WEBVTT - The Karol Markowicz Show: To Pop a Pill or Not to Pop a Pill with Miranda Devine 0:00:00.360 --> 0:00:04.040 Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:08.200 Last week I talked about men putting off parenthood and 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:12.760 delaying having real relationships, but of course it's not just 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.560 men who do this. In twenty twenty two, the average 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.800 age for an American woman having her first child hit 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.439 thirty for the first time. In the never ending mommy 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:26.880 wars of our time, one of the ongoing battles is 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:30.920 the ideal age of motherhood. The shots are usually lobbed 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.519 at older moms. They put off having babies because they 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:38.239 wanted to focus on their careers. Goes this assumption, and 0:00:38.280 --> 0:00:42.239 now they're quote granny moms who lack the energy to 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:46.520 deal with children. I recently reread a Molly Finn piece 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.559 in The Wall Street Journal from a few years ago 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.880 that fired in the other direction. She argued that being 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.640 an older mother is better than being a younger mother, 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.280 despite the fact that she is indeed sometimes mistaken for 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:03.320 the child's grand tongue in cheek. Thinn called older or 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.760 geriatric mothers Jerry's and says they're better than younger mothers 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.880 because they're tanned, rested, and ready for motherhood in a 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:14.679 way younger mothers just aren't, she writes. Quote what about 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.319 the stamina needed to keep up with a child, you ask, 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.520 But we Jerries have the advantage of not being regularly 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:24.679 hungover from youthful self indulgence. We have only three apps 0:01:24.680 --> 0:01:27.759 on our iPhones, and we waited a long time for children. 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:32.480 We're energized, focused, and almost always happy to see our kids. Also, 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.640 we have watched younger folks make mistakes and learn how 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:36.800 to conserve energy. 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:37.640 End quote. 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.400 I have no quarrel with people who have kids later 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.920 in life. I myself am what used to be considered 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:46.800 an older mother, though, of course, as the average age 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:50.240 of motherhood moves ever upward, my ages of thirty two, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:52.360 thirty five, and thirty eight at the time of the 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:56.160 births of my children don't seem quite so ancient. But 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.920 if there was a way to redo everything, my idea 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.760 would have been to have children much earlier. My husband 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.720 and I knew each other for a decade before we 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.680 started dating, and that's like a lot of lost and 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.840 wasted time. I used to say he was the Jerry 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:17.160 to my Elaine, really minus the romantic beginning. Because Jerry 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.360 and Elaine dated first, we were just friends. You know, 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.600 together all the time, platonically for a long long time. 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.320 In my rewrite of this history, we would have gotten 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:29.320 together in our twenties and our kids would be heading 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.720 to college right now. Older parenthood is hard, even as 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:37.280 Finn notes, you know fewer hangovers. Maybe older parenthood takes 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:40.600 its toll in so many ways. It's harder to lose 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.440 the baby weight. You don't look a little tired when 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.440 you don't get enough sleep, you look like the crypt keeper. 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.680 It's harder to chase around babies you know, who are 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.880 intent on plunging headfirst into everything. And you know the 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.280 lament from a young person putting off parenthood who says, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:58.720 I just want to live my life first, explore the world, 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.760 do things. The shocking truth that's unknown to twenty somethings, 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.760 including myself at that age, is that there really is 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.800 no time when you don't want to live your life. 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.960 I'm in my forties and I still want to do 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:15.480 all those things that people consider living their lives. I 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.079 want to go out to dinner, meet new people, travel. 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.080 My husband and I have been incredibly lucky that our 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:25.800 children have involved grandparents. We have an amazing situation that 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.320 we get to do all of that. But the older 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:30.720 you are when you have kids, the older your parents are, 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:33.800 and the less ability they will have to help. There's 0:03:33.800 --> 0:03:37.000 this idea that there comes a point in your life 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.640 when everything can pause for a bit, as you take 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:42.600 time off to have a baby, secure in your finances 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.200 and the knowledge that your career will pick right up 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:48.240 where left off. And it doesn't really work like that 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:51.560 for women or for men. At the start of your career, 0:03:51.680 --> 0:03:56.440 you're new and mostly expendable. As you climb your career ladder, 0:03:56.680 --> 0:04:00.280 you take on more responsibilities, making it harder all the 0:04:00.320 --> 0:04:03.360 time to step away. And that's the thing about having kids. 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:06.520 There's no right or wrong time to have them. Are 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:09.800 you ready for a baby? No, No one actually is. 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.760 And the truth is you're still allowed to do, you know, 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.400 the things that we call bucket list, but now we 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:19.719 refer to bucket list even not kicking the bucket, but 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.440 having a baby. You're still allowed to go bungee jumping, 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:26.200 or procrastinate on writing that novel you swear you're going 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:30.159 to write after the babies arrive. There's no rule that 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.359 says you have to own your own home or have 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.280 made partner at your firm and You can have all 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:38.000 the money and still be a terrible parent, or have 0:04:38.160 --> 0:04:41.520 very little of it and win at parenthood daily. Aim 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.800 for the parenthood winning, and let the rest fall into place. 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.120 The other problem with putting off parenthood, of course, is 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:52.159 that baby making is more art than science. In general, 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:54.240 a lot has to go right for a baby to 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:56.760 be produced. You have to meet the right person, you 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.320 have to be fertile, they have to be fertile, and 0:04:59.400 --> 0:05:02.480 even then, and there's no guarantee everything will work as 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.479 it should. So much of life is luck, and meeting 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.280 the right person is a huge part of that. Putting 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.640 off kids because you haven't met the right person makes sense. 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.440 Putting off kids because being an older parent is better 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:20.800 is foolishness. Coming up next, an interview with Miranda Divine. 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:27.200 Join us after the break. Hi, and welcome back to 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.279 the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:35.080 Miranda Divine, columnist at the New York Post and author 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:38.280 of the best selling book Laptop from Hell. Thank you 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:39.479 so much for coming on, Miranda. 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:40.920 Great to be with you, Carol. 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:43.800 So I have an admission to make to you, and 0:05:44.480 --> 0:05:48.400 I remember the very first time I read you, I 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:50.479 just looked it up. It was twenty nineteen. It was 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:53.000 your third piece at the Post, and you wrote about 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.279 how marijuana was a really big deal and that it 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:58.960 came with mental health risks for some people, and that 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.479 it was becoming a pro problem in New York. And 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:03.600 I remember reading it and being like, I disagree with 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.920 all of this. This is crazy. Who is this person? 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.800 I remember being like, this is so square. And of 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.200 course I've come around to most of what you've most 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.200 of what you wrote there. So how does it feel? 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:16.839 Do you get that a lot? Like people are saying 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:17.360 you're right? 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.320 That's so interesting? Yeah, Look, I don't know. 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.440 Sometimes I guess people don't really like to admit that, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:26.560 and you know, I'm. 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:27.600 Often wrong myself. 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:31.880 But the drugs thing is something that I've been writing 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.760 about for, you know, more than twenty years. I was 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:40.160 a police reporter early on, and I just saw the 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:44.840 detrimental effect that drugs had, particularly on people at the 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:49.000 bottom of the ladder, and you know, kids who grew 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.520 up with addicted parents. And you know, if there was 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.120 one thing I could do to wave a magic wand 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:59.240 to cure a lot of the ills that plague Western societies, 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.279 it would be to just ban get rid of illicit 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.040 drug use. And I think it's you know, I mean 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:09.840 when I was young, I was just as susceptible to 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:15.200 the sort of pop culture ideas about legal drugs. You know, 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:20.440 I joined some stupid, you know, marijuana legalization party when 0:07:20.480 --> 0:07:21.440 I was at university. 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.520 You know, it was cool. But when you actually look. 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:30.400 At the scientific studies that have been done, particularly on marijuana, 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.400 which you're seen as such a particularly in America, seen 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:36.800 as such a benign drug, and you see that the 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:42.440 very large risks of psychosis. You know, once your brain 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:47.160 has become psychotic, has had a psychotic episode, it's more 0:07:47.240 --> 0:07:49.080 prone to them for the rest of your life, and 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.200 that begins the descent into insanity. And you see it 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.000 all around you in the streets of New York and 0:07:56.280 --> 0:08:00.680 other big American cities, with homeless people who are homeless 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:01.760 because they're mentally ill. 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.120 Yeah. I think you also you predicted in that piece 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:07.760 what ended up happening in New York was that the 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.920 full legalization has made it so the whole entire city 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.520 smells like weed now. And you know, people say, oh, 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:17.640 it was always like that, No, it wasn't. I grew 0:08:17.680 --> 0:08:18.320 up in New York. 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:19.200 No, it was not. 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.720 You know, people used to be covert about smoking. Now 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:25.560 it's out in the open. I think also, New York 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.200 is the only city where you're allowed to do that. 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:32.040 All the other kind of hippie cities who legalized it, 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.800 which legalized it, didn't legalize it to smoke in the 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.120 street anywhere you wanted. And I think New York is 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:42.000 the only place that's okay. So I think that piece 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.120 was really I went back and I read it, and 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.280 it's really interesting. You know, how much I've learned in 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.520 just a few years, but how right you were about 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:53.559 where New York was heading with that. 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:57.240 That's interesting that you say that. I mean, why did 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:58.280 you change your mind? 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:02.000 Was it just because you saw that hails and disorder 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:03.199 in New York over the years. 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.160 Yes, I think I had that impression, like you said, 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:10.120 where look, I you know, I used to be a pothead. 0:09:10.280 --> 0:09:14.760 I you know, was very much into the idea that 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.760 if we just legalized that everybody would be able to 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:19.640 use it, you know, kind of the way that we 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:24.520 have a drink and it wouldn't be just a problem. 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.640 And I think that what we've seen, and you're right 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.120 about the psychosis stuff too. I think that there's a 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.199 lot of research that has come out in the last 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:37.160 few years that does make the link between serious marijuana 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.320 use and psychosis and people who maybe were susceptible to 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:43.880 it already. But I just think New York I've seen 0:09:44.080 --> 0:09:46.920 such a downward spiral. And one of the things is, 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.400 you know, I remember when we still lived in Brooklyn 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.760 walking by somebody smoking a joint in park Slope, like, 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:55.240 you know, eight thirty am as I'm taking my kids 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.760 to school, and if we saw somebody, you know, having 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.640 a drink on the corner at eight thirty, we would 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.200 register that that's a problem. But because it's weed, it's 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:04.479 sort of like, okay. 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.000 It's really odd in America, I think it's a hangover 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:11.160 from Prohibition. I went to university at Northwestern in Chicago, 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.640 actually in Evanston, a little bit north of the city, 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:19.199 and that was the home of the Christian Women's Temperance League, 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:24.640 and really, you know, one of the early sources of prohibition, 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.080 I think. And it's still a dry town. I mean, 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:30.360 it's a university town, but it's a dry town. You 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.360 couldn't get a drink. That was very hard for me 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:36.160 to wrap my head around that coming from Australia to 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:39.480 Chicago and realizing that, you know, we had to go 0:10:39.559 --> 0:10:43.160 a long way to get a drink. But there's still 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.080 this attitude, I mean, which is good I think. I know, 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:50.839 in Australia and Britain, binge drinking, especially among young men, 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.640 is a real problem and causes a lot of violence 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.559 and mayhem, and so it's kind of a good thing 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:02.920 that people don't get in America with drinking so much. 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.400 I mean, you can go to a Broadway show and 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.800 they will give you a glass of wine which is 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.920 like as big as a bucket, and you can have 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.840 as many as you like, and people are not brawling 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:17.559 in the aisles at intermission, which would happen if you 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.960 had a lot of hard drinking cultures. And so I 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:23.960 mean that's kind of a good thing, but I think 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.320 it's gone way over the top. I mean, the fact 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.400 that the drinking age is twenty one for young people. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.400 I know from my own kids who came to America 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:38.120 on various sporting excursions when they were at school, that 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:43.520 you know what that meant was that rather than underage drinking, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.080 which occurs in Australia and England and places which is 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.920 really I think, fine, it's just experimental drinking with a 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:55.560 legal substance in America because it's harder to get a 0:11:55.640 --> 0:12:01.600 drink kids, So I smoking marijuana at school, and that's 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:06.120 that's a much more problematic issue because you know, alcohol 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.079 is illegal, and therefore you haven't broken that kind of wall. 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.040 A child hasn't broken that wall. That's well, I'm taking 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.200 an illegal substance. What's the difference if I take a 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.600 different one, like you know, okay or heroin or you know, 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:22.400 meth or whatever. And I know that. You know, for 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:26.439 so many years we've been told about the reefer madness. 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:32.640 Don't say no drugs, Nancy Pelosi, you know, craziness and yeah, 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:34.360 sorry Nancy, the. 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.280 Opposite, yeah, Nancy Reagan. And you know, so it's really 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.599 uncool to be anti drugs, especially. 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.800 If you're from that generation that grew up with chitch 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.680 and chong and a lot of you know, the cool 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.720 or at least in the aftermath of that cool nineteen 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:54.600 sixties nineteen seventies psychedelic era where drugs, you know, that 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:57.840 was that was sort of the thing that our elders 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.640 were doing. And so by the time the next generation 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.520 came of age. It was completely normal and it was 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:11.840 part you know, hooked into music and celebrity and anything 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.080 you wanted to do. And so we've had I guess 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:19.200 forty years of its normalization of drug use and coolification 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:24.360 of it, and and I think it's been really detrimental 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:28.160 to mental health and and you know, I mean just 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:29.880 to the culture. 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:32.280 You know, po pot. 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.680 I know from my own misspent youth, it just SAPs 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.559 you of energy and enterprise. It's the most loser drug 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.560 you could ever think of, and it has the cash 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:50.400 day as being just so safe, zen and hip and safe, 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:54.080 and so you know, I don't know. I just think 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.320 alcohol is bad. It has problems, but it's been with 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.439 us for a long time. Humans are going to need 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:03.320 some sort of mind altering drug. We chose long ago 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:09.840 that it be alcohol, and it's relatively safe. And I 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:14.160 think we'd be better off just focusing on having fun 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:18.760 with the one legal drug rather than trying to supplement 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.120 it with all sorts of other crazy drugs, because there'll 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.520 always be something new. And we now see fentanal the 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:32.840 ultimate expression of optimizing illegal drugs, and it's just you know, 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:33.680 it's lethal. 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:34.600 Right. 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:37.680 So I mentioned that that piece was from twenty nineteen. 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.160 I think that's around when you moved from Australia to 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:42.080 New York, Is that right? 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:44.160 Yep, that's right, twenty nineteen. 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:46.600 So we talk a lot on this show about people 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:48.680 moving because you know, as you know, there's been this 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:53.600 migration in America over the COVID years, but you made 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.400 an international move and you did it before COVID. So 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:57.440 how's that been for you? 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:02.160 It's been great and weird because of COVID, I guess. 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:07.680 And you know, I was actually born in Jamaica, Queens, 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:10.280 so really kind of a native born in New York 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.000 or my accent doesn't doesn't tell you that. 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:15.360 And my parents were journalist. 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:19.160 My father was a foreign correspondent in New York, and 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:21.800 so you know, I was born here. 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:23.880 We lived, you know, in. 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.600 London, and we lived in Tokyo for six years, and 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:31.280 I went to an American school. I had this very American, 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:38.360 strangely American upbringing, which was hyper American suburban upbringing in 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:41.480 Tokyo because I went to an international school. All my 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.600 friends were American parents were diplomats or my best friend 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.360 lived on the Pan American compound, and that was like 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.640 the Truman Show. It was behind It was a gated 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.520 community with these manicured lawns and culder sacks and little 0:15:56.520 --> 0:16:01.880 American bungalows, and you know, we used to you know, 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.680 I read the Bobbsey Twins and all sorts of sort 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:08.080 of old American classics, children's classics. 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:09.560 I didn't know that this. 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.960 Was bizarre and the real America had changed, but we 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:18.800 were living in this sort of capsule of Americana as 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:24.280 sort of interpreted through Tokyo in the nineteen sixties and seventies. 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:26.920 And then my. 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:31.000 Parents decided that the family needed to sort of live 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.680 a normal lifestyle, not next pat lifestyle. So they went 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.560 back to my mother's home country, which was Australia, and 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.760 that was a huge culture shock for us kids, my 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:40.520 sisters and I. 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:46.520 How old were you, I was ten eleven, and you know, 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.240 I just thought of myself as an American kid and here, 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:58.400 you know, speaking Japanese, living this sort of strange international lifestyle. 0:16:58.440 --> 0:16:59.920 And then we were in the sort of the sub 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.320 verbs of Perth, which is a real outpost in western 0:17:04.320 --> 0:17:07.960 Australia and among the sand dunes, and. 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:10.639 So that was that was quite a culture shock. I 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.760 remember my mother ushering my sister and I, who were 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:18.040 both very indoor kids living in Tokyo, ushering us out 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.479 for a picnic, which we just didn't want to do, 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:25.120 but we immediately encountered all these horrible creatures and came 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.639 running back screaming to my mother saying there were dinosaurs 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.760 and blue tongues, and you know, there were just lizards 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:36.560 and sort of fauna and flora that we didn't enjoy. 0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:42.400 But looking being kids, we adapted. I almost overnight changed 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.840 my accent. I remember practicing in bed at night how 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:51.199 to save and not bath, and so transformed overnight and 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:52.919 fit in like a good Aussie. 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.800 And my mother, you know, born in a. 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:01.080 Farm in western Australia, very Australian, she was horrorfied by 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.040 my accent. She said, Darling, you sound like an Oka, 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:05.440 which is like a redneck. 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:09.560 And I thought, I've done it. I've achieved my goal. 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.919 So yeah, yeah, do you feel I mean, do you 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:15.879 think you'd go back to Australia? 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:19.680 Oh yeah, I mean our grown up children are there, 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:25.720 and you know we left only for eighteen months. I 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.680 had I lived off. 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:29.720 And on in America a lot. 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.600 I'd gone to university, as I said, in Northwestern and 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.200 worked in Boston, worked in Chicago, I worked in New York. 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:40.919 But then when I went back to Australia, I married 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:44.119 a New Zealander actually, but he was living in Australia. 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:49.320 And so my married life has been in Australia, and 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:53.560 our kids are very rooted in that country, and you know, 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:55.560 we have a house and a dog and the whole thing. 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.439 And I only came to the New York Post for 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:04.439 eighteen months to cover the twenty twenty election because it's 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:08.040 sort of an adventure, because our kids had gone off 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:13.240 to university, and because my former editor in Australia, a 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:18.600 fantastic journalist called Cole Allen, was the editor in chief 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.000 of the New York Post, and he asked me to 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:23.040 come over, and you know, I thought it would be 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:29.200 fun to cover this momentous election. And so we arrived 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.400 sort of midway through twenty nineteen and had about six 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:38.520 normal months in New York, had its best before Boom 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:42.560 the pandemic hit and everything the world changed. 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:44.880 We're going to take a quick break and be right 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:50.800 back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. Do you think of 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:52.080 yourself as a New Yorker? 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:52.400 Now? 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:57.800 Are you like fully adapted or somewhat. And again, you 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.000 were born there, so maybe you've been New Yorker all along. 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.560 Yeah, I mean I've sort of thought of myself a 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.080 little bit as a New Yorker all my life, only 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.800 because my father was just such a He grew up 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:13.440 in New Zealand, but he was just such a fan 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:16.919 of America and used to read Jon O'Hara when he 0:20:16.960 --> 0:20:19.600 was young. And we're so proud to have a daughter 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:22.320 who was an American and a New Yorker, and so 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:24.560 my parents used to sort of tease me about it 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.520 and sort of boost it. So I always had a 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:33.439 great affinity for American and for New York. But I 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.320 guess now i'm here, I just I don't feel like that. 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.920 I mean, I feel very much, you know, a foreigner, 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:42.919 I guess. But I mean I've felt a foreigner wherever 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:47.040 I lived, because I was in a way. And so 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:50.199 and that's what happens to a lot of kids that 0:20:50.280 --> 0:20:53.639 grow up, you know, among a lot of different cultures, 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.480 is that there are chameleons and can fit in anywhere, 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:01.000 but also don't really fit in anywhere. 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:05.240 So I guess that's the very definition of a globalist. 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.120 What the Trump people won't tell anyone. 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:10.320 That's right. 0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:13.200 Well, So a question I ask all of my guests, 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:16.040 and I think your uniquely positioned to answer it, is 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.159 what do you think is our largest cultural or societal 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:23.159 problem in America? And is it solvable? I feel like 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:24.080 you have a unique view. 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:24.800 You know. 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:29.239 I think if you live in America and you know, 0:21:29.560 --> 0:21:33.080 you sort of just used you like a frog in 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:36.720 boiling water, you haven't really noticed what's been going on. 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:37.840 But there's a. 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:44.719 Really peculiar leniency about illegal drug use in this country. 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:46.800 And you can see it just legally. 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:52.440 So many states are now legalizing pot or legalizing other drugs, 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:57.520 and it just has become so normalized. And you know, 0:21:57.800 --> 0:21:59.920 I mean, this is the country that carries on about 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:04.399 the evils of having two alcoholic drinks or smoking a 0:22:04.440 --> 0:22:09.840 cigarette or vaping, and yet the really harmful substances that 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:13.880 people are ingesting as a matter of course aren't even mentioned. 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:17.720 And and and it's it's odd. I mean, I think 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:22.720 it really is like a multi decade propaganda mission by 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:27.320 a global group of people who for some reason are 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.520 into drug liberalization. And this is you know, the World 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:35.840 Health Organization has been doing it there's there's been this 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:36.680 push in. 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:43.679 The medical, you know field, to sort of equate alcohol 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:44.920 with other drugs. 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.280 They've callt alcohol and other drugs, even though one is 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:52.800