Jennifer Breheny Wallace, NEVER ENOUGH: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-And What We Can Do about It
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[1:03]Jennifer Wallace is the author of Never Enough when achievement culture becomes toxic
[1:08]and what we can do about it.
[1:10]I interviewed Jenny in person this summer and it was my second time.
[1:13]She was actually one of my very, very first podcast guests in 2018 when she was a journalist
[1:18]and one of the only people I knew who did any writing.
[1:22]Jenny is an award-winning journalist and social commentator covering parenting and lifestyle
[1:26]trends.
[1:27]She's a frequent contributor to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and appears
[1:30]on television to discuss her articles and other hot topics in the news.
[1:34]After graduating Harvard College, Jennifer began her career in television at 60 minutes
[1:39]where she worked as a journalist for many years.
[1:41]She lives in New York City with her husband and their three children.
[1:45]Welcome Jenny.
[1:46]Thank you so much for coming back on Mom.
[1:47]Don't have time to read books.
[1:48]Thank you so much to be for having me back.
[1:50]It's so great.
[1:51]As you reminded me this morning, you were what my third guest ever on this podcast in
[1:55]Satan.
[1:56]Oh my gosh.
[1:58]I can't believe how big you've gotten how stuff is amazing.
[2:01]The bookstore, the newsletter, the being sort of the number one advocate for authors.
[2:08]It was a space that definitely needed filling and you found it and you did it.
[2:12]No.
[2:13]Thank you.
[2:14]Well, now you're here with what is sure to be a massive bestseller, but I'm getting
[2:17]in before it hits all the charts.
[2:20]Never enough when a chief of culture becomes toxic and what we can do about it, which
[2:24]I remember seeing you in the Starbucks parking lot last summer, like working on it right
[2:28]or two summers ago.
[2:29]I must have been two summers ago.
[2:30]Oh my gosh.
[2:31]I have been working and writing this for four years for years.
[2:34]Maybe I saw you four years ago.
[2:36]Yeah, two years.
[2:38]What did it do?
[2:39]Well, okay.
[2:40]So tell listeners about the whole journey of this book and then we're going to go into
[2:45]all the things we have to know and all of that.
[2:47]Okay.
[2:48]Great.
[2:49]So it probably began, well, definitely began in 2019 when I wrote an article about
[2:54]an article for the Washington Post about how students attending what researchers
[3:00]call high achieving schools are now officially an at risk group after kids and poverty,
[3:07]kids with incarcerated parents, recent immigrants, children living in foster care.
[3:12]It's this new group of kids that are considered at risk, meaning that they are two to
[3:17]six times more likely to suffer from clinical levels of anxiety and depression and substance
[3:24]abuse disorder than the average American teen.
[3:27]And I have three teenagers who attend these competitive schools.
[3:31]These are public and private schools around the country with generally high standardized
[3:36]test scores and rich extracurricular offerings.
[3:40]And I wanted to find out what was going on and what I could do in my home to buffer
[3:45]against this pressure.
[3:47]To be clear, we're not talking about, you know, the 1% of kids or the top 10% of kids.
[3:52]We are looking at this cohort of the top 20 to 25% of household incomes.
[3:58]So roughly parents who make a combined income of about 130,000 or more a year.
[4:04]Those are the kids that are now officially at risk.
[4:08]And you wrote in the book, you said, a child's pain is a child's pain, right?
[4:12]Because why should we care?
[4:13]Right.
[4:14]This is all really a what was me problem, but when a child is really struggling, it's
[4:18]a big deal.
[4:19]I said to the leading researcher, uh, Samuel Luther, when I was first researching this,
[4:24]I said, there's so much childhood suffering in the world.
[4:27]Why should we care about this group that can afford to alleviate a lot of their problems?
[4:35]And she's knocked right back at me and she said, these children do not choose their circumstances.
[4:41]They are in pain.
[4:42]We are not weighing pain on a scale.
[4:45]And I anyway, yeah, but I had the same question.
[4:49]So you start digging.
[4:51]You talk to people all over the country.
[4:52]You gave us so many examples of people who spoke to your families.
[4:56]You spoke to kids who sound very familiar to, you know, trying to do this.
[5:00]And among this team, I'm doing that.
[5:02]Like, and why is it never enough and why am I not happy?
[5:05]Which by the way, sounds a lot like a lot of grown-ups.
[5:08]I know too, right?
[5:09]Does this end.
[5:10]But anyway, tell me about some of the things you learned about this whole achievement
[5:14]culture and you gave so many tips of and even things you changed in your own house,
[5:19]which I was like, I think I should like photocopy this and put it on the fridge, you know,
[5:23]this is really great.
[5:25]So when you started talking to families, what were some of the things you started finding?
[5:29]Yeah.
[5:30]So I wanted to make sure before I set out to research this book that it wasn't just
[5:34]a problem of a few isolated communities or just a problem on the coast.
[5:40]So with the help of a researcher at Harvard, I conducted a first of its kind parenting
[5:44]survey where I wanted to get to kind of where the roots were.
[5:47]I wasn't buying this narrative that parents just wanted, you know, a bumper sticker on
[5:52]the back of their car.
[5:53]I had a feeling that this stress and anxiety that parents were reporting had really deep
[5:58]roots.
[5:59]And so the researcher that I hired said, if we get a sample size of a thousand, that'll
[6:03]be great for finding patterns.
[6:05]Within a few days, 6,500 parents had filled it out.
[6:08]It had gone viral.
[6:09]So what I realized at that moment was that I had hit on something.
[6:14]And as one parent wrote to me, thank you for talking about something.
[6:18]We are all feeling in our homes, but aren't necessarily talking about.
[6:23]And so what I really wanted to do for myself, actually researchers who study topics that
[6:28]are interesting to their personal lives call it me search.
[6:32]And it was written for me as I'm trying to raise healthy, joyful achievers in a
[6:39]hyper competitive world.
[6:41]So anyway, so at the end of the survey, I asked parents to email me if they would be willing
[6:46]to be interviewed either on the record or off the record.
[6:49]And so hundreds of parents reached out.
[6:52]And so I hired somebody to help me do some of these preliminary interviews.
[6:57]And what I found was that this pressure on parents is felt in Alaska and Washington state
[7:04]in Maine, in Cleveland, Ohio, Texas, in Tennessee, in Jackson, Wyoming, in Michigan.
[7:11]So needless to say, it is being felt everywhere.
[7:14]And so what I was hoping to do with this book and for myself was to put into a larger
[7:20]context what parents were feeling.
[7:23]We tend to personalize instead of zoom out and put into context the world around us and
[7:30]why we may be feeling it.
[7:31]I'd love to read you a couple of things.
[7:33]Yes, that I found from this survey.
[7:36]So I asked parents how much they agreed or disagreed with this statement.
[7:41]I feel responsible for my children's achievement and success.
[7:46]75% of parents felt responsible for their children's achievement and success.
[7:53]And then I asked them, I wished today's childhood was less stressful for my kids.
[7:58]I asked them on a scale from one to four how much they agreed or disagreed.
[8:02]And 87% of the parents I interviewed agreed with that statement.
[8:07]And I will say, you know, I zoomed out and I wanted to know why was my childhood so different
[8:15]than my children's childhood?
[8:17]Why was I like these parents that I interviewed feeling responsible for their achievement
[8:22]and success and happiness and, you know, matching their extracurricular activities with
[8:28]their strengths and just all of these things?
[8:30]Why, you know, my parents, you know, were very devoted parents.
[8:34]They would drive me places they would, as they say in the book, they would buy me tennis
[8:38]shoes but they didn't feel responsible for making me a great tennis player who made the
[8:43]tennis team.
[8:44]Why are parents feeling this heavy burden in today's, you know, child rearing?
[8:51]So I was zooming out and looking at why was my childhood so different than the childhood
[8:56]that my kids are living through.
[8:58]And so I interviewed historians and economists and anthropologists.
[9:03]And while there are a few reasons for this, one that really struck me was the macroeconomic
[9:10]forces that we are raising our kids in today.
[9:13]So in the 1970s when I was growing up, life was generally more affordable, you know,
[9:18]you could parents believe that their kids could one day own a house.
[9:23]Higher education was more affordable.
[9:25]Healthcare was more affordable.
[9:26]But over the past several decades, we have seen this ushering in of this steep inequality,
[9:32]this crush of the middle class, globalization, hyper competition and what parents are feeling
[9:39]is that life is much more uncertain than it was, you know, back in the 70s.
[9:45]And so as one researcher put it, parents are, whether or not they're aware of it, they're
[9:50]absorbing these macroeconomic pressures and they're becoming social conduits in the way
[9:58]that they sort of pass this.
[10:00]pressure down to their kids in order to raise them in order to thrive in this uncertain future.
[10:06]So this isn't to blame parents. It's just to put into context why we are parenting so much
[10:14]more intensively than our parents did. It's because we fear for our kids future.
[10:21]Wow. And so the ripple effect of that is the behavior and the pressure we put on the kids
[10:28]expectations and all of that. So what you're saying is it's done out of love essentially.
[10:34]Right. Essentially, I mean, exactly the job of a parent is to set a child up to thrive when we're
[10:40]no longer around. And parents today are betting big that helping their kids get into a brand-name
[10:49]college will work as a kind of safety vest a light vest in a sea of uncertainty.
[10:56]I have to be honest, I feel like, and obviously you've interviewed a trillion people and
[11:01]no much more. My like anecdotal thoughts on this is that actually college is
[11:05]better so much less than they used to, even though people are striving so hard to get in. Like
[11:11]I interview people all the time and I barely look like it means, oh, you grew up this way,
[11:17]you could get into this college, not you are so smart. You could be just as smart and go to any
[11:22]college. So I feel like the playing field is totally shifted on the professional level from all
[11:27]the things I've seen at least. I 100% agree with you. The problem is parents are anxious and are
[11:34]sort of fixated. If I could just do this for my kid, it would be a light vest. But that light
[11:39]vest is drowning them. And actually in the book, I get into what does it's not the college brand.
[11:45]Yep. It's not the prestige. It's not whether it's a public or a private institution,
[11:50]bigger small. There are what researchers have found six factors that actually are very strongly
[11:57]correlated with mid-life well-being, financial success, and career success. And it has nothing to do
[12:03]with a college brand. But parents are maybe not even aware that they are doing this, right? They're
[12:10]they're parenting at a fear and out of love. But like you point out, it's misguided.
[12:15]It's true. I mean, even with starting with childhood soccer and travel soccer and all these things
[12:22]is so hard to feel like you are the one opting out of a race that you're, you may opt out,
[12:29]but actually you're then you're going to lose the race, right? So and if you opt out, what does that
[12:36]mean? Like, is there something, can you ever get back in it if you opt out early? And what does that
[12:42]do? And all of those conflicting thoughts? And then the pressure in the friend groups, like, what
[12:47]are you doing wrong? And then you have to start to think, like, am I doing something wrong? You know,
[12:52]I obviously want the best for my kids. I don't know. Yes. It says what you're pointing at is that
[12:56]there's a social contagion that it becomes almost like this frenzy. And what I found from, so I went
[13:04]to answer your question. Yes, you can opt out. And it actually may be the best thing for your
[13:09]family and for your kids. If you're thinking about sort of long-term achievement. So in the
[13:14]book, I went in search of who were the healthy thrivers? Who were the kids who are, who are achieving
[13:22]in healthy ways? What did they have in common? What did their parents focus on at home? What were
[13:28]what was school like for them? What were their relationships like? And it actually,
[13:31]I found about 15 things these healthy achievers had in common. And as I was looking for a framework
[13:37]to present my findings to parents, I came across this psychological construct called mattering.
[13:44]And it is this idea that's been around since the 1980s. It was originally conceptualized by
[13:49]Morris Rosenberg who brought a self-esteem. So this, you know, highly esteemed researcher. And he
[13:55]found that the kids who enjoyed healthy levels of self-esteem had a deep sense that they mattered,
[14:04]that they were valued and significant and important to their parents. Aside from their external
[14:11]accomplishments. So there have been, there's been studies over the last several decades that
[14:16]people who are thriving in adolescence and in later life enjoy this high level of mattering,
[14:22]they feel valued for who they are at their core by their family, their friends and community.
[14:28]And they are importantly dependent on to add meaningful value back to their family, to their
[14:35]friends, to their communities. And this high level of mattering, it acted as like a protective shield
[14:43]that buffered against stress and anxiety. These kids would still have failures. They'd still have
[14:48]setbacks. But what mattering did it was this kind of buoy that would raise them up. And so if we're
[14:54]looking for where to put all of our parental energies, because I certainly bring a lot of parental
[14:59]energy to my own parenting, what I have found is the parents who are raising the healthy
[15:05]strivers focus on mattering, which is different than achievement. And it's actually different
[15:12]than loving your kids. We all love our kids unconditionally. That is, I have found that in the
[15:17]hundreds of parents. I have interviewed in the hundreds of parents. I know no one loves their kids
[15:23]conditionally. Unfortunately, too many kids today are feeling the love and the regard of their
[15:30]parents as conditional. And it is damaging. I mean, the kids I found who were suffering the most
[15:36]believed that they mattered, that their mattering was contingent on their performance.
[15:42]Or the other group were very, they felt like they mattered to their parents, but they
[15:47]they lacked social proof that they mattered, because nobody depended on them. They were never
[15:52]dependent on to add value to anyone other than themselves. And that also creates this kind of
[15:57]lopsided hyper-focused sense of self, which can be very destructive to a young person or really
[16:04]to anybody. I literally went through your, like some of your findings and sat there with my kids
[16:08]lesson. I was like, okay, do you feel like my love is contingent on your success? Do you feel
[16:15]like you need to do, do you feel pressure? And I went through and then I were like, no, no, no,
[16:18]it's all good. I'm like, okay, fine. That's true about you, Ziti. I think you wrap your kids up
[16:24]in this, in this love that they never feel like it's done. No, I know. I know. I know. I know.
[16:30]It's no each other. So, but I knew up close in person all with your family. Oh my gosh, thank you.
[16:36]But I do think it's like, it would be useful. Maybe you have this somewhere, like to have,
[16:40]like, and I know you have discussion questions and all these things related to the book and
[16:44]for parents. But even like the quiz to give your children, like, do you have that, like a self-rating
[16:50]tool? So we, did I miss it? Sorry. No, it's not in the book. Okay. But it is, we are, I'm with a
[16:56]several co-founders. I'm starting something called the mattering movement, which will be the
[17:00]action art of the book. So in the book, I have stories, I have tips. And then for parents like you
[17:06]who want to go deeper, I'm creating this mattering movement where we will have things like
[17:11]assessments and interactive things that you could do with your kids and that you could do for yourself.
[17:17]Is it interesting to, I mean, this sort of details on the timing of the Black Lives Matter movement
[17:23]and in terms of mattering movements and the effect of not feeling like you matter,
[17:27]maybe just speak to that for a second. Yeah. I mean, it is what I, what I have found
[17:31]among the parents I interviewed and what I have found, you know, anecdotally in my own life
[17:36]and what researchers who study mattering have found is that we are really living through a
[17:41]mattering deficit. When we think about the pressures, when we think about, so let me back up
[17:47]and talk a little bit more about what mattering is. So mattering, it answers this core human need
[17:54]that we all have to feel seen and significant and understood and valued. And researchers have
[18:01]studied it all over the world. It is a universal need that they say after the the drive for food and
[18:08]shelter, it is the need to matter that drives all of human behavior for better and for worse.
[18:14]Well, so for better, when we feel like we matter, we show up to the world in positive ways,
[18:19]we want to contribute. We want to add value to the people around us and to our society. We want to
[18:24]leave the, you know, the world a little better than we found it. When we don't feel like we matter,
[18:30]we can show up in the world in destructive ways. You know, the FBI has looked at mattering and
[18:36]how it relates to domestic terrorism, you know, a very sad, you know, anti-mattering moment are
[18:45]school shooters who feel like they don't matter and they'll show you they matter. So, you know,
[18:52]I think what we are seeing is a world in which places where we used to matter naturally,
[19:00]neighborhoods, places of worship, you know, bowling, social leagues, bowling leagues, these places
[19:07]where we used to feel valued are no longer around. And we are siloed in our individual homes
[19:15]trying to prove our mattering. And we prove it through, you know, either academic achievements
[19:22]or by, or when we feel like we don't matter, we can turn in words. We can become anxious, depressed,
[19:28]we can turn to self harm. So, we are in a mattering deficit. I think that's why, in part,
[19:35]even someone liking a comment on Instagram can make your day. I mean, like, or like writing something
[19:43]and having someone else out there say they feel the same way or just like, we need the
[19:50]littlest things to keep us going. Which is not mattering occurs in life's little moments, right?
[19:57]It doesn't have to be this huge.
[20:00]It's huge shift in your life.
[20:01]It's these small, cumulative shifts, like the people in your life, whether it's online
[20:08]or offline, showing them that what they say matters, it has value.
[20:12]And it's somehow added value to your life.
[20:15]So you do have this one part where you talk to one dad who's like, but what if you do
[20:20]need to push your kids?
[20:21]Yes.
[20:22]What then?
[20:23]And how do you know?
[20:24]And how do you manage that?
[20:25]Yes.
[20:26]So that's also something I asked, psychologists that I interviewed and they gave me really
[20:29]good advice, which was, number one, kids want to do well.
[20:34]So get that out of your head that you have a child who has no interest in achieving
[20:40]or doing well.
[20:41]Kids feel good when they do well and they want to feel good.
[20:44]So one thing to do is think about what's going on in that child's life that's getting
[20:49]in the way.
[20:50]Could it be a learning difference?
[20:52]Could it be that they don't have close relationships at school and they feel like this
[20:57]really low sense of belonging, which can really preoccupy their brains and take them
[21:03]away from studying.
[21:04]So get to the root of why they are not doing well.
[21:08]If you've gotten to the root of that and you discover that it's because your kids have
[21:11]no study skills, which I often found with my own sons, my daughter.
[21:16]But with my voice, I would I was advised to do by the psychologist in middle school
[21:21]and upper middle school.
[21:23]I actually wrote an article about this and I interviewed psychologists and they said,
[21:27]focus on how the work gets done.
[21:30]Don't focus on shiny outcomes.
[21:33]Don't look for the A because frankly our kids can get any by cheating.
[21:38]So instead what you want to be doing, especially in the middle school years, is to provide
[21:43]a scaffolding showing them you can have rules in your family about how the work gets
[21:48]done.
[21:49]You could say, you know what?
[21:50]After school or after your activity, you have a few minutes of downtime and then we're
[21:54]going to buckle in and we're going to get.
[21:56]a number of work done and we're not going to get it done in your room with your phone
[22:00]on your desk.
[22:01]So you're distracted.
[22:02]We're going to move the phone into the kitchen or somewhere else and you can take breaks
[22:06]but we're going to have good work hygiene.
[22:10]And so parents can have rules and focus on that.
[22:13]And when kids know how to do the work, the grades will come.
[22:18]But what about sports?
[22:20]Like, yeah.
[22:22]Like, let's say your kids don't want to do anything.
[22:26]Like they just want to come home and hang out and whatever.
[22:28]But it's really important for us all to move, even just for a health standpoint.
[22:32]I don't mean like traditional, they have to be on a competitive team.
[22:36]But although there are all these studies about the importance of being on a team.
[22:39]So there's that and then there's the need to move and then there's like maybe some kids
[22:44]who would prefer to just come home and lay on the couch and maybe read or maybe do whatever.
[22:49]I don't know.
[22:50]Just like chill.
[22:51]Well, I think it's a parents job to teach a child how to live a balanced life.
[22:59]And so what does that mean?
[23:00]What does a balanced life?
[23:01]And these are conversations that we should have with our children about what we value
[23:06]as parents.
[23:07]And so one of the things that in our home that we value is we value taking care of our
[23:11]bodies.
[23:12]What does that mean?
[23:13]That means getting enough sleep.
[23:15]That means doing some sort of exercise.
[23:17]It doesn't have to be competitive.
[23:18]It could be walking around the block with a headset on.
[23:20]We value our work.
[23:22]We value doing good work.
[23:24]And we value our relationships and we value time for that.
[23:27]And so what I have found, you know, there are some families that I interviewed where
[23:31]the kids were hyper focused and overworking.
[23:35]And so those parents had to put up boundaries around their children's work.
[23:40]And they had to say you can't sign up for four AP classes.
[23:43]And then there were other families like you talked about whose kids had not found the
[23:47]the thing that interested them.
[23:50]But I promised you at every psychologist I interviewed said your children have interests.
[23:55]You just have to get a PhD in them and find out what their interests are.
[24:01]What makes their brains light up when they talk about what did they want to talk about?
[24:06]And so I talked about in the book how to sort of encourage this healthy fuel by getting
[24:11]a PhD in them.
[24:13]What are their natural strengths?
[24:14]And if you're really stuck as a parent, I found this so helpful.
[24:17]There's something called the VIA character survey, which is a free online survey.
[24:25]That was developed by two of the world's leading positive psychology researchers.
[24:30]Really they were the grandfathers of the positive psychology movement, Marty Seligman
[24:34]and Christopher Peterson.
[24:36]And there is a version of the quiz.
[24:38]It's like a 10 minute or so online quiz.
[24:41]There's a version for kids and there's a version for adults.
[24:44]And so everyone in my family did it.
[24:47]And my kids were able to see these were their natural strengths.
[24:50]These were, and actually, it matched up.
[24:53]I couldn't have had the words to say these were my kids' strengths, but they really
[24:58]did match up.
[24:59]And when things happen or when they weren't motivated, I would look back on these strengths
[25:03]and I would say, oh, interesting.
[25:05]For my daughter, it's humor.
[25:07]So what could we do to sort of encourage that strength?
[25:12]She could read funny books, she could write a funny short story.
[25:16]She could watch a funny movie together.
[25:18]So anyway.
[25:19]So where's the quiz?
[25:20]The quiz?
[25:21]So if you head to the matteringmovement.com, you will find the via character survey.
[25:27]A via character.
[25:28]Okay.
[25:29]Actually, my son just emailed me last night.
[25:31]He took some survey last night and was like, you have to take this, they're like 16 different
[25:36]personality types.
[25:37]Oh, yeah.
[25:38]I mean, there are lots of these.
[25:39]Yeah.
[25:40]This one is really scientifically validated and great.
[25:42]Okay.
[25:43]And it's good for them, right?
[25:44]Yeah.
[25:45]I love us to get to know that.
[25:48]Stepping aside from all the stuff in the book, how are you managing being the holder of all
[25:56]this precious information that like is so needed and you have to, I feel like you're like
[26:00]in a buffet line and there's like, they're like all these starving people and you're
[26:04]just like throwing out plates as fast as you can.
[26:07]It is.
[26:08]That is a good image.
[26:09]I feel like I feel a little bit like a buffet line and I am so grateful because
[26:15]you know, I did write this book for me, but I wrote it for parents and I do feel like
[26:19]the experts that I interviewed, the parents that I met with all around the country gave
[26:24]such great advice that I've already implemented in my own home.
[26:28]So I am excited.
[26:29]I have lots of talks lined up.
[26:31]If you head over to my website, you'll see a list of them.
[26:34]You said they're 80 coming up.
[26:36]I see lots.
[26:37]Oh my gosh.
[26:38]It's a lot.
[26:39]It's just getting started and I'm taking my own advice in the book and I'm setting some
[26:43]boundaries around how much travel I'm doing because it is my oldest son's senior year
[26:49]of high school.
[26:51]And you know, I said to him, I had a conversation when I was accepting me, speaking engagements,
[26:56]a lot of them were on Zoom and I said to him, you know, I really want to be there for
[27:00]your senior year and he's like, mom, you've worked for four years, go enjoy this.
[27:05]And I said, honey, I'm not staying home for you.
[27:08]I'm staying home for me.
[27:09]Like I want to enjoy this as a parent, my Super Bowl.
[27:13]It is I'm so thrilled with, you know, where he is in his life and to be a senior in
[27:20]high school and to really see it all come together is I want to relish it.
[27:25]And so yes, I'm going to be on the road a lot in September and October, but then after
[27:30]that, I've really limited the travel and I'm accepting Zooms so that I could be there
[27:36]after school for my kids.
[27:38]That's amazing.
[27:39]This book is really going to impact families on the most sort of intimate, important
[27:46]levels and it's going to start changing and how great would it be if the whole culture
[27:50]could shift and just like take that collective side.
[27:53]I feel like people are so desperate for someone to be like, it's okay if you don't do all
[27:57]this.
[27:58]I think people just, but they don't have the confidence and I understand because I'm
[28:03]like, I chose not to do travel soccer and I'm like, you don't have to do travel soccer,
[28:07]but then I'm like, well, baby, I was talking about that.
[28:09]But anyway, I think any time people hear it, you can like see their shoulders just kind
[28:12]of like fall really like, okay, you know why?
[28:15]Because instinctually as parents, we know that what's happening right now, a childhood
[28:20]isn't right.
[28:21]It doesn't feel right.
[28:22]It doesn't feel right at home.
[28:24]It doesn't feel right in our children's lives and we are all seeing the anxiety, stress
[28:30]in our kids and we're looking for changes.
[28:33]So when I told this book in 2019, I thought I would have a hard time convincing parents
[28:38]to focus on mattering.
[28:40]Not, well, well, how do you hear everything is about to matter, Jenny or the one who's
[28:47]bringing it to the world and how amazing is that so-called congratulations.
[28:50]It's really awesome.
[28:51]Thanks a lot.
[28:52]Okay.
[28:53]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[28:58]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at the Beowans and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[29:02]Books.
[29:03]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[29:07]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[29:09]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing and thank you
[29:14]to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.