Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - Childproof with Yasmeen Khan: Parenting Changes Us, Whether We Like It or Not

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

Being a parent is really freakin’ hard. Of course, it can also be incredibly rewarding and delightful. Either way, it consumes us. Childproof is a show about us, the parents, and how we can raise kids without losing track of ourselves in the process. Each week host Yasmeen Khan, a journalist and mom, brings us conversations and stories with fellow parents and experts on how to navigate this whole parenting thing — especially the shifts that happen within ourselves. Because parents are growing too.In episode one, we're diving into one enormous question: how have you changed since becoming a parent? Maybe you've changed in ways you're not comfortable with, or maybe you'd actually like things to be different. Perhaps you've never even considered the question. Today we're digging into all the ways we transform as parents and, more importantly, how to deal with change when it feels really hard.About Yasmeen Khan:Yasmeen Khan is the host and managing editor of Childproof, Ten Percent Happier’s podcast focused on parenting. She was a public radio journalist for nearly 15 years, at WNYC Radio in New York and before that at North Carolina Public Radio.While at WNYC, her award-winning work included coverage of the New York City schools; youth and family life; and policing. She produced in-depth stories on the city’s segregated school system, and dove into the municipal archives to tell the story of a massive 1964 school boycott. Yasmeen’s 2019 investigation into New York City’s child welfare system showed how the city increasingly used its authority to remove children from their parents without a court order.Yasmeen has also held jobs as a bartender, toll collector, and dishwasher. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% Happier Podcast. I'm Dan Harris. One of the most intense, important, amazing, and astonishingly difficult things that has ever happened in my life is having a child. I think this is true for many of us who have kids. Parenting can be the most transformative event of a lifetime. And while there are all sorts of resources out there for helping you do a better job as a parent, there aren't many shows about how to take care of yourself as a parent.

Obviously, it's important to spend a lot of time thinking about how to actually take care of your kids, but how do parents take care of themselves in this process? How do we learn how to not lose our crap with our kids? How do we learn how to give ourselves a break? How do we properly mourn the loss of our old lives? How do we not pass on our various forms of dysfunction to our children? Where's the show about that?

We here at 10% Happier have made that show. It's called Child Proof. And you're about to hear the first episode. Your host is Yasmin Khan and experienced reporter and relatively new meditator and mother of two. I'm extremely proud to have Yasmin as one of the new voices and faces of 10% happier. If you like the show, you can subscribe to it anywhere you get your podcasts, or you can listen to it on the 10%. It's okay, you can be honest. I know, it's a really big question, especially if you're in it with your kids.

But that's kind of why I'm asking. Because parenting is so all-consuming and I'm starting to realize it's hard sometimes to keep track of ourselves, how we're doing, and how we change as our kids grow up. And think about the answer to this question. Could leave to some new insights that might surprise you. I thought I'd be magically chilled at.

Like, where did my former self go? I'm like, oh, God, I miss that. I miss that. It is still very hard to reconcile the fact that I have a four-year-old. As for me, I'm really trying to understand where I'm at and who I am as a parent to two little girls. Hi, I'm Yasmeen Khan. Until six months ago, I was a news reporter.

Whenever I felt stressed and overwhelmed, which was often, it showed up in interactions with my kids. I remember telling myself to regulate my own emotions, the way that I'd tell my three-year-old she should. I'm still working on this and feel kind of like a child about it myself. But then I'm like, hey, parents are growing too. From 10% happier, this is child proof. A parenting show about parents.

On today's episode are first, we're digging into all the changes we go through as parents, including how to recognize them, and most importantly, how to handle them. That's coming up after a quick break. What does it even mean to live a good life? Is it about happiness, purpose, love, health, or wealth? What really matters in the pursuit of a life well lived? These are the questions award-winning author, founder and interviewer Jonathan Fields asks his guests on the top ranked Good Life project podcast.

Every week Jonathan sits down with world renowned thinkers and doers, people like Glenn and Doyle, Adam Grant, young Pueblo, Jonathan Height, and hundreds more. Start listening right now. Look for the Good Life project on your favorite podcast app. Hey y'all, it's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, Baby This is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts,

the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad. Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from, MySpace? Listen to Baby This is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome back. I first started to think about this question of how parenting changes us kind of recently when I was scrolling through Twitter and found myself

staring at this one tweet. I don't know if you have it up, but would you read it to me? Yeah, let's see. Yeah, so I posted a picture of my kids and I said, these are my babies. After I had them, I lost myself for a little bit, but I'm back now. That's Uche Blackstock. She's a well-known ER physician. She's often on MSNBC talking about the pandemic and the racial inequities in the healthcare system. That's what she usually posts about. But here she was years after having kids, revealing that she lost herself when she became a mother.

Do you remember what prompted you to put that on social media that day? Yeah, I think I was probably thinking about how much I've done and how much I've also evolved since I gave birth to them. I was always an incredibly focused driven and vicious person. And when I had my kids, literally, I thought I got knocked over and it just sort of felt like for a while, I almost

forgot like who I was. But it's experienced that really no one talks about, no one talks about how having a kid really changes who you are.. Me fundamentally still be the same person, but you evolve. Blackstock putting this out there clearly resonated. Plenty of people replied saying something similar that I vanished for a while, or 13 years later, still lost. In a way, I almost felt a little envious

of other people's certainty, of their awareness of how parenting barged in and shook things up. Because if you were to ask how I've changed since having my two daughters, the answer is, I don't totally know. I don't feel like I'd lost myself, but I also don't feel all that clear on where I stand and how I'd say I'm doing. Today, we're going to talk about all the ways large and small that we change once we become parents. We'll get perspective on how to deal with those changes and on how to recognize that they're

happening in the first place. That's the insight I need. But first, I just wanted to hear from more parents about this. So being a reporter, I did what came naturally. I bugged a bunch of people. Hello? Hey, Desi, this is Yasmin. Hi, Yasmin.

It's my home girl. All right, well now I'm recording. Okay, looks like we're going. This is a run talking to you. This is Jen. I'm a mother to a three year old daughter. She's 20. I'm a mom to four kids who are ages six, seven, eight, and 10. I called friends, chased down neighbors and co-workers, even pestered members of my own family for a little one-question survey.

How have you changed since having kids? I felt transformed on the day that my daughter was born. There was a moment after having my kid when I realized I had changed. It happens very suddenly. Something just changed. And I heard all kinds of things from emotional to primal. For some, this question brought up the physical, painful changes caused by sleep deprivation. I sort of felt like I was on drugs for the first several months of my daughter's life. Most of the time I'm the night parent. And my daughter knows that because on the night parent,

she will come and wake me up and ask for food or she's hungry. After the birth of my first son, a friend of mine, you know, kind of hinted that I'd been seeming more tired than usual. A few years later, he was like, man, when your son was first born, you were just out of it all the time. You were like for a year.

For others, it was the profound recognition of being in charge of another human. You're more careful. I mean, like, it's not just about me anymore. You know, I'm responsible for these little people. And you realize, like, wow, kids cost a lot of money. I couldn't just be the dude who's always willing to sleep on a couch and doesn't really care about cash.

Like, I had to get a little more together. I'm kind of reminded of the feeling for the first time of being like, oh, I'm unemployed and I have a small child. This is my friend of Roon. His daughter's in college now, but he brought me back to his days as a new dad. I was like a freelancer. So you're kind of scraping by on these sort of tiny checks and building up debt.

And I was just like, oh my god, it's like it was really... It was like some country song that I happened to be playing around then. You know, it's like, worried man, worried man. I'm a very worried man. I'm a very worried man. I'm a very worried man. Do you the first time in my life where I'm like, man, this country song really resonates? My name's Taylor. I have a 10-year-old son. I feel like I started to change or feel like I had to change before my son was born.

There was this period where I felt like I needed to get my shit together really fast. And sort of look like my dad did when I was young, which is just look more responsible, live in a more responsible looking home. I actually took out my nipple ring at some point. And I don't remember when this happened. It might have been after he was born. But at some point around that I had a nipple ring and I just decided that that wasn't my parent identity. And I look back on that and I think it's kind of stupid because who cares about a nipple ring? But at the time I felt this pressure

to be a version of myself that I didn't know. And a lot of what's come after, since then, has been trying to learn how to be the parent and change in the ways that I need to without losing myself. My neighbor, Desi, remembers when he accepted parenthood. It happened one afternoon on a Brooklyn sidewalk. I was a high school student, and my girlfriend got pregnant

where she wasn't really my girlfriend, a friend of mine. And I didn't believe the child was mine. Always through the nine months, I didn't believe it. And so, you met on a sidewalk, and first I saw her, I just knew she was mine and I like changing at that time. Because it wasn't just my responsibility of me, that responsibility of another person. So that was the major change that I couldn't be me, I would have to be better than me in order to raise her and love her. He was just 17 then, an artistic kid,

do a New York City teenage things. I was an artist, I was in art and design high school, so I was an artist and I clubbed a lot, hung out, know, whether that was like 83, 84. So I did a lot of club and it was a great deal a lot of club. And that's all I would say about that. But very conscious to them about my being or my existing, you know, who am I, I was very aware who I was. And my wife fell in love with me because of my child and the joy that I showed in my child.

So that's what she told me. Desi and his wife went on to have seven children and he's still close with his eldest daughter. I made a conscious effort that I'm going to score my children and loved them, no matter what. And I always tell them that. They always have me. So, basically, I said it.

And once you leap into parenthood, God, you need a lot of emotional reserves. That's what my friend Laura brought up when I asked how she's changed since raising three daughters. Now ages 24, 22 and 14. Before I was a parent, if I had a really bad day, I might want to just go under the covers or have a whiskey and a bag of potato chips for dinner. And you can't really do that. Parenthood is pretty relentless and you have to just show up, even if you're not feeling great about it, you just do.

We heard a lot of this. That idea of reaching within and finding more to give, even when it feels like you're running on empty. Doing that requires not holding on to other stuff. We heard from parents who learned to let go of some anxiety and drop notions of perfectionism. Not seeking the ideal, but just like sitting in your ok-ness and being ok with things being ok.

I have to keep reminding myself that like, it's ok to get mad. It's ok to get upset. Ok, I'm gonna be ok with the fact that I see dirt on the light switch. That's kind of the time where you have to just kind of accept things and you know let go of your regrets and start just kind of enjoying where you are. I called up my husband's cousin, Sarah. She's a single mom. So I've always dealt with anxiety, and I can get really, you know, anxious about a lot of different things.

And I kind of was bracing for the anxiety of even pregnancy, and, you know, on medications for, you know, anxiety and depression. And they were changed because of pregnancy. And I kept waiting to have that freak out. And I only had one freak out the entire time. Sarah's pretty open about her anxiety and history with depression. Also, OCD. She remembers a moment just after having her daughter,

Eliza, that things were okay. I remember like the week after she was born, I was initially living with my parents for the first couple of months and I needed that extra pair of hands. And I remember my mother and I were watching TV. The bassinet was right outside the door and Eliza woke up and my mother walked by and said,

oh, she's awake. And she was being quiet. She was just sort of looking around and I just said, okay, you know, and my mother who I loved dearly but is much more, I guess you'd call it a helicopter. But I don't mean it in a disparaging way. It's just I mean that's just how she is and she was like bothered by the fact that I didn't get up. And I was like but she's not crying. She's not hungry and I'm watching Call of the Midway. You know, and I don't see a problem here.

And I was like, just able to like know that she was okay and just keep enjoying what I was enjoying. I think the bigger act of transformation for me was the decision that I could have a child. Because I had spent almost all my adult life thinking that it was not something that I could have a child. Because I had spent almost all my adult life thinking that it was not something that I could be good at. And for me to make that decision to do it on my own, I feel like that the time she was born I learned how to take care of myself emotionally. And once I realized that I was doing that,

I started re-assessing like, well, maybe you're not that sort of a sad person you thought you were. Maybe like, maybe you actually can do things that you've got to long time telling yourself you couldn't. I love this idea that being a parent doesn't necessarily change who we are, but more unlocks something that's already there. This was also true for my friend Rebecca.

She remembers the exact moment she changed as a person, or at least how she saw herself since having her son, Kofi, who's now 16. The day that he saw a picture of me when I was his age at four years old holding a frog. He said, Mommy, why I'm holding a frog? And that he saw himself in me was a moment of such deep clarity in terms of who I wanted to be as a parent, who I was as a parent,

and who I was as a person. The backstory here is that Rebecca, who is black, was adopted by a white family and grew up in an all-white town in New Hampshire. She just wrote a memoir about that experience, and the lack of belonging she felt during her childhood. Becoming a mother flipped that. I was like, oh, okay, this is who I am, this is why I'm here. And it wasn't even like the only thing I can do is be a mother, flip that. I was like, oh, okay, this is who I am. This is why I'm here. And it wasn't even like the only thing I can do

is be a mother. It's that mothering made me realize I could do any manner of things, any number of things, more things. I gotta tell you, it's the best thing that I've ever done in my life. I love being a father. I used to not be all that emotional, but I cry all the time now. that I've ever done in my life. I love being a father. I used to not be all that emotional,

but I cry all the time now. I was able to separate myself from petty relationships in my 20s to really focus on what I needed to do. I realized I was depressed and I needed help. So I got a therapist and I've been in therapy ever since. And it's been a long, long process of transformation and growth. And really a lot of the work has been motivated by wanting to be present for my son.

I'm still thinking about the question of how I've changed since becoming a parent. But I do know this. My kids bring out the best and worst parts of myself. Want to know what you're really made of? Have a kid. But even recognizing what those parts are takes a little work. Coming up, we're going to talk about how to do that and how to deal with change when it feels

really hard. Hey, I'm Aresha and I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wunderies podcast, even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newer series is all about drag icon RuPaul Charles. After a childhood of being ignored by his absentee father, Ru goes out searching for love and acceptance. But the road to success is a rocky one. Substance abuse and mental health struggles threaten to veer Ru off course. In our series RuPaul Born Naked, we'll show you how RuPaul overcame his demons and carved out a place for himself as one of the world's top entertainers, opening the doors for aspiring queens everywhere. Follow even the rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app.

Welcome back. After hearing from a bunch of people on the ways that having kids changed them, I wanted to have a clearer picture of where I was at in this whole parenting thing. I've been working on this, actually. About a year ago, I began to learn about mindfulness practices, started meditating a little bit, and here I am, working for a meditation company. I went from a newsroom to a place where there are meditation cushions in the conference room, and some of my co-workers are even teachers themselves. And they've convinced me that mindfulness is a good tool for

understanding change, or as they call it, suffering. So to help me think through big questions, like how do we even identify how we've transformed as parents, and why does change feel so difficult? I turn to yeah, L-Shye, a mindfulness and meditation teacher. She's also a relatable person who's easy to talk to, and a mom who struggled with that transition to parenthood. I'm not sure a single part of it felt natural at all, you know, like loving them and kissing them and like trying to feed them.

I guess that's natural, but the level of the transformations, especially the speed and the velocity of the transformations has been so intense that maybe now I'm getting a little bit of distance to be able to analyze what just happened. Did you notice it happening at the time, or when did you actually notice that all this stuff about you was changing? Yeah. I feel like it sort of happened in little snippets in little moments.

In the early years when they were very young, most of those moments were just pure suffering. With pockets of like, oh, this is so delicious, this is so nice, like kissing and loving the baby, and then so much suffering. There was one moment in particular that stood out to her. When her youngest was a newborn and her older son, also a baby was sick with a high fever. The exhaustion broke her and she took to Facebook asking,

does this get easier because I'm drowning? Then I remember one person wrote something that was like, it is so hard right now, but you can dig deep inside and find the strength to keep going, and that's what we'll get you through. And I kind of just like took that like medicine and just was like dig deep. There is strength inside. You can get through this

because there's no like instructions there except to just do it. And I think for me, I really imagine, and I still do, sometimes those words still help me when I'm like in the middle of just a tantrum or overwhelmed or something. And I remember like imagining that there was a well underneath that I didn't exactly have access to in the feeling of overwhelm. And then if I imagined just like dropping down, like releasing the tension, softening my body and pulling water up where I really thought it was

dry, I'm like, all right, that strength is there. And it not saying it was fun at all or pleasurable or pleasant, but I did find that I was like, and here we go. There's something there to make it through because you have to. So what is it about our identities that you think shifts so radically when we become parents? You know what's changing about us.

Okay, so there are a few things like right off the bat. So for some gestational parents, your body is changed, and that's pretty major. But I think for all parents, there is an exposure to something which is the very vulnerable truth that something that you love tremendously, you ultimately don't have control over. And all of us, before we were parents, we start to get a glimpse of that with our own lives and with people that we love. You love someone, you never want them to die. Oh no, they're gonna die. Like how do you even make sense of that? But then the stakes go up a thousand percent when it's this sort of raw pure part of yourself that is the sum total of all this devotion and dedication and love, and then to know that they're going to face suffering, to watch them in some cases face suffering,

and it's completely smashing of our sense of control, that we are in control of the world, which is like what our ego likes to walk around believing. And that is so destabilizing. And that I think is at the heart of how to reimagine and remake ourselves in line with this truth, that the truth was we never had control. But we like to think we did, but we never did. It is so raw, It is so freaking raw. Yeah.

And there's a lot of these things that have to die. Like your relationship to your friends as it was before dies. And so as a part of all those deaths, I think so much of this process is allowing ourselves to grieve and to feel the grief for years. That's where the part is kind of continues to shock me. Like I was like, all right, and to feel the grief for years.

That's what the part is kind of continues to shock me. Like I was like, oh, you got a couple months where you're grieving the loss of your old life. But for me, it's been years where I'm like, oh God, I miss that, I miss that. And then you can kind of open your heart to the new thing, but you can't jump ahead of the grief. Yale says, we all harden to change.

Always been that way. This is what I'm pulling from the Buddhist world that I've been studying, and that I'm a part of, is that the way that we operate, it's not just some of us, it's like all of us as humans, we resist change. I imagine the little roly-poly bugs in our backyard, one little touch, and they curl into a tiny

scaly ball. That kind of happens to us too. Yeah, El says we contract and put on our armor when something feels difficult. And she says, dealing with that change comes down to one thing. Soffoning in the place of where we usually contract and allowing whatever emotions come through, including Dan Harris's sometimes referenced this quality of murderous rage that we feel against our kids. That's like, oh my God, that's so horrible. How dare I ever say that? Right. No, I'm so glad you just said that. Oh, yeah. I know. And I was so glad when I heard it.

Like, we have to kind of normalize that these things are normal. And the more we struggle against them and push them out of the frame, the more they'll cause that inner suffering. And so the path out is really like the path through. It's about opening to everything, no matter how unpleasant. Even when we know it's growth or we want to change, we are seeking change, we have to be, I guess, become comfortable with feeling the discomfort of it. Yes. Yes. Yes. I read a story a while ago, something about how lobsters, when they shed their shell, they grow a new shell, it's like very itchy and painful and uncomfortable and they're like

scratching and they go into a rock and it's like this whole thing. And that is exactly how I feel all the time about growing like, oh God, I have to do this now. But that is the way and it's not just us obviously. It's like then our kids, that's how our kids are growing. That, you know, it's not comfortable. Okay, when you're a parent, change is inevitable. So my question is, how do we start to identify these changes within ourselves?

And just kind of take stock of what's going on with us. This is where Yael says her meditation training comes in handy. There is a meditation practice that was developed by this woman named Michelle McDonald's and then really popularized and developed further by meditation teacher named Tara Brock. It's a practice called Rain. I'm new to this stuff, so I had never heard of it, but apparently it's pretty well known as a basic exercise to check in with yourself.

I'm all for that, so I asked Yael to go through it. Rain is an acronym, R-A-I-N. And our stands for Recognize. Like how do we begin to recognize this is happening within us? And I think just noticing like, oh my God, this sucks, or I'm in such a bad way, or I'm like extra addicted to my phone today,

or what is going on? Is that moment of pause and being like, oh, I just dropped off the kids and that was hard. You know, it's just kind of pausing to be like, this is happening and it's painful or there's some kind of friction here. And then the A in rain stands for allow, which is just that exhale.

It's just that softening the pause like, okay, this is hard. Let's just that softening the pause like, okay, this is hard. Let's just take that breath. So recognize, allow, and then the eye is for inquire or investigate. And that's like a very gentle, just a noticing like, okay, where in the body do I feel this sadness? Like, what might be underneath it? It's kind of asking that question, like, what is this really about?

Not with the sense of like, oh, why do I feel this way? But a more of like, hmm, what could this be about? A curiosity of what's going on? And then the end is for nourish. It just asks the question, what can I do for myself when I feel this way?

That's it, what can I do in this moment? And so sometimes the nourishment can be like calling someone, talking to someone, going for a walk, getting a cup of tea, just bringing a level of like kindness to your experience. It is surprisingly hard to do the nourish part. Even something as simple as tea or a walk. It sounds so obvious, but it, for some reason,

feels surprisingly difficult for me. What do you think gets in the way there? Maybe it's work. I mean, maybe I'm not stopping to think about really what might help me separate myself from that feeling or to understand what it is. So maybe it's just about the lack of recognition in it. But I think it's like this reflects

to keep plowing through the day, to get to the thing that I hadn't started yet or something. I don't know. That like kind of urgency like there's all this stuff that needs to be done. Yes. Yeah. Even though I am also very good at doing nothing when I can, but I never I guess feel like I allow myself to do that or haven't in a while. I don't know. I remember at some point during the pandemic, a colleague tweeted something just like,

hey, what's the healthiest thing you've done for yourself this year? Like, sent me in such a dark place because the answer was nothing. I think like I took a bath instead of a shower once. I mean, this was I think at the end of 2020 and I was working in a newsroom and there would be multiple days in a row

where I wouldn't leave the house. So I would drink tea, but it didn't feel like a nourishing act. You know what I mean? So like to turn it into something that is like very specifically restorative or addressing the need in the moment, I guess I just haven't gotten my mind there yet.

Yeah. It's also interesting because often, at least I feel like sometimes a voice comes up that's just like, if you do that, you're going to be like down for the count forever. You might never find your motivation again or there's some like fear of stopping the train, you know, because oh my god, you know, I need that to keep going. And it's not right. Like, I know that it's not correct, but it can sometimes just feel like there's a lot of fear. Even a little

thing like taking a walk around the block or something can just be like eeeh, okay, like it's like stepping over a cliff. The train. This idea really sticks. Because sometimes I know what I need is to check into a hotel and sleep for three days. I need quiet, and rest sleep and rest. So if I can't do that, why stop everything and make a cup of tea? I recognize how irrational and unhealthy this sounds, and I also recognize how we help our kids get what they need. Even if we can't solve a problem, we go out of our way to make things even just a little

better in the ways we can control. Why don't we do that for ourselves? Sometimes I like to say to myself that there's more than one baby in the room at all times, you know, including if you have multiple kids, but the other baby, like the other one that's struggling is you and the part of you that's like overwhelmed, it's dysregulated, or just having a hard time. And so bringing enough compassion for that part in those moments, and just being like, yeah, this is hard. I'm not going to struggle against the feeling of it. I'm just going to let the feeling be there. You know, that's so interesting to think about when you're raising kids, you also have to think about raising yourself because you are changing so much with them. Yes. I like thinking about it that

way. I mean, I hadn't thought about it that way. Yes. We went to see a parenting coach because my one of my kids, the tantrums were just like getting worse and worse and bed times in just a nightmare. And one of the things she had us do was to make our own family values, like to name what the values of our family and the way she wanted us to do this to say, in this family, we, such and such. So we made ours and it was like in this family, we have fun, we play. And one of the ones that like keeps making me cry is in this family, it's okay to make mistakes. And we've come back to that many, many times, like a kid hits.

And we've always say in this family, it's okay to make mistakes, and we try and make it right. But then I use it like times when I'm just like, oh god, I don't like how I did that, parenting-wise, or even not even related to parenting, just in my life when I make a bad mistake and I feel consumed with shame,

I'm like, in this family, it's okay to make mistakes. And so, so that's, I think that's a piece of what you're saying in terms of like, we're all growing and we're all kind of finding our way. and we're all kind of finding our way. Sometimes that growth is super uncomfortable, and sometimes we're pleasantly surprised by how natural it feels. On that note, one last parent anecdote from a dad,

mine actually. Lately, in his older age, he's been telling more stories about his family back in Pakistan, about emigrating to the States, and about being a dad to two daughters, my older sister Maria and me. So on a very recent visit with other family sitting around my dining table, he started calling up a memory and I grabbed my recorder. When Maria was born, I didn't know how I will feel or something, but it came so naturally that I began to change a diaper that I would take, all those things which are kind of

unheard of in my culture, and I had never seen my father do it or anybody else do it. But it came so naturally and I was so involved in loving that I thought, I'm not going to have another child because I won't be able to give that child as much love and affection. But then I found out after he asked me with a bar that they don't share anybody's love. I found out that each child creates their own love. So this thing remains full, no matter how much it gives. My dad, he was tapping on the table there pointing to his heart. That's what's always full, he says. There's so much about parenting that consumes and inhabits us. Let's talk about it. This is Childproof. Today's show was produced by Palace Shaw, Candice Mattelcon, and Will Coley.

Our managing producer is Kimmy Reglor, and our executive producer is Jen Poion, scoring and mixing by Matt Boynton of ultraviolet audio. Carolyn Packer-Riggs wrote our theme music, Connor Donahue is our technical operations manager. Special thanks to Dan Harris, Ben Rubin, and Tony Magyar. Childproof is a production of 10% happier. Thanks to Yasmeen and to the entire team of people who work so hard with Yasmeen to bring this show into the world. It is incredibly hard to create something new, so hats off. We'll see you all on Monday for a brand new episode with my old friend Dr. Mark Epstein.

We've got a new book called The Zen of Therapy that's coming up on Monday. Hey, hey prime members, you can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. you