Emily Oster on the Real Data Parents Need

0:00 hi I'm Dr Becky and this is good inside I'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children I love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical actionable strategies that you can use in your home right away one of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can with the research ources we have available to us

0:32 in that moment so even as we struggle and even as we are having a hard time on the outside we remain good [Music] inside hi Emily I am so excited I am so honored truly to be having this conversation with you and I would love to start by you're telling everyone listening who you are and the types of

1:04 things you're interested in all right so first let me say I'm also really excited to be here with you so I'm really looking forward to this uh my name is Emily Asar professionally I have two hats I'm a professor of Economics at Brown University where I do things with data mostly around health and I'm a writer I have books about pregnancy and parenting and I write a newsletter called parent data so everything I do is about data but some

1:32 of it's for parents and some of it's for other economists and I live in Providence Rhode Island with my husband who is also an economist and my two kids and you're the author of three books yes I'm the author of three books expecting better which on pregnancy crib sheet which is about um small children and babies and the family firm which is about the older kid experience so what led you into kind of looking at or question questioning

2:00 pregnancy and Parenthood recommendations in some ways the answer is quite simple to that which is that I got pregnant and I think like a lot of women I had not had a lot of sustained I was lucky I had not had a lot of sustained interaction with like medicine uh up to that point and and I you know was a person who makes a lot of my own decisions and and has feels like I have a lot of autonomy

2:27 and information and most of the large choices that I had made in my life were really things where I got a chance to sit down and think about the way I wanted to make that choice and because I'm a person who loves data often those choices involved data uh or numbers in some way and then I got pregnant and I found that the way that pregnancy was approached was pretty evidence not evidence free is the wrong word but I

2:54 wasn't being given the kind of autonomy to evaluate my own choices with evidence that I had had been used to in all other spheres like at my first prenatal visit which I must have been like 10 weeks pregnant where they just like on the way out almost they handed me these lists it was like here's the list of things not to eat and it was incredibly long you know it was like hot dogs and sushi and

3:15 and you know and it's also like cigarettes it's like surely these things can't all be the same amount of bad like it can't be that oysters and cigarettes are like the same bad and they certainly aren't going to be bad for the same reason and that kind of experience of just like me being like but wait wait wait like can you tell me more and being like well no just there's a list like read it read it

3:38 off the list the feeling of sort of things the decision- making being removed from kind of my control and from my ability to make the decision in a way that I was comfortable and happy with I think that was really where this started and of course like can I have Oysters is perhaps not like the most important question but there were many other important questions and also like I like oysters I particularly like coffee which is also on that list so you know that

4:00 was that was really where I started you know right away I feel like we're starting with something that on the surface is so simple like okay I'm pregnant for 9 months like do I have to have coffee like whenever you isolate these decisions one at a time I feel like it's always it's always hard for me to choose something that increases risk even if it's like a tiny bit right so individually like okay oyster Sushi certain cheeses but like these two

4:27 things I see which is risk or like doing whatever you can to maximize safety of your child and then on the other side there's like but I like coffee like but I want coffee I really love having sushi right like there's like Love and Desire and wants for a woman who's pregnant and then there's you know maximizing safety right yes and I think often the way it's framed makes it like the act of not

4:59 having the coffee is the act of being a good parent and this comes up in early parenting also that it is it is almost the fact that you like it and are giving it up for your baby is a way to sort of feel to yourself or to others like you are sort of doing it right like you are willing to sacrifice and and that gets us into a place where with something like coffee if you dive into the data

5:24 there just really no evidence that there's any risk to to sort of amounts of coffee so there isn't gain on that side but I still think it can feel like well I would just just to be on the absolute safest side you know I'm going to be willing to give this up and I feel for me that goes across many areas in parenting I mean I 100% agree but what you're saying which I find really compelling is it's almost like

5:56 what makes us feel best as a newly pregnant person is I am starting my journey of self-sacrifice right now and this is what good moms do is that what you're saying absolutely and I think it's particularly it's actually particularly true with the first one I think often when people get pregnant a second time they're like yeah of course I'm going to have some coffee and and there you know I often will tell people well you got to like sort of balance a

6:18 little bit like sometimes that's first moments you're pregnant it's like almost exciting it's like oh like now I'm pregnant like oo all these new things I get to do like not drink coffee and like oh I have to be careful about this the fish you know and I and that's that's like that can be part of the experience in kind of it could be like in a positive way but it can also then move into this like sort of self-sacrificing

6:42 like that's how you become a good mom yeah this this martydom right and I think if I'm on a mission to do anything it has almost like less to do with kids and more of like changing this idea that motherhood is martyrdom but right away There is almost this like excitement we get which like oh I can't eat that you know or no I can't shrink that and we're living in this idea that being a good

7:05 mom means putting your own pleasure and your own desires to the side for the benefit of of someone else and and ironically I mean I don't know if you've look into the data on this but I'm just going to venture like I can't imagine data supports that like self-sacrifice is like great for parents like that that's like there's a lot of like that is just so good for moms and babies no data does not support that you know they

7:30 does not support that in particular you sort of even on the other side in some of the kinds of things we talk about not so much coffee but particularly in sort of early parenting some of the kinds of sacrifices that we we see in this space can be you know triggers for postpartum depression for postpartum anxiety uh for people kind of moving from you know happy to not happppy and then that actually does have some not positive but

7:57 you know potentially negative impacts on parental functioning and so when we think about the idea of self-sacrifice as a positive value it puts the weight on only one piece of the functioning or one piece of what we're trying to achieve and not on you know how do we structure our family in a way that kind of everybody is happy and everybody is productive and everybody is getting the things that they need and know when I was talking about crib sheet I sometimes

8:24 I would say you know like parents are people too um which I think we sometimes forget yeah is this the same in other countries is this like an American phenomenon this kind of you know this massive starting let's say with pregnancy if we stay in that and I definitely want to move post pregnancy too with you but pregnancy the list the no this the no cheese the no glass of wine the no coffee I'm thinking like

8:47 sushi a glass of wine and a cup of coffee like those are like a lot of my pleasurable foods like my it's like almost like if chocolate cake was like listed too luckily they they've let us have that but like is this true in other countries the list is not the same so you know there's some things that are on everybody's list but you know there are differences in the kinds of things that are that are restricted so the French

9:12 tend to be more relaxed about cheese uh the Japanese are tend to be more relaxed about sushi um and the Americans tend to be relaxed about chocolate cake chocolate cake exactly Doritos you know we're good we're good but then you get other things where people you know where people will have like sort of different kinds of like you can't have ice or you can't have two of the windows open like some of these things sort of I mean I

9:36 remember when I was when I was pregnant with my daughter and one of my colleagues who from China was like did you get your radiation best for your computer work and I was like I'm sorry what are you what and he was like yeah you know like in China like if you're pregnant you have to wear like like a special canvas vest to like protect yourself from the computer radiation I was like yeah we don't have that like we

9:56 don't have that one here but like you know no no shade on that like we got we got a bunch of other ones just not that one huh right it's like everyone has this long list some are some are the same yeah and the word like preciousness keeps coming to mind like there's there's this message and and I think I see this all the time with parents you know who are parenting their toddlers or older kids is the same thing it's like

10:18 if I do one thing wrong I've like messed up Parenthood forever right it's like and all of these restrictions there there's such rigidity in that way there's rigidity and I I I think it it does come from a good place of people wanting to do the right thing um and and the idea that there is a single right way to to do this or a way to kind of make it to make it successful and and

10:43 some of parenting is really about giving up control and recognizing that you can make like or pregnancy or whatever that you can make all the right choices or all the the all good you make all good choices and you can still end up in a situation in which things go unfortunately go wrong and and that um I think people part of the the byproduct of some of these issues is that people often blame themselves you know people have a miscarriage they

11:08 they'll ask me you know well what like what did I do and the answer is like nothing you know a huge share of first trimester miscarriages are just a result like not not like 50% but like 90% are a result of chromosomal issues that you never could have done anything about and the idea that people come and they say well you know what did I do was it did I take I shouldn't have run or you know I

11:28 should have have that cup of coffee or you know what about this you know I walk through this field and could that you know like all of these things where we get into a place where once you accept the idea that there's a a like right way to do it then if it doesn't go right it must be that you've done something wrong and that's a big Challenge and right I think there's so many of us and I think

11:50 so many listeners right now probably can identify yes when I struggle with something in my life when I have like a big hard feeling about something my first thought of self blame like I made this happen I did this and I think as women we're like a lot of us are especially prone to this but it it is interesting that the self blame is always about not being careful and like self-sacrificial enough like I don't know someone as like no one was like I

12:14 had a miscarriage and I just I wasn't having enough sex because if I was having more sex I would have been like happier if I would have been happier I would have been more hospitable no one's like I just I should have had sushi cuz if I had sushi I would have like been so much more satisfied that day and my baby would have felt felt that Elation right it's just kind of interesting it's always like I didn't restrict enough

12:36 yeah no it's I had not even thought about it but you're absolutely right like there's when you said those things I was like that's a crazy thing to say because I've never heard anyone say that but of course I'm not sure why they wouldn't uh you know I'm not sure what what's what's wrong with your sex argument it's just as good as the yeah you know all the other things that people say you know and and every time I

12:56 have these conversations it's like I feel like I learned so much about how deep these stories are about like what motherhood is How Deep The Story of motherhood as martydom like really goes right because as soon as you're pregnant there's almost like we're signaling our virtue right like oh I don't eat that I don't do that cuz I'm a I'm a good mom I'm a good mom from the start because I am willing to say no to things that give

13:26 me personal pleasure yes right and when you do get pregnant same too and the obes it's all about like here's everything you could do to minimize risk even if the data doesn't support it to babies like no doctors like here's what you need to do from the start to make sure you still stay in touch with all the parts of you that pre-existed pregnancy I just want to say I think there are doctors who do that great but

13:53 I don't think that there I don't think that that it's it is not it is not the norm yeah yeah how how did you navigate all this then so when you were pregnant like how did you navigate the these things did did people say things to you because you your book your expecting better book is the book I feel like everyone I know read during pregnancy and everyone was like you have to read this book you have to read this book but

14:16 what that tells me is before you wrote the book like no one no one gave you that book have the book you didn't have the book you you wrote the book yeah so how did you navigate this and what was the reaction around you I navigate I I talk in the book about some of the the ways that we sort of that we navigated this and there were a lot of there was a lot of research and a lot of

14:35 spreadsheets um and I did a lot of the work for the book while I was in my own pregnancy and so like an example is we were trying to make some decisions about prenatal testing which actually the landscape is quite different now than it was when I was pregnant a decade ago but there were a bunch of different tradeoffs and um and you know my husband and I would go back and forth with these spreadsheets and he'd be like okay like

14:56 here's an I want well I want to see a different assumption here I want to see a different you know a different assumption there like let's kind of you know what about this paper what about that paper and so we would we would work through this and then of course I would go to my OB who obviously thought I was the worst um I mean you know both like like kind of insane and also just very

15:17 very difficult um it just this the truth but I did try to inform our uh our decisions with the the numbers to the extent that I could get them sort of in uh kind of in time but you know what was interesting was there were there were moments when we had sort of come to some decision based on the data and preferences and whatever it was where I was really happy that we had thought so carefully about it because there was

15:42 sort of if not push back kind of like dismissiveness so the example that comes to mind is I I didn't want to have an epidural so I we and we had talked a lot about this and sort of like why not and and you know it's not that I think is a somewhat unusual choice that had a lot to do with preferences and less to do with risks but any it was the choice that I decided was like the right choice

16:01 and I remember telling them and whoever I was seeing at the OB was like well we'll see you know and I was like okay we will see let's see you know it's just so but I I think that was the kind of interaction that both like spurred me on and also was frustrating because it again was this sort of like well actually no I'm an autonomous person who has thought about this and evaluated the evidence and I have made this choice and

16:27 it was it was there was some dismissiveness yeah you know I always think about that as a different type of data that we have which I feel like in the information age and this evidence-based world for everything we live in sometimes is like really undervalued which like you say the word preferences to me that's just like internal data it's like just something inside me that's like I want this I don't want an epidural or like I

16:48 just have a gut on this and I would never say that that's more important than you know scientific data like I just don't think you can compare them side by side but I I feel like that's something that's really really important right yeah I agree but I I think it's so many of these choices the there are kind of some pluses and there are some minuses there are some and there are benefits there are very few things not

17:11 none but very few things where you could point to the data in this space and be like 100% like that activity is risky and like a significantly risky with no benefits it's just very few things where the data almost makes the decision for you there are many more things where there's Plus there's minuses and so then we are left with you can call it your own personal data you can call it your preferences whatever it is as something

17:36 that has to be a big part of the right choice for you but that also means that the right choice for you is not necessarily the right choice for someone else and that recognition both in the kind of patient provider space but also in the interacting with other parents space is one that um that can be really hard to navigate because I think we want our choices to be like so right that they are right for everyone

17:59 yeah no I I completely agree I think you know in that search to feel like you trust your own decision it almost feels easier if everyone outside you would just validate it right um and then we get very judgmental of other people not actually because we're judging what they're doing because it feels like a threat to our feeling good about what we're doing right and then we just enact that over and over and over when I had

18:23 this so I I didn't have an epidural and my best friend was pregnant at the same time and she was due like 3 months after and she was like I'm going to have you she was like I'm going to have an epidural and I was like that was great and she I remember she called me the next day and she was like you're insane like the epidural is the best like you know of course it was it was very nice

18:41 but it was like only an interaction you'd have with someone where it was like okay we both trust each other like we understand we have different preferences she just like you're a crazy person and it sounds like that was held with such levity right which for everyone listening right now to think about a decision you've made for your family maybe it was back pregnancy maybe it's you know a long time since pregnancy maybe it's the amount of

19:02 screen time you let your kid watch today right or maybe it's whether you let a kid have a sleepover or not or how many after school activities your kids do whatever the decision is I really think it's like the ultimate grounding exercise just remind yourself like I'm making decisions that feel best for my kid and my family and my neighbor over there is actually doing the exact same thing like it might look totally different on the surface but internally

19:30 like we're actually doing the same thing and their kid who watches less you know screen time or more like they're they're they're no better or worse like we're each trying to make decisions for our family right you and your friend Emily like you actually made the same decision you made the decision that felt right for you that's such a good message because it's so easy to both judge and also to sort of feel judged or to second

19:56 guess in a way that um that can promote a tremendous amount of anxiety yes and and strife right and just you know I I say this to myself a lot too when I feel that like threat of comparison it's like that's not a referendum on my parenting like that parent decisions is not at all a referendum on my decisions and I feel like pushing away other people's decisions in a way so you can see them and then you can be curious about them

20:22 like oh you love the epidural like cool tell me about that what was what worked about that for you once you have a little distance you can actually be curious when we don't have distance it it really feels like an you know an evolutionary threat right yeah yeah no exactly okay so I want to transition into breastfeeding that like so all of this this stuff with breastfeeding like just I'm just going to say go go go

20:45 breeding yeah go so breastfeeding uh is I think in some ways the most significant early parenting example of this kind of self-sacrificing thing um and uh when I was bu crib sheet this was like the biggest place I wanted to start was just to dive into the evidence before we get into preference and so and just like dive in the evidence behind a lot of the things we get told about breastfeeding many of which are very

21:12 extreme so I you know I pulled up together like a list of the benefits that are listed and there some of the things you're familiar with Better Health better antibodies you know higher IQ less serious illness later lower obesity and then you'll get into like weight loss free birth control like have better friendships even know what that means what's wrong with your friends you know don't get different friends is what I think um so I you know really dug into

21:39 that I think part of the issue in the data there is that there are a lot of uh differences between women who breastfeed and women who do not on a bunch of other dimensions so when we study those problems it's really difficult to separate correlation from causality and much of the evidence we have is really problematic for that reason uh when we look at the best evidence which is typically from either like the one randomized trial or more likely sibling

22:05 studies where they compare two siblings within the same family you see you know some evidence of these early life benefits like better digestion you know less gastro intestinal illness you know those effects are not enormous but they're definitely they seem to be there maybe some effects on ear infections but you don't see compelling evidence of many of these longer term things like IQ obesity height you it's doesn't help you lose weight like sorry um you know so

22:33 when I then sort of when I wrote [ __ ] sheet then I sort of went there discussed that tried to you know get people on the same page about like what is the truth it's like is when people say breast is best like based on the data I guess that's not that's not wrong in the sense that there are some you know small benefits that um show up in the data but when we people say breast

22:53 is best they they imply a thing which is far beyond the the and uh the thing that made me most compelled to write crib sheet the emails I would get from people that would say like my wife really liked your first book we have our first kid you know breastfeeding is not going well she's so upset and you know she's really like like was is really really hard and I feel like if you told her it wasn't

23:17 that big a deal like maybe she would feel better about herself W that that's crushing yeah well and I said this to you before we started today I feel like there's just such overlap in in our work it always like just kind of comes together in the right way and you know I think what I see over and over from parents and especially moms is is the kind of looking for one thing and the one thing keeps changing to kind

23:44 of prove like I'm a I'm a good parent like I'm a good parent and early on like there's just not that much there's not that many options you know there's not that much to do there's not much like there's not you know like they're not even smiling but you know there there's how do I feed my baby which is the essence like how am I sustaining this child and there's like one thing or maybe there's two there's how they sleep

24:11 right nobody's baby sleeping that well and then there's how your feeding right and what always strikes me about data right and breastfeeding this is I thought about this a lot even before CRI sheet came out was like you know what I know as a human without looking at any study is Mother's feeling depleted exhausted resentful shitty about themselves is not good for a mom it is not good for a baby and it is not good for a baby's

24:42 connection like the idea that whatever is in breast milk would be more important to a baby than all of that like this is your sturdy leader like you know like the sturdy leader of an organization there's nothing more important in an organ ation than that sturdiness right so like I I just I always remember thinking like I don't buy it and that's not a way of saying I don't think people should breastfeed that's not a way of saying that when it

25:08 gets hard you should give it up I'm not I'm not saying that so concretely but I know in my bones that if a mom is so overwhelmed and depleted in that way there's no way she's forming a strong bond with her child yes and I I think in you know this idea of elevating this one Behavior which is sort of maybe another way to say what you're saying like we're elevating one Behavior as if everything is in economics we'd say lexicographic

25:38 that like there's there's one thing that's the most important and everything else is almost like completely secondary and if you do the one thing everything else is there's nothing else to worry about if you don't do the one thing it's basically over and that is not true of the data on on breastfeeding and and you know as you say there are many compelling reasons that people would choose not to breastfeed including they don't want to and that I think is a

26:07 piece of this where we often we'll see you know people say well like I could you know you somehow have to be there has to be an excuse I couldn't you know I I I didn't have enough Supply I tried really hard you know but as opposed to just being like well I didn't you just didn't think it would work for my family which is actually like a completely legitimate reason on the flip side and this is I think a frustration that's

26:29 perhaps unique in some ways to to the US that we are both very pushy about breastfeeding and also tremendously unsupportive in other ways like actually breastfeeding is quite hard for at least for many of us like it's it's not super intuitive it's not I thought it was just going to be like you just like put the baby in the vicinity and it just kind of does it but actually like maybe that works for some people that didn't you

26:52 know that didn't work for me and so we have this activity which is difficult to get started and we have very little support for new parents outside of the hospital very little like home visiting or whatever you would need to make that work and then we have like basically no support for breastfeeding in public and so it's kind of like you know the most important thing you can do for your baby is breastfeed but put those boobs away

27:14 because nobody wants to see that and get back to work because there's no paid parental get back and get back to work um you can pump in this uh in this dirty bathroom right I'm sorry that there's no plug but just buy more batteries it's really messed up right and I I know right like it was you know then there's like oh and by the way if you can breastfeed up to Age Two that's also best right like that extra little cherry

27:36 on top and you know one of the things that I think is just always helpful whether you know you have a young baby or a teenager is the sentence like I'm a good mom who and then you end the sentence with something that societally has been deemed something that quote good moms don't do to like hold those two truths at once and I just want to say and I think I've said this elsewhere I did not choose to breastfeed my kids

28:02 for that long like at all and it was a combination of factors but I want to name one of the factors I didn't like it I wasn't into it it wasn't my thing I didn't want to do it and it's so true it's like oh but you tried this or oh did you have a supply issue like you have to prove your sacrifice MH to get permission from the world to not breastfeed and that is that is some

28:25 [ __ ] up [ __ ] and I'm just want to say on air I am a good mom who chose not to breastfeed her kids for that long at all period yeah I think that's amazing and I will say you know some people I knew all this stuff about breastfeeding all this data like before I had my first kid because I've done it for a something I looked into for research and so on so I

28:47 knew all this and I really knew it and I still killed myself to try to breastfeed my first kid and I really like I did not me eventually we made it work but like it was not an experience that I look back on and think like I'm really glad that I spent so very many hours walking up and down the hallway like bouncing my kid because that was the only way I could get her to latch like I I I wish

29:13 that I had not done that because I I wish I had sort of let myself off not let myself off the hook is again like I'm it's so quick you're so quick to get into that em what are we doing what are we doing oh my God 100% let me backtrack and to say by the way like I'm I also like was in a horrible guilt shame spiral for my first child right like a 100% me too and I very much felt like I

29:39 had to talk to everyone about my schedule and then how I have to pump after and this I had to prove my worth through self-sacrifice and proving that this couldn't be good for anyone and that might be true and like I just do I think so many things in motherhood goes back to the way women have distanced oursel from the start from our desire right as if like desire is like anti-female like half like the desire of

30:06 like I don't want to right I don't want to breastfeed say it I don't want to do that right it feels very radical and you know and I I think and there's this flip which is like if people want to do this we should provide more support and somehow like somehow we've sort of hit a place where you know we don't support it and yet we we sort of force it into people who would like to do it kind of

30:28 aren't able to to you know really give it a chance to kind of because it is hard at the beginning and for many people you push through that and actually it's something that you enjoy and it really works for you and and so on for at least some people it doesn't work and it's not something that you necessarily want to do for two years and exactly and and yes like this is not an anti- breastfeeding message and no I

30:49 think the message is good moms get epidurals and good moms don't get epidurals and good moms breastfeed and good moms don't breastfeed right and then no one of these choices is a choice that makes you a good mom or not like that that hanging any idea of sort of good parenting on a choice is a huge mistake I think that that's exactly right you know one of the questions that came from our membership Community is about like Choice Frameworks covid risk

31:20 sending your kids back to school amidst increased gun violence things like that how do you think through these decisions and and things that maybe have seemingly you know are are definitely lower risk but still feel like hard choices like how many after school activities do I do and you know when do I give my kid a phone like any of those I would love to hear how you think through those things yeah so so I spent a lot of time in

31:44 family firm on this kind of like decision framework around um big choices hard choices and I think there's a few sort of insights in there and so so kind of one is that I really encourage people to try to be very specific about what their question is I think often when we are asking ourselves these hard questions we frame them almost as like should I do this or not you know should I send my kid back to school or not and

32:09 you know you got to recognize like or not's not a schooling outcome you know that it's not a or not not a place you go to school and if you are going to make that choice in a way that um that is thoughtful you really do need to say what the two options are um and so I call that framing the question that I think we're often sort of reluctant to to frame the question in part because or

32:30 not seems great like or not could be almost anything right like or not or not could be like an amazing outcome whereas the school is just like a known quantity but of course or not is actually it's not not a choice so how would you change that question so you know in the case of something like like school I think what you'd have to ask is you know should I send my kid this was more of an early

32:51 pandemic thing but like should I send back my kid back to school or should I enroll them in Zoom school and you know that's those are two things where where then you could say let me evaluate the risks let me evaluate the you know learning outcomes or you know in something like extracurriculars you know like people say well should I do this activity or or not in some ways that's that's sort of well-framed but I think

33:12 you want to say like should I do this activity or another activity should is this sport or another sport or is it this sport or theater or is it this sport or nothing and that I think makes the questions often more tractable because you are now facing an actual choice which you can then move forward on and and I think a lot of the rest of the framing the sort of decision tools are really about giving that decision the

33:36 attention it needs think about what are the trade-offs what are the risks what are the benefits on either side then making a decision and trying to move on so I think other than the sort of two big mistakes I see people make here are not framing the question as two concrete Alternatives and then actually not ever really making a decision like just saying should we do should we do baseball or not and then kind of dribbling it out until the decision is

34:00 either made for you because you forgot to sign up or you know at the last minute you just like sign up because like your kid is standing over you and bothering you and you actually haven't really thought about it yeah but you know I I have a couple thoughts on that yeah I can struggle with things in that way and my husband always says to me when I'm struggling with the decision that one side of how I frame a question

34:20 is like known risk and the other one is like always all upside because like I don't actually right because that's what you do when you don't name the other side like should I do this or not well if I send them to school it could be like Co this this and you're not realizing that the other one has some known risk too but as long as you don't quantify it or name it it just has infinite upside and no risk so I think

34:38 that that's really really powerful I feel like what anxiety is is something Unknown about the future coupled with our underestimation of our ability to cope that we chronically underestimate our coping abilities because you can't cope with a worry we we I think as humans we actually cope very very well with problems but in this day and age we have many many more worries in the future you know sometimes and we have problems in front of us and

35:05 we we kind of like forget we always underestimate that okay if that thing does happen like I probably won't enjoy it it might be inconvenient but like I actually am someone who has coped with hard things and and I'll get through it again you know whether it's decision fatigue or decision handicapping or not making the decision if you think that's a part of it the underestimation of coping that people have or what what does get in people way of making

35:29 decisions yeah I think it is some of the underestimation of coping I think the other piece of it is that once you have made an active choice you could be wrong and people don't like to be wrong and if you don't really make the choice then then even though yes it could turn out badly you haven't chosen to be wrong and and so I think this comes up it it came up a lot in Co so I thinking you know if

35:52 I choose to send my kid to child care and they get covid even if the chance that they got Co was basically the same whether I sent them to childcare or not I've made the choice and then the outcome that I fear occurs it's it feels like I chose wrong and we sort of don't like to be wrong so I think that's a that's a kind of piece of it that that sort of committing to a to an active

36:15 Choice gives us responsibility for the choice and in part I actually like I think that's why it's sort of valuable to frame it as two options because then you you have to make a choice right there was a recognition that not doing anything is also a choice um and it doesn't let you off the hook for this you know for this idea that you you've made a choice you just kind of made it by accident yeah and then we're kind of

36:38 back to that cycle of self-blame When we struggle like so many of us it's almost like impossible it feels to disentangle it's like oh wait I could struggle or end up being in a hard situation and not blame myself cuz you're saying people end up blaming themselves they think oh I made this decision yeah um but they're almost two different things like I made a decision with the information I had at the time okay now I have different

37:00 information it it stinks and I can cope from here versus oh it's all my fault yeah exactly no I think we really it's really valuable to separate like this decision was right X antie and this decision turned out to be wrong expost right so like I could have made the right choice and most of the choices we make or many of them there could be something you know negative that that could happen but the confidence that

37:23 comes with sort of having made the the right choice can sometimes help us navigate through that and so so actually one of the things I talk about in the book not in the co but like so think about like the example of an extra curricular right so like you know we decide to enroll our kid in travel soccer um and some of the time you know you've chosen to do that and then sometimes it's really terrible um you

37:46 know your kid hates the travel soccer you like drive around all the time every weekend is spent at this activity nobody likes it everybody's unhappy okay that could happen maybe it won't and one of the things that happens I think because people don't want to be wrong is they will sometimes reup these activities or these things that they don't that were not good because by not doing it again next year it's like saying I messed up

38:10 last year and I I think there's a way to to sort of push back on that a little to to sort of address that a little bit psychologically by like planning to revisit these things by saying you know we're going to choose this for this year and we are going to explicitly acknowledge we could learn more after this year and then we are going to plan to revisit it and then it's when you revisit if it was a disaster well it's

38:33 not that you were wrong I mean you know maybe that wasn't the right choice in in the moment but you had planned to revisit it was an experiment um I think sometimes we can sort of trick ourselves a little bit with tools like that I I love that I I also find the idea of like a mistake I more and more I feel like is that like really a thing like I I actually feel learning experience yeah

38:53 like if you make the best decision you can with the information you have then when you have more information and you you know zoom out you might make a different decision but again it makes me think about you and your friend with the epidural like you actually went through the same process like I I now I made the best decision with the information I had a year later now I know my child complained every single car ride now I

39:14 know that you know whatever I have this whole year of information but I like I don't think it means the first decision was ever a mistake like I find it's like a very disrespectful word to our to ourselves like why is a mistake because information changed right and I think again it goes all this stuff is all related because it's this way where we so often Define our internal goodness by a single kind of external moment I

39:40 breast fit I'm a good mom or I oh I have to sign up for soccer again I know what you mean because I just signed up for soccer last week and I can't face you know quote being wrong like that's that's a manifestation if I'm more focused internally of like okay what do I know what information do I I have what uncertainty do I just have to cope with well that process I'm probably going to replicate over and over like that's the

40:05 process that matters and it's going to take me different places right yeah what is something that beyond the data like Beyond everything you know you know so much that that you struggle with as a parent or that you the data just doesn't kind of come together to give you ease that's still hard I find that as my kids have gotten older you know the data is it can be helpful um but it is it is often sort of less there's less of it um

40:33 and the choices that we're making are much more specific to our kids and I think there are a lot of things with my younger kid in particular where I am just not sure that I'm doing I'm doing it right is almost or like quite how to deal with the force of will that comes with a a willful seven-year-old um and what I found interesting about that is is like the almost the need for for experimentation around all of these

41:01 different parenting strategies and kind of figuring out what works for for you so like the other day you know my son didn't want to I don't know he didn't feel good oh he' been on some antibiotics so his stomach was bothering him he didn't want to go to camp and it's the kind of thing for us that can sort of very rapidly move into a a kind of place where like he's in his bed and I cannot like physically move him out of

41:22 his bed and I we can't go to camp and also I have to go to my job and so it's like a a little bit and and in that moment it actually like like what what I did ended up working like telling him like we can be late we can be a few minutes late can you you know sit why don't you sit and eat a cracker you do have to go to Camp that's not negotiable

41:40 but you can sit and eat these crackers you can bring their cracker to camp and like we ended up going and having a very nice like a very nice time and we were not late because I always plan to be like 45 minutes early so we weren't late um but that that is not the like Norm for that outcome and and it was sort of the fact that I was so happy but like called my husband I was like we had this

42:00 and then it worked out and and he was like okay great um but uh it is a place where I have found it to be somewhat resistant to sort of broad data um and even resistant to my own like attempts to collect personal data about what works in the in the moment well I appreciate you sharing that because also oh yes it just conf confirms that you are like every every one of us who yes who you know we this knowledge and and

42:28 me too and I always need to say it because you know my kids don't have some like Dr Becky person as their mom right they have me with my triggers and my own stresses and you know moments that sometimes feel really good and sometimes feel confusing and you know in some ways I feel like that's the data we all need as parents is like the data of knowing 100% of parents find parenting hard yes it's hard it's just hard it's just hard

42:56 it's just hard um and you know you got to celebrate the wins and you know like give yourself Grace on the times when you know you actually are like literally picking up your seven-year-old and carrying them out the door uh like over your shoulder because actually you have to do have to go to Camp yeah some moments are like that you know my in my house too well tell everyone listening if they don't already know uh how to

43:21 find more of you so let's see um so so in the in the professional space um I you know I'm working um I'm working a lot on the newsletter and sort of really trying to you know to make that as useful as possible I guess is the way it's amazing so tell everyone people need you need a little more air time for your a newsletter is like such a disservice to like the amazing work that you put out in an email so it's called

43:43 parent data um and it comes out as substack newsletters do uh in your in your email but it really you know the I think the goal in the newsletter is to sort of dive into the New Evidence new data around parent parenting um and help parents you know navigate the things that that come up navigate some of these hard decisions see what the data says you know it's it's a little bit of a combination of you know here's a new

44:07 fact like all of a sudden apparently there's toxic Metals in baby food like help me and you know trying to to write people through those kind of choices or what are the AAP breastfeeding guidelines like really based on and then I you know I do write some about covid again around these these data pieces um so you can find me uh at parent data Emily a.sub stack.com you can find me on Instagram at Prof Emily AER those are probably my two most

44:35 important and you can find me in my books which are for sale where books are sold I really feel like you have like truly changed so much for for parents you've helped Empower so many women to I feel like get and back in touch with the parts of motherhood that are not about self-sacrifice and to give themselves permission to do that and redefine what good mothering is so thank you and I know this is just one of many

45:06 conversations we will have and can't wait for the next one I hope so and thank you thank you both for those lovely words that is what I wanted to accomplish and so I hope I have done part of it um and yeah I would love to talk again I just really enjoyed this this was amazing thanks for listening to good inside I love co-creating episodes with you based on the real life tricky situations in your family to share

45:30 what's happening in your home you can call 646 598 2543 or email a voice note to good insid podcast gmail.com there are so many more strategies and tips I want to share with you and so many good inside parents I want you to meet I'm beyond excited that we now have a way to connect and learn together head to good inside.com to learn more about good inside membership I promise you you're going to love it

46:01 it's totally gamechanging and if you're not already receiving my free weekly email go to good inside.com to sign up you don't want to miss it good inside with Dr Becky is produced by Mary Kelly our senior producer is Beth row and our executive producers are Erica bky and me if you enjoyed this episode please do take a moment to rate and review it or share this episode with a friend or family member as a way to start an

46:31 important conversation let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside I remain good inside why is it so hard to find Reliable answers to Parenting questions how is it in 2022 parents still search on Google Google for answers from strangers well now there's a better

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