Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Going Full Crone With Jessica Grose

00:00:00.000 hey all joe here and you are listening to under the influence i have a question for you

00:00:13.320 how do you feel about your face right now i i gotta say i actually feel pretty good

00:00:21.340 about my face i'm pretty happy with how things are going i haven't had botox in about a year

00:00:28.780 Botox or fillers. I don't even know the names of all of the things. I did get something called

00:00:35.580 Dysport right before last year's Sicilian Inheritance book tour. And it was awful.

00:00:44.420 It gave me Neanderthal forehead, like big eyebrows and scrunchy eyes. And when I reached out to the

00:00:51.500 doctor to say, hey, this looks weird. They pretty much just told me I had to live with it, which I

00:01:00.360 think is what happens when you get weird or bad fillers, injections, stuff, stuff, the tox,

00:01:09.020 the toxins. So I haven't gotten it for a while, mostly because of that situation. Like, I'm

00:01:16.160 I'm scared. I've got some PTSD from that. But I am really happy with what's going on with my face

00:01:25.780 right now. I am going to give y'all some updates on where I'm at in my GLP semi-glutide journey.

00:01:34.100 I'm finished with it. I'm tapering down off of it. I'm also happy with the results. I'm really,

00:01:40.740 really pleased with where we ended up. That's going to be a whole other episode. I'm going

00:01:45.120 to do that with Glynis soon. But today, today we are talking about going full crone in our middle

00:01:54.580 age, because that's what I am. I'm 44 years old. This is middle age. It's not old. It's not young.

00:02:00.100 It's right in the right in the sweet, sweet middle, which I think is an awesome, awesome stage of life

00:02:06.100 for for women. It truly, truly is. And today we're going to talk about that stage. We're going to

00:02:12.620 talk about what would happen if we just stopped accepting the gonzo ridiculous beauty standards 1.00

00:02:18.640 that society has created for women. What if we actually aged gracefully instead of just paying 1.00

00:02:26.080 lip service to it? That is what one of my favorite writers, very favorite, love this girl, love her,

00:02:33.360 that is what New York Times columnist Jess Gross has decided to do. In December, she wrote a viral

00:02:40.620 article about choosing to go full crone in 2025, rejecting things like Botox in favor of letting

00:02:48.800 her face just do what a face is supposed to do. Today, we're getting into how social media has

00:02:56.040 made us all more critical of our faces. I mean, this happens to me a lot. If I scroll social for

00:03:04.020 too long, I start thinking about how to fix my face. That's just what it does to us. It really

00:03:10.760 does. But because I know that, I think that I'm able to kind of take a step back from it. Because

00:03:18.780 also, also, the cost of quote-unquote maintenance treatments for our face, they are astronomical,

00:03:27.400 and I think that we could spend that money on things that might actually make us happier.

00:03:33.340 Jess and I both have daughters, so this conversation also revolves a lot around

00:03:39.140 how do we model self-acceptance for our girls in today's world?

00:03:45.360 Because my five-year-old already says things like, I'm not pretty, I'm not cute.

00:03:52.160 I don't know where any of this comes from.

00:03:55.380 I think it just lives in the ether.

00:03:57.420 And I also know that I really need to model loving myself and loving what I look like in order for her to love herself.

00:04:08.460 But that's hard.

00:04:09.320 And all of this is complicated, which is why I just want us to have a discussion about it.

00:04:22.700 Jessica Gross, thank you for being here today.

00:04:25.520 Oh, my pleasure.

00:04:26.740 My favorite writer for The New York Times.

00:04:28.560 You truly are.

00:04:29.400 I devour everything that you write.

00:04:31.140 Oh, my God.

00:04:31.840 That is the best compliment I could ever receive.

00:04:35.200 Today, we're going to talk about something that you wrote back in December.

00:04:39.600 But life is crazy, so we haven't hopped on the horn yet, that I've been thinking about

00:04:44.580 since I read it in December.

00:04:46.620 The headline of this piece was, Teens are getting Botox.

00:04:49.620 I'm going full crone in 2025.

00:04:53.100 How's that going for you so far?

00:04:54.540 We're in February. 0.92

00:04:55.240 honestly it's going great i am loving every second of not giving a shit about my face 0.92

00:05:01.920 so so glad to hear it so glad to hear it because i am seeing more and more kids younger and younger 0.81

00:05:10.440 on all of my social medias who are just who are already doing all of the stuff okay like these

00:05:17.440 20 year old girls who i'm sorry when you were 20 your skin is so perfect and bouncy and elastic 0.85

00:05:22.180 and you are gorgeous, who are injecting all of the things into their faces. And then, you know,

00:05:28.620 I'm 44 and all of my friends are doing all the things. I'm scaling back on the Botox because

00:05:35.660 last time I got it, that thing happened where my eyebrows got heavy and I looked like a Neanderthal

00:05:40.860 for a month. Yeah, that's an unintended consequence. It's a real interesting situation I found myself

00:05:49.000 in on my book tour last year because there's nothing you can do about Neanderthal face. 0.89

00:05:54.220 So I'm with you. 0.99

00:05:55.260 I like Fulcron. 1.00

00:05:56.320 Tell me what that means.

00:05:57.540 What does that mean?

00:05:58.780 OK, so I got Botox once.

00:06:02.700 I wrote about that, too.

00:06:03.760 I didn't like what it did to my face, and it didn't even make me look that much younger.

00:06:07.600 I was like, this is expensive.

00:06:09.620 The return on investment is not high enough for this to be worth it for me because it's

00:06:13.980 not.

00:06:14.580 Again, what I always want to make clear is that I have vein.

00:06:17.800 I want to look nice. I love dressing up. I spend a lot of time exercising, not just for the health benefits, because I like the way it makes my body look. So I'm not trying to pretend like, oh, I'm just morally above. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what we're saying.

00:06:34.100 We're talking about the return on investment of all of these procedures because you have to keep doing them.

00:06:39.600 So that was number one.

00:06:41.040 And then number two, I was seeing all these news articles about how ever younger people were getting cosmetic procedures.

00:06:50.640 And I was watching a lot.

00:06:53.840 I watch a lot of older movies, older TV shows.

00:06:56.860 And I love the non-uniformity of the way that people look, right?

00:07:03.060 you know what I think about a lot are Kirsten Dunst's teeth like she has really adorable kind

00:07:11.040 of like pointy teeth that are non-uniform they're not veneers I think there's so much beauty and

00:07:18.100 interest in people's looking different from each other I mean when you say it out loud it sounds

00:07:24.300 insane like of course like yeah but so much of this when we say it out loud sounds insane

00:07:31.820 Right. Yeah. So I was finding myself seeing all these people with untouched faces and and appreciating them more and appreciating my own untouched face more and then seeing, you know, the cosmetic intervention be ever younger and having less pushback to that.

00:07:52.860 So this idea that you can't criticize anything that any woman does because that's somehow anti-feminist. 0.51

00:07:59.000 And I'm just like, I don't know.

00:08:01.200 I don't agree with us.

00:08:03.140 No.

00:08:04.420 And so I have been trying.

00:08:07.900 I have a 12-year-old girl and an 8-year-old girl.

00:08:10.280 And I'm trying to sort of indoctrinate them into this thinking.

00:08:15.080 It's not going great.

00:08:16.640 But I'm.

00:08:17.220 Oh, yeah.

00:08:17.760 I want to hear about that.

00:08:18.880 I want to hear.

00:08:19.220 Yeah.

00:08:19.780 How do you talk?

00:08:20.860 I mean, I'm not there yet, right?

00:08:21.940 My girls are five and two.

00:08:23.180 But truth be told, I'm a little bit there because the things that they absorb about beauty are bananas.

00:08:31.400 I mean, my five-year-old is constantly like, oh, I'm not pretty.

00:08:37.560 This girl at school is prettier because she has hair like this.

00:08:41.760 And I know all moms think their kids are gorgeous. 1.00

00:08:44.740 She's gorgeous.

00:08:46.380 But I'm like, where is this even coming from?

00:08:48.680 Like, is it just in the air?

00:08:50.720 Do you just swallow it?

00:08:51.720 Do you just breathe it in somehow?

00:08:53.700 I mean, kids are just incredibly perceptive.

00:08:56.360 They understand what gets attention.

00:08:58.580 They see what's on TV.

00:08:59.780 But we do influence our kids a lot.

00:09:04.000 So my way of handling it was like, OK, the overt attempts at indoctrination.

00:09:09.600 Like I showed and I talk about this in the piece.

00:09:12.200 I showed my older daughter, who is 12, a video of Shirley Manson from Garbage talking about

00:09:18.300 how she's you know wants to age in her own face and not do cosmetic you know whatever to look

00:09:27.460 younger because she's so proud of you know the of aging and so lucky to age right because the

00:09:35.140 alternative to aging is dead we're all getting older every day thank god right like i feel lucky

00:09:39.980 um so i showed her this video and her only response was her eye shadow is ugly so you know

00:09:45.620 uh-huh so the overt indoctrination not going great but i do think the actions speak louder

00:09:53.580 than words indoctrination is helpful and what i mean by that is just like not being concerned

00:09:59.260 about my own appearance so much and i don't mean like not dressing nicely for occasions or not

00:10:03.520 putting on makeup when i go out i do all that i mean like day to day not obsessing over the way

00:10:09.520 I look not doing Botox not you know not having plastic surgery I don't dye my hair anymore

00:10:15.780 I don't have grays yet so like you know we'll see I don't I don't really yeah yeah but I

00:10:21.380 I was getting highlights for a long time which I liked it was fun but then I was like you know

00:10:26.000 what this is like $300 real expensive and I don't I maybe there's other things that I want to spend

00:10:33.760 money on again it's like I still really like I really really like dressing up I like they you

00:10:43.380 know so it's I'm not trying to say don't care about your appearance because it's fun I'm saying

00:10:49.020 it is fun and I will say I'm dressing up and makeuping more than I used to so you know the

00:10:57.400 pandemic like we got very used to wearing pajamas all the time and I get very used to wearing my

00:11:04.760 workout clothes all the time so I'm like well I will work out at some point so just start in the

00:11:07.740 workout clothes why would you change when you know the workout will happen eventually but I'm actually

00:11:13.620 I'm trying to dress up more I'm trying to like enjoy my clothes and part of that is too I am

00:11:19.560 also fucking vain I've been very honest about my you know I'm taking a GLP one of those exempt 0.63

00:11:25.080 clones and i've lost 25 pounds uh in the past four months all like my baby weight from three 0.97

00:11:33.280 babies that i had when i you know ended at 42 and now my clothes fit again so great it does i like

00:11:41.680 i love it because i am very vain uh but now i'm having so much fun just dressing up again and

00:11:49.160 like glennis and i talk about this a lot it's a lot it's a it's a lot of fun to like do that but

00:11:53.800 I'm also then on the oh yeah I think I'm off the Botox train I'm like I'm I feel like I'm

00:12:00.440 workshopping this out loud right now right now I feel like I'm doing things for me and then not

00:12:06.020 for other people's gaze if that makes sense totally and my whole ethos is just because you

00:12:12.300 look older doesn't mean you look bad and that's what I'm trying to unlearn myself like I do look

00:12:19.620 older that's fine yeah you do i am getting older i am i am actually older yes and that doesn't i

00:12:29.200 mean that doesn't mean i am looking bad or uglier i'm air quoting which you can't see but i just

00:12:36.620 think pushing against that notion constantly is it always easy no do i look at my firm we all have

00:12:45.660 like our one thing for me it's my eye bags it's genetic oh you and i have talked about this many

00:12:50.380 times yes yes yes like it's what it is and it's just like i can choose to like glance at them 0.98

00:12:57.860 feel a moment of unhappiness and then just be like who gives a shit like me and my eye bags

00:13:05.220 are face in the world and i will tell you it's something that i think has always been kind of 0.96

00:13:12.640 unique about your face I love your face I love looking at your face you know and that is so

00:13:19.320 sweet of you to say but I also think it's like our kids love looking at our faces our kids are

00:13:25.240 not prejudiced you know what I mean like the people who love us in our lives like they don't 0.91

00:13:30.120 give a shit they don't like I think that part of this is all this pressure that anyone who is trying 0.95

00:13:38.260 to do many, many things now in business, feels they have to present themselves to the public. 1.00

00:13:48.120 And that is really new. And that is such a pressure that I feel. And I again, I talk about

00:13:53.900 this in the piece. The reason I got Botox in the first place was because I had a book coming out

00:13:59.540 and I knew that I was going to have to be on Instagram more. I was going to talk more. I was

00:14:04.780 have to be on tv and i didn't um i was afraid about how i would be perceived and now if you're

00:14:11.860 trying to launch a business if you're trying to you know academics scientists everybody feels like

00:14:18.780 they have to have some sort of public facing not everyone but there's so much public facing face

00:14:24.420 yeah public facing face yeah and so i think a lot of the pressure to look a certain way and that's

00:14:32.300 that certain way is often younger is because there is so much more pressure on us to present

00:14:39.080 ourselves to total strangers across the world all the time all the time all right let's take

00:14:45.220 let's take a quick break and i want to dig into that more when when we get back

00:14:48.540 okay we're back i think about this on a daily basis because podcasts are now video casts or

00:15:08.520 at least a lot of them are and so i don't i don't record video with my podcasts i'll find other ways

00:15:14.240 to promote them. I like audio. My audience doesn't watch the videos. But when I go on other people's

00:15:20.240 podcasts, which I do a lot for book promotions, I have to put on a face. Yeah. And that's exhausting.

00:15:27.620 And I also, you know, have to do a bunch of, you know, face stuff on the Instagram.

00:15:33.060 I'm an author. I don't really want to be a forward facing character where my face actually

00:15:43.080 matters for what i do um i feel the same way i often joke that i became a writer so that i would

00:15:51.440 not be have to be perceived but like i don't i say that all the time um but i in a weird way

00:16:01.140 i have two separate points that i tell myself when i get insulted for my looks on the internet

00:16:09.340 because everyone does there's no way to put your face on the internet and have someone not have a

00:16:16.820 negative comment and this happens to men too I think it's much much worse for women much much

00:16:21.480 worse for women I'd have yes absolutely insults are just I I was on a popular podcast that does

00:16:29.700 have a video component and I thought like that was right after I did my Botox and I did my makeup

00:16:35.900 like way more makeup than i usually put on i felt like i was looking good for me and one of the

00:16:42.520 comments was that i looked like a transitioning jeffrey dahmer wow like what that is that's a

00:16:47.220 deep cut is what that is specificity i think it's because i was wearing like sort of uh aviator

00:16:53.020 glasses but i then i was like well what does he look like honestly not a bad looking dude it could

00:16:58.560 have been a much worse okay it was was jeffrey was jeffrey dahmer weirdly hot he listen he's

00:17:05.140 not the ugliest person i've seen so it's like listen i've heard so much worse but i will tell

00:17:09.960 you the two things that i tell myself to steal myself emotionally from the negative the inevitable

00:17:18.260 negative comments because people are so nasty number one the internet calls margot robbie mid

00:17:25.940 yeah so it's like yeah you can't even be the most beautiful woman or one of the most beautiful women

00:17:33.720 on the planet and not have some you know certainly very ugly people saying that you're not attractive 0.82

00:17:41.880 so everyone gets it the uniformity of it's just ridiculous and then the second thing is it's 0.97

00:17:49.000 clearly a way to keep women out of the public sphere insulting their looks saying your voice 0.95

00:17:55.560 is not worth listening to because you don't look like a fembot or whatever or just you know it's a

00:18:02.680 way to keep us from talking so i always remember that too and then the final thing is remembering 0.97

00:18:08.580 that most people commenting on the internet are actual children like so many people who

00:18:15.080 are commenting especially on tiktok but probably on youtube as well are like 15

00:18:22.160 it was so like without a fully formed frontal cortex but not even that i'm like i do not live

00:18:28.800 my life uh to gain the approval of actual children so i not two things i guess those are the three

00:18:36.280 things that i think about when i'm bracing myself emotionally for negative comments about the way 0.70

00:18:42.460 that i looked um so yeah i offer that to you and your audience yeah well all women are gonna get 0.78

00:18:50.680 it i mean i'm i'm told that i'm terribly homely and ugly and that i should never be allowed to

00:18:55.800 talk about influencers because I'm just jealous of how pretty they are. And one of the pushbacks

00:19:00.240 that I hear a lot, too, is, oh, it's always been like this. You know, celebrities have always been

00:19:05.820 airbrushed. I think it's worse now with social media culture because everyone's putting a filter

00:19:11.620 on their face. And so we think that everyone looks a certain way. And it's just, you know,

00:19:17.280 there's a reason that I named my trad wife murder mystery. Everyone is lying to you because everyone

00:19:20.400 is lying to you. Yeah, I do think it's worse now. I mean, you see it just in the amount of money

00:19:25.040 people are spending on plastic surgery. It goes up and up and up and up and up and up every year

00:19:29.780 and has for a long time. And it is seen to be sort of more accessible than it used to be because of,

00:19:38.840 you know, there's a lower end with injections and, you know, smaller tweaks that you can do

00:19:47.900 for less money but again those last what six months um that's the other thing that

00:19:53.200 really woke me up to all of this i think was just the money it's the money for me and just like this

00:20:02.060 this level of maintenance is so bananas to me i just and it's not even like you can go you can

00:20:11.320 do the botox right but then it's also like the keratin treatments there was a story did you see

00:20:16.540 a story that was just in new york magazine about people taking um their parents money to live on

00:20:21.440 in new york city i sure did and the one that got me that i kept first off amazing like so many

00:20:29.180 people saying we're taking money because private school is so bananas expensive and then the one 1.00

00:20:34.320 woman who was like oh i my mom still pays for my keratin and waxing treatments i mean the other

00:20:41.720 part of this which like is a sort of separate but related issue is um how much of this uniformity

00:20:47.960 is ironing out people's ethnic features um yep yep um i say this as a jewish woman with a jewish

00:20:56.920 nose which i had to learn to love over time um and now i'm very glad that i didn't do anything

00:21:02.840 to it when i was younger because of deep you know self-loathing um because that is not what is

00:21:11.000 mainstream considered mainstream beauty um so that is also a set of questions to ask oneself

00:21:17.940 in terms of the kinds of tweaks that you're doing is it's like you know am i participating in a

00:21:25.720 deeply racist system that doesn't like any again visual air quotes ethnic features yes um so the

00:21:35.380 keratin treatments for curly hair which again i've never understood that i think curly hair is so

00:21:39.780 beautiful i love curly hair i think it's gorgeous i my hair cannot hold a curl it is limp fine

00:21:46.800 garbage so i'm like i would the grass is always greener so i understand there's a lot more

00:21:54.180 maintenance uh that comes with uh different hair textures but as someone with like 0.59

00:22:00.980 wet noodle hair i just i i would kill for beautiful curly hair yeah yeah well you know

00:22:08.980 Glynis and I were at Mount Rushmore once when we were driving across the country when she drove me

00:22:14.920 out to go marry Nick Astor. And this little girl with this gorgeous head of curly hair came running 0.96

00:22:20.680 up to her and like tugged on her skirt to be like, hey, I've never seen a grown up with curly hair 1.00

00:22:28.580 just like mine. Oh, I know. I know. It was so cute and so sweet. And yeah, I mean, the grass is 0.98

00:22:37.440 always great but yeah so and we can talk about like the Botox the keratin treatments the waxing

00:22:42.220 the lasering every bit of hair off of our bodies uh it's just it's it's too much and then the cost

00:22:51.420 benefit analysis for me I'm like what else can I do with that money can I travel which is something

00:22:54.680 I want to be doing with my family you know can I create adventures and experiences for all of us

00:22:59.940 will I ultimately be able to pay for private school if I have to I mean those are all the

00:23:03.660 considerations that I'm trying to make when I'm like how crone do I go yeah I mean I'm just going

00:23:08.820 I'm fully going there I think because if the other benefit to doing it in my 40s is like it's not

00:23:16.820 gonna be a shock when I'm in my 50s and 60s like if I haven't been doing maintenance Botox or

00:23:26.820 whatever for 20 years it will be a gradual acceptance of aging rather than throwing money

00:23:35.980 down the well and still looking older in 20 years anyway whether i do it or not you know exactly

00:23:43.420 exactly my mother has a lot of great wisdom about aging and i think

00:23:49.520 i was similarly unreceptive to her attempted feminist indoctrination at 12 and yet i find

00:23:58.880 her an inspiration over time and she is totally untouched um she takes a good really good care

00:24:04.660 of herself and she eats right and she exercises but like has never had any sort of cosmetic

00:24:09.440 procedures and never dyed her hair ever any color of any kind wow um and obviously it sunk in just 0.90

00:24:17.940 her example um but her one of her statements about aging is the neck doesn't lie the neck

00:24:23.900 doesn't lie no it sure does not so even i mean i'm sure there's some sort of cosmetic procedure

00:24:30.260 now that you could like do a facelift on your neck or whatever but like no matter what you're

00:24:35.320 doing to your face your neck is gonna sag ultimately like the parts of their again i'm sure

00:24:41.500 the kardashians have somebody in a lab right now figuring out but like they have unlimited money

00:24:49.580 unlimited money all right yes yes unlimited money is what we're gonna i want to talk about to finish

00:24:53.820 up this episode after our next break because i think about the unlimited money all of the time

00:25:11.500 all right we're back and we're going to talk about the unlimited moneyness of being a celebrity

00:25:15.800 and why now it's i remember someone once said to me i think it was joanna malloy when i was at the

00:25:21.260 gossip column with the new york daily news like towards the end of my tenure there when this boom 1.00

00:25:26.640 in plastic surgery and fillers and injections was just happening she's like there's no women

00:25:31.020 in between 30 and 60 in hollywood because everyone looks exactly the same

00:25:35.580 and it takes so much money to have that face i mean it is we're not just talking injections

00:25:45.600 we're talking full facelifts yeah you want to you want to fix that neck that is a facelift

00:25:50.140 situation okay and that is exactly what the majority of celebrities even when they don't

00:25:55.460 admit it that is exactly what they are doing i'm not here to judge it because hollywood

00:26:01.380 you know i'm saying oh it's hard for me to have my face and on a podcast their faces are there

00:26:06.840 all of the time yeah that's their job that's like a totally different thing exactly exactly

00:26:12.820 what has been driving me nuts lately and i want to get your take on this

00:26:16.720 is the celebrities of a certain age usually they're in between 50 and 60 who are saying

00:26:24.340 i'm aging gracefully and they're not and that's the thing like i'm just looking at they're like

00:26:30.580 Or they're saying women should be allowed to age gracefully.

00:26:33.680 And I look at their faces and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.

00:26:35.900 Like the vast majority of you have had all of this stuff done.

00:26:40.380 So I don't really want to hear about aging gracefully from a Cameron Diaz who still looks pretty much like she did when she was 30.

00:26:49.420 Yeah.

00:26:49.800 I mean, it's just all hustle, right?

00:26:52.680 Like everybody is they almost all of them have their own cosmetic companies.

00:26:57.320 I'm not saying Cameron Diaz specifically.

00:26:58.980 But a lot of them sell. They're selling oils. They're selling supplements. They're selling makeup there. So it's like, OK, if you're not trying to sell me something, then like maybe I'll listen a little bit more. But like, you know, most of us never looked like Cameron Diaz when we were 20.

00:27:18.380 no we sure didn't no we sure didn't I didn't I would have loved to like beautiful woman

00:27:23.940 gorgeous gorgeous it we're not all here to be professionally beautiful no nor should we have

00:27:31.880 to be yes that's the thing we shouldn't I was I was reading the times story last night uh

00:27:38.860 I made the mistake of having a coffee at my book event last night which means I was just in bed

00:27:43.920 scrolling and uh the profile of uh that talking about janet malcolm katie royfe's piece on you

00:27:52.460 know janet malcolm being an unpleasant woman and i was looking at i then i did a deep dive

00:27:58.840 into photos of janet malcolm the great new yorker writer um author and i was like what if and i and

00:28:05.760 then i and then i went on the went down a nora efron rabbit hole and like as an author this is

00:28:10.820 how i want to age like i want to look like those women because like this is i i shouldn't have to

00:28:18.180 constantly be putting on like a public face and norah talked about this all the time i mean

00:28:23.540 i feel bad about my neck and she just started wearing turtlenecks which i by the way i invested

00:28:29.260 in a lot of turtlenecks because your mom is right but again like there's it's it's sort of two

00:28:35.800 levels right it's what does society value and approve of um and you'll never win that game

00:28:42.640 again even margot robbie cannot win that no she cannot it is a radio does not win that game we

00:28:48.920 can no no woman is ever going to win that game right and then there's what you personally like

00:28:54.760 about yourself and it is a really really hard lifelong battle for a lot for me i can't say for

00:29:02.700 everybody else to divorce those two things right um but there are things about my aging face that

00:29:10.000 i like i was just gonna ask you that what do you like about your aging face so like i that was why

00:29:17.340 i was always like the buckle fat removal always seemed really weird to me because i'm just like

00:29:22.180 you're making yourselves look older which is fine um but my bones are much more defined and stronger

00:29:29.620 interesting than they used to be um and i like that like i like i'm very angular

00:29:35.460 and pointy pointy pointy is a nice nice word to the time of faith i am plenty i like my being

00:29:46.080 i'm all pointy and i like it you know we don't this do other people find that insurance no idea

00:29:52.560 i'm allowed to like things about the way i look that are not considered conventionally attractive

00:29:59.620 and I think it is hard I think for women especially to say that for themselves yeah yeah exactly

00:30:08.500 exactly I think it's I think it's really hard I don't think we talk enough about the things that

00:30:13.320 we like about our faces or our bodies it's so much self-criticism all of the time instead of being

00:30:19.240 like I'm really really into this for me like I I like my hair a lot I'm very into my eyebrows

00:30:27.140 I've got I've got great lips yeah you do you really do thank you uh and so yeah we I want

00:30:35.540 to celebrate those things that I that I like about myself instead of constantly tearing myself down

00:30:40.760 and being like oh I'm miserable like I will say like I thought for a little while but and I'm

00:30:46.920 just coming back into my body in so many ways because my littlest one is two yeah which means

00:30:52.380 my body is finally my own in a way that it wasn't while I was breeding and breastfeeding

00:30:57.680 and just constantly being hung all over and touched all the time.

00:31:02.280 So that's exciting.

00:31:03.120 That's fun for me.

00:31:04.780 And I did consider a boob lift because these things are just some like saggy sun-dried 0.95

00:31:09.740 tomatoes, some flop bangers over here.

00:31:13.140 And now I thought about it for like six months and I'm like, I'm good.

00:31:17.460 I mean, we're not there's there's not gonna be any knives or not gonna I'm not I'm not 0.63

00:31:21.420 I'm not lifting these boobs this is what this is what my what my 44 year old lady boobs look like

00:31:25.500 and I'm cool with that also not to be like a scare tactic type person but the other thing

00:31:32.700 that besides the money which you know is considerable that always sort of keeps me

00:31:37.300 from that it's like you can have complications totally can go very wrong and any sort of elective

00:31:44.640 surgery to me it's just like it's everything is a risk benefit right and to me the risks of that

00:31:50.640 kind of stuff really outweigh the benefits because um they never last forever anyway no no no exactly

00:31:59.160 so i'm just like again i always want to be like everybody is it's your own body everybody do

00:32:07.180 what you want to do i think the point of that piece was more to to say like always ask yourself

00:32:14.560 Who am I doing this for?

00:32:17.240 Always think about what else that money could be going to.

00:32:21.580 And also consider if you have kids, especially if you have girl children, what's what is the message that your speech and behavior is sending to them?

00:32:30.860 Because like I said, my mom also tried to tell me my business when I was my older daughter's age and I dismissed her just as my older daughter is doing to me.

00:32:42.020 But you absorbed it.

00:32:43.300 I absorbed it.

00:32:44.560 Just observing her living her life and not being, you know, bothered by aging. 0.99

00:32:50.780 And, you know, again, while still taking care of herself, I think sometimes this is interpreted as like, what do you just want us to like look like shit and wear sweatpants all the time? 0.99

00:32:59.940 Like, if that's what you want to do, sure. 0.99

00:33:03.060 That's on here for you if that's your jam.

00:33:05.200 OK.

00:33:06.020 But it's like that's not that's taking the wrong thing away from what I'm trying to express.

00:33:12.880 because the kids are always watching.

00:33:15.800 The kids are always watching.

00:33:17.440 Yeah.

00:33:17.520 And so hopefully my daughters will learn to love themselves

00:33:25.620 the way they are as much as is possible.

00:33:28.600 Because again, that's a lofty goal.

00:33:31.040 Huge, huge goal.

00:33:32.880 Powerful, yes.

00:33:34.200 Hard goal, not one I achieve every day of my life,

00:33:37.340 every minute, but it's a goal worth striving for, right?

00:33:41.840 worth striving for and i will say too and as as the mom of a boy child too i want him to see

00:33:49.820 real women and real women's bodies this does remind me of this one time when i

00:33:56.460 was in malmo in sweden when i was reporting on how to be married i went to one of their

00:34:02.340 like north sea bath houses the saunas that's like right on the north sea and there's a woman's

00:34:10.160 section and a man section and then a combined section i was in the women's section and it's

00:34:14.280 just all these women naked laying out in the sun and then jumping in the freezing water but it was

00:34:19.200 families of all ages and girls got to see women's naked bodies of all ages which and i just started

00:34:26.140 thinking like we so rarely see women unenhanced or unchanged women's bodies as they age and and

00:34:34.960 i think about i think about that a lot and also you know for my son you know seeing what my body

00:34:39.240 actually looks like and what expectations are for him as he grows older um and and if he spends time

00:34:45.480 with girls yep yep yep yep yep yep yep all the things well i love you as a fulcron i think you're

00:34:52.580 a hot fulcron oh thank you i'm you know i'm doing my best you're doing it you're doing it thank you

00:34:58.120 yeah uh tell everyone where they can find you find more of your things um so i have a newsletter at

00:35:05.640 the new york times my name is jessica gross it is spelled g-r-o-s-e if you just google jessica

00:35:10.900 gross new york times newsletter you will find it and be and you should subscribe to it love my

00:35:15.960 subscribers um i am on instagram at jess gross writes uh i'm also now on blue sky which i'm

00:35:24.160 ambivalent about um i haven't made the leap i haven't made the leap i yeah i left twitter not

00:35:30.660 because for like I left Twitter before the X situation okay it just wasn't fun anymore it

00:35:36.800 wasn't for me yeah and that's why I left I'm not trying to be like flouncing or making a I didn't

00:35:43.020 announce that I was leaving I was just like this I'm not enjoying this anymore no I'm Irish exited

00:35:47.720 Twitter yeah yeah I mean I kind of think it's corny when people like I'm leaving it's like okay

00:35:54.120 so i'm not done twitter of a press release friend yeah i'm not on twitter anymore i am on blue sky

00:36:01.800 i it has the same problems that twitter did in terms of like i don't know i'm having a good

00:36:06.800 time here because i'm like if i wanted to have bad faith political arguments like i just don't

00:36:12.740 they're not fun i'm not having fun doing that in this particular moment um but i am there for now

00:36:18.500 um but yeah mostly i put the energy i try to really put the energy into the newsletter and

00:36:23.440 have you know complete real thoughts with research and and uh and real long form writing yeah i just

00:36:30.440 i didn't i'm not doing the blue sky thing yet because i'm like there's only so many places i

00:36:34.140 can focus my energy and but also i'm just like again i'm not mature enough to not argue with

00:36:42.020 people that's my problem yeah like i respect to those who can do it without it ruining their day

00:36:48.520 i'm just like i don't want to spend any more of my life having discussions with people who are

00:36:55.340 interpreting my words in the in a way that i didn't say them yes yes yes and yes and that's

00:37:03.020 what's going to happen on all of these hot take platforms i'm just like yeah i'm not even like

00:37:07.760 you're you're arguing with a ghost i didn't even say that that's not what i meant but and and you

00:37:14.380 know what like that is that is exhausting and i don't have the emotional maturity not to do that

00:37:18.180 either and so i just choose to remove myself from the situation as you i i'm saying i love that for

00:37:23.500 you i may do that for myself at some point i'm still feeling it out but like i'm i'm not optimistic

00:37:29.360 about my permanence on any text-based social media platform nope nope nope all right well let's just

00:37:34.500 subscribe to the newsletter the newsletter is wonderful yeah do that thank you so much

00:37:39.080 and that is all we have for today thank you for being here i love hanging out with you

00:37:45.360 Get your orders in for Everyone is Lying to You, the greatest trad wife murder mystery of all time.

00:37:52.320 Just Google it. Everyone is Lying to You. You can order it wherever you get books.

00:37:58.020 And it's just really important to order it right now, like right now, because now is when Barnes

00:38:03.900 and Noble and Target and Amazon, it's when they are putting in all of their big orders.

00:38:10.680 So my publisher is deciding how many to print.

00:38:14.700 That's why I keep asking you.

00:38:16.620 Also, it's a great book.

00:38:18.020 And, and I made the decision for it to come out in paperback because it comes out in July.

00:38:23.640 And so you don't want a hardcover on the beach.

00:38:25.600 You want to throw that baby in your beach bag.

00:38:27.520 Everyone is lying to you.

00:38:28.640 Get your orders in right now.

00:38:30.540 And then it's going to be like a surprise present to yourself in July.

00:38:36.200 Thanks for being here.

00:38:37.400 I love having you.

00:38:38.480 Talk more soon.

00:38:44.700 Thank you.

00:39:14.700 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - February 18, 2025

Going Full Crone With Jessica Grose

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