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