Episode 89: How to Prepare Kids for Our Rapidly Changing World
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Sissy and David speak with bestselling author Madeline Levine about how she's seen parenting change during her four decades of working as a clinician, consultant, and educator in Childhood Development, and how we can best prepare our children and ourselves for a rapidly changing world.
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Automated Transcript
Sissy Goff
Welcome to the Raising Boys and Girls podcast. I'm Sissy Goff.
David Thomas
I'm David Thomas.
Melissa Trevathan
And I'm Melissa Trevathan.
Sissy
And we are so glad you've set aside a few minutes to spend with us today. In each episode of this podcast, we'll share some of what we're learning in the work we do with kids and families on a daily basis at this hour. Counseling in Nashville, Tennessee. Our goal is to help you care for the kids in your life with a little more understanding, a little more practical help and a whole lot of hope. So pull up a chair and join us on this journey from our little yellow house to yours.
Sissy
Madeline Levine, Ph.D., is a psychologist with over 35 years of experience as a clinician, consultant, educator and author. Her New York Times best seller, The Price of Privilege, which is a book we recommend so often in our offices, explores the reasons why teenagers from affluent families are experiencing epidemic rates of emotional problems. Her follow up book, Teach Your Children Well, tackles our current narrow definition of success, how it unnecessarily stresses academically talented kids and marginalizes many more whose talents and interests are less amenable to measurement.
Sissy
Her current book, Ready or Not, focuses on how to best prepare our children and ourselves for an uncertain and rapidly changing world. Grab your journal and pen because you are going to want to be taking notes.
David
Dr. Levine It is such a privilege to get to spend this time with you. We were just talking before we hit record about how long we have loved and respected your work. How many copies of your books we have recommended to parents? And you came through our community here in Nashville years ago and spoke at a local school.
David
And just the wisdom and generous city of your words in that time was such a picture of who you are as a person, as well as as a clinician. And so it is a privilege to get to spend time with you today. And speaking of that word in your book, The Price of Privilege. One of the most fascinating facts was about the population of kids who are the most vulnerable in today's world.
David
And will you just start there by talking a little bit about who they are, that population, and what we can do to help?
Madeline Levine
Sure. So I'm not sure that they're the most vulnerable, but they are among the most vulnerable. And so this group of kids with educated parents in good school districts and involved parents are now, according to an eye age and at risk group. Everything we knew about kids with involved parents and good education and support is turning out not to be protective.
Madeline
We were taught in graduate school. Those are all protective factors and rates of depression and anxiety disorders, substance abuse, all of those are particularly high among the children of affluent, well-educated parents. And what can we do to help? I mean, I think so much of this has to do with rethinking. And in this respect, I think COVID was an opportunity to rethink some of our values.
Madeline
What we emphasized to our children, what we pour our resources in to our children about. And those tend to be accomplishment oriented things. It's all about performance. The last book I wrote called Ready or Not, was really an attempt to answer price. The book was written 15 years ago, and I would like to say that it had an impact.
Madeline
People liked the book, You know, originally they had a, I don't know, 8000 run on that book because they thought the only people who would read it would be wealthy parents. But it became a very popular book. Frankly, I had hoped that it would really shift things a little, and it has shifted in certain communities a little bit away from performances being the only measure of the kids value.
Madeline
But it hasn't shifted radically. There hasn't been a cultural shift in the country away from that. And so the latest book is an attempt to sort of take a look at why not? I mean, if you talk to parents individually, they're all about, yeah, you know, we don't push as much anymore. And we understand that there are a lot of colleges yet at this point, the kids themselves have internalized this.
Madeline
I'm only as good as my last performance. Yes. You're doing a podcast. I write. I don't want anybody judging me on my last performance. You have an editor, right? Yes. Yes. And when a lot of school districts, kids, parents have access to the grades on a daily basis, and I keep thinking, you know, if somebody looked at my work or anybody's work unedited and worked on, it would kind of suck because the first thing I do something.
Madeline
Yeah, I'm good at it. So I have kids internalize that only, you know, straight A's in the best colleges and the most competitive teams are worthwhile while their parents are pulling back. I wanted to know why it's been so hard to shift that, because everybody agrees it's not like that. Well, now, you know, politically it's become challenging. But most people agree that kids should get a good night's sleep, that they shouldn't be doing 4 hours homework a night.
Madeline
And yet the institutions around that have not changed. So what we can do to help, I think, is pull back a little bit, rethink what kind of child am I hoping to turn out and how do you do that later? What into your questions is about what parents can do. And I actually think if parents really can inventory their own anxiety and why they're so anxious.
Sissy
Thank you. Thank you. That's so.
Madeline
Good. Well, how could you not? I mean, you'd have to be under a rock to not be anxious about it. But, you know. Yes. So there are multiple reasons why parents are anxious. But I think we're actually anxious about a lot of the wrong things.
Sissy
Yes. Well, thinking about your new book, ready or not, I know there was a lot of research that went into that book. Is there anything that surprised you from the research?
Madeline
Well, one of the things that surprised me in the research for press privilege had to do with what the group that we thought were protected end up having the highest rates of mental issues and substance abuse issues. And ready or not, what surprised me, I think what surprised me was I didn't go to my usual suspects and ready or not, which have always been educators and psychologists.
Madeline
And, you know, I co-founded an educational project down at Stanford about 15 years ago. Those are my go tos. And I felt like somehow we had missed the boat. So I went to businessmen and I went to the military. I went to people who deal with pressure and uncertainty all the time. They call it super. We live in a world volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.
Sissy
Wow.
Madeline
And they have some answers for how you deal with uncertainty. And again, I think what surprises me is, oh, well, the military is no longer so hierarchical, right? Because there's not time anymore when you're dealing with the Taliban to go up the whole chain of command, they're gone. So there's more horizontal responsibility. So one of the ways they deal with how fast things change.
Madeline
So have we changed the structure of schools so that it's easier to respond? Not really. So the surprise, I guess, was, hey, the business world knows a lot about this. The military knows a lot about this. I'm still left with the same question, to be perfectly frank, which is, yes, what gets in the way? I have some thoughts about it, but what gets in the way of parents taking the evidence?
Madeline
We have we have evidence based research at Stanford. Is that big on research?
Sissy
They're right.
Madeline
We know what does and doesn't work. And yet, on an institutional level, it's been very hard to change. Yes, You know, that's frustrating. Yes. So thank you for doing the work that you do for people who are trying to present in a pleasant and friendly way that there's a whole other way of looking at some of these issues of child development and parenting.
Sissy
Well, we sure have the same heart and are wanting to move toward the same things. Yes.
David
In fact, I have to tell you before I ask you this next question, a great snapshot of where I have so appreciated your voice in that space. I was telling Sissy a little bit earlier that I vividly remember when one of our local schools was the first to screen the documentary Race to Nowhere, which you were a part of.
David
And yeah, I remember midway through that documentary you were speaking so wisely to the importance of just paying attention to, as you just said, all of child development and what kids have always needed and always will need, and some of those basics of sleep. And there was B-roll happening during a part of them asking you some questions at this point in the documentary where they were, I think, maybe showing flashcards to 6 to 9 months old, you know, trying to help them learn maybe Mandarin or some other language and you know why.
David
It's my favorite moment. In the documentary, you said, you know what six and nine month old should be doing is sucking their thumbs and toes and our religious cheering in the audience like, yes, we need more wise voices calling us back to these foundational needs for kids that we don't need to be worrying about flashcards with kids who haven't even hit their first birthday.
David
You know, that just need to be focused on the basics.
Madeline
Absolutely. You know, and you're raising a point that I think about all the time, which is thank you for all your kind words. Basically, I kind of feel like all I did was pay attention. Yeah, I've got training, but it paid attention and it wasn't that hard. You know, that the spark starts off by saying nobody knows your child as well as you do and your child should have Band-Aids on them.
Madeline
Really simple, simple stuff. And I'm still left with. Well, if it's so simple, like you said, which I think it is right. A six month old nine month old should be sucking on its toes, not learning sign language, not learning Mandarin, just trying to be learning. Whereas Body is or her body is in space. Everybody thinks I'm really writing about children, but in fact, I'd like to think that I'm writing about parents because child development, I mean, I've been 45 years and this deal has not changed.
Madeline
It's not that children run now before they crawl. Child development has not changed. Parenting has changed. And I think in many ways it's changed for the worse. It's much more anxious. There was no verb parenting when my children were young. It's become the Olympics of parenting and the competitiveness is a bad way to approach not just raising a child, but making a family.
Madeline
Mm hmm. I always get asked, What are your tips for parents.
Sissy
Or.
Madeline
What are your tips about children? But at the end of the day, as we're having this conversation, it is really about what's happened to parents in the last 20 years to make them this anxious, this focused on performance of their children. Yeah, that was my soapbox.
Sissy
I love that.
David
So love that, too. Well, and building on that, because you have been doing this work for all these decades, what would you say are two or three things you think parents need to be offering kids today?
Madeline
I think a really important thing, and it's probably none of them is surprising. One is parents need to listen. 45 years sitting in my office listening to kids, teenagers, young adults I've never heard a kids say, or Dr. Levine, my parents, they just listened too much. Yes. So they talk too much. So I think instead of this sort of directive, let me tell you what I think.
Madeline
Let me tell you how to handle that. This is what you should do. I think listening is critical and I think most people are not really good listeners because it kills passive or something to them, especially, you know, well-educated people and high pressure jobs. And they're used to solving problems right away. So it's hard for them to listen.
Madeline
I once did a listening seminar for very highly educated, very wealthy group of people, and I don't think I got through 2 minutes without being interrupted. I'm trying to talk about deep listening and it's okay, you know, So I'd like parents to listen more. I'd like parents to understand that their child's issues are not theirs to solve their child to solve.
Madeline
I think there are very poor consequences for kids whose parents are overly enthusiastic about managing a challenge for their children. The third thing I think parents need to present to their children a really appealing vision of what it means to be an adult so that it's something you want to do. And that was brought home to me by my youngest son, Jeremy.
Madeline
I have three sons who are all grown and married, but he was playing soccer. And so if you go to their games, lot of soccer games, level lacrosse games, and it's kind of boring by the 200th game that you've gone to, right. And you're sitting up there with all the parents and all the parents are reading their phones and like nothing much is happening.
Madeline
And Jeremy must have been about 11. And he comes over to me and he says, You know, Matt, right next door, there's an empty field. Why don't you and your friends go play? And that really stuck with me because, I mean, there's a lot of things embedded in that. But one of the things is you see your parents work all week and then what do they do?
Madeline
They sit on their butts and watch you kick a ball. Like, really, I don't think that's an appealing vision. And I think embedded in his go do something and then sitting here was, you know, make it look a little more interesting to grow up, you know, which is a big problem because we have a lot of kids who don't want to grow up now and who don't want to drive and who don't want to have relationships and who don't want to share a room with a roommate and who don't want to make compromise.
Madeline
And I think some of that comes from it's not assuming our real role as adults and making the kinds of things that adults do, the compromises, the challenges accessible to our children. When I was young, I used to be on the road, you know, like every week, and this is what it's good for. That was exhausting being on the road every week.
Madeline
And COVID was a period of time to think about that during COVID to grandchildren who were born. And so my life changed, and I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm not I'll be on the road some, but not every week. So I'd like people to think about COVID a little bit as an opportunity to rethink, you know, how you live.
Madeline
Yeah, well, I told you the story about Jeremy and go play and making adulthood attractive.
Sissy
And yes.
Madeline
We have all these emerging adulthood programs, like when you were in school, did you learn about emerging adulthood programs? No, they didn't exist. And now I would say the primary referral I make is to an emerging adulthood program, either in-patient or outpatient. Wow. You have to think about like, same thing, you know, adolescent development, young people's development. I didn't change very much from all these kids need to go like to a hospital to learn how to make their bed or compromise with their roommate.
Madeline
So I think teaching the basic skills of life is falling to the bottom when in fact, that's exactly what people need to make it through successfully. Yes.
Sissy
Well, you have already given a lot of amazing answers to this. And I don't know if you have anything additional to think about what you think parents not just need to offer, but they need to be hearing today. And we talk so often about how we've never heard parents feel as much like a failure as they seem to in this day and time.
Sissy
But what do you feel like they need to hear?
Madeline
I think they need to understand that it has been an incredibly challenging time and we're not done with it. What I can in my office are parents who are very worried about the time their kid missed catching up. That phrase. Yeah, You want your kid not to be behind and all that stuff. That is not the task at hand.
Madeline
The task at hand, from my point of view, is making sure that kids are emotionally okay enough to learn. You know, you don't learn when you're depressed or anxious or whatever. And I'm going to use this as an opportunity to clarify something because I don't know, in your state, my state, all the statewide numbers came out in the last couple of days showing these deficits.
Madeline
And it's the headline on every paper. The problem with it is it looks like there's been a huge deficit. There's not a huge deficit. It wasn't good before, just like mental health wasn't good before. So if now we say 35% of kids have an anxiety disorder or depression, that sounds horrible. One out of three kids, it was one out of three and a half kids before or even in my own school district in Marin.
Madeline
Well, not any more San Francisco, but one of those titles that it puts on the board outside, like with one of the greatest schools. And I was looking at their numbers because every day they've been writing about this tremendous deficit. It's not it wasn't that great to start with. It's gone down 1%. But I'm bringing this up because I want to caution your audience around the way things are presented in the media.
Madeline
Even the mental health crisis and I suspect there is a mental health crisis, but there was a mental health crisis before, and then you had people unable to access services. So is it doubled? No, not at all. Is some of this a delay in accessing services? Probably. But I'm very attuned. I started my career writing about the media, not about kids.
Madeline
And I'm just very attuned to don't jump to conclusions. And if you can look at the primary source material, because it often tells a very different story. So I brought that up because I don't think for your audience, who I'm going to make an assumption is for the most part, educate it because they're listening to a podcast, right?
Madeline
Right. We know that even under horrendous circumstances, Afghanistan and Vietnam, those things, most soldiers who have PTSD, most soldiers who saw their buddies had blown off, recover. Most do. And I think most people are left with the impression that that's not the case. Most of the kids in your audience will recover from this, and what they need is not pressure around learning.
Madeline
They need, I think, a safe space, the piece of tent that knows what they went through. It's no point in talking about these kids as homogenous. Some of them lost a parent, some of the kids with social phobia were delighted to be home and not have to face the crowd every day. So there's no such thing as what all kids need.
Madeline
But in ready or not, I have a story about a young man. He's taking advanced calculus. Advanced calculus. And he and his father come to me because he's got to tell a mania, which means he's pulling out his eyebrows and eyelashes and the hair. Why the stress in the house around his grades is unbearable. And his father insists on graphing his daily progress because he lost some time.
Madeline
So he's in advanced calculus. He doesn't need his father graphing anything. No one expected the father. You're going to have to stop this. Look, you know, and the father says, I'll stop it when he gets into M.I.T.. Well, it's like he's not going to M.I.T. He has not learned how to control anxiety. And you've made it really hard for him.
Madeline
Yeah. So, you know, it's just to call or have kids play. Have them have some fun. Yes. You want them to catch up the little bit that they've missed. And not all kids are behind that. All we have an expression and challenge success. That's the name of my project, Kids Playtime, downtime, family time. Every kid and every adult should have some of that built in to their day.
David
That's great.
Madeline
I'd like to see kids in clubs. If I was going to encourage anything, it would probably be that get back to being with other kids. Get back to negotiating. Who's running the show? Always think about tag. For some reason, the simplest kid game in the world, it only works if one person is running and one person is trying to catch them.
Madeline
Right? So there's all kinds of collaboration and cooperation that go into the simplest things that kids do. So from my point of view, rather than a afterschool tutor, I'd like to see kids in a club and something that interests them. Yes. Yes.
David
Great. Dr. Levine This season of our podcast, we are focusing on raising emotionally strong and worry free kids. Jesse wrote an amazing book called Raising Worry Free Girls, and I just released a book called Raising Emotionally Strong Boys, and we're basing it on that content. We love to ask you what is a favorite memory or story from growing up that shaped you into who you are?
Madeline
So it's a question I have a lot of. It's the most difficult you should know about your people and see where they have difficult, difficult. But it brought back a great memory. I had an anxious mom and we had very little money and I was at a Jewish sleepaway camp for two weeks, maybe 13. And I wanted to learn how to be a lifeguard.
Madeline
I was truly terrified of it because you get thrown in and somebody pretends to be drowning and drags you down. And my mom was like, You've got to be kidding. You know, that sounds awful. And it was pretty scary, but it was kind of like, I think I can do this. I really wanted to be a lifeguard and was I scared when I was terrified, But I was also like, You're a good swimmer.
Madeline
You can do it. And I think, you know, it was early adolescence. It was one of those first experiences a mom doesn't think I can do this, but I think I can, so I'm going to give it a shot. You can never say any characteristic is from one experience, but I think that experience helped me to see something that's really important, which is if you don't give it a shot, you don't get it.
Madeline
And what's the worst that can happen? You know, there was a tap if you have frightened and felt like somebody was really drowning. And I think that's been my experience. I had never written a book. I had never given a talk. I sat in my office and treated kind of depressed moms who were drinking too much. I mean, that was sort of what I was doing.
Madeline
And their kids for a long time. But I'm not frightened of taking a risk or trying something new. That's what came to me when I was thinking about something that was important. And I think it's something that I've tried to communicate to my kids, which is if you don't give it a shot. That was when I applied for my Ph.D. You get a million forms you have to fill out.
Madeline
There were no clinical programs around when I was in school, and my husband was like, Fill it out. I'm trying to remember who was the soccer player who said, You never make a goal. You don't take. I like that point of view and I like encouraging kids. And I think parents are very anxious and it becomes more difficult to encourage kids when you're anxious.
Madeline
So, yes, typically when somebody comes to just just before this hour, oh, my kid's depressed, this, that and the other thing, and it's like, let me talk to you. How are you doing? Well, I'm really depressed. So so I think we have to check in with ourselves more honestly. Yes. So that the environment in the House is not particularly anxious, is not particularly depressed, is optimistic and enthusiastic.
Madeline
And I think we tend to look at our kids. You know, the call is always my kid is a motivation or too motivated and perfectionist or too anxious. I would almost say most of the time what I find is the work is with the parent. Not always, but often. Yes.
David
We'd agree.
Sissy
We would certainly agree.
Sissy
David, do you remember trying to get your kids to eat their vitamins when they were little?
David
I sure do! It was not easy.
Sissy
Henry keeps his own stash of vitamins at my house but the only reason he gets excited about them is because they are those candy like ones.
David
I remember those. Sorry to break it to you but I’m not sure how much nutrition is actually in those things.
Sissy
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David
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Sissy
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David
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Sissy
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David
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Sissy
What are some things that you think create more courage and resilience in kids?
Madeline
So I think the example I just gave you is an example of what has to happen to develop that. It does not develop every time a parent comes in and says, Oh, honey, let me do that for you. I often say every kid in America, this is before the pandemic knew how to get out of loading the dishwasher.
Madeline
Everyone and they knew all they had to say was, I have an AP test, mom. I got to go. And then mom, who had worked all day long, ends up doing the dishes and taking them out of the dishwasher. I think that to the extent to which parents have some trust that they've raised their kids and their kids themselves are pretty resilient.
Madeline
That word resilience came from work that was done in Hawaii 50, 60 years ago about the fact that some kids just do okay if you don't get in their way too much. And while we think we're helping our kids, I think it works better for me. If I give an example of what that looks like in real life.
Madeline
So you're nine year old walking home from school and the dog down the block for whatever reason starts barking like crazy and scares your daughter. And your daughter comes home and she's teary and shaky. It scared the dog. I don't want to walk past that. She was afraid it was going to hurt me. And that happens all the time, right?
Madeline
Being afraid of dogs or something like that. So I think you have a couple options. One option is to say man up and to bed and he won't hurt you. Another option is to say, Oh, honey, that must have been terrifying for you. Let's take the car to school tomorrow so you don't have to walk past the dog.
Madeline
Equally bad, right? Right in the middle of it. I'm sure you're scared. I'll walk with you tomorrow and then I think you can handle it on your own. I'm sure it was scary. If you get scared, take a deep breath. Sort of a little bit of coaching, a little bit of scaffolding, and having faith that your child can tolerate some anxiety.
Madeline
The last talk I gave before COVID hit, it was like two days before COVID. I was in Burke School, Big Girl school here in San Francisco, big audience like 500 people. And I asked how many people in the audience have never had a divorce, a serious illness, a death of a partner or good friend. Bankruptcy. You know, I went through everything and everybody had had that.
Madeline
I said, how many don't? One woman in the whole audience raised her hand. Wow. Be careful when you walk to the parking lot of honey because you have beaten the odds and it will not end.
Sissy
Oh, man.
Madeline
That experience just stayed on my mind a lot because that's life right now. How do you tolerate cancer or bankruptcy or divorce or any of the things that life will throw at you as you move along in life? If you couldn't tolerate a barking dog? So if parents saw that as an opportunity to develop resilience, to develop some courage, I think they would have an easier time tolerating their own anxiety.
Madeline
Look, no mother likes to see their child teary and worried, right? That's a hard thing to tolerate. And we tolerate it better with young children. So it's a have you grandchildren learning to walk right. And secretaries serve some full on there. But you know, come on, let's go. Let's take a few more steps. Come on, let's go. And nobody says, you know, you're going to be flipping burgers at McDonald's if you don't learn how to walk today.
Madeline
We like the process of falling down and getting up or don't talk to me till you can talk in full sentences, right? When you're when a baby's babbling. So understanding that you give an opportunity when you step back and just coach a little bit and that you're robbing a child of the opportunity to master some developmentally appropriate anxiety.
Madeline
Let me just underscore that I'm not talking about, you know, the heroin dealer approaching your child. I'm not talking about your child being bullied, but the kinds of things that are age appropriate nine year old should be able to tolerate a dog that barks. I had one patient, 15 years old. She didn't like sauce, so nobody could put sauce on her food.
Madeline
And parents accommodated it. And then she goes to college. I remember in college, right? I was hiding everything. So that's how she got to me. She had to come home from college. So now I think if you think of these as robbing your child of really great opportunities to toughen up, to gain some resilience, it's a better way of thinking about it, then, you know, it's a short term gain, a big, long term loss to get in there too often.
Madeline
Too much.
Sissy
Yes. Great way to say that. Yes.
David
What would you say is something looking back to your own early years of parenting that you worried about as a parent that you wish you hadn't?
Madeline
I worried about excellence. I didn't worry about grades or anything. It was like I wanted my kids to be really good at whatever they decided they were interested in and that was a big mistake on a lot of levels. One was the equivalent now would be passion, right? Everybody wants to know about my child. The snap of passion.
Madeline
And for a while I was speaking with Dan Pink. I don't know if you know who he is. Yeah, he's a great guy. And really we talk a lot about passion and then the next day, you know, I'd get a phone call. Oh, that's a living. You know, I'm really worried about my kid. He doesn't have a passion.
Madeline
And it's like, How old is your kids for? So So it's really changed my point of view about passion and excellence. It takes years and years to develop. You can have an interest and then you pursue it and work on it and it becomes that passion over considerable amount of time and because that was my idea that like, I'm great, mom, I don't care what you're passionate about, but you have to really be excellent at something.
Madeline
And I have a short story. My youngest kid, who was a very average student, my oldest kid was, you know, a stellar student. My middle kid was in the arts and this kid was a B minus student. So of course, it was always B minus. Like if you just put in a little more work and and he was very quiet and I worried about him because it was a verbal household and he was not verbal.
Madeline
And so I took him when it was time to go to college. Strangely embarrassing, but the story's okay if it helps somebody him to go to college, I take him to the local college counselor, not in the school. And I'm in there. Yeah, in a way. Like, I'm really worried about Jeremy. Like, maybe he's depressed because he doesn't work that hard and he doesn't talk.
Madeline
And this is fact. She threw me out of the room. It was at a point where I was already known. So she backed out and it was the best thing somebody could have done for me because I was weakness base when I was talking about him, not strength based. Wow. The clinical work teaches you it better be strength base if you want to help an adolescent right?
Madeline
What are you good at? What do you like to do? Not harping on what they don't do. And so that young man who's like 17 at that time is now one of the directors of communication at City Hall. And if you had told me that in a million years, I wouldn't have. But this kid didn't talk for 18 years now, and I didn't see what his strength was, which was observational.
Madeline
He knew everything that was going on and he was quieter, understanding that there's a fit in many different ways between you and your child. So I'm verbal and it's like, Hey, come on, you know, talk. And that wasn't his strength. And I should've paid more attention to that. So you had to be great at something I didn't understand.
Madeline
That takes a long time. And it may be very different than what you're hoping. Your child is great. It ended up as verbal as can be, but not back in the day. Yes. Another thing that I think is really important is don't see being a parent is a bunch of Instagrams or is a bunch of photographs. It is a movie.
Madeline
You know, three millennial kids are all well into their thirties. The movie is now revealing itself the kind of people they are, the work they chose, the partners, they chose the friends they have, and whatever. I got stuck on like, Oh, you didn't make the select team or Oh, you weren't, you know, I cannot tell you what nonsense it feels like to me now.
Madeline
Yes. And I'm not taking myself out of the group of people because culturally, that's what everybody was doing. But it's a mistake for us as parents because it robs us of our own growth. I think you go to that game every weekend, you're not hanging out with your partner or your best friend or taking a course. You've devoted your life, this kind of intensive parenting, and I think it makes adulthood look miserable.
Madeline
Yes. And it is miserable for you because you don't get to keep developing.
Sissy
So thinking back on your parenting journey, what do you wish somebody had said to you as you start it?
Madeline
I wish somebody had said, Don't get caught up in any one moment. It's fluid, it's a movie. It changes. Yeah, I can remember my oldest kid went to the Jewish day school and then we moved to the suburbs. We had a great school and I thought about switching from the private to the public. And I, when I heard him tested and the testers said, Oh, he'll never be okay in a public school.
Madeline
He is a kid, he needs attention and don't do it. And I did it because three kids private school was going to be too expensive and we had a great school and he was fine. He was perfectly fine. He's a lawyer. He went to UCLA. He's got two great kids. He's got a great wife. So at the moment it felt like the biggest decision I had to make public school private just felt like his whole life would be determined by that decision.
Madeline
And it's not. We sort of lose perspective on the things that really matter and I think it's really important to communicate that perspective to our children about what matters and what does it matter.
David
Yes, when you look around, you what do you see other parents struggling with the most?
Madeline
Well, it looks like they're struggling the most with anxiety about their kids. Like the American story is every generation does better than the one before. Right. My dad was a cop on the psychologist. That is unlikely to happen going forward for a whole variety of economic reasons. And I think parents have not adjusted to the fact that their kid may not do as well, which of course means financially do as well.
Madeline
And that is only one measure of living successfully is your bank account. And I think while parents look like there is my hesitation, it looks like they're really worried about their kids. I think they're really worried about their own standing in the community. All those bumper stickers. My child is an honor student. You know, it really means I'm an honor parent.
Madeline
Thank you. So, you know, we've lost community. We have absolutely lost a sense of community. And I see the difference in my parenting years. So my oldest son, Loren, who's 42, when he was in school, the people down the block had a kid in his grade and the kid wasn't good in math. And so they said, Do you think Lauren could come tutor him a little bit?
Madeline
And it was like, Yes, sure and he did. But now it's a competition. So my other kid who's 11 years younger, by that time, it was like, Well, why don't you get a tutor? I'm not I don't want my kids to do your kids, especially if it was on a curve. There's only so many kids who are going to get A's.
Madeline
And, you know, I don't want my kid to lose that position. So somewhere in that period of time, competition for parents about how they look to the community bubbled up. And that's not historically what a community values. My friend Erskine Bowles, from your part of the woods, his father taught him that on the way home you always leave a few logs on the community woodpile.
Madeline
And I love that. It's kind of like it's not just about you and somehow it's become so individual. I wish we got back to understanding more about the value of community.
Sissy
You have shared so much truth today. I think we probably all three talk with kids a lot about as emotions are kind of wreaking havoc with them and they're learning to process having truths that they go back to, that they arm themselves with, you know, kind of mantras that they go back to and parents to. I mean, we all do as human beings.
Sissy
And again, you have shared probably 500 in this conversation I'd like to write down as monsters. But when you think about your parenting journey, when you think about grandparenting, I mean, even your work with kids and families, what is a truth or a couple of truths that have helped you kind of anchor yourself?
Madeline
Part of the family was lost in the Holocaust. I worked running groups for the children of the survivors of Holocaust victims. Wow. It just changes your point of view profoundly. You know, I said to my son, you've got to be minus. I mean, look what's going on in the world in Syria. Lived through unbelievable tragedy. I think having the perspective, how fortunate we are to live in this time, in this place, as crazy as some of it seems to me, but still to have access to medical care, to access to education, I am grateful.
Madeline
And along with that goes something that I talk to my kids a lot about. If you walk down the hall upstairs in my house, it's lined with relatives and I just read a thing online. It says, How do you know if you're old? It says, Look at your walls and see if you have your relatives on the walls.
Madeline
And that's great that you're old. I didn't like that. But I have it because I didn't get here on my own. I just didn't and decide of I'm so special or kids talking about how special they are or not feeling very special. We are on the shoulders of the people who came before. And if you're Jewish, you're very aware of that because you've lost so many of the people who made it possible for me and my kids to be here.
Madeline
So, you know, we've got Ellis Island in the hall with my grandparents because it's not just about you. Back to that thing about your part of history. You're part of a community and you owe something, you know, and people may take issue with that. But I really do believe you owe something back to the community. Your family is your first community.
Madeline
And so when you say, oh, you don't have to wash the dishes or you don't have to clear the table, you're setting up a community where kids think the community's lucky just to have them breathing there and they don't have to do anything. That's like chores, no allowance for chores. Nobody gave me an allowance doing the laundry. My kids didn't get an allowance.
Madeline
Yeah, it's important to be part of a community. And we are. And we tell our kids that we expect them. You know, I'm often asked, Well, did you bribe them? And it's like, No, you don't bribe them. That's the expectation. If you live here, you're part of this community and it is just as important, if not more important, than bringing your GPA up from 3 to 2 to 3 to 3, you know, which is what get if they have that extra 20 minutes of study.
Madeline
So, yes.
David
We could keep you all day. We conversation, but we're going to respect your time and safely. Say again that it has been a joy to spend this time with you and how rich this conversation's been. And we like to end with something fun. Before we hit record, we were laughing together about how much we do and love food in the South.
David
We feel very passionate about that and we're no exception. We like to end with a food related question. Okay, We love to ask you, do you prefer okay, so or guacamole only? And then we'd also love to know what's your favorite taco?
Madeline
So that's interesting because I don't think of the South as Tex-Mex out here.
Sissy
That's right. Yes. You've got some great Tex-Mex out there, right?
Madeline
So I thought it would be like fried chicken or. Yes, chicken. You know.
David
We do love chicken and waffles, shrimp and grits, but on occasion we detour toward Tex-Mex.
Madeline
So definitely guacamole. And I am not a huge taco eater, so I don't like I like your chicken and waffles. Okay. You said that.
David
I want you to know we just had lunch and I had chicken and waffles in my taco, so you can use see right there with a taco in Tennessee.
Madeline
Well, that would be my favorite. Thank you.
David
All right. If you come back to Nashville, we're going to take you for that talk. Yes, we are.
Madeline
I guess I'm going to hold you to it. Oh.
Sissy
We are so delighted to have time with you. And just thank you for all the truth that you are pouring into the world. We're so, so grateful.
David
Yes, we are.
Madeline
Thank you. And I would love to come back to Tennessee.
David
Please do. Tennessee would love for you to come back.
Sissy
Yes. And we want to meet you if you come in person, come.
David
Back to Nashville. We're going to take you for that taco.
Madeline
Yeah. And I'm holding you to it.
David
All right.
Sissy
It’s our joy to bring the experience and insight we gained through our work beyond the walls of the Daystar House.
David
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Sissy
Join us next time for more help and hope as you continue your journey of raising boys and girls.