Good Inside with Dr. Becky - Revisit - Emily Oster on the Real Data Parents Need

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

This is a revisit of an earlier episode. You’re a good parent if you drink coffee while pregnant. You’re a good parent if you don’t breastfeed. You’re a good parent if you drag your kid to soccer practice… and then let them quit the team mid-season. Dr. Becky and economist Emily Oster break down the data (or lack thereof) behind popular parenting advice, redefining what it means to be a “good parent.”Our podcast feed has gotten a little unruly, so in an effort to curate it for you, we are picking a few of our must-listen episodes from the back catalog for you to enjoy. We will continue to rotate these episodes as the season unfolds. As always, for more parenting scripts, resources, and full access to the entire podcast catalog visit goodinside.comJoin Good Inside Membership: https://bit.ly/3QOOPLuFollow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterOrder Dr. Becky's book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, at goodinside.com/book or wherever you order your books.For a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcastToday’s episode is brought to you by SEED: When kids are in a picky eating stage, one of the things that goes out the window is fiber - which is really important for regular bowel movements and the gut microbiome. 95% of children and adults in the U.S. don’t reach their daily recommended fiber intake. And it can be especially tricky to get enough fiber into the diets of picky eaters. With one serving of Seed’s PDS-08, your child is getting a third of their recommended daily fiber intake. You can just pour the pre-portioned sachets of naturally sweet powder into yogurt, a smoothie, milk — or whatever works for your family. Everyone wins: you don’t feel as stressed and your child gets all the benefits of a healthy gut — and, to be honest, more regular, easier poops! Use code GOODINSIDE for 20% off your first month of Seed's PDS-08 Daily Synbiotic + Free Shipping.

I'm Dr. Becky, and this is good inside. You know, I often will tell people, well, you've got to like, you sort of balance a little bit. Like, sometimes that's first moments you're pregnant. It's like, almost exciting. It's like, oh, like now I'm pregnant. Like, oh, all these new things I get to do, like, not drink coffee and like, oh, I have to be careful about the fish, you know, and that's like, that can be part of the experience

and kind of, it could be like in a positive way, but it can also then move into this, like, sort of self-sacrificing, like, that's how you become a good mom. You're a good mom if you drank coffee while pregnant. You're a good mom if you got that epidural. And you're a good mom if you didn't breastfeed. And there's data to prove it. My guest is Emily Oster, the economist and author of several books

on pregnancy and parenting. In case you missed it the first time, this is an episode that you need to hear. And I'm so excited to reshare it with you. Right after this. [♪ Music playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, playing in background, back catalog for you to enjoy. We will continue to rotate these episodes as the season unfolds. And as always, for more parenting scripts, resources, and full access to the entire podcast catalog, visit GoodInside.com.

Maybe just to start what led you into kind of looking at or questioning maybe pregnancy and parenthood recommendations. In some ways the answer is quite simple to that, which is that I got pregnant. And I think like a lot of women, I was lucky. I had not had a lot of sustained interaction with like medicine up to that point. And I was a person who makes a lot of my own decisions and feels like I have a lot of autonomy and information. And most of the large choices that I had made in my life were really things where I got a chance to sit down and think about the way I wanted to make that choice. And because I'm a person who loves data, often those choices involved data or numbers in some way.

And then I got pregnant and I found that the way that pregnancy was approached was pretty evidence. That evidence frees the wrong word, but I wasn't being given the kind of autonomy to evaluate my own choices with evidence that I had been used to in all other spheres. There was this moment, like at my first prenatal visit, and I must have been like 10 weeks pregnant, where they just like on the way out, almost they handed me these lists. There was like, here's the list of things not to eat.

And it was incredibly long, you know? It was like hot dogs and sushi and, you know, and it's also like cigarettes. It's like surely these things can't all be the same amount of bad. Like, it can't be that oysters and cigarettes are like the same bad and they certainly aren't going to be bad for the same reason. And that kind of experience of just like me being like, but wait, wait, wait, wait, like can you tell me more? And being like, well, no, just there's a list, like read off the list, the feeling of sort of things, the decision-making

being removed from kind of my control and from my ability to make the decision in a way that I was comfortable and happy with, I think that was really where this started. And of course, like, can I have oysters? Is perhaps not like the most important question, but there were many other important questions and also like, like oysters, my particular coffee, which is also on that list. So that was really where I started. You know, right away, I feel like we're starting with something that on the surface is so simple, like, okay, I'm pregnant for nine months, like, do I have to have coffee? Like, whenever you isolate these decisions one at a time, I feel like it's always, it's always hard

for me to choose something that increases risk, even if it's like a tiny bit. So individually, you're like, okay, oyster, sushi, certain cheeses, but I feel like there is, I'm just thinking about this now in response to what you said. Like these two things I see, which is like risk are like doing whatever you can to maximize safety of your child. And then on the other side, there's like, I like coffee. I really love having sushi, right? Like there's like love and desire and wants for a woman who's

pregnant. And then there's, you know, maximizing safety. Yes. And I think often the way it's framed makes it like the act of not having the coffee is the act of being a good parent. And this comes up in early parenting also, that it is almost the fact that you like it and are giving it up for your baby is a way to sort of feel to yourself, or to others, like you are sort of doing it right, like you are willing to sacrifice and and that gets us into a place where With something like coffee if you dive into the data there just really no evidence that there's any risk to sort of moderate amounts of coffee So there almost isn't a gain there. There isn't a gain on that side, but I still think it can feel like well I would just just to be on the absolute safest side,

I am gonna be willing to give this up. And I feel for me that goes across many areas in parenting. I 100% agree, but what you're saying, which I find really compelling, it's almost like what makes us feel best as a newly pregnant person, is I am starting my journey of self-sacrifice right now, and this is what good moms do.

Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. And I think it's particularly, it's actually particularly true with the first one. I think often when people get pregnant a second time, they're like, yeah, I'm, of course, I'm going to have some coffee. You know, I often will tell people, well, you've got to like, you sort of balance a little bit, like sometimes that's first moments you're pregnant. it's like almost exciting. It's like, oh, like now I'm pregnant, like, oh, all these new things I get to do, like, not drink coffee and

like, oh, I have to be careful about the fish, you know, and I, and that's, that's like, that can be part of the experience and kind of, it could be like in a positive way, but it can also then move into this, like, sort of self-sacrificing, like that's how you become a good mom. Yeah, this murder dumb, right? And I think if I'm on a mission to do anything, it has almost less to do with kids and more of changing this idea that motherhood is murder dumb, but right away, there is almost this excitement we get. We're like, oh, I can't eat that. Or no, I can't drink that.

And we're living in this idea that being a good mom means putting your own pleasure and your own desires to the side for the benefit of someone else. And ironically, I mean, I don't know if you've looked into the data on this, but I'm just going to venture. Like I can't imagine data supports that like self-sacrifice is like great for parents. Like that that's like, there's a lot of, like that is just so good for moms and babies. No, data does not support that.

You know, data does not support that. In particular, you know, sort of even on the other side in some of the kinds of things we talk about, not so much coffee, but particularly in sort of early parenting, some of the kinds of sacrifices that we see in this space can be triggers for postpartum depression, for postpartum anxiety, for people kind of moving from, you know, happy to not happy. And then that actually does have some not positive, but,

you know, potentially negative impacts on parental functioning. And so, you know, in some sense, when we think about the idea of self-sacrifice as a positive value, it puts the weight on only one piece of the functioning or one piece of what we're trying to achieve and not on, you know, how do we structure our family in a way that kind of everybody is happy and everybody is productive and everybody is getting the things that they need. And when I was talking about crib sheet, I sometimes I would say we know parents are people too, which I think we sometimes forget. Yeah.

Is this the same in other countries? Is this like an American phenomenon? This kind of, you know, this massive starting, let's say with pregnancy. If we stay in that and I definitely want to move post pregnancy to with you, but pregnancy, the list, the notice, the no cheese, the no glass of wine, the no coffee. I'm thinking like sushi, a glass of wine, and a cup of coffee.

Like those are like a lot of my pleasurable foods. Like my, it's like almost like if chocolate cake was like listed to look at the house. That would be, that would be. Yeah, they've let us have that. But is this true in other countries? The list is not the same. So, you know, there's some things that are on everybody's list,

but there are differences in the kinds of things that are restricted. So the French tend to be more relaxed about cheese. The Japanese tend to be more relaxed about sushi. But then there are other things. The Americans tend to be relaxed about chocolate cake. Exactly. Doritos.

We're good, good. But then you get other things where people will have like sort of different kinds of like you can't have ice or you can't have two of the windows open. Huh. Right. It's like everyone has this long list. Summer. Summer the same. Yeah. The word like preciousness keeps coming to mind. Like there's this message. And I think I see this all the time with parents who are parenting their toddlers or older kids, it's the same thing.

It's like if I do one thing wrong, I've messed up parenthood forever. And all of these restrictions, there's such rigidity in that way. There's rigidity and I think it's, you know, partly it's just, I think it does come from a good place of people wanting to do, you know, sort of wanting to do the right thing and wanting to, you know, to like do it, to do it right.

And the idea that there is a single right way to do this or a way to kind of make it work, to make it successful. And some of parenting is really about giving up control and recognizing that you can make all the right choices or all good choices and you can still end up in a situation in which things go, unfortunately, go wrong. And that's, I think, part of the byproduct of some of these issues is that people often blame themselves. People have a miscarriage. They'll ask me, you know, well, what did I do? And the answer is, like, nothing, you know, huge share of first trimester miscarriages are just a result, like, not, not, like, 50%, like, 90% are a result of chromosomal issues that you never could have done anything about.

And the idea that people come and they say, well, you know, what did I do? Was it, did I take, I shouldn't have run, or, you know, I should have had a cup of coffee, or, you know, what about this, you know, I walk through this field. And all of these things where we get into a place where once you accept the idea that there's a right way to do it, then if it doesn't go right, it must be that you've done something wrong. And that's a big challenge. And I think there's so many of us, and I think so many listeners right now probably can identify, yes, when I struggle with something in my life.

When I have like a big hard feeling about something, my first thought is self-blame. Like I made this happen, I did this, and I think as women were like, a lot of us are especially prone to this. But it is interesting that the self-blame is always about not being careful and like self-sacrificial enough. Like I don't know if someone is, no one was like, I had a miscarriage and I just, I wasn't having enough sex

because if I was having more sex, I would have been like happier. If I would have been happier, I would have been more hospitable. No one's like, I should have had sushi because if I had sushi, I would have been so much more satisfied that day and my baby would have felt that elation.

It's just kind of interesting. It's always like, I didn't restrict enough. Yeah, I had not even thought about it. But you're absolutely right. Like there's, when you said those things, I was like, that's a crazy thing to say because I've never heard anyone say that. But of course, I'm not sure why they wouldn't.

You know, I'm not sure what's wrong with your sex argument. It's just as good as the, you know, all the other things that people say. And every time I have these conversations, I feel like I learned so much about how deep these stories are about like what motherhood is, how deep the story of motherhood as martyrdom like really goes because as soon as you're pregnant, there's almost like we're signaling our virtue. Like, oh, I don't eat that. I don't do that because I'm a good mom.

I'm a good mom from the start because I am willing to say no to things that give me personal pleasure. And when you do get pregnant, same too. And the OBs, it's all about like, here's everything you could do to minimize risk, even if the data doesn't support it to babies. Like no doctor is like, here's what you need to do from the start to make sure you still stay in touch with all the parts of you that pre-existed pregnancy.

I just wanna say, I think there are doctors here too, but I don't think that there, I don't think that it is not it is not the norm and it's not, you know and it's not where the focus of those interactions are. For sure. Yeah. And I think for everyone listening right now, to think about a decision you've made for your family, maybe it was back in pregnancy, maybe it's a long time since pregnancy, maybe

it's the amount of screen time you let your kid watch two day, right? maybe it's whether you let a kid have a sleepover or not, or how many after school activities your kids do whatever the decision is. I really think it's like the ultimate grounding exercise. Just remind yourself, like, I'm making decisions that feel best for my kid and my family. And my neighbor over there is actually doing the exact same thing. It might look totally different on the surface, but internally, we're actually doing the same thing. And their kid who watches less screen time or more, they're no better or worse,

we're each trying to make decisions for our family. That's such a good message, because it's so easy to both judge and also to sort of feel judged or to second guess in a way that can promote a tremendous amount of anxiety. Yes, and just, you know, I say this to myself a lot too when I feel that like the rate of comparison. It's like, that's not a referendum on my parenting. That parent's decisions is not at all a referendum

on my decisions and feeling like pushing away other people's decisions. In a way, so you can see them, and then you can be curious about them. When we don't have distance, it really feels like an, you know, an evolutionary threat, right? Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So here's something I really struggle with.

I want my kids to feel in control of their bodies at meal time. And also, I want my kids to eat foods that keep them healthy and strong. And when my kids are in a picky eating stage, one of the things that goes out the window is fiber, which I know is really important for regular bowel movements and the gut microbiome. Well, I recently learned that I'm not alone in this struggle. I mean, 95% of kids and adults in the U.S. don't reach their daily recommended fiber intake, and it's especially tricky to get enough fiber into the diets of picky eaters. Here's what's been helping me in my home.

Seeds PDS-08, Pediatric Daily Sin Biotic. With one serving of seeds PDS-08, your child is getting a third of their recommended daily fiber intake. You can just pour the pre-portioned sachets of naturally sweet powder into yogurt, a smoothie, milk, or whatever works for your family. Everyone wins. I mean, I'm not as stressed, and my kids get all the benefits of a healthy gut.

And to be honest, more regular, easier poops. Use code GoodInside for 20% off your first month of seeds PDS08 daily symbiotic. Plus free shipping. plus free shipping. Okay, so I want to transition into breastfeeding. Like, so all of this, the stuff with breastfeeding. Like, just, I'm just gonna say, go, go, go, your turn. Yeah, go. So breastfeeding is, I think, in some ways, the most significant early parenting example of this kind of self-sacrificing thing. And when I was writing,

crib sheet, this was like the biggest place I wanted to start, was just to dive into the evidence before we get into preferences. So I'm just like diving the evidence behind a lot of the things we get told about breastfeeding, many of which are very extreme. So I pulled up together like a list of the benefits that are listed and there's some of the things you're familiar with, better health,

better antibodies, you know, higher IQ, less serious illness, later lower obesity, and then you'll get into like weight loss, free birth control, like have better friendships. You know what that means? What's wrong with your friends, you know, like don't get different friends is what I think. So, I, you know, really dug into that, I think part of the issue in the data there is that there are a lot of differences between women who breastfeed and women who do not on a bunch of other dimensions. So when we study those problems,

it's really difficult to separate correlation from causality and much of the evidence we have is really problematic for that reason. When we look at the best evidence, which is typically from either like the one randomized trial or more likely sibling studies where they compare two siblings within the same family, you see some evidence of these early life benefits like better digestion, you know less gastrointestinal illness, those effects are not enormous, but they're definitely the same to be there, maybe some effects on ear infections, but you don't see compelling evidence of many of these longer

term things like IQ, obesity, height, it doesn't help you lose weight, like sorry. So when I wrote Crypt sheet, then I sort of went there, discussed that tried to get people on the same page about what is the truth. When people say breast is best, based on the data, I guess that's not wrong in the sense that there are some small benefits that show up in the data. But when we see people say breast is best, they imply a thing which is far beyond the data

and it just really makes people, honestly, just really sometimes makes people sad. The thing that made me most compelled to write crooksheet was the emails I would get from dads. The emails I would get from people that would say, like, my wife really liked her first book, we have our first kid, you know, press feeding is not going well, she's so upset. And you know, she's really like, like, it was just really, really hard. And I feel like if you told her it wasn't that big a deal, like maybe she would feel better about herself.

And I think that's kind of like, that's crushing. Yeah, and, you know, I think what I see over and over from parents and especially moms is The kind of looking for one thing and the one thing keeps changing To kind of prove I'm a good parent. I'm a good parent and early on There's just not that much. There's not that many I'm sure that much you know, they don't do much. There's not that much to do Like there's not you know options. Not that much to do. They don't do much. There's not that much to do. Like there's not, you know, like they're not even smiling,

but you know, there's how do I feed my baby, which is the, like how am I sustaining this child? And there's like one thing, or maybe there's two. There's how they sleep, nobody's baby's sleeping that well, and then there's how you're feeding. And what always strikes me about data and breastening. This was, I thought about this life before crib sheet came out. It was like, you know what I know as a human without looking at any study? Is mother's feeling depleted, exhausted, resentful, shitty

about themselves is not good for a mom. It is not good for a baby and themselves is not good for a mom. It is not good for a baby and it is not good for a baby's connection. Like the idea that whatever is in breast milk would be more important to a baby than all of that. Like I always remember thinking like, I don't buy it. And that's not a way of saying, I don't think people should breastfeed.

That's not a way of saying that when it gets hard, you should give it up. I'm not saying that so concretely, but I know in my bones that if a mom is so overwhelmed and depleted in that way, there's no way she's forming a strong bond with her child. Yes, and I think this idea of elevating this one behavior, which is sort of maybe another way to say what you're saying, like we're elevating one behavior as if everything is in economics, we'd say lexicographic, that like there's one thing that's the most important. And everything else is almost like completely secondary. And if you do the one thing, everything else is there's

nothing else to worry about. And if you don't do the one thing, it's basically over. And that is not true of the data on breastfeeding. And as you say, there are many compelling reasons that people would choose not to breastfeed, including they don't want to. And that, I think, is a piece of this where we're often, we'll see, you know, people say, well, I could, you know, somehow have to meet, there has to be an excuse, I couldn't, you know, I didn't have enough supply,

I tried really hard, you know, but as opposed to just being like, why didn't, it didn't think it would work for my family, which is actually like a completely legitimate reason, not to choose to, to breastfeed. On the flip side, and this is, I think, a frustration that's perhaps unique in some ways to the US,

there is maybe not unique, but different than some places say in Europe, that we are both very pushy about breastfeeding, and also tremendously unsupportive in other ways. Like actually, Brass feed is quite hard. Like, it's not super intuitive. I thought it was just going to be like, you just like put the baby in the vicinity and it

just kind of does it, but actually, like, maybe that works for some people. That didn't, you know, that didn't work for me. And so we have this activity, which is difficult to get started. And we have very little support for new parents outside of the hospital, very little, like, home visiting or whatever you would need to make that work. And then we have, like, basically no support for breastfeeding in public. And so it's kind of like, you know, the most important thing you can do for a baby is breastfeed,

but put those boobs away because nobody wants to see that. And it's like, and get back to work. And give us no word. You can pump in this in this dirty bathroom. I'm sorry that there's no plug, but just buy more batteries. Yeah. It's a really messed up, right? And I know, right? in this dirty bathroom. I'm sorry that there's no plug, but just buy more batteries. It's really messed up, right? And I know, right?

It was, you know, then there's like, oh, and by the way, if you can breastfeed up to age two, that's also best, right? Like that extra little cherry on top. And, you know, one of the things that I think is just always helpful, whether, you know, you have a young baby or a teenager, is the sentence like, I'm a good mom who?

And then you end the sentence with something that societally has been deemed something that quote, good moms don't do to like hold those two truths at once. And I just wanna say, and I think I've said this elsewhere, and I did not choose to breastfeed my kids for that long. Like, at all, right? None of them got that much restful milk.

And it was a combination of factors, but I wanna name one of the factors. I didn't like it, I wasn't into it, it wasn't my thing. I didn't want to do it. And it's so true, it's like, oh, but you tried this, or oh, do you do a supply issue? Like you have to prove your sacrifice to get permission from the world to not breastfeed.

And that is that is some fucked up shit. And I'm just want to say on air, I am a good mom who chose not to breastfeed her kids for that long at all. Period. Yeah, I think that's amazing. And I will say, you know, some of those people, so I knew all this stuff about breastfeeding all this data like before I had my first kid because I've done it for something I looked into for research and so on. So I knew all this and I really knew it and I still killed myself to try it, to breastfeed my first kid.

And I really, like I did not, and eventually we made it work, but like it was not an experience that I look back on and think like I'm really glad that I spent so very many hours walking up and down the hallway, bouncing my kid because that was the only way I could get her to latch. I wish that I had not done that.

I wish I had sort of let myself off. Let me solve all the hook is, again, it's so quick, you're so quick to get into that. Like, what are we doing? What are we doing? Oh my God, we have on this podcast. And let me, let me. It's horrible.

A hundred percent. Let me backtrack and to say, by the way, like I'm, I also, like was in a horrible guilt shame spiral for my first child. Like a hundred percent me too. And I very much felt like I had to talk to everyone about my schedule and then how I have to pump after. And this I had to prove my worth through self-sacrifice and proving that this couldn't be good for anyone.

And that might be true. And, like I just do. I think so many things in motherhood goes back to the way women have distanced herself from the start from our desire. As if like desire is is anti-female, like the desire of like I don't want to. I don't want to breastfeed.

It feels very radical and there's this flip, which is like if people want to do this, we should provide more support. Somehow we've sort of hit a place where we don't support it and yet we sort of force it into people who would like to do it, kind of aren't able to really give it a chance to kind of, because it is hard at the beginning, and for many people, you push through that,

and actually it's something that you enjoy, and it really works for you and so on. And yet, you know, for many people, it, you know, at least some people, it doesn't work, and it's not something that you necessarily want to do for two years. It's like, exactly. And, and yes, like this is not an anti-breastfeeding message. I think the

message is good moms get epidurals and good moms don't get epidurals and good moms breastfeed and good moms don't breastfeed. Right. No one of these choices is a choice that makes you a good mom or not like that hanging any idea of sort of good parenting on a choice is a huge mistake. I think that's exactly right. So we got through pregnancy, we've gotten through breastfeeding. So let's bring things a little bit to the current day with maybe some slightly older kid topics.

One of the questions is about like choice frameworks, sending your kids back to school amidst what seems like, you know, increased gun violence. Things like that. How do you think through these decisions and things that maybe have seemingly, you know, are definitely lower risk, but still feel like hard choices.

Like how many after school activities do I do? And you know, when do I give my kid a phone, like any of those? I would love to hear how you think through those things. Yeah. So I spend a lot of time in family firm on this kind of like a decision framework around big choices, hard choices.

And I think there's a few sort of insights in there. And so kind of one is that I really encourage people to try to be very specific about what their question is. I think often when we're asking ourselves these hard questions, we frame them, almost as like, should I do this or not? So should I like, you know, should I send my kid back to school or not?

And you know, you've got to recognize like, or not it's not a schooling outcome, you know? It's not a, or not it's not a place to go to school during the day. And if you are going to make that choice in a way that is thoughtful, you really do need to say what the two options are. And so I call that framing the question that we're often reluctant to frame the question

in part because or not seems great, or not could be almost anything. Or not could be an amazing outcome, whereas the school is just like a known quantity, but of course or not is actually not a choice. So how would you change that question? So you know, in the case of something like extracurriculars, like people say, well, should I do this activity or not? In some ways, that's sort of well framed, but I think you want to say, like, should I do this activity or another activity?

Should I do this sport or another sport, or is it this sport or theater, or is it this sport or nothing? And that, I think, makes the questions often more tractable because you are now facing an actual choice which you can then move forward on. And I think a lot of the decision tools are really about giving that decision the attention it needs, think about what are the trade-offs, what are the risks, what are the benefits on either side,

then making a decision and trying to move on. So I think other than the sort of two big mistakes I see who make here are not framing the question as to concrete alternatives, and then actually not ever really making a decision. Like just saying, should we do baseball or not, and then kind of dribbling it out until the decision is either made for you

because you forgot to sign up or you know, at the last minute, you just like sign up because like your kid is standing over you and bothering you and you actually haven't really thought about it. Yeah, I can struggle with things in that way. And my husband always says to me when I'm struggling with the decision

that one side of how I frame a question is like known risk and the other one is like always all upside because like that's what you do when you don't name the other side. Then you're not realizing that the other one has some known risk too, but as long as you don't quantify it or name it, it just has infinite upside and no risk. So I think that that's really, really powerful. Next thing and it maybe it's a thought I'm having and I think it relates to decision making. One of the ways I think about anxiety, right thought I'm having, and I think it relates to decision-making. One of the ways I think about anxiety, I always put it, is I feel like what anxiety is,

is something unknown about the future, coupled with our underestimation of our ability to cope, that we chronically underestimate our coping abilities, because you can't cope with a worry, I think as humans we actually cope very, very well with problems, but in this day and age, we have many, many more worries in the future. Sometimes, and we have problems in front of us, and we kind of forget, we always underestimate that. Okay, if that thing does happen, I probably won't enjoy it, it might be inconvenient,

but I actually am someone who has cope with hard things, and I'll get through it again. So I'm curious, when you see this kind of decision, whether decision fatigue or decision handicapping are not making the decision, if you think that's a part of it, the underestimation of coping that people have, or what does get in people's way of making decisions? Yeah, it's some of the underestimation of coping. I think the other piece of it is that once you have made an active choice, you could be wrong. And people don't like to be wrong. And if you don't really make the choice, then even though,

yes, it could turn out badly, you haven't chosen to be wrong. And so I think this comes up, like, it came up a lot in COVID, you know, if I choose to send my kid to childcare and they get COVID, even if the chance that they got COVID was basically the same, whether I sent them to childcare or not, I've made the choice and then the outcome that I fear occurs. It feels like I chose wrong and we don't like to be wrong. I think that's a piece of it that committing to an active choice gives us responsibility for the choice. In part, I actually think that's a kind of piece of it that's sort of committing to an active choice gives

us responsibility for the choice. And in part, I actually think that's why it's sort of valuable to frame it as two options because then you have to make a choice, right? There's always a recognition that not doing anything is also a choice. And it doesn't let you off the hook for this idea that you've made a choice. You just kind of made it like by accident. Yeah. And then we're going to back to that cycle of self-blame when we struggle. that you've made a choice, you just kind of made it like by accident. Yeah. And then we're going to back to that cycle of self-blame when we struggle. Like, so many of us, it's almost like impossible. It feels to disentangle. It's like, oh,

wait, I could struggle or end up being in a hard situation and not blame myself, because you're saying people end up blaming themselves who think, oh, I made this decision. But there are almost two different things. Like, I made a decision with the information I had at the time. Okay. Now I have different information. It stinks, and I can cope from here versus, ugh, it's all my fault.

Exactly. No, I think we really, it's really valuable to separate, like, this decision was right ex ante, and this decision turned out to be wrong exposed, right? So, like, I could have made the right choice, and most of the choices we make or many of them there could be something you know negative that could happen but the confidence that comes with sort of having made the right choice can sometimes help us navigate through that. And so actually

one of the things I talk about in the book, the thing about like the example of an extracurricular right. So like you know we decide to enroll our kid in travel soccer. And some of the time, you know, you've chosen to do that. And then sometimes it's really terrible. You know, your kid hates the travel soccer, you like drive around all the time. Every weekend is meant to this activity, nobody likes it, everybody's unhappy. Okay, that could happen. Maybe it won't. And one of the the things that happens, I think because people don't wanna be wrong, is they will sometimes re-up these activities or these things that were not good,

because by not doing it again next year, it's like saying, I messed up last year. And I think there's a way to sort of push back on that a little to sort of address that a little bit psychologically by like planning to revisit these things, by saying,'re going to choose this for this year. And we are going to explicitly acknowledge we could learn more after this year. And then we are going to plan to revisit it. And then it's when you revisit, if it was a disaster, it was

not that you were wrong. I mean, you know, maybe that wasn't the right choice in the moment, but you had planned to revisit it was an experiment. I think sometimes we can trick ourselves a little bit with tools like that. I love that. OK, one maybe last question. What is something that beyond the data, like beyond everything you know, you know so much,

that you struggle with as a parent, or that the data just doesn't kind of come together to give you ease, that's still hard. So I find that as my kids have gotten older, you know, the data is, is, it can be helpful, but it is often sort of less. There's less of it and the choices that we're making are much more specific to our kids. And I think there are a lot of things with my younger kid in particular, where I am just not sure that I'm doing it right. I is almost or like quite how to deal with the force of will that comes with a willful seven year old. And what I found interesting about

that is that almost the need for experimentation around all of these different parenting strategies and figuring out what works for you. So the other day, my son didn't want to, he didn't feel good. He'd been on to Madtubatics. So his stomach was bothering him. He didn't want to go to camp. And it's the kind of thing for us that can can sort of very rapidly move into a kind of place where like he's in his bed.

And I can't like physically move him out of his bed. And we can't go to camp, and also I have to go to my job. And so it's like a little bit. And in that moment, it actually like what I did ended up working, like telling him like we can be late. If we can be a few minutes late, can you, you know, why don't you say to need a cracker? You do have to go to camp that's not negotiable,

but you can say to need these crackers, you can bring their cracker to camp. And like we ended up going and having a very nice, like a very nice time and we were not late because I always plan to be like 45 minutes early. But that is not the like norm for that. I'll come and it was sort of, the fact that I was so happy about, like call my husband, I was like, we had this and then it worked out. And he was like,

okay, great. But it is, it is a place where I have found it to be somewhat resistant to sort of broad data. And even resistant to my own like attempts to collect personal data about what works in the moment. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sharing that because also, it just confirms that you were like every one of us who, yes, you know, we have this knowledge and me too. And I always need to say it because, you know, my kids don't have some like Dr. Becky person as their mom, right? They have me with my triggers

and I own stresses and, you know, moments that sometimes feel really good and sometimes feel confusing and, you know, it's always, I feel like that's the data we all need as parents is like the data of knowing 100% of parents, fine parenting. Yes. It's hard.

It's just hard. It's just hard. Thanks for listening. To share a story or ask me a question, go to goodinside.com slash podcast. You could also write me at podcast at goodinside.com. Parenting is the hardest and most important job in the world. And parents deserve resources and support so they feel empowered, confident, and connected. I'm so excited to share Good Inside Membership.

The first platform that brings together content and experts you trust with a global community of like-valued parents. It's totally game-changing. Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Jesse Baker and Eric Newsom at Magnificent Noise. Our production staff includes Sabrina Farhi, Julianette and Kristen Muller. I would also like to thank Erica Belsky, Mary Panico and the rest of the good inside team. And one last thing before I let you go. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts

and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle, and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside. inside.