Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - The Kids Are All Right With Gabrielle and Ben Blair

00:00:00.000 Hey, y'all. Joe here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.

00:00:11.900 Today, we are going on a wild ride of parenting advice. Yeah, we sure are. We sure are. The best

00:00:19.580 parenting advice that I usually get comes from people who've been doing this for a long time,

00:00:27.380 okay the people who've been in the trenches I don't really want to hear from parents who are

00:00:34.900 like oh my gosh I've had a baby for four weeks and I tried this one thing and it worked this

00:00:39.800 one time no I want to talk to people who've tried something a thousand times okay a thousand times

00:00:48.080 and you know who those people are they're Gabrielle and Ben Blair Gabrielle is one of my favorite

00:00:56.340 OG bloggers, influencers, all of the things. She's been doing design mom since I started

00:01:04.480 reading things on the internet. She and her husband, Ben, are the parents of six kids,

00:01:10.280 and they've been raising kids for 28 years now. And through the years, the two of them have

00:01:16.060 charted their own unconventional path as parents. They worked from home before remote work was even

00:01:21.600 thing, and they've uprooted their kids a bunch of times, including a move to France where they

00:01:28.020 enrolled in local schools without knowing the language. Their parenting style has been defined

00:01:34.820 by experimentation, trial and error, and decisions prompted by financial and psychological necessity.

00:01:43.320 Okay, and that's going to be true for a lot of us because if parenting has taught me anything,

00:01:48.740 it's that you're gonna have to pivot a lot. Now Gabrielle and Ben have this new book out called

00:01:55.600 The Kids Are All Right and I love that title because it's so true and it's what what I say

00:02:01.900 to new parents all the time when they look at me with that abject terror in their eyes like a deer

00:02:08.300 in the headlights of a car and I'm like you know what the kids are gonna be all right. The fact

00:02:13.240 that you're worried about them at all means that you're already an involved parent and any of the

00:02:18.720 choices you make, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. I love this conversation. I

00:02:23.840 learned so much from it. And you're going to want to share it with all of your parent friends,

00:02:27.840 because it taught me so much about just lowering the stakes a little bit, about taking the

00:02:33.540 self-imposed stress out of parenting. And most of all, most of all, the thing that I love the most

00:02:39.260 in this episode is when the three of us talk about building your family culture. And that's

00:02:47.140 my that's my favorite takeaway building your family culture choosing your family culture

00:02:51.860 and creating that in a way that you can look towards a future where you and your kids right 0.85

00:02:58.580 now if you're in the muck of it the shit of it like i am so that you can see a path

00:03:04.080 where you're actually friends with your adult children 0.96

00:03:07.100 when I found out that the two of you were writing this book together I was so excited because my

00:03:22.200 favorite parenting advice comes from people who have freaking done it who have been in the trenches

00:03:30.280 And, you know, I look back at myself as a first time mom eight years ago, and I was so clueless and so afraid. And social media convinces us that there are ways to perfect parent if we just follow these rules, if we just watch these influencers.

00:03:49.340 And now, on the other side of it, with three, I'm like, I mean, I'm living in a world of benign neglect at this point.

00:03:59.520 I'm like, the kids are, they are all right.

00:04:02.880 And you are parents of six.

00:04:06.140 You have been raising kids for about two decades.

00:04:09.440 You've been there and done that and done all of the things.

00:04:12.320 That is my long way of saying the kids are all right is my new Bible.

00:04:15.700 And I want to hear how this came about.

00:04:19.340 Yeah. So I'll start and jump in. So our publisher, Leah Ronan, she's worked with me on all three of my books and our books now. And she is a relatively new parent. I believe her child is, I want to say, under five. And so she's known us for a long time. And my first book was 2015, and we had been talking for years before that.

00:04:45.000 anyway so she has been asking us to do a parenting book for a long time she liked how we parented

00:04:50.940 we have been parents for 27 years she's seen our kids grow she's you know i've been online for 18

00:04:55.960 years so she's really um i don't know i've just kind of watched this parent from via social media

00:05:02.820 and asked us to do a parenting book and we were really resistant to be honest because

00:05:06.420 i just feel like you know we're not child psychologists we're not pediatricians like

00:05:10.980 there are in fact experts at this, right? Like that are like trained experts. But finally she

00:05:17.360 really convinced us. And it's just like, you have so much parenting experience. You are experts

00:05:22.520 experience wise. And she just really wanted us to try and explain how we still have kids that like

00:05:30.920 us, that are adults. And like, that we all like being together. We like working together. And so

00:05:36.740 she so we sat down and it's not like we had like well here's our parenting philosophy um you know

00:05:43.780 in our back pocket we really had to sit down and go okay let's let's talk this out like how how

00:05:49.880 have we done it what has worked what what kind of advice would we want to give people and a lot of

00:05:55.000 the advice the bulk of the advice was it's going to be okay you're you're everything is telling you

00:06:00.820 you need to be stressed out that you're a good parent if you're stressed out and that your child

00:06:04.700 is thriving if they're stressed out like that's kind of the what our culture is telling us and

00:06:09.280 of course we have discovered no that's not true you don't have to be stressed out and your kid

00:06:14.600 definitely should not be stressed out like this is not necessary and not helpful and and i would

00:06:21.360 just say that i'd agree with everything gabby said and me too by the way me too yeah and and gabby

00:06:29.600 gave a good like hands-on practical here's how the book came about like leah was a had followed

00:06:36.620 gabby saw what she did online and i would say from uh not a philosophical but kind of the

00:06:44.940 how the book came how we came to feel like okay we could do this is gabby's experience running

00:06:54.380 design mom for you know almost two decades and it's not like design mom is super parenting

00:07:02.620 focused but parenting is definitely comes into play but it's more the readers are most of the

00:07:09.340 readers are parents or imagining being parents or kind of viewing this as like hey i'm a parent

00:07:16.640 here's a forum and she would just field not not just comments but emails and messages about

00:07:27.000 anxieties that parents feel today and that was a and and it was just this heavy this heavy burden

00:07:34.900 that parents feel that is is kind of unique to our generation of being this not that parents

00:07:42.600 haven't been anxious before but it's just been so um so fraught parenting feels so fraught and

00:07:50.200 feels like the stakes are so high and i there's no way that i can get it right and so i'm just

00:07:56.460 going to be stressed and stressed and stressed uh because that's the only response i can think of

00:08:02.180 what to to to what parenting is asking of me so i think a big part has just been gabby's been this

00:08:09.800 safe forum for parents to express their anxieties and she's had a a way to talk about parenting that

00:08:17.660 um is kind of straightforward and drawing from our experience like hey look this is what we're

00:08:24.460 doing and and we haven't ever had a like here's why here's here's our parenting philosophy and

00:08:32.040 here's here's here's the justification for every decision we're making it was kind of like hey

00:08:39.300 here we are with these kids here's what we're doing we're going to try this we're going to

00:08:43.660 try this and we get things wrong and we go back to uh square one or go go back to uh you know

00:08:51.640 another starting place and go from there and i love that and i mean i've been reading design mom

00:08:59.200 probably since well well before i had my own children uh well before i even knew that i

00:09:04.880 wanted to have my own children uh but it has always been i think the way i i describe it to

00:09:11.360 friends is a safe place to land a comfortable place uh where you know the parenting advice is

00:09:20.160 there but it's not hitting you over the head it's not prescriptive it's not saying you do this or

00:09:26.120 everyone is going to fail in life forever. And I like that. I like that about it. And I think more

00:09:35.500 and more, honestly, I want to hear from other parents who've done this. I don't really want to

00:09:42.300 hear from experts. I mean, my pediatrician has some things they can tell me about vaccine and

00:09:48.520 rashes. But my pediatrician is also a mom. So when she kind of puts her mom hat on and she's like,

00:09:56.000 oh, I know this from my son.

00:09:57.560 I'm like, oh, this feels more valuable to me.

00:10:02.320 Totally.

00:10:02.620 Yeah, yeah.

00:10:03.420 And I love what you said, too,

00:10:05.680 because I think so many of us think about

00:10:08.080 what we want our future with kids to look like.

00:10:11.040 You know, you've got grown kids now,

00:10:14.080 which seems wild to me,

00:10:16.580 because I've got seven, five, and two.

00:10:20.660 But when I think about the future,

00:10:23.360 the far-off, vast future,

00:10:25.940 uh, I'm like, I want them to like me. I want us to like us. I want us to live a nice,

00:10:31.940 a nice life together. Right. I'm not really thinking, oh my gosh, they must go to this

00:10:37.560 high stakes college or have this, you know, high earning career. I'm like, are we still

00:10:43.800 going to go to our cabin? Are we still going to go to the cabin in the woods and play board games?

00:10:48.540 Right, right. No, it's exactly true. And obviously those first 18 years are the most intense. There's

00:10:55.160 there's no question that, you know, the books you pick up about parenting are going to be about

00:10:59.520 those 18 years. And if you do a search about parenting, like images of parents, it's going

00:11:03.900 to show parents with young kids. Like this is, these are the intense parenting stages. We get

00:11:08.400 it. But the reality is, assuming you live to a nice old age, you are going to have a relationship

00:11:13.980 with your kids beyond 18 years for another 20, 40, 60 years, like a lot longer than those first

00:11:20.420 18 years. Again, not the same thing. It's not as intense. They may not live with you anymore.

00:11:24.880 etc. But you still want that relationship to be there. And so we use a phrase in the book where

00:11:31.360 we say, you know, we take a long view of parenting. You know, long view parenting is

00:11:35.260 important because these intense times, if there's a lot of stress there, it can do a lot of damage

00:11:45.060 to this relationship. And if your home is a place where your kid's associated with stress and just

00:11:52.280 anxiousness it's not a place they're going to want to be when they have a chance to return home

00:11:58.160 um and and they get that i mean they get to choose like once they're out of the house once

00:12:02.620 they're an adult they choose if they come home when they come home how often they come home you

00:12:07.920 know it really is up to them as we know because we do this with our own parents like we we're

00:12:12.860 like that the kid is in charge of the relationship like once they're an adult and um so the best we

00:12:21.080 can do is like make sure they know this is a place where they're loved and safe and can this

00:12:28.240 is a a home base that they can always return to that they always want to be at that they feel

00:12:33.200 welcomed you know if we can provide that for them then they're going to want to come back

00:12:38.900 and and i think it's hard to imagine when you have little kids it's hard to imagine

00:12:46.180 or even think about what is our relationship going to be like when

00:12:51.080 this three-year-old as an adult like that's a really foreign concept for a parent with

00:12:57.080 with young kids and and it really it's frankly something that you as a young parent you just

00:13:03.880 you don't think about that it's just or if you do think about that you're just like yeah it's

00:13:09.080 we're gonna have you know we'll have this great relationship or we just don't think about that

00:13:16.600 relationship it's something that's just pawned off to some future day and i future future us yeah

00:13:24.040 yeah and i and i think part of this book has been we're kind of right in the middle of that right

00:13:30.280 now with our kids some have left the nest some you know for several years some are have just

00:13:38.040 recently left the nest and we just have one more who we still have for a few more years so this is

00:13:44.920 on our minds. This has been on our minds. And, and I think what we've tried to do in the book

00:13:51.960 is not to say, here's how to, uh, here's the secret. So you'll think about that relationship,

00:14:00.180 but to, well, I suppose we do some of that, but just to try to connect the dots a little bit to

00:14:07.420 say, look, what you're doing now is connected to what your relationship is going to be in the

00:14:16.180 future. And like Gabby said, if your relationship right now, if it's all about stress, if it's all

00:14:25.240 about, hey, you're not, in order for us to have a healthy relationship, you need to, you child need

00:14:33.280 to be doing x y and z and and following this uh like we talk about a reliable path to success

00:14:40.460 in order for our in order for us to have an easygoing relationship you have to be you know

00:14:46.120 lockstep on this path and that can be a really stressful uh relationship but if you have a

00:14:54.440 if you can have a lot of it a lot of shared experiences across a wide range of activities

00:15:03.460 at least that's kind of where we've landed for now is let's have a lot of shared experiences

00:15:10.860 so when we share experiences in the future we have this precedent of we've done a lot of things

00:15:18.440 together it's not going to be strange for us in the future to do other things together or to do

00:15:23.300 new things together we've done we that's part of our relationship we do things together

00:15:28.040 i love that i love that i mean we have also strived to be a we do things together family

00:15:38.880 we have we have we have we uh my kids uh i used to be a travel editor right so my kids thrive

00:15:46.300 now on planning trips which i love because sometimes i like planning the trips more than

00:15:51.220 i actually like going on the trips i just just love a plan um so my son is working on our spring

00:15:58.840 break itinerary through the utah national parks right now um and i've been making them a photo

00:16:06.120 album of all the national parks they've been to so far they don't remember the majority of them

00:16:11.940 right but they get to look at these photo albums and be like we've been doing this together

00:16:17.320 literally since i was seven weeks old you took me to see a goddamn eclipse in eastern oregon and put 0.91

00:16:23.660 me in a moses basket in a tent while you drank champagne champagne and watch this eclipse and 0.84

00:16:28.720 i'm like yes we did my friend yes we did yes and i mean what you're what you're doing right now

00:16:35.540 even though they aren't going to remember some of these activities because you know they're little

00:16:39.200 still because you're building a found you're building a family culture in part one of your

00:16:43.100 one of the aspects of your family culture is uh adventure and travel and national parks like this

00:16:50.060 is going to be something that your kids will identify with their family and that's terrific

00:16:54.820 and we're building a family culture whether we want to be or not whether we're trying to or not

00:16:59.160 we are building a family culture with our words and with our actions so thinking about that and

00:17:04.660 thinking about what do you want your family culture to be you know what you if someone was

00:17:09.560 describing your family, what would you want them to say? And thinking about that and then saying,

00:17:14.820 okay, well, what am I doing to work for that? Because if we're building it with our words and

00:17:19.620 actions every day, we could be intentional about it and build a culture that we're actually

00:17:25.040 excited about and that our kids are excited about. Just this idea of a family culture that

00:17:31.060 if you're imagining as a parent, if you're imagining, okay, in the future, we're going to

00:17:36.420 do things like go to museums or watch movies together or go on long walks or these kinds of

00:17:47.220 things, but you're not doing anything along those lines now, then there will be some kind of

00:17:55.260 friction to doing those in the future. So part of the family culture is just like, it's easy for us

00:18:03.660 to do these sorts of things because we always do them. And if you're imagining in the future,

00:18:09.380 we're going to do things very drastically different in the future because we're all adults.

00:18:15.540 I think you can make it easier and more likely to do those sorts of things if you start to do them

00:18:22.880 now or if you do things that kind of pave the way or lead toward those sorts of activities in the

00:18:30.800 future so if you're like hey we we like to go on adventurous hikes or i'm imagining some future

00:18:37.540 day with my family we go on uh adventurous hikes well you don't need to go on a huge adventurous

00:18:44.560 hike right now but if you go on a little hike or go on a wander around you know your neighborhood

00:18:52.200 on a walk around your neighborhood together that can pave the way toward whatever that future

00:18:58.720 the future you're envisioning and the types of activities you would do in the future

00:19:03.540 you can prepare that now yes yes yes and yes we are going to take a very quick break right now

00:19:11.620 and when we get back i want to talk a little bit about the parts of your book where you talk about 0.94

00:19:16.140 embracing the unavoidable challenges just leaning leaning in to the shit that happens

00:19:22.800 in life sometimes because it does we are back and now i want to dive into you know embracing the 0.92

00:19:40.960 challenges in life because one of the things that you say that i love is that kids aren't

00:19:48.320 gonna feel happy all of the time uh and i do think that our culture and especially social media

00:19:55.380 culture really puts this emphasis on like is your kid happy is it are they happy are you happy

00:20:00.880 none of us are happy all of the time like where did this idea come from that we're all just gonna

00:20:05.120 be like the shiny happy people all the time the example we give in in the book is uh we've done

00:20:14.360 a lot of we've been renovating uh a home that we live in and part of that renovation has been a

00:20:20.780 lot of kind of um not super fun work uh filling rubble bags kind of not ways that any kid would

00:20:31.280 pick to spend their stealing their their weekend yeah peeling wallpaper uh moving bricks just stuff

00:20:39.160 moving bricks just heavy not um not super fun tasks

00:20:44.360 Um, but they've done it. And, um, like I remember one weekend, one of our kids said,

00:20:54.480 I'm not really in the mood to, to fill rubble bags. And we're like, well, that's okay. You

00:21:01.140 don't, I'm not in the mood to fill rubble bags either. Like that's okay. Um, and if we were to

00:21:09.180 say okay well we can't do anything unless everyone's feeling happy well then we wouldn't

00:21:15.140 ever do anything and then and then kind of the one of the insights uh we got through this experience

00:21:24.400 or that we've seen through this kind of experience is once we've filled all the rubble bags or once

00:21:30.700 we've like peeled the wallpaper off a room where we've all been working hard and got dirty and it's

00:21:37.220 you know not a not a spa day but once we're done with it and we can kind of stand back and go

00:21:45.760 wow look at what we did and kind of have this accomplishment feeling this joint

00:21:53.840 feeling of accomplishment like we did something significant together and that is I feel like that

00:22:02.600 is more valuable than being happy while we're working or um and and again that wasn't like

00:22:12.560 we're doing this so that we'll have this feeling of satisfaction but that is kind of a reward of

00:22:20.200 we're working together on a meaningful project and we can see progress we can clearly see a

00:22:26.800 difference from what it was when we began to what it was at the end and and that kind of thing

00:22:34.480 i find a lot of value in that kind of thing versus let's make sure we're happy all the time

00:22:42.140 let's make sure that everyone's emotions are uh in sync and good uh like just to have a good

00:22:53.340 experience a frustrating experience also but uh a clear movement of progress from the beginning

00:23:00.100 to the end that we all shared it i think there's also uh yes everything ben said and i i also think

00:23:08.320 there's something about um when there's an expectation that kids are always going to be

00:23:13.340 happy that's a lot of pressure on that kid to please you and to uh not be able to share what

00:23:21.840 they're really feeling because like oh it's so important to their parents that i'm that they be

00:23:26.440 happy you know so you know if they if they don't feel like they can come home and have a sad

00:23:31.220 afternoon or just be bored or whatever and they feel like their parents are trying to fix it

00:23:37.020 whatever it is and make sure they're happy happy happy that's a lot of pressure um to try and live

00:23:43.140 up to that happiness and and i mean we can't do it as adults and i don't think we should expect

00:23:48.080 our kids to do it yeah no totally my my son said something last night that broke open my heart and

00:23:57.360 brain in in this crazy way um my husband the girl our little girls go to bed first and then we've

00:24:05.420 got the seven-year-old and we usually do something we do a craft we do an activity uh and my husband

00:24:12.240 desperately wanted to explain latitude and longitude to this child last night okay it just

00:24:19.320 he had i think charlie had asked questions about it at some point and nick's like all right

00:24:23.300 tonight we're gonna really dive into latitude and longitude and charlie wanted to build this

00:24:30.580 this you know science box that had come in the mail the crunch labs box and he said that he said

00:24:36.180 to nick he's like you know i don't want to disappoint you well so we can we can we can

00:24:45.000 look at the latitude and longitude but i'd really like to do this other thing and i'm just sitting

00:24:50.280 there i could hear that i was in the bathroom and i could hear them and i'm like oh my god like that

00:24:55.380 is just you thought about someone's emotions you said you said what you wanted you advocated for

00:25:02.360 yourself yeah i'm like you're the great job that is like yeah that is amazing they need what they

00:25:08.480 want that's amazing amazing mic drop i'm like i'm done i'm gonna go out and get myself a beer or

00:25:14.220 something i'm literally finished with parenting yourself you won the prize and you get five stars

00:25:18.860 like good job yes like yes that's that's i mean yes and you know we were we were having a conversation

00:25:26.280 with a friend the other day that um her daughter was working on some crafting uh a craft project

00:25:32.020 and she said okay just be careful with these these are like i these were expensive like some some

00:25:38.280 special crystals or whatever some special crafting materials and the daughter was just getting more

00:25:44.220 and more stressed out by this craft project and finally was like i don't want to mess up your

00:25:49.580 special material like he couldn't even enjoy crafting she was so stressed out about like

00:25:55.060 wasting or wrecking mom's crafting materials and you're like oh that's like the opposite of what

00:26:01.180 that's the opposite of the joy that i want you to be feeling in this thing yes so yeah so like

00:26:08.860 the expectation that kids are always going to be happy is just it's unnecessary and it's okay to

00:26:15.760 feel all the feelings like this is part of life and and that's okay and we don't need to put that

00:26:20.480 pressure on them to okay well nap out of it let's get let's get excited about this thing like it's

00:26:26.920 okay if you're not excited about the sex you mean we're still doing it it's gonna be okay we're still

00:26:30.920 doing it it's totally okay exactly and it was for me it was such a good reminder that they're

00:26:36.680 really paying attention to how we feel and so he was he was worried that nick was going to be

00:26:41.700 disappointed and i'm like wow like they're they're finally they're reaching the age

00:26:46.040 where where they're sentient little beings they're picking up on all of the stuff

00:26:50.520 and not not the little two yet actually and that i mean it's a really beautiful example and

00:26:57.440 hats off to your son for the like emotional maturity to be looking out for his parents

00:27:05.420 and and i think it's it's really fortunate that he not fortunate it's beautiful parenting that he

00:27:15.420 feels confident in sharing that and the the converse of that would be if a if a kid if he

00:27:24.900 didn't express that i know kind of internalized that and felt like i have to perform for my

00:27:32.320 parents so i don't hurt their feelings or my relationship with my parent is contingent on me

00:27:42.720 performing contrary to how i feel or you know acting happy or you know interested yeah

00:27:52.140 If I'm going to relate to my parent, I have to be happy or I have to be interested. That's a difficult position to put a kid in.

00:28:04.060 and and i think what what he exemplified and what i think is a great model for parents is

00:28:12.380 make it so the kids want to do activities with you independent of like this is what they wanted

00:28:22.100 to do this is what they um that doing activities together regardless of what the activity is i

00:28:29.420 think is a good yes yes i want to be with us yeah he wanted to do an activity with his dad

00:28:36.500 he wanted to not necessarily the one his dad wanted to do but not necessarily the one his

00:28:40.820 dad wanted to do an activity that's great that's great that's what we want that's great yeah

00:28:45.500 exactly exactly and they built a cool thing last night and i went to sleep and it was great for

00:28:50.560 them everyone won yeah and no one disappointed everybody won everybody won is true uh all right

00:28:57.640 We are going to take one more quick break and then we'll come back.

00:29:01.280 And I want to hear about your favorite advice in The Kids Are All Right, which is a book

00:29:06.520 that I have bought for my entire mom group, by the way, my entire mom book club text chain

00:29:13.600 that hasn't read a book in three years.

00:29:15.920 We're just a text chain.

00:29:17.180 It's just a text chain at this point.

00:29:19.240 And so, yeah, I want to hear about yours.

00:29:21.380 Hungry now

00:29:28.260 Now

00:29:31.000 What about now?

00:29:34.660 Whenever it hits you

00:29:36.020 Wherever you are

00:29:37.280 Grab an O'Henry bar

00:29:39.160 To satisfy your hunger

00:29:40.940 With its delicious combination

00:29:42.980 Of big, crunchy, salty peanuts

00:29:44.980 Covered in creamy caramel

00:29:46.380 And chewy fudge

00:29:47.960 With a chocolatey coating

00:29:49.420 Swing by a gas station

00:29:50.960 and get an O'Henry today.

00:29:52.740 O'Hungry O'Henry.

00:29:59.640 Okay, and we are back.

00:30:03.060 Do you have a favorite piece of advice in this book?

00:30:06.100 Well, there's lots of it.

00:30:07.960 I like really practical things, right?

00:30:09.700 Like I'm a very, I like practical things.

00:30:12.580 And there's a bit in the book

00:30:15.320 about this idea of low stakes, high frequency,

00:30:19.060 which your kids are just getting to the age where this could play and play into your parenting

00:30:26.280 thoughts but basically Ben has a story of taking piano lessons as he's a kid I don't even think

00:30:33.180 this one made the book but that he's taking piano lessons and it's a big recital and you have one

00:30:38.100 recital a year you may relate to this you know it's like your spring recital and you've prepared

00:30:42.300 for it and you've tried to memorize your piece and on and on and your greatest fear of course is if

00:30:47.260 you are going to mess it up like you don't do it yeah so he gets up to play one thing one thing

00:30:54.020 one shot and he gets up to play his song and he's prepared he's prepared and he freezes he freezes

00:31:01.100 and basically comes out of that and his conclusion is well i guess i'll never play piano again like

00:31:08.400 clearly i'm not a pianist and like i messed it up and so walks away from pianists even though he's

00:31:13.520 this musical guy and has picked up several other likes play other instruments at this young age

00:31:20.000 and sort of said i i missed my chance i'm not you know i can no longer do piano and then we have

00:31:27.280 this you know just the other night our youngest is learning oboe and she has only been there for

00:31:35.140 a year or so and she had her first uh performance um and she's playing and she's playing she has

00:31:42.620 you know she gets to the first song she's playing with an adult they're doing like a little duet

00:31:45.740 and then she gets in the middle of the second song she starts laughing and just like start

00:31:51.080 laughing like and the whole audience is laughing with her and then she's like okay i can do it

00:31:55.860 she comes down she tries again no laughs again like it's like four tries i know i'm laughing

00:32:02.200 because i'm picturing someone first off holding an oboe which is a funny instrument funny and

00:32:06.840 funny instrument and then just like laughing just cracking up and then her partner is also

00:32:12.140 left like it's just like okay calm down I'm gonna finish this song and she had like three measures

00:32:16.560 left anyway and it was like nothing like it did not phase her at all and the reason it didn't

00:32:25.700 phase her is because she has performances all the time in the program we're in they have

00:32:32.180 performances all the time this isn't a this isn't a super special super special recital

00:32:36.100 she was like wearing her school clothes it wasn't a big deal parents were coming in and out and

00:32:40.560 didn't have to sit there for the whole two hours and your kid is playing one song you know at the

00:32:46.500 end like no no no you can leave when your kid is done you can come in like it wasn't it just wasn't

00:32:52.320 a big deal meaning it's low stakes not no stakes there was an audience like they had prepared there

00:32:58.980 is a you know adult that's playing with you like there's it's there were stakes but they were

00:33:02.820 in the world yeah real thing but it's low stakes and it's high frequency she's performing all the

00:33:09.120 time. So if this one's a dad, if she laughs at this one, oh, well, she didn't hit the last one. 0.76

00:33:15.380 She probably won't hit the next one. It's fine. It's not a big deal. And it just allows your kid

00:33:21.020 to learn a skill without a lot of stress and get really good at something without that pressure.

00:33:30.160 And we see it, you know, in the book, we use the example of our kids swim team in California,

00:33:34.840 which was so great about low stakes, high frequency versus other swim teams. We have

00:33:40.720 experienced where you are at a meet for eight hours a day, every weekend. I mean, eight hours

00:33:47.200 every weekend. And, uh, it's like, you're constantly, am I going to make the cut? Do I

00:33:53.080 even get to swim the races this time? Maybe I make one race, you know, like, it's just so

00:33:57.200 competitive and so intense. And it's not like these programs, these intense programs are

00:34:02.720 creating better swimmers in fact a lot of these kids get turned off by swimming altogether they're

00:34:07.680 like that was intense kind of miserable and they're not lifelong swimmers they're like i'm

00:34:12.820 kind of done with that versus in a low stakes environment where it's a lot a lot of fun and

00:34:17.080 you have really casual meets but all the time you know every weekend really easy time these are

00:34:22.760 going to be lifelong swimmers they're going to like swimming is the best swimming's great they

00:34:26.480 learn all the strokes they the kids the kids aren't going to become olympians like that's not

00:34:32.360 our goal like like if your kid is going to become an olympian they will they will drive that they

00:34:37.500 will they will drive they actually don't need to worry about this if that's their future they will

00:34:41.220 let you know but forever you know and i we just listened to katie ledecky's uh just add water

00:34:47.060 book yeah her oh yes that's up on my audible it's fantastic she talks about her parents be like

00:34:52.900 not interested in having her pursue like what what is this about she just like was compelled

00:34:58.560 right so if you have an olympian kid know that's going to happen you don't need to drive it that

00:35:03.940 hard um but for everyone else which is the 99.9 percent of the population you're just trying to

00:35:11.480 have something fun for your kid to do this does not need to be high stakes this does not need to

00:35:15.760 be for pressure fill they're not going to become a professional swimmer you just want to swim so

00:35:21.620 they can enjoy swimming in their life like that's that's it that's what that's it that's it and i

00:35:26.820 think that that nugget in there is so important because i'm i'm also just reaching this place

00:35:33.400 in in my parenting journey where the kids are starting travel sports teams at age freaking

00:35:39.280 seven yeah yeah okay and what i mean i didn't didn't really start playing any sports until

00:35:45.980 middle school and that was at the school at the school they're like here's a field hockey stick

00:35:50.160 do you want to try to hit a ball and i'm like sure and then you you see if you like the field

00:35:55.260 hockey but and i'm trying to i'm trying to stay out of it i'm like oh gosh i'm like i don't want

00:36:01.840 to do anything on weekends we go away we like to go to the woods with like to you know run around

00:36:05.940 let the kids run around you know naked in the forest uh i don't know how long we can get away

00:36:10.620 with it but and all of the parents i know are so stressed out and miserable and frankly i think

00:36:16.260 the kids are kind of stressed out and miserable because my son one of my son's uh really close

00:36:21.520 friends was late to his uh to a birthday part my daughter's birthday party this weekend and he was

00:36:26.220 apologizing profusely he's like I'm so sorry I didn't want to go to baseball but I had to go to

00:36:29.680 baseball and I missed your birthday party and I'm like oh my god like any seven-year-old baseball

00:36:34.820 that is more important than like going to a friend's birthday party you don't why you don't

00:36:39.660 need this you don't need this right now well the pressure I felt when we lived in New York we put

00:36:45.200 our he was four or five our kid into t-ball for the first time it's the first time we'd had any

00:36:49.340 kind of sport experience and the stress i felt if we were gonna miss a practice or be late to

00:36:55.460 something and i'm like no they don't stress no they sure like don't and it was really it really

00:37:05.680 changed my whole i definitely started having conversations with both ben and with other

00:37:09.260 fellow parents going why are we doing this what are we getting out of this are you the impression

00:37:15.000 your kids are going to play even in high school because statistically they aren't like because

00:37:20.280 they're not what is our goal here and yeah and there are worthy goals i we do want our kids to

00:37:25.460 participate in sports for lots of reasons yeah not in a way that's going to cause any kind of stress

00:37:32.580 for our family or any kind of pressure or like take away family time on the weekends or anything

00:37:37.340 like that like you don't have to make big sacrifices to have your kids enjoy sports and

00:37:43.100 The idea that we've been taught that, no, you have to, you need to join a travel team.

00:37:47.300 And this needs to be an intense thing.

00:37:48.680 It's just baloney and it's just a bizarre thing.

00:37:50.920 And so we've rejected that.

00:37:52.760 And our kids still enjoy lots of physical activities and it's OK.

00:37:57.380 Lots of sports and it's still OK.

00:37:59.380 And I think there just has to be, and I think about it all the time, like, why can't we

00:38:03.560 just have nice things?

00:38:04.300 Like, there has to be a happy middle ground of you can enjoy the sports and it doesn't

00:38:08.660 have to take over your life.

00:38:09.420 And again, maybe it will take over your life because maybe your kid is like, oh, no, I'm

00:38:12.520 going to be an olympian and it's like okay cool then you do you like that is that is your jam but

00:38:16.780 forcing the kid um to do it it's you're adding more stress for everyone that's and that's why

00:38:22.620 i love this book and i want to share it with people because i think the idea that a lot of

00:38:28.460 stress is self-prescribed these days manufacturing manufacturing stress it really is yeah it really

00:38:34.340 is because there's a lot to stress about as a parent there's plenty okay we've got like it's

00:38:37.880 just it's it's intrinsic it's there we don't need to create any more no that's exactly right and um

00:38:45.660 and then for my piece of advice if that if if that question is still live or it's still it's

00:38:51.820 still still live i would still i of course love the low stakes high frequency um it's something

00:39:01.240 we've tried to incorporate. So Gabby took kind of a practical, mine is practical, but maybe on a

00:39:13.200 longer horizon. At the end of the book, we write kind of a description of what we hope our

00:39:21.540 relationship with our adult children will look like. And we try to describe what is just a good,

00:39:30.400 healthy relationship with someone that you're really close with and you care for deeply what

00:39:35.860 does that look like and um i won't i mean you can if you get the book you can read it and and see

00:39:43.000 what we say but uh the idea is if we have that kind of relationship kind of an open free-flowing

00:39:52.520 non-coercive relationship with our adult children, how are we preparing the grounds for that

00:40:00.780 today when they're not adults? Is there, can we draw a line from where we are to

00:40:07.300 that future relationship? And if it's really hard to, if we're like, no, my role as a parent is to

00:40:14.160 coerce my kids to do the things they need to do then um then that non-coercive relationship in

00:40:24.940 the future is going to be a shift if it happens at all if it happens at all and again maybe your

00:40:31.420 kid won't want to have a relationship because they'll just feel like i was always coerced by

00:40:35.960 my parents why do i want to spend time with them so being coerced again right so we wrote that

00:40:42.400 description. And it's been helpful for us. I hope it'll be helpful for other parents as they

00:40:47.940 read it and reflect on what their description will be. I know it won't, you know, every parent

00:40:52.860 will have their own kind of, here's what we want it to look like. But my advice would be,

00:40:59.960 think about that. Think about what your future relationship will be, what your ideal future

00:41:05.280 relationship with your adult children will look like. And then think about, well, what do we do

00:41:10.740 now that prepares the ground for that like you're like your weekend cabin visits yeah

00:41:18.560 what a magical weekend to like i wish i was one of your kids that could run naked in the forest

00:41:26.280 together every week come on over because everyone can be one of my kids running naked in the forest

00:41:31.000 at some point yeah yeah and it is it is a free-for-all it is i i also you know i

00:41:38.740 I like permission to in in parenting books and just in talking to other parents to just make mistakes because we we are all trying to figure this out.

00:41:51.520 And I do I genuinely believe that the majority of parents are trying to do their best, you know, whatever their best is.

00:41:58.320 And if social media, recent social media has done anything, I think it's really made it so that we're so judgmental of what other people are doing.

00:42:10.500 I mean, when you started Design Mom, and I think in the early days of women blogging, we got to share mistakes.

00:42:20.600 We got to share the parts that weren't so pretty.

00:42:24.720 And I think it's harder now to share those things.

00:42:28.180 And we need them more than ever.

00:42:31.180 So just, you know, being given permission to try this thing and see if it works.

00:42:35.480 And the kids are probably going to be all right anyway, right?

00:42:38.420 They are.

00:42:39.020 if you're if you're reading parenting books and trying hard to parent your kids they're gonna be

00:42:44.660 fun like that's a sign your kids are gonna be fine like you're you are an engaged parent you

00:42:49.620 are trying your best and and if and you love your kids and they're gonna do great they're gonna do

00:42:56.940 great they're all gonna do great and sometimes they won't be happy and sometimes that's okay

00:43:01.820 and it's okay also okay and that is all we have for today make sure to grab a copy of the kids

00:43:09.100 are all right it's great you're gonna love it you're gonna want to give it to all of your

00:43:12.940 friends and this is one of those books that i want to give to everybody so that we can just

00:43:16.660 talk about it right so we can have a conversation and be like how can we make this just a little

00:43:22.780 bit easier for ourselves can we do that let's do that have a great day guys go do something nice

00:43:30.700 for yourself. You deserve it.

00:44:00.700 You

Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - October 24, 2024

The Kids Are All Right With Gabrielle and Ben Blair

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