Parenting Apps, Subreddits, & Group Chats—Oh My!

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1:02Because a card that doesn't make you feel something is a card that stops short of amazing. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer. Hey, I'm Kate Lindsay and you're listening to ICYMI or in case you missed it. Plates podcast about internet culture. And today on the show we are joined by a name that might be familiar with some of you. Lizzie O'Leary, welcome Lizzie. Hi, it's nice to be here. I know Lizzie is the host of Slates WhatNextTBD podcast and you have been on ICYMI before but it's kind of crazy never with me. I know because we chat so much in the office. I know and I've been on yours and I have not returned the favor but I think this is a really great episode to have you for because I would say like 50% of what we talk about in the office is me asking you questions about like being a parent online or like things with kids online.

2:13Before we dive into that, I do want to ask you and I don't actually know if I've asked you this off mic. Go for it. I want to get your take on something that comes up. We talk a lot about like kids on screens, kids on social media. But I do not have a child. I have two cat children and I don't let them go on screens but mostly because then they send nonsense. But you have a kid. He's still a little young for this but I imagine screen time is something you think about. Where do you land on it? Have you thought of like what your ethos is going to be? So I have thought a lot about this. So my son is six. He's going into first grade and you know he has had what we call watching time because he's not allowed to play video games. But now that he is in school and this started in kindergarten last year like he's just much more ambiently aware of screen time. Screen screens, screens, games, apps, whatever. Like he came home from camp this summer and was like two of my camp friends have YouTube channels.

3:21What? But I think they're like what about I think it's like they make a video and upload it and their cousins in some other state. View stuff. Oh yes. Okay. So it's like the like how how I was introduced to YouTube. Yeah. But also out of nowhere he like did a little dance in the living room and then looked at me and said like follow and subscribe. And I was just like no. Because you know I do like I just finished an episode of my show about Metta's big social media addiction trial. I am very aware of this stuff. I think about it all the time and I think I'm probably more draconian than my husband. And so now we're at the age of like oh we have to figure this out but we also have to figure it out in a way that we don't make it the forbidden fruit. And therefore propel him into wanting to do like more and more and more. Yeah. So I'm trying to raise a savvy internet consumer. He was like hey mommy I want this. I was like why? I saw an ad. I was like right I wanted that make you want to do.

4:23How did it make you feel and I wanted to buy it. Yeah. That's how it works. Do you think because I wonder this as well you know the general rule of thumb is that your parents don't know anything about tech and social media. But you literally do and I you know I feel like I do as well. Do you think your son will take you seriously when you're like oh I know about this or are you going to be immediately like no you don't you don't get it all. So that I think is like the key question. I've talked to Mary Harris the what next host about this because she has two kids who were slightly older than mine. So I feel like I'm learning from her experience you know her data set is larger right. She has talked about raising a kid who is just like a critical thinker right. Why is this happening. What do they want to show you and honestly even if you're a critical finger with me that's fine. You can say like no mommy I disagree because blue blop blop. Yeah. So my son has allowed has been allowed to play this one game.

5:26It's an offline game. Oh yeah. World building game. There's no internet connectivity. I was called pop pop. Shout out pop pop. Um, shout out pop pop. Because it was advertised to him on a kid's podcast. Hmm. A kid's podcast. I you're so I'm learning so many new words and this is going to be a trend for the whole episode. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about it and then he was like it's so hard to stop playing and I was like yeah it is what. What makes us so hard to give up. I was like I just want to keep going. Wow. That's so interesting because I feel like the big conversation when I was growing up was not about tech at all. It was about like do you have questions about your body and sex and obviously they're still there. But it's like funny that the big one now is like that's the moment when a parent has like pause and be like okay this is clearly a crucial moment. I need to approach this correctly and it's going to be foundational. And I need to approach this with like curiosity and not like overly rule setting. Yes. But also this will not surprise you. He was like mommy you asked too many questions.

6:28That's annoying. He's like shut up. Like yeah that's all right. That's that's fine. That's that's timeless that feeling. So like yes the body stuff is going to be in there but but I think also and we will get to this with today's topic. Like once they're out in the world you can't control. You can only give them the tools to make hopefully good choices. Right and it's funny because you know there's all this talk about kids being the ones with the screen time problem or you know that you want to avoid it. But in what we're going to talk about today it's actually the parent screen time that we're going to focus on and how back to school season is bringing this all to a head. When we come back we deep dive into where parents spend time online and ask the question are these spaces actually making being a parent feel worse. As a teenager I'll say I did not struggle with acne. I know I was very lucky but it meant that when I did start getting hormonal acne in my late 20s and early 30s I had no idea how to tackle it.

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10:01And we're back and so what originally inspired this episode is this sort of viral series of videos reels crucially this is very real coded online they're called or you gate as we've taken to calling them if you want to get like a full full deep dive into what exactly or you gate is is it real. Who's behind it you can listen to our plus episode about it but essentially for the purposes of this episode it is a viral group chat message exchange involving a mom who comes in she's kind of as preschool kindergarten aged children comes in is like hey can we agree as parents to not pack Oreos in our kids lunches because Eva my daughter is not allowed to have Oreos and she's gets jealous when you bring up bring them in. Actually do you want to watch it let me every losing we all watch it watch it. Yeah. Yeah. I everyone sorry slightly awkward one but could we maybe agree on some basic rules around lunch boxes. Of course this about allergies.

11:03Nothing allergy related. Eva came home really upset yesterday because one of the girls had Oreos in her lunch. Oh why would she upset. We don't allow that kind of thing at home so obviously she wanted them when she saw someone else eating them. Oh okay I thought there had been an allergy issue or something. No. I just wondered if it was. So yeah full full minute of of that. I'll just note quickly that I'm of the opinion that this is not real. I mean you know it's a real woman but she used AI to sort of make a song about this made up story again. The plus you can learn why we think that even though this might be the case this this series you know we're on like I think part 19 as a recording it's taken off. They're getting millions of views. Lizzie why do you think so many parents are resonating with this. Okay so I think for a gazillion different reasons right so number one is just like the deranged flood of messages that happen on a school or whatever it is.

12:10Take care what's up right like it's just constant. I just because it's September I just turned back on my WhatsApp notifications because I could not handle. The sort of like anxiety that our class WhatsApp was producing me and our class WhatsApp is actually quite chill it's like oh shit. A peritian slip went out we should all probably sign that like I would say our our parents are quite chill. And then there's also just the like food anxiety is so intense and then finally. The performative nature of like my child eats this your child like they're all these different. Buckets of yeah weirdness and like I've actually seen one of the things that comes across in my algorithm is. This sentence child feeding therapists making real videos using orio gate as a jumping off point to talk about.

13:11What you can and can't control and like different ways that we as a culture perceive sweet. It's just it's like iteration upon iteration upon iteration. Right it's like this is a moment and every person with an angle is going to capitalize on that angle as they want to you online. But what is so interesting about this to me I think is because it is happening on a part of the internet that I am not familiar with you know yeah which is parent internet and I'm very fascinated whenever I hear about these kind of isolated places where parents congregate online. But like that hardly ever overlap with anything I'm doing I mean obviously there's in orio gate these sort of group chats. One of my friends like one of my first friends who has a child I'm learning like there's like a daycare app. Oh yeah and I'm sure there's like forums Facebook groups we're going to talk about all of it but to make it a bit more digestible. I was thinking we take it kind of stage of life by stage of life.

14:13And so obviously the first time I imagine you might be ending up in these spaces is sort of pregnancy and in the early stages of having a baby. Were you Lizzy in any of like were you in subreddits were you in group chats like we're during this stage what did your online spaces look like. So I think there's like one important caveat that we should put in here which is that I'm 50 but I had a baby when I was 44 so like my experience in many ways resembles that of someone who's 10 years younger than I am. Yeah my like my pregnancy and birth internet but I also because the algorithms know how old I am simultaneously getting a lot of like menopause and her menopause and like marriage in mid life content. Right so like my algorithms particularly bonkers because I get both of these things. I was in an eight woman group chat that was awesome. A friend of mine set it up and I only knew IRL one other person in it.

15:18So I get like the person who set it up and then one other person and she had all these friends who were pregnant. I was pregnant like kind during like the worst of COVID too so we kind of like we were relying on each other. Yeah for these weird questions and then like one the person who had their first child or had their child first was telling us stuff and the rest of us were and moving things around. And then I also had this document that I made around birth that has probably gone to I don't know 15 media women. Oh I love that it's like I wrote a piece once about how the newest way to get travel recommendations is people create their own curated Google docs. And then some mobile send it to someone who sends it to someone and then he's like you don't actually know who's recommendations are following. I think it sounds similar. Yeah I mean I'm like you know my phrase of like take the hospital granny panties has moved through multiple generations of people I think. And definitely like I like that you specify that this is real specific because of my age.

16:22I am much more likely to have a real experience than I am a tiktok experience. Yeah no it was it just there's something and I can't quite articulate it but there is just something that makes that like there's it there's a there's a there's a a real sort of smell. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's gone time. I was also in an IVF group actually. Okay yeah. Before I lost my Facebook pass I've been on Facebook and like you wait you're your tech reporter you lost your Facebook pass. I lost my Facebook pass for seven years ago yeah my kids six and I've just never been back because I was like whatever I don't really need this. Okay that's interesting because I was some of the stuff that I you know I know there's any you mentioned IVF until I wonder if you ran into some of these terms like I know like there's a I mean I know the trendy term now is like trimester zero which is the time before you're actually pregnant. Have you heard this? This is so that's where I'm at on my algorithm. I'm getting trimester zero content which is the stuff you're supposed to be doing before your pregnant. Oh please sorry.

17:22I know I know as they've just like they found I mean literally what is they've invented another stage of pregnancy to market products around. But I've seen there's like acronyms because there was a really funny misunderstanding like so this was on TikTok and as you could tell there's like this clash of cultures where someone used the phrase I'm FTM which in like fertility in and parenting groups means first time mom. But in like Gen Z queer TikTok that means I believe. Female to male right? Yeah yeah yeah. And you're transitioning. It's about transitioning and so there was like this comment section where there was a really confusing conversation happening because it was clearly people from two different sides using that acronym and being like wait what? But I know there's like hello is little one and there's like obviously the classic ones like MIL SIL FIL that like in laws. Have you had DH? Dear husband? Oh no I did that one didn't come up. Yeah that one sucks. The one I was gonna bring up is being crazy is that they use the term baby dancing to mean sex.

18:26I can't believe I was like maybe this is so crazy Lizzie won't even know but you're not in. No I am there's also I think the more like the IVF friendly version of that one is TTC trying to conceive. Oh yeah oh yeah yeah I prefer that I prefer that it just feels something about I don't know maybe I'm being approved I'm just like no it's like fine whatever but yeah. Yeah also I should say that I think if you are TTC. Yeah baby dancing like isn't that baby dancing at a certain point you're just like whatever let's do it. Yes literally I've spoken to friends who are in this journey and I was like how quickly does it become a chore and they're like immediately yeah um okay so there's that stage then the child starts going to school you've mentioned you're in a chat around it that's what the group giant Oreo gate is um so you said your parent like the parents that you were in a chat with are pretty chill have you ever had like in the past like Oreo gate type of moment. Okay so I feel like I might need to pull up my phone and hear my readers so I can count just name

19:29them name them all the number of kids specific things I'm still in okay perfect so I have great content so just on WhatsApp I have last year's class which will probably be the same kids as this year's class then I have I'm on like the community partnership group at our school which is helping hands like doing kind of community projects then I've also got uh preschool my son graduated preschool a couple years ago um and I'm still in one two three three uh preschool alumni classes I think I'm also still in I was a class parent I'm still in the class parents one because sometimes it's like hey everyone who was a dragonfly in 2025 is going to this one thing that's all go there and then if I count the the specific apps that go for like after school activities and or preschool one two three four and I took one off so it was it was five extra apps that

20:38so what when you say these apps are they like plat like school specific platforms some of them are school specific platforms so like our preschool had one called parent square which was actually kind of great say we just put announcements in there yeah but then also there was a message board on that but then also every class that I've ever been in has a WhatsApp group that is separate yeah and then once you've identified the parents you like and then I have like the New York City public schools one where yeah also our school has an app but despite the fact that I've been at the school for a year like I my account has never been verified so I'm just like I just want to over figure it out and you have so many are all of these like active at the same time or or is it like are you just kind of in these sort of old preschool ones just in case one kind of just in case yeah and also because like there are families who we really like and are still friends with from from preschool my son's best friend actually the daughter of a slate employee oh uh huh

21:41they were right they were in preschool class together many years ago they're still besties but yeah like I my phone is littered with things and I'm like why can't all the camps use the same they can't they just don't it's like it's like going to concerts now it's like each ticket service has a different app and you need to have the app you can't do screenshot to like get in because the other thing I imagine is like okay so you have all these apps that you're on just like coordinate you know school and childcare and things like that and then if you do go to spend time online for yourself like you said the algorithm knows your parent uh wants to give you menopause content like yes how much do you think is that like exclusively what you get served I get served menopause pit bulls doing cute things because I have like an aging pit bull oh love and then I get a lot of a lot of ADHD stuff because I have ADHD and I a lot of parenting stuff and my parenting stuff I try really hard to

22:42only follow people who are like actual like someone who has a you know a degree who isn't just like a sort of a nebulous parent coach like what is that who are you what are what are not to be like all credentialist but also yes what are your credentials well yeah do you like like when it comes to like mommy bloggers or create like do you follow those or is it that like like the type of aspirational kind I follow mostly people with some legit experience or if their stuff comes across my feed then I go look at them and I'm like who else follow yeah right like let me oh Janae does okay well I trust Janae's judgment that's dear prudence for those of you know and I'm like yeah it's like cross referencing so I'll be like okay well these people who I think are smart do and so I will check this out and I presume if that's your feed you're getting less of a of a thing that I know is a problem which is the more aspirational content like when you're just seeing what other

23:43parents are doing like you know whether it's sort of oh we have to get like a balloon arch because it's the first day of school and take pictures or like you know I wrote a piece for slate back in the beginning of summer about graduation creep which is like this need to have a graduation ceremony at the end of basically every year earlier and earlier and so that thing went around my mom just wildfire that's who I write for the mom chats truly like that's the highest honor and and the lot of that is because even though no one wants to do it it feels like other people are doing it and then you're like well I don't want to not do it I don't want to not do it because then he'll see that yeah so how much do you run into that online do you feel pressure from other parents sing styles and behaviors I run into some of that I think the one that the one that has stuck with me there are a couple things that have stuck with me so I seem to get a lot of pediatric otis a lot of occupational therapists in my field and I have noticed that when I do their stuff like my son loves to like run and jump and crash into things and I'm like oh let me take this thing that

24:47I saw on Instagram that's like rolling him up in the big blanket and putting pillows on him like he's a burrito and do deep pressure it works and I'm like damn you Instagram yeah worked and then I have to embarrassingly say to my husband like well I saw this thing on Instagram and he's like oh my right and we got we got a burrito in right now I think it works I will also say I mean you know this obviously like just how gendered this is like oh uh-huh my husband's Instagram is people base jumping and landing planes right it's like literally other fathers being like and like a few doctor beckys but then I'll go in there and like you know surreptitiously follow some like growth mindset parenting and working on your child's frustration tolerance and just be like blah blah blah blah yeah get on my rabbit hole like join me we'll continue our conversation with Lizzie after this break meet amazon ads rising star daryl Spencer who set out to redefine men's self-care

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27:01i think what we're gonna get captured in what you kind of speak to in the beginning is this phenomenon of a parent wanting to sort of enact their parenting ethos but beyond just their own child like i or not even beyond just their own child but like in an effort to maintain the like the sort of philosophy they have for their own child it ends up encroaching on other people's behaviors and that seems to be whether i mean in the case of orio gay it seems to be relatable to the people who have felt they've been and encroached on but it reminds me also of a subreddit i am in for no reason my friend told me that i would like it is called moderately granola moms because you know they're not full maha but they're like they're they're they're they're they're curious their kids are going now but going back to school and well there's nowhere near is orio gay

28:02a lot of the posts that are coming in in these past weeks are people be like realizing that they're like specific algorithm and way of thinking about parenting is now like clashing with real life in the school and so i just like plucked some of these recent threads i mean one of the first ones is someone about glade plugins in the classroom i didn't know that glade plugins and air fresheners are like no knows if you want to be sort of granola that it's i don't i think it's there i you know what i want to even say what they think i don't want to pair it i mean i want to like that because i have a very strong sense of sense but it's just like my personal preference right right and so i think so like this mom is running into the fact that in her child's room the teacher has an air freshener probably because kids are stinky uh but and she's like i don't know what to do i'm not control with it all that stuff um and you know there's some other ones that like am i overreacting sugar at school like so this like we're a sugar free household but the snacks at school are like ram crackers or something and it's like and and i will like to the credit of the people in this subreddit

29:07their questions are like they're not being like i and i'm going to like do a petition they're just like how do i navigate this and um i thought there was a really interesting answer to the glade plugin discussion that i think also will pertain to what we're going to talk about which is someone writing it's easy to forget and our granola e-spaces how common artificial fragrances are the health risks aren't common knowledge teachers generally really want to do well by kids and if you have a kind conversation um you know basically i thought the thing of like it's easy to forget that basically in this bubble we've created ourselves online like that's just uh that's just our algorithm and that when you go into a school you're suddenly getting people with their own experiences and it just got me thinking because we had um an episode recently with Carmen Vicente and talked about just the ways that algorithms have become so isolating and like there's no monoculture anymore and i wonder if you know there's clearly so many parenting rabbit holes you can go down and when you're in it it feels like everyone else must be getting this too and then you are in real

30:12life and you realize oh no they don't know this thing or they don't feel about this thing the way I do i'm just like curious if you've seen that playing out at all oh yeah or like they have four kids and by their fourth kid they just don't give a shit right oh yes right like that you know when you're like my precious first born um i have seen that and it's funny i think so i mean so much of this right comes down to like class and privilege um and you know what the different kind of populations and rules are in these different groups that you do or don't operate in and some of it is also just eight right like the whole the basic fundamental philosophy is of parenting right is like you have total control and then all of parenting is learning how to release that control and just like hope you've given the tools to the person you're sending out into the world and you know i would say we're like we have slightly more natural

31:16ish snacks yeah in a house but like whatever they're like anise gram crackers instead of nabisco gram well though apparently now according to consumer reports anise has got all sorts of crap in it oh i'm like sure there's a thread about this in moderately good old mom i'm sure there yes um but what i learned when my son went to kindergarten and i would open his lunchbox at the end of the day because he doesn't always eat the school lunch as i'm like huh oh i see that you have uh hi two in here how did this get in here and he's like oh i swapped it with Lucy for my blah blah blah literally is what happens in orio gate the swapping they barter they barter their children you can't control it and the the big rule i think of orio gate is like you need to learn how to explain to your child like different families different rules and you're going to need to explain that whether it is an orio or whether it's a keg right right right it just like that is

32:19sort of a fundamental thing and saying like this is what we believe somebody else may do something differently there's nothing wrong with that it's just different from how we do it and maybe sometimes you have to say that to yourself and you sometimes you have to say oh i definitely have to say that to yourself um and it like it even comes up with stuff like bedtime right like someone's really hard because he's like it's light out i don't know how to bed you're like you know what it so he stays up because these other kids are staying up it's one night it's fine yeah the what you were saying about how parenting is just one long loss of control resonated with me as someone also who has OCD some like oh that's gonna be fun um but uh but i think the biggest example of sort of the final stage of this at least in sort of traditional parenting is sending your child off to college uh and there are online spaces for that as well for parents i didn't realize this because you know when i was going to school there were like school specific Facebook pages for the students that you would join you get to know people but there's also i guess ones for parents

33:23so it's like a group for parents there was no Facebook when i went to school oh yeah i see and that and how freeing was that and so there are these groups that are for just parents of incoming students for that specific school there is a mother on tiktok who is kind of it's not orio gate level but she has made this series all about being within these types of Facebook groups for parents of kids going to college her first video was reading some of the crazy questions she found in there uh and then we're gonna play video now that is she took submissions from other people lots of the wildest things that have appeared from parents in these Facebook groups this one mother is very upset because she was looking at her son schedule and they have not worked in any period for his lunch there's no lunch period in this schedule and uh i don't that okay here um you're going to pass by a few places i mean that's why you get a packet of abs in a bottle of water eat a good breakfast next this one right here y'all um my son is used to a bidet

34:29okay should we speak to his roommate before we install one ah okay take it okay oh this is a good one this is from someone who was an RA you know they got stories but anyway this mom wanted to put in a baby monitor so she could check and make sure her son wasn't doing anything with those wild girls yeah um a baby monitor beside his bed will definitely knit that right in the book there will be no wild girls no no no no no no girls obviously some of those that she reads are just like a very wild but i found i approached that watch with much more empathetic eyes after hearing you just describe this as like a loss of control because i am like yeah up until 12th grade you can call the school in complain and you know like and it's all set up for like you have that that jurisdiction and that it is actually quite a harsh

35:32turn when they go to college and so yeah baby monitor wild but you know things about like lunch period i that feels like a kind of a reasonable holdover from high school of like i don't see his lunch period i mean it's so funny i think about this right now like okay again back to my you know previous kindergarten soon to be first grade because basically the school correctly separates the big and little kids for lunch right his lunch was at some deranged i was like 10 55 a yes i had this in high school where there are too many kids and so my lunch was like 10 45 yeah and so he wouldn't eat at the right time and then he'd be cranky and then he'd need a snack and then he'd but again six years old he was five plus year right not a college student and i understand the parental thing of like oh my child's basic needs must be filled but also your child needs to figure stuff out that's a lower stakes way to figure stuff out yeah right yeah like what do i need to do

36:35you know figure this i mean like the okay so you're asking me to think i get served i get served there's a woman who's written this has a sort of philosophy called notice and do and she's written a book called notice and doing a lot of the stuff i get is about like raising boys so that they're not incompetent dweebs yeah yeah that's very important to me and so i work a lot on like oh what do you What do you see on the floor? Mm-hmm. What do you think should happen to it? I mean, this does not always, but it's like Legos, Mommy, you clean it, right? Yeah, yeah. But theoretically, he will be 22 and know how to pick stuff off the floor. That's right. Yeah. I mean, I would be psyched if my college roommate's parents installed a bidet. I know, I know. I the bidet, I'm like, no advocate for that. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, that's quite nice. So again, being 50, I have a lot of friends sending their children to college is really hard. It's really hard. Yeah. And obviously not everyone has anxiety issues

37:37or like obsessive compulsive tendencies, but I, because I do, I can't help but look at sometimes these groups and all these spaces out there, as what is called, when you have this reassurance seeking, and in the context of OCD, reassurance seeking is problematic because it actually just perpetuates the anxiety, it gives you a quick hit of like, okay, it's fine. But then you're not learning to sit with a discomfort and sit with the unknown. And so then that'll sort of satisfaction will fade and you'll need it again. Not to mention you're in these groups with all other parents who are bringing their own anxieties and maybe you could unintentionally, now you're seeing this and you're like, oh my God, wait, should I do a baby milk? I hadn't even occurred to me to freak out about that. Right, right. And so I do wonder if you think these groups are net helpful or can they become these sort of just places that actually end up creating more anxiety? It sort of depends on how you use them, right?

38:40Like, and again, I'm saying this from the perspective of someone with a very young child where little kids, little problems, big kids, big problem, right? Like I haven't had to deal with the really hard stuff yet. Yeah. But I think if you think of them as a place for logistics, and sort of double checking that you haven't screwed something up, right, today is where Silver Day, they're helpful. And if you let them take up more space than that in your consciousness, you can lose track of what you believe because that is important. I mean, it's funny you were talking about sitting with discomfort, like one of my core parenting beliefs is that a person, and like again, parenting is just raising, right, like trying to train a person to some degree. They are who they are, but you can help them, is trying to teach a kid to sit with discomfort. Yeah. And that's a thing that I think a lot of these modern

39:40parenting groups like are so much about soothing our own discomfort and wanting to choose, to see with our children's discomfort that they don't learn that skill. And that's, that I think is detrimental. Yeah, it's kind of like the gentle parenting backlash a bit of like, no, of like, of just that can, yeah, that a kid never experiences hardship ever than they're just like not equipped for real life. Yeah, and say like, I will help you with the big stuff. Mm-hmm. But I can't remember where we were going. Somewhere, oh, we were going on a hike. And he didn't want to go. And I was sort of like, well, I know. But I also know how much you like finding stuff. You like looking at flowers. I bet we could find some jewel plants with pods that explode. And that's cool. You're speaking my way. I'm like, I want to see those. I know you can do something that might feel a little bit hard. Because I know that you're a cool kid who can try this. Like, let's give it a shot. It might not be great, but let's give it a shot. I mean, it was like 50% work.

40:42We went through some rocks in the street. And did he go on the whole? He did not go on the whole hike. But we got out of the car and we tried. And like, fine. And something better than nothing. And it's also funny because all that language you're using, I definitely use for myself. And I'm like, you know what? It's hard. But you like after you've worked out. You like how you feel. You like how you feel. You like how you feel. And it's so annoying. But if you do, I mean, look, all of this. So I think the smartest thing my mother ever said is that like, basically having a child is the most selfish thing in the world. And then raising them is the most selfless. Because you have to figure out this balance between like reparenting yourself and then actually meeting your child who and where they are. And that's just hard. OK, that's the show. Thank you so much to Lizzie for joining us. We'll be back in your feed on Saturday. So definitely subscribe.

41:42That way you never miss an episode. Leave us a rating and a review and Apple or Spotify and tell your friends about us. To see all the visuals referenced in today's episode, you can follow us on Instagram, I see why am I, underscore pod. And you can always drop us a note at I see why am I at slate.com. I see why am I is produced by Vickwit Lee Berry and me, Kate Lindsay. Daisy Rosario is our senior supervising producer. Mia Lowell is Slate's executive producer of podcasts. And Hillary Fry is Slate's editor in chief. See you online or lurking in your child's former preschool group chat. There's one thing that will forever change the way you sleep. And it's the softest 100% organic cotton bedding from Bowling Branch. You'll fall asleep faster wrapped in the most luxurious comfort. You'll never sleep hot again with Erie Blankets, Cloud-like DuVais,

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