Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Race to 35: Day 9 + Andrew Solomon

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

Monica and Liz are all synced up in episode 9 (out of 10) of Race to 35. The two are feeling unexpectedly sad as this process comes to an end. They have resigned to the idea that their follicles are players and that they, the coaches, can only do so much. Liz re-visits trauma from her synchronized swimming days and talks about the time she interviewed for Anna Wintour. L & M chat with Andrew Solomon (Pulitzer Prize finalist author of Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity and The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression) about expanding the notion of the nuclear family, choosing surrogacy, his personal story of picking an egg donor and his experience interviewing polyamorous couples and parents of psychopaths. He, also, shares two new terms with the ladies: "supermarket people" and "the good enough mother". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So we had a bit of a fake out. Yeah, we thought it was over. We thought yesterday was our last day because yesterday was already one extra day. We were supposed to be last day of shots Wednesday, but then they added a day Thursday. Then both of us went in today, Friday morning, and they gave us the same info, which is also crazy. It is weird. Is it because our hormones are sinking?

Yes. Like periods. Yeah. And we are doing the shots at the same time. I mean, we are really sinking everything. I know. It could be. We should ask someone if that can happen.

Well, because the nurse, you know, is like, how's it going? How's the podcast going? Liz also has to do another day. And she was like, wow, that's bizarre. Because I think it's pretty rare for them to have added today. I know they're sending me all this stuff. And I think you're right. It's unusual. But if being around someone means your hormones are sinking for your period, maybe if you're around someone you're sinking, you're egg freezing too. Sinky. It's pretty bizarre, but it wasn't our last night. We made a whole big deal. I feel like we didn't acknowledge the fact that there was a part of us that was a little sad. I know. No, I'm serious. I didn't bring it up, but I was like, I'm a little sad and I can tell maybe she's a little sad, but I'm not going to say it. But I'm saying, now we're saying. No, I'm serious. I didn't bring it up, but I was like, I'm a little sad and I can tell maybe she's a little sad, but I'm not going to say it.

But I'm saying it. And now we're saying, honestly, I felt that when you left. I was like, oh my God, it's over. But now it's not. We got our wish. More meds, more hormones, more days of this. We're just going to keep going. We've decided we're just going to keep shooting up. We're just going to keep going. We've decided we're just going to keep shooting up.

We're just going to make our bodies pretend like we're pregnant. Did they give you the pregnancy test? No. They gave me a pregnancy test and they were like, we're giving you this because the pregnancy or whatever that hormone is with the amazing packaging was designed by a designer in the 1980s and they never changed it. And I love it.

When you take that one, it's called HGG or something. HGG TV. That one will make your body think that you're pregnant, but they want to make sure that it works. So you do a pregnancy test and it's going to be positive. And then they're like, here you go. Here's a pregnancy test. I was like, okay, about to do a prank on all my exes. I think I do have to do a prank on someone. It's too good. I'm going to have a positive pregnancy test in my possession. Wait, did you get that today? They gave it to me in a little baggie. I don't have that. Well, because you're going back tomorrow. I'm not. They were like, we're done with you. Bye-bye. Can I tell you what I saw in the waiting room? I was waiting because they had to really count my follicles and the numbers. It's like a team. There's some

thirteens. You got some sevens and some fours that are not great, but we're hoping that they're going to make it to 14. So the coach is telling you about your team, but I was waiting in the waiting room for a longer amount of time. Someone came and was like, Jessica, there's a man next to her. Once the interaction was over, I could tell that's her boyfriend. She kind of looked to him. He looked at her. He gave her a kiss. She looked at the woman again. She stood up and I was like, oh, she's going for her retrieval. And he watched her walk away. And then he went out to the mall and I was like, he's probably going to get a Cinnabon. And then he's going to bring her one back and they're going to go home together.

It was really sweet. It made me kind of, again, I'm hormonal already, but that was like really beautiful. So I don't know who you are, Jessica. That was not her name. I don't remember. I blacked out. Good luck, Jessica. Yes.

I hope your team delivered. That's a great way, Jessica. Yes. I hope your team delivered. That's a great way of looking at it. I hope your team won the game. Whether that means your team is a team of 4, 8, 12, 15, 20, 40. It doesn't matter, but you want your guys to show up that day. That's true. It's nice to think about it as a team too because then it's not you. You're the coach

and there can be some weird stuff and synchronized swimming, I can tell you all about it. Oh my God. My synchronized swimming coach was studying physiotherapy. So she was 23, which felt like she was 40 million to me.

Once she was yelling at us in the pool because we had done a stupid thing wrong. And she was like, when I'm doing my exams, I think about how bad you guys are and I can't do my exams. There's a, yeah, I know it was a lot, but anyway, don't talk to your follicles like that. Don't be abusive, but there should be some distance between a coach and their team, even though sometimes it could be blurred of just, I'm setting you up to win. I'm not drinking. I'm not having sex. I'm not doing downward dogs.

But ultimately, it's in your hands. And if we lose, we lose. We'll come back. If we win, we win. And it doesn't change who we are. That's exactly right. You're the coach. I'm the coach.

Yeah, how's your team? My team's doing good. My team's looking really good. Going into finals, we're looking great. But you know, there's only so much a coach can do. That's the thing. I feel preggers. I really-

I'm so bloated. I'm so bloated. I ate two whole time meals yesterday. For some reason around 4.30. Yesterday I ate a whole bag of popcorn for a family. She was like, oh yeah, it's normal. It's really like you're pregnant. So you can have cravings.

You can feel tired. You can feel edgy hormonally. But then she told me, oh, your follicles are looking nice and plump. And then when she did the vaginal ultrasound on the left where I have more, I could feel them move. It was kind of painful. I mean, she also said that's where your colon is. So colon, sorry. That's where your periods and your semicolons are. So the left side tends to be painful for most people, but she was also like, you have more plump ones there. And that was the first time I painful for most people. But she was also like, you have more plump ones there. And that was the first time I kind of felt them.

Again, kind of like a baby. Wow. I haven't felt them individually. No, no. I didn't feel them individually. It just felt a little, ooh. Yeah. Maybe it was all the Thai food that they were moving around.

Do you have back pain? Actually, I don't. Do you have back pain on your period? Not as much as I used to. It was a thing I had more in my 20s. Is your back pain? Actually, I don't. Do you have back pain on your period? Not as much as I used to. It was a thing I had more in my 20s. Is your back hurting? I have the back pain and I have back pain when I'm on my period. So it makes sense. But it was good because when I went in, she was like, how are you? I was like, I'm doing good. You know, I definitely feel bloated and tender. And she was like, that's a good sign. It is. It's like when you get your booster and you feel bad and you're like, well, at least it's working. Exactly. I think it's the same thing. I mean,

it's a physical manifestation of what you want internally. That's good. My team is doing pretty good. Do you want me to read my sizes? Yeah. Okay. So right now my smallest guy is seven. Okay. That's good. It's not bad. That's really good. Seven is high. It's pretty good. And maybe this last extra shot that they've added on will give that guy a boost. Just so people know, this is the size of your follicle. It's probably not centimeters because that would be crazy. Oh, millimeters. Wow, that's big. Wait, maybe I don't know what millimeters are. How many millimeters in an inch? 25. 25 millimeters is one inch? Oh my god, they're so little. They are. They're so cute. That's why it's hard to get them out, I think. They're small. Yeah. So my smallest guy is seven and my biggest guy is 20. Wow, that's really big.

And my biggest guy is 20. Wow, that's really big. Don't they want between 14 and 22 or something? That's amazing. So we'll see. But then, you know, the weird thing is maybe we'll get them all out. Yay. And then they have to see if they're good eggs.

What is a bad egg? It doesn't work? It's just like what will be viable. Yeah, like what will maintain through the freezing process, I guess. I don't know. Okay, so also I got some info because yesterday we were looking at these shots and we were like, wait, what does each one do again? And I asked. So the fall of stem is just FSH. The menopure is FSH and LH. And then... Gardasil. The G one. I can never remember.

Because it's silly. It's counterintuitive. Gardanasil. No. Garnarax or something. G-a-n-a-r-a-l-a-x. Okay. Gnarlach.

So the Gnarlach is to stop ovulation because our body wants to ovulate. Yeah. It's like, this is so much. I want to do it so bad. It's so crowded. It's like a club. It's like 3 a.m. Like, let's get out of here.

The floors are sticky. The bartenders are tired. But no, you're staying in there. You're staying for another couple days. Couple days. And then the trigger shot is coming. I have been told I have to take it in the middle of the night, which is my nightmare. That means no, Monica. I don't like that. I think that should be changed.

Maybe we could do a sleepover and we could do it. Oh my God. Would you let me do that? Yes. After all this, how could you do it? It's the nightmare scenario. It's like going to the Olympics and I haven't even gone to Little League. It would be a lot. I think we should plan for that, but find out the timing. We'll figure it out. Okay. We're going to know soon about the timing of our trigger shot. Because the trigger shot is a very specific time. So depending on when your retrieval is. So it's very timed in that way. Yes. Okay. Switching gears a little bit

because you like dropped this weird bomb on me in a text random like it was nbd and i need to hear more that you interviewed for anna wintour and the world needs to know more about this got so worried of what i text you so i went in a job interview with anna wintour how and how old were you tell me everything i know okay so my friend phil Phil Picardi was the executive editor of Teen Vogue. And he also founded them, which is LGBTQ channel that they have. Phil is an incredible human being. And he was leaving. And therefore, they were hiring for a new executive editor at Teen Vogue. And at the time I was at Vox. And I guess he put down a few names that Anna should consider. I happened to be one of those names.

And for some damn weird reason, there was no pre-Anna. There was no like many rounds American Idol where like first you meet the randos, then you go maybe like first assistant, then you're on TV. This was straight to stage and i got an email from her assistant and phil hadn't even really told me it was wild i just literally got an email from anna winter's assistant and she was like anna would like to meet you are you free tomorrow it's like your az's audition where you have almost no time to prepare for this and obviously the most important thing i need to prepare for was my outfit. I spent way more

time on that, which is probably why I didn't get the job. That's how it ends. But I bought a really nice dress. I went to Barney's for the first time of my life. I had to ask people. I was like, I don't even know where to begin because I'm not as classy and sophisticated as you are with your life and everything has stains on it. I don't buy expensive clothes. She will be able to tell. And then I read all these terrifying articles. Don't read them if you're about to go interview with her because you can't wear black. She won't acknowledge you as a human being. Wait, why? Well, because she thinks it's lazy. I don't remember the philosophy behind it. Oh, it's like you didn't put any effort. You just took the easy.

Yeah. And so good thing I do love color. So that's a positive. I bought this very beautiful pink dress. It was $400. That was the most I've ever spent. And I love it. I've worn it to all weddings. It has pockets. And then I bought Manolos, which is again, like I can't. And I've worn them so much that they've broken at all the places.

So I bought expensive shoes. I bought an expensive dress. On my way to Barney's, I was on a city bike. I was running around the fucking town trying to grab all these things. And I got arrested because I ran so many red lights and almost hit a pedestrian. And I had earphones in because I was listening to the news. This cop car stopped me on like 50th and Fifth Avenue, the most high traffic. And the cop came out and he was like, are you okay? You're either going to hurt yourself or someone else.

A bike ticket typically is like 40 bucks because you're on a bike. So they're assuming you're poor. Guess how much my bike ticket was? $400. $550. I mean, that was more expensive than a dress, right? But whatever. Took one for the team. Most expensive job interview of your life. Most expensive job interview of my life. It's such a good way to put it.

And so I go in her office. It's crazy. She's wearing her sunglasses, the whole thing. Did you feel like I'm in the presence of someone really grand? It does feel like you're meeting the prime minister of the world, if there was one. But at the same time, you're coming in for a job. And so it changes it where you have to come in as a boss. So you have to kind of bottle that in. And again, I'm sure you've been in many situations like that.

You have to, yeah, bottle it in and not put them on the pedestal that you maybe would otherwise. And everyone does. And you have to be kind of a badass. And I had a interview with her you know you talk about ideas you have for the magazine and all that stuff and she's like yeah make a presentation out of that and I was like oh okay I had no idea what that meant really at all and so I went home and I went on canva.com and just made a powerpoint for Anna W. I mean, I spent a lot of time on it and then I sent it and then I got ghosted. After the interview, I didn't know if I really wanted it. I wanted it, but I was like, I don't think this is necessarily what needs to happen in my life. It's not the right fit. It's not the right time. I was just about to embark on a big

new project and I was really excited about it And I felt like I was going to let my team down too by taking this other direction. And my mom was really freaked out because there was a lot of drama at Teen Vogue at the time. And so my mom did all the reading about it. She'd grabbed me by the shoulders and she was like, don't go work for Anna. Really? I mean, there's a movie based on how scary of a boss she is and you're gonna go work for this person obviously it's a dream and if they would have said we want you to do it i wouldn't have been able to say no but i also think it was for the best square peg round hole yeah but you will meet anna i have no doubt in my mind i want to go to the met ball i want to be on the cover of vogue i'm putting it

all out there yes because i'm such a stupid idiot that way. I love Devil Wears Prada. I still watch it. I still get so enamored by the clothes. I just love clothes. I love clothes. I love style. I feel like I'm in a romantic comedy. Oh my God, I'm the friend. How exciting. No, because you walk into stores. Dear God, no. You know, you're the girl we want to be. The way you walk in there and they know you're the girl. I feel like in those fancy stores, when I walk in, they know I'm not. And they're like, no, but it's okay. I'm another girl in another store that is a different thing. But you have this class. You have this aura. It's amazing. Like I get why you don't want to just go on a date with a rando because you have

something very special. Liz. You do. No, you do. You do. I'm not blowing smoke up your ass. I know you know it. No, I think that's not true. I go into all these stores and I feel so pretty woman-y. I feel so inadequate. No, she doesn't even try on the clothes. Do people know this? You just pick it up and then I go, oh, we should try it on. She's like, no. What do you mean? No, this is my red. That's because I'm stupid and lazy. That's why. But then we were talking about it later and I was like, no, this is actually so smart because if you like it that much that you don't even need to try it on, it's because you really do.

Whereas I feel like sometimes I've tried things on and then you get it and you're like, no, it wasn't a fuck yes. It was a fuck okay. I feel like not trying on things adds a layer of you got to be sure because you're not trying it on. So you have to really like it. But you can make some bad impulses though, which I have done many, many, many times. To be fair. So yeah, we went shopping yesterday, all to say, and we were at Fred Siegel and I can't try it on, but I want stuff. And you sat there while I tried on. It wasn't even like a time thing. But I get it. It's dehumanizing.

It's stupid. You have to take off your shoes. You have to untie your shoelaces. It's a lot. I already took off my shoes at the fertility appointment once today. And I'm not taking them off again. So I sent some stuff to the front. And then when I went to the front to pay, there was one shirt.

And I said, you know what? I don't need it. But I wore the pajamas I bought. And I love them. You did? Oh my god. I'm so happy. And I'm wearing the shirt I bought and I love that. You did? Oh my God, I'm so happy. And I'm wearing the shirt I bought.

Oh my God, it's so cute. It is so cute. It's like a white t-shirt, but a hot one. You look hot in it. No one looks hot in a white t-shirt. Everyone looks hot in a white t-shirt. The white t-shirt is a staple piece of wardrobe. No, that's true.

I plant a seed for my t-shirt company. But really it is. But a lot of people don't know what kind of t-shirts look good on them. Exactly. If only there was. Oh, way. Okay. So that was a big detour, but it was really important for us to talk about that. And it has been weighing on my heart that I didn't know. What was the most important job interview of your life? Oh, in retrospect, I guess the most important job interview was with Chris and her dad. I didn't feel that way at the time because it was babysitting. But I didn't interview.

So actually, that's all a lie. I ran into her at House of Lies when I worked on that show, and she had just had Lincoln. And I was like, oh, I babysit also. And then they just asked me to date night while Lincoln was asleep. She was a baby. And then through that, it just evolved. So I didn't interview. You know, I've interviewed for a ton of things I have not gotten. I mean, same. I think that's important to say. Very. Throw in auditions, which is essentially in so many ways an interview.

It sounds worse. It's bad. In college, I interned at this movie marketing company, and I really wanted to work there. And I had gone on so many interviews for internships and I like could not get one. Also part of it is because I was doing these internships because I had a theater degree and a PR degree. Those were my majors. So they were all PR. That's not really what I wanted to do or was doing. So I'm sure that bled through to some extent. But anyway, I got this job at this movie marketing company and it was so exciting because basically all we did was pass out free shit at malls. We would give out tickets to these screenings. So we'd go to

TCBY and be like, do you want to put a stack of these by your cash register? We're just trying to get people to these screenings. It was all about numbers. It was really kind of crazy. I love it. But I did get to go to one press junket for The Rocker. That was a movie I was working on. Wow, huge.

Rainn Wilson was there. He was. And he was very kind because he like spoke to me and acknowledged me. And then full circle, we've had him on. Of course. I love that episode. He's such a special person. And I was like, you were just so nice.

You didn't have to be. He's the best. Soul pancake. Yes. He cares. He's also very serious about the things that he cares about. I love Rain. Me too.

So anyway, that was a fun job. One of the jobs I was most excited about in my whole life was doing marketing for this gum company. Those jobs where you're like, I get to do this and get paid to just give out free gum. And then I would take so much home. Oh my God. I mean, that's the best part. Well, those jobs are fun. I feel kind of guilty. I guess we did an episode of Armchair Anonymous on stealing, and Dax was like, have you ever stole something? And I said, no, except I did steal some cookies when I was in kindergarten. We've talked about that a lot.

First grade. That was my worst year. But then at this job, they gave us 7,000 iTunes cards. So many for us to like give out at malls and places. And we did. So Callie also worked there. Oh, fun. And so it was. It was so fun. Also, you'd be so shocked that when you go into a store and you're like, do you want these free iTunes? Like this is when iTunes was big. iTunes everything. Yes. And they'd be like, no. No, you don't understand. It's just free songs. Free money. Yeah.

It made no sense. Wow. Anywho, we just had so many. And so we just bought so much music for ourselves. Good for you. What did you buy? Everything. All-American rejects. Providers.

Just everything. Have you ever been on a date with someone who like is a little younger? I once, I was on a date and I put on some hot cue music. You know, it was like Snow Patrol. Oh, wow. And he was like, oh, it sounds like the music they put on at the dentist. And I kicked him out. That's it.

I kicked him out. There was no future. No. It's not possible. It's not in the cards. He ruined it. At the dentist. Ew.

Snow Patrol. If Snow Patrol was playing at the dentist, they'd be He ruined it. At the dentist. Ew. Snow Patrol. If Snow Patrol was playing at the dentist, they'd be like, fuck, yeah, dentist. Yes. This is a hip dentist. People would pay to go to the dentist if Snow Patrol was playing at the dentist. This ages us to 35 very appropriately. I love that. I love that.

We needed some markers. Yep. Okay. Any other big revelations? I love that. We needed some markers. Yep. Okay. Any other big revelations? I think throughout this process, I, first of all, didn't have therapy at all, which was a mistake. But our schedules were already complicated, but I just had therapy today. And so I've had a lot of questions that I had kept and that I had ready for her. And I think that throughout the last two weeks, I've asked myself

several times, am I getting egg freezing revelations about my life or about dating or about friendships or about even my job and my career? Or am I just on hormones? And can I not trust anything that I'm thinking right now? What is real? And I think that I actually, after doing my therapy session, I'm leaning towards the former that it has been a really unique opportunity to show us, again, it's not totally a rehearsal, but it is a little bit of rehearsal for the future and for a time where there are constraints on your time. And I'm taking care of dogs right now on top of it. So there is a little bit more of a rehearsal.

And the words of my therapist were, if you think taking care of dogs is hard on top of it. So there is a little bit more of a rehearsal. And the words of my therapist were, if you think taking care of dogs is hard, a baby's going to be definitely more. What you're feeling right now is actually going to be amplified. So no, trust yourself and listen to those feelings. And again, maybe don't make big life decisions right now, but those are real messages to listen to.

I kind of had that realization that this moment in time is clarifying. In many ways, the hormones are blurring things and making you wonder if you can trust yourself. But it also is clarifying in many ways because you're feeling things more intensely. That's really true. It's highlighting areas that we've put aside. my life right now. Or, you know, you can imagine things in a way, I don't know, sometimes I sort of create, I mean, I create fantasies all the time, but it applies to the future that I create around a person or around, again, a job or a situation. And this has kind of forced us, I mean, we weren't really in fantasy land. It was reality land for the last two weeks. And that comes with, who can I count on? And again, not that we're going to cut out people who weren't. This is two weeks. Someone might be going through something during that.

It's not a big deal. To me, it doesn't reveal who's not a good friend. It just reveals who is a very good friend. That's a really good point. It has been enlightening in so many ways. All right. Well, we're not done yet. Yeah.

We're close. We're almost there. It's nuts. It is nuts. Anna Wintour, put me on the cover. Put us on the cover. At the minimum. Put us.

You should be at the Met Gala. Okay, well, you know the way to get to the Met. You get picked by a designer. I know, but I'm not a model. Like most of the- No. They like models and big actresses. Hello, Mary-Kate and Ashley.

It's like all I do is talk about your clothes. Can't they get you in? I bet they're not friends with me. As much as I have put out in the universe that we should be best friends, they aren't responsive. Okay. Well, Jennifer Aniston is responsive. Can we talk about that? Did you already talk about it?

I have not. I mean, I saw your face light up last night. I was like, what just happened? Okay, shout out Armcherry Direct, I think it was, who posted. So I went on Chelsea Handler's podcast. She's the very best. I love her so much. There's a portion where you ask for advice.

I just asked about friendship dynamics in general because change is so hard for me. Always, always, always. And life moves. It moves, it evolves. It doesn't stay static. And I think it was hard because in the pandemic, there was a very set dynamic. Time kind of stopped. It did. And I felt very safe. Weirdly, I felt safe in this crazy unsafety. I know what you mean. Yeah. Because I didn't have to like be like, oh, someone might have to like go to London for three weeks and we're just going to be around. And then, you know, we came out of the pandemic and then life moves on and things change a bit and it's normal. It's all totally normal stuff. Nothing's crazy. I think some people read into that as, oh my God, something crazy is happening with her. That's not true. But yeah, so I asked her about that,

and then she posted, and Jennifer Aniston liked the post on Chelsea's, not on mine. Mouth to the floor. But also, look, what also I'm 100% aware of is Jennifer loves Chelsea, floor. But also, look, what also I'm 100% aware of is Jennifer loves Chelsea and is just like liking all her posts. No. Yes. Yes. No. No, don't say no. Okay, put yourself in Jennifer Aniston's shoes. I do every day. If you're looking at one of your friends' posts, of course you are looking at it because it's your friend. That's your feed. That's your TV. But you're watching it and you're enjoying it. She took you in. She knows who you are your TV, but you're watching it and you're enjoying it. She took you in. She knows who you are. I feel like you can infer a lot from that. And she doesn't like everything. I feel like Jennifer Aniston doesn't like lightly. But we don't know if she

likes lightly. She probably likes everything Chelsea puts up because they're friends. Not everything. I mean, we could go down. I would go down. This is my favorite activity, thing. I mean, we could go down. I would go down. This is my favorite activity, being an FBI investigator on Instagram. She took you in and she liked you. Well, no, that's a big leap that she liked me. She liked that snippet and that's enough for me. I don't need her to like me. I mean, of course I do. I need everyone to like me, let alone Jennifer Aniston, but it was exciting. It just felt like Sim, you know? Thanks, dad. Yes, 100%. I have so much to thank my dad for. But anyway, that was exciting. This is what we were trying to do. Lots of TikToks on your accord. And one of them we could not get through. We were laughing so hard.

Are you ever going to post it? Let's post it on this. We should. We should. So people know what it is. Just the outtakes will be funnier. It's absurd. I also woke up this morning to, I just got this phone, even though it's broken, it doesn't look like it, but I really did not get it a long time ago. And I got a lot of storage because you know my life. It is out of storage. No, mine is too. And I think I'm doing something wrong. I also got tons of storage and it's out and it makes no sense it doesn't okay i'm glad you're saying that because i'm very confused too i mean we did take your entire performance in cinematic mode which takes up a lot of room but that being said no more storage dude there's something up so you should also download the new update no i can't no me too that's why i started no because the

people are getting hacked and stuff and you're're famous. So like you should do it. Anyway, we'll delete stuff. Okay. Well, this was a good catch up. This was good. Our catch ups are less manic. They are. We're more stable. I think we're more stable.

Yeah. I can't wait to go back and listen to the first episode. I mean, I don't know. But my prediction is there's going to be a real evolution. And of us. There's a lot of evolution of our bodies, of even the things we're talking about. I don't consume any mommy blogs. My algorithm is starting to show me mom stuff because we're talking about it all the time and they're spying on us. But even with some of

our first interviews, they were talking to us about pretty basic. We were just like, what? And now I feel like I know so much more. Yes. So that'll be interesting to listen to. It will. A lot of emotional arcs. And McDonald's, if you want to sponsor us, please feel free because of the arcs. The arcs. I was told you have to get McDonald's after your egg retrieval. I can't wait.

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Great product. Yes, you can grow thicker, healthier hair and support our show by going to Nutrafol.com and entering the promo code race to save $15 off your first month subscription. This is the best offer anywhere and it's only available to US customers for a limited time plus free shipping on every single order. Get $15 off at Nutrafol.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com, promo code RACE. All right. Well, today we are talking to someone spectacular. I can't even believe that he took the time to talk to us and sit with us. We are going to talk to Andrew Solomon,

who you love, Liz. I love Andrew Solomon so much. He's just such an extraordinary author and thinker. Anything that he writes about will give you a completely new perspective on that topic. And he writes with empathy and compassion and wit. So I'm very excited that he's on our show. I talked about it a little bit on Armchair if anyone caught this, but he wrote the book Far from the Tree about children who are much different than their parents and parenting a kid who's different than you. So I'm so excited to talk to him and let's go ahead and jump in. Thank you so much for chatting with us. Well, thank you so much for chatting with me. It sounds like an exciting project. Are your eggs frozen? Not yet.

They're growing. They're growing. They're in the growth process right now. Right. Well, you both look terrific. So whatever it is, it's working for you. Thank you very much. We're, I mean, truly so honored that you have agreed to talk to us. We're so grateful. Shout out Dove Fox for a connection. We want to talk to you about a lot of things. There's a lot to cover with you. One, you have a very personal story. All of your awesome content has come out of personal stuff, which I think is beautiful. And that's where all the good stuff comes from, I think, in the world. But you have a personal story with surrogacy and a family you've made.

And I think we definitely want to dive into that because we're trying to cover all these angles and show there's so many ways to make families. Right. I'm actually at work on a book about that very idea that there are many ways to make families, right, partly from my experience and partly from other people's, but I'm delighted to talk to you about whatever you'd like to ask about. Great. First, tell us about your family and the different components. I know there are multiple people involved, and then we'll dive into some questions based off that. So my husband is the biological father of two children with some lesbian friends in Minneapolis. And then my best friend from college had gotten divorced. And I said, are you sad about your

divorce? And she said, no, I'm actually happy to be out of that marriage, but I'm sad about not having children. And I said in a rather lighthearted way, well, if you ever decided you wanted to have children, I think you'd be an amazing mother, and I would love to be the father of your child. But I didn't really expect that she would take me up on it. And then she did. So we have a daughter and mother and daughter live in Fort Worth, Texas. But I go down there and they come up here and we just spent a month traveling together this summer in Africa. And then my husband and I wanted to have the experience of raising a child full time in our own house. So we have my son, George, of whom I am the biological father. John is the

adoptive father. We had an egg donor we found through an agency and our surrogate was Laura, who is the mother of his two biological children. Wow. I love this so much because it's a good example of you didn't say, oh, we can't at any point. There was no can't in the story. It was we want this and we're going to find a way to have it in lots of different circumstances. Well, look, I had said can't for whatever it was, 20 years of my adult life thinking I'm gay and I'm never going to be able to have a family and this isn't really viable and how would I ever do it? And will I ever meet someone I can be in a relationship with who also wants to do this? So there were years of can't. And then there was just a point when I thought

can't doesn't work anymore and it has to be can. In some ways, that's sort of where we are. It's just, okay, we're not where we thought we were relationship-wise, and maybe even with family. And so it's, okay, what can we do for ourselves right now? And in a way, not fitting into the box of, again, heteronormative, whatever box society puts, instead of it meaning that you have less freedom, it actually means you may have more freedom to be more creative. This is the first

time I've thought, oh, I could have a child with a friend. And a male friend, right? I have a lot of male friends, but I've always been like, no, I don't want to marry this person, so I can't have a child with them. And so you've decoupled those two things. And it's something Monica brought up that you talked about in therapy of decoupling motherhood and your life partner or just relationship and dating. And you've done such extensive reporting on different kinds of family configurations. I was watching your New Yorker video documentary and piece about polyamory. And I just think it's fascinating to see this one guy, he's with three women and they have a bunch of kids and everyone's happy about it. You talk about even language and how language shapes the way that we see to see this one guy, he's with three women and they have a bunch of kids and everyone's happy

about it. You talk about even language and how language shapes the way that we see family. And I think you were talking about a father who transitioned from daddy to mommy. And so the kids call him Maddie, a mix of mommy and daddy as a new term, right? And so we're all just making things up as we go. I'm just such a fan of your work and you're the perfect person to really take us through, not just personally, but even in your work, just the evolution of family and how we can reimagine it. We often see it as a scary thing, even this polyamory thing. I'm seeing it, I'm like, oh God. But isn't it an opportunity rather than something we should be scared about? I think that you've touched on two super important points. The first is that we've been having changes in the nature of family going on for at least 20 years and in some ways for longer,

and we still have no vocabulary for it. So you're married to someone or you're not married. And there's this whole thing of trying to figure out how do you explain the relationship that you have with somebody if there's no word for it. And I feel like in the last 20 years, we've added a lot of words to our vocabulary, including all of the words that are associated with people's increasing use of computers. And why is it that we've had this shift in relationships and we haven't found any language? Even still, we don't have adequate words. I mean, partner is sort of okay,

but then if you're a lawyer, people think it's the person you work with. Why is there no word for it unless you're married and you can say husband or wife, which seems a little antiquated. So that's the first thing. It's just this language thing, which I think is really important.

But the other thing that you were touching on that I think is crucial is that there has been a tendency to judge all other forms of family by the extent to which they conform to a kind of 1950s idealized model that wasn't really even necessarily so great in the 1950s. And we haven't said what I think we should say, which is we live in an era of embracing diversity. At least many people are embracing diversity right now. In addition to embracing gender diversity and racial diversity and ethnic diversity and all the other kinds of diversity, we should embrace this

diversity of families because actually having many different ways to make a family and many different kinds of family makes things richer. And I feel like in trying to get recognition for families that aren't mainstream, we've tended to take the need for equality and turn it into equivalence. And it's actually not equivalent. The way my family is, I think we are a great family. I think my kids have some things other kids don't have.

They may lack some things other kids do have. We're having our experience. And I don't want to be in a situation of having to erase it all the time and say, well, no, it's really okay because we're kind of like everyone else's family. We're basically the same. We aren't all basically the same. We're all, all of us and every family in the world, basically different. And some families are a disaster, but the idea of difference should be celebrated. Nobody is the same. My family is unlike any of the families I know. And it's a, quote, nuclear family.

But it's different. Everyone is so different. And I think you do such a beautiful job in all of your work of kind of highlighting that. Everyone has pieces that are unique. I love normalizing that. Nothing is standard. And usually the pain comes from not the difference, but feeling like there's something wrong with the difference.

I would look at other families and you say, oh, I wish my family was normal. I grew up with a mom that has mental health issues and I wish my mom was like other moms. But that was also a facade that was created that told us this is what is normal. And the one thing that will prevent your family from doing well in the world is if you feel ashamed of the kind of family you have.

So you have to teach the kids not to be ashamed, but the kids actually absorb what's going on in the household. The kids won't be ashamed if you're not ashamed. And you have to get to the point of not thinking, well, I wish I could have done it the normal way, which, as you point out, there is no real normal. But anyway, you have to get to the point of not saying, oh, I wish I'd have done it the normal way, which, as you point out, there is no real normal. But anyway, you have to get to the point of not saying, oh, I wish I'd done it this other way. That's the way my own parents, for example, did. And get to the point of thinking, we've made this great discovery that there's another way to do it

and being excited about it rather than feeling like it was the second best option. Did you have an arc of getting there? You know, it's a long arc because it has to do with accepting my sexuality and internalized homophobia and all of that stuff. But I feel like I spent years going back and forth between relationships with men and relationships with women because I really wanted a family. And I thought if I wanted a family, I had to be in a sort of normal relationship with a woman. And there were some wonderful women along the way, and it's not that they weren't good relationships, but really and truly who I am is gay. And I had to get to the point of thinking that was okay. And then once I got to the point of thinking that was

okay, I had to get to the point of thinking, oh, it's okay to bring a child into an unorthodox family because my own family had been very traditional in its structure. And I thought, oh, the only way I can have children is if I recreate exactly what my childhood was like. But that isn't the only way that you can have a family. And so I saw other people doing it. I had a few friends who had started with it. And then really, when I met John 21 years ago, the fact that he at that point was the biological father of just one child. But with these lesbian friends, I thought, oh, you can do that. They're gay and they have kids and everyone seems happy and the kids seem really great.

And I guess we could do that, too. And it all began to open up from there. That's amazing. And so they just co-parented kind of in the same way that you co-parent with your friend. No, that's the kind of crucial difference. John was a sperm donor and those kids have two parents and their parents are Tammy and Laura. And Blaine and I decided to be parents together. And little Blaine has two parents and they are Blaine. They're both named Blaine. It's very confusing. They are Mama Blaine and me. So I

am involved in every decision about little Blaine's life. And she is very much my daughter. But we adore Oliver and Lucy and we're close to their moms. And Lucy was just here for a week visiting us. And so we don't make decisions about where she's going to be educated or whether she should get a nose piercing or all kinds of other things. We're there as important figures in her life. And again, there's this problem of language that people then say, oh, so you're sort of like uncles?

No, we're sort of like her biological father and his husband. And then they say, oh, so it's sort of like godparents. No, it's not like godparents. It's this other thing that you don't have a word for. Just take it on board. Yeah. I mean, just to give some compassion to people, I understand it's very hard to think outside the words that we've been given. Everyone is trying to relate it to something they know so that they can try to understand. Culturally, we are moving towards a place in general where it's okay to not put labels and to not have these boxes to which you can be like, oh, no, it's like this, it's like this. It's like, no, it's something new. It's something different. And one thing that you write so much about, and I was telling Monica about this and she was like,

you should tell him. I'm trying not to talk good behind people's backs and actually tell it to their face. Your work on depression has meant a lot to me personally. Your episode with Krista on being came at the nick of time when I was going through my own depressive episode. And I think I've listened to that entire episode 12 or 13 times. And it was almost like a medicine for me at the time. And I'll come back to it. I'm so honored. Thank you. Thank you. I think so much of what you talk about when it comes to depression is so, so, so crucial and even relates to a lot. You talk about antidepressants, for example,

you know, we say, oh, it's unnatural, or there's this myth that it's unnatural when you say, is it unnatural that you still have teeth past the age of 35 and they haven't rotten out of your right that you use an electric toothbrush? But with reproduction, with family, it's almost like, yeah, we think that it's not natural to do it in these modern ways. So even in this experience, I've thought back about your words about depression. And I know that a big thing that I've shared is my fear around parenthood is coming from, I had a mother with mental health challenges, which then it didn't give me mental health challenges, but kind of, she did the best that she could. And beyond her strength is extraordinary. Monica and I talked about this the other day of just, we couldn't even match that strength. So for women who are listening or just parents or to be parents who

are worried about not being perfect parents and worried about, you know, if I struggle with depression, how am I going to bring another person into the world and make sure that they don't struggle with depression? How am I not passing this on? I'm just wondering if that ever was something that you thought about in your journey to deciding to be a parent. Well, first off, I would say that any form of family or parenting can be done well or badly. Sometimes there's this talk about, oh, this is such an unnatural, strange thing. And isn't that going to be terrible for the kids? And you think it's not like all of the sort of straight married people who have children in nuclear families are doing such a terrific job and it's all working out so well. It can go in any direction. Let's look at the mass shooting

numbers in this country. Anyway, moving on from that. But yeah. Yes. And as far as the depression goes, and I'm sorry that you had that difficult experience growing up. And I'm grateful for your generous words about my work, which mean a lot to me. But I thought, OK, there are genetic factors that could mean that my child could develop depression. But if one of my children does, I'm going to be better equipped to deal with it than all the people who have never gone through this experience or never acknowledged it or never admitted it to themselves. I'm going to know what to do and how to handle it.

And I just think everyone is going to pass on some desirable and some undesirable traits. And you can be someone who sort of says, oh, but I'm so short. Why would I have kids who might be short? Well, you know, they'll be short. They'll cope in the world. They'll be just fine. Yes. So I think the idea that, I mean, we've only known each other for 12 minutes or something. But I think you have a million great things to pass on to a child. And you'll possibly have some problematic things to pass on to a child. And you'll just try to notice what they are and help your child through them as they come along.

I mean, it's really hard to be born into poverty. Lots of poor people have children. Nobody is standing around saying, yeah, but should you have children if you're poor? Because they're going to have born into poverty. Lots of poor people have children. Nobody is standing around saying, yeah, but should you have children if you're poor because they're going to have a tough life? Yeah, they'll have a tough life. And that's part of how the world is structured. And we should have a society that makes that life not as bad as it is. That's a whole other topic. Right. But I just feel like everyone has got advantages and disadvantages that they pass along. If you had a catastrophic, agonizingly

painful illness that had had you completely disabled and was going to cause you to die very young, there are points at which you think, maybe I would have to think this through. Though, of course, many people with disabilities lead rich and rewarding lives. But if it was something that was actually physically agonizingly painful. But I think in terms of the depression, you know, just be awake to what's going on. Be prepared for it. Yeah. I watched Far From the Tree last night, and that's based on a book of yours, and you're in it. It's a documentary. And it was so moving. I was really not expecting that level of intensity internally for me. This is a tricky topic,

but I think we need to cover it on this podcast because we're freezing eggs, which means we have the ability to inseminate them, have frozen embryos, screen. And this doc in your book is about, I love that you said you kind of embarked on this journey as a way to forgive your parents for kind of the restraints they put on you and for not letting you be

yourself. And all of these stories in the doc are kids who are not like their parents, we should say. You highlight a man with Down syndrome, You highlight a little person and also a couple who are little people. And there's an autistic boy. And then there is a boy who has committed a crime and is in jail. And you follow these families. And I guess I have to be honest, before watching this, I was 100% sure that I would screen for any disability and I would remove that option from the table. And I feel kind of embarrassed to say that or shameful to say that, but I do think a lot of people could probably agree. So I'm willing to take it. And it's cultural. You know, ableism

is within our culture. And so you've absorbed that. It's not just you. It's a lot of people. is within our culture. And so you've absorbed that. It's not just you. It's a lot of people. And I do feel what you tell yourself is, I couldn't handle it. I'm not capable. I wouldn't be able to. So it's really doing everyone a favor or whatever. You know, you tell yourself all these things. But then I'm watching these beautiful people. I mean, oh, my goodness, the stories and the humans. And if we live in a world where they don't exist, where differences don't exist, what are we doing? So I feel like it's one of the marks of the success of both the book and the film that I've had people write to me and say, I watched your film. I'm pregnant with a child with this or that condition. I decided to go ahead and have that

child. But I've also had letters from people who said, I watched your film and I couldn't be as strong as the parents who I saw in that film or whom I read about in your book. So I decided that I wasn't going to go through with it. And my feeling on all of this is that I'm intensely pro-choice. I'm pro-choice in terms of abortion. I'm pro-choice in terms of family structure. And I'm pro-choice in terms of abortion. I'm pro-choice in terms of family structure. And I'm pro-choice in terms of what kinds of pregnancies people carry to their fruition and what kinds of pregnancies people don't. Different people have different capacities and some people can overcome prejudices. Having said that, a lot of the people I interviewed said that when they started off,

they thought, I can't deal with this. And they ended up feeling that it had expanded their humanity. And they then got used to the thing they had. And there was a woman who described to me being in a hospital with a child with an acute form of dwarfism that carries some other challenges as well. And she was in the hospital elevator and someone else got in with a child with Down syndrome in the same hospital. And she said she was sitting over there and thinking, well, I can deal with a kid like mine, but I could never deal with a kid like that. And then she realized that that woman was looking at her and thinking

exactly the same thing. You know, you adjust to your reality. You really do adjust to your reality. I think that's so important to remember. And the man in the movie with Down Syndrome, my mouth was agape because in the doc, you know, we have a very close connection to Kristen and Dax. Obviously, that's what the show all kind of comes from. And Kristen's in Frozen and Jason is obsessed with Frozen and he's in love with Elsa and he has a hard time differentiating reality and fiction and he's really in love with her. At first you hear this and it's like, oh boy, it's a little disorienting. If you had a kid who didn't know fiction from reality, how would you do that? Oh my God. And then I like took one second and I was like, that's me. That is literally, that's me.

me. That is literally, that's me. I have a hard time differentiating fiction from reality. I mean, it's a joke on Armchair Expert, but I was obsessed with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon after seeing Good Old Hunting, fully obsessed and had real fantasies. Legit, I was camping and I was like, they might be in the tent. That is where my brain went. So I'm watching this and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's part of the disability. And I'm like, that is literally me. It's so easy for us to think of people as other as opposed to, wait, no, there's so much connection. His mom says something so beautiful to him because his father died and he was very close to him. And his mom said, well, of course, you're looking for a relationship where the person can't leave you. And I was like, that's me too.

Like, I don't know. It just really spoke to me. We really are all so similar. And he's so loving. And you can see in the film what a loving person he is. He's so loving, and you can see in the film what a loving person he is. And, I mean, somebody else I interviewed had a child with multiple severe disabilities who has never spoken and who has some challenges in walking, though he can more or less do it. She said, you know, if there had been an angel in the room where I gave birth who said,

you can have one wish, my wish would have been not that my child go to Harvard, not that my child be a big, impressive, famous person. She said, my wish would have been that my child be happy, and my wish would have come true. It's so true. And it's like, you can't scream for, are they going to be an asshole? Right. I don't want that. That would be the worst thing. And these really myths, right? And again, it's not your fault that you felt that way. It's in our culture and ableism is just everywhere. And films like yours are rare that we really get a sense of what it is like to have a disability, what it is like to have a relationship with a person with disability.

And that doesn't just impact children with disabilities and the gap that they can feel with the parent who doesn't have a disability, but it also impacts the ways that we see people with disabilities, not as parents. A lot of mothers with disabilities, for example, the parent who doesn't have a disability, but it also impacts the ways that we see people with disabilities not as parents. A lot of mothers with disabilities, for example, they have really high removal rates. And this obviously happens with black women too. And it cuts across a lot of different other identity groups, but people with disabilities can also parent and be wonderful parents. And you talk to their kids and it's the same thing, right? You say, would you want a mom that's not in a wheelchair?

No, I want my mom. Then she wouldn't be my mom. And so I think family and storytelling around family has a way of really disrupting all of these unfortunate stereotypes about people with disabilities where you don't have to watch a whole lecture about it. You can watch a movie and be like, wow, none of this is true.

And then at the little people convention, they really talk about that because there's dissecting the gene and then maybe removing it. They're like, we don't want to be removed. It's a question of what we're able to identify, what we're able to remove, what people think makes your life without value or without meaning. You know, a lot of us have a very narrow idea of what we think kids should be like. And there's a real gap between love, which should be there and usually is, I think, from the time a kid is born, and acceptance, which is the thing that parents come to usually much later after it's become

clear who their kids are. And I feel like that's the kind of tension in these stories is that the parents mostly, once they had a child, even a child with a disability, they loved their child. There are certainly unloving parents out in the world, but mostly parents love their children. Beginning to accept their children and really figure out that those children were fully who they are and that they were going to celebrate them for who they are and not for who they wish they had been or who they had envisioned in the first place. You know, that's a struggle that every parent goes through. Every single parent. No parent has a child who matches the fantasy that they had before they had kids. And vice versa. Children accepting their parents the way that they are too. And that can be lifelong too. Oh, yeah.

That comes a little later on. Then it goes away, it comes back, it goes away. It's a practice. It's a ride. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think people get wrong about parenthood or even in your own journey with parenthood? What was something that you were convinced was true that you were like, this is completely, completely not what I expected, or it's completely different from the message I'd absorbed about parenthood? Well, the first thing is that it's very difficult with your children to find the line between being encouraging and being controlling, or on the other hand, between being accepting and being absent. Your child is not doing their homework. There's one

school of thought that might say, well, they're just who they really are, and they're not interested. And then there's another school that says, look, they have to do their homework there's one school of thought that might say well they're just who they really are and they're not interested and then there's another school that says look they have to do their homework they're going to be really sorry when they're older if they haven't been functional so it's a big job to figure out where to change your children and where to accept them and how to get the balance between those things right i would say as my children get to be older, that there's a lot of tension in the development of their increasing independence. And, you know, one longs for independence, but I had dinner with my brother last night, and the last of his three children went up to college last week. So he's newly kind of empty nesting or whatever you want to call it. I kind of hate that phrase, but he's newly doing all of that. And I just thought it's very tough when they leave and there's the

piece of you that wants to cling to them. And there was an English psychiatrist in the middle of the 20th century who said, okay, but good parenting really requires that you do two things. It requires that you hold on to and protect and love your children. And it also requires that you push them out into the world and set them up so that they'll be functional there. And we as a society have sentimentalized holding on and we've kind of stigmatized pushing away. But you actually have to be able to do both. And if you can't do both, you're not going to be a good parent. Yeah, that's interesting. Stay tuned for more, if's interesting. Stay tuned for more if you dare. We are supported by Thrive Market.

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or just really aren't ready to face, but we do need good data and information about our bodies in order to have informed conversations with our doctors and make the best decisions for ourselves and our futures, which is something that we've been dealing with over the past couple of weeks. Yes, and if you know anything about me is I don't love to have a lot of information and go to the doctor and have to hear it all because it can be overwhelming. But that's why

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modernfertility.com slash race to three five this is a limited time offer for 30 off get 30 off your fertility test when you go to modernfertility.com slash race to three five modernfertility.com slash race 235. Modernfertility.com slash race 235. Can you tell us a little bit about the surrogacy experience? Because I know people listening are on that path or thinking about that path. Potentially we will. How was that? So I've now interviewed a bunch of surrogates. I've interviewed a bunch of parents who've had children through surrogacy, and I have my own experience. My own experience, the surrogate was actually a friend rather than someone we had found through a sort of public agency. But I

thought it was an extraordinary gift that she gave us. I mean, the most extraordinary gift really that anyone has ever given us. Pregnancy is work. And she did the work of that pregnancy and she did it really well and graciously and nobly. And I feel unbelievably grateful. And I feel sort of sad that our egg donor didn't want sustained contact because I look at our son, George, and I think he's so terrific. And half his genes come from someone I don't know. And she must be an amazing person or he wouldn't be. So I mean, I love to say he's amazing just because of me. Dominant genes. There's that piece of it. But I also have now spent a lot of time with surrogates.

And there's all of this language and circulation about how, you know, people shouldn't be selling their bodies and pregnancies have risks and so on. And there are a lot of people for whom this is a really great arrangement. Some of them for practical reasons, like the wives of people in the military. Your husband is stationed overseas. You're at home. You have three little're at home. You have three little kids at home. You want to do something because you have to keep paying the rent and you want to stay home with your kids and not have to go to an office and put them in some kind of daycare.

And this is the answer to that. But there are also people I met who love being pregnant. I mean, there was one woman who I talked to and we were talking and she stood up and she sort of pointed to herself and she said, look at these hips. She said, I was made to bear children. And so she did. And she's been a surrogate several times and she has her own kid and she loves it. There was one woman I met who had to have cesareans for medical reasons and she was therefore only able to be a surrogate fewer times than she wanted to be. And she kept saying, I wish I could do it again. And the feeling, she said, of joy when I meet with these parents and the relationships that I've developed with some of them, you know, your egg donor can be anonymous, your surrogate can't be anonymous,

there's a relationship there. You know, they said the kids have sort of written to me afterwards, and people find a lot of meaning in this enterprise. And I sort of, again, in a general belief in freedom and diversity, I don't think that impoverished people in the developing world who don't want to be doing this are being used as sort of baby factories. I mean, I think there are horrible abuses that have been associated with surrogacy. So I don't want to sugarcoat those. But there also is a lot of joy in it for all participants. And that joy shouldn't be considered an artifice. That joy, I think, can be really authentic. And the opportunity for people who 25 years ago

wouldn't have been able to have children to have children, it just increases the amount of love in the world. And I sound a little Yoko Ono, but that's all you need is love. No, it's true. I kind of feel like that's the through line of this whole podcast. We're realizing the more people who love you, the better. No one ever said too many people care about me. And in a way, this nuclear family model has failed us in many respects, thinking about now two parents who are working, which is a new thing. I mean, it wasn't always the case. And in my case, again, my mom had issues, but then also had to work and they were stressed out with money. And in this

economy, it is very challenging to give a child everything that they need. And again, I think about that too. I need to be in this impossibly secure financial position, which I might never even be in. And it might lead me to delay parenthood to a point where I won't even do it. So I think that reinventing the family is not just something that's positive for us, you know, culturally and gives more opportunities for more people to be parents. But it's better for the children to live in almost more like a community, right? Isn't that how we're supposed to be raising children? That is how we're supposed to be raising children? That is how we're supposed to be raising children. And there was some interesting research done by someone at Columbia who was looking at how to treat depression in children. And she tried 10 different interventions and she discovered the best way to treat depression

in children was to treat their mothers, that that would make more of a difference to how they were. And she discovered that by and large, children of depressed parents were struggling. But then she was working in the community right around Columbia Hospital, which is a largely Dominican community that is not economically or educationally advantaged. And she found that maternal depression had much less of a knock-on effect to kids in that community. And she thought, well, that's strange. And she didn't understand why. And as she worked on it, she discovered all of these women, many of whom were single mothers,

but not all, were kind of bringing up their children together. And if one kid's mom was depressed, there was somebody else who was in the apartment next door or right down the block who kind of took over and did stuff. And the children were protected. And this idea that your child has only the relationship with their two parents. You know, and as I said, I was just on a trip with my husband, John, our son, George, big Blaine, the mother of my daughter, and little Blaine, who is my daughter. You know, I could see the people who met us in various hotelish and guiding situations trying to figure out George calls Mama Blaine, little Blaine calls John Papa John. I mean, there's a whole structure to it that can be confusing. But I just feel like all of those

relationships have turned out to be so vital and so valuable. And this thing of the nuclear family isolated from everyone else is part of the epidemic of loneliness that I think is afflicting the country. And children. You've written about increase in child suicide, which is very disturbing. Yeah. I mean, Esther Perel says in terms of relationships, but it applies across the board, I think, where she's like, one person can't give you all the things. Yeah, exactly. In life. Again, the more people you have to fill in the gaps and check off all the boxes, the more overall health you'll have. It's important to remember.

I had a friend who said along the same lines as Astaire, she said, not everybody is a supermarket. Most people are a boutique or a bodega. She said, only a few people are a supermarket. Oh my God. Only Obama. Only Obama. Yes, exactly.

Oh my God, that's so great. That's so good. When you were interviewing these surrogates and you talked to so many, were there any who said, I felt connected and I wish I could have kept the baby? I didn't see anyone who said, I wish I had kept the baby. But I saw people who said it was emotionally very taxing and who said, I wouldn't do it again. There were some of those people. They were the minority, which may be partly because people like that

are less available to be interviewed than other people. I think they understand from the beginning that it's not their baby and that they aren't going to keep the baby. There have been a couple of famous court cases in which people took that stance. But in general, there were people who sort of said, I found myself becoming more attached than I thought I would. But they were the exception rather than the rule. I mean, if you think about it, you might have postpartum depression, you're going to have that drop in hormones. So adding all of that, and then we had an expert talk about how when you bond with your baby, you're releasing oxytocin, so it helps balance it all out. But if you're not bonding with a baby, it might actually make you feel worse than

you think it's going to make you feel, you know, to not have the baby around. Look, having a baby is very, some people get postpartum depression. Some people go into a state of sort of wild ecstasy about becoming parents. Most people actually have elements of both. Most people who are new parents are on the one hand excited and on the other hand, totally intimidated, overwhelmed. I mean, physically exhausted because it's physically exhausting. I think for surrogates, it depends on how easy the pregnancy was, how easy the birth was, what the relationship was with the biological mother to whom the child is going, or with the two guys to whom the child is going, or with whoever it is to whom the child is going. I think there's such a broad range of experience. I don't think

you can generalize. I certainly feel if I were hiring a commercial surrogate, I would want someone who I really talked to and made sure that she understood what was involved. And I would want to be really understanding of what's there. I mean, not to treat it as if this were a sort of service provider, not that one should treat any service provider with less than human dignity. But, you know, I think to understand the intensity of what's involved in doing this. And I think partly people donate kidneys to strangers and people do all of these things that are people who find being kind and helpful in the world gratifying. We need the rest of us to be really, really grateful to those people. And I think gratitude is a huge part

of it. I mean, the surrogates I found who had not been happy, and again, I wouldn't universalize this, but there were people who felt like they had done this thing. And then the mom had said, oh, thanks a lot, and kind of walked off with the child and kind of not wanted the surrogate to form any kind of bond because there was anxiety or jealousy or there was something. The surrogate has earned the right to have some interaction with you in the show or not to, depending on what the surrogate thinks would work out best for her. Yeah. Okay. So we just talked to someone who used a sperm donor. It was such a fascinating process to hear about. She went online and she could look at all the profiles. And is the egg donor situation similar? Yeah.

I mean, it's like you're buying a new car or something. Do I want a sunroof? Yes. This one has a higher SAT score, but that one seems kind of prettier. And what is it that we're really after? And so on and so forth. Yeah. It's a totally bizarre experience.

And also, you look at these profiles, which tell you very little, and you think, I'm going to live with the result of this decision for the rest of, you know, you can always return your car and get a different one without a sunroof. But when you're looking at the biological parents of your child, it's a big leap. And I've said to a number of friends, especially I have a lot of gay friends who have turned to me about having kids because we did and they're thinking about it and they're nervous. But I said, if you want to wait until you're absolutely certain, you're never going to have children. You have to at a certain point just think the odds are strong enough in my favor that I'm going to make this leap. And I'm studying for something else. I'm

doing the issue of maternal regret about people who have children and then wish they'd never had children. It is so rare. It does happen. But it's so rare. Almost nobody who has children thinks, I wish I hadn't had children. Yeah, I know. That makes me feel better. I know. You know what's upsetting? Because that's 100% true.

What I really hate is when the right takes that and demonizes it. And they're like, everyone is happy when they have kids. So, like, we're making everyone have children. I don't want to sentimentalize. In the first place, everyone who has children has moments of wishing they hadn't had children or wishing they would go away. But also when you look at what's going on

with the overturning of Roe and what's happened at the Supreme Court, people who are having children with a surrogate have been pretty intentional about it. It takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of money, which I think is a gross injustice. I think everyone should have equal access to means of reproduction.

But in any event, that's the way it is. They've really committed to doing it. But there are lots of people who feel they're unequipped to have a child or they're unequipped to have a child right now, or there's some other reason why they can't do it. A lot of the time, the reason that people can't have children is because they can't afford to take care of them or they can't afford to get any help with taking care of them. We're one of the only countries in the developed world that doesn't offer support for child

care. It's hard to read it all and not get out there with your sort of feminist marching sign and say this is unacceptable. If you aren't ready to have a child or you don't want to have a child, that should be totally up to you. I'm just saying most people who set out to have children and who end up having children whom they wanted end up on balance being glad that they did and not spending their whole time thinking, I regret it. But, you know, it's also this problem that women in particular, to some extent, sort of gay dads, but really women are being pushed so hard to keep up a career and child care. The average mother today spends 10 hours more per week with their

child than the average mother in the 50s. And the average mother in the 50s did not have a job. Yeah. And a dishwasher. You know, exactly. So the expectations that have been placed on women are so unreasonable. And it would be really helpful if somebody said, this is very unreasonable, and we should figure out what to do about it. Or even if someone just said, it's really unreasonable, and it's incredibly hard, and you have to admire anyone who's managing to cope with it. Yes, some validation would be nice. Yes. Well, I'm sorry you brought that up. And we've touched on this in our conversations of just perfectionism.

If I can't be the perfect mother and also have the perfect experience of being a mother, we live in such a optimize everything, make everything the best culture. And with, you know, social media and all the filters, you look at motherhood and you're like, unless I can be that, I shouldn't be a mom. And so I think what you're saying is so useful of just bringing down the expectations on mothers and then bringing up the support that we give them. There's this idea from D.W. Winnicott,

but he wrote something about the idea of the good enough mother. He said, basically, there is a sort of minimum standard you have to rise to or your child will be neglected or abused or in trouble. But if you rise to rise to or your child will be neglected or abused or in trouble but if you rise to that standard and are a good enough mother the difference between a good enough mother and an absolutely fantastic mother in terms of how much difference it makes for the child there is a difference but it's not such a huge difference there really is a cutoff

point at which you can say to yourself you can say I'm doing this well enough and I'm not going to be damaging my child because I didn't additionally, I don't know, get him into ski lessons or because I was out to dinner on Wednesday or any of those things. Yeah, I mean, also in the doc, I think one of the most heartbreaking components was the child who murdered an eight-year-old and he was in his teens, I think, at the time. And then he's in jail for the rest of his life. And you see these parents and you hear the mom just like the blame that she is putting on herself. And you just have to remember there's only so much you can do ultimately.

They have two other children. They were ostensibly all raised the exact same. And there's only so much you can do. Yeah, you said before you can't select against having an asshole, but you also can't select against having a psychopath. I mean, these things are possible and they're out there. And I started off by interviewing the parents of Dylan Klebold, who was one of the people at Columbine in the Columbine massacre. And then I interviewed Peter Lanza, who was the father of Adam Lanza, the Newtown massacre. And then I talked to the mother of James Holmes, who did the movie theater shooting in Colorado.

So I talked to a bunch of these people and people who commit little crimes, like people who end up in gangs often, though certainly not always, but they often have come from sort of sketchy backgrounds. But people who do these really extreme, crazy things, like what the guy in the movie did, that grotesque murder. crazy things like what the guy in the movie did, that grotesque murder. I mean, I don't know whether we'll ever understand the neurobiology of it, but they've come from basically nice and loving homes and they've gotten themselves into this situation. And I've told the story before, but when I was interviewing the Klebolds, I spent a lot of time with them. And then I was having dinner with Sue Klebold, Dylan's mother, one night. And she said, you know, when it first happened, I used to wish that I had never had kids. If I hadn't gone to Ohio State, I wouldn't have met Tom. The kids I have wouldn't have existed and the Columbine

Massacre wouldn't have happened. She said, but over time, I've come to feel that I love the children I had so much that I don't want to imagine a life without them, even at the cost of this pain. She said, when I say that, I'm talking about my own pain, not other people's pain. But while I know it would have been better for the world if he had never been born, I've decided it would not have been better for me. Wow. That's how powerful it is. Yes, it is. Wow. It's kind of like when you hear about someone who died in a car accident and the first thing

you ask is, were they wearing a seatbelt? Because you want to know if they weren't wearing a seatbelt so you feel relief. You're like, well, I always wear a seatbelt, so that couldn't be me. It's probably hard for people to hear that those were good enough, let's say, parents. Because, I mean, this is horrible about humans, but this is what we do, it's kind of comforting to hear, oh, they made a mistake, and I won't make that mistake, so I won't be in that position. And it's all a facade. Exactly. It's the illusion you have before you have children that you have a lot of control, and you have some control. So it's not totally an illusion, but

you don't have that much. I mean, you can bring them up better, you can bring them up worse and whatnot. But yeah, exactly what you said. And I think people are really terrified by the idea of this could happen to any of us in the same way. You know, I'm now working on this book on child suicide. And it's almost embarrassing if I'm out to dinner and someone says, Oh, what are you doing? And I say that, and you know, all the conversation stops. And I feel like everybody wants to take the position that that couldn't happen to them. And we have an open relationship and my kid would always come to me. And you go and you meet the parents who've lost these kids. And some of them had what they at least thought were really open and direct relationships with their children.

And what seemed to have been that. So I'm not suggesting this will be a frequent occurrence. It's not such a frequent occurrence. So I'm not suggesting this will be a frequent occurrence. It's not such a frequent occurrence. But the denial that we're in prevents us from putting in place the programs and interventions that could actually lower the rate of child suicide or the rate of all kinds of other problems because we don't want to admit that they could happen to us and that we have an investment in making things better. Exactly. That is so true.

Okay, we're hopping all over the place because we're just blaming everything on the hormones. So we've given ourselves a pass, but just real quick back to the egg doning. Egg doning. Oh my God. Oh my God. We're keeping that in. I have to keep that in just for transparency. Donation. Were there things that you guys were looking for specifically? And I do find this interesting because when you're conceiving, I feel like we shouldn't say naturally, but I guess you don't get to talk to your partner or husband or wife and say, so what do you want? Yeah. Yes. Because you just get what you get, you know, And you guys had to talk about this. Right. I mean, presumably with your husband and wife and partner, you wanted them.

So that's where it starts. Good point. But we did have to talk about it. And I wanted stuff like a clear medical history. I wanted someone who had a good education and who had good scores and all of that stuff. And John, in the agency we used, there were photos and he studied the photos really carefully because he wanted someone who had a kind look in their photos. And there were people each of us went for that the other one didn't. And of course, I mean, he also values intelligence. And I ultimately think kindness is the top virtue.

But we had someone whom we had chosen who was one of the donors who was willing to meet with the prospective parents. And we went out and we had lunch with her and we both came home and we said, she is great and we decided to go ahead. And we went through the whole process and then she went in a week before

she was supposed to donate her eggs and they did a blood test and they found out that she had used cocaine. And they said, we won't work with her. And we said, look, she's kind of young. And many of us at one stage or another, you know, she had explained that she'd been at a wedding and she was a bridesmaid and everyone had just done a line of coke before the wedding started. And I sort of said to the hospital, you know, can't we figure out a way to go ahead anyway? We'd really like her. And they said she wrote on her form that she never uses recreational drugs. And if

she was lying about that, what else do you think she was lying about? And we had to cancel that. And then we had to look for a donor again. And I felt like John, who's older than I am, was kind of losing a little bit of steam about the whole process. He had a kind of attitude of maybe we don't need to do this. I mean, I'm open to it. And I really, really, really wanted it to happen. And so I was kind of frantically at night going through these profiles and thinking, okay, he'll like that one. And I think he'll be okay with that one. Let me show him those two in the morning. And I finally showed someone to John. It was someone who had agreed to a phone call, but not to meeting. And we finished the phone call and John said, well, she sounded okay. And I said, she sounded fantastic.

We love her. And John said, I'm sorry we didn't ask her. And I said, we asked her enough. And she was the person we went with. And I mean, as I said, it's worked out really well. We have a great kid. But yeah, it's such a strange process. And the thing of having to go back and forth like that, it felt weirdly, I mean, this may sound very

gay, but it felt weirdly like we've done that about end tables and things. Yes. You really like that one? I really like that one. What about that other one? No, I really like that one. Why don't you like that one? I mean, you know, it's insane. It's also really funny that you brought up specifically those two traits because within our friendship circle, we have this ongoing debate and we kind of ask everyone who comes in and out, we're like, what would you rather have? A kid who's really smart or a kid who's really kind? And both come at the expense of the other.

And it's very interesting, the different answers, because my initial answer is smart. I want my kid to have the highest intelligence possible, gives them the best chance of success. And then once I started breaking it down and once more people had answers, and of course, a lot of people picked kindness, I was like, huh? Yeah, actually, I do think that's the trait you want the most in a human. Also, because with kindness comes intelligence. You can learn things, but being mean is a more innate quality. No? It absolutely is. It's an innate quality. It's especially an innate quality in teenagers, I would add. Yes, it gets worse. I would choose kind a million percent. The difference was that I thought you can't tell about kind, but you can tell about whether

her grandmother died when she was 35 or whether she just couldn't deal with school. And you can tell about whether her grandmother died when she was 35 or whether she just couldn't deal with school. And you can really see that. And I thought the kindness was a lot harder to assess from the information that we had. I also tend to think that there is scope for the way you bring someone up, giving them character. I think that's one of the things that is more subject to parental influence. But some people, you know, I went to school with some of them are just naturally mean. And that would be the worst. We recently had an episode at school and there was somebody who had been bullying my child. And I was obviously really upset about it. And in dealing with the mother of the bully, I thought her situation is worse than mine. It's really bad for my child to have been bullied. It's terrible to have a child who's doing that. That's such a good point. I fully agree. I think having a kid

who's hurting other people, like that's worst case scenario. Can I ask, because you have big Blaine, little Blaine, and then you have also you're parenting with your husband, is there a benefit to parenting with someone that you're not having sex with? That's a great question. I hope that that was meant to refer to Big Blaine rather than to my husband. That's exactly it. Yeah, I mean, there are advantages and disadvantages. Her mother is right there and makes a lot of split-second decisions that I'm not around for. She wasn't feeling well.

They went to the doctor. She started on some medication. I had to kind of get the report from her mom. There are definitely moments when I feel like I should be there. I should be on top of it. But I can't be in both places at the same time. My grandmother used to say, you can't dance at two weddings with one behind. But the other part of it is, yes, that there is a sense that her mother and I met each other

my freshman year of college when I was 17. And I'm now 58. So we've been friends for however horrifyingly long that is, more than 40 years. And there's a sense that, like, it doesn't explode into being about everything else. It doesn't get from, you wanted him to do that, but you never managed to organize this, and you always do that, and what about dinner on Thursday? I mean, there's not all of that stuff coming into it. So So yeah, it has its challenges, but it also has its real virtues. I mean, the relationship I've developed with Big Blaine has been one of the great joys of my adult

life. And John always refers to her as his wife-in-law. Oh, I love that. And I just feel like we all have these relationships and the relationship with Tammy and Laura, who are the parents of Oliver and Lucy and the relationship with them. I mean, like we all have these relationships. And the relationship with Tammy and Laura, who are the parents of Oliver and Lucy, and the relationship with them. I mean, they're all relationships that have profoundly enriched our lives. Wow. Okay, so since you touched on the polyamory, I would like to touch on that. That's interesting.

No. So many questions. Yeah. You listen, so maybe you take the reins here. I don't even know where to begin. Probably I shouldn't even be talking in this tone. I'm going to get canceled or whatever. But we're not cancelable.

We're not cancelable on our hormones. Yes, on the hormones. And that works for you by extension. Everyone has carte blanche right now. Yes, but it made me deeply uncomfortable because it's a man surrounded by three women and I just am looking at him. I'm like, I know why he's happy,

but why are they happy? I just had a lot of conflicting feelings about it. I don't know, maybe you personally land on it one way or the other. Did you have more empathy basically reporting on them? I definitely had more empathy reporting on them. I was looking at polygamy and polyamory, and polygamy is seen as a thing of the extreme right. It's sort of super conservative Mormons in Utah. And polyamory is seen as a thing of the extreme left left and it's sort of enlightened lesbians in Brooklyn.

And in fact, they are not that different from each other. And legally, their interests are identical. And to my surprise, the polyamorists who were supposed to be so open-minded kept saying, oh, but we're not like polygamy. That is totally... And the polygamists who were supposed to be closed-minded said, yeah, I can see that there's common ground and we're much more open to it. My feeling about polygamy, which was what you were looking at in the guy with three women situation, I mean, it's not what I would choose to do myself.

Again, I feel like people have choice. But I also feel not particularly in relation to that one family that you saw in that little film, but in general, what is the choice that they have? They have the choice between being in a monogamous relationship in a very misogynist society in which the man accounts for everything, or being in a polygamous relationship. And if there are actually three women, it's a lot easier to overrule the man than if there is one woman. And the situation when there are these multiple women is frequently that they actually, by being multiple, have much more power. And it's not like they were going to be in the sort of relationship that I imagine you and I would aspire to that is a sort of fully equal. That option isn't really there. And their action really isn't there for, I think

I would go so far as to say most Americans. Most Americans are not in relationships in which men and women are really treated equally. So I'm not suggesting that polygamy is the solution, but I felt for those people it seemed to work and it fit with religious beliefs. And I met women who have fled the Mormon church or the Mormon fundamentalist church, the mainstream Mormon church no longer endorses polygamy, but who had fled these situations and said, you know, I'm permanently have PTSD. And it was the most horrific thing. And they had really been through horrible things. But I also met people for whom it worked. And once again, I thought you can't generalize.

It can work. It can fail. That's true. And we can't put our ideals on other people necessarily. Like what we think is right or wrong Like what we think is right or wrong is what we think is right or wrong. I mean, I do think there are some blanketly right and wrong things, but I do question a lot of them because we grow up in this society and this world

and other people have different opinions. And who am I to say that that's not making them happy? I mean, it's one of the nice things about being in a gay family or in whatever you would call it, being sort of the helm of a gay family is that there isn't any natural assumption that, okay, that stuff is your job and this stuff is my job. And that's actually really liberating. And when I say that George has had a different experience than some other kids, there are

certain things that I do better and certain things that John does better, but that isn't because of the gender we are in. It isn't based on expression of gendered roles. It can be very freeing. And in terms of polygamy, by the way, just anecdotally, there was one person I met who had been in a really fundamentalist sect and he had become a bishop. And then he started hearing people talking about all of their problems. And he realized that he hated this whole society and that it was wrong and that it was damaging people. He said to his five wives, I'm going to leave the Apostolic United Brethren is what it was called. I know that you grew up in this church. I would like for us all to stay together as a family. But if you want to choose your religion over me, I will understand it and accept

it. And in the end, they all left with him. And he said, you're all intelligent women. You were brought up in this church that didn't allow for the education of women. If you want to get some more education, I'll do whatever I can to help you. So one of his wives went and did a degree in music. And the other one said that she had gone to college and done a degree in English. And I thought, oh, she did a degree in English. You know, she probably read Huckleberry Finn. And I said, so what were you really interested in? What was your focus when you were studying English? And she said, well, I got really interested in post-structuralism. And I was writing about Jacques Derrida and how you could interpret polygamy through the lens of that and so on and so forth. She went on in that vein.

Wow. And I turned to her husband, who was this guy who had grown up in this very closed world. And I said, has this been hard for you to deal with all of this change? And he said, well, she introduced me to a couple of authors. He said, there's this one who became my favorite. After I read that, it totally changed her family. And I said, what's her name? And he said, Simone de Beauvoir. I don't know if you've ever heard of her. And I thought, okay, Mormon polygamist reading Simone de Beauvoir. There's a lot more going on here. I love this. Don't put people in, don't make assumptions.

It all kind of circles back to that ultimately. This was so fantastic. Thank you so much. That was tremendous. No wonder that you have done so well with this podcast. You're the easiest people on earth to talk to. This was really a pleasure. And I hope we'll meet in 3D sometime when we're on the same coast.

I would love that. I would absolutely love it. If you're ever in Los Angeles, please let us know. Yes. I'm in New York, so. Oh, if you're in New York, that would be great. Yeah, Liz is in New York. She's freezing in LA, which is a sentence nobody says. No one's ever said, ever.

But we appreciate you so much. Thank you. I think this will be really helpful to so many. Thank you for all your work. Good. Okay. Keep in touch. Okay.

Thank you. Bye. Bye. Wow. Oh, that was nourishing. That was perfect. I feel like we covered so many topics in there that I wasn't even expecting that are totally relevant to our process, even like polyamory. Like I didn't expect that to be relevant. And it is. It really is. I feel so grateful that we just got to do that.

Me too. Okay. Well, Liz, this is it. Next time we talk, we are going to be fresh out of anesthesia. Oy, I can't wait. I'm really excited for local anesthesia. No, it's not local. It's general. What's it called? Just general anesthesia.

We're going to take a little nappy, an anesthesia nappy. Oh, my God. It's going to happen. I can't believe it after all this time. It's crazy. All right, guys. So we'll see you next week post-retrieval. Bye. Bye.