Lindsay Powers, YOU CAN'T F*CK UP YOUR KIDS
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[1:03]I'm here today with Lindsay Powers, via Skype, who's the author of You Can't F Up Your Kids,
[1:08]a judgment-free guide to stress-free parenting.
[1:10]Lindsay is the creator of the hashtag NoShame Parenting Movement,
[1:14]which has reached more than 170 million people across social media.
[1:17]A long-time journalist, her workers appeared in the Washington Post, the New York Post,
[1:21]CBS this morning, Good Morning America, CNN, and others.
[1:24]She was the founding editor-in-chief of Yahoo Parenting.
[1:26]And most recently, she was the vice president for lifestyle and entertainment at Sirius XM
[1:31]and the founder of a digital content consulting company.
[1:34]She currently lives in New York with her husband and two children.
[1:37]Thank you for doing this podcast.
[1:39]I'm sorry, this has taken so long for us to meet
[1:41]congratulations on your release this week.
[1:43]It's so exciting.
[1:44]Thank you so much.
[1:46]I'm really excited about it.
[1:48]This is like a lifelong dream to write a book.
[1:50]I've ever since I've a kid, a writer and, you know, I counted the whole school newspaper
[1:55]and all this ridiculous stuff.
[1:56]And so it feels like this really big life moment to finally
[2:00]really finish the book.
[2:01]It is a really big life moment.
[2:03]It's super exciting.
[2:04]I mean, congratulations.
[2:05]You should feel, I feel that a lot of authors now in the shadow of the coronavirus
[2:10]are feeling that they can't celebrate their accomplishments.
[2:12]And I don't think that's right.
[2:14]I think that this is a time where you have to sort of double down and say like,
[2:19]this is awesome.
[2:20]This is my life.
[2:21]And this is what life is all about.
[2:23]So I agree.
[2:24]If we don't find these little moments of happiness and joy,
[2:28]what are we going to do?
[2:29]And also people are multifaceted and we can both be so grateful for our health,
[2:34]so kind of anxious or nervous about what's next.
[2:36]But also like proud of our work that we've done,
[2:39]all of these emotions can exist at the same time.
[2:42]Yes.
[2:42]And I think everybody is sort of dealing with like the poo-poo platterness of it.
[2:49]Yeah.
[2:50]That is all that.
[2:51]Right.
[2:51]It's like we could never have planned this global pandemic, you know.
[2:56]So here we are just trying to do the best we can
[2:59]kind of in amid this madness.
[3:01]Yes.
[3:02]So and your book is so great.
[3:04]And I love how you are just, well, why don't you tell listeners what it's about?
[3:08]So I don't have to, but I mean, I could summarize it, but you go ahead.
[3:12]Yeah, yeah.
[3:13]So it's called you can't f up your kids.
[3:15]And it's an eye-catching title is provocative because I wanted to start a conversation.
[3:19]I think that parents today are under so much pressure to be all the things to everyone,
[3:24]especially mothers, but everyone, you know.
[3:26]And I'm really proud that my book doesn't just speak to moms.
[3:29]It speaks to all different kinds of families and all different kinds of caregivers and family setups.
[3:33]But I had kind of two motivations and to write in this book.
[3:37]I've been a journalist for a long time specifically covering science and health and culture.
[3:42]And so when I, when I was judged, you know, I opened the book talking about a woman calling
[3:47]me disgusting for breastfeeding my then 10 month old at a pizza shop in Brooklyn.
[3:51]I just felt like, what the heck?
[3:53]Like, come on, we're all in this together, chill.
[3:55]And you kind of have that feeling like you can't win, you're damned if you do and damned if
[3:59]you don't write, you breastfeed too long, you're weirdo, you don't breastfeed enough,
[4:03]you're a bad mom.
[4:03]So just, so as a journalist, I felt extremely compelled to research all of these hot
[4:09]button parenting topics and to also go beyond just like looking on the internet,
[4:14]but to call up the researchers behind all of these studies that people fight ad nauseum and put
[4:19]them on the spot.
[4:20]And what I found again and again in the book is that the research has a lot of shades of gray,
[4:26]that's lost because nobody is going to study a pregnant woman and say, all right, you don't drink,
[4:32]you drink a glass of wine and you drink a bottle of wine.
[4:35]We're going to measure your kid in 10 years and see how smart they are.
[4:38]So which is good, right?
[4:39]We don't experiment on children and pregnant people.
[4:42]But so, so kind of like that, that professional standpoint really want,
[4:46]you know, I really wanted to dive into this book.
[4:48]And then also from a personal standpoint, I grew up in a really kind of this like,
[4:52]a really crazy childhood situation, I've been a abusive household.
[4:56]My mom's really mentally ill.
[4:57]She's a disabled veteran and I joke, you know, I turn that mostly, okay.
[5:01]And so now I'm raising my kids in this completely different experience, right?
[5:06]We live in Bramstone, Brooklyn, they're relatively privileged and just hearing the
[5:11]brilliant smart friends freak out about infant flashcards in the right preschool and organic food.
[5:18]I just was like, man, you know, kids can really go through so many different experiences
[5:24]and turn out okay.
[5:26]And if you are concerned about your kids, if you have that self-awareness,
[5:30]that means you're already a great parent.
[5:31]So I wanted to prove it through research.
[5:33]That's really awesome.
[5:34]I mean, I think that when people have kids, they feel so out of control, right?
[5:39]They feel this like huge sense of responsibility and no one guidebook.
[5:45]And I think that all they can do is affect the environment.
[5:48]And so I think people put all this extra emphasis on it and forget to step back,
[5:52]no fault of their own.
[5:53]And think like in the greater scheme of things, should I listen to the
[5:57]30 other people in like my, you know, at my farmers market talking about, you know, the way I
[6:02]should do this.
[6:03]So it's to have a message like yours is so important because it's true.
[6:08]I mean, not to keep talking.
[6:10]I'm sorry, but like, I didn't realize how little I had to do with my kids development
[6:14]until I had four kids.
[6:15]And I realized, I have almost nothing to do with the way these kids are turning out.
[6:19]Like, I feel like it's almost like first, do no harm.
[6:23]Like, I'm just going to try not to mess them up.
[6:26]But in terms of improving them, there's really, they are who they are.
[6:30]Right.
[6:31]And I think there's this misnomer, right, that we are going to impact our kids' lives,
[6:36]because we, you know, they watched one minute too much screen time over the recommended
[6:43]guidelines or because our friend of me from middle school who we follow on Instagram is doing
[6:47]something different or one of the Kardashians who we follow on Facebook or whoever.
[6:52]I mean, there's all these voices everywhere.
[6:55]And of course, we all want to be great parents.
[6:57]I mean, that's like, we all just, it's a human instinct to be an awesome parent.
[7:02]But then because we're hearing so many voices all the time, I think that we can lose sight
[7:06]of just the really basic important things that kids need, which research shows is love,
[7:12]food, you know, something that he doesn't have to be perfectly organic, whatever,
[7:16]something to eat in a warm place to sleep.
[7:18]And if you have those ingredients, your kids can really thrive.
[7:22]What a relief, right?
[7:24]I mean, that's just such a relief.
[7:25]I, you know, nothing you do.
[7:27]I mean, I hope it's a relief to people listening that the things that you do,
[7:31]like you're not in charge of making your kid smart, like your kids either,
[7:35]like there's not, it's not the way, like when my kids were little, I was like,
[7:40]I would take them to a music class and be like, wait, should I be moving their arm now?
[7:44]Should I let them wander around at all these stupid things?
[7:48]I mean, and now I'm like, gosh, it's so didn't matter.
[7:50]And I feel like your book is so timely right now.
[7:52]I mean, I hope so.
[7:54]Talk a little about like just how necessary this is when we're all stuck at home,
[8:00]not stuck when we're all at home, you know, essentially protecting our children.
[8:05]Right.
[8:05]So, you know, obviously when I was writing this book, I wasn't like,
[8:08]a global pandemic is coming.
[8:10]It's really going to apply.
[8:11]But I do think that it applies to our lives right now more than ever because
[8:16]I cover so many things that parents are so concerned about.
[8:19]First and foremost, that we are somehow effing up our kids by them not being in school
[8:25]or by them being inside of our home much more often than they were in the past.
[8:30]And it's like, first of all, these are things that are out of our control right now.
[8:32]So what, what can we do about them?
[8:34]And you know, I really go through the research and talk about why extra screen time is not so bad.
[8:39]I mean, it's, it's this judgey discourse.
[8:41]But when you look at actual research, you see kids as young as 18 months can learn a lot
[8:45]from screen time.
[8:46]And honestly, nobody in 10 years is going to look back at this time and be like,
[8:51]man, you know, I really wish my kids had watched less Paw Patrol during that global pandemic.
[8:56]And if we are maybe we should, you know, check our privilege.
[8:58]My kids are literally watching Paw Patrol write this moment in the next room.
[9:03]So thank you for that.
[9:06]I love we watch like a lot of episodes of Paw Patrol every day.
[9:09]Yeah.
[9:10]We've been, we waited for the beginning.
[9:12]And like when we first hunkered down, I think it was March 12th, there were all these ads
[9:16]made March 27th, new Paw Patrol is coming in.
[9:19]So we've been cutting down.
[9:20]And finally, they came out.
[9:21]And now it's, it was like a big celebration.
[9:23]So these are, these are now the things that we cling to as big life events.
[9:28]That is so funny.
[9:28]I know there's all these different forms.
[9:30]Like my kids are like, I don't want this Paw Patrol.
[9:32]I want the, yes, you know, the super tiny puffs, mighty puffs.
[9:38]They're all, here they are.
[9:41]But you know, we, we find joy in the small moments.
[9:43]So I'm like, here are your mighty puffs.
[9:45]I mean, I don't know about you.
[9:46]It sounds like, I mean, I'd love to hear more about your childhood.
[9:49]That sounds very unique in, in so many ways.
[9:53]But at least from a TV perspective, I mean, I watched TV all the time as a kid.
[9:57]That's like, and so did everyone I know.
[9:59]It's like,
[10:00]We all watch the same shows, right?
[10:01]We could all talk about like little house in the prairie
[10:03]or whatever. There weren't so many options.
[10:05]But I think it's fine.
[10:06]I don't know.
[10:07]What do you think?
[10:08]It's totally fine.
[10:09]I mean, look, I grew up in the summer watching
[10:10]the prices right with my grandparents
[10:12]and just days of our lives.
[10:14]General Hoth, General Hoth.
[10:15]General Hoth, whatever it was, I'm like, yeah,
[10:16]I remember watching the OJ Simpson trial
[10:18]when I was, you know, good and a lot younger.
[10:21]And you know, and now when you look at screen time,
[10:25]now compared to what it was then when we were kids,
[10:27]I mean, it's so interactive now.
[10:30]There's educational components
[10:31]and not that everything needs to be
[10:33]this educational perfect TV show,
[10:35]but even when my kids are just like watching
[10:37]Nick Jr. Disney Plus,
[10:38]there's interactive things.
[10:40]They're asking kids questions.
[10:42]So it's really blown out of proportion.
[10:45]And when you dig into different, you know,
[10:47]the history of all these hot button topics
[10:49]and also how different cultures react to these hot button topics,
[10:53]you see that most of our judgment is based
[10:56]on cultural issues and not actual research.
[11:01]So it's really fun.
[11:02]It connects us to, in a time,
[11:04]when we need connection more than ever.
[11:07]Totally agree.
[11:08]Can you, I don't know how comfortable you feel talking
[11:10]about your growing up and your parents and all that,
[11:13]can you tell me just tell me a little more about it?
[11:16]What was it like and how have you worked through it
[11:19]and all the rest?
[11:21]Yeah, so I'm pretty open about my crazy childhood
[11:25]because I would like to think that maybe it would help someone
[11:28]who's going through the same thing.
[11:29]But, you know, one of my first childhood memories is
[11:33]when I was seven years old, my dad driving around to bars
[11:35]with me trying to find my alcoholic mother.
[11:38]And, you know, when I was eight years old,
[11:39]watching pills whirl around the toilet
[11:42]because my mom was a drug addict.
[11:43]And so just being very parentified from a very young age,
[11:47]I basically raised my sisters, my parents divorced
[11:50]and then we somehow ended up living with my mother
[11:52]who was extremely mentally ill.
[11:54]She's still as extremely mentally ill.
[11:55]She has something called borderline personality disorder.
[11:58]She's also bipolar on top of that.
[12:00]And she was abusive when she wasn't
[12:04]not coming out of her bedroom for days.
[12:06]And, you know, I can, she cooked two meals my entire childhood.
[12:10]You know, I don't think I even saw a vegetable
[12:12]until I was in high school, you know, for food.
[12:16]And we did kind of move in and out of relatives' houses.
[12:19]So I did have these pockets of sanity in between,
[12:21]you know, we lived with my grandparents,
[12:23]a couple of times after we'd been kicked out
[12:25]of various apartments or had to leave
[12:27]because my parents just couldn't get it together
[12:29]to pay the bill.
[12:30]And my dad worked a lot and traveled a lot
[12:32]and just was not super involved.
[12:35]He was not like a bad parent.
[12:37]He always provided kind of the basics when he could,
[12:39]but he just was a little out of the picture
[12:41]and not as involved.
[12:42]So my mom, you know, would bring home like a bag
[12:46]of like chicken sandwiches from Burger King
[12:48]and put it in the fridge when I was in elementary school.
[12:51]And that's like what I would be my sisters
[12:53]for an entire week.
[12:54]We're on food stamps at one point.
[12:56]We're in and out of poverty.
[12:58]My friend, who's a school social worker,
[12:59]has told me as an adult that I would have been considered
[13:01]homeless by the school system
[13:03]because the way that we were kind of moving so much
[13:06]and in and out of different family.
[13:07]Home, you know, my mom was entering rehab at eight.
[13:11]And I was eight.
[13:11]She's been multiple times.
[13:12]She said multiple suicide attempts throughout her life.
[13:15]I just kicked me out of the house when I was 16.
[13:17]And she punched me into a brick wall.
[13:20]I left, moved into my aunt and uncle.
[13:22]And then she lost custody of my signed over custody
[13:24]of my sisters.
[13:25]I had two younger sisters shortly after that.
[13:27]And after she had like a really terrible suicide attempt
[13:31]that was pretty serious.
[13:33]And, you know, I went away to college.
[13:35]I worked a lot of campus jobs.
[13:37]I, I, with on the Pell Grant,
[13:39]like I'm not somebody who comes
[13:41]from a privilege background at all.
[13:43]I just finished paying off my students like a year ago.
[13:46]I, you know, I married my high school sweetheart.
[13:48]We got married really young at 21.
[13:50]I went to journalism school, moved to New York
[13:52]when I was 21, hardly, you know.
[13:56]And we scraped it together.
[13:58]I had $800 to my name when we moved to the city.
[14:01]And since then, I built this really amazing life
[14:05]that I'm really proud of.
[14:06]I have two wonderful funds.
[14:09]I live in Brooklyn, which is just like the people's
[14:12]or public of Brooklyn.
[14:13]It's like a magical place to raise kids.
[14:15]You know, I have some of my bought a house
[14:16]and renovated it ourselves over the course of a million.
[14:19]Because it's two years.
[14:21]So I live this like very lucky life now.
[14:24]But I have a really unique perspective on child rearing
[14:28]because of my childhood.
[14:29]And oh, one thing that I didn't mention
[14:31]that's also a huge part of my family history
[14:34]is when I finally escaped kind of this crazy background.
[14:38]I was working at that time as a reporter of Us Weekly
[14:40]and I was on Miami and on assignment.
[14:42]And I got a phone call with like 15 phone calls
[14:44]in the middle of the night.
[14:45]My mom had fallen down the stairs and broken her neck.
[14:47]And I was her part of attorney for property and health.
[14:50]I was in Miami on assignment.
[14:52]I did get on a plane.
[14:53]I was in charge of pulling the pole or not.
[14:55]I chanted up making it this night.
[14:56]Now she's part of religious.
[14:57]So I managed all her finance to this day.
[15:00]And I mean, my extended family does the bulk of the caregiving.
[15:03]But it is still to this day like a really interesting
[15:07]dynamic with my family.
[15:09]Lindsay.
[15:10]Oh my gosh.
[15:11]That is a lot.
[15:13]I cannot, I mean, wow, that, first of all,
[15:17]thank you for sharing it and being open about it.
[15:19]And second of all, just wow, that you can power through.
[15:25]And you appear to be coming not from a place of anger
[15:28]but of wanting to help and share and make things easier
[15:32]for other people, which is amazing.
[15:34]Really, I mean, you could have taken this
[15:36]in very, a lot of different directions.
[15:38]It could have been a, you could have written a memoir about,
[15:41]you know, I mean, what do you think it was about,
[15:44]or maybe it's just who you are as a person
[15:46]that made you take this experience
[15:47]and give it as like a gift in a book
[15:50]to help other parents who are worrying about what you must
[15:51]think are the stupidest things ever.
[15:53]Well, I never want to downplay other people's
[15:57]and parent struggles because I also, you know,
[15:59]foreign effect your old.
[16:00]And like, I'm always like, oh, you know,
[16:01]and so I also am concerned about like all these things
[16:04]that every parent is concerned about.
[16:06]But I have kind of this voice in the back of my head
[16:08]that's like, this is nothing.
[16:09]And again, the grand scheme of thing
[16:10]has become kind of, my childhood has become
[16:12]kind of my guiding light.
[16:14]I can kind of measure my anxieties
[16:16]and concerns against it and be like,
[16:18]is this a big deal?
[16:19]No, pop girls, not a big deal, we're going to be fine.
[16:22]But I, you know, I think because I have my grandparents
[16:26]who we moved in with for a couple of years,
[16:28]four minute years, like three different times in my life
[16:30]and my aunt and uncle who I'm very close with
[16:32]and they had a huge hand in raising me
[16:34]because I kind of had these moments of stability
[16:37]and other people in my life that were there for me.
[16:40]I think that helped me a lot.
[16:42]But I am somebody who's like, I don't stress out
[16:46]over a lot of things.
[16:47]I'm really scrappy.
[16:48]I don't have that kind of safety net.
[16:50]So I am always hustling all the time.
[16:53]And I think the good thing is that I'm really resilient
[16:56]with it and that's something I want to pass down to my kids.
[16:58]And I know that's something that so many parents
[17:00]want to pass down to their kids.
[17:02]Wow.
[17:03]But I don't want to pass it down like I learned it.
[17:05]Right.
[17:06]Pass it down to a nicer childhood.
[17:08]Yes, a different container to pass it through.
[17:10]There's that thing.
[17:11]Right.
[17:12]How did you go about starting a no shame parenting movement?
[17:15]Like, how do you just decide to start a movement?
[17:17]Like, I know you were at Yahoo at the time
[17:19]and Yahoo Parenting and had the resources of that sort of,
[17:22]you know, those, the wind at your sails.
[17:24]But can you tell me a little more about that?
[17:26]Like, how do you become a movement starter?
[17:29]So I was the editor in chief of Yahoo Parenting
[17:32]and we had the small team and we saw that any time
[17:35]we wrote a story on feeling judged
[17:38]or another celebrity who had been judged
[17:41]or a mom who had been judged or any parent,
[17:44]we would get a ton of positive responses
[17:46]and everyone would be sharing their stories
[17:48]on the comments, on Facebook, on Instagram.
[17:51]And so, you know, we also were feeling it
[17:53]because we were all really young parents.
[17:55]I know you had Rachel Bertie on your show too.
[17:58]She was on my Yahoo Parenting team.
[17:59]She's incredible.
[18:00]Oh, I love her.
[18:01]So we all kind of came together and we were like,
[18:04]we have to do something.
[18:05]So we came up with the idea of no shame parenting
[18:08]and to build a big movement around it.
[18:11]So we started out, you know, we came up
[18:13]as with anything, we're like,
[18:14]we'll do some stories and we'll do a survey
[18:16]and we launched this video series called
[18:19]What It's Like to Show Different Kind of Family
[18:22]because we thought it was so important
[18:24]to open the conversation
[18:26]because when you scroll social media now
[18:28]or talk to people,
[18:29]everyone's always just their highlight reel,
[18:31]everything's perfect.
[18:32]And we wanted to kind of give people permission
[18:35]from the big platform of Yahoo to be real,
[18:37]to open the conversation.
[18:39]So we started it and ended up going
[18:41]insanely viral.
[18:42]I mean, it really resonated.
[18:43]I ended up, I was in the White House
[18:44]interviewing Valerie Jarrett by the end of the week,
[18:46]which was unbelievable.
[18:49]You know, President Obama's advisor
[18:51]and I was on the Morning America talking about
[18:53]no shame parenting.
[18:54]And we were able to pull all the analytics of how far
[18:58]and how many people, all of the stories
[19:00]and the tweets and the social media
[19:02]and the hashtag no shame parenting
[19:04]and content surrounding it had reached more
[19:06]than 170 million people across social media.
[19:09]And we just, we're so excited
[19:11]because we felt really passionate about it.
[19:13]Then Yahoo was sold and they closed down
[19:15]all of these different sections, unfortunately.
[19:18]And it was so devastating.
[19:20]So I was like, oh, like we just have all this momentum
[19:24]we're having the most important conversation
[19:26]and now we're not gonna be able to finish it.
[19:28]So at that point, I was literally nine months pregnant
[19:30]with my second son, Otto.
[19:31]And so I went up and I'm gonna turn to the lead
[19:34]and had him and shortly after I came back,
[19:37]I was like, I need to write a book.
[19:39]It was like one of those mornings
[19:40]where I drank two cups coffee
[19:41]and I was feeling really hyper
[19:43]and I just, look, you can't fuck up your heads.
[19:45]Just, we can't fuck up your kids.
[19:47]Just came into my head and I wrote a query letter
[19:50]and I sent it to a friend of mine who's an agent
[19:52]and he wrote me back and he was like,
[19:53]eh, it's not for me, but let me introduce you
[19:55]to another agent friend of mine.
[19:57]I connected with him, that was March 31st.
[20:00]first 2017 from there like it took off and my book came out March 31st 2020 so exactly
[20:07]three years to the day of me sitting down super caffeinated and writing a queer letter to
[20:12]you know the book heading stores.
[20:13]Wow that's not bad that's for all you know book journey timeline so it's pretty fast.
[20:20]I know that's a nice thing and I hear from so many people all the time they're like I want
[20:24]to write a book and I think they have this idea that it's that it's this like really fast
[20:28]process and I mean right like as you've said three years it's not even held long
[20:33]in book writing journey time yeah I mean a book you sell today might not come out for
[20:37]a year anyway right exactly it's crazy and and I will admit I did quit two jobs in the
[20:44]middle because I kept trying to like do it all and I was like and I can't do it all so
[20:48]I kept like so I ended up putting Yahoo after I signed with my agent so I was like great
[20:54]I'm gonna like take a couple months and work on my proposal another another job so I
[20:58]spent some months writing my proposal and then I put that in and then I went to serious
[21:03]like them to be the VP of lifestyle and entertainment and then my book ended up going to
[21:07]auction and I remember sitting down at film seven and she started my editor was like like
[21:13]how will you raise children write a book and be like a vice corporate vice president and
[21:17]I was like I don't know and I like quit my job a month later because I couldn't get it
[21:21]together to do it and I I thought when I look back at this life moment writing a book would
[21:25]be something like I would rather accomplish than being a corporate vice president.
[21:29]Well it sounds like anytime you want you could get your you could get back into that you
[21:33]don't like we don't obviously obviously the world is a different place now but well
[21:39]that's great well I'm so glad you took that time and did this so did you did when
[21:45]you actually did the writing where did you like did you work at home or did you go outside
[21:49]like I just like to know about people's process where did you like to write I joined
[21:52]the wing I'm obsessed with the wing as someone who has always had a job and like like
[21:58]I just felt like I needed like a place to go every day so I mostly wrote it the wing
[22:03]in Devo Brooklyn and a little bit in Soho and sometimes at home and I'm I'm really lucky
[22:07]that I kept my child care throughout the whole time because as we're all learning now is
[22:12]we're trying to juggle work in our children yeah not so easy yeah back to Paw Patrol
[22:21]exactly my babysitter of the moment well do you think you want to write another book
[22:28]having gone through this process I would love to it's I mean writing a book is the most
[22:34]bewildering well not the most bewildering I think what we're looking through right now
[22:37]is the most bewildering most thing to do but writing a book is this really weird process
[22:42]I feel like because you are just pouring your heart and soul into your computer every
[22:48]day and there's not a ton of human interaction or feedback and you really don't hear anything
[22:53]about it until years later when you release it to the world so you know I'm I'm like one of those
[22:58]writers who loves having written not the actual like writing of a book but I'm also because I've
[23:03]been a journalist for so long I'm not one of those people that needs to like go into a field
[23:07]and find inspiration like looking utility writer like I made myself write 2000 words a day and
[23:13]sat down and wrote 2000 words a day until my book was done so yeah I hope my book
[23:17]does well enough to where I can write another couple in the series and maybe one day actually
[23:23]write that memoir so I think I have a big story to tell there too yeah I was going to say if I was
[23:28]going to encourage you to write that memoir and not that you haven't thought of it but that's
[23:33]one I would love to read I mean wow and your perspective on it seems so unique too so yeah but we
[23:39]definitely need like you can't f up your teenagers you can't like because my kids are my kids
[23:47]teenagers like I need I need you to like focus on a slightly older group now I mean this is great
[23:54]because right I wrote this like the beginning couple of chapters are much more baby focused and
[23:59]then it kind of goes into to hitting you know screen time and meal time and all the things that
[24:04]is very applicable to all different kinds of families and then I really focus on adults and
[24:08]sex and all those things the relationships but I definitely think it would be fun to kind of write
[24:13]all the books as my kids age too because I like my kids are four and six now like I'm ready for
[24:17]you can't f up your tween and I thought you're teen and we'll say well if you need any help with
[24:23]the research just email me for any questions because I'm sure I am missing them all except
[24:29]there is no way you are missing them but the fact that you are concerned about how you are
[24:33]as a parent you are way ahead of the curve and your kids are doing more than fine no they're thriving
[24:39]I'm kidding they're fine they're you know whatever they'll be fine do you have any words of advice
[24:45]for aspiring authors yeah to stick with it because I think you know there's like again this
[24:53]idea that's a really fast process but it's not you know I mean I have been working on a book
[24:58]I've been like manifesting it since I was born basically but I started writing the memoir at one
[25:03]point maybe ten or twelve gosh even more twelve years ago and then it was very heavy and I was like
[25:10]I don't want to write this then I started writing a different book at one point and it kind of fell
[25:14]apart I'd gotten a job at that point that ended up being really busy so I like let it go and then
[25:19]I signed this one agent that didn't work and then so it's I think it's just kind of keep it keep
[25:24]at it and just the idea to write every day because I also think that there's kind of this
[25:30]idea that only good good writers have to go on a writing retreat somewhere and I'm totally
[25:34]not knocking that if that's your process because whatever your process is is amazing and you should do
[25:40]it but especially for parents of young children I think this idea that we need to be able to like
[25:45]go on this beautiful writers retreat to write our first novel is like a little bit of a misnomer
[25:49]I mean you can you can write anywhere all you need is a computer you can I mean I wrote
[25:55]part of my outline on my phone while I was commuting back and forth to work so I think that it's
[26:01]very doable and you should give yourself time and space and grace and eventually your message will
[26:06]get out there thank you I love that thanks Lindsay thanks for coming on mom's no time to read
[26:13]books and thanks for being really inspiring I feel very inspired having spoken to you today
[26:18]seriously so thank you to be that like I mean if someone of your caliber saying that to me
[26:23]I mean the the way I see support writers and authors is so amazing and inspiring and I'm still
[26:29]with gratitude for it every day so I appreciate you taking the time to interview me as well yeah
[26:34]now it's truly a pleasure all right thanks Lindsay thanks so much to me okay hang in there
[26:40]thank you to you too okay bye you've been listening to mom's don't have time to read books
[26:45]with zibi Owens please make sure to sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com to get more
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[27:19]at texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing
[27:24]this fantastic intro and out trim music thanks for listening you could always email me at zibi
[27:28]at zibiowens.com