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