Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Melissa Kearney is an economist at the University of Maryland
Speaker 1: and she has a new book called The Two Parent Privilege,
Speaker 1: How Americans stopped getting married and started falling behind. I've
Speaker 1: read a number of interviews with Kearnie because the topic
Speaker 1: is obviously in my wheelhouse, and I plan to read
Speaker 1: the book, but I haven't yet. But last weekend Barry
Speaker 1: Weiss interviewed Kearnie at Free Press and one thing she
Speaker 1: said really stuck out to me. Kearney said, and this
Speaker 1: is a quote that in survey evidence, you don't see
Speaker 1: widespread rejection of marriage as an institution. You don't see
Speaker 1: in the US that there's been a widespread move away
Speaker 1: from the desire to get married. Rather, it feels like
Speaker 1: achieving a stable married home is a bit of a
Speaker 1: luxury good. It's something that's harder for people without higher
Speaker 1: levels of education and income to achieve. So for that reason,
Speaker 1: we should not be okay with that advantageous institution being
Speaker 1: something that's increasingly out of reach for those who aren't
Speaker 1: in the highest education income classes in our society.
Speaker 2: End quote.
Speaker 1: Kearney's solutions to this are largely government orientated, spending more
Speaker 1: money on the promotion of strengthening families. Now, obviously I'm
Speaker 1: all for strengthening families, but I don't think a government
Speaker 1: role works.
Speaker 3: The George W.
Speaker 1: Bush administration spent three hundred million dollars a year on
Speaker 1: the Healthy Marriage Initiative that did very little beyond line
Speaker 1: the pockets of organizations that hold quote relationship education classes.
Speaker 1: The Obama administration kept that program going with a small
Speaker 1: shift and focus into fatherhood. One study found that it
Speaker 1: did very little to help sustain the marriages of the
Speaker 1: people in the program, and it did not translate into
Speaker 1: significant impacts on marital stability, nor into substantial impacts on
Speaker 1: co parenting, parenting.
Speaker 2: Or outcomes for children.
Speaker 1: None of it worked, and as Kearney says, people still
Speaker 1: respect the institution of marriage, they just don't participate in it.
Speaker 1: They don't think it's for them, and that's very odd.
Speaker 1: I think it has a lot to do with marriage
Speaker 1: being portrayed as uncool in our world. In her book
Speaker 1: The Power of Glamour, Virginia Pastrell notes that in the
Speaker 1: films of the nineteen thirties, divorce was depicted as glamorous
Speaker 1: marriage was at times a loveless prison, while divorce was
Speaker 1: a kin to wearing evening gowns and making cocktails and
Speaker 1: silver shakers as a habit of the fictional rich. But
Speaker 1: now divorce is commonplace and the reality isn't so much
Speaker 1: cocktails and gowns as lonely apartments and having the kids
Speaker 1: every other weekend. And while marriage may not be glamorous either,
Speaker 1: government seminars on the importance of tying the knot definitely
Speaker 1: won't change that singlehood is now portrayed as glamorous. But
Speaker 1: I think most young adults know that's not true. Hence
Speaker 1: they continue to have a high opinion of marriage. Like
Speaker 1: a lot of things, I think what works here is
Speaker 1: telling the truth that marriage is good and fine and
Speaker 1: makes you feel secure and loved and all that other
Speaker 1: good stuff. I hear the naysayers saying, oh, not every marriage, okay,
Speaker 1: and not every singlehood. Life is one of Martini's in
Speaker 1: fast cars, and telling the truth is actually not as
Speaker 1: easy as it sounds.
Speaker 3: Kearney told Weis.
Speaker 1: That she was dissuaded from writing this book by her peers,
Speaker 1: who nevertheless agreed with her perspective. Kearney said. The University
Speaker 1: of Chicago Press published her book, and it wasn't an
Speaker 1: easy process. She got four reviews, one of which said,
Speaker 1: you should not be publishing a book in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three that calls for a return to marriage. So maybe
Speaker 1: that's the place to start. The people who are pushing
Speaker 1: an anti marriage agenda and harming so many poor people,
Speaker 1: I can guarantee you that most of those people are
Speaker 1: themselves married. People have been lied to, and we have
Speaker 1: to start telling the truth, even if it's uncomfortable or
Speaker 1: sounds hokey. Coming up next and interview with Kira Davis.
Speaker 1: Join us after the break. Hi, and welcome back the
Speaker 1: Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Kira Davis,
Speaker 1: host of Just Listen to Yourself and author of Drawing Lines.
Speaker 2: Hi, Kira, so nice to have you.
Speaker 4: Hi, Carol. It's good to be here.
Speaker 1: And I think of your show. I think of it
Speaker 1: in that tone like just listen to yourself?
Speaker 4: Is that back in the tone that it is meant
Speaker 4: to be said in? And you know, one day I
Speaker 4: was just like, I'm going to do a podcast or
Speaker 4: just tell people, like listen what you just said, a
Speaker 4: podcast about thinking through the things that you actually say.
Speaker 3: Right, Like do you even hear yourself right? So you're
Speaker 3: in California.
Speaker 1: I've interviewed a few people who have left California, Dave Rubin, Bridgard, Fetesie,
Speaker 1: and they've left for Texas.
Speaker 2: You're still there.
Speaker 3: Do you think about leaving? Do you consider it.
Speaker 4: The single day I think about leaving? For us, though,
Speaker 4: for my family, that's just not a thing that's going
Speaker 4: to happen. We live in California. That's that My husband's
Speaker 4: job is here. It's a job that supports our family,
Speaker 4: and it won't be forever we but we are making
Speaker 4: plans to leave when the time comes. I also have
Speaker 4: a daughter who's almost finished with high school, so we
Speaker 4: certainly don't want to pull her out. I mean, I
Speaker 4: always say this because I get this. I get asked
Speaker 4: this question a lot by conservatives, like why are you
Speaker 4: still there? When are you going to leave? And look,
Speaker 4: I'll leave when God says it's time to get up
Speaker 4: and go. I definitely believe that, you know, everything happens
Speaker 4: for a reason, and for now, for whatever reason, we're
Speaker 4: in California. And I've always said I think it is
Speaker 4: more dangerous to be some more comfortable outside of God's
Speaker 4: will than to be some are uncomfortable inside of God's will.
Speaker 4: This is where we are. So now that being said,
Speaker 4: it's not like I'm loving it.
Speaker 3: No, I get that.
Speaker 1: I feel like when we were considering leaving, and I
Speaker 1: was getting all of these like just move, just move?
Speaker 3: Why do you keep complaining about New York?
Speaker 2: Just move?
Speaker 3: I think people don't get that.
Speaker 1: It's not an easy decision, especially if you have kids,
Speaker 1: and it's not like I could just pick up and go.
Speaker 1: So where would you go? Like, what's the what's the
Speaker 1: thinking if you were someday to maybe leave California?
Speaker 2: What's what's on your radar?
Speaker 4: Not sure I can do winter again? That is it?
Speaker 3: I hear you. It's seventy degrees. I'm in a sweater.
Speaker 3: It's like, what is this time?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's seventy here California. And the older I get to,
Speaker 4: the more I'm like, oh, slip and fall on ice.
Speaker 4: Not sure if I want to, yeah, go back to that.
Speaker 4: But you know, we don't know, We don't We don't
Speaker 4: really know. A lot's going to depend on where our
Speaker 4: kids land. Ultimately, we have a son in college and
Speaker 4: we'll want to be close to them, and it just
Speaker 4: depends on where things take us. I just at the moment,
Speaker 4: at this point in my life, I can't imagine ending
Speaker 4: my life in California to be somewhere, but somewhere in
Speaker 4: the South. I don't want to go to Texas, Carol.
Speaker 3: Why why I know Texas?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan, so I feel
Speaker 1: like that's my natural second choice.
Speaker 4: Some of my best friends are in Texas, and as
Speaker 4: you well know, just about everybody in California is left. Yeah, Texas,
Speaker 4: but it's just never been my cup of tea as
Speaker 4: far as oh, I think this is a place I
Speaker 4: want to live. I don't have anything against Texas, you know,
Speaker 4: It's not like I'm like ew Texas. I just I
Speaker 4: don't think it's a place I want to land.
Speaker 1: I feel like you'd look great in like a cowboy hat,
Speaker 1: cal girl hat.
Speaker 4: I can rock a cowboy hat for yuh and uh.
Speaker 4: I love I love the I love how everyone everything's
Speaker 4: just so American in Texas.
Speaker 1: And I love the giant flags. Like my kids every
Speaker 1: time we're there, they're like, that's an even bigger flag
Speaker 1: than the last flag.
Speaker 3: It's like, you know, a square block. Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I you know, there's a lot, a lot obviously going
Speaker 1: for it. But again, it's tough to pick up your
Speaker 1: family and move. It's tough to imagine yourself in a
Speaker 1: new place. It's there's a lot of considerations. And I
Speaker 1: fully understand you. That's why, you know, I'm not pressuring you.
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering, just thinking, thinking out loud, where Kira ends.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I took the.
Speaker 4: Journey with you, Carol, all through no when you were
Speaker 4: you know, I was with you on that journey and knowing,
Speaker 4: I mean, I feel like I knew exactly what you
Speaker 4: were feeling because I think my kids are a little
Speaker 4: older than yours, but same type of situation, high cost
Speaker 4: of living, crazy COVID restrictions. Suddenly you're looking at what's
Speaker 4: gonna how I gonna develop you? And yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: I I felt it when you decided to move, like
Speaker 4: people didn't understand what a big deal that waits for you.
Speaker 4: That was not an easy decision.
Speaker 3: No, it wasn't. It was you know, again, life changes.
Speaker 3: What are you going to do?
Speaker 1: So you recently posted that you've been sober for one
Speaker 1: hundred days. I think it's like one hundred and few
Speaker 1: days now. But you also noted that you're not an
Speaker 1: alcoholic and you just needed a break. So how's it been.
Speaker 4: It's been good. So I got to a point recently
Speaker 4: where I felt like, oh, I'm drinking a lot, Like
Speaker 4: there's not a day really that goes by where I
Speaker 4: don't have a drink at least at the end of
Speaker 4: the day. And I I've been going through some life changes.
Speaker 4: I lost my father last spring, and obviously that triggers
Speaker 4: some things. And I just thought, you know what, I'm
Speaker 4: not feeling things. I think I'm drinking and not feeling.
Speaker 4: So I decided to challenge myself. Took a sober month
Speaker 4: and just white knuckled it for a month, kind of
Speaker 4: like I did that by just not going anywhere or
Speaker 4: doing anything. And yeah, but I realized, this is no
Speaker 4: way to live. And if I'm only doing this to
Speaker 4: look forward to the next drink, perhaps that's a problem.
Speaker 4: And so I challenged myself to do it through the holidays,
Speaker 4: because I thought, if he can do it through the holidays, right,
Speaker 4: all right, And Carol, I got to three months, which
Speaker 4: is recent, and my whole brain has changed. My whole
Speaker 4: way of thinking. The change they say after three months
Speaker 4: of sobriety or brain changes again at six and again
Speaker 4: at twelve. Bridget Betasy will tell you two years was
Speaker 4: a big thing for her, and ironically it was her
Speaker 4: that really made me take this step. Years ago, I
Speaker 4: was on her podcast when she was still in LA
Speaker 4: We met up personally for the first time. I joined
Speaker 4: a podcast. We're talking about stress and she in recovery.
Speaker 4: She's recovering alcoholic and addict. And she said, I said,
Speaker 4: how do you deal with stress? Because when I have stress,
Speaker 4: I go have a drink. I have a glass of wine.
Speaker 4: And she said, well, sobriety is really about learning to
Speaker 4: sit in your discomfort and feel those things. And it
Speaker 4: always sat with me, you know, I never forgot it.
Speaker 2: That's very interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And so what I figured out at three months
Speaker 4: is that I'm sitting in my discomfort and that's absolutely
Speaker 4: necessary to like feel all these things that are very uncomfortable,
Speaker 4: Like I'm not feeling comfortable even right now, like today,
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, I've got all kinds of things going
Speaker 4: through my brain. But these are issues that I have
Speaker 4: just sort of pushed to the side for ten twenty years.
Speaker 4: Maybe my whole life right and now for the first time,
Speaker 4: I'm like facing them so interesting abiety has done for
Speaker 4: me so far.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: So I had Bridgard on the show and she talked
Speaker 1: about how, you know, I mean, she went through like
Speaker 1: the one day at a time where you know, she
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine one day of being sober, and then she
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine a week of being sober and so on,
Speaker 1: and now it's been you know, I think over a
Speaker 1: decade for her. So do you feel like you have,
Speaker 1: you know, a date that you want to hit now
Speaker 1: now that it's been over one hundred days or is
Speaker 1: it just one day at a time and we'll see
Speaker 1: where this goes.
Speaker 4: I don't think I'm at one day at a time anymore.
Speaker 4: I think for the first little while I was, and
Speaker 4: now that I'm at three months, I had already committed
Speaker 4: through the new year. But I heard people say how
Speaker 4: your brain changes, but actually experiencing it, it's been interesting.
Speaker 4: So I want to see what happens at a year.
Speaker 4: So I'm going to push for a year. And like
Speaker 4: I said, I'm not an alcoholic, and that is one
Speaker 4: thing also that concerned me, maybe that I was becoming one,
Speaker 4: or that I could become one. Yeah, and now that
Speaker 4: I'm sober, I understand now that I wasn't. But that
Speaker 4: doesn't mean that variety, you know, isn't something that's good
Speaker 4: and healthy and to strive right and can help you.
Speaker 4: So I'm looking forward to a year. Two hundred and
Speaker 4: sixty five is more days to go. Maybe I'll pop
Speaker 4: in and let you know if my brains anymore.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: So you're very well known, you had a hip book,
Speaker 1: you have a show. I mean, you're on TV a lot,
Speaker 1: you have a great family.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 4: No, has anyone ever answered that question?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, some people have.
Speaker 1: I as, yeah, well, I ask everybody, and he answered that, yes,
Speaker 1: a lot of.
Speaker 3: People have answered yes.
Speaker 1: And it's like Mary Catherine Ham answered yes, some other
Speaker 1: people Yeah, people definitely answer yes. You know, it really
Speaker 1: just depends. Like one of the first interviews I did
Speaker 1: was with Klay Travis and he, you know, had famously
Speaker 1: sold his company for you know, X millions of dollars,
Speaker 1: and I asked him if he had made it, if
Speaker 1: he felt like he made it, and he was like, no,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. So it's a different definition for everybody. Is
Speaker 1: the point there.
Speaker 2: So you don't think you've made it?
Speaker 4: No, I don't even I'm not sure what it is.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is even my first career. This isn't
Speaker 4: even my second career. This is like my fourth career.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, you're rocking it though.
Speaker 4: So I heard of the jack of all trades, and
Speaker 4: this is a career I took because I'm a trained actress.
Speaker 4: That's actually what I do. What I did before I
Speaker 4: got married and before I had kids, And then when
Speaker 4: I had kids, I decided I wanted to stay home
Speaker 4: and raise those kids and acting as a hustle, right,
Speaker 4: And so I gave I hate to say I gave
Speaker 4: that up and makes it sound like a sacrifice.
Speaker 3: I changed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And but I needed a little bit more than
Speaker 4: only being home, So I took up writing. And I'm
Speaker 4: very opinionated. So that more for you.
Speaker 3: Really, I know.
Speaker 4: Here I am. So have I made it? No, Im,
Speaker 4: I don't think I'll ever feel like I've made it.
Speaker 4: I don't know that I'm that person.
Speaker 1: Do you Can you see yourself ever going back to acting?
Speaker 4: Yeah? And I do a little now, you know, I've
Speaker 4: sort of started dipping my toes back in as you know, Carol,
Speaker 4: I work with the Babylon b a lot. I also
Speaker 4: have some of my own projects. I'm a producer here
Speaker 4: at California in my own right. And I a few
Speaker 4: years ago I did my first short film was a
Speaker 4: reimagining of Harriet Tubman as an action hero. It's called Tucase.
Speaker 4: Minty was her what she was really called. Her real
Speaker 4: name is Ara Minta, and so her friends and family
Speaker 4: called her Minty, and that Harriet was her mother's name
Speaker 4: that she took on later on in life. So I
Speaker 4: did that and that's still on YouTube. You conbined it, okay, Minty? Yes? So?
Speaker 4: Uh yeah. And my daughter and I are currently working
Speaker 4: on a on a short independent horror film that we're
Speaker 4: filming on our iPhones right now.
Speaker 1: What is it about?
Speaker 4: Uh, it's just a little comedy film about what happens
Speaker 4: when that scary serial killer, our monster is behind you,
Speaker 4: but you are too busy in your phone to it.
Speaker 1: I don't know where you got that idea. Is it
Speaker 1: just like looking around and seeing a bunch of zombies
Speaker 1: on their phones?
Speaker 3: Well, I can't wait to see that.
Speaker 1: Where are you thinking about releasing it? Or how are you?
Speaker 1: How are you gonna, you know, handle kind.
Speaker 4: Of We're going contribution to our favorite film festival, the
Speaker 4: Telly Ride Horror Show, which is say October and Tell
Speaker 4: You Ride Colorado. We go every year as a family.
Speaker 4: My daughter and I are big horror fans especially, and
Speaker 4: then we drag the guys with us. So we're going
Speaker 4: to submit it.
Speaker 3: I love it. It's really amazing.
Speaker 1: I love that you do something super creative while also,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of fighting the good fight.
Speaker 3: We're going to take a.
Speaker 1: Quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 1: What would you say is our largest societal or cultural
Speaker 1: problem in America?
Speaker 2: And do you think it's solvable?
Speaker 4: The breakdown of the nuclear family without a doubt, And
Speaker 4: if you were asking me this as a black woman,
Speaker 4: as a Black American, I would say more even more specifically,
Speaker 4: the absence of fathers in Western society, but American society
Speaker 4: in particular. I've always said it's one of the reasons
Speaker 4: why I got into politics, because I have a heart
Speaker 4: for my community in the black community, one of my communities,
Speaker 4: I guess I have many, and I have always believed,
Speaker 4: you know, we're the canary and the coal mine. And
Speaker 4: what happens in our community will eventually spread to the
Speaker 4: larger American society. And we've seen that with the breakdown
Speaker 4: of the family. How the government really has interrupted the
Speaker 4: family structure and process, and it's like chaos and crime
Speaker 4: and declining education numbers. And I think even empirically, if
Speaker 4: you just look around, you're going to see the the consequences,
Speaker 4: right looking at kids from broken homes, which I'm one,
Speaker 4: or looking at kids from nuclear homes. And we know
Speaker 4: the statistics, because this is our job, is what we do.
Speaker 4: I know what the statistics say. And if you're married
Speaker 4: and you have married parents, you know you're almost guaranteed
Speaker 4: to not live in poverty. You have those two things.
Speaker 4: So I really feel strongly about the nuclear family and
Speaker 4: the importance of is it solvable. Well, that's a larger issue. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's it's solvable if more people get married, I guess, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's solvable. How do we make marriage great again?
Speaker 3: Well, that's the age question, right.
Speaker 1: So my monologue for this episode was actually about Melissa
Speaker 1: Kearney's new book, The Two Parent Privilege, how Americans stopped
Speaker 1: getting married and started falling behind.
Speaker 3: And one of the.
Speaker 1: Things that she says, which is really interesting to me
Speaker 1: is that marriage still people still aspire to marriage, Like
Speaker 1: marriage still gets high marks in studies and surveys like
Speaker 1: do you want to get married? Yes, everybody says yes,
Speaker 1: but then nobody does or not nobody, but you know,
Speaker 1: a low number.
Speaker 2: So how to turn that around?
Speaker 1: And you know, some of her solutions that I mentioned
Speaker 1: this my monologue are government related, you know, put more
Speaker 1: money into marriage, you know, classes or whatever. And I
Speaker 1: don't think any of that works. And I think part
Speaker 1: of it is because, you know, government's not cool, Like
Speaker 1: there's nothing cool like sexy about government programs about like
Speaker 1: how to get married or how to be in love.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be.
Speaker 1: A wider cultural solution.
Speaker 3: I just don't know where to begin with that.
Speaker 4: Well, let me push back a little. Yeah, I hear
Speaker 4: this point a lot, particularly from conservatives, because I'm like you,
Speaker 4: government is not cool, and the less of it in
Speaker 4: my life the better. That being said, I do understand
Speaker 4: the power of incentives. I think this is why it
Speaker 4: can't be a littletarian. I do understand the power of incentive.
Speaker 2: Sure, and it's not the solution.
Speaker 4: There are whole solutions. I believe you're I agree with
Speaker 4: you that it is cultural and we've got it, you know,
Speaker 4: addressed it on a cultural level also. But government can
Speaker 4: incentivize things that are good for government, and marriage is
Speaker 4: good for government absolutely, so tax breaks. You know, in
Speaker 4: Canada you even get I'm Canadian, as your listeners may
Speaker 4: or may not know, I'm an American. Now, everybody calm down.
Speaker 4: But in Canada you still to this day you get
Speaker 4: a check for every kid you have every month, yes,
Speaker 4: until they're eighteen, And that is to encourage you to
Speaker 4: have children, because having children help support the huge tax
Speaker 4: space that they need to support their socialism. Makes some
Speaker 4: kind of sense. Yes, I do believe that. That's why
Speaker 4: I was against, even though I have no problem with
Speaker 4: with gay couples forming relationships and calling it whatever they want.
Speaker 4: And uh, that is why I really was against the
Speaker 4: redefining of marriage as well. Keeping marriage as a man
Speaker 4: and a woman has an incentive for government. It makes
Speaker 4: our government better and stronger, and so it it it
Speaker 4: bodes well for any government to incentivize moral behavior.
Speaker 3: I'm on board with incentivizing for sure.
Speaker 1: I just I see that in socialist countries in Europe
Speaker 1: they have been unable to incentivize despite you know, all
Speaker 1: the benefits. I wouldn't mind if we started with that. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, the government wants to send me a check
Speaker 1: per kid.
Speaker 2: I've got three.
Speaker 1: Let's let's get that those checks rolling. I have done
Speaker 1: my part, but I just I worry that it's a
Speaker 1: like I get a larger problem of cool where I
Speaker 1: feel like there's a lot of you know, Instagram TikTok,
Speaker 1: where singlehood is portrayed is really like fun and fresh
Speaker 1: and cool, whereas married life is boring and a drag,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to get around that. It's hard to
Speaker 1: convince young people like they're lying to you. This is
Speaker 1: a lie, you're being sold to total fiction.
Speaker 4: Well it's hard to convince young people as well, because
Speaker 4: we don't make them engage in delayed gratification anymore.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, So.
Speaker 4: Everybody feels like everybody's raised with this idea that you're
Speaker 4: supposed to be happy all the time and instantly, and
Speaker 4: so marriages work. A marriage is hard work. It requires
Speaker 4: a level of commitment that we don't ask of anybody.
Speaker 4: We're not even asking kids to commit to their own gender.
Speaker 2: These days, you know anything.
Speaker 4: Right, So the idea of commitment and what it means,
Speaker 4: let's go back to the Pence rule. Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yes, that was.
Speaker 4: Such a big deal, and everyone's like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: he's a rapists, get control his rape phantasy, so we
Speaker 4: can't be around a woman. These are this is a
Speaker 4: twister version of perfection culture. These are people who expect
Speaker 4: you to already have it together as soon as you
Speaker 4: step outside your house. So you shouldn't need willpower, right,
Speaker 4: you shouldn't need protection, You shouldn't need boundaries. If you
Speaker 4: need boundaries, you're weak when boundaries are the key to discipline.
Speaker 4: Discipline is the key to success and whatever you're doing.
Speaker 4: So there's no successful person that goes out there says
Speaker 4: I don't have any boundaries, right, and I'm not going
Speaker 4: to protect myself from temptation or rumor or whatever because
Speaker 4: I'm already perfect. It's just we're setting kids up for failure, right.
Speaker 4: I wonder they don't want to try for these forever things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, it's funny. The Mike Pennce rule.
Speaker 1: I wrote about my own marriage rules for the now
Speaker 1: defunct teach Street website, but I also I got so much.
Speaker 3: Hate mail after that.
Speaker 1: But basically, my husband and I don't ever come home
Speaker 1: and say like, oh, I met this great, you know,
Speaker 1: guy girl at work and we're going to go have
Speaker 1: dinner together tonight.
Speaker 2: Like what's the problem with that?
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of couples wouldn't allow that, or
Speaker 1: they just don't verbalize it to each other. But whereas
Speaker 1: we have sort of a verbal understanding of like what's
Speaker 1: appropriate or inappropriate in our marriage and things that we
Speaker 1: would accept and things we would not accept. So it's
Speaker 1: not like we you know, a lot of people misunderstood
Speaker 1: the Mike Pence rule as you're not allowed to have.
Speaker 2: Friends of the opposite sex.
Speaker 1: Of course we are, but it's not going to be
Speaker 1: like you know, snuggling on the couch friends.
Speaker 4: They wanted to misunderstand they do. I mean, they want
Speaker 4: to see him as some misogynistic right, so Donald Trump
Speaker 4: junior rapist, But in reality, adults understand that, you know,
Speaker 4: any good experience has boundaries too, and your marriage is
Speaker 4: something to be protected, and it's not like having right
Speaker 4: fantasies when you go out with someone of the opposite sex.
Speaker 4: It's right, but they're just you're putting guardrails up no
Speaker 4: matter what, You're protecting yourself from rumor and the innuendos, yes,
Speaker 4: or from leading someone else on or again, or just
Speaker 4: falling into your own temptation. I trust my husband implicitly.
Speaker 4: We've never had issues with infidelity in our yesterday was
Speaker 4: twenty five years for us. No congratulations, thank you with infidelity.
Speaker 4: But that doesn't mean I throw them out there to
Speaker 4: the wolves, you know.
Speaker 3: Right right.
Speaker 1: And I think it's also a misconception that it's only men,
Speaker 1: like I think that the guardrails exist for women too.
Speaker 3: It's it's everybody, everybody.
Speaker 4: Like seventy three percent of divorces are initiated by women.
Speaker 4: And I don't think that's seventy three percent of women cheating,
Speaker 4: that's seventy But women are emotional, and you know that's
Speaker 4: seventy three percent. I think of women who maybe got
Speaker 4: emotionally caught up or weren't being served emotionally, and so yeah,
Speaker 4: women will go out and find that connection elsewhere as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, So end here with your best tip for my
Speaker 1: listeners on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 4: This is a good one. So recently, I would say
Speaker 4: this is another part of my sober journey and what
Speaker 4: I'm learning as I'm releasing my brain from that I
Speaker 4: would say, it's really important to listen to your body
Speaker 4: and understand your body's responses, and I'll give you an example.
Speaker 4: So for me, one thing I've learned, and I do
Speaker 4: work with a therapist also, and I have off and
Speaker 4: on through a lot of my adult life when I
Speaker 4: feel like I need it. But one thing I've been
Speaker 4: learning is that I isolate when I'm stressed. So I
Speaker 4: will leave the home. I actually have a little space
Speaker 4: in this house that I go to and I just
Speaker 4: sort of maybe I'll get on my computer and play
Speaker 4: solitaire or just not talk to anybody, be alone. And
Speaker 4: I would have said a year ago that that response
Speaker 4: was because I just don't like people, which I know
Speaker 4: is very odd for people who listen to me and
Speaker 4: see me on TV game I'm very friendly person of all,
Speaker 4: But that underneath is the care that's like go away
Speaker 4: and everybody. And now I realize that that's actually a
Speaker 4: freeze response. So that's when a problem comes up, that's
Speaker 4: that's my body freezing in one place, not being able
Speaker 4: to address the problem. And so instead of me framing
Speaker 4: that as oh, I just don't like people, which I
Speaker 4: think I'm not alone in that right now, I understand that, No,
Speaker 4: that's actually my body telling me something's wrong. There's a problem,
Speaker 4: and it actually needs to be addressed. Your response might
Speaker 4: be different. Maybe you're you call yourself an emotional eater.
Speaker 4: Maybe you get headaches. Maybe you say I haven't saw yet,
Speaker 4: I don't sleep well. I believe those are all your
Speaker 4: body's responses, right. Your body's more in tune with your
Speaker 4: feelings and what you need than you think. So listen
Speaker 4: to your body.
Speaker 1: I love that, and I want you to come back
Speaker 1: when you're at a year and let me know how
Speaker 1: you're feeling and thinking, because that was really, really interesting.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for coming on, Kira. You are awesome.
Speaker 2: Hope to see you again soon.
Speaker 4: My pleasure.
Speaker 1: Carol, thanks so much for joining us on The Carol
Speaker 1: Markowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.