Ep. 1 - WE NEED TO TALK

Transcript:

Voicememo (Cassidy): So as a kid, I was really into Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, specifically “When Nature Calls”, I think that's the second in the franchise of Ace Ventura. And I was watching it with my dad. I think I was like maybe nine or 10, far too young to understand most of the brilliance of that movie. And at the very end of the movie, Ace is about to head out, job well done, and the chief goes into the hut where the stolen princess is now with her new fiancee. And he comes out and he goes, “She is not a virgin!” So me at 10, I'm like, “Dad, what...what does that mean? Like, what do you mean ‘She's not a virgin?’” And my dad, deadass, looked me square in the eyes and he goes, "Hmm, I don't know. I've never heard that before." And I never learned what a virgin was. To this day I still don't know. Awesome. Good talk.

Jeremy: You're listening to "The Talk." A podcast where we explore the possibility of creating a radical new communication environment between parents and children. An environment that's open, honest and candid, and where nothing is off limits.

Voicememo (Rich): My father's cousin lived (and still lives) for a very long time with a man, and he was always referred to as “his friend.” You see where this is going… You're a kid and you don't think much about it. So it's just like, "Oh, he has a friend.” However, if the moment had been taken to, say, they're husbands, they love each other, that is OK. I think a door would have been opened for me to understand that that was even an option. I think I was somewhat late to understanding my own attraction to men, and if that had been modeled for me just as existing, let alone as being a positive, healthy, normal thing, it would have saved a lot of denial and angst.

Jeremy: A few years ago, I was talking with a friend who was raising pre-teen boys at the time. During that conversation he expressed a great deal of trepidation at the prospect of soon needing to have "the talk" with his 11 year old son. He was referring to the sex talk, the one that many parents feel obligated to have as their children near adolescence. It's an awkward moment for everyone, but parents reluctantly do it and teens sit silently squirming and then bolt out the door as soon as it's clear that the talk is over. Broadly speaking, that's what "the talk" is, it's an important conversation that has probably been put off for too long that no one wants to have, and that once it is had, there's rarely any sustained or healthy follow up. So whether it is about sex or drugs or death or bodies or money or whatever, the talk sucks, and I don't want to have it anymore. Here's my plan: From the time our children are first able to understand us, nothing is off limits. We talk about it all. There's no "You'll find out when you're older." There's no "You don't need to know about that yet." or "that's a grown up conversation." None of that. Your three year old asks how babies are made. You tell them. They ask if they're going to die someday. You tell them. They ask why the police are doing that to those people. You tell them. Easy, right?

It is possible I'm being slightly hyperbolic here, but I don't want to undersell my belief that doing our best to be open and honest and candid with our kids is an important component of building trust. And trust is that little thing that just may actually get us through when we do get to the teenage years. When we exclude young children from important conversations, we not only miss opportunities to build trust, deprive them of information and create potentially harmful taboos, but we also deny them our blessing to be curious. And that, to me, is an unconscionable disservice.

Over the course of this season, I'm planning on talking to lots of parents, as well as psychology professionals and other experts that can help us understand the ifs, hows, and whys surrounding communication with our kids.

So let's get started.

Austin: It's a fascinating topic, because I was remembering one of our relatives at this big house and one of the people that was connected to the family died and they actually put them inside their parlor.

Jeremy: That's my friend Austin.

Austin: And I was very struck by it because basically that's something we don't do anymore. And a lot of the conversations you would have in "the talks" were had in various cultural rituals and cultural practices that no longer exist.

Jeremy: Austin just kind of knows a lot of things. And he's the kind of person that I know I can rely on for a little bit of a different perspective or angle on something I've been rolling around in my brain.

Austin: So, death is the probably the big one. Besides the fact that if you lived on a farm or you lived in, you know, out in the country, you would normally see culling of animals and you would see death kind of on a regular basis.

Jeremy: Are there other cultural shifts that you think brought on this...where we started not communicating with our children about these important things?

Austin: Well, I mean, we communicate to them about it now, but it's much more abstract. It's through "the talk". It's through having an explicit discussion. I think the thing that brought it about...I mean, if I was going to...I don't know, in my my cultural historian amateur hat would probably say the time in the 1840s when they invented the frameable house, so that all of a sudden you could build lots of different housing and you could do it quickly and efficiently and cheaply. And now families started living in separate places. Before that a house was wicked expensive to build, and so you had generations live together most of the time. I mean that's just one example. Canals and roads, though, also created this separation. So a lot of the separation happened through just kind of what we would call progress. The house that I was talking about, the people who did this, they've lived in that house...they've had their family in the house since the 1790s. I think they have a table or something like that where people were usually laid out on. The dining room table has had many people laid out on it over the years. And it's just an object like that. You don't have to talk about it explicitly. They never had explicit discussions of "what does death mean?" It was just there from the beginning.

Jeremy: My first interview guest is Sara Heron. Sara is a San Diego native and has worked for the past seven years as a clinical psychiatrist at the Bay Area Clinical Associates in Oakland and San Jose, California. Sara has degrees and training from Yale, Stanford University, UC San Francisco, UCLA and the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. I wanted to talk to Sara because of her extensive work with children, teens, and families. She sees children as young as six, and I was curious to hear from her specifically about the way she sees communication between parents and children having an impact on mental health.

Jeremy: You have one child, is that right?

Sara Heron: I have one biological child and three stepchildren.

Jeremy: OK. Oh, wow.

S.H.: So, the age range is one years old to twenty five.

Jeremy: The one year old is your biological child? 

S.H.: Yes.

Jeremy: It must be interesting to have acquired preteens and teenagers, and now you have a one-year-old so you're experiencing that. And so you've seen what is what the kinds of things that happen in those teenage years...

S.H.: What's to come.

Jeremy: But you haven't experienced yet the leading up to it. But you will.

S.H.: Yeah, it's interesting. Every stage is different, and I think because of my career and my training I have some unique experiences. But it's delightful to have a baby around and to see that process.

Jeremy: When you are alone with your daughter, with Beatrice…when you're alone with her, how do you talk to her?

S.H.: I mean this is tricky sometimes, but I do try to let her lead. I try to. But I ask her questions. Lots of parents are narrating what they're doing but not talking too much because you have to give them space to think. But I try to, again, watch her. And it happens so second nature I think. But you're constantly using your own mind to imagine what's in your child's mind. So yeah, I think that's sort of the biggest thing. When I respond I'm thinking, "what is she thinking? What is she feeling?" And certainly sometimes I add in...like if I sing to her, or I want to pick a book because she's picked the same book five times...it usually doesn't go over well! So if I try to pick a book and she's telling me she wants to read something else, at this age she's not going to go for it, and I'll try because I want to see, can see shift and adjust? But she's not in a place to think too much about what I want. So I'll offer something, but I have to follow her lead.

Jeremy: I used to teach public school and I would have a lot of trouble figuring out how to communicate with a group of, say, five year olds or eight year olds. And my wife is also a public school teacher and she's a brilliant educator. She's like she's one of those people that, like, her educational instincts just transcend any kind of content knowledge. And she's a true educator. She's not just a teacher, if I can make that distinction. And I would come home really frustrated and she would say, "You just need to try to remember what it was like to be five, and what kind of thing would have would have engaged you and kept you interested." And I just had so much trouble doing that. I would say "I can't put myself in that mental space." And I think I've gotten better at that since having kids, and part of that is because, I mean, there's a level of investment in my own kids that obviously I wouldn't have had with a group of 30 five-year-olds, you know, at at age twenty two.

S.H.: And also dealing with one five year old compared to thirty is like tremendous.

Jeremy: There's a big difference there, yeah. Do you have very early childhood memories, and do they inform you in the ways that you talk to your younger clients?

S.H.: I don't think I rely so much on my memories, but rather like an admission, a recognition that this child does not have the same mind that I do. And again, I do think we should do that with all people. Right? Not only is this person, five, and I'm thirty nine, but they're a different person with different experiences than me. And if we sort of approached everybody that way, there would be a lot more empathy in the world, right?. So I guess the other thing I would say to reassure parents is, it's OK if you don't know what a five-year-old is thinking because you can ask! And observe, and wait and see. So it's totally fine to be like "Let me try to imagine what they're thinking". Certainly with babies, we have to do that, they can't tell us very much, right? But we we try to guess. We try something, and if it doesn't work, we shift. So you do something, you see the reaction and you say, "oh gosh, that wasn't quite it." Or you ask questions and they'll tell you "No, you haven't gotten it right, that's not what I'm feeling at all!" Not in those words perhaps. But like with Beatrice, if I offer her the book, she tells me without words, "Now that's not the book I want to read."

Jeremy: What you're saying is making me think of the way that my five-year-old has just started to be able to self reflect in that way. Like if his brother takes the identical cup that he wanted and he has a huge problem with that and starts throwing a fit, I can ask him now, like, you know, "what's really going on here?" Is it about the cup? No, of course it's not about the cup. It's about the fact that his brother did something unfair. And he's starting to be able to self reflect and analyze that in himself. So it's exciting to start seeing some of these shifts really happening.

S.H.: Yeah, and some of that is biological. But a big piece is you asking and expressing interest because that's what tells our kids to think, "Huh, what is happening? What am I upset about?" But if we never ask, they don't learn to ask themselves. And so they won't develop that sort of emotional awareness.

Jeremy: Yeah. It took me a second to ask him that follow up question, because my instinct was just to be like, "It's OK, it's only a cup. Stop crying. It's only a cup. This is not a big deal." But then somehow I thought to myself, wait, me saying this is not a big deal...this clearly is a big deal. Something that's happening right now clearly is a big deal. And I need to acknowledge that. I need to acknowledge that and try to figure it out.

S.H.: And as a parent, I do it all the time where I'm like, "You're OK, you're OK, it's OK." And she's like, "I'm not OK." And so it is working to sort of find what other language I can use, because I know that you're safe, and I know that it will be OK. But in this moment, how do I help be with you while it's not?

Jeremy: And I'm curious to ask you about the ways that communication between parents and children can impact their relationships as those kids get older and the mental health of of the children and of the whole family.

S.H.: So there's lots of research around attachment and how important secure attachment is for feeling safe, feeling confident, you know it predicts so many things later in life. And a big part of that is communication. Verbal and nonverbal. So demonstrating to kids that you are listening, that you are interested is more important than exactly what you say or how you say it, but being able to ask questions, being able to, even when they're young, to get down on their level. There are so many cues that...when a baby cries, attending to them, right? That's where communication begins, and it's so early. And it's not words. And it doesn't mean that as a parent, we always know what to do or what's wrong, and that's true when they're one and it can be true when they're 16, but that we are present for them, that we really recognize something is happening inside them. That helps children develop empathy, develop self-awareness, that "oh, my mom is thinking about the fact that I'm crying and she's paying attention and she looks concerned. There's something happening in me!" So that's how kids can develop sort of their own thoughts and recognition of their own emotions. And that's, I think, what perpetuates mental health later in life.

Jeremy: Coming up, I talk to Sarah about the disparity between white and non-white populations when it comes to access to mental health services and the importance of representation in the medical and psychiatric fields. 

On the next episode of "The Talk", we're going to be talking about leaders and leadership. We live in a world where people in positions of authority don't always exemplify the kinds of true leadership qualities that we hope to instill in our kids. And our kids are watching a lot of so-called leaders acting kind of like jerks. So I'm asking you to send me a brief voice memo and tell me how you talk to your children about what it means to be a leader. In school, at home, in your community and beyond. Send your voice memo to thetalk@thetalkthepodcast.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

S.H.: I wish I had the numbers on this, but I know we have more Caucasian clients than African-American clients, for example. And yet Oakland is not...those numbers don't match up necessarily in terms of what's in the community.

Jeremy: That's Sara Heron. Sara has been talking to me about her child and family psychiatric practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. She told me that her clinic primarily deals with patients who are privately insured, which is a problem when it comes to wanting to truly serve the community where they're based, a community with a disproportionate number of African-American children and teens in the foster care system and in schools. Sometimes it's difficult for those kids to get access to the mental health services that they need.

S.H.: And so there is this huge disconnect. And our mission, this is a personal mission and also I think my organization's mission, is that everybody should have equal access to care. So much of my work, if I want that to happen, is going to be like political advocacy and, you know, speaking out in different ways, not necessarily using everything I learned in medical school, to sort of level that playing field. We get countless requests for women, for female providers, for women of color. And I'm the only black therapist and psychiatrist at my agency. And I do try to reserve spots for that population. Not, because I don't think that somebody else could do it. But if it's a barrier to even getting your foot in the door, like, I think we have to acknowledge that there is a mistrust or...is this person going to understand me?

Jeremy: I have kind of an instinctive answer to this. But do you think that that mistrust is founded? If an African-American teenager is a little bit reserved about seeing a white therapist, for instance, do you feel like that mistrust is a little bit founded? 

S.H.: One-hundred percent. And again, maybe this is like an "everyone's feelings are valid because they're feelings." But, you know, there is also a history of abuse of certain cultures and communities within the medical field. And even just what kids see in the media, what they see sort of reflected out there, they may think, "well, how would this person possibly know or understand me?" Having at least that option, I think that's such a struggle, you know, we see what the numbers are of different ethnicities in the country and it's not matched in the medical field. So there's a problem there. There should be options.

Jeremy: Do you think that there are topics that are important for parents to actually keep information from their children on? Are there things that are just not appropriate for us to talk to our kids about?

S.H.: And I guess I sort of have to answer this question differently because some kids just happen to be exposed to things. And I think that's more and more true for all kids just with the Internet. Like kids are getting exposed to things earlier. And so there are not going to be secrets. So if they know about them and if they are asking about them, I think you have to give an answer. And it can't be a fantasy answer. Like you don't have to tell the whole truth, but don't tell a lie. You may choose to omit certain things and I think some of that is based on age, some of that is definitely knowing your kid and where they're at. Because if your child is going to be further traumatized or anxious to the point that they cannot progress, then you don't need to give them more fear then than they're already exposed to, I guess is how I would say it. I think everything you're sort of talking about goes alongside the taboo of shame. And we don't we don't want kids to feel ashamed of having questions about anything. And so I think, again, leaving the door open and, if your kid isn't bringing it up and it feels like the time is sort of passing, I do think situations present themselves where you can say, "Oh, did you notice that? If you ever have questions about that, I'm always here. I'm always here to answer them.

Jeremy: Thanks so much to Sara Heron for talking with me about all this stuff. You can find out more about Sara's work at the Bay Area Clinical Associates by visiting www.BACA.org. I'd also like to give a little thanks to Lauren Worsham Jarrow for connecting me with Sara. Lauren is the lead singer of the band Sky Pony, a band that is near and dear to my heart, and who you should definitely check out if you haven't had the chance. 

Coming up in just a moment, I sit down with my parents and talk about what communication was like coming from their own parents and about how they raised my sisters and me and why.

But first, I want to take a moment to say thanks for listening to "The Talk". This is a brand new podcast and I have a lot of guests and topics scheduled for the season that I think are going to be really exciting and engaging. If you'd like to support this podcast, you can do so at thetalk@thetalkthepodcast.com/Donate. Your Donation helps to cover hosting fees, distribution, design and technical equipment costs, and all the other expenses that go into producing a podcast.

Jeremy: Over the past couple of weeks, I've been inviting all of you to send me voice memos telling me about conversations you wish your parents had had with you but never did, or about conversations they attempted but floundered unsuccessfully through. At the beginning of this episode, we heard from Cassidy about a failed talk about sex and from Rich about a conversation that was never had about homosexuality, one that might have gone a long way in legitimizing and empowering his own burgeoning curiosity. And a listener I'm calling Andrew wrote, "I've always wondered why my dad and mom never told me about my mom's colorectal cancer until it was in a very late stage. I felt bombarded and of course, I took care of her the summer she passed before my senior year in college, but I wish they had prepared me for the world shattering heartache I would endure for the following decade. I could have probably avoided a lot of terrible decisions brought on by drugs and alcohol while trying to escape the sadness of losing my mom." 

Thanks to all of you who contributed.

Right now, I'm working on an episode about school and education, school can be a really stressful and difficult environment for young kids, especially right now. And unfortunately, parents are often a contributing factor to that stress. I'd like to invite you to send a brief voice memo or a note and reflect on how your parents talked to you about school and education. Did they put too much emphasis on academic work? Or maybe not enough? And how did their outlook on your education impact the way your adult life has unfolded? You can send your voice memo to me at thetalk@thetalkthepodcast.com.

Shari Crawford: Do I look good?

Jeremy: You look wonderful.

Craig Yaddaw: Do I look old? 

Jeremy: You look wonderful.

These are my parents, Shari and Craig, my parents got married in 1981 and from there spent the next 16 years raising my three sisters and me on my dad's modest income. My mom stayed home and homeschooled all of us. For 16 years. To say that they had a positive impact on my transitions from childhood to teenager-hood to adulthood would be a massive understatement. My parents separated after my freshman year in college and divorced a couple of years after that. During that time of upheaval, my sisters were still working their way through high school and transitioning to the next phases of their lives, and that period was not easy, especially for them. I talked to my parents a couple of weeks ago, both on the same call from different parts of upstate New York. I wanted to ask them about their own parents and about how their own childhood experiences had impacted the decisions they made when they became parents themselves.

S.C.: It's always tricky when you reflect because no parents are perfect and you know you're going to make mistakes. You just hope that you don't make too many. And you don't make them in the areas that are really important to you. And sometimes you do anyway.

Jeremy: I kind of joke sometimes that if you can f**k up your own children in the exact opposite ways your parents f**ked you up, then at least you're thinking about what you're doing.

C.Y.: But you know, that's interesting because, and matter of fact Shari, I think you told me this, that at some point in time each child is going to decide: Am I going to emulate my parents or am I going to do something really different? And I think that's kind of what you just said.

Jeremy: Yeah, that's kind of what I mean by that. It's a maybe a crass way of bringing across. I wanted to talk to both of you for this first episode because the conceit for this podcast, of course, I mean, it's about communication between parents and kids. And I think that a lot of communication habits come from our parents, are generationally passed down. And that has to do, of course, with genes and temperament, but also with modeling from our parents. I'd love it if you would each reflect a little bit on how you remember your parents communicating with you as a child. Like, did they talk to you a lot? What kinds of things did they talk to you about? Was their communication with you mostly having to do with, like, practical stuff throughout the day, or were they trying to convey big ideas to you when you were a child and a teenager? I'm curious.

C.Y.: Well, I think I was about 14 or 15 before I realized my middle name was not "Weed The Garden", which sounds a little silly, but there was not a lot of really interactive conversation that went on. My parents grew up during the depression and they never really had the opportunity to get even a high school education. In some senses it probably held them back a little bit in regard to knowing how to talk and relate. They were not very good at relating with each other on many levels. And don't get me wrong, my parents loved their children and they loved us. And from my perspective, I had great parents for a lot of different reasons. You know, they gave us the freedom to explore and make decisions. But I think for me and for my siblings, you know, what they did worked. I think maybe because they taught us good things, such as good hard work ethics. And there was always laughter and there was always the sense of being loved. I never doubted that my parents loved me. But as far as those conversations that kind of gets you where you really live...those were really not there. They weren't they were part of, you know, the growing up experience.

Jeremy: Were there people in your childhood or in your teenage years where you did get those kinds of interactions and that kind of conversation?

C.Y.: Yeah, I think one of my older brothers. I really looked to him and really got a lot of insight from Ronn. I think the advantage to that was the fact that he had experienced some of these things long before I had, and was married. By the time I was a teenager, they had already started their family. And he probably...Ron was pretty insightful and he probably recognized that "Craig's probably not getting some of the advantages that maybe he should have". And it wasn't like it was forced or he felt obligated. It was just kind of a natural thing that the time came if there was an opening for a conversation or if I had a question or if he saw something, you know, we would just talk about it.

Jeremy: Mom, how does this compare or is any of this familiar to you growing up in your house with your parents and your siblings?

S.C.: Both my parents came from not real wealthy homes. Grandpa was from a real hardscrabble life, and grandma lived on a farm and there was a lot of difficulty there. So when they got married, they worked really hard. Grandpa was in the reserves and he spent a lot of time away when I was very tiny. So they really struggled and had very little money. And I think that when I was little and kind of in my early childhood, they were working really hard just to give us a nice roof over our heads and have food on the table. Grandpa was working really hard at his job. He didn't go the route of a manager because he wanted to make sure he didn't have to work at night. So he chose to work during the day so he could be with the family at night and on weekends.

Jeremy: Was that something at the time that you were aware of that he had made that decision, and why, and how it would impact his time with the family?

S.C.: No, I knew that he was in manufacturing. He could have chosen the managerial side of the ladder. But he chose the engineering, and it wasn't as financially beneficial, but it was more satisfying to him and the schedule was more attractive to him. I remember lots of life lessons, teachable moments, like learning how to build a fire, going camping a lot. But it wasn't, sit down and say, "The smoke reminds us of, you know, our life that is gone in a puff." Conversations like that came kind of out of our church education, going to church and listening about how God wanted us to live our lives. So those kinds of conversations and that kind of character building came from there, the deep talks. But the life lessons came from my parents as far asm you know, "why is our cat dying? Why is it so sick and dying?", you know, and “what's going to happen?” Those kinds of things.

Jeremy: Can you think of other examples of those kinds of life lessons, like the things that they felt were important to talk to you about?

S.C.: I remember in high school, sit-down lectures about boys. This boyfriend...you're not going to go out with him anymore. And this boyfriend, you have to stop talking to him.

Jeremy: Would they tell you why?

S.C.: Yeah, sometimes it was like I was spending too much time with them or they were uncomfortable with who the person was. They'd seen some behavior that they didn't like and they felt it was best for me to, you know, not date that boy. I remember thinking that, "Oh, my gosh, that's terrible. What am I going to do?" But in a few days, I was like, "yeah, that was probably pretty smart".

Jeremy: Dad, I'm curious if you noticed or notice looking back, your parents falling into specific communication roles with you. Was one of them the disciplinarian? What were their roles like?

C.Y.: There was really no clear communication role. My father was pretty quiet for the most part, unless something angered him and then he would flare up, but then he would get quiet again very quickly. And I think probably most of the communication came from my mother. And as far as discipline is concerned, my father worked second shift up until I was in eighth grade, I think. So we wouldn't see him until Friday. He would get out of work a little bit earlier than normal, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday throughout the school year. So that really kind of fell on to my mother. Now, he would support her if there was something that happened that, you know, she needed backing up or there needed to be some type of reinforcement, he would support her in that. But she was really the one that was kind of handling all that.

Jeremy: How did that dynamic impact the way that you chose to communicate with each of your parents? Were you more inclined to approach one or the other of them or be open and honest with either of them?

C.Y.: I wouldn't say that I was never not open and honest with my father, but the communication lines weren't that strong. There was some direction that would come from my father, usually along the veins of work and work ethic.

Jeremy: But he didn't foster like an open-door kind of...

C.Y.: No, he didn't foster it. I think I knew that if I needed to talk to him about something, I could. But, and this is going to sound kind of horrible, but I kind of kept my expectations low in that regard.

Jeremy: When you two got married and started having kids, did you think about the way that your parents had talked to you as children, and was that something that the two of you talked about together and connect that with the way that you wanted to talk to us as you were raising us and communicate with us? 

C.Y.: Going into it I felt very inadequate and almost intimidated by Shari's parents. I love them dearly, but I felt like they had their act together. And so I really, as a young adult, took a lot of cues from her dad in those regards. And I remember, you know, thinking that when we got married, I didn't want to have the same type of relationship with my children that my parents had with me. I just wanted to be more involved. I wanted to be more interactive.

Jeremy: And it felt to you like her, like her parents had done that in a way that you...

C.Y.: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I remember my household growing up was a little bit loud at times. And my father (I alluded to this earlier), if he got angry, he would just kind of blow up And it would blow away, it was very quick. And he was never you know, he never struck us or beat us or anything like that. But I remember I was talking quite loudly to one of you guys. I think it was Misti. And then it happened again. And I remember Shari just telling "You're yelling." And I thought, I am yelling. And so I made a conscious effort to stop yelling. I could talk and without yelling and we can get the point across without yelling. And I think that was just one of those characteristics that I brought to the party. But I didn't want it to be that way.

Jeremy: Yeah, it's hard. It's hard sometimes.

C.Y.: Sometimes. Yeah.

S.C.: We were together so much. We were together 24/7. And I can I think I remember consciously having a continuous conversation going on about everything that was going on. When you were little, when we'd go to the doctor, I'd say, "OK now he's going to listen to your heart, see that little machine he's got? That little thing? It's going to be cold, but it's going to listen through those tubes..." and explaining every little thing that was happening so that you were never surprised or shocked or afraid about what was happening. That was my intent, anyway. I consciously made that kind of a conversation, but it was informational. And then I think both of us made up stories to kind of illustrate other life lessons that may not have come up naturally. And I think they were more than just entertaining. I think they were to bring up ideas and thoughts that might not have come up naturally.

Jeremy: Like a lot of parents, ours told us stories, but these weren't just stories, they were epic parables. Episodic masterpieces that seemed to last for years. My mom's most moving was Mildred, Henry, and Hortense, a literal wild goose chase based loosely on actual fact, after she rescued an injured wild goose, nursed it back to health in our kitchen and returned it to its flock. And my dad told Jim and Flick. About a stoic, emotionally mature cowboy and his brave, loyal horse. An adventure story with underlying themes of trust, empathy, kindness, and perseverance.

S.C.: We were also so busy living life that sometimes we may have missed conversations that we look back and think, "Oh, we should have talked about that." But we were so busy. Dad was working all the time and going to college and we were a busy household. You know, we had a lot of kids to do laundry and clean the house and just get to bed.

C.Y.: I was thinking about this a little bit earlier today and I think that we were more opportunistic than strategic. And, you know, as an opportunity arose, we would take advantage of that opportunity. And I'm not sure...maybe there should have been some more structure that was there. But I think that we approached it together with the same goal. We may have different personalities and we may have different strengths and approaches. But the end game was the same for both of us.

Jeremy: Is that a goal that either of you think you could kind of put into words a little bit?

C.Y.: From my perspective, and I don't mean to hog the mic here, but from my perspective, the end goal was to raise children that grew up to be adults that were content and happy, strong in nature, willing to contribute back, you know, in whatever path they chose, whatever that looked like. Were strong enough to say "this is me and I'm good with who I am. I'm good with me." You know, and we see that today.

S.C.: There was also the goal of independence. We wanted you guys to be independent in every way and be able to think for yourselves. And, you know, you've mentioned before that you felt like you could question things and ask questions and figure things out and try to find out about what you were thinking.

C.Y.: I remember having a conversation with Mom when you guys were heading into the teenage years and talking about boundaries. And talking about observing some cases where there would be strict boundaries and then the kids would graduate from high school and they would move on, you know, go to either secondary education or the workforce or the military or wherever they went, and kind of like just spin out of control. And I remember kind of using the idea of, all right, you're here and the boundary is our family. And you know you know that there's kind of this fence here, but you're allowed to go outside that fence knowing that you have to come back inside. And knowing that it's going to be safe inside the fence, and sort of kind of give you room to explore, you know, give you that option to do some exploration where we still had the input and the idea to impact and guide you, and give you some information on the decisions that you're making. When one of you would come back in and we knew that you had been kind of testing the water, rather than just close everything down, we would talk you through it and get through it. And at the same time, you were able to pick up some life experiences while we still had a safety net and a greater opportunity to kind of guide you through those things.

Jeremy: Yeah, that approach requires a lot of trust going both ways.

C.Y.: It scares the hell out of you.

Jeremy: Yeah. I'm curious how you were able to summon that degree of trust that we would come back and open up to you when we needed to.

S.C.: At that point, there are no guarantees. When you guys start making decisions on your own as teenagers, there are no guarantees. At a certain point you've done your homework. You've taught them how to make a roux. You've taught them how to make biscuits and do the basics. You give them all the tools you possibly can give them. And then they start making decisions on their own. And there's not much more you can do. Except be there.

C.Y.: You begin to transition from the guiding parent to the guiding parent-friend, and you begin to transition and you start to talk to each other like you would a friend, and so there's less focus on discipline, while it needs to be there at times, and more focus on relationship.

Jeremy: Yeah, I remember feeling that transition happen with both of you. I remember feeling that towards, you know, that end of high school, beginning of college time. And I remember it being something unexpected and something really, really wonderful that I didn't anticipate, not because I didn't think it would happen, but it just wasn't something that I expected. Oh, your parents will become your friends. Oh, this is interesting and intriguing and wonderful.

C.Y.: And it was very scary for us, too, because it was not the norm and it kind of went against the grain of what was going on in that day and in our culture and our surroundings and our friends. And so we took a really kind of a radical approach to it. So from our perspective, it felt like there was a lot of risk to at least from my perspective, I'm not going to speak for Shari.

Jeremy: And I think you're absolutely right that there's a cultural tendency to keep a lot of control over what your kids are doing, and where they're going, and what they know, and what they learn, and what they're exposed to. Why is there so much fear from parents in that arena?

C.Y.: Maybe some of it's the unknown and... 

S.C.: And some of it's the known. We know what can happen. I think, like Dad said, it's terrifying. But, you know, you have to do it. You have to let the rope out. And if you let it out too quickly, they're gone. Because you can't reel it back in.

C.Y.: You kind of have to ask yourself what's important. Is it really the end of the world if your kid dyes his hair blue and has a mohawk...

S.C.: ...for his senior pictures.

C.Y.: For his senior pictures! And it's not.

Jeremy: That doesn't sound familiar. This does not ring a bell.

Thanks so much for listening to this inaugural episode of "The Talk", if you enjoyed it, please take a moment to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'd also like to thank Sara Heron, Austin Eisele, and my parents, Shari Crawford and Craig Yaddaw for being guests on this episode and also to everyone who sent me notes and voice memos to use. You can find "The Talk" on Instagram and Facebook at @TheTalkThePodcast. And if you'd like to support the talk, you can do so by going to thetalk@thetalkthepodcast.com/donate. Dana Gertz designed all of our original artwork. Goodbye.