Bettina Elias Siegel, KID FOOD
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[1:00]Zibi Owens.com. I'm here today with Bettina Elias Siegel, who's the author of Kid Food,
[1:05]the challenge of feeding children in a highly processed world.
[1:07]Bettina is a nationally recognized writer and advocate on issues related to children and food policy.
[1:12]Her work has appeared in the New York Times in the Houston Chronicle,
[1:15]among other publications, and on her widely read blog, The Lunch Train.
[1:19]She's a frequent guest on national media and was named one of the country's
[1:23]20 most influential moms in 2015 by Family Circle, a graduate of Yale University in Harvard
[1:29]law school. Bettina currently lives in Houston with her husband and two children.
[1:32]So welcome, Bettina. Thanks so much for coming on moms. Don't have time to read books.
[1:35]Thank you so much for having me. This is such a treat, kid food. This is like always on my mind.
[1:41]So I'm delighted to have an expert to tell me the way it really is.
[1:45]I'm glad to be here and do that for you. Can you tell us nurse-weeze what kid food is about?
[1:48]Yes. So kid food is really my attempt to explain to parents why they may be feeling that it's very
[1:55]hard to raise healthy eaters today. If you're feeling that frustration, if you're feeling really
[1:59]challenged, I'm here to validate you. It is really hard. And so the book was my attempt to kind of
[2:05]explain in a little bit more detail what is going on, you know, in different contexts and
[2:10]children's lives. So everything from children's menus to what's going on in the school cafeteria
[2:14]to why is it that every adult seems to want to give your kid a treat, you know, at different
[2:18]times during the day for different reasons. And I kind of drill down into each one of those two
[2:23]educate parents. But then the ultimate goal of the book is really to empower parents. So I'm
[2:28]really trying to help them with any tools I can provide to navigate this very difficult food
[2:34]environment with their kid. And then on top of that, if they want to advocate, if they want
[2:38]to try to make it better, I also offer all kinds of advocacy tips and tools for that as well.
[2:43]So how did animal crackers lead you down this path? The famous animal crackers incident.
[2:48]So as I described in the book, one reason, not the only reason, but one reason why I got interested
[2:52]in this area is that I attended a meeting in Houston ISD, my public school system where I live.
[2:58]This was back in 2010. And I was joining a committee that was gathering parents input about the
[3:04]school meal menus. And right away, I noticed that on our breakfast menu, the kids were required
[3:09]to take animal crackers four out of five days a week. And this is not the case anymore, I should say.
[3:15]And I raised my hand and I asked the nutritionist like what's with the cookies. And I should
[3:19]mention that the rest of the breakfast menu was also really sugary, highly processed,
[3:23]carby food, like cinnamon buns and sugary yogurt. And the answer was so surprising. She said,
[3:30]well, you know, kids need to get a certain amount of iron every week. And the animal crackers
[3:34]provide the iron and some staring at her thinking like, what, you know, spinach provides iron and
[3:39]you know, things like that. And she said, well, it's the fortified white flower. And that comment
[3:45]just blew my mind. And it really motivated me to learn more about the National School Lunch Program.
[3:50]Like, how could we have regulations that would permit that? Again, I need to interject that system
[3:55]has changed the way we figure menus out. But that really led me down this road of learning more
[4:00]about the lunch program. And that knowledge coupled with all of these challenges I was facing
[4:06]as just as a mom of two young kids is what led me to start my blog, the lunch train.
[4:10]And tell me about starting the blog. Tell me about the first time you said,
[4:14]what you originally envisioned it as and your reactions to what it became.
[4:19]Okay. So I am not a particularly spontaneous person, but this might have been one of the most
[4:23]spontaneous decisions of my life. I went to lunch with some writer friends. I was in a writing group
[4:27]at that time. And I said to my friend Jenny, I said, you know, I'm learning all this stuff about
[4:31]school food. And I should mention at this time, my goal in life was to become a freelance
[4:36]magazine writer. I was a retired lawyer, stayed home mom, and looking for the new thing in my life.
[4:41]You know, this was just a little side activity. And I said, you know, I'm learning all this stuff
[4:45]about school food and just generally want to talk about kids in food. Do you think I should start a
[4:49]blog? And she's like, of course you should. And I literally went home that day, bought the domain,
[4:53]the lunch tray, set up WordPress, which I'd never used before the next morning wrote my first post.
[4:58]And that was it. And again, I really expected this would just be like an amusing thing to keep
[5:03]me busy while I'm waiting for, you know, glamour magazine to call. And instead, it just completely
[5:09]took over my whole life. It just changed the entire direction of my life, which is crazy.
[5:13]So the lunch tray grew and grew and grew. You became this huge advocate for
[5:17]reform in school lunches. How did that happen?
[5:20]So, you know, I always want to be very frank. You know, I'm not one of these bloggers who has like
[5:24]a million followers. It's always been this really lovely niche blog in that it right away
[5:32]just sort of found an audience of parents. And the other thing that really thrilled me was
[5:37]school food professionals started coming to the blog too. And I think because they sensed that I
[5:42]had done my homework and really understood their challenges and wasn't just bashing school food,
[5:47]they felt comfortable coming too. They knew they weren't going to get just kind of, you know,
[5:50]vilified. So it just found this really lovely audience. And yes, so, you know, I won't go into
[5:56]all the details I talk about it in my introduction. But because of the blog, like over time,
[6:00]I just got all of these opportunities to engage in all kinds of advocacy, both related to school food,
[6:06]but also other issues relating to kids and food. And I also got to, you know, write for other
[6:11]publications right for the New York Times. You know, just all of these things sort of grew from it
[6:14]that gave me this really wonderful platform. I just never ever another another way into glamor magazine.
[6:19]Yes, exactly, right? Who knew, right? So let's talk about some of the stuff in the book about
[6:24]food. You have a part in the book where you say things like, I was feeding my kids, you know,
[6:30]Bell and Evans chicken nuggets and Amy's pizza and feeling pretty good about myself.
[6:34]But da, da, da, right? And then I read that and I was like, oh my gosh, that's what I feed my kids every
[6:38]week. Should I not admit this? Like, I don't feel guilty even about those chicken nuggets. Should I?
[6:44]No, no. And I really, I feel like I always have to say this. If you haven't yet opened
[6:49]to kid food, you might assume, as a mom said to me at a book event I did on Thursday, I was
[6:54]so sure you were going to judge me. And I am so not judging anyone because I was there in the
[6:58]trenches and I was serving with chicken nuggets in the mac and cheese and all of that. So there's
[7:02]no judgment here at all. And I understand why parents resort to those foods, I get it.
[7:07]And the reason why I specifically mentioned, you know, Bell and Evans and Amy's is just to make
[7:11]the point that I had kind of conveniently convinced myself that, well, if it's coming from whole
[7:17]foods, I'm doing this great thing. And, you know, we have to really be realistic with ourselves.
[7:22]If it's a Tyson's chicken nugget or a Bell and Evans chicken nugget, it's still a chicken nugget.
[7:26]And the point is, there's nothing wrong with those foods at all. They, you know, they're delicious
[7:30]and we can enjoy those foods. But I think what parents need to think about a little bit is how
[7:35]they're offering them. So the way I would put it is, if you said, Hey kids, our family dinner tonight
[7:41]is mac and cheese, fried chicken and salad. And everyone sat down to that meal. That's a delicious meal.
[7:47]And maybe we're not going to eat that every night. But that's a perfectly fine way to feed your
[7:50]family. What you want to watch out for is, Hey kids, dad and I are having salmon and broccoli.
[7:56]But I know you won't eat that. So here are your chicken nuggets and your mac and cheese. Then you've
[8:01]sent a very different message to your children about food and what food they should or can eat,
[8:06]what, you know, they're readiness to embrace healthier food. That's where I think parents need to
[8:10]pause. Like what am I teaching my kids with these foods? And you address in your book the very
[8:16]picky eater nature of many kids. Yes. There's a term for it. It was called Neo food,
[8:21]Neo phobia. Right. It's afraid of new foods. Right. So we often just resort to, you know,
[8:27]default kid menu type things. Exactly. So tell me why we should not be doing this.
[8:32]Well, so let me just say one thing about food, Neo phobia. Because I feel like if you get
[8:37]nothing else out of this book, I feel like I'm doing this public service to tell parents of
[8:42]really young kids like babies or, you know, early toddlerhood that I did not know this. And I
[8:48]would love to have known this when my kids were little. That all toddlers go through a period of
[8:52]food, Neo phobia. Even if you had that baby that was happily eating every puree that you gave them,
[8:57]they're going to go through a period where they suddenly back off and get reluctant.
[9:01]And if someone had told me that, I would have known like, oh, this is just a normal stage of
[9:05]childhood, you know, just like newborns keep you up at night, you know, and potty training can be
[9:10]difficult. And you just, you just would roll with it. But if you don't know that that's coming,
[9:14]and I didn't, then you assume you have a picky eater. So to get to your question, you know,
[9:19]what you don't want to do is throw up your hands and stop offering healthier foods and say,
[9:24]well, my kid will only eat noodles and pizza. So I'm just going to go that route because it's
[9:29]easier. You have to just take the long view, stay the course, and they will eventually come around.
[9:34]But you, you know, it's very understandable why parents often, you know, want to just give up.
[9:40]But I feel like I know some grown up so soon. Like how do you know when the face is over?
[9:45]Right. Right. That's tricky. Right. It is tricky. It is tricky. And, you know, I'm always very
[9:50]open about the fact that, you know, I'm not a child feeding expert. There are people who are
[9:53]going to train in this thing. You all know not at all. I mean, I talk about it in the book and I'm
[9:56]glad to talk about it, but I do want to let everyone know that if you really,
[10:00]are worried like, hey, you know, you're reassuring me, but my kid hasn't eaten a vegetable
[10:04]in three years and I'm really worried about it. I point you in my appendix to all kinds
[10:08]of experts who I have known for a long time or, you know, really, really trust and whose
[10:12]books are fantastic and who can really help you get over that hump. Make sure your kids are
[10:17]on a reasonably healthy path as you're, you know, working toward their, you know, expanding
[10:22]their palettes. So, you know, just want to give that caveat.
[10:25]Can we talk a little bit about sugar because you also talk about this in the book and you say
[10:29]that you do feed your kids treats and that's okay and it's moderation and obviously we
[10:35]know all this from the news in blah, blah, blah. But how do you think sugar affects kids? Like,
[10:40]how much is too much? Like, give me some sort of roadmap as a part of sugar loving kids.
[10:45]So, so here's the thing. So, we didn't used to have like really firm guidance on how much
[10:51]added sugar is too much for kids, but now the American Heart Association has said,
[10:55]kids should not be getting more than four to six teaspoons of added sugar a day.
[11:00]And I got to tell you, that's not very much an add sugar. And, you know, I would encourage parents
[11:05]to keep that number in mind, but it's tough. It's really tough to adhere to that quota.
[11:12]It's like breakfast time. We've already blown through the food.
[11:14]Exactly. Well, I'm done for the day. It's like nine o'clock.
[11:18]And truly, one real societal problem is school breakfast for all kinds of reasons that I
[11:23]explain in the book can be particularly sugary. So, kids can get like three times that quota
[11:28]just at their school breakfast. So, I totally feel that. And as I say in the book, and as you just
[11:34]said, I'm not anti-sugar. I love sweets. I love sharing them with my kids. I think what we really
[11:39]have is more of a societal problem, putting aside what you do in your own home. And I'm not telling
[11:44]anyone not to bake cookies with their kids or have a little dessert every night.
[11:47]It's really outside our homes where kids are getting inundated with sugar. And one thing I did in
[11:52]in the book is I devoted a whole chapter. It's called Just One Treat. And I take a hypothetical
[11:57]fourth grader like through her typical day. And I show all the ways in which she gets just one treat
[12:04]from different adults or different situations in her life. And by the end of the day, just from the
[12:09]treats outside your home, not the dessert you're serving them, not even the school meal,
[12:14]they could get three times as much sugar as they're supposed to have. So, I really think,
[12:18]you know, certainly parents have a role to play and we should be reading labels and not go crazy
[12:22]with sugar. But I think really we have more of a societal problem that we need to be looking at
[12:26]in terms of the degree to which our children are just blooded with sugar.
[12:29]Yeah, so I feel like maybe reasoning with the kids a little bit. I mean, do you think that's a last
[12:33]cause? Well, I mean, I think, you know, it depends on the age. I think it depends on the age.
[12:38]And you don't want to like, you know, make anything taboo because that can always backfire.
[12:42]I think it's perfectly okay to explain to kids that you know, treats are a normal and happy
[12:47]and wonderful part of life, but they are treats. So, you know, the baseline of what we should
[12:51]eat is healthy. And then, you know, the occasional food should be treats. And so, you know, some
[12:55]people use like a red, green, yellow system to explain food to kids. Like, you know, these are the
[13:00]green light foods that we can eat as much of any time. And these are the yellow that we might want
[13:04]to just go easy on. And the red, this is the sort of thing we should have just once in a while.
[13:08]You know, that's a very simple way of explaining it to children that I think they can understand.
[13:12]And you had something really funny in your acknowledgement section about your own kids. And I just
[13:16]wanted to read this funny quote. You think your kids for their help. And you said,
[13:20]I know it wasn't easy, always easy being my kids, especially back when I was trying to get
[13:24]birthday treats out of your school classrooms or refusing to bring Gatorade to soccer practice
[13:28]like everyone else. Oh my god, mom. So tell me, tell me about this because we are all familiar
[13:35]with the kid I roll at this point. Absolutely. How did this research and, you know, societal digging
[13:42]into food, culture and habits affect your own family? Well, it was hard. And that's why
[13:50]that's why I'm so empathetic with parents because I walked this walk too. And it's so hard to
[13:55]say to your kid, every other mom or dad is bringing Gatorade when it's their turn for soccer snack.
[14:00]And I'm bringing water. And I'm just sorry, but that's what I'm doing. And here's why it is
[14:04]extremely difficult. And what I think is that in that situation, it's not so much that they want
[14:09]the Gatorade is that they just want to be like everybody else. They don't want to be set apart.
[14:13]You know, you know how kids care about that so much. And so that's part of why I wrote the book
[14:18]because it's almost more of a cultural societal issue than your kid just wanting that. Like another
[14:23]example is the birthday cupcake. Kids typically want the birthday cupcake brought in because
[14:27]everyone else is bringing in the birthday cupcake. But if the teacher had said or the principal
[14:31]had said, we just don't do cupcakes. The way we celebrate birthdays in this classroom is you get
[14:35]to pick story for story hour. They wouldn't think about cupcakes. You know, so in other words,
[14:40]there are these cultural factors that make it so hard for parents to swim upstream. And so one
[14:46]goal in writing the book is to think about maybe we could change the culture. Maybe we could talk
[14:51]to the soccer coach and say, look, here's the research on why kids don't need Gatorade and actually
[14:56]crazy statistic. Kids who play team sports eat more junk food than kids who don't. Partly because
[15:02]of these snacks. And another crazy statistic, kids often consume more calories in the snack and
[15:08]beverage at a sports event than they'll burn off on the field. So, you know, if we could change
[15:13]change it at the top and the soccer coach says to everyone, we're just bringing water,
[15:16]then that takes it off parents' shoulders because it is very hard to buck the system.
[15:20]My gosh, my son did travel baseball for one season. That is like the eating mech all he did was like
[15:26]sit and I mean, whether or not it bad, you're sat and ate there. And then like stood around the
[15:32]field. I was like, well, how's his exercise? Like, I'm getting more exercise pacing wondering when
[15:36]this game is going to end. Anyway, I get it. How have you found the reaction to this to be
[15:42]have you felt like soccer coaches are open to this idea? So, you know, I'm not in any way
[15:49]pretending that this is always easy. But I do everything I can to support parents. One chapter in
[15:55]a book is called Pushing Back. And it's just devoted to parent face-to-face advocacy, which I say in
[16:01]the book completely frankly, I find that really scary and hard. I've been on national television
[16:05]doing battle with McDonald's and that was less scary to me than it would be to go to my soccer
[16:09]coach and say, can we just have water? So, I really get that this can be scary for parents. So,
[16:14]I created these 14 rules, not just from my own experience and my many mistakes, but also talking to
[16:20]a number of other really successful parent advocates. And I think those rules are really sound
[16:25]good advice. And I even in the case of soccer snacks specifically, I refer you to a colleague of
[16:30]my name, Sally Kuzamchak, who blogs at RealMom Nutrition. She has made cleaning up sports snacks,
[16:35]herth thing, and has a whole guide, sample letters you can give to the coach, ways to get other
[16:41]parents on board with you because it's always better if you have allies instead of going alone.
[16:46]So, I really do everything I can to make it easier and less intimidating for parents.
[16:51]I feel like your tips are good, not just for food advocacy. I feel like they're good for anything.
[16:55]I think that you want to fight for a change in any environment. It could just be like
[17:00]something you want to change in your work environment or one little thing at the school or something.
[17:04]I think they're good tips. You can take them anywhere, right? Exactly. Because things like
[17:08]don't go over people's heads and be respectful. Those are all things that, yes, absolutely,
[17:12]we can use them lots of areas of our lives. And you have this 50 page free ebook called Guide
[17:17]to Getting Young Food Out of Your Child's Classroom for anyone who signs up for your
[17:20]mailing list at the lunch tray. And I downloaded it and I was like, I feel like I should send this
[17:24]to the headmaster at my kid's schools. You are welcome to do that. I hope they pay attention.
[17:30]I mean, the book was not meant for, you know, pandas over to your school. It was really meant
[17:35]in power parents to talk to their school. Absolutely. If you want to let them know about the book and
[17:41]have them download a copy, you know, absolutely. And there is one thing in the book that I
[17:47]originated on my blog called The Lunch Trays Food in the Classroom Manifesto. Not to make me sound
[17:52]like a radical crazy person, but I was so fed up with the amount of junk food in my kid's classrooms.
[17:56]And I just wrote a little manifesto on why this is problematic. And I've been told that parents
[18:01]have printed that out and brought that with them to meetings. And I, and that's really
[18:05]gratifying to hear that that's become this very helpful sort of point of discussion with their
[18:10]schools. It's so inspiring to know that you can like have any impact on a societal problem.
[18:17]I mean, I know that sounds silly, but there's so many things that maybe aren't going the way
[18:21]ideally in our heads who would want them. And you're just like taking a stab and like chunking
[18:24]thinking away at it and saying like you might not change the entire system, but you're devoting
[18:29]your professional life to this. It's amazing. I'm trying, you know. And as I say at the end of the
[18:33]book, you know, the magnitude of this problem, our children's very unhealthy food environment,
[18:39]you know, can you just almost want to throw up your hands because it feels so huge. But the
[18:43]silver lining in that is it is so huge that every one of us can do something. And you know,
[18:49]some parents, I understand you're busy, you're tired, you're raising your kids. Maybe you don't
[18:52]want to be like the fiery activist. I get that. I didn't want to be a fiery activist when I started.
[18:56]But you can take on something really, really small. It could just be in your own home.
[18:59]You know, what we talked about, not serving kid food and having everyone sit down to the same meal,
[19:03]it could be taking on the teacher who's passing out candy, just a really limited context that can
[19:08]make a real difference. Or maybe you're going to get fired up and want to go, you know, improve school
[19:12]food, which is a huge thing. So I think there's a role for all of us in our homes and outside our
[19:16]homes. That's awesome. Wait to tell me like two seconds about how you wrote this book yourself.
[19:22]Like when did you write this book? How did you find time? Like when did you, how did you get it all
[19:26]done? When did it become a book for you? So, you know, I have been blogging at the lunch day
[19:30]almost for 10 years now. And I adore blogging. It's such a fun medium. You know, it's instantaneous.
[19:37]You have an idea. You posted it. You're talking about it with people. It's wonderful.
[19:40]But I started to feel frustration because there's only so much you can do in a blog post. You
[19:45]don't want to wear out your blog reader. They're not expecting a tome, you know? And I felt like
[19:50]I've been doing this for so long talking to parents, talking to food policy people, talking to
[19:54]school food professionals. I'm so privileged to kind of be at this like kind of perch over all
[20:00]that and starting to get this really big picture. And I just started to have this urge,
[20:05]I want to share the big picture now. And so that's really what motivated me to write a book
[20:08]proposal and ultimately write the book. I will say, it was hard. It was harder than I thought it
[20:15]would be. I've been blogging so long. I had all this hubris like this will just, I could write
[20:19]this in a month. And it was hard. It was hard to learn how to write a book. It was a real
[20:24]learning curve for me. But in the end, a fantastic one I so enjoyed doing it.
[20:28]How long did it take to write the book? So this was really funny. They gave me 18 months to write
[20:32]the book. And I remember being on the phone with them and saying, Oh, haha, you know, I can get it done
[20:36]in four months. You know, don't worry about it. And 21 months later, I hadn't had the manuscript and
[20:42]everyone was furious at me. I was like, I will say there was a long period where I was, even though I
[20:48]had chapter outlines and thought I knew exactly what I was doing. The minute I sat down to write it,
[20:52]I realized I don't know what I'm doing here. And I have such a mountain of material that I
[20:57]share with you. But my utmost goal was I want this to be a book a parent could literally bring on
[21:02]vacation. I want it to be readable and hopefully entertaining at points and not in any way like a wonky
[21:08]slog. And figuring out how to organize that and make that flow turned out to be so hard. And I
[21:16]actually credit my breaking through that writer's block to a friend of mine who mentioned I've
[21:22]never watched Homeland. But even I know that in Homeland Carrie has this crazy wall where she has
[21:27]a million things on the wall. She's like, you need a wall of crazy. And I was like, okay, so I went and
[21:32]got all these like poster boards and post it and just plastered my office with that. And that
[21:38]actually moving the post it's around. And you know, it helped me kind of visually conceptualize the
[21:43]book. And that was a huge help in kind of getting myself going. And what is coming next for you
[21:49]now? You have this book out in the world. Oh, no, it's out. Yes. I don't know. It's a huge question
[21:56]for me. I don't know what's going to happen next. I feel like this is the culmination of something
[22:01]and I feel so proud of it. And I don't really know where I'm going. So we'll find out. I mean,
[22:06]it's kind of like having a baby like it's so miserable when you're in the middle of labor and
[22:10]the minute you have that baby, we're like, I have another one. So I sort of feel like maybe I'll
[22:14]write another book. But, but also I feel like, you know, I want to keep up my blog and I want to
[22:19]keep up my advocacy. And I just, and one thing that I really have loved is just directly engaging
[22:24]with parents through the books. So I really don't know. We'll see. That's okay. Yeah. I feel like
[22:28]maybe I should stop asking authors that question. Did they all say like I have no clue?
[22:32]Because I'm interested because I'm interested if you were going to do a second book or a fifth
[22:37]tenth book or whatever. If they decided that was terrible, I never wanted to do another one.
[22:41]If they want to now go into screenplays. If they're like, I'm done with this, I'm going to
[22:45]like go get a degree. And I don't know. You just never know what people are doing next.
[22:48]I know. I know. And nothing. Like, it's okay. If there's no next project, like I don't care.
[22:53]I'm just curious. Like, what's up with you? What, you know, what comes after this? Because I feel
[22:58]like publishing a book is like the goal, right? Yeah. But that's not the end.
[23:03]Right. Then what? You get this big, then what? Right. And I will say just as I said that,
[23:07]you know, I'm not a spontaneous person. And then I started this spontaneous blog and it led to
[23:11]this crazy and wonderful life path. I kind of trust in that now a little bit more. Like, my,
[23:17]my lordily logical side has calmed down. And like, you know what? I trust that this will lead
[23:22]to the next thing. I really do feel it will lead to the next thing. Whatever that is.
[23:25]And what, what advice would you have to both aspiring authors and also just the mom out there
[23:31]who's struggling today and planning on feeding their kids chicken nuggets like perhaps I am tonight
[23:36]no judgment. No judgment. Okay. So to aspiring writers, I guess I would just say you've got
[23:42]a right. You've got to make yourself right and find outlets to do that. And it's funny, I know
[23:46]you told me you had taken a media bistro class when that existed. I took a media bistro class to
[23:51]you though. And I think having a writers group like other people, other aspiring writers is really
[23:56]helpful. One other thing that really helped me write this book when I was in such a jam was I was
[24:01]trying to do it in a vacuum. I wasn't showing my pages to anyone. And I was getting
[24:05]really like freaked out about the process. And finally, this is so funny. It's Paula Darrow, who you
[24:11]know, your media media teacher who's a dear friend of mine. Out of the blue, we don't talk that
[24:16]often on the phone. Out of the blue, she called me and she said, what's going on with you? I haven't
[24:20]heard from you. What's going on with the book? And it was like, she knew. And I was like, I'm freaking out.
[24:23]What do I do? And she's like, you can't write no vacuum. You need to get feedback. And so I started
[24:27]sending my pages to her and another dear friend who's a writer and editor. And that broke
[24:32]the law jam too, like just getting feedback. So I think that's really important. If you're an
[24:35]aspiring writer, don't try to go it alone. It's really helpful to get feedback from people you
[24:40]trust and respect. And then as for the mom, who's worried and struggling and reaching for the
[24:45]chicken nuggets, I mean, first of all, I would say, please don't beat yourself up. You know, one of the
[24:50]biggest goals of this book was just for me to validate you. You are not crazy. This is hard. You
[24:55]know, you are doing your best. And there are forces in this world powerful forces in some cases
[25:00]that are working against you. And so don't beat yourself up tomorrow's another day. And hopefully,
[25:06]if you read my book, you'll, you'll, you know, walk away educated and hopefully feeling like you
[25:11]can navigate this a little bit more easily. That's my goal. Well, check for your goal. I feel like you
[25:17]gave everybody really specific actionable, easy to follow tips and tools and information. And it's
[25:23]great. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming in. Mom sent her time to read books.
[25:27]It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks for listening to mom. Don't have time to read books,
[25:31]the award-winning podcast. Today's episode of mom's don't have time to read books was sponsored by
[25:37]pediatrician in your pocket by Dr. Jennifer Tractenberg, Dr. Dash Jen Dotcom and her code PIP 20,
[25:44]PIP 20, for 20% off of these can't miss modules that will make your parenting life so much easier.
[25:51]You can follow me on Instagram at mom's don't have time to read books. Thanks so much to Steve
[25:56]and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to morning moon productions for
[26:01]providing this fantastic intro and out trim music. Thanks for listening. You can always email me
[26:06]at zibi at zibiowans.com.