Meredith Walker, Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice + Adam Mansbach, Go the F*ck to College
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[0:45]Meredith Walker is the author of Be Yourself, Another Bad Advice, a teen girl's guide
[0:49]to unlearning the rules.
[0:51]Meredith began her career in journalism at the groundbreaking Nickelodeon series, Nick News.
[0:55]She worked her way up from production assistant to segment producer, traveling the
[0:59]country to interview kids, experts, politicians, and artists for news stories.
[1:03]She later moved to Saturday Night Live, where she ran the talent department before she
[1:06]and Amy Poehler co-founded Smart Girls, an online community that encourages young women
[1:11]to celebrate who they are and who they are becoming.
[1:14]Through programs, workshops, and day camps, Meredith has helped girls try new things
[1:18]and discover more about themselves.
[1:20]That work has taken her from classrooms and regional programs to the White House, the United
[1:24]Nations, and communities around the world.
[1:26]She now lives in Austin, Texas with her long-time love, Tom, and their dogs, Banjo, and
[1:30]Ferris.
[1:31]Welcome, Meredith.
[1:32]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to talk about Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice,
[1:37]a teen girl's guide to unlearning the rules.
[1:39]Congrats.
[1:40]Thank you so much.
[1:41]I'm so happy to be here.
[1:42]Thank you for having me.
[1:43]I actually couldn't believe when this book came across my, I don't know, not my desk,
[1:48]but the emo, and I got the first email about this book because this is what my mother
[1:52]always used to say to me before a dance, or like anything I was nervous about.
[1:56]She'd be like, just be yourself.
[1:58]And I was like, who is that?
[2:00]Like, I don't even know who I am.
[2:02]I'm so self-conscious.
[2:03]Like, what does that mean?
[2:04]So when I got this, I was like, huh, that's nice.
[2:07]I'm so glad that resonated for you because that was exactly the point.
[2:11]It's like, I had the exact same thing, even in my adulthood though, and people would
[2:16]say, and I'd be like, that advice is not calming me down at all.
[2:20]Yeah.
[2:21]This is not advice for the anxious, right?
[2:23]Exactly.
[2:24]But it was just a matter of trying to figure out who that is before the world tells
[2:30]you.
[2:31]Yes.
[2:32]I mean, it's true in that we should show up being who we are, but it's just hard to
[2:36]know and present that and do all the things at once, right?
[2:39]It really is.
[2:40]It's hard to do that when you feel like you're kind of performing and wanting to be
[2:44]likable and come off a certain way so it kind of doesn't, it doesn't balance out
[2:49]sometimes.
[2:50]Yes.
[2:51]Well, I have four teens slash pre-teens.
[2:54]And so this book is incredibly relevant.
[2:56]I've been trying to circulate it among everybody who's like, they're all like reading
[3:00]is boring.
[3:01]I'm like, read this book.
[3:02]It looks cool.
[3:05]I'm so glad you're doing that and thank you because it's the book I wish I really wish
[3:09]I'd had it when I was a pre-teen, a teen, 20, 28, I mean, you know, I really could
[3:16]have used just a little bit of validation and some questions to ask myself.
[3:20]So let's back up.
[3:21]How did you end up doing this book?
[3:23]Why you, why this period of time?
[3:26]Why do you care so much?
[3:27]Well, you know, I care so much for, well, I think probably two reasons.
[3:31]One is that kind of selfish reason.
[3:32]If I read it like I said, I wish I'd had this book.
[3:34]I really do.
[3:35]I felt so abnormal and all these emotions were so intense when I was going through adolescence
[3:43]and it wasn't until I read a book that came out in 1994 called Reviving Ophelia.
[3:48]And it was one of the first real looks at what girls go through during adolescence and
[3:52]the fact that adolescence lasts a lot longer than like 17, you know, it's really until
[3:57]we're about 25.
[3:58]And just the validation of like there's some actual science, like there's biology behind
[4:02]what you're going through.
[4:03]There's that intensity isn't because you're dramatic.
[4:07]It's because there's your under construction.
[4:10]And so passing along that knowledge I thought was very helpful, but also just the
[4:14]20 years plus that I've been working with young people.
[4:19]There's a commonality.
[4:20]There's something that never changed.
[4:22]That was how much pressure they feel like they're under during adolescence.
[4:27]And an adolescence is really a time to be trying things on for size and getting to know
[4:32]yourself.
[4:33]But there's this pressure from everywhere.
[4:36]It might not even be from your own parents.
[4:38]It might just be just from the world.
[4:40]And it's kind of like to live this life, to create this life that's built around how
[4:44]it'll look on a college application or building a resume.
[4:48]And they just feel like they can't make a mistake.
[4:50]They can't make a misstep.
[4:51]And there's no time to just really figure out what they think or even what they know
[4:55]about themselves.
[4:56]And so I wrote this to try and kind of fill that gap.
[4:59]Wow.
[5:00]How did you even call down all the advice, find all the advice?
[5:04]Like you have charts and tips and things like that.
[5:08]Also a narrative how are handling intense feelings.
[5:12]There's all of this is useful drawings.
[5:15]All of it is really helpful for grown-ups, for kids, for anybody.
[5:20]But how did you pick what to include, I guess?
[5:24]That's a great question.
[5:26]And I think it really should be eight volumes.
[5:28]I mean, because there's so much to cover.
[5:30]But I've kind of went down.
[5:32]I went over.
[5:33]I've just been listening to girls for so many years.
[5:36]And so that's how I wittle it down is what they actually talk about the most, the things
[5:40]where they feel they're the most challenged.
[5:43]And then that kind of coincided with, like there was a great study that came out.
[5:47]I think it was right after the pandemic and it was about the effects of social media on
[5:51]the adolescent brain.
[5:53]And so kind of melding where things met and connected is how I decided on this version
[6:00]of the book, these initial issues to tackle.
[6:04]And how did you end up starting smart girls?
[6:07]And maybe go back to your SNL stories and all of that.
[6:11]Like, how did we get from there to here?
[6:13]Well, it actually started before that.
[6:15]In the 90s, I worked on this great show.
[6:17]It was a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning news show for kids called Nick News.
[6:21]Yes.
[6:22]And I was under the guidance of my boss and mentor Linda Ellerby.
[6:27]And so what we did for that show was we went around and interviewed kids for news stories.
[6:32]And so that's where it really started.
[6:34]I started really realizing.
[6:37]the minds of young people and what they're going through and that they pay attention to
[6:40]the world.
[6:41]They know what's going on, whether we think they do or not, and that they have opinions
[6:44]worth knowing about and worth considering.
[6:46]And so that's where it really started.
[6:48]And then I switched over to SNL and what was interesting about my time there, I thought
[6:54]was there's a lot of downtime, there's a lot of waiting around.
[6:56]And a lot of the women, whether it was, you know, crew or cast or writers or other producers,
[7:03]whenever this subject would come up, we all had the same reaction of kind, I would never
[7:08]want to go through that time of life again, you know?
[7:11]And so talking those discussions about like what it was like for you and what it was like
[7:15]for you, just the fact that this is a recurring thing through the decades.
[7:19]This is a tough time, a challenging time and any guidance is probably helpful.
[7:24]And so then that morphed into Amy and I were very close friends and we thought, oh, what
[7:30]can we do?
[7:31]To do something that's actually helpful for girls, Amy Poehler for this.
[7:34]Oh my gosh.
[7:35]I'm so sorry.
[7:36]Yes.
[7:37]Um, I heard of her, I don't know, Amy Meredith Poehler, I should say, I love her name.
[7:45]And we just decided we would try something to help like we wanted to take girls seriously,
[7:53]show an interest in them and have them come on and express themselves in some way.
[7:57]And so we came up with a show to do that.
[7:59]And then from there, that grew into like a bigger movement of we actually kind of got
[8:03]into the world of a lot of nonprofits and organizations for girls and spend a lot of time
[8:08]like we had workshops and day camps and all kinds of seminars for girls.
[8:13]And so that's where I really kind of was unintentionally collecting data for this book all
[8:18]along the way.
[8:19]That's amazing.
[8:20]Give us a glimpse of you in middle school.
[8:23]Oh my gosh.
[8:24]Well, I asked for a princess Diana haircut.
[8:27]I loved her, I loved and at the time I was like, oh my gosh.
[8:32]And did you get the princess Diana haircut?
[8:34]I got the princess Diana haircut.
[8:36]But I also, I really felt, I felt just so strange during those years.
[8:43]That's when, you know, biology is kind of telling you, you need to fit in, fitting in
[8:47]is super important.
[8:48]And I remember, you know, just feeling like I would do anything to fit in.
[8:53]I would wear this.
[8:54]I would listen to this music.
[8:55]I would do this.
[8:56]Like, you know, it's, I've read something the other day that was so smart and it was about
[9:00]like girls don't really lose themselves.
[9:02]They override themselves.
[9:04]And I remember overriding myself for wanting to fit in so much.
[9:09]But at the same time when I was home, I was watching SCTV and I was reading books like
[9:14]about the Titanic and like really giving in to some quirky your parts of myself.
[9:21]And I remember kind of feeling like, oh, I feel good about myself and happy when I'm
[9:25]doing this.
[9:26]And I don't feel great when I'm doing this, but I am included.
[9:29]So what's going on here?
[9:30]And anyway, so I was a little, I was a little goofy and sometimes a little lonely and
[9:35]I felt a little, a little, just a little weird during middle school.
[9:39]And then, but then in high school, everything kind of worked out a little bit better.
[9:42]I knew myself a little bit more by then so, but yeah, middle school was weird.
[9:48]I have to say as a parent now, especially of the middle schoolers, the extent to which
[9:54]they're all dressing the same, like, I used to notice obviously in school like this
[9:59]is the Chuck.
[10:00]Let's see if I am supposed to wear,
[10:01]and the Bennetton sweater,
[10:03]and this is what everybody's doing.
[10:05]But now, with social media too,
[10:07]it's like everyone in the world is wearing addicted,
[10:11]or that's a puff powder puff sweater.
[10:14]I don't even know what it is,
[10:15]but I go to the airport, and I'm like,
[10:16]oh, is that my kid?
[10:17]Oh, no, that's just someone dressed exactly like my kid.
[10:20]Like, how do they get the memo?
[10:21]Like, why is this so important?
[10:23]I know it is from an intellectual perspective,
[10:27]but it's just like, are we all wearing a uniform?
[10:30]Is everybody in the uniform?
[10:31]It's the uniform, and it's the same look, you know,
[10:33]all the same.
[10:34]I was thinking about it the other day too,
[10:36]and it's just so interesting,
[10:37]because a lot of the pressure for me came from myself.
[10:40]I mean, wherever I was absorbing it from the outside,
[10:45]but I remember having, like,
[10:47]I had torn out pictures of models in Vogue
[10:49]and put them up on the mirror,
[10:50]and, you know, I should look like that, actually.
[10:52]And all I had was magazines,
[10:54]and maybe like a couple of cable channels,
[10:57]you know, and I felt all that.
[10:59]So I wonder, I'm like, oh my gosh,
[11:01]what must it be like to be just around in 24-7
[11:05]by screens and platforms with just like,
[11:08]look like this, you know?
[11:10]I mean, the sad part too is like,
[11:11]the answer is not spend less time on screens.
[11:14]Can I mean, I feel like that's the,
[11:16]this is the book is like the antidote
[11:17]to the one liner of like, really,
[11:19]let's try harder or not to.
[11:21]Like, no, we have to accept like, yeah,
[11:23]maybe you can accept,
[11:25]maybe you can mess with the fringes of time spent,
[11:28]but you can't like ignore it,
[11:30]because if you prohibit kids from doing it at all,
[11:34]they're also kind of left out in a way
[11:36]if they don't know, right?
[11:38]Yeah, it's so right.
[11:39]And I mean, good for you,
[11:41]if you're able to like not even introduce screens
[11:43]and your kids not interested in it at all,
[11:45]but yeah, we have to accept, it's gonna happen.
[11:48]And so what can we do?
[11:49]We can manage it and say scroll smarter,
[11:51]which is what the book says.
[11:52]And so it's like we hope that you'll want to find things
[11:56]that are true and also just be able to realize
[11:59]the algorithm is meant to keep you there.
[12:01]So just like every now and then check in
[12:02]if that's what it's doing,
[12:03]if the algorithm is kind of winning that battle.
[12:05]How do we convince kids that of things that we know
[12:11]that they're not internal?
[12:12]Like I feel like with kids,
[12:15]it's like you can say everyone's more self-conscious
[12:18]about themselves than you like everyone thinks,
[12:21]like no one's gonna notice your hair
[12:22]because they're all worried about their hair,
[12:24]but they don't believe it.
[12:25]And they won't internalize it just because I say it
[12:29]or you put it in a book or how do we like get the message
[12:33]really in not to finish the book?
[12:36]I'm hoping the book does a better job for me.
[12:38]No, I know, it's, it is.
[12:40]It's a matter of how it gives themselves better questions.
[12:43]That's when that information can come
[12:45]from what they think is themselves.
[12:47]They're finding it on their own.
[12:48]And that always resonates more.
[12:50]And so I think even just the act of getting them
[12:53]to be more curious about things,
[12:56]they'll probably search things out
[12:57]and learn it on their own maybe the hard way
[12:59]or maybe they'll notice it,
[13:00]but it really comes from helping them be just more curious.
[13:03]I really believe that.
[13:05]And when you start noticing things around you more.
[13:08]All right, well, thank you Meredith.
[13:09]It was so nice to meet you.
[13:10]And thank you so much.
[13:11]And I look forward to seeing you in May.
[13:13]See you in May.
[13:14]Bye bye.
[13:15]Bye.
[13:16]Adam Man's book is the author of Go,
[13:19]the F to college.
[13:21]He is also the author of Go, the F to sleep,
[13:24]which is something I read a thousand times.
[13:27]It was a number one New York Times.
[13:28]Bestseller and was translated into 40 languages.
[13:32]It was also named Time Magazine's 2011 Thing of the Year
[13:36]and sold over three million copies worldwide.
[13:40]The two sequels to that are you have to F and eat
[13:43]and F now there are two of you,
[13:45]which were also New York Times best sellers,
[13:47]which I also loved.
[13:49]The audiobooks were narrated by Samuel L. Jackson,
[13:52]Brian Cranston and Larry David,
[13:54]and they are amazing as well.
[13:57]His novels include Rages Back, The End of the Juice,
[14:01]and Angry Black White Boy,
[14:03]which is taught at over a hundred schools
[14:05]and was adapted into a prize winning stage play
[14:08]in 2008.
[14:09]His middle grade series, Jake the fake keeps it real,
[14:12]co-written with Craig Robinson,
[14:13]was a Scholastic Book Club main selection
[14:16]and winner of the 2021 Grand Canyon Readers Award.
[14:19]With Dave Barry and Ellen Zweeball,
[14:21]Mansback wrote for this we left Egypt,
[14:23]a finalist for the third borough prize
[14:25]of her American humor,
[14:27]and the best-selling field guide to the Jewish people.
[14:31]Mansback's debut screenplay for the 2016 Netflix
[14:35]original Barry was nominated for an independent spirit award
[14:38]and an NAACP image award.
[14:41]He recently adapted D.L. Hughley's book,
[14:43]How Not to Get Shot and Other Advice from White People
[14:46]for Comedy Central.
[14:47]And his next feature film is super high,
[14:50]a stoner superhero comedy starring Andy Sandberg,
[14:53]Craig Robinson, and common that is forthcoming
[14:56]from New Line.
[14:58]Listen to our episode, he is hilarious.
[15:00]Welcome Adam, thanks so much for coming on to talk about,
[15:03]I'm not gonna curse those.
[15:04]So I'll say F, go the F to, go to the F to college.
[15:07]And I also said, should I not curse?
[15:09]Nobody told me about this.
[15:10]You can curse, I just feel weird.
[15:12]I don't know, I feel funny cursing.
[15:15]I don't know.
[15:16]I'm just, I wanna help you through this.
[15:19]What do, what do you mind?
[15:21]Yeah, but Andy's conversation,
[15:22]you'll be cursing up a story,
[15:23]me cursing like a longshoreman.
[15:25]I need that, this remediation, so I appreciate it.
[15:28]Thank you.
[15:29]I've been following along ever since, of course,
[15:32]like everybody in the world, let's go to the F to sleep.
[15:36]We must have kids run the same age or whatever.
[15:38]You've been helping me along through the journey.
[15:40]So, well, journey, cheesy, but tell me about this book.
[15:43]Tell everybody about the new book.
[15:45]Yeah, so, you know, the child who was two,
[15:49]when I wrote, go to the F to sleep, Vivian,
[15:52]is touring 18 in a month or so.
[15:55]And, you know, it's funny, like,
[15:57]I never think I'm gonna write another one of these books.
[16:00]And in fact, for years, people were like,
[16:02]hey, you should write, get the fuck out of my house,
[16:05]go to F to college, and I was like, yeah, I don't know.
[16:07]But you know, it's not until I get there emotionally
[16:11]that I realize, yeah, I know how to write that book.
[16:14]And in this case, it was last spring.
[16:16]I was taking Vivian on, you know,
[16:19]the requisite college tour, so we were doing, like,
[16:21]10 East Coast schools in four days, you know,
[16:24]some crazy schedule.
[16:26]And I started to really feel into the fact
[16:29]that my beloved oldest child, I have three,
[16:33]I have three daughters, like a farmer in a joke.
[16:35]Um, you know, like, I don't think I heard that joke.
[16:39]I don't know, what's the joke?
[16:41]All right, so many.
[16:42]So many.
[16:43]You're a whole separate segment on farmers
[16:45]with three daughters' jokes.
[16:46]Okay, yeah.
[16:47]But you know, it's like, I was like, wow, this is happening.
[16:51]One way or another, she will not be living with me in a year.
[16:55]And I really just started to think about everything I wanted
[16:59]to impart to her, everything that I'd been through with her.
[17:02]You know, just these complicated feelings.
[17:04]You're so excited for your kid,
[17:06]but also there's all of this anxiety,
[17:09]there's this sort of, you know, everything about it
[17:12]is just so fraught.
[17:13]So I decided I would try to channel these complicated feelings
[17:17]into, you know, an obscene rhyming quasi children's book.
[17:21]Yeah, because why not?
[17:22]That's as we all do.
[17:23]That's how we get through it, right?
[17:25]Got to do it.
[17:27]Oh my gosh.
[17:27]I have twins who are seniors going to college next year.
[17:31]So, oh, wow, so really the same age.
[17:33]Yeah, really the same age.
[17:34]We're just, I'm just on the thing.
[17:36]I relate to all the feelings.
[17:38]So when you're like, go to the, you know,
[17:41]when they're getting married or whatever,
[17:42]let's like reconnect and then the next, the next milestones.
[17:47]And this is so funny too, because I also feel
[17:49]when you're reading your book, it's not just about our kids,
[17:52]or at least this is how I read it.
[17:53]It's not just about our kids going away,
[17:55]but it's like, my parents changed my room when I went away.
[17:58]You know, and here they are like bringing in the exercise bike
[18:00]and looking at it now from my parents' perspective
[18:03]and then feeling like the kid like, wait,
[18:05]I'm not going to have a room forever.
[18:07]And the parents are like, yeah, no.
[18:09]I'm bringing in the hell, John, like, immediately.
[18:11]Yeah, yeah, that's funny.
[18:13]You just turned to, I think my favorite page
[18:15]probably in the book.
[18:16]Oh, you're just saying that.
[18:18]No, no, no, really.
[18:19]No, I can prove it because we are doing
[18:22]a collaboration with my favorite coffee company,
[18:24]Coava Coffee, and we're doing like, you know,
[18:27]you can buy like a book, a bag of coffee, and a mug.
[18:30]And the verse that is printed on the mug
[18:33]is the verse from that page.
[18:35]Transitions, now I have to say another curse for it.
[18:37]There you go.
[18:38]This all tough for me.
[18:40]Transitions can be shitty, but this doesn't have to be grim.
[18:43]We'll keep your room just as you leave it,
[18:45]except also it will be a gym.
[18:47]You should have read that better.
[18:49]Do a good job.
[18:52]No, thanks.
[18:53]Yeah, if only I was going to use the time
[18:55]to do more exercise, but no, nothing.
[18:58]I mean, what are some of the things?
[18:59]I mean, these are all the, I mean,
[19:01]you're also giving really good advice on how to live.
[19:04]I mean, I know you couch this in this funny way,
[19:06]but these are actually quite serious life lessons,
[19:09]and you are trying in earnest to like equip this generation
[19:14]and to not make the same mistakes you made,
[19:17]or at least I feel that responsibility as well.
[19:20]And so you put it so simply and like,
[19:22]no pills, no powders.
[19:23]Do not black out.
[19:24]These things are not good for your health.
[19:26]And if anybody tells you different,
[19:28]tell that asshole to go for themselves.
[19:31]I can't believe the hardest episode for this reason.
[19:36]Yeah, no, absolutely.
[19:37]I mean, it's funny for me to think about sort of
[19:40]the transition or the transition makes it sound
[19:44]too quick and easy, but the long path
[19:46]from like go to fuck to sleep to go to fuck to college.
[19:48]I mean, go to fuck to sleep was a book
[19:51]that really tried to tap into parental rage and frustration
[19:54]and give parents permission to laugh together
[19:58]instead of crying alone about the frustration.
[20:00]patients of like your time being stolen away.
[20:04]The only time you might have as an adult
[20:06]with other adults being taken by the failure
[20:09]to get your kid to go to sleep.
[20:10]And the way that you could both love your kid to death
[20:13]but be willing to do anything to get out of that room.
[20:15]You fast forward 15, 16 years.
[20:19]It's a much headier brew of emotions and desires.
[20:24]And yeah, there's the paradox of wanting
[20:28]to save your kid from as much pain as you can,
[20:34]versus the knowledge that they have
[20:36]to make their own decisions, make their own mistakes.
[20:39]So like how much advice can you give them?
[20:41]How much advice will they even be willing to listen to?
[20:44]So you have to sort of like pick and choose.
[20:46]You have to pair it back and hit them with like
[20:50]only the most important advice.
[20:52]I.e. no pills, no powders do not black out.
[20:55]Like I feel pretty confident that my daughter needs
[20:59]to hear that.
[21:00]In fact, it's become a family joke.
[21:02]Like anytime any of us leaves the house,
[21:04]whether it's me, her, my partner, we say like I'll like
[21:08]my partner Jamie and I will be like going out to dinner.
[21:10]And Viv will be like, no pills, no powders.
[21:12]And we're like, no pills, no powders, you know,
[21:15]but but also yeah, I mean, that's another,
[21:17]that's another good mug FYI.
[21:19]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, only coffee in this.
[21:24]But yeah, there is this, this tension between all of the things
[21:28]you want to tell your kids and the freedom that you want
[21:30]to allow them and the trust that you have for them
[21:33]versus the anxiety of the fact that, you know, in my case,
[21:36]my daughter's going to be 3,000 miles away.
[21:38]So you want to continue to feel connected,
[21:41]but you want to let them know how much you love and trust them.
[21:43]So yeah, this book is kind of a funny mix.
[21:47]I mean, hopefully it's still funny,
[21:48]but it's it's a mix of like L.A.G. and and poignancy
[21:52]you know, accountability, like there's a page in here,
[21:56]you know, probably the one, the one that when I read it,
[21:59]it like makes me still tear up, even though I've been reading
[22:02]this book more lately is the one that says,
[22:05]parenting is a lot like life, you mostly improvise it.
[22:09]So for all the shit that I did wrong, I'm sorry,
[22:11]and I'm glad you survived it, you know.
[22:13]And like, this is also something I want to send my kid up
[22:16]to door with his like, look, I know I wasn't perfect.
[22:19]I will continue to not be perfect,
[22:21]but I will continue to be here and be your father and try.
[22:24]And hey, we made it this far
[22:26]and hopefully we'll make it a lot farther.
[22:28]You know, and it's funny, I remember being 18
[22:30]on the flip side of this equation
[22:33]and being in a car with my dad as I was about to go off
[22:36]to college and and and and wanting to communicate to him
[22:38]like, hey, listen, we've all we've we've gone through a lot.
[22:41]There's been a lot of beef, but you're a good father
[22:44]and you did a good job and you did the best job you could.
[22:47]Like, I don't know.
[22:49]All of these things, they feel important to say.
[22:52]They are important to say.
[22:53]This whole conversation makes me get teary.
[22:56]No, seriously, I'm like, I try not to think about it all,
[22:58]but it's happening nonetheless.
[23:01]What do you worry about the most
[23:03]with your daughter going to college?
[23:04]Like, are you, what do you worry about with her?
[23:07]Maybe not her specifically.
[23:08]So we don't have to talk piece, her apart as a person,
[23:11]but just like, when you think about the following year,
[23:13]like what is it that keeps you up at night?
[23:16]Yeah, I mean, this generation has been through a lot, right?
[23:20]These kids are the COVID generation.
[23:23]They've been through so much upheaval and turmoil
[23:27]and violence and war and craziness.
[23:31]And they're entering a world that I think is deceptive
[23:34]in that for those of us who are parents
[23:37]and who are sending them off into it,
[23:39]it's easy to think that it's not that different
[23:41]than the world we entered when we were 18, right?
[23:44]You know, especially when your kids are like walking around,
[23:47]listening to like a tribe called Quest,
[23:49]you're like, yeah, it's my music.
[23:50]You know, but they're, you know,
[23:53]they're entering a world in which they're going to have
[23:55]to make decisions about like, whether to actually
[23:58]get an education in college or whether to let AI do all
[24:02]the work for you, you know, they're entering a world
[24:04]that is deceptively different and seductively different
[24:09]in ways that are frankly terrifying, I think.
[24:11]You know, so I worry about the potential for isolation.
[24:16]You know, I think it's easier now
[24:18]than it's ever been to spiral down some wormhole
[24:22]and just decide that, you know,
[24:25]you're going to stay in your room and watch Netflix.
[24:28]You know, so I worry about that.
[24:30]I worry about the potential for alienation and isolation.
[24:34]I mean, I trust my daughter a lot.
[24:35]I believe very deeply in her.
[24:37]And yet I think, generationally,
[24:39]we're dealing with kids who are really struggling
[24:44]to find meaning, to make meaning.
[24:46]Did you think that with your whole career,
[24:49]the breakout would be your book about your kids?
[24:53]You know, no, I didn't.
[24:55]I mean, I remember so distinctly being incredibly tickled
[24:59]that I was even being like allowed to publish a book
[25:02]called Go to Fuck the Sleep, you know,
[25:04]just the fact that it was going to exist in the world
[25:06]at all felt like a huge victory to me.
[25:09]And you know, I had maybe an inkling
[25:11]that the audience for it was wide,
[25:13]like was wider than just me and other kind of like cynical
[25:16]asshole East Coast parents.
[25:18]But I had no idea until it hit
[25:21]that it was going to tap into this kind of like universal
[25:23]sentiment.
[25:24]I think partly because I didn't realize how sort of precious
[25:27]and closed off parenting culture could be.
[25:30]So like, I knew that what I was saying was honest
[25:33]and was funny, but I didn't realize how sort of
[25:36]of a boat and some of the things I was saying were
[25:39]until other parents let me know like,
[25:41]oh my God, this is what goes through my mind every night.
[25:44]And I've never had the words for it.
[25:45]I've never been willing to say it.
[25:47]I thought it was just me, you know,
[25:48]or like therapists would email me and be like,
[25:51]I give this book to all my young parents
[25:53]so they know that it's normal and they're not alone.
[25:56]So no, I never imagined.
[26:00]And at the time like books with profanity
[26:02]in the title was not so much of a thing,
[26:05]like for better or for worse.
[26:07]And probably worse, I think I kind of opened that door.
[26:09]Yeah, thank you for that.
[26:10]Yeah.
[26:12]Well, Adam, congratulations on this.
[26:14]I will certainly be telling all my friends
[26:15]and I do have a lot of friends who have graduated
[26:19]senior season.
[26:20]So at least if you see a little spike on the upper side,
[26:23]you can thank me for that.
[26:25]Thank you, I appreciate it.
[26:26]All right, well, best of luck.
[26:28]Nice to connect.
[26:29]Good to talk to you.
[26:30]Okay, bye bye.
[26:31]Bye bye.
[26:32]Thank you for listening to totally bucked
[26:34]with Zibi, formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[26:37]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[26:40]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[26:43]and spread the word.
[26:44]Thanks so much.
[26:45]Go and buy the books.