speaker 1: relationship or how to make friends in adulthood. And I
Speaker 1: love everything you write. I'm legitimately like, I think you're
Speaker 1: such a beautiful writer. But one of my favorite things
Speaker 1: that you've written was back in twenty seventeen on the
Speaker 1: Federalist website about trying to make mom friends. And it
Speaker 1: was called the internal Monologue of a new Mom making
Speaker 1: Mom Friends, so everybody should google it. It was hilarious
Speaker 1: and brilliant, and so in thinking of this question, I
Speaker 1: also I confused that piece with the interaction the time
Speaker 1: that your daughter peed on a potential friend. Separate story.
Speaker 1: It's a good one accidentally obviously, but you know, so,
Speaker 1: how is.
Speaker 2: Adult potty training comes with certain challenges?
Speaker 1: This plus is and minuses to all friendships. So how
Speaker 1: is the adult friend making going growing up actually making?
Speaker 1: Because I feel like adult friend making sounds like something different.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I did.
Speaker 3: I think in that piece I suggested that there should
Speaker 3: be basically tender for moms and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, oh, that's weird. Is that that'll get a
Speaker 2: lot of clicks? But I'm not sure that's what I mean.
Speaker 3: So, and I should say, also, just to exonerate my
Speaker 3: poor daughter, yes, she was potty training. I took her
Speaker 3: to a park and she said, no, Mom, I definitely
Speaker 3: don't need a diaper today.
Speaker 2: I am good to go. And I was like, great,
Speaker 2: that sounds awesome.
Speaker 3: And when we got in the car, she told me
Speaker 3: I peed at the park and that little girl yelled
Speaker 3: at me, and I said, oh, well, I'm sure she
Speaker 3: was just surprised, you know, no, biggie. And then it
Speaker 3: turns out that what happened was the girl was standing
Speaker 3: under her on the play structure when this happened. So
Speaker 3: still fair, I did not ever get time. I didn't
Speaker 3: ever get in touch with that mom again. But anyway,
Speaker 3: so that friendship was out, but the adult friend making
Speaker 3: is pretty good. It's it's an interesting quoest because I think,
Speaker 3: when you have kids, you wonder, do I need to
Speaker 3: make a completely different set of friends who also have
Speaker 3: kids and are dealing with the same phase of life
Speaker 3: that I'm in, Or can I import my old friends
Speaker 3: who are also moms now, which is kind of That's
Speaker 3: a lot of what I've done. I have several in
Speaker 3: the area who we were friends before we were moms,
Speaker 3: one in particular from college, who we parent similarly, which
Speaker 3: is a huge part of making those kinds of friends,
Speaker 3: and so I do a.
Speaker 2: Little bit of that.
Speaker 3: I also am thankful that in several neighborhoods I've lived
Speaker 3: in in the DC area, I have had really good
Speaker 3: friends nearby who also had similar values and similar parenting styles.
Speaker 3: On the corner I lived in before I moved here,
Speaker 3: when I was a single mom, there were two sec
Speaker 3: fan houses on either side of me. Granted, LSU and Auburn,
Speaker 3: but look, you deal with what you deal with when
Speaker 3: you come to another place, and they had you know,
Speaker 3: they understood me and the football and had rough and
Speaker 3: tumble kids, and we went through a tough time together
Speaker 3: obviously in my life, and so I was able to
Speaker 3: make friends there. And then I moved and I moved
Speaker 3: close to an army base, and now I have my
Speaker 3: army mom friends and they are fantastic.
Speaker 1: That sounds really good. Does it being a public person
Speaker 1: hinder that or help it?
Speaker 3: I think it hinders it more than anything, because mainly
Speaker 3: because I actually one thing I do in an attempt
Speaker 3: to make mom friends or adult friends in my vicinity
Speaker 3: is that I don't engage with their social media until
Speaker 3: after I've talked with them for a while, like, that's
Speaker 3: not the first place I want to go. Much like
Speaker 3: your neighborhood lists serve, I feel like the reason you're
Speaker 3: going there is more than like you're just going to
Speaker 3: end up hating your neighbors, and that's not what I'm
Speaker 3: interested in doing. So there are several friends I have
Speaker 3: whom if I had seen their social media first, I
Speaker 3: would have assumed a they would dislike me, and be
Speaker 3: that I might not like them. And it turns out
Speaker 3: that social media can just put a different tinge on things.
Speaker 3: Not everybody has a very the same tone as I do.
Speaker 3: And you know, it could just look very different for
Speaker 3: different people, and it can look very different from their
Speaker 3: real life persona. And so I want to get to
Speaker 3: know the real life person and then we can delve
Speaker 3: into that later.
Speaker 2: With me.
Speaker 3: That sometimes becomes impossible if someone you know, clocks me
Speaker 3: as a public person first. But it hasn't caused a
Speaker 3: ton of.
Speaker 1: Problems, right, So, You've had a really amazing career. I've
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like I've been along for the
Speaker 1: ride for a lot of it. And you were most
Speaker 1: recently at CNN. I was a splashy departure. Would you
Speaker 1: say that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's fair. I felt like I needed
Speaker 3: to get some shots in.
Speaker 1: Can you tell listeners what happened?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: So I was at CNN from twenty fifteen until this spring.
Speaker 3: Before that, I was at Fox. I actually enjoyed very
Speaker 3: much being at CNN. I went over there with the
Speaker 3: intention of being the weirdo on the set, being the
Speaker 3: person who says the thing that other people don't say. Now,
Speaker 3: at that time, I think this is in the very
Speaker 3: this is in the earlier Zucker years. It's as Trump
Speaker 3: is headed toward the nomination, but We didn't know that
Speaker 3: at the time, and I felt like it was a
Speaker 3: pretty nice place to be and did responsible work and
Speaker 3: had Trump supporters and Trump critical commentators on mostly every
Speaker 3: panel I was on, and I enjoyed that very much.
Speaker 1: This is the nicest thing anybody's ever said about CNN.
Speaker 3: By the way, well, that was meeting on the left,
Speaker 3: you know, that was twenty fifteen and sixteen. I do
Speaker 3: felt I feel like it really took a turn and
Speaker 3: that this if I am, I allowed to say, pissing
Speaker 3: match between Zucker and Trump led to really bad news
Speaker 3: coverage and really bad incentives because everyone knew that the
Speaker 3: more you try to nail Trump, the more airtime you're
Speaker 3: gonna get.
Speaker 2: And it was very.
Speaker 3: Obvious, and it was obvious to me that I wasn't
Speaker 3: doing the right things to get the airtime. Now that
Speaker 3: does not mean that certain journalists didn't put me on
Speaker 3: the air. I was on Tapper Show a lot. There
Speaker 3: were people who made an effort to get me out there.
Speaker 3: John Berman is another one who was fun to be
Speaker 3: on with. But in general, institutionally I was not doing
Speaker 3: what needed to be done right in the eyes of management.
Speaker 3: So my career sort of like tailed off in that way.
Speaker 3: Then we hit COVID. Then in twenty twenty one and
Speaker 3: twenty two, I'm off air for months and months and
Speaker 3: months and months.
Speaker 2: Now I had two babies in two years. So I'm like,
Speaker 2: am I.
Speaker 3: So sad about that? I'm not so sad about it?
Speaker 3: But I am employed by this place, and what's happening?
Speaker 3: So I started asking questions and I can't figure out
Speaker 3: what's happening, Like why am I never on? I'm pitching columns, nothing,
Speaker 3: nothing's working. And finally, after Chris Lick joins for his
Speaker 3: short short tenure at CNN, I get a call from
Speaker 3: somebody in management or HR who explains to me what happened.
Speaker 3: And here's what happened is that I was put on
Speaker 3: the bench, suspended without my knowledge. Everyone told Zucker, told
Speaker 3: the shows not to use me because I had tweeted
Speaker 3: criticism of Jeffrey Tuban.
Speaker 2: That is yeah.
Speaker 3: Jeffrey Tubban was a legal commentator who was in his
Speaker 3: capacity as at another job, had been caught on a
Speaker 3: zoom pleasuring himself, and he had not been fired from CNN.
Speaker 3: As a result of this interaction, he was benched and
Speaker 3: then brought back somewhat triumphantly with a like an interview
Speaker 3: by Alison Camarata. It was very strange and he I
Speaker 3: wondered to myself, how long was I punished for criticizing
Speaker 3: him versus how long he was punished? And the answer
Speaker 3: is he was off air for eight months and I
Speaker 3: was off air for seven months.
Speaker 2: Right, So that's the price for me.
Speaker 1: Saying, get to show anybody anything you know?
Speaker 3: No I know, And I thought to myself, man, I
Speaker 3: really I could have had only fans and a career
Speaker 3: and I just had a political commentary career.
Speaker 2: But no, it's just so, it's so deeply unfair.
Speaker 3: Part of it was that the context of the conversation
Speaker 3: that I was having on Twitter was one where I
Speaker 3: was critical of media coverage, including CNN of the congressional
Speaker 3: baseball shooting that rubs people the wrong way. But I
Speaker 3: felt like it needed to be said, and I should
Speaker 3: not have used that phrase that I just used, but
Speaker 3: right that that conversation included this tweet about two but
Speaker 3: and apparently that was that was a bridge too far, guys.
Speaker 3: And so I wasn't ever fired or let go or
Speaker 3: laid off. I was asked to come back, and I
Speaker 3: was I to come back with a smile on my
Speaker 3: face and just move on. And I did not feel
Speaker 3: like I could do that, and so I wrote a
Speaker 3: piece about what actually happened, right, So then I left
Speaker 3: like six months later.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I think when people hear stories like this,
Speaker 1: they imagine there's like a lawsuit that follows some something
Speaker 1: like this, for like this kind of bad behavior from
Speaker 1: a company like that that they benched you, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean in the era following me to the idea
Speaker 1: that they benched a female commentator for saying, Hey, exposing
Speaker 1: yourself on you know, a zoom call maybe is not
Speaker 1: the best way to go, and yet you were punished
Speaker 1: for it. So like, is there any repercussions for them?
Speaker 1: Will there be?
Speaker 3: I mean not really, no. My the repercussion that made
Speaker 3: me happy was that it would be public. And I
Speaker 3: knew that if I attempted a lawsuit, I would have
Speaker 3: a non disparagement or something along those lines, and that
Speaker 3: that would be part of the agreement. And honestly, as
Speaker 3: a contract employee, I don't have them any rights. They
Speaker 3: have every right not to put me on air. That
Speaker 3: was a very bad reason to not put me on air,
Speaker 3: But they can do that because I was not a
Speaker 3: full time employee. If I had been a full time employee,
Speaker 3: different scene. But one of my objections, both publicly and
Speaker 3: to the HR person that I spoke to, was during
Speaker 3: the era of Me Too, when I was on air,
Speaker 3: I was asked to comment on every errant penis in
Speaker 3: the entire media, Hollywood, politics, world, over and over and
Speaker 3: over again, sports as well, and I rejected the idea
Speaker 3: that this was the one I was not allowed to
Speaker 3: talk about. I rejected, that's right, Yeah, I'm not protecting
Speaker 3: this one and still talking about all of these.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like was it because you weren't politically
Speaker 1: aligned with CNN's agenda, Like if you had been a
Speaker 1: liberal commentator or you know, just generally on the left,
Speaker 1: do you think the same thing would have happened. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think I hit like a double whammy here, which
Speaker 3: is a woman on the right, Like.
Speaker 2: There was a boys club involved, Tuban was part of it.
Speaker 2: I was not. I also wasn't part of the ideological club.
Speaker 2: So it's just too.
Speaker 3: It was two strikes against me, and everyone's like, well,
Speaker 3: how much do we care about hearing her errant opinions,
Speaker 3: her problematic right wing opinions? They're not that interested, unfortunately
Speaker 3: in half the country. And again, I just think it
Speaker 3: makes it easier to punish someone like me because the
Speaker 3: CNN faithful are not going to be super mad that
Speaker 3: I'm not there, right, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: But surely all the feminists sprang to your defense.
Speaker 2: Right. Oh you know what, I didn't hear from anyone.
Speaker 3: That's uh, that was not my experience, nor did I
Speaker 3: expect it to be. I mean, that's one of the
Speaker 3: things too. And this is just sort of not everything.
Speaker 3: The left often tries to make everything a sexist issue,
Speaker 3: a you know, whatever the ism is of the day,
Speaker 3: and sometimes it's just that, like, life is tough and
Speaker 3: people are self interested in general, and so if you're
Speaker 3: asking people to stand up for you, that requires some courage,
Speaker 3: that requires putting next out. And in the TV and
Speaker 3: media business and politics, shall we say, that is less
Speaker 3: likely to occur even than other areas.
Speaker 1: Right, So, post CNN, I love your podcast. I think
Speaker 1: you're hilarious. Do you feel like you've made it in
Speaker 1: your career?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Because making it for me looks different than it does
Speaker 3: for other people. And this is something again I think
Speaker 3: our friends on the left do not allow for is
Speaker 3: that I chose this career path, and despite speed bumps
Speaker 3: that we were just talking about, I chose it because
Speaker 3: I have a flexible schedule. I can and hang out
Speaker 3: with my kids. I can be there after school for
Speaker 3: my kids if I want to, and spend a lot
Speaker 3: of time with family in flexible ways.
Speaker 2: That's what I wanted to do. I often gave up
Speaker 2: pay to make that happen.
Speaker 3: I never wanted to host my own TV show. This
Speaker 3: was not I'm not driven by the news cycle enough
Speaker 3: in the way that one must be to anchor an
Speaker 3: entire show that way. And I think that that makes
Speaker 3: me happier and makes me better at reading what the
Speaker 3: national mood actually is because most people are not driven
Speaker 3: by the news cycle in the same way that we
Speaker 3: have to be, and so I just don't get a
Speaker 3: charge out of that enough to have been like the
Speaker 3: head of a primetime show, right, And so I'm at
Speaker 3: peace with that. I get to talk about things that
Speaker 3: I like to talk about. I get to have a
Speaker 3: little bit of an impact. I get to model being
Speaker 3: the weirdo in the room for my kids and critical
Speaker 3: thinking and all those things that I attempt to model
Speaker 3: and sometimes courage sticking up for yourself and that's what
Speaker 3: I want to do. That's the more important part of
Speaker 3: a career for me than hitting whatever the C suite
Speaker 3: goal is.
Speaker 1: Right, So, you have four kids, You had a tragedy
Speaker 1: happened in your life where you lost your first husband
Speaker 1: in an accident, and it's recently you passed. Forgot how
Speaker 1: many years it was, but you wrote a really beautiful
Speaker 1: piece about the normalcy that existed before. You've also written
Speaker 1: a lot about resilience, which I just love and think
Speaker 1: that it's so important to teach resilience in model resilience,
Speaker 1: and you've always just been to me like somebody who's
Speaker 1: extremely strong, but real and honest and not pretend. So
Speaker 1: how do you show your kids resiliency?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What what's some Mary Catherine Ham tips on showing your
Speaker 1: kids how to be resilient?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Well, first off, I would say that I would just
Speaker 3: like to note the fact that when we met and
Speaker 3: were drinking cocktails in Manhattan, when we used to hang out,
Speaker 3: the idea that if you had told us that between
Speaker 3: us we'd have seven kids.
Speaker 2: Now, yeah, I'm not bringing up most of them.
Speaker 1: I mean you have you know, you have the majority
Speaker 1: here yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2: Not sure we would have bought that. We both didn't.
Speaker 1: Want to get married, you know, Loos.
Speaker 3: It was a different time time, But yeah, I think. Look,
Speaker 3: I think my kids aren't going to for a long
Speaker 3: time understand what was happening to me during that time.
Speaker 3: And I don't want them to write I wanted them.
Speaker 3: I wanted to sort of get through that giving them
Speaker 3: as little of my trauma as possible. And that is
Speaker 3: something I think people have really lost sight of, which
Speaker 3: is that you are supposed to stand in the breach
Speaker 3: for your kids.
Speaker 2: They are not your emotional crutch.
Speaker 3: Yes, I want to have an open relationship with them,
Speaker 3: and we work on communicating and all that, but there
Speaker 3: are things that they are not called to deal with,
Speaker 3: and in this particular case, especially, they were too young
Speaker 3: to have trauma from this loss. One was my toddler
Speaker 3: was two and barely verbal, and my young second was unborn.
Speaker 3: I was seven months pregnant, so I knew that was
Speaker 3: very helpful to me by the way, being pregnant, because
Speaker 3: I knew I had to sort of keep it between
Speaker 3: the navigational beacons to get this kid born safely, and
Speaker 3: that that was my first priority.
Speaker 2: And then parenting led me to do the same thing.
Speaker 2: This is my priority.
Speaker 3: It doesn't mean I neglect myself, but it does mean
Speaker 3: that I'm really careful about the ways that I lean
Speaker 3: on them and the ways that I try to get
Speaker 3: through life. So I know I need to put that
Speaker 3: baggage now do I hope someday that they understand it
Speaker 3: a little bit, sure, But to me, the more important
Speaker 3: thing is the day to day resilience in them, having
Speaker 3: seen all of us as a family just get up
Speaker 3: every day and do what we need to do. One
Speaker 3: of the things I did in the very early days
Speaker 3: because I there were times, as there are for anybody
Speaker 3: who's going through something big, where you can't put together
Speaker 3: an entire day, maybe you can't even put together half
Speaker 3: a day.
Speaker 2: But the thing that I.
Speaker 3: Did was I made sure that I got up and
Speaker 3: gave my kids breakfast every morning. And to me, that
Speaker 3: was a very material It was often a hot breakfast.
Speaker 3: I was like, look at me, I'm killing it. Guys,
Speaker 3: I don't do that, but it's your own cereal, yes,
Speaker 3: own milk. It felt very concrete that I was doing
Speaker 3: the right thing by them if I could get that done,
Speaker 3: and then they go to nap, and then I the.
Speaker 2: Rest of the day's a waste. The rest of the
Speaker 2: day's a waste.
Speaker 3: Right, So I think seeing maybe learning some of those tools,
Speaker 3: watching me do some of that over the years, I
Speaker 3: hope translates. The other thing I think during COVID and
Speaker 3: other times that have been scary, is just to be
Speaker 3: rational about my concerns and to communicate those concerns rationally.
Speaker 3: You know, when COVID came around, we weren't quite sure
Speaker 3: what it looked like, but we did know that it
Speaker 3: was not as dangerous to young people, and it wasn't
Speaker 3: as dangerous to mom and dad, who are healthy and
Speaker 3: in their forties, and so I made sure that they
Speaker 3: knew that, and I told them we're also going to
Speaker 3: be like a little bit more careful about the grandparents,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't mean we're going to never talk to them,
Speaker 3: which is apparently what some people did. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 3: keeping your head about you in those times is really
Speaker 3: important for kids, and then hopefully when they're adults, they
Speaker 3: will also stand in the breach for their kids.
Speaker 2: Because it's really I really feel like a lot of
Speaker 2: people lost sight of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I think the last few years have just
Speaker 1: been people kind of cover bring up there already, you know,
Speaker 1: previously held opinions with these new neurosis, like the grandparents,
Speaker 1: Like how many people took the opportunity to never see
Speaker 1: their in laws because they really trying to protect you
Speaker 1: from the COVID, you know, like can't take any chances.
Speaker 1: So I think that and people who wanted to work
Speaker 1: from home or people who wanted to stay home all
Speaker 1: the time and didn't want to go out kind of
Speaker 1: used all of that as an excuse as well. So
Speaker 1: to wrap up, I like to ask my guests to
Speaker 1: end with the best tip for listeners on how they
Speaker 1: can improve their lives. What do you think?
Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm going to give two, even though that's
Speaker 3: like a very pundity thing to do, but they're both.
Speaker 3: They're both fairly practical and small. So the first one
Speaker 3: is whenever things are going off, like feel like they
Speaker 3: might be going off the rails for me, and this
Speaker 3: included after Jake died.
Speaker 2: Sometimes life is literally.
Speaker 3: Just about putting one foot in front of the other,
Speaker 3: and if you can physically do that by taking a walk,
Speaker 3: it will get you in a better place. Being outside
Speaker 3: is good for you. Walking is good for you doing it.
Speaker 3: This is awful important stuff. Yeah, you just literally touch grass.
Speaker 3: And I did that in the days after Jake died.
Speaker 3: I made sure I got outside every day, and of
Speaker 3: course I was pregnant at the time. But drink more
Speaker 3: water than wine is also a good rule of them.
Speaker 3: But the second one is and I tweeted about this recently,
Speaker 3: and I think it's a fairly simple fix for a
Speaker 3: lot of people who might be in a bad place
Speaker 3: when it comes to parenting. There's so much drama around parenting,
Speaker 3: and it's a hard job, but it's also a beautiful
Speaker 3: job and a fun job. And if you can surround
Speaker 3: yourself with parents who really enjoy their children and don't
Speaker 3: dwell on the drama and the hard parts as much
Speaker 3: as they do the parts that they enjoy, for instance,
Speaker 3: getting off maybe the Facebook mom group, which can be
Speaker 3: almost inevitably toxic, and putting yourself with a group chat
Speaker 3: of maybe some moms who look we all have struggles,
Speaker 3: but we're also focusing on how much we actually enjoy
Speaker 3: our families. That who you surround yourself with is going
Speaker 3: to make a huge difference. And I try very hard
Speaker 3: to make sure that I'm surrounded by people who, although
Speaker 3: they have struggles, are not focusing on that one hundred
Speaker 3: percent of the time.
Speaker 1: I love that. I really do think that your mood
Speaker 1: is so often decided by who you're surrounded by, and
Speaker 1: if you're around miserable people who hate their kids or
Speaker 1: hate their lives, it's going to rub off on you.
Speaker 1: So that's really excellent advice. Well, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Mary Catherine, you are amazing. Subscribe to her substack and
Speaker 1: listen to her amazing podcast Getting Hammered. I listen all
Speaker 1: the time. Thank you so much for being on.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Excited to be here. You make
Speaker 3: it easy, Carol, everybody listen all the time. This is great.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Markowitch Show.
Speaker 1: Subscribe where every you get your podcasts.