Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - Sunday Nice Things： Where's My Village？

00:00:00.880 Welcome to Sunday Nice Things, the time of the week where I drop a new podcast in your feed.

00:00:07.600 You get to try it out. And if you don't like it, no skin off my back. But I think you're going to

00:00:12.840 like this one. I do. You've heard this podcast before. It's the We've Got Issues podcast that

00:00:18.080 I do with Emily Amick. And this week's episode, this particular one, really struck a chord with

00:00:24.760 a lot of people. Because Emily and I are talking about the village. You know, the mythical village

00:00:29.800 that's supposed to save us all. We're talking about how desperately we want this village,

00:00:34.620 and also how hard it is to find a village. We also come at this from two different perspectives.

00:00:42.240 I'm a mom of three who, as a new mom, was desperate for help, was desperate for community.

00:00:49.640 And Emily is unmarried and child-free. She's been going through a lot of really terrible

00:00:55.460 health issues, and a village would have helped a lot. We're also diving into just how much work it

00:01:02.100 is to have a village. They don't just magically appear. You don't wave a magic wand and summon

00:01:08.400 your village. You gotta constantly be putting deposits into the village account. And it's a

00:01:14.140 lot. It's a lot to do. So enjoy this episode of We've Got Issues. If you love it, you can binge

00:01:18.520 a bunch of them wherever you get your podcasts. Have a great Sunday, guys.

00:01:25.460 hi this is emily amick and this is joe piazza and we've got issues one of which is we are not sure

00:01:38.260 about the name of this podcast no no we sure aren't and it's because i just don't think we've

00:01:46.540 got issues is the vibe that we want to carry forward into 2025 and i think that matters i do

00:01:53.440 I would like to actively think about what vibe do I want starting in January?

00:02:00.020 Because I genuinely believe my vibe for the rest of December is just zapped and exhausted and burnt out.

00:02:07.460 Yeah, we were just talking before we turned on the mics.

00:02:10.320 We decided to turn on the mics in the middle of our conversation so you guys could join us.

00:02:13.860 But like everyone we talk to across the board is just feeling extremely burned out.

00:02:20.640 So burnt out.

00:02:21.640 And, you know, that's, we have a lot of things that we want to talk about today, but I think

00:02:26.620 it's okay to talk about our exhaustion and to talk about our burnout, because I do think

00:02:33.400 a lot of us are in the same boat.

00:02:35.380 This is not the boat that I want to be in forever, but maybe we just brain rot and bed

00:02:41.680 rot and whatever, you know, the kids, the kids are talking about all the rotting these

00:02:44.760 days for the next month so that we can we can come back strong in 2025. I think the discourse

00:02:53.540 of this election cycle and sort of the speed and intensity of it was very overwhelming. And even

00:03:01.060 as someone who has worked in politics for 20 years, I felt that there was just more politics

00:03:09.420 this year than ever before. So much more, so much more than ever before. And at a faster pace,

00:03:15.540 and we say this a lot, as someone who's worked in media for two decades, we were never meant to

00:03:22.540 consume information like this. We were never meant to consume so much news and content in the palm of

00:03:31.740 our hand to have it physically with us when we get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the

00:03:37.580 And I think our brains are just completely fried and we have to recognize that fact and let, you know, just let it all reset for a little bit.

00:03:47.560 Yeah, and sometimes I go online and it's just streams of negativity and I can feel my brain cooking, right?

00:03:57.600 And I think that our bodies are also just not meant to take in this much negativity, but it's not just negativity.

00:04:06.800 you're alone, you're in your bed, you're trying to do something else. And then you just have this

00:04:10.700 negativity coming in from your phone. It's not the same as you know, when I was growing up,

00:04:15.360 me, my mom and my grandma, we would talk about hard things together as a family, right? They

00:04:21.560 never stopped talking for the entire duration of my mother's life. But they nonetheless, like they

00:04:28.280 had each other. And it's very different. I have actually noticed myself calling people a lot more.

00:04:34.760 I called you yesterday.

00:04:36.260 You did.

00:04:36.540 I was like, just want to hear your voice.

00:04:38.440 I know.

00:04:39.000 And I was like, you know what?

00:04:39.940 I always want to hear your voice.

00:04:41.340 I do.

00:04:42.020 It's so sultry and sexy.

00:04:43.340 It is.

00:04:43.900 It is indeed.

00:04:44.440 That's what they say.

00:04:44.900 Yeah.

00:04:45.220 Yeah.

00:04:46.440 I know.

00:04:47.340 I know.

00:04:47.900 I mean, I am also finding myself wanting to be in person with people more.

00:04:54.740 I was going to have a Zoom meeting at one today with one of my friends.

00:04:59.760 And I was like, can you just come over?

00:05:02.480 Like, you don't live that far away.

00:05:04.320 You're like three blocks away from my house.

00:05:05.920 Can you just come and we could do this on my couch?

00:05:09.740 And the coming over of it all is actually the topic that we were planning on very formally

00:05:15.300 discussing today.

00:05:16.860 We have an outline.

00:05:17.820 There's an outline.

00:05:19.060 We have, there's an outline.

00:05:20.960 But, you know, that, let's lead into the middle, which is, I am very interested in just having

00:05:27.360 people come over more and not freaking out about cleaning the house and having a crudite

00:05:32.440 platter, having a charcuterie board, right? Not also having to go out and pay $90 for

00:05:39.380 a dinner. Can you just like come over for two hours?

00:05:43.120 Just come over for two hours.

00:05:44.640 I think that we've sort of lost that. And there was a really interesting, it was a

00:05:53.220 substack that then got reposted in Slate Magazine online about do we really want a

00:06:00.520 village and that was the topic of our podcast today and I think one of the questions is like

00:06:08.300 people don't want to just stop by anymore they don't want to just pop over and when I talk to

00:06:15.300 my friends they're like I do not want people popping into my house absolutely not like you

00:06:19.820 know what I mean like they don't want it it's not just that people aren't stopping by they don't

00:06:23.780 want they're like absolutely do not just come over my house Emily that would be insane

00:06:28.460 um see I want people just to stop but but I want certain people to stop at my house yeah

00:06:34.480 on your terms on my terms on my terms and that's and that's kind of the problem here right you

00:06:40.080 don't get to have a village on your terms the village is your village you know it's the village

00:06:45.420 that you are surrounded by it is the village where you live is locational um I mean it is

00:06:51.480 also kind of opportunistic like you know who's available to pop by so you don't get to choose

00:06:57.800 exactly how you want your village to be.

00:06:59.920 And I think that that was the point of this story.

00:07:03.320 It's that you can't,

00:07:04.480 you don't get to curate your village all the time.

00:07:07.300 So to take a step back, you know,

00:07:09.120 we need a village.

00:07:11.500 It, in so many of my circles,

00:07:13.140 it often stems around this conversation

00:07:14.960 of the difficulties of motherhood.

00:07:16.860 And, you know, the great Hillary Clinton tome,

00:07:20.720 it takes a village.

00:07:22.240 I think that was the name of it.

00:07:23.480 But the idea that raising children

00:07:25.820 is not something that we are meant to do singularly

00:07:29.080 or even as a two-parent family, right?

00:07:31.880 It's supposed to be part of a broader village.

00:07:34.740 Your kids are supposed to be running around outside,

00:07:37.040 go to grandma and grandpa's house,

00:07:38.540 go to a friend's house and everything to be fined.

00:07:41.300 And we have sort of over-nuclearized society,

00:07:45.980 over-individualized society.

00:07:48.020 And so we are all sort of little automatized beings

00:07:51.160 in our homes.

00:07:52.060 and um you know the the the fraying of the social fabric is something I talk a lot about

00:08:00.940 and I think this is a different way to look at it it's a way to look at it from your own

00:08:05.860 individual vantage point um I think about this probably every day because one thing I note about

00:08:14.340 all of the like television shows and books I love to read is they all center around a little village

00:08:21.780 right they're always about a group of friends or colleagues who are interconnected in their lives

00:08:30.320 and I fanta it's a fantasy right it's certainly not my reality yeah no I mean it's I think it's

00:08:38.940 a fantasy for a lot of people I've got I have to say I was thinking about this as we were prepping

00:08:45.000 the podcast stuff I have I think as much of a village as I'm ever gonna get I'm fairly I'm

00:08:53.640 fairly satisfied with my village and I've also worked my freaking ass off to have it like I have

00:09:01.820 I have cultivated this I've put in the work I moved away from both New York and San Francisco

00:09:08.680 you know which a lot of people think are fancy cities to come home to philadelphia where my mom

00:09:14.640 lives so i've got my mother close by um where a lot of my friends from both college and high school

00:09:21.600 don't just live in the city they live in my neighborhood and then i went so far as to when

00:09:26.640 i moved to philly i wasn't close enough to them and then i moved to be even closer so that it

00:09:33.560 would be easier for people to come to my house and so and it's still not perfect like I still

00:09:38.580 don't have the perfect village but I have put in so much effort to have the village and frankly

00:09:44.760 where I'm at in my life right now you know with three kids under the age of eight it's paid off

00:09:50.000 like I see the benefits of it and I also know that it was so much work and if that I didn't

00:09:56.940 do the work, it was never going to happen. Yeah. I mean, I think that one of the things

00:10:03.320 that I see in my friends in Washington, D.C., especially moms, is they end up having to pay

00:10:08.860 for their village. And so then you have to work really hard and spend a lot of hours working to

00:10:13.320 be able to pay for it. Yeah. And I also pay for a village. I also pay to have a lot, a lot of

00:10:20.320 child care. I pay so much for child care that when I think about it, I want it to die, essentially.

00:10:26.940 it's terrible it's but the thing about when you pay people is you get to have the widget that you

00:10:34.640 want and what was really interesting about the slate article you mentioned is that you know we

00:10:40.620 you don't get to you don't get to choose your village like your mom might make comments to

00:10:47.200 your kids that you don't want her saying but if you want her to be part of that village you have

00:10:52.160 to do it. If you, you know, you can't have friends that you never fight with, that agree with

00:10:57.180 everything you say all the time. Right. And it becomes challenging. And you also have to give.

00:11:06.580 Yes. Yes. That's hard for people. It is. I have two things to say about that. The first is the

00:11:13.220 mom thing. In the beginning, when my mom would take our kids and look, Tracy Piazza is a goddamn 1.00

00:11:19.740 saint she takes my children my big kids for an overnight pretty much once a week so that we only 0.99

00:11:25.500 have one kid which when there's three it feels like no children so but in the beginning i was 1.00

00:11:31.360 like oh my god she takes them to freaking mcdonald's every time she's like they're watching

00:11:37.460 unlimited television probably youtube eating a ton of sugar they sleep in sleeping bags like on

00:11:43.920 the floor of her living room it's a camp out every time they're there there's no sleep routine

00:11:48.780 And in the beginning, I was really picky about it.

00:11:50.900 I was like, oh my gosh.

00:11:51.740 And now I'm just like, nope, you do you.

00:11:55.800 This is how you want to get this done.

00:11:58.040 And if I want you to be a part of my village,

00:11:59.820 I am not going to micromanage you

00:12:01.860 and I shall let it go.

00:12:06.140 Yeah, it's, you know, there's the great account.

00:12:11.200 I'm sure many of you follow the Daily Tay.

00:12:13.800 And she posts really funny stuff all the time.

00:12:18.120 And she's been posting so, so many good reels about gentle parenting and trying to correct

00:12:23.380 her mom and they're in total jest, but it's, it's reflection of a real thing.

00:12:28.440 And I think, you know, there has been monumentally fast societal shifts over my last time.

00:12:37.160 Yeah.

00:12:37.700 Yeah.

00:12:38.400 Yeah.

00:12:38.940 I mean, I don't know about you, but I was raised like latchkey, very latchkey.

00:12:45.180 Oh, I was very latchkey.

00:12:46.180 I was full. I was latchkey. And also I was latchkey. But before that, I was just kind of like

00:12:52.200 crappy daycare. I mean, not crappy daycare, but like, you know, they pick me up from school and

00:12:56.820 I was there till 630. 630 at night, most nights. My when I was young, when I was little in little

00:13:04.140 elementary school, my parents, one of the other kids in school, her dad was a taxi driver. And

00:13:10.420 my parents would have a taxi pick me up from after school and drop me home um which I thought

00:13:17.180 was sort of the height of luxury I know that's kind of that is kind of the height of luxury

00:13:21.200 in Massachusetts yeah that sounds nice yeah that does sound really nice um you know and then and

00:13:28.240 then I started sports and my mother had to uh essentially stop her career to take over becoming

00:13:36.640 a full-time momager to my sports career, which I think about a lot. I mean, it's, it's sort of

00:13:41.740 nuts for someone who barely gets off the couch now, how much time and energy my parents invested

00:13:46.580 in my failed sports career. Well, it's funny that you didn't make it to the Olympics. I did not.

00:13:52.640 It was strange. And, uh, I was never going to. And, and I, I remember getting in fights with

00:13:59.660 my parents being like, I'm not, I'm not the best here. I know it. You know, you can, you can see

00:14:04.680 other people I trained in Boston right and like you would Michelle Kwan would show up some days

00:14:10.320 and I'd be like I'm not Michelle Kwan by a long shot uh and maybe we shouldn't be doing this

00:14:18.600 and uh nonetheless we did uh for many years and I don't know you know my parents weren't

00:14:26.460 socializing a lot they were very very busy working very hard or conducting Emily's life

00:14:33.460 And it's, you know, I'm not sure we expect so much from parents now and we expect so much from employees now and everything costs so much.

00:14:46.740 You have to work so hard. You have to be, you know, it's very hard to be one parent family.

00:14:51.100 One of the things you and I talk a lot about is Troud Wives.

00:14:53.040 And one of the things that I found really interesting over the past year from Alex Clark is she has very, very specific messaging about how you can have a stay at home mom on a $55,000 a year salary.

00:15:03.460 which I just, it is not, all right, well, we need to take a quick break. And then,

00:15:08.220 and then we're going to talk about that. That is the tangent we're going to go off on for a little

00:15:10.960 bit. Because no, you cannot have a stay-at-home mom. In what part of the world can you have a

00:15:16.860 stay-at-home mom on a single $55,000 salary? Okay, we're back. The whole tradwife ethos

00:15:33.140 of a single earner, 0.86

00:15:36.100 which I thought a lot about leading up to the election.

00:15:38.760 The Daily had a great episode

00:15:39.920 where they were interviewing young men

00:15:42.360 about why they were voting for Trump Vance.

00:15:45.640 And so many of them said that their primary purpose

00:15:49.880 was just to be a wage earner,

00:15:52.040 to be the family wage earner,

00:15:53.540 to support a wife who could stay at home.

00:15:56.540 And they truly thought that the Trump Vance ticket

00:15:59.540 was going to bring them the kind of wages

00:16:02.440 they needed to support a woman and children at home.

00:16:08.900 Now, I don't know where these people think, 1.00

00:16:14.380 where the women who want to stay at home

00:16:16.220 think all of these magical men are who make,

00:16:19.780 I would say you have to be making well into the six figures

00:16:22.680 to support a family in this day and age.

00:16:26.720 And that usually means that you have two earners.

00:16:29.120 yeah I I think it's very interesting that they specifically always use the $55,000 a year

00:16:38.820 number um but I haven't done a deep dive on why it's that number specifically um but it's very

00:16:48.200 much you know it's hard to imagine that you can have people doing that while simultaneously having

00:16:56.680 those influencers also tell them you need to buy $12 cereals, you know, and, and they're hearing

00:17:03.360 those things at the same time. How could you not be miserable if you were trying to achieve both

00:17:08.800 those goals at the same time? I mean, it's forever striving, never happiness. Forever striving,

00:17:15.100 never happiness. I'm just I'm trying to do some math. Now I'm trying to do some math to figure

00:17:19.760 out. Use a calculator. I can see Joe's pen working. You can see my pen working furiously.

00:17:25.340 um well the cost of living has just gone up so freaking much so okay never take a vacation

00:17:33.200 never eat out at restaurants and this is why they're also pushing homesteading grow your own

00:17:41.000 food it's a fantasy because it doesn't work the majority of the time okay every farmer will tell

00:17:47.560 you that farming life is very very hard yeah look if I was a subsistence farmer and I got cancer 0.98

00:17:54.540 like i did this year and i was out for planting season i would have been fucked royally yeah you 0.98

00:18:01.440 know no food for emily no food for you thank god i can go to trader joe's that's why you need a 0.96

00:18:06.800 husband that well uh in this scenario i am the husband to quote chair um indeed uh but

00:18:15.240 you know as as if also husbands don't die on occasion as if they don't leave you as if they

00:18:23.500 don't leave you okay yeah um but i i think that one of the things these are connected right these

00:18:33.640 two the reason that we all sort of fantasize about this trad wife life is because we are so

00:18:44.200 overwhelmed we are missing our village there is some there's there's a realness to the nostalgia 0.96

00:18:49.880 there's a reason we want it i mean god almighty i just want fucking someone to show up with some 0.80

00:18:56.120 soup at my house you know what i mean and and i will say when i i remember um when i was very 0.93

00:19:03.160 young i lived in rural alabama and i had to get my wisdom teeth out and uh people from the church

00:19:10.460 that i went to on occasion as because i would like go with friends they would want me to go

00:19:15.040 and I would go because, you know, whatever, it was something to do. They like helped me

00:19:20.280 significantly. They really did. They drove me, they made me food, they tucked me in, blah, blah,

00:19:25.720 blah. And that's not happening here in Washington, DC. And so I do think that there's a validity to

00:19:35.020 the nostalgia, right? And the problem is, as we've discussed ad nauseum, right? Like the trad

00:19:40.500 wife of it all is not the solution for any any of us I was reading the New York Times profile

00:19:47.000 of Hannah Nealman yeah the puff piece the massive puff piece and I I'm a fan I love

00:19:59.220 Hannah Nealman she is so beautiful you really do I love the aesthetic yeah that's that's why

00:20:05.300 i talk about this stuff so much because i teeter on the edge if i weren't so politically aware i

00:20:13.000 would be deep deep into tread with freedom but i texted one of my girlfriends uh glennis uh mayhart 0.97

00:20:19.860 who you all may know uh from the internet and she was like emily she has a jet blue fortune

00:20:26.260 she's a jet blue fortune like and not she i don't even like to say she the brand ballerina from the

00:20:32.160 brand okay it's like if this isn't about a woman it's not like she is the face and the body of a

00:20:39.280 brand but ballerina farm is the result of 400 million dollars give or take from jet blue

00:20:48.360 ballerina farm the brand has 50 employees according to the new york times article i think

00:20:54.260 you know I I think that there's very much from the pandemic right I think that the pandemic

00:21:03.060 sent a lot of people on we were given time to take off from our normal lives and it gave us

00:21:11.760 time to rethink what we were doing and I'm not sure we have it figured out and um I don't really

00:21:21.020 know i i think about it every day and i don't know what i'm gonna do right i don't i i do want

00:21:26.920 a village am i willing to put in the work am i willing to bring soup to other people well that's

00:21:32.960 the thing you have to bring the bring a lot of soup to other people you know and it's little

00:21:37.180 things too i i talked to caro uh chambers about this when when i interviewed her recently and

00:21:44.800 it's like making deposits in the village account so it's when you're at target texting your friends

00:21:50.700 being like what what can i get you like what what do you need do you need a lot of toilet paper okay

00:21:54.860 great i'm gonna bring you a lot of toilet paper or hey do you want me to drop your kids off at

00:21:58.740 school or pick your kids up at school you know these like little things that end up being big

00:22:04.960 things but you have to make a lot of deposits in the village account in order to get and i'll say 0.90

00:22:12.200 until until i got sick this year i worked 100 hours a week that shit wasn't happening you know

00:22:17.340 Very, like, literally 100 hours a week. 0.90

00:22:19.660 I worked constantly seven days a week for over a decade.

00:22:23.940 And it seems...

00:22:25.560 That wasn't very good for your nervous system.

00:22:27.180 Turns out, you know what, it's really shocking.

00:22:29.200 Turns out that's also not healthy.

00:22:31.360 My entire body has broken down and the signs were there.

00:22:36.740 But, you know, when...

00:22:40.020 I'm not sure what the solution is for everybody.

00:22:44.020 And I'm also not sure if people want the village.

00:22:47.100 And this was the sort of interesting political component of this late article, which is we spend a lot of time online talking about cutting off people who have politically disagree with us.

00:22:59.320 And there was a lot of discourse about it.

00:23:02.640 And in particular, it's sort of really trending on TikTok right now.

00:23:06.540 And I think it's very hard to do that when you don't get to choose your neighbors.

00:23:13.160 Yeah, absolutely.

00:23:13.840 absolutely i've gotten a bunch of dms recently of people asking me should i move

00:23:19.620 oh that's so interesting that's so so are they asking if they should move

00:23:26.160 from a red state or a blue state um you know because i also hear from a lot of people that

00:23:32.000 are like i'm leaving the country i'm like it's not any better anywhere else guys right yeah

00:23:35.860 i mean look i i too fantasize about living in a castle in scotland everybody sure but that's a

00:23:42.580 fantasy much like the ballerina farm fantasy where you're not going to live on a hog and cattle farm

00:23:47.460 Emily yeah watch me okay as a single woman what a nightmare what a nightmare sounds terrible 0.66

00:23:58.400 sounds awful barely sounds awful even with a competent husband okay like oh um do you want

00:24:05.300 to hear my math I did my math yes please because that took four minutes I was doing other things

00:24:11.380 while I was calculating. Okay. All right. So if you have a $55,000 income, you're going to be

00:24:19.680 taxed around $10,000. Okay. 10,797 to be accurate, which means your net pay is about $44,203.

00:24:32.500 You've got a family, let's say two kids, whatever. I'm throwing out some general numbers of what the

00:24:39.420 average American pays for things. Typically $8,000 for a car payment, which I think is kind

00:24:47.780 of ridiculous. But people in America freaking love their cars, okay? They love cars. $25,000

00:24:54.320 for rent or a mortgage. Another $25,000 for health insurance. And I'm including that because

00:25:00.420 fewer and fewer companies are actually providing health insurance these days and more people are

00:25:06.240 working gig jobs, which do not pay health insurance. So these are three things I think

00:25:12.420 that most people need. I haven't even factored in food yet, but I will say, you know, the average

00:25:18.040 family spends around $10,000 a year on groceries. So just that number, we're looking at $68,000

00:25:26.420 a year and your net pay take home from a $55,000 salary is $44,000. So you're not even covering

00:25:34.680 basic expenses for a family on that salary and that sucks and that's not fair and that's not

00:25:41.260 right and we need to pay people better but it is a again the right just touts these fantasies

00:25:47.600 and lies all the time and that's what drives me nuts about it yeah so $44,000 a year is $3,600

00:25:57.300 a month yeah um and you're spending say 1500 on a mortgage so you have $2,000 a month I mean

00:26:10.340 I can see how you do it but as you said you're driving you're driving an old Camry you are not

00:26:16.620 eating out you're not going to Disney you're I mean maybe ordering some Timu but you know you're

00:26:24.340 you're there's this as i said on it's going viral on tiktok one of the things that she doesn't want

00:26:29.020 to buy her kid a coat it's 35 you know this is it it sucks and then you have you know the right is

00:26:37.760 pushing people to have five six seven kids and i'm like how are you affording all of these children

00:26:43.280 and then you're homeschooling them and then you're homeschooling them on top of it and and also you

00:26:47.840 know the right uh you know wants our public schools to fall apart and doesn't want to fund

00:26:51.960 them so therefore you're either paying for private school or you're homeschooling them 1.00

00:26:56.060 and all of this labor falls onto the women right so I you know we got sidetracked by our favorite 0.88

00:27:03.020 topic um by every time every time we fall into our own trap um but even as I said I think that

00:27:14.300 the reason the line the trad wives and it's not really just trad wives right like the Alex Clark

00:27:21.300 of it all she's not she's just pushing this conservative ideal of uh heteronormative

00:27:29.360 fantasy nuclear family pleasant ls and the reason it works is because we are all like to a i mean

00:27:38.540 to a t almost everyone i know is really really burnt out on the current way of life and is it

00:27:45.760 the phones is it not the phones it's the phones it's definitely the phones okay just I'm saying

00:27:51.380 it's I think it's a phone and and late stage capitalism right like it's sort of a component

00:27:57.240 of the two and the general sort of fracturing of society and you can't really untangle the web

00:28:06.300 but there's no there's no even it's it was really interesting to see I somehow got on Irish TikTok

00:28:13.280 which

00:28:15.380 you know

00:28:17.380 Is it better than the other TikToks?

00:28:19.720 I have really mixed feelings about TikTok 1.00

00:28:21.600 but one thing I will say is the Algo's

00:28:23.700 great. It really does know how I'm feeling

00:28:25.600 and I have been wanting to get more

00:28:27.640 into Irish stuff and there was

00:28:29.600 recently a presidential election so they were like 1.00

00:28:31.500 we can lure this bitch into politics and I was like 1.00

00:28:33.480 you guys are right. You can. You win. 1.00

00:28:35.380 You win Irish TikTok. You got me. 0.98

00:28:37.420 We're taking one more break and then when we get back

00:28:39.620 you can tell me all about Irish TikTok. Thank you.

00:28:43.280 all right emily tell me about irish tiktok so one of the interesting things is you know

00:28:56.580 i in my fantasy world of ireland think of like cute towns with pubs they all go to they're all

00:29:03.400 farmers they're all la-di-da working as a community they raise sheep right

00:29:07.360 They knit sweaters. 0.99

00:29:09.960 They drink beer.

00:29:11.060 They drink beer.

00:29:12.660 Pints.

00:29:13.300 Pints of beer.

00:29:14.120 They put on fabulous musicals. 0.91

00:29:17.820 So I think, you know, and it was really interesting to start seeing all these Irish people saying, like, we actually did used to have a community fabric and it has been destroyed.

00:29:26.940 And they're having incredible economic issues.

00:29:29.780 And there's a lot of people who are leaving the country.

00:29:32.280 interesting to note that there's no absentee out of country voting which is really interesting to

00:29:37.920 think about how that shapes the future of the country people who fled because they couldn't

00:29:42.280 find jobs can't help shape an economic future where maybe they could have jobs um you know

00:29:48.300 housing prices are extremely expensive and and a complaint there now is we don't have a community

00:29:54.600 fabric people aren't showing up to the pub people aren't doing that when i was in scotland last year

00:29:59.000 in Scotland for a month. And I heard that from people over and over again, even, you know,

00:30:04.760 the New Year celebration in Scotland is a really, really big deal. And they were like, yeah, it's

00:30:10.360 shut down in a lot of towns. They're not just not doing it anymore because no one shows up because

00:30:14.640 you can't find someone to watch your kids and people don't like you to bring your kids to the

00:30:18.460 events. And it's too much drama. And so we don't want to do it. And it's just like the rubber has

00:30:23.900 met the road of, you know, maybe it's good that we don't. No, it's definitely good that we don't

00:30:30.100 want children left unattended. No, I don't want to leave a child unattended. No, that would that

00:30:35.800 would likely be bad. But that would be bad. You know, a good a good point was raised in the Slate

00:30:40.600 article that we no longer utilize high school kids for babysitting. And so not only do I think that

00:30:50.240 It's kind of crappy for high school kids who want to make some extra money.

00:30:53.480 But again, high school kids are all inundated with all of their after school sports and

00:30:57.820 activities and their AP exams and the high pressure race to get into college.

00:31:02.340 But it really, it's hard for parents, right?

00:31:05.480 Who else are you going to find?

00:31:06.580 I mean, most of the babysitters that we use are nursing school students who are great.

00:31:12.640 I love them, but they're not available a lot of the time.

00:31:15.940 Uh, and I, I do think that does a disservice to high school kids also because then you're

00:31:22.400 not spending as much time caregiving for small children.

00:31:26.480 One of the things I love actually is one of our neighbors, uh, their son is very psyched

00:31:31.860 about babysitting kids.

00:31:32.880 And I'm like, I freaking love this.

00:31:34.000 I want to see more young boys learning how to care give for, for small children.

00:31:37.920 We're actually in the process of hiring a new au pair right now.

00:31:42.820 that is that is our our child care system one of them one of one of many child care systems we have

00:31:50.480 in place at the moment uh and we are are looking to hire a gentleman a young gentleman to be our

00:31:57.260 au pair fascinating very modern well my kids are also bigger now and they're just active screwballs

00:32:05.700 and so your kids are very active I you're very active some some of my friends who have young

00:32:12.300 ladies they just like to read and play dolls and it's my speed yeah right right my meanwhile my

00:32:18.120 two girls are like I'm gonna cut off all your hair right that's how I want to play salon I'm 1.00

00:32:25.520 gonna cut it all off and then dye it purple and then do you want to play some beastie boys with 0.88

00:32:28.740 me huh huh huh let's sit and read a book let's quietly read a book together it's not gonna

00:32:34.000 happen in my house so yeah so we're looking they colloquially call themselves the bro pairs and I'm

00:32:39.520 I'm here for the bro pairs. Oh, okay. I get it. Yeah. You know, and the other thing is like high

00:32:43.720 school students are cheaper. Totally. It's just more functional. Well, babysitters these days are

00:32:52.080 $30 an hour. What? Yeah. Oh my God. That's the going rate. That is the going rate of babysitters.

00:32:58.380 Okay. No wonder no one wants to come out and hang out with me. Yeah, exactly. So if you're,

00:33:04.380 I mean, typical night out, it's going to be four hours because you got to get somewhere. You got

00:33:09.320 to get home, you want to be out for a few hours. So we are talking $120. Right. Before you eat

00:33:18.260 dinner. Right, which is going to be expensive. I think that, you know, we have a couple minutes

00:33:27.420 left in the episode. What can we do to stride, you know, within the constraints of the systems

00:33:35.520 that exist what can we do to start building our own villages how like what's the path to solving

00:33:40.560 this i mean i think we have to decide that we want to put in the effort first off and it has i think

00:33:46.900 this has to start at the very very personal level because when people say that community is fraying

00:33:52.560 people aren't just going to start going to church again and i do think that the decline

00:33:56.960 in church membership is another reason that we're seeing this community fraying honestly

00:34:03.000 because it was a gathering place.

00:34:06.160 You were there one mandatorily at least once a week.

00:34:09.620 So you would see people, you would interact with people,

00:34:11.800 talk to people, you know,

00:34:13.120 and then they, the church also provided

00:34:15.040 other kinds of functions, other kinds of social functions.

00:34:18.680 So people are all of a sudden

00:34:20.360 going to start going back to church.

00:34:22.400 You know, one of the big movements

00:34:24.120 in venture capital right now,

00:34:27.020 I was talking about this with my girlfriend

00:34:28.180 who works in BC the other night,

00:34:30.260 is the creation of third spaces, right?

00:34:33.000 Right. We just need a lot more gathering places for people to be in real life.

00:34:41.200 You know, there used to be, you know, for swanky rich people, the country club model.

00:34:44.920 Right. And we're a generation, I think, that is less into that.

00:34:50.580 And so what are what are the third spaces now?

00:34:54.640 And this is one of the reasons I think about opening a bookstore all of the time that could be a community gathering space.

00:35:00.820 But then, I mean, much like that, do you actually want a village?

00:35:03.060 I'm like, do I want to run it?

00:35:04.600 No, God.

00:35:05.880 I don't know.

00:35:06.880 I want somewhere I can.

00:35:08.360 It's so hard.

00:35:10.260 I mean, you just saw how good I am at math.

00:35:13.020 We were crunching the numbers all of the time.

00:35:15.940 But we do need more of those places where we can show up and know that we will see someone,

00:35:21.700 see one of our friends, that our kids will see their friends.

00:35:27.060 Again, most people pay for those spaces.

00:35:29.280 So they pay for like the private urban clubs or like the kid play spaces or the things like that.

00:35:35.180 Pre-pandemic, I, there's a dog park in my neighborhood and I would go to the dog park by, I would leave work at five and get there by 5.30 every day, as did about 15 other people.

00:35:46.320 And it was like a cheer situation.

00:35:48.480 And every day after work, we would spend an hour hanging out with our dogs, running around, and then we would go home.

00:35:54.640 And that was my lifeblood.

00:35:57.460 you know, that really, five days a week, I did that. And I would hang out with people for an

00:36:01.780 hour. And then I would go home and do my stuff. And that collapsed during the pandemic. And I

00:36:07.840 tried to move somewhere else. And I tried to find community there. And that was a big fail.

00:36:12.900 And I don't, I don't know where it is. Because when I think about, I'm like, what do I go

00:36:17.800 somewhere and join a Lions Club and then have to like, listen to a bunch of-

00:36:21.300 Yeah, you're not going to join a Lions Club, right? Yeah.

00:36:23.300 Oh, gross. I don't know. I think, you know, one of the things I talk about a lot is starting a book club. And it's not in the like, there's sort of a couple different reasons people try to say, try to start book clubs. But mine is more like, it's just a way to get a bunch of women to show up in a room in sort of a low stakes manner.

00:36:45.080 yeah you know yeah and like you don't really have to read the book um but it's a way to make it it's

00:36:51.620 every month it happens people potluck um and people are more willing to show up and do it than i think

00:36:59.200 a lot of other social activities and it's in your home and it's in your home exactly it's it's cheap

00:37:04.320 right it doesn't it's not super expensive i cannot handle anymore i used to do this in my youth a lot

00:37:10.500 going out to dinner with 15 people. Oh, I don't do it. I don't go out to dinner with more than

00:37:16.240 four people any longer because you cannot converse with everyone at a table. The splitting the bill

00:37:21.740 is still hell, even with Venmo. And it's freaking expensive. Okay. No, I only eat out with three

00:37:30.480 other people at a time. If I do that, I mean, I'm really cutting back on eating out, even though I

00:37:35.240 love restaurants in Philly is such a good food scene. You know, there's other ways of creating

00:37:41.600 book clubs, too, that I think are really innovative. You know, I have friends that do

00:37:45.020 a cookbook club. Yeah, I've been really jealous. I've been seeing those online.

00:37:50.220 Yeah. And it's fun, right? So it's like, oh, we choose a cookbook every month and everyone cooks

00:37:56.040 a different recipe and brings it. That's so fun. I also have friends who do a podcast club where

00:38:01.320 they're like, I don't have time to read a book, but I have time to listen to one episode of a

00:38:03.620 podcast and they talk about that or uh they binge a tv show or a movie and so i mean i love that

00:38:10.420 idea because i mean i think people people like a purpose to show up places they do uh but it

00:38:15.000 doesn't just have to be a book because no one reads the book i have suggested that one of our

00:38:19.060 next book clubs just everyone watch the martha stewart documentary totally i would come down

00:38:24.580 for that there's a lot to talk about there so much to unpack there in fact i think we should

00:38:28.800 just do a podcast episode on that. You're right. We should. Yeah. And I mean, that's why people

00:38:34.100 like podcasts so much, right? Because it is, you feel like you're socializing and I see it happen

00:38:39.340 and it scratches that itch. And, um, and I think it's hard. I listen to podcasts when I'm driving

00:38:47.240 to the supermarket and I'm going shopping and it's sort of, you feel like, Oh, I got my socializing

00:38:52.880 in for the day. I can sit at my computer and work for the never seven hours. And it's not true. Um,

00:38:58.280 The last thing I'll ask you before we hit the road is one of the things I noticed in the article was, you know, the author was saying, on Saturdays, I'd rather just spend time with my kids.

00:39:14.860 And it's hard to choose to socialize when it's easier to just be home with my spouse and my kids.

00:39:21.380 And how do you reconcile that?

00:39:24.360 how do you reconcile just want, you know, it's easier to just stay home versus wanting to get

00:39:29.460 out there and socialize. Also noting that like taking your kids out and teaching them to socialize

00:39:35.040 is a key lesson for them. It really is. So I'm the person that invites people to my house

00:39:40.680 all the time. Mostly because it's easier for me, to be honest. I don't have to move. I can put the

00:39:48.740 baby to bed. So on Sunday, we went to go chop down our Christmas tree. It's an Astor family

00:39:54.180 tradition. We have lots of family traditions because I was essentially raised by wolves

00:39:57.740 and didn't have any growing up. And then we had a tree decorating party, which is where I just

00:40:03.960 open up our doors and tell people to come decorate my Christmas tree for me. And, you know, I made it

00:40:10.660 very low stakes this year. I put out some cheese, but like I did not do my full normal charcuterie

00:40:17.500 spread I wasn't cooking anyone dinner I didn't even clean the house that much and it was also

00:40:23.440 my two-year-old's birthday party but you know two-year-old birthday parties are for me and

00:40:27.560 people were so hungry to gather um that our house was packed it was packed like with because we

00:40:36.680 over invited assuming no one was going to show up uh and people stayed here till very late in the

00:40:41.540 evening and in fact ran out of wine people had to go bring more more wine back to the house uh

00:40:47.420 so yeah I mean I try to open the house up to other people I'm like I don't want to leave but also

00:40:53.860 it's my life is easier when my kids have other kids to play with uh so when I want to socialize

00:40:58.920 I'm like just come over and eat pizza at my house and then let our kids play together it is hard to

00:41:03.200 leave it is but but it's also never hard to be fed it's true so I mean going somewhere and not

00:41:12.580 having to cook your own dinner that is that is amazing but one so one of my pieces of advice

00:41:17.320 I will say and this has served me well I just I'm not rigid around making everything perfect

00:41:25.200 anymore like I said I do it okay are you coming over my house is messy okay it looks like someone

00:41:30.060 lives here. And that's okay. I'm not going to spend all day cleaning it. Just have people over

00:41:35.420 because I think people appreciate the mess. All right, I do. Or I'm not going to have the perfect

00:41:40.320 food. I'm just going to order a pizza from Pete's down the street. All right, I'm not making you a

00:41:43.880 whole charcuterie board. And I think that we get all caught up in it having to be perfect all the

00:41:48.920 time instead of just, you can just come over. And my life is just my life. Instagram influencers

00:41:55.520 have really done a doozy on creating these false standards

00:41:59.240 of what life should look like.

00:42:01.380 Yeah, and I think that that is incredibly damaging for us.

00:42:06.760 It truly is because, and I tell my friends too,

00:42:11.100 because Sam and I do still get self-conscious about it.

00:42:13.320 I'm like, you know, this shows how much I love you 0.87

00:42:15.220 because I'm letting you see this messy ass house. 0.91

00:42:19.260 Yeah, I think this is something 0.96

00:42:22.660 we're going to keep talking about.

00:42:24.180 you guys let us know um on via you know ig dm us what what more you want us to talk about this issue

00:42:32.780 we're going to be delving into it because um i think it's really important and i do want to talk

00:42:37.900 about in the do another episode it's thinking sort of like what's the lifestyle version of

00:42:42.880 body dysmorphia right like that that's sort of what's been created here in the way growing up

00:42:48.240 in the 90s it was like britney spears renee zellweger was fat all this stuff oh god i re-watched 0.84

00:42:53.720 Bridget Jones. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. That woman is a size two.

00:42:57.640 That woman is a size two.

00:42:59.120 And, you know, but now it's the lifestyle, right, that has creeped in and we're seeing all of it. 0.56

00:43:05.280 And it's really infected our brains. And I have been deeply infected by the cozy cottage mind

00:43:12.680 virus. And I don't know if I'll ever be cured. I don't think you will, actually. I don't think

00:43:17.140 you will. Lifestyle dysmorphia. Has that been coined yet? I don't know. All right. You just

00:43:23.700 I just coined it, my friend.

00:43:25.320 You'll have to Google it.

00:43:26.580 I see a TED Talk in your future.

00:43:29.020 I just wrote that down on my math page.

00:43:33.160 All right.

00:43:34.020 Well, go have a great day.

00:43:36.140 Rest and rot if you have to.

00:43:38.340 Or make some deposits in your village.

00:43:40.480 Because if not when?

00:43:44.420 If not now when?

00:43:45.540 If not now when?

00:43:45.920 And it's the holiday season.

00:43:47.260 I hope you guys open your house up,

00:43:48.700 have a decorating party,

00:43:50.080 or be like me and find that absolutely appalling

00:43:52.760 because my tree has to be a very specific way whatever oh see that's very interesting see if

00:43:57.440 you saw a picture of my tree it is not a very specific way it is as chaotic as my children

00:44:03.100 um i'm sure it's beautiful and it's not it's not beautiful is not the word emily we'll post we'll

00:44:10.480 post a picture of joe's tree okay it's good would never she would never know her children would know

00:44:16.600 how to do it correctly that's the fantasy she sells that's the fantasy that she sells the

00:44:21.300 fantasy that she sells is that I mean do we have to just do a whole other episode on this because

00:44:25.380 we do we have we have so much to say you guys it's it's we're 10 minutes over all right that's

00:44:29.540 next week happy holidays

00:44:51.300 Thank you.

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - December 15, 2024

Sunday Nice Things： Where's My Village？

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