Don't Google It

0:00The iTunes algorithm, no one's gonna take you from Wicked to an ISIS recruitment video, but YouTube might, you know? [upbeat music] Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this. We'll be talking about/crashing out over topics like- Gender identity and why they won't wear a coat. School shooting drills and forgotten PE clothes. It's not an advice show. It's a you're not alone, and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kinda show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches. And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important Not Important.

0:39You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website, notrightnow.show..show. And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet, and then drop us a nice little five-star review. And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to [email protected]. [upbeat music] Hey. We just got a little housekeeping before we get into today's episode.

1:12Please tune in here on my other show, The Most Important Question. We are in the middle of our favorite series with our friends from Run for Something, where we have young progressive candidates running for state and local office all across the country on the show. And this week, I'm chatting with Junior Izono about his run for Texas House District Number One. I really love doing these episodes so much. They, and the people on them, bring me a lot of hope, and I think you would too get a lot out of them. Billo's new podcast, our new reality TV podcast, is live.

1:43It's called Reality, is what it's called, and the first few episodes cover Survivor 50 as a case study in narrative control, the recent cancellation of The Bachelorette as an example of how we treat women in media, and The Traitors as an example of disinformation and bias. It is the discourse for people who give a shit. And of course, on Not Right Now with Claire, last week we had on Caitlin Teare, author of Little Apocalypses, and we talked about parenting in the age of climate change, which is just so great.

2:10And again, this is a commiseration show. If you're feeling this, remember, we're not here to give you your vegetables. We are here to help you feel seen. Please scroll back in your feed if you missed it, or check it out on the YouTube. Lastly, if you are a small business that gives a shit, a wine store, coffee shop, bookstore, whatever, we wanna partner with you. We have these awesome new Important sticker boxes. 2, 300 stickers we're selling for pennies on the dollar, people seem to love so far, and you can put them on your shelves or your checkout counter, whatever you want.

2:38Email us or find the link in the show notes for more information about those. All right. We have a guest today. Her name is Amanda Hess. Amanda is a writer at large for The New York Times, covering what it's like to be alive today. She is a parent, which really makes you feel alive, and she's an author. Her first book was called The Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age, which is now in paperback. It is a blend of memoir, reportage, and criticism about the culture of new parenthood, originally published in 2025. We talk about everything and all that stuff, and also what we let our kids watch in this conversation.

3:12So please join us. [upbeat music] How are things going with you? Where... What is the state of your family for this, at this moment in the summer? Yeah. Well, I have a three and a five-year-old. The five-year-old is ending kindergarten soon- Wow... like in a couple of weeks, and we're entering the summer. I'm in New York. It's really hot here. Mm-hmm. Where are you guys? I'm met outside Chicago. I'm in Evanston. I'm in Colonial Williamsburg. My children ended school yesterday. It's also very hot here. Oh, wow. Okay. Mm-hmm. Nice. Kind of. It's great- Summer sucks. Three...

3:54I literally said to one of the other parents at the bus stop yesterday while we were getting ready to traditionally silly string the kids as they got off the bus, I believe I said out loud, "I can't wait for school to start again," just- I know... so they could go back. And summer's fun. We have all kinds of super chill 1980s era activities we do here or don't do, and yet it's just, it's a lot. Um- Yeah... what's the plan with- Yeah... a three and a five-year-old?

4:19I've been there. It's not great. I mean, I think the main problem is that there are very few places that accommodate a three and a five-year-old, so they go to different locations during the summer, and the five-year-old does a wide variety of things, and the three-year-old goes to a park daycare. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Which is great. It's great. It works. But it's tough. It's tough to get them together anywhere. It gets much better, I promise. I think one of the biggest wake-ups for me in terms of, like, how much better it can get for a parent was when my kids started changing themselves after the pool, taking themselves to the locker room and getting themselves dressed.

5:00Oh my God. I mean, it gets... Just things happen. Things, like, ag- But you know, at the same time, I'm the one who's like, when I see a three-year-old, I'm like, "That's just like a little walking baby." I know. "That's hardly even a person." I know. Yeah. He's still... You know, he says things incorrectly. It's really cute- Hold on to that... and sweet. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no, we don't... We, we made a blanket decision very early that we're never gonna correct any of those things, so w- so some of these things are, have, have really stretched into, like, seventh grade algebra, which is- I love it...

5:32I'm fine with. Yeah. It's really sweet. Yeah. And for the kindergartners, that can be, like, a big, you know, graduation thing. Mm-hmm. You know, how do they handle it at that kid's school? Yeah, I don't know. They have some kind of stepping up ceremony, and I'm not sure what that entails. But he's really had a graduation-type ceremony at every year of professional care he's had. He was, like, stepping up in daycare. Yeah. So- Got it. Great... it's an excuse to put a baby in a graduation. Sure.... cab or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. It is.

6:09My older son graduated from eighth grade a couple weeks ago, and it was such a, a year long of extravaganzas, and I couldn't help think about how he's gonna be a freshman next year and no one will give a single flying fuck about him, and he's just gonna be bottom of the totem pole. Ah, it's so true. Yeah. I- I'm kinda happy... Claire, I told you this story. My- mine are, what day is it? June 11th, 11, 12, 13, and my 13-year-old, his first week of sixth grade.

6:36Going into sixth grade, you're like, "Oh, I'm gonna be with the big kids." Y- so here it's, you know, elementary and middle school is six, seven, eight. And a week into it, he was like, "Holy fuck, I'm with the big kids" you know? You know, there was a real course correction there. Yeah. And I imagine- Yeah... if I'm remembering high school correctly, that's exactly how it's gonna go, Claire. Yeah. Yeah, it- I have a memory of my first day of high school. My friend and I sitting at the wrong table.

7:04Has that ever happened to you? Sitting at the wrong table in the cafeteria that was, like, the football players table. Oh. [laughs] Mm. Mm-hmm. It was so humiliating. Um- Where was this? This was in Phoenix, Arizona. Mm. Big football school. Mm-hmm. Mm. Or something. Mm-hmm. And I, I don't know. I think so. Mm. I think having, I mean, I feel like having your own kids, in a way, A, I became much more comfortable with myself, but also, now that my kids are, like, encountering social dynamics, it's a little bit triggering. Mm-hmm.

7:41You know? I'm, like, trying not to apply my experience onto them, but there's something- Yeah... that's just very enduring and classic about those- Mm-hmm. Yeah... dynamics- Mm-hmm... as well. Yeah. Yesterday, my son and his friends had a yard sale and lemonade stand, which, like, independent of me, is adorable. I was so stressed out, 'cause I was on deadline, and then also I was cooking seven racks of ribs and it was 100 degrees out, and the kids were coming in and out. And I had no choice but to be completely hands-off.

8:15And except for, like, I did note, like, they originally wanted to charge $3 per, for a glass of lemonade, and we were like, "Not only is that too much, no one has $3." But they- Anymore. No. But h- b- my son was, like, worried that his friend was mad at him, 'cause he won't have taken any money from the sale. And, you know, I was sort of caught between being like, knowing what it's like, like, that panicky feeling of wondering w- whether you're in trouble with your friend and wanting to make it right, but also being l- like, being like, "Well, fuck it," like, "Do- don't worry about him," you know?

8:44And no time to worry about him, but- Yeah. And, like, the business- Yeah... people got their, their thing sorted out. But yeah. So Amanda, I don't know if I knew that you're from Phoenix. My husband's from Glendale. He went to Brophy, if you know any Brophy people. Oh. I don't think I know Brophy people, but I, of course I know of Brophy. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. He does not, he doesn't have, he loves Arizona, minus Phoenix. He hates Phoenix and loves the rest of the states. Claire- Yeah... could I go back for a moment? Do you have a first day, week of s- high school-ish story, like sitting at the wrong table like a monster? Well, let's see.

9:20I remember, first of all, getting, going s- clothing shopping with my mom and ex- and this was the '90s, like, going to The Limited and excitedly getting a bunch of crushed velvet clothes- Mm... and, like, stacked heel shoes. Mm-hmm. And forgetting that school doesn't actually start in the fall, it starts in the summer. So all my, my clothes were wrong. And I had, I mean, there were a bunch of things, but we, the summer befo- like, right before school, I did a, a version of summer camp that's sort of like a bigger kid where the teens are separated from the little kids, and it's a lot of hormones and, like, heartache and, you know, a lot of...

9:55And I remember making friends at that camp, and then one girl kind of completely blew me off, like, right, like, the first day of school. And, you know, that's high school, I think. And so yeah. But those are the memories we make. That's the reason why you wanna get out and go to college somewhere else, and then you, if you're like me, you come right back home to the same town, and then put your kid in the same school and see what unfolds for him.

10:16Oh my God, the exact same school. That is, like, a different level. Yeah. You know? Of, like, actually being in the environment, like, back in the, in the halls. Yeah. I think- I had an experience with middle school where I moved to Arizona from Washington State, and in Washington State, elementary school goes through sixth grade. So I moved after elementary school. But in Arizona, middle school starts in sixth grade. So I was starting seventh grade as, like, a fresh middle schooler, like, still a child. Fresh meat. And everyone else there was, like- Sophisticated...

10:48a grown-up who had, like, already had a year of middle school. They'd been abroad. It was horrible. Yeah. Yeah. That's how- I know... yeah, it felt like, it felt like that. Yeah. No, it was a wild wake-up call, 'cause, and I was t- I'm sort of preparing my son for it, but I know I can't. But he, like me, went to a very small Catholic school, and I'm laying the groundwork for, "You're gonna be around people who have had kids already, who can't afford breakfast, who don't speak English," and I think he thinks I'm shaming him.

11:18And I'm like, "No, it just, I know what's ha- A little bit. I'm, I'm ex- well, a little bit, yeah. But also just that you don't even know what you don't know yet, you know? Mm-hmm. And you have no idea. You think you're, he thinks he's poor because we don't take him skiing. So I'm, like- Yeah... excited for him to, you know, kinda wake up and, and see what's going on. Yeah, yeah. Gonna be interesting. Amanda, what have you been working on lately? It's a good question.

11:42I'm starting to think about writing another book that is, you know, my first book was about birth, essentially, and I've been doing more work and thinking about the technology of death and people who are trying to avoid that. And so I'm just starting to think about that, so I'm doing a lot of reading about cryonics and stuff like that. It's such a fun, I've only written one book, but it's, it's just such a fun part of it where you're, like, just trying to start figuring out What it is that you wanna do.

12:16So that is my big personal project that I'm starting thinking about. What are some threads you're picking up or themes? 'Cause I think, I mean, that we n- we know in pop culture about the billionaires who are trying to cheat death or have their plan to go, you know, live in their escape pod island or whatever, and... Or like the schadenfreude o- of that. There's some group, like, you know, wealthy separatist group that is now falling prey to the HOA rules, and they're infighting, and we all love it.

12:45What else is coming up, or what else are you discovering that people haven't been talking about yet? I mean, I think the thing that interests me is it's such a human story. There are the billionaires who are interested in it and potentially funding it, but then there are the people who've actually been trying to do it for many decades. Trying to do something that is not possible. Mm. At least right now. And going to these great lengths to retrieve dead bodies, bring them into a place where they can be frozen, coming up with es- essentially experimenting on corpses, all under the, the intention of cheating death in some way. And the reason that I've become sort of interested in them recently is, I mean, A, there's a place that is in Phoenix that I grew up close to that does this. And so I'm able to sort of visit them when I visit my parents, who are getting older. But also, I don't know if this happened to you when you had kids.

13:51Part of it is because I had a kid who had a medical condition, I think, but I think it's just the nature of creating a life. I just started thinking about death so much. All the time. My own death. Like, all of a sudden I'm afraid of dying. Mm. I don't wanna do that. I n- I never wanna die. I, I'm not gonna freeze myself, but I, I feel like I think about my mortality as much as these people. It's just that they're doing something incredibly bizarre, and I'm just stewing in it or whatever. Which is healthier, obviously. And so, I mean, I guess.

14:24I feel like there are many ways to sort of live in the denial of death happening. But my three-year-old has... So my five-year-old started talking about death, and then because he's talking about it, my three-year-old al- is also talking about it. And he has a different sort of, I think, sense of what's going on with that. But at night he's been, like, as I tuck him in, he's, he's said, "I don't wanna die. I don't wanna die when I'm old. Who's gonna make me die? Can you protect me from dying?" Oh. And so I'm lying to him because I want him to s- Go to sleep... rest. [laughs] Yeah. I want him to get a good night's sleep. Sure. Yeah. And on some level, th- that is my job, to protect him from dying.

15:07That is most of what I- you do with your three-year-old when you're, like, walking down the street. Mm-hmm. You know? Mm-hmm. But ultimately, no, I can't protect him from dying. He's gonna die. And in a sense, that's because of me, 'cause I created him. You know? Wow. Well, it's just- That's the stuff I've been thinking about. Yeah, no, just the light, the light stuff. It's great. I, I have this, I don't know if I have it in me to write an essay about it, but I, I have been thinking a lot, 'cause I'm in the phase of everyone's parents are starting to die now, and we're seeing- Mm...

15:39the bad ways people can die or the limbo you can be between starting to age badly and death, and how long that can be. And I, and how the kids, the, we adult children are so fed up with those parents of ours who put off talking about it, put off planning it, you know, and leaving us with the bag. So I joke a lot that I was like, our generation, we are all gonna set ourselves on ice floes, like, when we're 70 years old, 'cause we just don't wanna do that to our kids. Viking funeral. Yep. Yeah.

16:07Here's the last cash. We'll do it to ourselves. I don't want any assets. I don't, just, just- 70 sounds a little early to me. Yeah. But also, you could still go out looking good, you know, and of your own accord. I envision our kids being like, "But you seem good." And we're like, "Yeah, remember me this way-" Mm... instead of shitting myself, you know, and being mad at you 'cause I can't hear you- Yeah... and yet also refusing to get hearing aids and things like that. But we'll see.

16:30I'm also in a highly, a very bitter, fragile state of life right now, so maybe I will forget all this in a couple of years and be, like, back to cryogenics and trying to get my dog to live forever. Today, based on parenting and life today, if you could freeze, and, like, better than suspected odds of them being reincarnated, you gotta pick between husband, two boys, and Ollie. Of who is gonna stay with me? Yeah, you can only do one. Yeah. Well, obvious. You think I'm gonna say the- It's, it's totally obvious. [laughs] Well, you think I'm gonna say the dog because he- Don't lie to the people... he, he loves me best.

17:09But I don't know if I say enough how handy my husband is, and so that is very attractive in a person, so I'll have to think about it for a long time. And he just wrote an article for my newsletter, so he's giving me content, free content. So right now- All right... it, I know. It, it sounds like you're making excuses. Yeah. I know that there's no, of everyone in my family, nobody's picking me, and that's fine. Mm. And I've come to terms with it. The dad is the first to go. I'm sorry. No questions asked. No...

17:36By the way, if there's a sniff of a problem, they're like, "Oof, we better put him out of his misery." I'm like, "I just pulled a hamstring." They're like, "Well..." Yeah. Yeah. No. I met this guy, like, through a story I was writing who's, I believe he's 62, and his mother just died when she was 100. And I was, like, doing the math, and I was like, oh, so if I had my, my three-year-old at the age I did, if I died at 100, then I would get to live to see him when he's 62, and that, that sounds good.

18:03I wanna know what's going on. I wanna know, like, what he's up to. Still enjoying his life or whatever, hopefully. Agreed. But obviously that's not what most 100s- No... that's not when most journeys to 100. There's a really great video- Yeah, like... of Chris Martin from Coldplay did that song with Dick Van Dyke for his 100th birthday, I guess. I know. It's a lot of weird words in one sentence. It's actually really lovely. It's just Chris Martin playing a piano with Dick Van Dyke at 100, dancing in his backyard. It, it's really beautiful. It was, like, two or three months ago. Might've been a year or two ago.

18:34Anyways, at one point in sort of the longer version that's semi-documentary, one of Dick Van Dyke's kids asks him if he can get in the pool or something like that, or turn on some lights, and you realize his kid's probably 80 who's asking him. Yeah. Yes. Oh, man. It was so... When you do the math, it'll be like, "Well, h- h- h- hold on." There was a- Yeah... an Onion meme that was going on just called Old Man's Son Also Old Man, and I don't know why that made me laugh so hard.

18:59Amanda, I wanna ask you, I kinda added this last minute, and maybe you don't wanna deal with this, uh, but I just... You are an online person, and you are one of those people who, like, studies the internet in a way that I just think is really intelligent and has good analysis. And I have to ask, and Quinn, I know you don't know what I'm talking about, but I will fill you in, don't worry. But are you, have you followed at all Jenny Mollen? She is the ex-wife of, oh my gosh, who was the guy?

19:24Of Jason, of Jason Biggs. She has been in the internet lately because she was writing hardcore what they call boy mom material about, like, how she has- Hardcore. [laughs] You know what I'm talking about. I'm gonna go ahead and search engine. Yeah, I see, yes, I did see that. Where basically she wants to marry them. Yeah, she wants to marry them. She said one of them... She said that she was, like, mad that one of her kid's girlfriends is not even prettier than she is, and she posted a photo of herself kind of straddling her son on the bed, and then she also had, um- Excuse me?

20:01Yeah, I'm not kidding. Look, you can look this up. No. And- Fuck no. Yeah, you probably should. And then she also... And this part, this part I almost don't even wanna criticize, that there's a grain of truth in this, but not something I would ever put in writing. But she said, "Your firstborn son is your most toxic boyfriend," something like that. And I, I wrote something about that a long time ago about how there is some truth, I think, about how you are...

20:23It is like a high school relationship where you're like, "Oh my God, look at this acorn he brought me. He thought of me," you know? And like, when they write down something like, "Mom likes to sleep," you're like, "He knows?" But yeah, I just wanted to know how much you have been in the realm of boy mom discourse, 'cause it sort of- Yeah... chaps my hide. I mean, right, 'cause I have, I have two boys, which I just, I didn't think was, like, possible. I don't know. I, when I was having kids, I was like, "I'm a girl. I'm assuming they're gonna be girls."

20:52I just didn't even think about the possibility that I would have, like, a boy, much less two. And they're completely individual people, which is wild. But it is, my three-year-old does, he acts like he's married to me, you know? I'm- Yeah... I think I'm responsible for that. I think that's, he's initiating that, right? It's just 'cause you're a good mom. But I, that's like a little joke, you know what I mean? I think discussing the way that a teenage girl looks and comparing her to literally anyone else, especially yourself, is like, is so inappropriate and awful. Yeah.

21:24Leave her alone. Yeah. Absolutely, and leave him alone. Don't... M- I mean, my, my kids are old enough to say, "Don't"... Like, I took a video, like, a picture of my son, my younger son, holding hands with his dad, and he was like, "Don't put that online." And I was like, "I'm not. Don't worry." I respect the, you know, those kinds of things and that, you know, more so, more than about her than about him. I'm like, did he really give you the go-ahead to, to write that kind of thing?

21:47But I try to do better about not listening to the internet or letting... You know, 'cause whatever you are, just being a parent, and I think you've written about going down, like, anti-natalist, like, Reddits and things like that. It's not hard to find people who would like just, you know, you're already behind the eight ball for having kids period, let alone bringing them to a restaurant. Try doing it in the climate era. Like, there's shit to hear. Taking them on an airplane, you know, all the things that you shouldn't do.

22:10And the boy mom stuff, you're like, okay, you crazy ones are making the rest of us look bad, and it's hard enough out here alone. I have a real connection and affinity for other moms who are, like, the only girl in the house, 'cause you're like, we are toiling and being constantly disrespected, and then the internet thinks that we are like, like we think our boys can do no wrong. And I'm like, no, I think they do- All wrong... plenty wrong. All wrong. Constant wrong. Yeah. Yes, and it's, it, it worries me.

22:38I mean, I, th- this is not something, I haven't written about having boys, and I feel like I don't want to. Mm-hmm. Because it feels impossible, but it's something that I talk about with people all the time because I, we're, you know, we're starting to get into a place where there's violence, there's just really tough anger, emotional issues. I know this can happen with girls too. But I, you know, I always, I have this experience sometimes where people who have read my work and learn that I have boys, they're like, "Oh, your boys will be so, they'll be, like, feminists." Mm.

23:17And I'm like, "Li- listen, I have so little control [laughs] Mm-hmm... over these boys." I wish, I wish I could just program them with whatever. Sure. It's, uh, it doesn't work like that, and it's a, it's a, it's a struggle, for sure. But whenever there's a word attached to mom and it circulates online, that's bad news. Yeah. Be it, like, boy mom, wine mom, medical mom, it's like then you're getting into, you know, bizarre territory, I feel like. That's true. That's true. Must be avoided.

23:47One internet thing I stumble upon that makes me laugh is that I'll see sometimes content probably geared to- towards my algorithm that'll be like, "Living with boys is like dot dot dot," and of course it's a lot of, like, stumbling, like, fighting and messes and, you know, chaos. And then I see in the comments, like, indignant moms of girls who are like, "My girl is even worse than this," you know? And, a- and getting, like, offended that their, the girls are getting written out of this s- discourse of being bad, which I find kind of funny that you would be, like, mad that you're like, "Don't forget, my kid is just as bad as yours," and you're like, "Okay, I still don't believe it, but I guess if you wanna think that way, sure, go ahead."

24:25But it's a weird style of competition. Yeah. I also, I mean, this is, like, my privilege as someone who's invited to go onto podcasts, but, like, I don't remember the last time I commented on something on the internet Probably stuff I, uh, ano- I, like, wrote about commenting on some things on Reddit anonymously in my book, and that's probably the last time that I did that, like, during my pregnancy, where I was just like, "I need to say something to this anonymous person- Mm-hmm...

24:51that I must express," and I feel, like, at peace that I haven't had that urge in a long time. Really? Yeah. Are you, you are offline in terms of any parenting spaces online currently, or what, what do you take part in? The thing is, I've had a... I think my life would be better if I just got off Instagram, and I can't. I've been, like, unable to. I've set up all of these various strategies to try to do that, and I keep going back to it, and it's always, there's always a part of me that's, oh, I should, you know, promote my book or something.

25:23But that's not really it. I think I'm just, A, addicted to it, and B, my social life is too embedded in it. Mm-hmm. You know? I would need to transfer all of these acquaintance-to-friend relationships to text or whatever before I [laughs] got rid of it. But that, I mean, the worst thing is that that means that I'm then served all of this content, and even though I go in and delete my, all of the stuff in my algorithm, it learns. It just kn- it knows immediately again, because it's just feeding on the same data. Mm-hmm. That I have kids, that I have had medical experiences with kids. Anything that they know I'm just, I'm gonna watch, and maybe watch again. Mm-hmm. But I've started to try to train my algorithm to think that I am a lesbian. Hmm. Which has been really great for the content. Smart.

26:18Just watching gay content, watching the reel over again, liking, sharing. Mm-hmm. Hmm. They say you're building- That's been a really good thing... you're, you're building it brick by brick, but, like, in a, in an, you're in an interventionist way. You're like, "No, no, no. We're going this way." Yeah. That's smart. Yeah. If Instagram thinks that you're not interested in men, I think it respects you more. That's my sense so far. That wouldn't surprise me. It's not giving me just the absolute worst- I'm trying to think of, like, safe...

26:47... um, it has to offer. Again, I don't wanna assume the worst, but I'm trying to think of, you remember at the end of Ghostbusters when he's, "Okay, think of, don't think of anything," and then he says, "I tried to think of, like, the safest thing possible"? Yeah. Now I'm like, what would I... Do I wanna train my algorithm for, like, trail mix? But then how can that go bad? [laughs] You know? Like- Gardening. I think gardening must... Can the gardening go for you, friend?

27:05Garden, na- native garden plants, great. But then it, I- Hmm. Yeah... you know, I feel like you're- Trail mix is gonna get into some kind of, like, adventure, misadventure- Mm-hmm... type of content or something. Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I would like to train that, 'cause my Instagram thinks I like baseball, like being a baseball mom more, and it always makes me mad, 'cause I get served ads for shirts that say, "Baseball moms are the prettiest moms," or, like, you know, number one fan, white high heels- Oh, God... with red stitching. Awful. Just awful stuff. Fuck. It's so bad. Oh, my God. Yeah. I know. I'm definitely gonna order you that shirt now. Well, no. Don't you dare. I'm cutting up.

27:46Do you remember, Amanda, like, 'cause you're... I mean, I, I don't know if the, the chronology, I feel like the origin story, at least as it's presented in the book, and m- and, n- like, re- redirect me if I'm wrong, but that you, you knew that you were gonna have a child with a medical complication, or having, what's, I don't know what the best way is, but a, a syndrome, and your doctor told you not to look it up, and that's the very first thing that you did, of course.

28:12And it led you down a wormhole of sort of how the internet can both help and also destroy a parent. Am I getting that right, or is that not quite? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Can I ask a quick- I, this is vague, so go on... can I ask a contextual question? Just because I think this helps. I had my kids, again, 15 years ago. We had all IVF and it's interesting, but the, the point is the internet was very different then. What year was this for you? Like- This was 2020. Okay. Okay. I just wanna frame that. Yeah.

28:39So in 2020, I was pregnant for the first time, and everything was, like, presented as normal until I was in, I was, like, seven months pregnant, and then I had an ultrasound that was abnormal. The doctor saw something strange on the ultrasound that he suspected was this syndrome. It's called Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, and that's what it was. But it could've been, like, a variety of things. And so it took, like, another four weeks during, when I was pregnant, to actually get a diagnosis.

29:10And during that time, there were, like, all sorts of theories that were presented by various doctors, which I would, like, immediately, the deepest Google you can imagine. See how much Googling you can do in four weeks? I don't know. I mean, yeah. It was so, it was so awful, but it really felt like it was, like, the only thing I could control was information, and if I somehow figured it out, like, through, you know, medical Googling, then at least, like, when I showed up at the doctor, I would be prepared.

29:41I had this, it felt awful for the doctors to always seem to know more than I did when they were, like, looking inside of my body. Hmm. And I felt, I don't know, I could control it. And then also, you know, not knowing what this was and having a really wide range of theories, anything from it's literally nothing, it's like a shadow, it's a trick. It doesn't, it's not anything, to the brain is, like, severely underdeveloped. It meant that I- That you went through that... wanted to be able to prepare, you know, if I wanted to choose to get an abortion or something.

30:15So I was, I, I really wanted [laughs] to know what it was. And then ultimately, we figured out that it was this syndrome. It's called Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. It's an overgrowth syndrome, which means that parts of your body grow at different rates. And then knowing that, you know, at first, like, when I heard that this was, something was wrong, I felt very lost and devastated And then after four weeks of not knowing, getting a diagnosis, especially a diagnosis for something that was not catastrophic, was, like, so wonderful.

30:46Mm. It was, like, just such a great thing- Mm... and so helpful to my son for us to have that diagnosis before he was born. But it made me really think, ultimately, critically about what had happened to my relationship with the internet as I became a parent, and how much more intense it was than it had ever felt before. Except for maybe, you know, when I was using AOL during puberty. Mm-hmm. You know? It was, like, not since then that it had seemed so central to building my identity or understanding what my life was gonna be like. Did you think beforehand, before you'd gotten pregnant, did you ever think, like, knowing all that you did know in your critical mind, did you sorta think, "I won't let that happen to me"?

31:33Like, "I'll, I will stay strong and not be informed by, you know, disinformation or opinions or things like that"? Or were you correct, you know, like, ahead of time, did your idea of h- your relationship with the, like, how you would be as a parent online, was it how you thought it would be? No. I, I, like, I went into it so naively, I think, and I think part of it is because, you know, I'd had a lot of experience with the internet, but I had had no experience with pregnancy. Mm.

31:58And I think I'd also spent a lot of my life, A, avoiding pregnancy, and also just not being very curious about it. Mm-hmm. Which I regret. Just not knowing that much about it. And so I did really feel like I was behind and I needed to catch up. Mm-hmm. But also, I have this experience with the internet now, and especially then, where, like, because I write about internet culture, you know, every pregnancy thing that came up, I was like, "Oh, let me try this out."

32:23And there's a bunch of silly stuff in it, and maybe I can write about it. And so I spent the first part of my pregnancy writing sort of about, like, all of the funny sort of aspects of pregnancy apps and stuff like that, and I was like, "Maybe this will be... Maybe I'll write an article about this." And then later, when my pregnancy became complex, at a time when I naively thought it was like, you do a few tests early in the pregnancy, and if they're all clear- Mm-hmm...

32:48then that's it, you know, I, I had this feeling that medicine was psychic or something and would know every eventuality- Mm... very early on, and obviously that's not the case. But when this happened later in my pregnancy than I expected was possible, I felt super superstitious about it, which is a very bizarre feeling for me. It's not something I feel a lot. But I felt like by writing all these funny notes about, like, how silly [laughs] pregnancy is- Mm... I had brought something, I had cursed my pregnancy in some way. Mm.

33:21And I really felt like my internet searching was sort of informed by that, just guilt and shame and feeling like I needed to figure something out because I had really messed up. Mm. It was my fault. Maybe if I hadn't done any particular thing, like taking a hot bath or something, it was just, I was just not suited to have a kid. I wasn't mature enough or- Yeah... enough of a good person. Yeah. Like, all of these just sort of thoughts, I think, were fueling... It was, like, my fault, especially because all of this stuff was so fast-moving and so sensitive, it was like I was talking to my husband about it- Mm...

33:58and really nobody else. And so the internet really sort of became the thing that I was, like, talking to- Mm-hmm... about it, 'cause it was all I was thinking about at the time. So we got genetic tests with our kids, and honestly, in retrospect, I think it was 'cause the other people who were pregnant in my life were as well, and it was like another stop, you know, you, you, you hit. And the first one, smooth sailing, check, check, everything's great, which in retrospect, I ended up having, getting induced, which I didn't see coming, and it was really scary, and I still was like, I felt misled my whole pregnancy that everything was fine, and then it, had this very traumatizing birth that messed me up for a long time.

34:41But then with my second one, they called me back and said, "There's a 30% chance he might have Down syndrome," and so I got a second test, and they were going in vaginally, and I could feel, like, I don't know what the word is, some kind of contractions. So then they went in through my belly and took amniotic fluid, and I, and I felt this cramping. And then just as a kicker, we were moving the next day. So, and I- [laughs]... knew I d- was not cut out to raise a, a child with special needs to that extent as a second child. But I mean, having gone back, I'm like, I don't know if I... I don't know what I would have done differently any of it.

35:18Like, uh, 'cause on the one hand, had I, everything, if we hadn't gotten tested, we would've had the same kids that we have, you know? And I don't, I don't know what the benefit is of that. And I, I mean, do, I don't know if you talked to expectant moms about if they go back and forth about the ups and downs of that genetic testing. But having gone through that, what do you think? Would you do that again the same way that you did? Yeah. I mean, so BWS is something that is pretty rare. It's, like, one in 11,000 or something. That number is changing all the time.

35:53And the way that it presents itself is much, it's much more difficult to test for than something like Down syndrome. Something that i- involves either a missing or an added chromosome is so much easier to see than this thing which is, like, a deletion on a gene. And so I don't think, just given how rare it is and how sort of involved the testing is, I don't know if there's a future where, you know, you're, like, 10 weeks pregnant and you can get a test for so many things that it would tell you if your, if your kid had BWS or something.

36:28But I have thought about how ultimately I felt really lucky that I got the test at the time I did. Mm-hmm. Because it meant that my, I had the diagnosis before my son was born. But I didn't have it so early that I would have considered an abortion, because I think what, you know, what surprised me so much was, like, just how much shame I felt- Mm... about having a test result that was abnormal, even though it's something that, like, you know, I wouldn't wish it on anyone, and it's caused problems for my son.

37:11But it's something that we as a family are able to deal with, and that he-- and he's, like, a happy, healthy person. And I think that earlier in a pregnancy, my decision might have been so influenced by that shame and fear, and because I was... You know, my knowledge about pregnancy itself was, like, so remedial. Yeah. The idea that any, that people get diagnoses like th- this, that a lot of kids and adults have genetic conditions, it was just, like, not something that I had thought about before I was confronted with it.

37:52And I think that was, like, the-- Beyond the specific information about, like, what, what are the medical realities of this condition, that was, like, the life experience and information that I was missing in order to make that decision. And so I'm grateful that I have that now. But I- I'm worried that I would've made a decision that I never would've known this- Mm-hmm... and I would've just ch- changed my life in a different way. But that would've just been, like, a lot of unnecessary grief, I think, for me and my family- Mm... based on bad information. Mm. If that makes sense. Yeah. Quinn, did you guys get, get that kind of testing?

38:33We-- So our journey was really IVF and miscarriage focused. Miscarriaged. Miscarriage, just like my kid used to say Batman. Very strange. Mm. He used to go, he used to go, "Na-na-na-na-na-na, Batman." I was like- That's funny... close. Steve's-- One of Steve's, like, classic dads is saying Spiderman instead of Spider-Man, but- Sure... anyway. Potato potahto. What are, what are you gonna do? Yeah. Ours was... So we had it much earlier, before any of this. Amanda, we had got hitched. Our first thing we had was my wife was, let's say, 34 or something like that, and so immediately they were like, "Well, if you're successful, you'll have a geriatric pregnancy." And she was like, "Excuse me? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Because like you said- Yeah...

39:19and, and I was just thinking about this, and again, the rest of my job is working on the societal infrastructure failures around everything. There's such a lack of education. We try for so long to not get pregnant. Why would you inform yourself on all these things that might be available to you or that might happen, considering how complicated human conception, pregnancy, and childbirth are? There's a really great book I've mentioned before by a woman named Kat Bohannan called Eve. I think it's How the Female Body Drove Two Hundred Million Years of Evolution, and it's fantastic, and it's also funny.

39:53But one of her most striking points is, like, even among chimps and our closest relatives, like, we are profoundly bad at pregnancy and, and delivery, basically. Like, the fact that we made it here is shocking. And that's still true considering these 4D exams and all these blood tests and all this stuff you can do, you know? Even 15 years ago when we could, when, when we could do it. But, you know, our version of shame and lack of information was tried, it didn't work, work for a while. We tried IV-F, you know, rudimentary IVF with my wife's original OBGYN that she'd had for 20-something years, you know.

40:33And that didn't work, and we went to another guy, and immediately they were like, "All right, let's start testing all this stuff," you know. "You've, you tried your Clomid shots. Let's start testing." And I think maybe the, the hardest thing on my wife about all of it, the sort of the catalyst, was immediately they were like, "Your sperm's totally fine. That's not the problem." So immediately she was like, "Oh, so no matter what, it's my fault," right? That's right. The problem was no idea why or even what the problem was.

41:04We knew when they combined our stuff in the test tube on the side of the road in Los Angeles, it just, it didn't work, you know. Lot of eggs down to a little eggs combined, and they went kaput. But we also did every test you could do. We did the genetic testing for our combinations for each of us, talked about our histories, family stuff, all that. I keep my laptop on my lap, like, all that shit, you know. Did, do, is she drinking, you know, beneath the table during... All, all that fucking, like you said, hot baths, all that stuff. Mm.

41:30But we never found an answer, and so again, this is why I ask you, like, when, you know, where did you go max pregnancy internet? Because for us it was 2011-ish, you know, basically '10 to '10, 2009 to 2012 basically. When she was doing things and she, we would go into the IVF doctor and she'd be like, "Well, the internet says I gotta eat meat if I wanna get pregnant." And our doctor, this incredible person we owe our whole lives to, who is Indian, was like, "Okay, but if that was true, India wouldn't have babies." I don't-- He's, "I don't know what to tell you. That's not science.

42:05I would love for, to be able to give you a simple answer for why you're keeping... You're on your sixth round. You've had two miscarriages." He's like, "It would be amazing for me to be able to tell you that." It's like when people are like, "You're cheering for climate change." I'm like, "I am not. It is exhausting. I do not wanna do this. I would love for it to be fucking wrong." Mm-hmm. We had, she grew up in Rochester, and Kodak dumped a bunch of shit in the water.

42:25Okay, maybe, sure, a bunch of her friends also had problems, but also look at all the other environmental stuff we did, like living in Los Angeles, you know. I don't fucking know. So she just constantly felt this shame of, "I have no idea why this keeps happening. It's obviously my fault." Now we're flipping through egg donor books, you know, getting to that point, and her- It's this feeling of, oh God, I remember one night her crying, flipping through these egg books, and it's like they're giving you the lady's, where she went to college and her family history, and she's like, "But those aren't me."

42:58But her also wrestling with, "But should it be me? Because clearly I'm faulty." And you're like, Jesus Christ, this is a fucking train wreck, right? And it's, it's because- Yeah... the problem, not because, but, but the lack of context and the lack of education and the lack of support. It's why so many women on Medicaid die in the first year after pregnancy, is because there's no follow-up appointments for the, for the women. There are for the babies, right?

43:22It's just a profound lack of context, and so- Well, it's als-... you're unprepared to deal with any of it, is the point. You also don't know how you're gonna feel about it before you're in it, 'cause- Yeah... you know, when you read stories about people getting a s- you know, using a surrogate for instance, and the internet will say... The internet hates surrogacy, that's for sure, and they'll say, "You could have adopted," you know. And there's so many things like that where you... Until I think- Sure, bud... any aspect of children. Yeah.

43:50Having a school, what you could... If you're not in it, you don't, you can't, you're not living that. Oh, yeah, and by the way, that doesn't include at all the fact that how many shots a day were we giving my wife to like, to try to make it work? Like, the amount of hormones raging through her body, you know, maxed out- Yeah... does not make for like- Yeah... sane Googling, basically. Yeah. Right. So- Right... I don't know. That was our version of it, and I imagine it's only gotten profoundly worse with the disinformation and, and all that stuff at this point. But it's, yeah, it's a clusterfuck, man.

44:18And like you said, then you get into the apps that all tell you like, "Hey, this is what your baby's gonna look like. It's a, it's a gummy bear- Mm... and now it's a watermelon." And you're like, "Ugh." Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't get into the IVF apps, but I have friends who used them, and some of them, the doctors require you to use an app. Mm. Which opens up- That's crazy... all sorts of, I think, privacy stuff. Fucking insane. Um, but yeah. It's, yeah, it's- That's a version, and this is absolutely real, and they just published on this in the New York Times Magazine, or New York Times last week, about how many kids' schools make, compel kids to be on Snapchat for, you know, sports teams and for school updates and things like that.

44:55And, you know, on the one hand, don't ever do that. On the other hand, you have to do that. And so good luck with those- Yeah... with all of those choices and, and things like that. And I, I mean, I know that you, you've written about, touched on like the baby tech boom and baby tech, and I was just laughing 'cause a cousin of mine is, is pregnant and I was looking through her registry, and I... Like, my oldest is 13, and it's already changed so much, all the things that, like the monitoring.

45:22I think it was kinda new on the scene to have monitors in daycares, and I, you know, I had a friend who watched her baby on her, you know, on her phone. She would check in on him, and I would on the one hand congratulate myself for being so offline and just cool, cool mom that I didn't check. But at the same time, I was like, maybe I would if it was available, it just wasn't available, so that was easy for me to, to feel good about myself. I know. Yeah.

45:48I deeply feel like that's evil and they should not be available. Yeah. I- I mean, it's just like, I don't want a camera on me while I'm working, and I think that- God, no... every working person should be afforded that. This is- Yeah... the only camera on me while I'm working, and it requires all of me to not be like a disgusting monster the entire time. Yeah. I, I'm a b- I'm brain dead after this. I could always tell when my wife was watching our... Whether it was, again, one of these fucking, what did, what was the previous Google camera? Dropcam. Where ours were Dropcam. Remember that, Claire? No.

46:17A little company. It was one of the little first home video companies, and then Google bought them and, you know, ruined it. Whatever. That was what we used as our baby monitor at the time, 'cause we had three under three, and it was like Lord of the Flies at all times. But I could always tell when she was watching it when she was out and about, because I would get a text that would say, "Hey, AT&T, you've used 70% of your mobile plan." And then in the next five minutes it was like, "75%. 95%." Oh. "You are over. We are charging you." I was like, I, look, I love that you're checking in. I think it's so great. Could you get on Wi-Fi to do it? Oh, God.

46:50Yeah. Yeah, it's pervasive. I mean, yeah, it's more intense now. It's AI-fueled, like baby monitors where they're, like, mapping your baby's body and face and every move, and, like, generating whatever insights into your child based on that. And there's a little sock. Ranking your child versus other children, and also telling you, like, if the machine thinks that your child has stopped breathing. Yeah. That's, I've read about that one too, the, like the little sock that will keep your baby from having SIDS, and that is horrifying, and I'm glad that wasn't a thing. Like, when I...

47:26Like, I mean, our thing was having a baby sleep on their back, and I remember my mom was really defensive 'cause she was like, "You slept on your stomach and they told us that was fine, and that was the way it was." And I was like, "I'm not blaming you for what- Yeah... what you were told. I'm sure they're gonna have some other version of that," you know. And I, on the one hand, I'm, I'm like, oh, that's new. I think you've written about that, right? The really expensive baby- Yeah.... plate thing. But I probably would've taken that.

47:49I also, by the way, when my son goes to sleepaway camp, they post once a day a big drop of photos, and they have a professional photographer on staff. It's the wife of the camp manager, so it's not- Sure. Again, to me, I'm telling myself it's, it's fine and normal. But I always check, check out the photo dump to see if I can see a picture of my kid in there, and to see, look like he's having a good time, and even better, is it a good photo and we can use that? So- Oh, God...

48:11I know better. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, my kid's- Yeah... going off to swim camp- I know... this weekend. We, so we don't really do phones or anything. They have an iPad, but it stays at home, and they basically can text their brothers and sisters, maybe an occasional uncle or aunt. We're very annoying. But he was like, "So, how am I supposed to get in touch with you? It's, this thing is Sunday to Thursday." And of course, 'cause I'm a dick, I was like, "You don't. That's number one." But two, I was like, "I, man, just do what you do at home.

48:39If you really need me, you just use one of your friends." They- Yeah... like, all his friends all have my thing. They text me, "Oliver wants you to come pick him up," and I usually go, "No." But you could do that, but also I was like, there is a really, not, not to de- Not to deprive him of, if he needs something, he won't, but more to deprive him of that experience of being un- like actually untethered for your parents once you get to a certain age to do that.

49:02I know a lot of people do that when they send their kids to camp when they're six for two months. This is meaningful. I'm like, "Go be in it, man. Go, go do your thing." Yeah. And I love technology. I think it's, again, in the, in the medical zone. In health, we have done incredible things. It's also incredibly inequitable, and for every time someone's, "Well, what if we could live forever?" I'm like, I don't know, what if we just, you know, made jobs affordable? What if everyone lived for a normal amount of time? So, so, so, yeah, right. How about we average it out, we reduce stress, and all... Weird.

49:34We know about inflammation, you know? So I wrestle with that all the time, but yeah, it's... I don't know. I don't know. It's just so invasive and pervasive. Amanda, do you- I mean, I'm like you, Claire, where like if someone, if there is an, an image of my child, like I am looking at it. Like I will look at it, you know? Which is why it's important to like, for me to try to limit the amount of times that that occurs. Yeah. You know. Well, yeah, and especially when it is not your image and you have a manipulate it and you're like, "This is a version of him that I, it's, that I would never see, and maybe this is the, his true self."

50:10I mean, I'm going very deep. You know, part of it is that it's my- Yeah, yeah... it was, I went to that summer camp too, so I'm like, I hope they like it. I hope they're having a good time. But you know, you have that sense of just paternal, pr- like ma- maternal pride as well, which is, you know, hard to shake as well, when you're like, "Look what I made. He's, what a cutie." Who could... You put a pic- a cute... I can't, I may have seen it before. You have a picture of your kid, and there's a towel over his head, so, or maybe it's... Yeah. And you're like, "Does anyone have a good exorcist in Brooklyn?"

50:37And you can't see your kid, but you can see some chubby little feet under those, and they're like- Yeah... that is an adorable photo. So adorable. I posted so many pictures of my kids on Instagram, and then wh- when I wrote the book, I deleted all of them. Mm. And that's been good. But yeah, they're the most beautiful people in the world to me. Mm-hmm. So of course, if you have an app that's, "Show me the most beautiful thing that you can, that you see," it's oh, it's my kid, you know? Yeah.

51:03One of the most, one of the reasons besides Claire's own writing, like that I identified with her parenting and the way she was sharing about her parenting before her podcast, is the introductory in the Evil Witches blog, which is like, we are, we are the people who shit on our kids and then go to bed scrolling through the pictures of them. And you're like, God damn it. [laughs] Yeah. It's so frustrating. True. You're like- Yeah. Yeah... shut up.

51:28Go the fuck to bed. Let me look at pictures- Right... of you when you were three. I was feeling parental. I was in therapy yesterday, thank God for therapy, but like I, on the one hand, was very proud that my kids were doing this, this rubbish sale, 'cause they really did it whole cloth. They didn't, I mean, they did, they were technically selling things that other people had bought them at some point, and they were technically using their parents' printer to print up full color posters and things like that.

51:53But I also was proud that they had done this and were thinking, you know, but also feeling guilty because I was so stressed out and so just inflamed by, I was feeling activated by the kids coming in and out of the house, and the, the door opening and shutting and, and I was like, if I was a good mom, I would be out there enjoying it, and like taking pictures and cheering them on instead of being like, "You fuck, you do," you know? And so, but I have to remind myself like, no, the, the, you know what? It's not even about me. That's always, that's always like the hardest pill to swallow is like it's not- And increasingly not about you, right? Yeah.

52:27That's the thing is like you don't even- Yeah... enter in the c- there's things where they're like, we haven't... What's the great Mad Men line? "I don't think much of you," or whatever, and he's, "I don't ever think of you." That's what it's becoming. True- Yeah... with my kids, where they're like- Yeah... I haven't entered their consciousness. I feel like I had a few sort of like idealized impressions of what it would be like to have kids, and now if one of those things just sort of like accidentally happens like once every few months, it's like the best thing ever. Yeah. I don't know.

52:54I was like, I realized the other day that I was wearing a dress and my three-year-old was like was playing under it, and I was like, oh my God. I was, the thi- oh my God, it's happening. It's like a- [laughs] Yeah... it's a mom thing that I imagined happening, and it only lasts for a few seconds, so I'm like, just be cool. It's happening. But like most of the time, yeah, it's just, it's like a, it's this slog. Yeah. Anything something as good is happening, you can never let your kids know it's happening, 'cause then they will absolutely stop.

53:20That's why I've said in the past, and I re- I recommend parents make audio recordings and not video recordings when their kids are unselfconsciously playing or- Yeah. No... doing something, because they won't stop if they notice. If they see the camera come out, everything changes, but if you just click on the voice recorder, you know, and then, and often it's things like playing a board game or singing in the shower or just talking rules of a game that they just made up on the spot, you know?

53:44And but it's a different, it's a different thing when they know you're- Yeah... you're copying it. I, I love talking to my kids on the phone. We did so much FaceTime when they were really little, and now just talking to them on the phone with no video is so great. It's the best. We got a bunch of those tin can phones. Have you heard about those? Yeah, we got one too. Yeah. We got, I- We have one too. We shouldn't be talking on the tin can. We need to get- I know... we need each other's codes, guys. They're great. Are they perfect? No, but they're great.

54:11They're what we were looking for. I even let them have them in their rooms, which my parents, "No fucking way you're getting a phone in your room," but I'm like, I am trying to fight the, the darkness here. And it's fun. Yeah. They'll just call me in the middle of the day and they're like, "How you doing?" Yeah. And I'm like, this is great. [laughs] This is great. Must be nice. Yeah. I need to give my five-year-old an eighth grader's tin can code and just see what happens. You should call mine. Give him a call. You should call my son.

54:36It is, it is very cute when he's nice to younger boys or younger kids, and he's sweet with them. Yeah. And you know, it is, it is charming to see. Although, yeah, it, it's easy to feel big when you're dealing, when you're with littler kids. But Amanda, was there anything online either now or earlier in your parenthood that was good for you, that brought you either pleasure or made you feel more seen or gave you some information that you actually did, or that was helpful?

55:03Yeah, I mean, once my kid got a real diagnosis, I joined a couple of Facebook groups that are dedicated to that condition, and it's just the perfect use of Facebook, where my kid has a condition that is rare enough that you're not running into people- Mm-hmm... whose kids have that or adults who have it. Although, through the experience of writing this book, I did meet some parents in Brooklyn who came to my book event, and they were like, "We have a kid who has BWS."

55:31I was like, "That's, that's so amazing and insane," and I could have randomly met them. But the point is, there are people from all over the world, not just kids, adults, and they're just people who have insight into very specific things that nobody I know could give me advice on. Mm-hmm. My son, when he was three, had to have something called a tongue reduction surgery. Words that I had never imagined- Mm-hmm... going together, and I don't know that it helped. It was aw- it was horrible. Mm.

56:02It was like the worst experience of his young life, and having just the people who had done that a year ago when their kid was the same age was just so, so helpful, who I never would've met otherwise. So that was like a rare sort of bright spot. Yeah. But that was only after I had enough information to find the people that I really needed. Yeah. When I had less information, it was, like, impossible to find something like that. Everything leads to autism, first of all, whatever you Google. Yes, yes. I remember who...

56:32I think my newborn, my son was a newborn, and he was snoring, and I Googled, "Baby snoring," and immediately it's like a sign of autism. And, and he, he did, and to this day, he head bangs when he sleeps. It's just, I mean, it's a thing some kids and some people do. It's a soothing technique. But Google, "Head banging and kids," and it, you know, you're in for a wild ride, which is why I wrote purposely something trying to change the Google algorithm that was like, "Here's something that shows I'm just one person who can tell you that your kid could be a head banger, and it doesn't mean that they're a sociopath," which is what some guy who I went to high school with told me in a private Facebook message when I mentioned head banging.

57:10He's like, "I'm just telling you it's a red flag. This is, your kid is in for a lot of trouble." And I was like, "Fuck you, whoever you are," and you know? But I also remember I had this Facebook group, the original Evil Witches was on Facebook, and there was a, a friend who her son's skull was kinda big, and babies all have big, big heads, right? And that is something that you can Google and send you to hell with. And it turned out, someone pointed out, like, "I think this might be", and I don't remember exactly what it was, but her son had to have a craniectomy, like a, like he did have some, let's say it, it was encephalitis or something like that.

57:45And you know, fortunately, she was in a safe place where someone loving could say, "You might wanna get this checked out," as opposed to, like, instant, you know, diagnosis of- Your boyfriend from high school. Like, "Your kid's gonna murder..." Yeah. Great. Thanks, Todd. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it, it can be, it can cut so many different ways, and, and there's no, it, when you're at your most vulnerable, you know? It is, I'm, I'm just glad, honestly, that I didn't have kids when Instagram was a thing, a real thing, or TikTok was a thing, and this, like- Yeah... trad wife bullshit.

58:15I'm strong enough to know my own, my own way, but not all the time. Yeah. So. The parenting advice world, I think, has, like, started to innovate all of these new acronyms and, like, euphemisms for different types of children, like spicy, neurodivergent, deeply feeling- Mm-hmm, extra... kids. Spirited. Yeah. Yeah, stuff that might be helpful when you're searching if you're like, "Don't give me the standard issue advice 'cause that's not working on my child." Mm-hmm.

58:49But there is something that is dispiriting about this emotional branding- Yeah... of the children that makes them a kind of citizen of Instagram even though they're not on it. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. It's, that's bizarre. That's a really good observation. I think some of it is, like, a soft launch for neurodiversity of some sort, where a parent's not... I mean, frankly, you just can't diagnose a certain kid- Mm... before a certain age, but for, I mean, I was like this too, where I was like, "I don't want to have a kid with ADHD," 'cause kids with ADHD, especially boys, are loud and annoying and nobody likes them and nobody wants them.

59:25And so I had a book called, I think it was called Your Spirited Child or something like that. I think Emily Gould and I talked about this too, and where you're, like, not ready for ADHD, but it's almost, like, just, you know, pres- being like, "Okay, so your kid is clinically extra, so you know, now-" Yeah. I don't remember learning anything good about it, but we still have the book. [laughs] So five-year-old, are they, what is their technology relationship? Yeah. If, if at all.

59:52Is it just Bluey, like, when you put it on- Yeah... or, or what are we dealing with? I mean, he knows how to navigate the television now. Mm-hmm. So he basically chooses what he wants to watch, and it's usually Pokemon. Mm-hmm. It's like there's a big Pokemon kick in his school right now. Mm-hmm. But he doesn't, we don't, I mean, this is, like, my line in the sand is, like, YouTube videos, so he doesn't watch YouTube videos, like, on the TV. But he was in the bath the other day, was talking to himself, and started saying YouTube phrases. He was like, "Subscribe. Subscribe to my channel."

1:00:27And it's because at his school, okay, he goes to school, and then he goes to after school, and it's, I get it, that's a really long time. I wish it wasn't the case. Mm-hmm. It's a long time for teachers. It's a long time for my child. They are showing them YouTube videos at some point, [laughs] and he's picking up this language. So it's, you know, it's like I have my, he doesn't watch YouTube videos at home, but he's seeing, he's seeing them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when, when they're not in your control, you know, you gotta let some things go.

1:00:54And when, also when the shit hits the fan, like, during COVID, like, we were all watching some, whatever that lady was. There's some lady who did yoga for kids, and we all were like, "Please just-" Watch, teach my kid yoga for two hours, and hopefully he'll tune in and be out of my hair, and didn't work, and then you're like, "Fine, just fuck MrBeast," or whatever it is. Like you, you know- Yeah... it, it does get... I mean, Quinn, how about are your kids...

1:01:20I know how you feel about that kinda stuff, but like when your kids are, you know, when you're not over them- When they're with friends and shit, what do, what, what do, what are you gonna do, as long as it's not terrible stuff, and you hope if the parents are somewhat around they can intervene in that case? Um- But define terrible. Like where, you know, how, how terrible is terrible? I mean, Justice Potter, you know when you see it, Claire. Hmm. Come on. Uh- Well, like MrBeast, you know. Is that terrible- No...

1:01:46or is that- It's just, it's fucking... We wouldn't watch that shit at our... Look, everything is true, right? Has MrBeast raised all this money for various charities and people? 100%. Are his business methods- Right... and things completely fucked up? Probably. It's, it's all a nightmare. Would we watch that shit at home? No, not really. I'm... So m- my wife's a screenwriter. She makes movies and shit like that, and so we're like, "Look, we love movies. We love TV. You can watch real stuff that's on, and it's great."

1:02:18Not that there's not great stuff on YouTube, but it's difficult to go from the iTunes algorithm, no one's gonna take you from Wicked to an ISIS recruitment video, but YouTube might, you know? Right. There's, there's a way to Kevin Bacon that. I mean, I do think the kid- the things my kids watch on TV are generally very shitty. Seems, with all due respect to the pe- the people who wrote it, seems like an AI wrote it- Mm-hmm... even though it's on Disney. Mm-hmm. It's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse stuff.

1:02:47I for a whi- and for a while I was, like, trying to control that. I had this, I was like, my kids are, are never gonna watch PAW Patrol. Mm. And then- [laughs]... my son- Famous last word... then this is what happened. My son was in the hospital. Mm-hmm. He was in the hospital, and there's the hospital TV, and we're, like, going through it, and there's the PAW Patrol movie, and he's like, "I wanna watch that." And I'm like, "You f- you got me." Yeah. You're in the hospital. Yep, you're in the fucking hospital having a tongue reduction. Yeah. You can watch all the PAW Patrol you want. Got you. Yeah. God damn it.

1:03:19So we watch that, and now my three-year-old loves PAW Patrol. He watches it all the time. I see him, like- Big fan of the police... basically crying watching the dogs, you know, with... He's moved emotionally by them. Aww. Whatever. I... And then I tried to, you know, talk to my kids about how I don't like the police dog, and that backfired, you know? 'Cause they all- Oh, I went down that road... you know, you know they don't give a shit. They're like, "Who, no one cares what you think." I'm like, "Yeah, wow, the- No one wants to hear that... firefighter dog's really helping people." Yeah. You know?

1:03:47Yeah, and then- Really saving people's lives... yeah, kids, it's hard to know when to introdu- introduce like, all cops are bastards to kids when you're like, "Listen, go find the helpers," but also no. And, uh- Amanda, Claire would not do it while they're watching in an opportune time. She would do one of her, we call them Claire's drive-bys, where they're really genuinely minding their own business, doing something formative and enriching. Oh, yeah.

1:04:09And she'd drive by and be like, "Don't get a girl pregnant." Yeah. We explained, we're trying to explain the c- the idea of don't shit where you eat yesterday to, to James who is 10- Yeah... uh, he's 11, and you know, that was, didn't quite stick. But hopefully someday when he gets a job he won't screw someone at his o- work offpl- he'll remember. He's like- Oh, God... "Remember I had his grandpa's birthday dinner?" Yeah, you gotta get it, you gotta get, plant the seed. Yeah. Yeah. Literally. Quinn- Um-...

1:04:35do you ever watch vide- do you with, with your boys, I presume maybe Charlotte too, I don't wanna be sexist. Do you ever watch v- the vi- Typical... do you ever watch videos of people playing video games with them? No. Is that- Claire, no. Just play... I would rather, I'm like, "Look, if you wanna watch that, how about you watch me smoke you in Mario Kart? Like, how about we watch that instead?" I'm not, we're not- Listen- No. No... there's a series that Steve watches with the boys called Let's Game It Out, and I think it's a YouTube series, and this guy purposely plays bad video games, and it's like a Mystery Science Theater 3000, but of video games.

1:05:06And so, like, that's one of their... That's when I walk in and they're doing that, I'm like, "Time for me to take a shower." Like, I'm, that's a guy, that's like Star Wars. I'm like, that's for you guys and- No... and not for me. But- I, I'm just, and I know I'm old and crank- I'm self-aware enough to know I'm old and cranky, and maybe there's something fun in that. And did the sh- half the shit we watch, was it toxic? M- much of it, you know? Hmm. But- Mm-hmm... I don't, I, you know. All right. I'm old.

1:05:30Amanda, what are you taking in right now culture-wise that is giving you pleasure and joy that, you know, just as someone walking around the planet Earth, you know, not necessarily professionally, what are you, what, what are you taking in that makes you happy? Yeah. I felt like my attention span has gotten so bad recently that it, it's, it's been difficult for me to watch an episode of television, but I'm watching Widow's Bay right now. Mm. Oh, I heard it's great.

1:05:57And it's so good. Steve loves that. Yeah. My husband. It's really lovely. It's, like, genuinely scary. Where I was watching it one night when my husband was out of town, and I was like, "I can't do, I can't s- I can't sleep in a bed alone- Mm... after watching it," but it's also very funny. Mm. So. Cool. I was thinking of you 'cause I've been listening to the Lena Dunham book, and I thought I wouldn't identify with it at all because I'm a, a Xennial, born in 1979- Mm-hmm...

1:06:20that sort of lost microgeneration, and I think of her as, like, extremely millennial, and I was like, "I'll never identify with this." And aside from all her chronic health conditions, which I'm happy, blessedly, to not identify with, I identify with this so much in terms of being extra worried about p- letting people down, and just, like, the pressure of creativity, and the heartache of experimenting in art and not getting paid for it, and then suddenly getting paid for it, and it's c- not quite as fun as it was when it was just cheap and messy, and, you know, you were playing around.

1:06:54Mm-hmm. And so I, I'm just- Working with women of other generations. Yeah, mothers. How difficult, yeah. Yeah. It's really hard. Feeling like bur- bur- like shouldering your mother's resentment of you for maybe having a life that she was maybe aspiring to in cert- a certain way. Right. Like, it's a lot. And then casting her in a movie. Yeah. It's a lot. I, it's very, I, yeah, I am surprised by how much I'm enjoying it, but it's not, it's, it's really sad at the same time.

1:07:20So I may, I may re-watch Girls at some point, just, like, with fresh eyes and s- you know, not be such a hater. But- It's really nice to watch it. I don't know what you were doing professionally at the time, if you had to blog about Girls, but I wrote about Girls so much, and it really ru- it ruins it to have to be like, "Okay, I'm, like, searching for the take- Yeah... in this episode." Mm-hmm. It's so nice to watch it where, like, all of those conversations are in the past and it's just TV. It's great. Back before I had kids, I was a TV critic for The A.V.

1:07:50Club, and I would have to watch things and immediately turn it around and post it online. And God forbid you had a single typo. Nobody was proofreading it, but if you did, they would be like, you know. And it was such a pleasure afterwards just to quit that job and just watch TV and not have a take, and not have any kind of thought. Yeah. Yeah. You know? And just let it wash over you. But... And you are just, you are not newslettering, right? Are you one of the few, the proud, who is not, have a newsletter right now? I think she has- I don't... is it called a job? You have a job? I got a job. I have a job.

1:08:21[laughs] I have a job writing for The New York Times, and some, some people who write for The New York Times also have newsletters. Yeah. But I don't cur- currently. Keep it up. Keep rolling. And I li- I like that- Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm... for me now. I also, I am in a place that I never thought that I would be because I, again, was very naive about it, where it's like, um, my kids take a lot out of me. They, I always keep thinking like, oh, when they're out of the baby stage, like, when the little one is, like, potty trained, like, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when this, you know.

1:08:58And, like, you're just, like, never over the hump. And so, um- Mm... I'm glad to be free of, of, like, the, the sort of, like, demands of, that a newsletter would require right now. Yeah. But- Yeah... I'm just looking for sort of, like, funny stories, so if anything funny happens to you. Okay. [laughs] Um- We'll let you know. I don't do anything. We'll let you know. Amanda, I just love your work so much, and I like you. You handle internet and culture in a really intelligent way, without taking the fun out of it, but also being really circumspect, and I'm happy that you are a parent, uh, as well, and that you can fold that perspective in as well.

1:09:34And, you know, it's, I always marvel over, like, how much of my brain is wasted on pop culture and internet stuff. Yeah. But it's kind of fun to share it with my kids as they get older. I think I, I used the phrase rage bait i- in conversation, and my kids were shocked that I knew that, that phrase. And so as much as the internet can tear me apart, it kinda keeps me young in a certain way as well. So, you know, I am glad you're out there, you know, trying to bring a little bit of civili- civility and intelli- intellect to it.

1:10:01Amanda, I won't ask how old you are, but Claire, have you used any internet terms, or I guess just terms, that were so profound to us growing up that your kids have no idea? 'Cause I called something tight the other day- You know what this-... and my kids were like- Oh, wow... they genuinely were like, "What?" It wasn't like, "Oh, that's cringe." They had no idea, and I was like, "Tight was it. Hey, if you were tight, holy shit." I think I call my kids homie sometimes, and I don't even know if they hear me. Mm-hmm. But, I mean, that's, like, pre-internet even.

1:10:30I mean, that's, you know, in living color. So, yeah. I feel like my kids and I are at this great place right now where we both learn about internet things really late. Mm-hmm. 'Cause they have, it has to, like, trickle through the entire culture and get down to kindergartners and get to them. So my kindergartner thinks six seven is really funny. The funniest shit. Mm. And I'm like- Uh-huh... and I'm like, old k- older kids don't do that anymore, whatever. Yeah. You know? But to him, it's the funniest thing ever. And kids are always counting from six to seven. It just comes up all the time.

1:10:58And so it's sort of nice where it's like they don't know anything- Kids be counting... that I don't know. Slowly starting to become aware of things. Mm-hmm. The best thing about six seven is that you don't even, you don't need to know anything about it. You know, there's no background to it. Right. Yeah, there's nothing. There's nothing. There's nothing. Yeah, which is sort of the most pure thing, you know. It's like rock and roll and Elvis and, you know, like copacetic and all the, you know, dumb culture. Yeah. Sure. All right.

1:11:23Amanda, thank you so much for taking the time and being on our podcast. Truly. And if we wanna direct people, should we just have them follow you in The New York Times? I know you have a byline kind of page on there, but, and buy your book, right? Yeah. Is it in a second printing yet? Or what is the, what, anything you can tell? It is. It just came out in paperback. Okay. Good for the beach. It's a little more affordable. Yep. Easier to carry around. Nice. Oh, it's called- Um, and-... Second, Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age is the name of the book, of course. Yeah.

1:11:50And you can follow me on Instagram, which I'm never gonna quit. My handle, it's my handle. Do people say that anymore? Sure. It's a.drummwalhes. Okay. Perfect. Well, congratulations to your- It's tight. It's a tight handle... your, oops. It's fresh. It's dope. Thanks. Congratulations to your graduate. Mm-hmm, big ceremony. And I hope that the, the speeches are not too long. There'll be all these six, like, seven-year-olds being like, "I was in your shoes. I can't believe it's been one year- I know... since I was, and now I know everything that you'll know in your first grade." Idiots.

1:12:19But- Thank you for joining us. Really appreciate it. Hope you don't regret it. Thank you so much. It was really fun. [upbeat music] That's it for this week. You're gonna make it. You're doing great. Or you're just doing it, or just you, period. Just stop right there. But for more, you can hit subscribe right in your podcast player of choice. Please share our show with another parent in your life, or anyone who might get a kick out of listening to what the hell we're going through.

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