Mark McConville, FAILURE TO LAUNCH
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[0:42]I'm talking to Dr. Mark McConville, PhD, who's the author of Failure to Launch,
[0:46]while your 20-something hasn't grown up and what to do about it.
[0:49]He is a clinical psychologist and private practice in Cleveland, Ohio.
[0:53]As a senior member of the faculty of the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland,
[0:57]he has lectured and taught widely about child development, parenting, and counseling.
[1:01]He currently lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with his wife
[1:04]and within visiting distance of his two children and seven grandchildren.
[1:07]Welcome, Dr. McConville, to moms. I don't have time to read books.
[1:11]That's so disappointing to hear that moms don't have time to read books.
[1:14]I'm hoping they do. That's my whole mission here is to help people get some book content.
[1:20]You're going to open them into it, aren't you?
[1:21]Yes, I'm trying. Especially with books like yours, Failure to Launch,
[1:26]why your 20-something hasn't grown up and what to do about it.
[1:30]Can you tell our listeners a little more about what this book is about other than its subtitle?
[1:35]Well, it's a book for parents, for sure, and specifically parents of kids who are
[1:42]they're entering emerging adulthood, emerging adulthood being 18 to 30, roughly,
[1:48]and that first part of emerging adulthood is usually referred to as the launching
[1:53]substage, and that substage has actually a curriculum to it.
[1:58]There are things we want to see kids doing that we know if they're doing them,
[2:02]it portends well for where they're going to end up by age 30.
[2:06]And when they're not doing them, I encounter parents who are just perplexed because the fact is
[2:13]there is no handbook for how do you parent a 20-something.
[2:17]And this today's generation of parents are much more, I don't want to say saddled, but they
[2:24]are engaged with their kids longer because kids need support longer given all of the
[2:31]particulars about education and the economy. And so they're left still being close to the
[2:38]action, seeing their kids' behavior, but they don't, unless the kid is kind of doing it on his
[2:44]or her own, they really sort of stumped as to how to intervene, how to exert influence,
[2:51]how to do it in a way that is constructive rather than just creating conflict and friction.
[2:56]So that's what this book is about. It's for those parents.
[2:59]Yeah, it's funny, as you were talking about how parenting is now such an active thing,
[3:05]right? You don't just stop being a parent because your child is past 13 years.
[3:09]There should really be books written by like 90-year-olds about how to parent their middle-aged
[3:14]children, because I think my grandmother still has trouble sometimes with my mom,
[3:18]you know, and she's like, you know, 70 and 95. So, you know, and she's never ends, basically.
[3:24]You're right, you think it's over, but I call it parenting and overtime.
[3:31]Yeah, it's a illusion of getting your kids to 18 and says it's nothing.
[3:36]No, but what's very interesting though is when I started my career, the belief and the solid
[3:43]among therapists is my specialty has always been adolescents. If we could get that kid to 18,
[3:50]they'll be fine. The world will take over the parenting and the world, of course, is a much better
[3:56]parent because it doesn't coddle and it requires you to take your own initiative.
[4:02]And it was really, it was a very valid principle. We could just get those kids to 18.
[4:08]The adolescent trouble would evaporate. Well, that is not even close to true today, right?
[4:15]It's just not close to true. If you can get them to 30, you've got a pretty good chance.
[4:21]Although I don't know, I know a lot of 30-year-olds who could use a little help.
[4:24]That's right. But it can't put your responsibility forever.
[4:28]So, when you talked about picking up on signs early that will put your teen in a good place later,
[4:35]how far back can we work? Can we start with my five-year-old and see what behaviors do I need?
[4:42]Or what can I watch out for? How early can you spot the signs that maybe they will not be launching?
[4:49]I don't think you can spot the signs back then. But you can certainly, as a parenting model or
[4:55]parenting agenda, you can start as soon as they're able to take on even the most minimal responsibility,
[5:02]anything you do that supports initiative or accountability. So, you know, your job was to set
[5:09]the table tonight. And look, we're ready for dinner and the table's not set. You get in there.
[5:14]I'll help you if you need so that you're learning the lesson that just kind of blowing it off
[5:19]doesn't work very well in this family, right? An initiative, you know, that kid brings home that
[5:25]project of something they're going to build a Rube Goldberg machine and, you know, my kid would
[5:32]bring that home and, boy, I could not wait to get to that assignment. And I wanted to know what kind
[5:37]of grade I got when it was over, right? But those things where we hold back and we put
[5:42]ourselves in that subordinate supportive role. So, the kid is learning initiative, right? And
[5:49]that's often when you see it, you just, you reinforce it. You have a kid. One of my granddaughters
[5:55]came home two years ago and said, I want to learn the ukulele. And we all kind of looked at each
[6:01]other and said, you know, we have zero musical ability in this family. And then I don't know
[6:08]unless she's going to follow in the steps of Tiny Tim. She's not a tremendous amount of future.
[6:14]But my daughter's response was, let's go get a ukulele. And let's find a ukulele teacher.
[6:20]You know, you see that initiative. Now, she stayed interested for about six months and parents get
[6:26]discouraged. But that's okay. Learning to have initiative, right? That I have a curiosity or an
[6:32]interest. And the environment responds in a way that's encouraging. Now, at some point,
[6:38]that same, that's in the ukulele player is now an utterly committed Irish dancer.
[6:44]It's just brought home a trove of medals from a competition in a neighboring city.
[6:50]So it's just, it's the process of initiative that you're supporting. So those are the things
[6:55]I would say about early childhood. You have some responsibilities. That's your job to put
[7:01]your clothes in the shoot. And as all parents know, if you have young children, it takes much more
[7:06]energy to do the parenting than it does to pick up the pajamas and put them in the shoot yourself.
[7:13]Right. Yep. You know, I found it interesting your whole section in the book on motivation,
[7:18]like parents saying, how do I get my kids to do that? How do I get my son to go to class and
[7:24]college? Or how do I get him to maybe stop drinking? Or how do I get her to drive a car better,
[7:29]something, you know, all these little things. And you talk all about motivation and actually
[7:33]you referenced Daniel Pink who was on my podcast in the past. That was very good.
[7:36]Wow. Yeah. So I'm impressed with myself. Yeah. So tell me a little more about motivation. And
[7:45]is it really something? Can we, how do we foster motivation and not sort of force it down kids
[7:51]throats, right? When we want them to do things, but really they have to do it for themselves?
[7:57]Yeah. Of course, we look for, I mean, there are a number of answers to your question.
[8:01]One is you look for it where it grows in the wild. You know, your kid brings home a passion,
[8:06]like we said, a ukulele or Irish dancing. And you, you foster that and you support it.
[8:13]Well, that, that really cultivates the capacity to be passionate 20 years from now that
[8:19]it child may be passionate about something quite different. So that's the, that's the way you
[8:23]support in internal motivation. But let's say said, extrinsic external motivation is part
[8:30]certainly a parenting. You know, that child does not want to empty the dishwasher. It takes a
[8:36]parent that says, look, if you don't empty the dishwasher, then you know, we're not,
[8:40]there's no, no movie after dinner or something. So, so we use external motivation and,
[8:48]and kids then that, you know, we hope over time they will internalize it. Many do not all,
[8:56]but the problem is that's kind of our repertoire. And so now you've got a 22 year old
[9:02]who is taking a semester off from college and you realize he's taking the semester off,
[9:09]he's not doing much of anything. And so you, we, we of course rely on all the,
[9:15]the tried and true that we go back to the extrinsic. I'm going to try to encourage you. I'm going
[9:20]to try to inspire you. I'm going to maybe threaten you a little bit. I'm going to try to maybe
[9:25]present some consequences. And that tends to create, particularly with 20 some things, more
[9:32]tension and conflict in the relationship. Because frankly, you don't have the same leverage you had,
[9:38]you know, at 16, you could say, you want the car keys this weekend, then, you know, the,
[9:43]the leaves have to be rigged. I'm sorry. You don't do your chores. You don't buy into the privileges.
[9:48]At 22, what shifts is, and I introduced a notion that comes out of Gestalt therapy called creative
[9:56]adjustment, which is the fact that so much of what we learn.
[10:00]earned in life.
[10:02]So much of what makes the world go around in adulthood,
[10:05]it's not stuff we're passionate for.
[10:07]I mean, you're lucky if you have some things
[10:09]you're passionate for, but you know,
[10:11]you, you I suspect are passionate about this podcast.
[10:14]So, so the, it comes from within,
[10:16]but when you and I are done,
[10:18]you've got to go walk the dog, right?
[10:20]You've got to pick up your, your daughter
[10:22]at ukulele practice.
[10:24]We've been, you know, there's, there's all these things.
[10:27]And, and what that has to do with is necessity, right?
[10:30]And necessity is different.
[10:32]And so the, the phrasing I like is,
[10:34]you can't get your 22 year old to do something,
[10:38]but you can set up circumstances.
[10:40]So your 22 year old begins to get it
[10:42]that he's got to do something himself.
[10:44]There's a story in the book that kind of,
[10:47]I'd love to tell this story because it's one of my things.
[10:49]Yes.
[10:50]Absolutely, a literally true story.
[10:52]A dad laments to me.
[10:54]And this was, this was actually a personal friend,
[10:57]but he, he laments to me that his 19 year old,
[11:00]who tried to kill an air school, but it didn't take.
[11:04]And he's a really sweet kid.
[11:06]It wasn't doing drugs or alcohol,
[11:08]had a lovely girlfriend that the parents really liked.
[11:11]And he was working a few hours a week
[11:12]for telling neighbors helping out with landscaping,
[11:16]but he wasn't getting a real job.
[11:18]And the dad, he said,
[11:20]how do I get him to get out there and get a real job?
[11:24]And my conversation was, well,
[11:26]what bills does he have?
[11:28]He said, bills, he doesn't have any income.
[11:30]How can he have bills?
[11:31]And I said, no, actually, it works the other way around.
[11:36]And so he said, well, come to think of it,
[11:38]I went in with him on a used car,
[11:41]because I figured if he's going to work,
[11:43]first of all, if he's going to look for a job
[11:45]and then if he's going to get back and forth,
[11:47]he's going to need transportation.
[11:49]So they went in havesies.
[11:51]I said, how's it work?
[11:52]And he said, well,
[11:53]we got it about six months ago.
[11:55]He made most of his half of the first month's payment,
[11:59]and I haven't seen a penny since.
[12:02]Oh, okay.
[12:04]And this is the classic dilemma
[12:07]for the parent of a 20-something.
[12:10]Like I should just take that car away,
[12:13]but wait a minute, if I do what's the likelihood
[12:16]he'll ever get a job, right?
[12:19]And then if he does get one,
[12:20]I'm going to have to drive him back here.
[12:22]So the parent has got between a rock and a hard place.
[12:25]There's not a lot they can do.
[12:28]And I said, how's the payment system?
[12:30]How's it set up?
[12:31]Well, you know, bank loan, coupon book,
[12:34]every month I say, hey,
[12:36]you got your check for $300?
[12:39]No, I don't, I don't, I don't.
[12:41]So Dad writes the check for $600.
[12:43]I said, why don't you flip it around?
[12:45]Next month, give your son the coupon book
[12:48]and a check for $300.
[12:50]So the economics don't change at all,
[12:53]but what changes are the ground rules
[12:56]or the boundaries of the relationship.
[12:58]So somebody has to carry this dilemma, this problem,
[13:03]how to keep this car from being repossessed
[13:06]or you know, whatever.
[13:08]Somebody has to own that.
[13:09]And the problem is that that was on the dad's side
[13:12]of the relationship boundary.
[13:14]And the getting him to do it
[13:17]was to put the dilemma on the kid's side,
[13:20]that kid had a full-time job
[13:21]within a matter of two or three weeks.
[13:24]Love it, that's awesome.
[13:26]True story.
[13:27]And he said, he says, you know,
[13:29]the end of the first month, he comes to me and says,
[13:31]Dad, can I borrow $150?
[13:34]And the dad said, he said, I did,
[13:36]he actually pulled his pockets inside out.
[13:39]Said, you know, I'm tapped out at the moment.
[13:42]That's creating necessity.
[13:44]And when you have necessity, you start,
[13:47]you, you, me, any of us.
[13:49]We connect the dots and we do something
[13:51]that we would not otherwise have been disposed
[13:54]or interested in doing.
[13:55]Sounds like the less you can enable your child
[13:58]at any age, the better, right?
[14:01]Yeah, I think always trying to pay attention to,
[14:05]I like to call it the 49% rule.
[14:08]Like, you know, we're gonna get this job done,
[14:10]but I want you to be the majority owner
[14:12]of this enterprise, this project, whatever it is.
[14:15]And I'm willing to help out and be a part of it,
[14:18]be the supportive parent, supportive grandparent.
[14:21]But not if you're doing your part,
[14:22]if you don't care enough about getting that hoverboard,
[14:27]like one of my other granddaughters,
[14:28]if you don't care enough about it, not on my list.
[14:32]I like how you said, we have to go from being supervisors
[14:35]to consultants, right?
[14:37]Like we're sort of on the wings, exactly what it is.
[14:41]Because everybody thinks, okay, we know children develop.
[14:45]There's a science called child development.
[14:47]Nobody realizes that parenting goes through
[14:50]the same kind of developmental sequential stages.
[14:55]And in each stage, I've written a technical paper
[14:58]about this that I won't get into the details,
[15:01]but at each stage, there's a different kind of contract
[15:05]or paradigm that has to do with two things.
[15:09]It has to do with power, and it has to do with boundaries.
[15:12]So if I have a four-year-old,
[15:15]my four-year-old's business is my business.
[15:19]There's no such thing, you know, other than
[15:21]when they say our granddaughters would say,
[15:25]I want privacy when they would go into the bathroom.
[15:28]Okay, that's fair enough.
[15:30]But you don't, anything they're up to,
[15:33]you should be vigilant, you should be overseeing,
[15:36]you should be a helicopter, right?
[15:38]And the power, which is the responsibility,
[15:41]lays on the parent's side.
[15:43]So even when you concede power to the child,
[15:46]it's because you chose to do so.
[15:48]You let them choose an outfit, that sort of thing.
[15:51]You know, I actually have a story that illustrates
[15:54]this sequence, because I saw it in one afternoon
[15:57]from supervision in that first stage,
[16:01]supervision and caretaking,
[16:02]into the second stage, which is negotiation,
[16:06]and into the third stage, which is consultation.
[16:09]And in each successive stage,
[16:10]the child has more of the power, and you have less.
[16:14]And what used to be your business
[16:16]is none of the child's business.
[16:17]So my oldest granddaughters, making her first communion.
[16:21]And she comes down, her mother tells me the story,
[16:24]I didn't see it.
[16:25]She comes down in the morning,
[16:26]she's got this beautiful white dress on, everyone's excited.
[16:30]And she's got a pair of some slip-on shoes
[16:33]that are very comfortable.
[16:34]And her mother looks at her and says, uh-uh, no,
[16:37]that is not how this works.
[16:40]There's a protocol for first communion.
[16:42]She hops and pops a little bit.
[16:44]She goes upstairs and she comes down
[16:46]with whatever the beautiful shoes are
[16:48]that they had bought for her, and off we go to church
[16:51]and the whole business takes place.
[16:53]And afterwards, we come back to their house
[16:55]and cousins and family are gathering.
[16:58]And she immediately goes to the slip-ons.
[17:01]And my daughter says, we have to do photos.
[17:06]And that doesn't work for the photos.
[17:08]Well, they argue back and forth.
[17:10]And my daughter says, okay, I'll make a concession.
[17:13]If you'll keep them on, you're shoes on for the photos,
[17:17]then you can switch to whatever you like.
[17:20]So now they're negotiating.
[17:22]They're horse trading, right?
[17:23]So they do the photographs.
[17:25]And then my granddaughters goes and puts the slip-ons on,
[17:28]at which point my daughter's just a consultant.
[17:30]Like, you know what?
[17:31]I think they look kind of dumb,
[17:33]but it's your call, it's not my call.
[17:37]So I just, I remember watching that thinking,
[17:40]oh my God, there they are.
[17:41]There's all three modes of parenting.
[17:44]And what happens developmentally is with children,
[17:47]you really must be the supervisor.
[17:49]So you decide when to negotiate, when to consult.
[17:53]But when you have an adolescent,
[17:55]you don't get to make that, sometimes you,
[17:57]you're gonna have to negotiate with you like it or not
[17:59]because they are pulling some of their own weight.
[18:02]And so you, you horse trade, you, you,
[18:05]you give in on something provided that they commit
[18:08]to follow through with some responsibility.
[18:10]And then when you get past adolescence into emerging adulthood,
[18:13]you really want to become the consultant
[18:16]because a consultant who has plenty to say,
[18:19]lots of knowledge, lots of wisdom, but they have no power.
[18:24]They really are, you know, it's more of,
[18:27]it's the dad who says to his 19-year-old,
[18:30]have you gotten those job applications filled out yet?
[18:33]You know, I think you need to get on it
[18:35]because this job isn't gonna wait around forever.
[18:38]That's, he is drifted back into being a supervisor.
[18:42]And I coach him to say something more like,
[18:45]I know you got a lot on your plate
[18:46]and job applications can be confusing.
[18:49]Lord knows, I feel a lot enough of them myself.
[18:52]Let me know at any point if I can give you a hand with this,
[18:54]which is if you're on the receiving end of that,
[18:57]you're the kid.
[18:59]In the first example, you feel like a kid.
[19:01]But in the second example, you just feel affirmed
[19:04]as someone who's capable of owning the issue,
[19:08]of having an initiative, right?
[19:10]You feel more grown up.
[19:12]This is excellent advice,
[19:13]even as a parent of tweens and this is fantastic.
[19:16]And I like how, you know, you're empathizing right away,
[19:19]right? Like you've been there and.
[19:21]Oh, yeah, so, and I,
[19:23]if you've got tweens, here's my tip,
[19:26]the thing that negotiating, if I'm a 12 or 13 or 14 year old,
[19:32]and I have the experience that I can negotiate with you,
[19:35]you're my mom, I can get you to move off
[19:39]of your starting place and meet me halfway.
[19:43]I feel more enhanced.
[19:46]I feel more powerful.
[19:48]And I understand that the way to get things
[19:51]is to go through you to engage you,
[19:54]which is much better than just, I learned to be sneaky, right?
[19:58]And in my day, Paris.
[20:00]didn't negotiate. I was really good at being sneaky, you know. But, but so, so your
[20:06]daughter or son comes to you about something, you know, I want to, I want to go to
[20:11]so-and-so's bar mitzvah. And it's, you know, 25 miles away. I don't, you've got some vague
[20:16]reluctance, but you know, you know, you're going to say yes. You're much better off, though,
[20:23]to play hard to get, to say something like, well, I don't know about this. I'm not sure
[20:29]that's a great idea. Let me hear why you think it's a good idea. And you make your kid make their
[20:35]case. Hmm. I don't know. You know, can you answer this question for, so you make them kind of
[20:41]work up a petition. And then in the end you say, well, you know what? I can see your point. And I
[20:48]think we're going to say yes to this, right? Okay. Now, I'm that kid and I'm thinking like, yo.
[20:54]I did it. I got mom to change your mind. I, you know, and so I have more confidence in my
[21:04]reasoning ability, my verbal communication ability. I have more confidence in your ability
[21:10]to listen and actually be influenced by me. And that is a wonderful thing. And when you got teenagers,
[21:18]if they feel like I can influence my parents, I have to work at it. And I kind of have to play
[21:23]by the rules to do it. You've got a much more cognitively mature kid. So you start cultivating it
[21:30]when they're twins. That's play hard to get. I feel like there's a fine line between negotiation
[21:36]and influence and then manipulation. I feel like sometimes the kids are trying to
[21:41]manipulate me and then if I capitulate, it's like a failure. And then they feel like they have the
[21:45]power versus I'm developing their cognitive reasoning skills by this, you know, insane conversation.
[21:50]I think you've read my paper because I have this theory that negotiation is something that's
[21:59]learned in stages. Right. So, so here I am. I am sitting watching the end of the Sunday afternoon
[22:07]football game. And you know, I have a science project that I need to get done. And so you say Mark,
[22:14]time to turn the game off because you have to get to your science project. And I say to you,
[22:19]no, no, no, no, just let me watch the fourth quarter. And I promise I'll do it. And you say,
[22:26]okay, so if I let you watch the fourth quarter, then you'll get right on your science project.
[22:30]Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do I? Of course not. I meant the beginning. I'm a neophyte negotiation.
[22:37]So for me, this was just a clever way of getting you to back off. Right. So you have to go down
[22:43]that path. And then the next step for the parent is turn the TV off now and come and empty the
[22:50]dishwasher. No, no, no, I'll just let me finish this. No, no, no honey. We negotiated last week
[22:56]with the football game. You didn't get I had to get all over you at the science project.
[23:01]We are not making any deals. I'm sorry. Turn it off again. So as the kid, this is a kind of recursive
[23:09]the kid goes through and eventually the kid learns like, damn, I have to go empty that dishwasher
[23:15]because I told her I would. And they start to keep deals. It's a stage that I call quid pro quo,
[23:22]which is a term that's taken on all kinds of other meaning. But it's they learn,
[23:27]I can get what I want from you, but I do in fact have to give you something in return.
[23:33]But but getting them to that is itself a kind of developmental achievement. They don't start
[23:38]there. Right. And then just just to kind of give you some hope. The stage beyond that, right,
[23:46]is is when they keep their word. And this this is what Robert Kagan calls mutuality and it
[23:53]tends to come 18, 19, 20. When they keep their word or they keep their deal, mostly because they
[24:01]value the relationship. And I told you, I would do it. I don't want to let you down. Your trust
[24:08]in me matters. And so of course, I'm going to come through with it, which is a much more relational
[24:13]way of thinking and relating to your parent. But kids go through this sequence to get there.
[24:20]All right. I have some help now. So I'm so so tickled. What's interesting than what I think.
[24:26]Oh my gosh, I'm totally interested. I feel like if I could have you just here on my computer
[24:30]via Skype at all times, I could just, you know, love you my questions every day.
[24:35]So have my look into it. So what made you write this book failure to launch? You're,
[24:41]you know, you've been doing this for a while. You have this great position at your local,
[24:46]you know, you're running a whole center. You're like, you're this big guy. Why are you taking your
[24:50]time out to write this book? And why now? And why this? Why this book? I did not set out to write
[24:55]a book. I can tell you that. I learned this thing in graduate school. I went to an extraordinary
[25:02]graduate program. And one of the things they made us do, we had a two year sequence where we're
[25:07]learning therapy where some other graduate student was my unfortunate client. And what they made us do
[25:14]was keep journals. Now, I thought journaling was about the dumbest thing I'd ever heard of.
[25:20]But the journals they proposed were you are to be writing about the things that are perplexing
[25:25]you in your therapy work and integrating them with the things that you're reading in the vast
[25:32]reading resources we had and integrating all of that with what you're hearing in lecture and
[25:38]discussion classes and integrating all of that with your own neurotic craziness. So you're trying
[25:44]to understand how all of that fits together. So I have in my cave of an office in my basement
[25:52]a stack of notebooks that literally is six or eight inches high. And I have always used it when
[25:59]things come up in therapy. It's how I wrote my first book on adolescence. I didn't set out to write
[26:03]a book. There was nothing out there that told me how to really engage and adolescent into a
[26:09]constructive relationship. So I would write about it. I would write about kids who challenged
[26:14]me or perplexed me or who said something very enlightening. And I started to do the same thing
[26:20]as I began to get more and more referrals of 20 some things who were presenting the clinical profile
[26:27]of adolescence. And that was I tried to date that somewhere around 2000 right around the early 2000s.
[26:33]And so I just did what I've always done is I would write three mornings a week as a kind of
[26:39]professional, personal reflection, writing about, you know, what the heck is going on here?
[26:46]How can it be helpful? Boy, that session yesterday was a mess. You know, I was wrestling with the
[26:52]issue. And over time, I began to understand it. And I began to do better work. And I began to find
[26:59]language for what I was understanding. And there was a time, and this was probably 12 years ago
[27:06]where I said, you know what? I may have a book here. And it felt like having a big,
[27:11]a morphist block of marble. And it was in there. The statue was in there. I had to figure out a way
[27:17]to get it out. And so I'm an incredibly slow worker. Some people accuse me of being
[27:23]perfectionistic. I don't think so. I think I just really care very deeply. There's not a word in
[27:29]that book that I don't believe in. And I feel whether nobody buys it or everybody buys it,
[27:35]I feel very proud of it because it's my voice. It's what I know. And so then I started that
[27:42]long project of trying to craft it into something that could work. And with a lot of help and support
[27:47]and encouragement, failure to launch. Which launched. Yeah, of course. I like how at the end of the
[27:55]book also you include a letter to the 20 something. So it's almost like a shortcut for parents. Like,
[28:01]I've read this whole book. And this is great. But here, I'm just going to give you this letter from
[28:05]this doctor in the book. And you read this now. And see how that helps. And look, I'm realistic. Like,
[28:11]one of the ads that that kid is going to read that. And so as you know, in about the second paragraph,
[28:17]I say, look, when somebody gives me something to read, I kind of smile politely and then toss it
[28:23]in the trash can. So, you know, that's what you do. I totally get it. No hard feelings. Good luck.
[28:31]But then I say, but give me three pages. Just see if I can get your interest with three pages.
[28:38]So I loved writing that I have to say. And I gave it to a couple of 20 some things
[28:44]who did not hesitate to edit the daylights out of it.
[28:48]The first one said, this is way too long. Nobody's going to read anything this long.
[28:53]But so yeah, it was fun to do. And I don't know if, you know, I guess if I ever get an
[29:00]email from a kid who says I read that and it was useful, I will do some results.
[29:06]But I think it, you know, I really thought as a kind of oblique communication,
[29:12]if parents read it, it's like, this is a different way to think of and speak to and understand
[29:19]your kid empathetically. So I really had a kind of double motive.
[29:26]And having just survived the book process and now with your book launching,
[29:30]do you have any advice to other authors? Well, you know, the advice I love reading
[29:35]writers on the subject of writing. It's just something I've always any dealer, I'm just an absolute
[29:42]I'm in trouble. I remain in trouble with her. John, update. And you know, what they say basically
[29:48]is right. You have to write. And I, I've had a lot of young clients who sort of, they had aspirations
[29:56]to write. I say, so are you writing? Well, no, I mean, I,
[30:00]I started a short story last summer.
[30:02]Well, the fact is, you have to build writing into your routine the way some people build
[30:08]exercise into their routine and it means you've got to sit down and write on the day when
[30:13]you feel as profoundly uninspired as you could ever be, but it's on your calendar and you do it.
[30:20]I have honest to God, if I were to show you my good journal that I spoke about,
[30:27]that there are countless entries that start with something like, hmm, followed by an ellipses.
[30:36]I have no idea what to do today. My brain is dead. This is going to be a waste of time.
[30:43]You know, I learned to write in stream of consciousness, which of course is like priming a pump.
[30:48]Right, but the fact is you've got to commit to the time and the energy of writing.
[30:55]That's the first thing. And then what's the second thing? Tell the truth. Tell what you know.
[31:01]A lot of it is finding, you know, when I write, I write like most people do with an audience
[31:08]and it's very distracting. If you're a people oriented person, the next thing and I'm writing to
[31:13]send, I've got some critical audience and I'm bullshitting my way through and it's not making any sense.
[31:19]And learning for one thing to write just to myself was like learning to meditate.
[31:24]It was very difficult to do. Once I had something to say, I would change it and I would have,
[31:29]I would think of a group of parents from one of the schools where I consult and I love talking to
[31:34]those groups of parents. They're so interested. It's like talking to you. They're interested.
[31:40]They seem to get what I'm saying. And I would write like they were listening and that was
[31:46]very helpful. But probably, so tell the truth, find your audience. The other very concrete thing is
[31:52]find a support group, find a writer's group. It just makes all the difference in the world.
[31:58]You've got someone that you're meeting with them in two or three weeks and you don't have anything
[32:06]and you'll go to the meeting and confess, I don't have anything and you will still walk out of
[32:11]the meeting inspired to get back to your writing desk. So I think the two things I'd say is
[32:17]you've got to make time and you're probably need a writer's group.
[32:20]Excellent. Well, thank you so much for all of this advice, not just on writing, but on raising
[32:25]kids from age four to tweens to 20 year olds and thanks for the framework of parenting and
[32:32]going through our own faces ourselves and having to navigate those and now we have a guide book.
[32:38]So thank you. Well, I just say you have been great fun to talk to. I really enjoy.
[32:43]Thanks. I'm so glad. You too. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you.
[32:49]You've been listening to Moms don't have time to read books with Zibi Owens. Please make sure
[32:53]to sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com to get more updates about episodes like these and
[32:59]also lots of live events. Thanks so much. Today's episode has been sponsored by poets and writers.
[33:05]Visit pw.org to get inspired, connect with other writers, and explore a treasure trove of
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[33:15]moms don't have time to read books. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the
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[33:25]out trim music. Thanks for listening. You can always email me at zibiowens.com.