Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 77 Emily Oster

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

This week on Couple Things, we dive into a fascinating conversation with professor and author, Emily Oster. She touches on all things parenting with a mindset of pairing data with personal preferences. You're not going to want to miss this one! You can follow Emily on Instagram here ▶ Emily Oster Emily's new book "The Family Firm: A Data-Driven Guide to Better Decision Making in the Early School Years" is out now! ▶ Get it here! ANDD....WE ARE GOING ON TOUR!! Check out the link below to see if we are coming to a city near you in 2022! Click here to get your tickets now ▶ https://www.couplethingspod.com/ If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. Follow us on Instagram to keep the conversation going at https://www.instagram.com/couplething... And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. Subscribe for more! http://bit.ly/3rnOdNo Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Twitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/ShawnJohnson Snapchat! ▶ @ShawneyJ Follow AndrewsTwitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/AndrewDEast Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Snapchat! ▶ @AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Couple Things. With Sean and Andrew. Podcast all about couples. And the things they go through. But today is not quite about couples. It's definitely about couples. It's about couples, but it's definitely a different side of the couple things.

It's about parenting mostly. Yeah. And we brought in our favorite. She's the only person that gave us sanity going into Drew. Yes. Dr. Emily Oster is a prolific author, one of my favorites, and I found so much encouragement in her book. She's written three now.

One is called Expecting Better, all about the data-driven approach to pregnancy. Second is called Cribsheet, the data-driven approach to how to handle a newborn. And the third is now the family firm, which is coming out August 3rd. And I love her style of writing. What she does is essentially study studies. So if the topic is breastfeeding, she'll look at all the studies on breastfeeding. feeding and decide you know every angle too every side every science all of it yeah and she'll kind of say hey this is what all of the studies aggregate how do you say that word how aggregated aggregated

together say this is like the conclusion of conclusions right yeah anyway and her inspiration for writing this is not to psych you out and trying to have this really ice cold approach to parenting it's more inspiration. It's actually the opposite in trying to calm me down because Andrew and I learned firsthand that when we got pregnant with Drew, people had such polarizing opinions and thoughts about how to do parenting, how to make every decision, whether to do something or not. It was always this right and wrong. And I don't want to say she debunks all of it, but she goes through every single decision and shows what the actual data proves, which is, it just, yeah, I think it's the best book you could read.

Yeah, Doc, there's a great job at making you feel confident as a parent that you can do it, and you're probably doing it well enough, you know? She has a great sense of humor. I really enjoyed our conversation. If you want to find out more about Dr. Emily Oster and what she's up to, we'll link her information down below, as well as links to her book, The Family Firm. Without further ado, let's go ahead and jump into this one with Dr. Emily Oster. Dr. Emily Oster, it's good to talk to you again. How are you? I'm good. How are you guys doing?

We're great. Excited to have you on. I don't know if you know this. We've only done one other solo interview, Doc. And that was with another professor, Carl Pilamer. He wrote, he's written some really good books. Like yourself, who's written amazing books. So you've written, walk us through a crib sheet, expecting better. And the new one's called the family farm. my gosh okay talk us through i feel like it's a progression of pregnancy newborns and now like elementary school years right yeah it is so it really started it's sort of like mapping my own journey so the first book uh came out i wrote it while i was pregnant a lot of it did a lot of the research while i was pregnant with my first kid and then that came out when she was like two and then i waited to have a second kid to write a second book so I could make sure that, you know, I kind of got the important stuff and not all the weird stuff you got with the first kid. And so Krivshi came out in 2019. And then the family firm is about this next phase that I'm in now where the kids are in

school and a lot of life is, you know, decisions you didn't necessarily expect, logistics, kind of how to shape your whole, your whole life plus data about older kids. So it's a little, it's a little journey. How do you describe your books as a whole? Like, what do you write about? How do you write? I write about using data and decision making in parenting. So I write a lot about how we interpret data around questions in parenting and how we think about correlation versus causality and the limits of evidence and what we can know and what we can't know.

And then on top of that, I write about how we can use that data to make decisions that work for our families, recognizing that those are not always the same decisions for the same people and that the data is a big piece of it, but not always the whole piece. And I think part of what's happened sort of over the course of the books is it's become more about kind of using the data to inform your own choices and combine with your preferences and less about like, okay, the data says, says this. And so that's like a little bit of a journey as you parent. I have to say, after Andrew did his first interview with you we were pregnant with our daughter it was that long ago yeah and I remember he didn't stop talking about that interview for months we were so terrified

of having a newborn because so many people had so many very strong opinions of this is right and this is wrong and as a new parent especially like as a spouse too navigating that was terrifying. And he would just sit down. He'd be like, babe, you have no idea what she said. I feel so much better about just everything. And we would run through all of it. And it was just, yeah, it made, it made our life a lot easier. You're embarrassing me, babe. No, I didn't. That's so nice. No, I mean, I do, I do think there is a sort of freedom almost in saying, like, hey, there's a lot of good choices. And I think that piece of crib sheet, which was kind of like, here's the evidence on this, but, you know, hey, actually, in almost all of these situations,

there really are a lot of good choices and reasonable people could do different things. And there's just a lot of freedom in that because that phase of parenting is so much of people telling you, like, well, that's how I did it. Like, you better, you know, you better get this piece of equipment or this, you know, you do it like this because that's what I did. And, you know, do that. You're, I don't know, your kid will be a serial killer, whatever is like your big fear. Oh, yeah. What is, okay, talk about, you alluded to how the, the effect of the book has kind of progressed, but what? This episode is brought to you by Defender.

With its 626 horsepower twin turbo V8 engine, the Defender Octa is taking on the Dakar rally. The ultimate off-road challenge. Learn more at landrover.ca. What is the effect that you want your books to have versus? maybe what they have had in real life. I mean, I think that the, the effects I would like the books to have are to make people feel more confident. I think that one of the most, one of the pieces of parenting I find the most difficult is how much, how anxious I am always about doing the right thing.

And I hope that the books help other people be less anxious in some ways or feel. just feel that they made the choice correctly. And a lot of the recognition for me in parenting, a lot of a loss of control, the sort of recognition of loss of control is realizing, like, I can't control my kids do. I can't control the outcome of every choice that I make. I can control that I made the choice in a way

that made me feel confident about it or as confident as I could. And that's kind of a lot of what I'm hoping people get out of the books. I think sometimes people, sometimes people get that and then I think sometimes they get like more like oh thank you for the permission to like have a cup of coffee and like that's that's okay too yeah that's a part of it so in a crib sheet some of the information you go over is how you know breastfeeding is not the end all be all that it's okay to have some coffee it's probably okay to like be you know to have some

some wine you can um you know do things like sharing a room you could swaddle but but a lot of these things you're like okay with breastfeeding there's so much information where it's like this is gonna make your kid five times more intelligent and if they're gonna go to Harvard if you do this and if you bottle feed you're gonna destroy their future and shit it is very interesting how you're just like yeah there there might be some benefits but at the end of the day it um it's kind of stylistic and it's like your kid will be okay regardless which is so good all of those that first of all many of those things are way overstated or just really don't show up in the data at all when you when you kind of do it right and then even the things where you know maybe it matters a little bit

the effects are are small so we're not there's basically nothing is this is both reassuring and terrifying there's kind of like nothing you can you can do that's really going to matter that much You know, none of these individual decisions are like the decision that is going to make your kid, you know, go to Harvard or go, you know, win some gold medals or. Yeah. I don't know. Apparently my parents did not raise me in the same way. No, they didn't do it right. Yeah.

I don't know what this is. Oh, man, that's funny. I think we previously discussed there was a piece of. information. I was like so worried when we were pregnant with Drew about gosh, I got to like, I just need to load up on the information so that I don't make any wrong decisions. And your book was incredibly encouraging, expecting me better. And that's why it's like my most recommended book for anyone pregnant. And then also there's just this interview that I heard where you kind of come to realize that your job as a parent is just trying not to mess it up. You know, like just don't, as long as

you're like supportive and you're there for them and you know you your intention probably is like to love them then you'll be okay but just don't mess it up so and that means whatever like don't I don't know how do you how do you mess up parenting Emily? I mean you know it's like it's like a lot of ways to you know a lot of ways to mess it up I mean I think part of this part of the recognition is that like already taking it seriously like that's that's kind of a huge amount of the of the battle and that you're loving your kid and being attentive and you know paying attention to them and wanting to do a good job that's kind of like a lot of the that's a lot of the thing and then all these individual things you know do I read to them for 23 minutes every day or 15 minutes

you know it's good to read to your kids like you know do you have to read for a set amount of time and if you do it extra time that's going to matter and stuff like no you know these things are all um sort of a part of a bigger picture but by thinking about it you're already kind of doing it yeah i think that's one of the most comforting things though about your data that you actually have compiled is i read every book i read every article and it was like okay when your child is 18 months old, you're going to have to start doing this. And if you don't, then they're already eight months behind. Or if they don't have this exact many words that they're saying by 16.5 months,

they need to be with a speech therapist. And I feel like there were just so many specifics where, and nobody backed up why. I was like, well, but I didn't talk, you know, whatever, whatever the comparison was. and I turned out fine. I love how you compile all that data and you're like, actually, that's range. Yeah. Yeah.

Everyone's different. And it's just, it's really comforting because people make such harsh and like specific statements that terrify you as a parent. Yeah. Yeah. There's like so much of an emphasis in a lot of these spaces on, on sort of saying like, well, here's the cutoff.

You know, here's like the average. Here's some like very specific number that you should be like achieving. And the recognition that like, hey, that there's like a range. A lot of, you know, people turn out great with the whole range of these things. I think it is, yeah, it think it is comforting. So all of your books have been meta analysis, right? Yeah, it's so, okay, so meta analysis is a formal thing, which I definitely, if you were a, if you were like a researcher and you told some like real research people like this is a meta analysis, they'd be like, that's some lady's book. but I think what is true is that all the books are effectively like a kind of review

where I take existing literature and I sort of try to compile it to draw some conclusion based on the on the literature so in that sense it is in the spirit of a meta analysis but a meta analysis is like a very formal different thing but you do analyze like a bunch of different studies many hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of studies yes why did you get started in this So I got started when I was pregnant and I was doing this kind of in the service of my own pregnancy. And it's closely related to stuff that I do at work. So it's sort of closely related to the kinds of questions and techniques that I use in my in my job. And so it was a sort of natural step to moving to do that. And I got sort of like very deeply obsessed with it. And then I realized that I really liked the challenge of trying to bring. that kind of literature together and then communicate it out. And that that's actually a very different skill than what I was doing at my job where when you're a professor and you're writing for other academics, there is an assumption that everyone sort of understands the particular

set of tools that you're using. There's something different about saying, okay, now I'm going to try to explain. Yeah, I did this kind of like version of a meta analysis. How am I going to explain this to someone who doesn't spend all of their day, you know, reading. meta analyses and I like that a lot and that's the piece of the of the writing that I like the most I think you're one of the best in the world of doing that professor so you've mentioned how like you just want to have parents be more confident but if there's anything I've learned over the past a year and a half of being a parent and then also through the whole election cycle it's like some people are just locked in on a certain concept or style and I've real I don't know if you've had any luck

with telling someone to like just chill out dude uh but it usually has the opposite effect i feel like of chilling out but how do you have do you have any advice on persuading someone like okay i know you i know you think that um breastfeeding is the end-l-be-all but actually like what is the is there a persuasive process that you've had luck with no i mean i feel like i mean just really realistically i think that in almost all these settings if people are dug into something like this, they're dug in. And, you know, it doesn't, it's not, it's often not a place where coming back and arguing is that helpful, which is why I think the frame of a lot of the books is not, like here's evidence you can use to convince other people. But here's evidence you

can use to make your decision and then be comfortable with your decision. And then when someone comes to you and they're like, you know, why didn't you exclusively breastfeed until your kid was for like everybody knows that's great for kids and that's how you get them to be a superhero. You can just be like, well, I chose not to do that and move on, that not that you would be like, actually, that does not make any sense. And let me explain to you why, but just that you would feel like, I don't really need to engage with this discussion. I'm just going to say, thanks so much for your feelings.

I'm moving on. Well, I'm just curious, you know, when that other person you're having a discussion with is the person you're parenting with, that gets a little hairy, I feel like. Yeah, that's hairy. And I actually think a lot of the, a lot of the work in the family, like the family firm has, you know, at the, at the end of it, like a lot of data on older kids and it's sort of thinking about schools and extracurriculars and the kinds of things you think about with bigger kids. But the first part of the book is really about family decision making and about, you know, making big decisions and small decisions. And actually a big piece of that

is the emphasis on the idea that making decisions in a more deliberate way is a way to lower conflict on these high intensity things that sometimes if we are, if we feel differently about something that's important, it can be a constant source of conflict. And I think sometimes with your partner, you're reluctant to really engage with like, okay, actually, let's not just snipe at each other about this and, you know, have these short arguments. Let's really dig into what, why are we disagreeing about this and how can we make the decision that works for both of us? Because, yeah, you can't like leave your partner at the play around and be like, okay, thanks so much for your feelings on that. I'm just going to do what I want.

Talking about family firm, can you like tease the book for the listeners? Yeah. So it's, it's kind of like the sort of third piece of the trilogy. So it's got a lot of, of data discussion around schools, extracurriculars, things like, you know, should my kid go to, what do we know about summer camp? You know, what do we know about sports? But also, you know, what do we know about food and sleep and kids learning to read and, you know,

like sort of digging into the data on that? But the first part of the book is all about this idea that I call parenting deliberately and using tools from business. So using the idea of kind of structured decision making and even some more basic stuff like Google Docs, like to organize your family life and to structure the choices that you make, so your life ends up looking like you want it. And the pitch is that if you do that deliberately, if you have a process for doing that,

you can actually make those choices in a way that makes you happier and makes your life work better with amex platinum access to exclusive amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot track side so being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime that's the powerful backing of amex pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and vary by race terms and conditions apply learn more at amex.c.c.com. Is the comparison to a businesslike structure limited in any sense when you are trying to translate that to the family realm? I mean, I just wrote a book about how you should run your household like a business. So I'm going to say no.

No. I think so what I think is like of course to some extent. But I think that what is true is that a lot of us operate our professional lives in a way that is very different than our personal lives. And we are very reluctant to bring any kind of sort of analytic decision making frame to our decisions at home because they feel like they should be emotional. It feels like, well, I should just, I love these people. Like, I should just be able to kind of let emotions rule at home. We should know what's right because we all, like, we all love each other. And, and that's true that you all love each other, but it is not, it is not facilitating that love to not make your decisions correctly.

And so I think you can, you can use some of these tools to really make the house, like make your family work. better so you have more time for the things that you that you care about so i'll give you an example um one of the things i suggest that people do in the book is that they that they have everybody sit down and write down what they think their ideal day would look like like every like just like literally like write down on to every you know for tuesdays like what do you want to do on tuesdays for all the hours is it like you know and not like watch tv all day and you know but like in the in the realm of reality. Everybody says like, okay, I, you know, I want to be at work these hours. I want to be, you know, I want to be home these hours. I want to be doing with the kids these hours, like,

whatever it is, that you write those down and then you compare them and you talk about them together. And you could say, well, like, why would we do that? Like, we should just all be like able to accommodate other people and be happy. But actually, by structuring like that, by really doing that exercise, you can surface things which maybe people aren't always thinking about. about. And then when they actually write it down, they think, okay, you know, I, on the weekends, like, I want us to be doing an activity as a family every Sunday morning. I want us to go on a hike. I want to do something outside. I wanted to. And your idea is like we should be doing competitive soccer tournaments every Sunday. Okay. Well, we should talk about which of those we're doing

because one of us is not going to get what we want. And if what happens is we just default to one person's thing and we never talk about it, then somebody's going to be upset. And so I think that's, that's a lot of the pitch is really thinking through this stuff so you can end up in a place that you're happier. Man, that is such valuable information, Doc. But I feel like the hardest part is actually knowing what you want a day to look like in some sense. Like I feel like as parents and kids for sure, it's just like you kind of wake up, do what

you've always done. And then you don't actually think about I would actually, I would like to golf once a week or I would like to take a family hike. You know what I'm saying? And this is actually constructing a vision for how you want your days to go is so difficult. Yeah, I think it is hard. But also, like, if you're not doing that deliberately, then I think it is easy to go down a slippery slope where you get very far from your ideal. And I think part of why this book is sort of targeted around these kind of older kid ages is that your days start getting a little more structured, right?

Your sort of life gets a little more structured as your kids start going to school. school and like they have these other things I did this is such good news doc doc we need this I needed to get more structures get more structures get you're getting there again there's not just going to be like a chaos of dirty dice that's where we're at like eventually ours is very structured we've done a really good job well it's just I don't know I don't know where we're at I don't mean okay I'm not sure I know what my name is but we're just here doing it so it gets It gets a little more structured. Good.

What in like all of your research and finding all of your data for, I mean, truly every topic, have you found that there are more polarizing topics than others? Yeah. I think that anything, almost everything in parenting is really polarizing. I'm often surprised. I'll be like, well, no one could get polarized by this. And then they'll be like, oh, oh, no. somebody does care you know as people will be like like what kind of sand is the right kind of sand in

the sandbox i'll be like well surely no one can get into this and then people are like did you know that sand kills people no i didn't know that so there's always somebody um you know but i think that the things that are most polarizing are uh are the places where the where there is a lot of effort uh that you are or or personal sacrifice that may go into the activity so um so i think this is part of why breastfeeding gets a sort of has a kind of complicated dynamic because choosing to breastfeed your child exclusively for a year or two years or however long that's like a big time investment um it's something that you know the like especially if you are working but even if you're not you know the kind of like i'm in my office pumping

every two out not now but like it was like every two hours pumping you in my office, I don't then want to be like, oh, well, I just did that for fun. Like, there was no benefit for my kid. You know, like, I, I kind of want to believe that. And I think that deals with that, that leads into some of these sort of more polarizing, uh, topics. For things that are easier, it's, it's easier to accept the idea that, you know, different people could do different, could do different stuff. Um, but when it's hard, that's where it, that's where it bites. I'm curious. Were there any topics that you researched over the years that ended up with a with an outcome that was different than what you believed? So I think one thing

was on discipline. So I, um, you know, in in crib sheet we do, I write about toddler. I read about discipline for, for sort of kids. And I write a lot about this, um, this firm one, two, three magic, which kind of one of these programs with sort of warnings, and then something at the end, is it a timeout? Is it something else? And I, prior to doing the research for the book, we had not had much of a discipline situation of any sort going on. And I think what I hadn't recognized was that whether it's one of those programs or something else, like that there's a lot of support behind the idea of consistency in this kind of space that I had not like really put together. Okay, so you're like, once you're your magic is, is okay. Yeah. We just finished reading it

from like recommendation of, yeah, of close people to we're both holding our breath. Like, oh my gosh, this is a good thing. Like we're about to start it. No, it's good. We, yeah, it worked really well for my kids actually. Um, it worked, it worked well for my for my kids. My husband had some problem with like the particular, like wording of the counting. So we switched it to be something else but like the general principle is is pretty flexible and works good when it comes to you and your husband though with all of these different topics I feel like the biggest I don't want to say like issue that you that you find in parenting though is the different styles and does your does your data help with you guys and um overcoming those those different

opinions or does it sometimes hurt it um I think it's you I mean, I think part of it is, you know, my husband is also an economist. So like our, are, yeah. So I think we, we have a sort of data language that is, that is pretty comfortable. But I actually think more so than the data, the, the, for us, like, interacting in a sort of like almost like more clinical way about some of these parenting things is really important. Like we spend a lot of, do a lot of our parenting discussion over email where it's like,

let me, and he, I mean, he'll send me these. emails that like if people saw them, which is like, I can't believe you're, it'll be like, I just recapping our last meeting, you know, the following like bullet point items are on your plate and the following bullying point items are my are on my plate. Like, you know, thanks very much. Let me know if there's any edits. It's like, I think if people, so they'd be like, what kind of weird, like, who is this email from? But, you know, it's, for us, that kind of formality um is has just turned out to be really valuable for um for making sure that we're on the same page in part because it's sometimes easy to be like well you you know like well we agreed on

this like I said this and you're like well I didn't hear you say that you know and so in some ways having it in email it's like we'll see it's bullet too you know is I think just it has has made our lives a little um a little easier a little less I think I think that's so good you mentioned processes earlier and I do appreciate having a business like mindset when it comes to parenting just because as I said earlier like there's you only have so much energy and it's so easy to just fall into whatever like habits or fall into turning on Netflix and not having discussions like this but setting up processes and systems where you can have crucial conversations with your significant other about parenting so that you know it doesn't just all bundle up and

explode at some point, I think it's so good. So whether it's via email, Sean and I, a lot of times, like, when we have an argument, one of our things is like, it's just better for us to apologize via text, I feel like, or, you know, we're just kind of like spill our hearts out and say, I'm so sorry, like, whatever. That's just like one of our things. I don't know, like, but it's so good. Whatever works for you, just do it. And it's good to probably experiment, too. And, you know, the thing is, you can get your kids into this also when they get a little bigger. So my, my 10-year-old is where she's going to sleepboy camp this summer for the first time. And there's a really long list.

And if you ever went to sleep away camp, but apparently you have to send them like the entire contents of your house. So I have like a Google doc where I have all of her like this stuff. And so I shared it with her. And I was like if you if you like have any ideas about like which of these things we need or whatever, like let me let me know. And then she sent me in this extremely formal email that was like for the dress outfit. I was thinking of and then she's like listings and following flows.

It ends with like, please reach out if you think that that's okay. She's like, I was like, she was sort of she knew. She understood that it was funny, but it was also like the like there was an undercurrent of like, okay, but I did share a Google doc with you. So, you know, that's amazing. One of the things that stuck with me for our first conversations was you mentioned like, you know, there's a high cost associated with most of these parenting things like you were speaking about with breastfeeding, I didn't really understand what you meant until I started doing

it. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is costly. Like parenting, you definitely time, you know, resources, freaking freedom, a lot of things you're sacrificing. And so I could see how there's such an interesting dynamic of, as your example of breastfeeding, like, oh, this is, I'm spending so much time doing this or pumping. And so I'm going to look at research that, like, encourages me and doing that and then it's like this kind of, you know, snowballing effect. I am curious, parenting being such an opinionated space. Do you just have like this, you know, like, I don't even know what, what is that word? The desire for self-inflicted pain to continue to have these conversations and engage with these

books. No, it's, it's true. And yeah, I think I have like a, like some, some, I think it's, I think it's that I have a very short memory because when people yell at me, I always feel very bad. You know, people are like, we don't like, you know, I always, oh, I feel terrible, you know. But then, uh, then, you know, I just do it again. Like, like, you know, like, two days, you know, like I only feel bad for like a, like a second. I don't know.

Yeah. Like a weird denial thing. So with, go ahead, my bad. No, you're fine. With, I would say a majority of your data, though, especially with like pregnancy. For the most part, everything was debunked to a certain extent. where it's like you're not going to be on one polarizing side or the other. It's pretty much just down the middle.

Why is it then that people take such opposite sides? Yeah, I mean, I don't. Because if the science isn't there and the data isn't there, then how did we get there? Yeah, I think it is, you know, sometimes it's that there's some piece of data and people sort of glom onto something that's like kind of flawed or is later, and they sort of don't want to move to move forward. I think that's one piece of it. You know, I think the other piece of it is this is just a space where everybody really,

really wants to do a good job where like you really, really care about being a successful parent. And it is hard, it's hard not to get just very engaged and animated about whatever is the choice that you made or whatever is the thing that you believe because underlying it is something that you care about that you care about so much. And, you know, I mean, the other thing I write a lot about is like diet and, you know, what kinds of foods are healthy for you because it's part of what my research is about. And that's also a place which has a lot of the same kind of data problems and a lot of the same kinds of, you know, well, it doesn't really actually matter as much

as people as people think. And it isn't a place where people get as angry. So there are people who disagree there are people who think that you know dandelion greens are in fact like the font of youth and they don't like it when you don't when you say that they're not but those people they don't feel that strongly about it you know it's not the the pushback that you get with parenting and I think it's because people don't care in the same way they do about doing it right with their kids is it unsatisfactory for you as an economist or writer to have like in the family firm a lot of the summarized uh data was like yeah it's probably helpful to do this but the day but it Do you wish it was just like 100% you got to sign your kid up for three ex-curriculars and like

just something super clear as a solution? Do you wish? Yeah. I mean, I think it would, I certainly wish that some of the things were like that. So because sometimes I feel like when I'm writing, it's like, yeah, kind of a little bit either way. It's like in crib sheet, it was very nice that there was this one thing about like early allergens where I could be like, yes, that's something you should do. Like give your kids peanuts when they're when they're little. Yeah. Um, But, you know, I think it's also like in my job, I spent so much time living with uncertainty, like sort of thinking about decision making under uncertainty that that is a very comfortable, that is a very comfortable space. So in the books, I feel comfortable with it. In my own parenting, I often wish that it was, there were more concrete answers and I wasn't just flailing about so frequently. Well, I feel like, too, as a parent, that's what we're looking for. We're looking for a concrete answer of if I,

do this, my kid will go to Harvard. Right. And when at the end of the day, it's backed by data saying, well, truly, it's yeah, then it makes it harder as a parent because you're like, dang, I have to now decide which way we're going to go. And it's up to me. So I understand why people try to find their side, but it's, it's refreshing knowing it's for the most part down the middle. One thing I do love about your writing style though is it's kind of like a reference manual it's like you know oh here's the here's the study on extracurricular activities let me just flip to that and like remind myself what the data says or breastfeeding and it's it's good how you you know broke it up like

that it's it's helpful when you're actually in the moment of trying to make a decision pull out family firm there you go yeah you know people sometimes ask like what's the right way to read the book and i think particularly for crib sheet and family firm you know with expecting better i think a lot of people just sort of read it through during their, you know, when they're, when they're pregnant. But I think for the other two, there's like, yeah, maybe it's a good idea to read through ones, but, you know, like some of these decisions, particularly with older kids, like you're not probably thinking about summer camp right now, but eventually you might be thinking about it. And when you, you know, there's a chapter for that, like when you, when you

do get there. So is summer camp a good thing? Yeah, basically. I mean, you know, like, it's, like, yeah, it's good. I think the thing about things like summer, like summer camp is it's, it can be a very good social support, particularly if kids are sort of struggling in some way. I think there's no, there's no particular downside. But kind of when we see the upsides, it's, it's largely around things like when kids have, have some social struggle or some kind of like lack of happiness, socio-emotional happiness in school, that this is like a different social environment to put them in. So you'll be, I'm sure, pumped to hear that we got some parenting advice from a TikTok account.

Nice. We're not playing. What? They said never put your kid in a sleepover at another kid's house. Oh, yeah. Because what happens? No, no, no. They didn't give us the reason.

It was like a child psychiatrist who said a child of any age should never go to a sleepover. Period. No, that was it. We're not even challenging. We're just saying that it's so interesting. I don't even cover. sleepovers. I, I, the, huh. I guess I, I, it's hard with that level of data engagement. It is

difficult to, to evaluate that statement because I'm not sure. Yeah. What they're worried about. Yeah. Who knows? I have led my kid. I one time did let my kid have a sleepover. It was fine. Wow. Yeah. They're okay. I mean, so far. I don't know. I'm not sure what I'm looking for. Sean and I discussed this. We're like, all right, for sure we're letting our kids sleep over. I feel like it was an integral part to my upbringing. Yeah. Anyway.

I mean, whatever. Yeah. That's a new one for you to research. To look into. Yeah. Today on Instagram, somebody asked me if I'm pregnant, can I touch a goat? So this is not the most unusual question. Oh my gosh.

Do you have more of those? More questions like that? Like that was weird. that was the yeah i mean that was the most unusual one this morning this morning um i if you don't mind me asking i think it would be i'd be curious since you and your husband both are economists and you run off of data for the most part has there been with parenting a big discrepancy in any certain topic that you guys have had to kind of work through or been like, let's go research some more

and then we'll come back to the table. Not to get too personal anything, though, but you know. You know, I think there are things, I'm trying to think about whether there's sort of big things that we, that we disagree about. That's good. Probably, yeah, like probably, I mean, I'm sure there's, probably not.

You know, I think that, that the places we have we had the most conflict were early on you know when the kids were when particularly in the first year of my daughter's life you know that was really yeah this is good news again doc geez this is freaking great keep slinging these encouragement i love it i think the you mean i think we found i found the first year hard and i think that he did too and i think it was also like we weren't quite expecting how many decisions there would be to make and how unexpected some of them would be and how quickly we would feel like we need to make them. I think we are we are like as a couple much more comfortable in this sort of slightly

slower decision making process that comes with older kids where you have a little more time to be like, okay, you know, here's an issue we're facing. Let's talk about how to work through it. Like let's, you know, make some decisions when you have like a, like the baby didn't sleep all day because I thought that we should try to put her in the crib and you thought we should keep her in the whatever other thing we were having her sleep in and then you know it's like it's your fault that she's cranky and like that those are the moments where we had the most conflict um yeah tell us where we can buy a family from yes uh you can

buy it wherever they sell books I hope um but you know uh you can find it on Amazon or at Indy Bound or Barnes & Noble, Penguin Press is the publisher anywhere. Comes out August 3rd. August 3rd. Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, I'm excited for this. Well, I've read all of the books.

I'm excited for the next sequence in this. I don't know what it'll be. Like, I don't know what's next. What's the next stage in parenting? Elementary teenage years. Teenagers, teenagers, I don't know. I feel like that is probably my biggest fair. Yeah, me too.

So that's why. Yeah. I haven't gotten there yet. I mean, I feel like, I don't know, teenagers, it's a lot. Yeah. No, no. Whatever that sound was, I think. I don't know.

You're talking about social media, hormones, opinions. Does your 10 year old have a phone? No, not a. Well, so this actually, the book ends with like, when should you get your kid a phone? So my 10 year old, we have like a dummy phone because sometimes she walks to the library by herself and it's kind of far. and so we wanted her to have a phone for that she doesn't like use it for anything except we charge it when she's going to go to the library I like that she just goes to the library and read she takes out books you can't stay in the library because of the coronavirus oh interesting wow maybe a future you can go there but you can't go there and get the books but you can't stay

you can go walk around touch all the books you want that's right but you got to leave you got to leave you got to go away um yeah teenagers scare me teenagers I don't even want to think about our daughter being a teenager there's too many things yeah no I feel like they're going to hate they're going to hate us you know like yeah I don't know that's why I think it's good to have two kids because then when the one of them hates you maybe the other one doesn't hate you right that moment had your bets a little bit I'm just I'm banking on our daughter will just choose him and then our son will choose me I'm right one of them That seems about, I think that's kind of, you know, I think our, that's, that's about where we, where we, where we, where we are on our kids.

Yes. All right. So just small ask here. What's the one piece of silver, silver bullet parenting advice that you can give us? It's just a phase. Yes. I like that. We actually say that a lot.

We've just now come to that realization. Expand. It's just that most, almost everything. will pass and it will it is very uh like and it is very anxious in in the moment or it seems very important in the moment or like it will last forever but almost every phase of parenting particularly this early stuff you know you like wait a little bit that will that will pass dang that's deep yeah that's deep i i one thing I've been thinking about is how I feel like my mindset is okay just get drew to the next

face and then whatever like you there's for some reason even in my mind like oh as soon as she's out of the house like I'm done as a parent I don't know why like that's just a built in but it's not the case that's not true at all yeah it's not true you're stuck no well I've been challenging if you think about okay she's going to be 18 and then we'll probably I don't know we'll love to be 85 statistically maybe and so we'll have like 40 years together when she's an adult and out of the house it's like how can I build my parenting to to get to that point of like us having this healthy adult life together and uh yeah yeah it was I mean I think that's I think about that a lot also actually is sort of like how particularly as the kids have gotten older like how do I make this into

relationship that is going to like that we are going to have as as adults and you know as they get to be able to talk and they get old you sort of start to see the pictures of that and see the things that your kids are good at and the things that you that you want to help them work through and just I don't know how do you kind of support them and so you can have a relationship as adults yeah yeah I heard an analogy to parenting as like it's just kind of like like a treasure hunt where you're kind of just holding your kid's hand and trying to figure out like what's going to be discovered next, like what skill or what interests they're going to find. Do you agree with that analogy? Yeah, I like, I actually like that analogy a lot because

I think that there is sometimes a temptation, particularly I have the temptation of sort of trying to like make my kids be good at the things that I'm good at or do the things that I that I care about or that I think are important. And in, you know, and actually, my son is much more like me in terms of like the the kind of ways he wants to do the things he likes to do and my daughter is sort of somewhat less like me and so there's been a little bit of a of a sort of process of kind of figuring out how I can make sure that I am valuing the stuff that she is good at and that she likes to do like as much as possible another small question for you sarcastically what what are your hopes and dreams

for your children? I think just that they would, that they will be happy. I mean, I think that's that they will find something that they will find something that they love in their life that they love to do. I mean, I think for me, liking my job is actually a big piece of like me being happy is, is kind of having the thing that I do every day be something that brings me joy. And I don't really care what that is for my kids, but I would like them to have something like that.

And, you know, and then I think also that they will find a person that they, that they like to be with. So those are, you know, small. They're just small things. A job you love and a spouse that you like. That's it. Not even that you love. Maybe he just got a wife. Somebody who was like not awful.

Oh, yeah. Well, Doc, it's such a pleasure speaking with you. I appreciate all the wisdom that you shared with us today. and also that you've shared in your books. We will link information on the family firm down below. And, yeah, appreciate you spending time with us as we approach the meltdown phase of pregnancy here. Things are just really about to fall off the rails. And thanks for being a part of that.

Yeah, good luck. I will say I found the initial transition with number two much easier than with number one. So I'm hoping that for you as well. Dang, that's a third piece of encouragement, Doc. Thank you. I will also say that sounds, it sounds bad to say this, but also it makes me really happy you're the first person to say that to us huh yeah which i love i'm going to hang on to that and be like she's the professional she knows no i will say i found like

my life before penelope was like like totally different and so then when she came it was like we had to have a whole different life when we had fin it was like we already had this life surrounding like having a kid and being and so we sort of like slotted him in and it was it was just a much more, like, it was a much easier transition. I'm going to hang on to that because, hang on to it, hang on to it. Everyone else is like, oh, geez. It's two more than twice the work. I didn't think that.

You're playing man coverage now, man. Whatever it is. Anyway, hey, Doc, thank you so much. Thank you guys. You know,