Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - How to Raise Successful Kids with Susan Dominus

00:00:00.000 saying how you feel out loud is terrifying but that's what hinge's new free audiobook

00:00:07.140 no ordinary love is all about it's a collection of real love stories about five couples that met

00:00:15.200 on hinge the stories are written and read by temby dinton hurst nicola dinan curtis garner

00:00:20.700 raven smith and rufy thorpe i hunter harris wrote and read the forward the audiobook's out now give

00:00:27.940 it a listen. What makes one kid in a family grow up to be a world-class novelist while another

00:00:41.300 becomes an Olympic triathlete? And the third launches a groundbreaking healthcare company.

00:00:48.860 Is it nature? Is it nurture? Maybe it's sibling rivalry and competitiveness,

00:00:54.340 or maybe their parents just served them the right snacks. I don't know. A lot of it also

00:00:59.980 feels like a whole lot of luck to me. Today, I'm talking to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

00:01:05.840 Susan Dominus about her fascinating new book, The Family Dynamic, A Journey into the Mystery

00:01:11.360 of Sibling Success. It's a sweeping narrative that profiles six extraordinary families,

00:01:17.680 some of them pretty famous and some just quietly brilliant, and explores how multiple children

00:01:23.680 under one roof can grow up to redefine what success looks like. And one of the things I

00:01:30.120 love about this book is that success can mean a lot of different things. Success can mean going

00:01:36.140 out and founding a really big, important company in Silicon Valley, or it can mean being an

00:01:43.020 incredible artist or musician or finding new and fascinating ways to help people and change the

00:01:50.300 world. Like there's no one metric for success here. And I love that about this book. Susan also

00:01:57.140 writes nonfiction like fiction. Her narrative is so compelling, so interesting. And I gotta say,

00:02:04.060 you all know that I read so many parenting books. And this is one of the few that I've read recently

00:02:10.720 that has given me a lot less anxiety. And in fact, it's given me permission to feel like maybe I

00:02:18.700 could possibly, just possibly parent a little bit less. Hi, Susan. Hi, Cho. My first question for

00:02:34.680 you is, do my kids' siblings have more of an impact on them, more of an impact maybe on their

00:02:41.500 future success than I could ever have? I can't say definitively one way or the other. What I

00:02:48.740 tend to say is that we overestimate the effects that parents have on our kids, the decisions they

00:02:56.320 make. Should we have a chore chart? Should we not have a chore chart? We overestimate how much

00:02:59.880 these little variations that loving parents agonize over make a difference in these outcomes.

00:03:04.700 And I think we do underestimate the influence that siblings have on each other. That's what I

00:03:08.820 found in the reporting for my book, The Family Dynamic. Well, you've been reporting this book

00:03:13.680 for the past eight years, right? Maybe even more. I try not to think about it too much.

00:03:19.020 Yeah, no. If you think about it, you go into a death spiral. You've been reporting it while

00:03:22.920 raising two kids. How has reporting this impacted how you parent?

00:03:28.260 I would say the main thing is that, first of all, a lot of the parents in here

00:03:35.020 we're not aggressive over-parenters. I think that we all know that over-parenting

00:03:41.620 is demotivating for kids, but still we always have the sense that we should be doing more.

00:03:47.880 We should be able to get our kids too. Why don't we encourage them to try this?

00:03:53.100 And I think a lot of the parents in this book, they modeled incredibly hard work.

00:03:58.320 They gave their kids tons of opportunities, but they really stepped back. So one of the

00:04:03.680 mothers I admire most in the book is a woman named Taruko Paulus, whose daughter is the

00:04:08.540 legendary Broadway director, Diane Paulus, a real trailblazer in her field and super innovative.

00:04:14.280 Sister's a world-class harpist. And her brother was one of the founders of New York One, basically

00:04:21.940 this very innovative, creative family. Just scrubs, just total scrubs of a family.

00:04:27.080 And so anyway, when Diane was very small, they lived in New York City. And so she was lucky

00:04:31.580 enough to dance with the American Ballet Theater at a very young age. And her mother came to every

00:04:36.360 single performance. But what she said about her mom was that whether it was on the playground

00:04:41.680 where Diane would do performances for her mom, or whether it was with the theater,

00:04:46.780 her mom had a way of watching without desire, meaning she was there to love her daughter,

00:04:51.660 but there wasn't the sense that you now have to gratify me with your superior performance.

00:04:55.940 I'm there for you, but that is different from I'm scrutinizing you or I'm watching to give

00:05:01.460 you feedback or I'm watching with a critical eye.

00:05:05.180 I love that.

00:05:05.800 And I love the messaging that there is a lot of over-parenting right now.

00:05:10.660 And perhaps if we took a step back, that that might be more beneficial for our kids.

00:05:15.820 Because I've got to say, I find it very overwhelming that possibly every single little thing that

00:05:22.340 I do. Every little decision, what camp I enroll them in or don't enroll them in because I've

00:05:27.500 enrolled them in nothing for this summer. It's going to be fine. Yeah. The pivotal moment that

00:05:33.680 leads to their future success. And so that messaging brought me so much joy. And I think

00:05:38.960 that there's a lot parents can learn from in this book about maybe taking a step back and

00:05:44.640 it's more than okay. It could actually be great for these kids. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because

00:05:50.040 there's a really interesting study that is with basically toddlers or even younger than toddlers,

00:05:55.360 somewhere between baby and toddler. And they find that when the parents intervene,

00:06:00.020 if a child is doing a puzzle, then the child is less motivated to try hard the next time a puzzle

00:06:05.580 is put in front of them. And it's, you know, that they tried it with parents and they also tried it

00:06:09.940 with just regular kind of researchers so that, because you could argue, oh, well, the parent

00:06:14.840 knows the child's not going to be able to finish. No, the researchers don't know the kid. They're

00:06:17.760 just intervening as part of the exercise. And it's always demotivating. I think that carries

00:06:22.420 through. So not only are you misguided in thinking that you can, quote unquote, make your kid do or

00:06:28.400 be something that isn't interesting to that child intrinsically, but you can actually demotivate

00:06:34.020 that child if you get too involved in whatever it is that they're doing. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

00:06:39.420 and I've found that, especially, although I will say I do forget it every time. But now we have a

00:06:46.140 toddler again for the third time. Wow. Yeah. What were you going to say? Well, one of my favorite

00:06:53.680 people in the book is this woman, Julia Leonard. She's a researcher. She has her own developmental

00:06:58.320 studies lab, basically, a child development lab at Yale. It's like the Julia Leonard learning lab

00:07:03.220 at Yale. And she herself is a very motivated, energetic person. But I just want to tell you

00:07:09.780 about the research she did with toddlers in particular, because I thought it was so interesting.

00:07:12.540 Please do. Because we are just like every morning, we're like, oh my God, really?

00:07:16.140 yeah so they basically um had kids who are toddlers try to put on um maybe they're more

00:07:24.020 like four years old four or five years old um they went to a children's museum and in the dressing

00:07:28.640 room there was like a playroom and the kids had um these hockey uniforms they had to put on

00:07:32.880 and there was in some of the dressing rooms there was a sign that said letting kids try to dress

00:07:37.720 themselves is good for their growth and in another one it says dress up can be fun and so the parents

00:07:43.060 who saw the cue that like learning and growth could come from just trying to get something

00:07:47.520 complicated onto your body, like a hockey, ice hockey uniform. They let their kids struggle

00:07:52.600 longer. And by the way, the kids were able to do it. But the parents tended to underestimate the

00:07:57.960 kid's ability to get things done by themselves. So that was like where there was no sign cuing

00:08:03.000 parents to let their children learn from this experience. They went ahead and they intervened.

00:08:07.000 And so there's just this idea that in general, for one thing, we're all rushing to get out the door.

00:08:10.800 so maybe we're the ones who are tying the shoelaces. But there is, in general, she finds

00:08:15.820 that toddlers and four-year-olds, five-year-olds, they actually are capable of doing more than we

00:08:22.000 think they are in their day-to-day experiences, and that parents underestimate the value of letting

00:08:27.300 them do those things. They think, oh, it's really important that we do this enrichment puzzle.

00:08:31.300 No, it's really important that you let your kids sit there and struggle until the kid ties the

00:08:35.860 shoelaces or gets the buttons right and in the right order or ties their own karate gi. By the

00:08:42.240 way, I never learned to tie one of those things myself. So I always had to ask some other mother,

00:08:45.740 but I should have let my kid figure it out on his own anyway. So I think that if I could go back and

00:08:50.000 do it again, that's something I would have taken to heart. Yeah. Yeah. It is remarkable the things

00:08:54.340 they can do on their own. Last night after my husband put the toddler to bed, she's two and a

00:08:59.240 half, I checked on her and she had removed her pajama pants, her underwear, which goes over a 0.96

00:09:08.300 diaper and her diaper taken off the diaper, thrown it across the room, put the underwear and the 1.00

00:09:13.400 pajama pants back on herself. Wow. Wow. I know. I know. It's fascinating. I mean, there are other 0.71

00:09:18.720 little things about independence that I, right. Let them be independent. You'll see, just see what

00:09:22.240 they can do. I, Janine Groff is the mother of Sarah True, who's an Olympic triathlete and Lauren

00:09:27.600 Groff, who is this incredible novelist. Oh, which by the way, I loved this because until I read your

00:09:32.500 book and I'm a big Lauren Groff fan, but until I read your book, I had no idea about the rest of

00:09:38.940 her family. I loved this part of it. Oh, I love it too. Thank you. I, as soon as I, so I often do,

00:09:44.080 this is why I wrote the book is I often go down rabbit holes about the childhoods of people I'm

00:09:48.540 obsessed with. So I was on Lauren's, why was I reading Lauren's Wikipedia page? No other reason,

00:09:52.920 just obsessed and came across the fact that her sister was an Olympic triathlete. And it was a 0.69

00:09:56.860 very galvanizing moment. So I'd always been thinking about a book like this. And then I was

00:09:59.860 like, I am so desperately curious to find out what that family was like. I have to write this book.

00:10:04.360 Like what was going on and how did that happen? And how are they both so incredible basically?

00:10:08.760 And then of course they think their brother is like the most impressive one in the family.

00:10:12.300 Yeah. Tell everyone what their brother does. So their brother went to like, you know,

00:10:16.040 business school and medical school, somewhere very fancy, maybe it was Penn as a matter of fact,

00:10:19.920 and then became a serial healthcare entrepreneur and has, as I understand it, been wildly successful.

00:10:26.860 financially, doing, I have to say, good in the world, like creating kind of at-home hospice

00:10:31.760 systems, things that are innovative and creative and go big. Just like Lauren's novels go big

00:10:38.700 and have big ideas, his healthcare ideas are really big. And Sarah True wasn't going to just

00:10:42.780 be a weekend athlete. She was an Olympic triathlete, and now she runs Ironman. And Wits,

00:10:48.320 they're just an incredible family. Their mom did this tiny little thing that I think says so much,

00:10:53.160 which is that she put, for her grandchildren, she puts all the plastic plates and glasses

00:10:58.940 in the bottom cabinet so the kids can help themselves. It's such a small thing. I had a

00:11:04.120 bottom cabinet. I didn't put the plastic. It would have been great to say, go get yourself a plate,

00:11:08.420 go get yourself, there's a stepstool. Just it's a tiny thing. It tells you that she sort of thinks

00:11:12.860 in a really thoughtful way about fostering independence in her children. And they were

00:11:17.360 all about that. Oh, yes. Actually, that makes me feel really good because we have a drawer

00:11:22.200 with the cups. And now I say to my children, I do, when they, right, as soon as I sit down,

00:11:28.200 they're like, can I have water? And I'm like, sure, go get it. Huge, huge. I had 16-year-old

00:11:35.320 boys who were like, mom, can I get some water? And they're 16 years old. I mean, you've got to

00:11:38.600 start that stuff early. Yes, they're 18 now. I hope they don't do it. I feel so, I feel so

00:11:43.220 validated. So validated. These little things, and kids love it. Kids love to be independent

00:11:47.440 and autonomous. And being courageous is the other thing I talk about as one of the themes of the

00:11:51.300 book, is that I think that it wasn't just that the parents fostered independence. It wasn't just

00:11:56.020 that they didn't over-involve themselves. They were brave enough to let their kids take real

00:12:00.940 risks. They were brave enough to let their kids risk failure. Yeah. There's a story about Sarah

00:12:07.940 True being 14 years old and telling her parents she wanted to swim this nine-mile lake right

00:12:12.740 outside their home. And their parents, she was a little bit fragile, I gather, as a teenager,

00:12:18.960 and they were afraid she would try and fail and it would be like a devastating experience for her

00:12:23.700 and they had other things they had on their agenda that day they didn't really want to do it

00:12:27.100 they did do it dad rode alongside her and i mean he even had his brother drive along the lake in

00:12:33.520 case you know he's assuming they'd have to stop halfway through and many people do on that swim

00:12:37.360 not make it it's nine miles it takes like five hours i can't i can't even imagine i'm a person

00:12:42.620 who who just swam a half mile in triathlon i'm like that's the longest i'm ever doing

00:12:47.260 in open water. Can you imagine nine miles? No, I cannot. I thought I was going to die.

00:12:50.900 And she broke the town record for men and women and it still stands. Oh my God.

00:12:57.740 So anyway, what a formative moment. They had no idea she had it in her. She kind of had it,

00:13:02.480 thought she maybe had it in her. So she went for it. One of the things, stories I find most moving

00:13:07.640 as a parent that I think a lot about, Marilyn Holifield, somebody I profile in the book,

00:13:14.300 She was 15 years old, I think, and she was growing up in Tallahassee.

00:13:20.440 And for the first year, the best high school in Tallahassee was going to open school to

00:13:25.940 Black students. 1.00

00:13:26.800 It was finally desegregating. 1.00

00:13:28.580 Years after Brown v. Bordevette, it took a long time to get a plan in place at a lot

00:13:32.280 of these cities.

00:13:33.900 And she came to her parents and said, I want to go because she wanted to go to the best

00:13:39.320 high school in Tallahassee.

00:13:40.560 She was a great student and she wanted the best.

00:13:43.420 And her parents had to have known it was going to be awful and really traumatic even.

00:13:51.340 And I think they knew her well enough to know that she could handle it.

00:13:55.940 And they did not stand in her way.

00:13:57.820 And it was just as hard as they no doubt knew it would be.

00:14:01.540 It was really quite awful.

00:14:04.080 But it was also so formative.

00:14:06.820 And I don't know if Marilyn would say she has regrets or not.

00:14:10.320 but I know she would say it's made her somebody, there's nothing you can throw at Marilyn that she

00:14:15.600 cannot handle. It's so inspiring. And one of the things that I think is just makes this book so

00:14:23.060 enjoyable to read. I read a lot of parenting books for this podcast and to try to figure out what the

00:14:29.380 hell I'm doing, but it's the storytelling here. And you just, you spend so much time with these

00:14:35.960 families. They're like characters in a novel, which I love. I feel like I know them.

00:14:42.580 I worship fiction writers like you. I wish I could write fiction, but the best I can aspire

00:14:46.180 to do is write in novelistic detail. So that means, I mean, I hope people who read it experience

00:14:51.000 it that way. Although maybe it's even, I like to think all the more incredible because you know,

00:14:54.920 it's true. Yes. Yes. And I think people absolutely will. They will. They're going to be so entranced

00:15:01.480 by these characters, by their stories. I think they're going to forget that they're reading

00:15:04.780 nonfiction, to be honest. That should be the blurb on the back of the book.

00:15:09.720 Done. We'll throw it up on the Amazon. Yeah. You'll forget you're reading nonfiction.

00:15:14.180 I love that. That is high praise and that is definitely what I aspire to. And I do have to

00:15:20.400 say that one of the things that I decided when I went into this book was that I was only going to

00:15:24.640 write about families where I really loved the family and really admired them. I didn't want

00:15:29.960 to write about certain families who are very well-known, but also maybe have a kind of

00:15:34.380 complicated streak to them. I mean, look, these families are all complicated because they're

00:15:39.620 families. And by the way- Because all families are complicated. Exactly.

00:15:42.720 And I want people to think like, oh, this is a book about high-achieving families.

00:15:45.800 One of my friends said to me, when I set out to write this book, she said,

00:15:50.120 you're going to write a book about high-achieving families. They're like perfect people. Everything

00:15:53.260 goes right for them. How is that going to be an interesting book? And I remember I had a chill

00:15:58.260 And I thought, maybe she's right.

00:15:59.480 This is going to be boring.

00:16:00.360 They all grew up in happy households, and then they just went on to great success.

00:16:04.020 You know, that is not true.

00:16:05.700 Like, people who are achieving at that high of a level are complicated.

00:16:10.840 They are driven.

00:16:11.700 They are competitive.

00:16:12.940 And there is a cost to ambition.

00:16:15.060 And I don't think anybody I interviewed would say that the success they achieved did not

00:16:19.840 come with a real cost.

00:16:21.400 And I think I explore that in the book pretty thoroughly.

00:16:24.560 I think you absolutely do.

00:16:25.600 You do.

00:16:25.960 let's take one quick break. And when we get back, I want to talk about some of the challenges that

00:16:30.980 these families have faced. And also just describe some of the families to me again, because it just

00:16:36.300 comes off as such a beautiful narrative that I want to give our listeners just a little bit of

00:16:42.140 a little just just a small taste of who we're talking about here. I would love that.

00:16:46.920 i want to date with roars carty says roars rucker asks this is the love story of real

00:16:58.340 hinge couple carty and rocker written and read by me nicola dinan listen to the free audiobook now

00:17:05.840 chew on this bold question from dentine gum is it ever okay to compliment a millennial

00:17:14.140 on their skinny jeans in 2026. Dentine, too bold. 0.86

00:17:26.660 Okay, we are back. Tell us about some of these families. Who are they?

00:17:32.320 Well, we've already talked about the Groffs a little bit, so you know who they are.

00:17:35.580 Another family is the Murguia family. So the Murguias grew up, there were nine family members

00:17:40.720 in a house in Kansas City, Kansas, of maybe two rooms, two and a half rooms. Very humble 1.00

00:17:46.060 circumstances. Their mom was an immigrant. Their dad worked at a factory, spoke Spanish in the

00:17:51.520 home, very religious and very humble. Janet Murguia now runs UnidosUS, which is the single

00:17:58.940 largest Latino civil rights organization in the country. Her brother is one of the, probably the

00:18:06.100 most prominent Latino philanthropists in the country. Their sister, Janet's twin sister,

00:18:12.000 Mary Murguia, is the chief judge of the Ninth Circuit and is an incredible woman as well.

00:18:18.820 And then another brother was a federal judge. So they had a very humble upbringing, but they

00:18:23.740 really rose to great prominence, four of the seven siblings, I would say. And they are, again,

00:18:30.060 I was very inspired by them and they really opened up their story about the way, I think their story

00:18:34.920 is very much about how siblings influence each other. Their parents were such dignified and

00:18:41.240 industrious people that I think they wanted to honor them. Everything they did was in an effort

00:18:46.240 to enhance what they called, what Ramon, the philanthropist called the Murguia brand. You know,

00:18:51.700 it was like upholding their, it was honoring their parents' name. But they also really wanted to

00:18:57.960 model for other Latino immigrants that there was opportunity in the U.S. to be had and that they

00:19:03.960 that they wanted to inspire people. So they spoke a lot to the press, but they also just lived these

00:19:09.780 incredibly prominent lives of leadership, helping each other along the way, a lot of networking.

00:19:14.840 When you come from a disadvantaged family, I think the siblings matter. We know that they

00:19:18.360 matter more in terms of how they influence each other at school academically, because if you don't

00:19:25.220 have tons of money, you don't have as much resources to differentiate. It's not like one

00:19:29.160 is running around to fencing and the other one is becoming a theater star and taking acting lessons

00:19:33.380 or voice lessons, they all got law degrees. And because they all had law degrees, they were moving

00:19:39.840 in just similar enough circles that they could... Ramon ran one of Carlos's campaigns when he ran

00:19:46.360 for a certain judgeship. And when Janet was trying to figure out what to do after being very high

00:19:52.780 level in Al Gore's campaign, her brother had been on the board of this organization that then brought

00:19:57.180 her in. You really see the sibling connections there and how none of them could probably have

00:20:02.000 gotten as far as they did without each other. And they're also just very funny and charming people.

00:20:05.840 So I love the Murguias and really admire them. Another family is the Paulus family who we talked

00:20:11.400 about a little bit as well. And then the Wojciskis are maybe one of the best known families in the

00:20:15.240 book. That's how you say it. I've said Wojcicki forever. I did too for a long time. It's Wojcicki,

00:20:21.320 yes. And I've also been obsessed with this family forever, by the way. So I'm so happy that you

00:20:25.960 profiled them. Yes, I was too. I really have been too. So Anne Wojcicki founded 23andMe,

00:20:33.380 the home genetic testing company, direct-to-consumer genetic testing company,

00:20:38.640 which has now gone into bankruptcy. But I think we can all agree that it was a tremendous service

00:20:43.260 that she offered people, and it was very innovative, and it's problematic. There's

00:20:46.980 some privacy concerns now. But she, I think, didn't just offer people a way to figure out 0.97

00:20:52.260 who they were related to, I think that she actually helped really, um, helped popularize

00:20:57.800 a basic understanding of what genetic testing is and how it works and how to educate us all about

00:21:03.000 that. And it's just a, you know, it was, it was a real moment in time for sure. And then her sister,

00:21:08.700 um, Susan Wojcicki, who so sadly died, um, in the past year, um, very young was the CEO of YouTube

00:21:16.860 and had basically talked the people at Google into buying it,

00:21:22.040 which was obviously a great move for them and hugely lucrative

00:21:25.980 and was also very instrumental in building Google, by the way.

00:21:30.340 So she was just a third sister is a PhD and a professor

00:21:35.920 at the University of California, San Francisco.

00:21:38.220 She's an epidemiologist, if I'm not mistaken, who's very private. 0.93

00:21:42.020 But I mean, just to have two women in STEM

00:21:44.380 achieve at that kind of high level is just extraordinary. And in the chapter about the

00:21:50.300 Wojcicki's, I do give credit to their mother, Esther Wojcicki, who's a legendary journalism

00:21:54.160 professor. And she went on to write a book actually about how to raise successful children.

00:21:59.420 I do also poke fun a little bit about the idea that it was all something that the parents kind

00:22:04.620 of engineered because obviously these were very bright young women. Their father was the head of

00:22:10.100 the physics department at Stanford, you know, and a hugely prominent person. Esther is incredible.

00:22:16.920 They had a lot of, they were very gifted. They, you know, it obviously came into the world with

00:22:20.740 this incredible genetic inheritance and they were coming of age in Silicon Valley at a time of great

00:22:25.840 growth and opportunity. So, so they were very, very successful. I think their mom was a force

00:22:30.920 of nature and a lot of things had to go right. I mean, one of the things I talk about in this book

00:22:35.320 a lot is luck. I think that most humble, successful people will acknowledge that a lot of things

00:22:41.000 came together that were just lucky for them. I love that you acknowledge it. I do. I do.

00:22:46.280 Because I think that luck plays such a huge part in all success, right?

00:22:51.580 Yeah, I do think so too. And there's even a book called Luck and Success that really explores all

00:22:55.080 of that. It was called Success and Luck that I love. But yeah, Sergey Brin rented... So Susan

00:23:00.760 Majiski had just bought a house and she had a garage that had, she wanted to rent out. And

00:23:06.880 Sergey Brin, who founded Google, um, rented it. And so that's how she ended up working for them.

00:23:13.760 But if somebody else had rented it, she, I'm sure would have been very successful in whatever she

00:23:17.180 did. Would she have been the CEO of YouTube, you know, or had a job at that level of cultural

00:23:22.480 influence? I mean, think about the cultural influence these two women had about the way 1.00

00:23:27.220 that and change the way we think about genetics the way that um susan you know it's funny you

00:23:32.860 talk about nature and nurture and like um the environment for better or for worse youtube

00:23:38.880 like doubles whatever you're in whatever you're drawn to naturally that then becomes your

00:23:44.520 environment like whatever you click on on youtube right that is your exposure yes it's completely

00:23:49.080 changed media it's completely changed the world of media yes it's almost completely changed nature

00:23:54.440 nurture, right? Because you create your own nurture, you create your own environment. And

00:24:00.560 then YouTube triples down on whatever you're drawn to and feeds you more and more of it in

00:24:06.120 more extreme forms. It's dangerous. I'm not saying these people only did good in the world. There are

00:24:11.460 real problems with all of it, but they were hugely monumentally influential.

00:24:17.100 Huge, huge problems with all of it, but also there's huge problems with huge ideas and with

00:24:21.060 huge success with everything. Right. It's, and it's very hard to predict how things are going to

00:24:24.820 unfold, you know, like did, did, did Esther know when she decided she was going to raise daughters

00:24:29.040 like no other, how much was going to come from that, you know, ambition that she had. And I it's,

00:24:34.880 it's, you know, it, yeah, I mean, I'm very interested throughout the book. I think I'm

00:24:39.540 very interested in the ways that just as Esther, just as, you know, Ann Wojcicki couldn't have

00:24:45.640 anticipated all that would come of founding 23andMe, parents can't anticipate how the decisions

00:24:52.020 they make for their children are actually going to play out. All we can do is try our best and

00:24:57.200 know that every choice we have could be an opportunity for something wonderful to happen

00:25:00.860 and focus on that rather than worrying about how badly things might also turn out.

00:25:06.160 Well, I mean, there's really no point in the worry because so much of the worry just...

00:25:13.260 And this is something I love that I sound so wise now, but I'm like, you know, it only

00:25:17.180 comes with time.

00:25:19.180 So much of the worry is pointless because it's completely out of our control.

00:25:23.820 No, I really do think that.

00:25:24.780 And so it's weird because I wrote this book about high achieving families.

00:25:27.700 And I think that people expect to read it and feel a little bit anxious, like, oh, what

00:25:32.600 can I be doing more than I'm not doing?

00:25:35.100 I didn't feel I didn't feel that way at all.

00:25:36.800 I don't feel that way at all.

00:25:37.640 I feel I feel actually less anxious than usual.

00:25:41.580 That was my goal, actually, with this book is to say, you know, what you said, we should talk a little bit about some of the burdens of that ambition. And yes, I think it's, you know, I think in the Grau family, they spoke really open with me about a certain, about when you're that driven, it's very hard to, I think, I think their parents in some ways are more relaxed than the kids are. But I think they would all say it's kind of never enough, you know, that there's always this feeling that they could be doing more.

00:26:06.920 Adam feels he could be doing more to help people.

00:26:08.920 There's a better idea out there

00:26:10.220 than the one he's been focusing on.

00:26:12.580 Lauren is never satisfied with her novel,

00:26:14.820 the drive that she wants to write big,

00:26:19.720 like the kind of book that makes you

00:26:21.500 see the world differently and reevaluate

00:26:25.600 and be inspired and blown away.

00:26:27.640 And by the way, I think she does.

00:26:29.100 I love that.

00:26:29.440 I think she does.

00:26:30.280 Yeah.

00:26:30.540 I really do.

00:26:31.320 Oh my God.

00:26:31.560 I think about the Vasta Wild so often.

00:26:33.800 You do?

00:26:34.700 So often.

00:26:35.580 Yes.

00:26:35.700 My friend Casey and I up in the Catskills, we will just be walking through the woods and we bring it up on a regular basis.

00:26:43.280 Well, so, you know, talk about the sibling effect.

00:26:45.240 I've never actually asked Lauren about this.

00:26:47.040 But, you know, The Vaster Wilds is about a young woman who is basically running through the woods for her life and, you know, enduring incredible physical hardship in an effort to survive.

00:26:57.880 And obviously, Sarah True is not in any mortal peril, but the level of physical duress that

00:27:04.200 she puts herself through professionally is something that is, I think, must have been

00:27:11.020 on Lauren's mind as she wrote that.

00:27:13.420 I mean, I do know it's something that Lauren thought about when she wrote that book.

00:27:16.860 And I think it's really, you have to be that close to a sibling to want to inhabit that

00:27:23.240 mind that entirely.

00:27:25.720 And so the idea that, you know, siblings can help you professionally, but they also get

00:27:29.880 into your brain and they shape the way that you think and what you aspire to.

00:27:34.620 I do think all of that is true.

00:27:36.640 And I loved reading about that because I'm an only child.

00:27:39.640 And yeah, yeah.

00:27:42.200 And so I really wanted my kids to have siblings and watching how they are with each other

00:27:49.420 and how they develop in like at odds and then also in combination with the other ones.

00:27:56.200 That's what made me have the third because I was like, oh, oh my gosh, like I love watching

00:28:00.740 this, but anything having to do with siblings is fascinating to me because I didn't have

00:28:04.980 it for so long.

00:28:06.720 Well, you know, I will say this.

00:28:07.720 There is a lot of heartache that comes from siblings too, right?

00:28:10.360 Like it can go the other way.

00:28:11.660 Like somebody at the, I was at a party last night in honor of the book and somebody at

00:28:19.420 I think it was, yeah, she shall remain nameless.

00:28:22.660 But she said that no one can make you angrier than a sibling.

00:28:26.860 I believe that.

00:28:27.800 No one can make you go from zero to 90 faster than a sibling.

00:28:31.880 I just wrote something for O Magazine about my own sister who lives around the corner

00:28:35.880 from me.

00:28:36.780 And we go on a lot of walks together and we are really different people.

00:28:40.540 And if you go on a walk with somebody, you know, four times a week and you are very different

00:28:43.600 people and you are sisters, you're going to fight.

00:28:46.180 Like, and we do.

00:28:47.220 we really have had some serious blow ups. Like I have stormed off heart racing, you know, it feels

00:28:53.420 apocalyptic when you have a big fight with your sister. Now, it's true. I will also do anything

00:28:58.740 for my sister. I know she would do anything for me. And she's also provided me so much joy,

00:29:02.840 comfort, laughter, all those things. I guess I'm just saying it's like, there's, you know,

00:29:08.180 these things can be fraught as well. Well, and Lauren told you that, you know, so much of her

00:29:14.060 drive was because of Adam, because she was seeing herself in juxtaposition with him, right?

00:29:19.600 And I think she definitely would say she's outgrown it now, but I think she said for a

00:29:23.200 large part of her life, I think she told me 90% of what drove her was her older brother. And I

00:29:28.760 think by that she meant her desire to prove wrong whatever he thought about her. She imagined he did

00:29:37.200 not think as highly of her as she deserved. Whether it was true or not, who knows, right?

00:29:40.340 older brothers are just tormentors. That's what they're designed to do. And yeah, for her,

00:29:47.860 it was really formative. And it was really surprising to me. I was shocked when she told

00:29:51.480 me that. Well, I already see that in my five-year-old girl and my seven-year-old boy.

00:29:56.220 She is constantly thinking about what he thinks about her. He never thinks about what she thinks

00:30:00.240 about him, by the way. That's exactly what Adam would have said. He was like,

00:30:02.940 I don't remember any of this. But then again, I wasn't really thinking about her very much.

00:30:05.680 And Lauren would probably say, yeah, you weren't thinking about me very much. And I was thinking

00:30:09.720 about you and that's infuriating, right? Yes. Exactly. I mean, I felt that so hard. I felt

00:30:15.060 it so hard. Okay. Let's take one more quick break. And when we get back, let's, let's get

00:30:19.180 into some of those, those common themes. I love what you talk about, about the families being

00:30:24.800 overcomers and thwarted parents. And I just want to hear about a little bit more of those

00:30:30.900 commonalities. I would love to. Saying how you feel out loud is terrifying, but that's what Hinge's

00:30:42.800 new free audiobook, No Ordinary Love, is all about. It's a collection of real love stories

00:30:50.200 about five couples that met on Hinge. The stories are written and read by Tembi Dintonhurst,

00:30:55.580 Nicola Dinan, Curtis Garner, Raven Smith, and Rufy Thorpe. I, Hunter Harris, wrote and read

00:31:01.880 the foreword. The audiobook's out now. Give it a listen. We are back. I really liked the family

00:31:15.280 mottos that some of the families had. There was a lot of optimism. And I think about optimism

00:31:21.200 in parenting a lot, especially since we live in such a dumpster fire of a world right now,

00:31:27.380 I think remaining optimistic is still really important for our children.

00:31:33.200 So, you know, I think that when I started to write this book, it was a book about high

00:31:36.800 achieving kids, but I was also just really interested in families. What I wanted to know

00:31:40.380 is what makes a kid think that he could write an award-winning novel or could be an Olympic

00:31:46.680 athlete. I mean, what were the parents saying at home? My parents, I adore them. The family

00:31:53.880 sayings that I remember, they weren't family sayings, but I remember my father saying things

00:31:57.500 like, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is, which is by the way, a great motto

00:32:02.480 for a journalist. The other thing my father used to say a lot was, there's no such thing as a free

00:32:10.280 lunch. These are such the kinds of things that would be like, you'd have on your screensaver

00:32:14.300 as a journalist. But they're not optimistic. They're not full of possibility. And a lot of

00:32:20.540 these families were full of possibility. So the Murguias, yes, their mom used to say,

00:32:24.300 with God's help, all things are possible. And the Hall of Fields, these civil rights activists,

00:32:28.440 the unspoken motto Marilyn said in that house was all things possible. And their parents had

00:32:33.600 also demonstrated that in the sense that Marilyn's mother wanted to start a school for Black women 0.99

00:32:40.720 to train to become nurses. And one didn't exist like that. And she would petition the state and 0.99

00:32:45.600 ask for funding. And then she'd write again, she got turned down. And then she made it happen.

00:32:49.680 She finally made it happen. And as a result of that, there were so many women who literally 1.00

00:32:55.720 had been picking cotton, who were able to enter the middle class. One of them went on to get a 1.00

00:33:01.220 PhD. She was a superb educator. So there's a kind of parent I call in the book, an overcomer. It's

00:33:07.600 a theme that runs through the book. And although most of the families are from the 20th or 21st

00:33:14.180 century, I was also as a child obsessed with the Bronte family. Oh, who wasn't? Who still isn't?

00:33:20.500 I mean, I still find myself down a Wikipedia rabbit hole about the Brontes.

00:33:24.760 Oh, good. So then I hope you enjoy that stuff in the book. Patrick Bronte was a classic. They

00:33:29.360 didn't just grow up in a house. What did I know about the Brontes? Oh, their dad was like a

00:33:33.240 minister and they lived in Haworth. Okay. He was a minister. It's true. But he was also Irish at a

00:33:38.560 time when there was tremendous racism against the Irish, or I'm not even sure what the term is,

00:33:43.620 but it was not easy to jump class if you were Irish. And he had grown up in not poverty,

00:33:49.560 but very humbly. I mean, supposedly like dirt floor kind of home. And his parents probably

00:33:56.420 did not even know how to read. And yet he ended up on a scholarship at Cambridge because he was

00:34:01.300 so bright and so charming. So he was an overcomer who had overcome racism. He'd overcome poverty

00:34:06.840 to become this very educated minister of great stature where they lived. And I think that his

00:34:13.220 daughters, they didn't want to be ministers, but I think they saw that our family is extraordinary.

00:34:18.780 He wasn't famous, but he was quietly extraordinary. And that was true for a lot of the families I

00:34:23.780 wrote about. Esther Wojcicki was quietly extraordinary. She ran this legendary,

00:34:27.900 very huge journalism program. Her parents didn't even want her to go to college particularly,

00:34:32.920 you know, so she was kind of incredible. The Murguias, you know, really overcame great 0.83

00:34:37.880 financial hardship, their parents. I mean, their first home in Kansas City was, it didn't even

00:34:42.880 have, it didn't, it was Kansas City, Kansas, and it didn't even have a heating system. They had to

00:34:47.120 use like a generator just to heat the house. So they, I think that when you see that your parent

00:34:52.920 has overcome or overcome something extraordinary, it inspires you to think, I can do hard things

00:34:58.540 too. It's in my family culture and I believe in myself and my parents believe in me because

00:35:05.980 they believed in themselves as well. So yeah, there's just incredible optimism. That's one

00:35:10.640 of the themes that I saw for sure. One of the things that I think released me from a lot of

00:35:16.100 parenting anxiety, and I love anything that releases me from parenting anxiety.

00:35:20.700 You're doing great, Jo. I release you from parenting.

00:35:23.280 Thank you.

00:35:24.620 Just be loving and show up. That's all you can do.

00:35:27.440 Well, it's the idea to let parents parent and teachers teach.

00:35:32.540 I love this. I mean, this is something I think I did take away from the book. So

00:35:35.800 the Paulus family, they were so brilliant. The home life was incredibly warm, loving,

00:35:43.460 supportive, uncritical. There was a huge embrace of the arts. There was always music on. They

00:35:48.960 were always seeing theater. Their dad was always buying old pianos and learning how to tune them,

00:35:54.460 even though that wasn't his job. Just culture, art, music, constantly. They lived just a few

00:35:58.860 blocks from Lincoln Center, but it was a very warm, safe environment. They sent their kids

00:36:03.820 to classes and schools that were extraordinarily rigorous. So Janet had gone to a private high

00:36:13.360 school that also taught ballet. It was like a ballet kind of high school, ballet oriented. So

00:36:20.420 there was education there, but there was also a lot of discipline around the ballet. And then

00:36:24.160 she also, Janet went off to Interlochen to go to boarding school there. And Janet, same thing. She

00:36:31.380 danced with the American Ballet Theater. Obviously the training was extremely rigorous. So they got

00:36:36.080 used to being told, do better, try harder, but home was always, they could always come home at

00:36:41.560 the end of the day. And it was a warm, safe environment. And I love that idea because I

00:36:46.360 just feel like when parents are like, it's my job to make sure that my son knows how to be

00:36:50.720 conscientious and gritty, and then it imposes certain rules or restrictions or forces them to,

00:36:56.900 I don't know, whatever that thing would be. You can't go out unless you finish your thing by this

00:37:02.420 time or whatever. It just doesn't really end well. It's very rarely effective and it only

00:37:07.120 makes people unhappy. I mean, here's a story that really was formative. That's not in the book,

00:37:13.700 but it was formative for me. I ran into a friend whose son I knew was very, very, very bright.

00:37:19.980 And I asked him where he was going to college. And the dad named a school I hadn't heard of.

00:37:24.740 And he must have seen me sort of have a look on my face like, oh, great. But I hadn't heard of it.

00:37:28.960 And he said, you know, Sue, I have to tell you, my son was bored in high school. I knew he was

00:37:34.740 very bright. He didn't get good grades. And we fought about it for years. It didn't get the

00:37:42.460 results I wanted. And now he's leaving. And then that father cried. In other words, he had spent

00:37:48.560 four years trying to force his son to get better grades. It wasn't effective. And now all that time

00:37:55.120 that could have been spent enjoying each other, working on the relationship, being together,

00:37:59.480 it was too late. And now they have a great relationship. It's fine. But in that moment,

00:38:04.740 I could feel his grief. And I do think that at the end of the day, we know that relationships

00:38:08.820 are by far the most important thing for happiness and well-being, much more important than

00:38:13.460 achievements. And what do you want for your kid? Do you want them to go to the Ivy League school

00:38:18.420 or do you want to have that really beautiful relationship and enjoy the time you have with

00:38:22.280 them when they are living with you at home? Because as a mother who's now an empty nester,

00:38:25.820 I'm here to tell you, it goes by really fast. Oh, I believe you. But I also really just, 0.60

00:38:33.600 I can't internalize that right now. That is impossible for me right now.

00:38:38.360 There's so little also. I've had people say to me like, oh, my kid's in fourth, fifth grade and

00:38:44.060 he doesn't like to do his homework. And I was like, that's not your problem. That's the teacher's

00:38:47.820 problem. Let the teacher teach. You be mommy. Tell the teacher. The teacher knows he's not 0.66

00:38:52.020 doing the homework. Try to have a dialogue with the teacher about it if you can. And also, you've

00:38:58.200 got plenty of time. Kids change. Your fifth graders, you're too young to be worrying about

00:39:03.180 your kid's academic discipline, like worry about it a little bit later if you're going to worry

00:39:06.100 about it. But like right now, let them be a fifth grader and let the teacher worry about the homework.

00:39:10.440 Let the teacher worry about it. My husband all the time, because my husband and my seven-year-old

00:39:14.100 son share the same brain. It's like how elephants pass down knowledge to each other. They have some

00:39:19.260 of the same knowledge and the same quirks. And he's always like, well, he just has no attention

00:39:24.920 span. And I'm like, number one, he's seven. Fucking seven, man. And number two, neither do you.

00:39:31.220 and it all worked out okay for you also you know i mean you're a grown-ass man in the world who

00:39:37.300 is very functional so exactly yeah exactly it's just i don't know i think it's our expectations

00:39:42.920 sometimes especially for boys are unrealistic and you know we're quick to sort of pathologize or um

00:39:49.160 and you don't want your kid to suffer in school either right it's like it's like morale if you're

00:39:53.740 not like keeping up and that kind of thing but if your kid's perfectly happy and he's like not

00:39:57.640 turning in every piece of homework like i don't know if that's something you really have to worry

00:40:00.440 about that much, honestly. No, no. Well, and you know, one last thing that I want to say,

00:40:04.780 just some praise to shower on you is that when we talk about success, you didn't just talk about

00:40:11.800 one thing because I also don't like to consider success just a single kind of achievement. Just

00:40:18.260 like you go to the Ivy League, you know, you get this, like you get this certain kind of job

00:40:23.320 and you talk about success in so many different kinds of things. Like there's success, there's

00:40:28.960 success in the arts, there's success in athletics, there is success in business and in school and

00:40:35.880 academics. But it's just, it's a really broad measure of success. And I appreciate that so

00:40:41.200 much in this book. Well, you know, my best friend is Anya Epstein, who's a television showrunner

00:40:47.160 and screenwriter, very successful individual. And her brother is, do you follow sports at all?

00:40:53.900 Yes, yes. Just enough to know what I'm talking about.

00:40:56.760 Do you know who Theo Epstein is? He was the general manager of the Cubs and the Red Sox when

00:41:02.320 they both broke out of their losing streaks. I did not, but he sounds very successful.

00:41:06.860 People who like baseball worship Theo Epstein. He's a legend. Theo is a fraternal twin. And his

00:41:14.260 brother Paul Epstein is a beloved social worker in the Brookline schools in Massachusetts. And I

00:41:21.280 I can tell you right now that in that family, Paul is considered every bit as successful as,

00:41:28.420 I mean, Theo has been on the cover of Fortune magazine. He's quite affluent now. He is to

00:41:33.520 sports people, a household name. But they are so proud of the work that Paul, and they're so proud

00:41:40.740 of Theo, of course. They are equally proud of the work that Paul does for so many people. And I know

00:41:47.080 that the siblings and so many children, and I know that the siblings know that, feel it,

00:41:51.980 internalize it. It's just, yeah, that is, I just was asked on a questionnaire,

00:41:57.420 whose career do you admire the most? And I said, Laura Rubino. Laura Rubino was one of my twins'

00:42:05.120 kindergarten teachers. And in my town, she's revered. She's the person who everyone admires.

00:42:11.160 Everyone is desperate to have her kid get into her class. And she's done such great work for

00:42:15.460 so many people. She must go to sleep at night feeling so good about what she's contributed to

00:42:19.580 the world. So yeah, I do have a pretty broad idea of success. And it was very idiosyncratic,

00:42:24.840 the people that I wrote about in this book. I didn't write about people who came from privilege

00:42:29.480 and then went on to make even billions of dollars in banking. That's great. Someone has to do that.

00:42:36.040 It just wasn't as interesting to me as people who either are coming from disadvantage and

00:42:40.380 you know, managed to overcome financial hardship or people who were making great art or contributing

00:42:45.680 in a more, you know, in some ways in a more profound way.

00:42:49.540 Yeah. And also normal, relatable people too. I'm just like, oh, those parents are just like,

00:42:54.860 just like us. They're just normal people. Yeah. Yeah. I loved seeing that. I could talk to you

00:43:01.460 all day, but alas, I have to go to my kid's school to volunteer because that's something I think will

00:43:05.680 help make them high achieving children. You know what? I think it's great for kids to see their

00:43:09.340 parents involved in their schooling. I mean, there's a lot of research. In fact, a lot of

00:43:12.360 people in my book, a disproportionate number of the parents were educators. They were educators,

00:43:15.980 which I found very interesting. Yeah. And so I do think that idea that like we're a family that

00:43:19.520 that look education, we know that that correlates very highly with like wellbeing, health, education,

00:43:23.500 income, being a family. It's like education. That's the shit. If I can, if you'll excuse my

00:43:27.440 language. Oh yeah. But please. Yes. Education. That's the shit. In this house, we worship

00:43:31.560 teachers. We're respectful of teachers. We value school education. You know, it's, we value

00:43:36.520 education, we're not going to pressure you necessarily. You don't have to be the best in

00:43:39.920 the class, but you have to value this and you have to respect your teachers and you have to respect

00:43:44.660 what schooling does for you. Yeah, I think that's important. Yeah, I agree. Thank you for being

00:43:49.500 here. And I think you're going to help a lot of parents decrease their anxiety. So you're doing

00:43:53.120 God's work right now, Susan. Thank you, Joe. Thank you for all the wonderful fiction you put

00:43:56.940 into the world and everything else. Take care. You too. Bye.

00:44:06.520 Thank you.

00:44:36.520 I didn't like what you said, Odin pauses, about the future.

00:44:55.220 This is the love story of real hinge couple Odin and Edward,

00:44:59.280 written and read by me, Curtis Garner.

00:45:02.020 Listen to the free audiobook now.

00:45:06.520 Chew on this bold question from Dentine Gum.

00:45:09.860 Is it ever okay to compliment a millennial on their skinny jeans in 2026?

00:45:19.040 Dentine. Chew bold.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - May 08, 2025

How to Raise Successful Kids with Susan Dominus

Episode Stats

Transcript