Cara Natterson, MD & Vanessa Kroll Bennett, THIS IS SO AWKWARD: Modern Puberty Explained
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[0:06]This 30 minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days
[0:12]a year for about 30 minutes.
[0:15]I am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction
[0:20]and memoir.
[0:21]Our books are already out now.
[0:23]You can check it out on zippybooks.com.
[0:26]And we have a magazine called Zippy Mag where we have lots of wonderful essays and lifestyle
[0:31]features.
[0:32]That's at zippymag.com.
[0:33]We have classes.
[0:34]It's a B-Classist.com.
[0:36]And I recently opened a book store in LA called Zippy's bookshop at 1113 Montana Avenue at
[0:43]11th Street in San Monica.
[0:45]I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings.
[0:49]But this here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in 2018.
[0:54]And no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite thing.
[0:57]Enjoy.
[1:03]Cara Natterson, MD, and Vanessa Crowell Bennett.
[1:06]Our co-authors of This is So Awkward Modern Purity Explained.
[1:11]Cara Natterson, MD is a pediatrician and New York Times best-selling author.
[1:17]Vanessa Crowell Bennett is a puberty educator and writer.
[1:20]Together, they host the puberty podcast, run Order of Magnitude, the leading brand dedicated
[1:25]to flipping puberty positive.
[1:27]And now they've written this is So Awkward.
[1:30]Cara and Vanessa can be found on Instagram and TikTok at spilling the puberty.
[1:34]Get it?
[1:35]P-U-B-E-R-T-E-A.
[1:37]Perhaps their biggest crad, however, is that between them.
[1:40]They parent 16s.
[1:41]Welcome Cara and Vanessa to mom.
[1:43]So I don't have time to read books to discuss this is So Awkward Modern Purity Explained.
[1:49]I love this cover so much, by the way, this is amazing.
[1:51]Thank you.
[1:52]And we're so happy to be here.
[1:55]Yay.
[1:56]This book is so great because it's really like written exactly for someone for me, like
[2:02]my age.
[2:03]I've got my kids.
[2:04]It's so great because you're like, when we were young and I'm like, yes, when we were
[2:07]young, this is the coolest.
[2:08]Like I feel so see them.
[2:11]Like, do they know?
[2:12]Like, what am I supposed to be like here?
[2:14]What I've done with my kids.
[2:16]Anyway, congrats on the book.
[2:18]Why write the book?
[2:19]And why YouTube?
[2:20]Oh, God.
[2:21]There's so many answers to that question.
[2:23]I think we'd start with the fact that we spend all day, every day, together on Zoom
[2:29]across the country thinking about talking about and helping people through the process
[2:35]of raising kids through puberty.
[2:37]This is like our ultimate mission is to help people feel knowledgeable and empowered to tackle
[2:45]this stage of life, which is messy and overwhelming and confusing.
[2:51]And we want to help people feel like, okay, I can do this and I can do it with some
[2:55]joy and some laughter instead of feeling like, oh, God, I'm just like, I'm victim to
[3:01]this time.
[3:02]We want people to feel really confident.
[3:05]And we wanted to write to a much bigger audience than parents.
[3:09]It's every adult who has a kid between eight and 18 in their life.
[3:14]So teachers and coaches and healthcare providers and mental health providers and, you
[3:20]know, and some uncles and grandparents and everyone, this has been a really important
[3:27]piece to our journey is recognizing all the people who are heavily invested in the safety
[3:35]and health of kids.
[3:36]And actually, it was something that surprised me about the book is it was not only about,
[3:41]you know, acne and whatever.
[3:42]I mean, you have all the important things, like, you know, all the, all the touchdowns
[3:46]we all knew.
[3:47]It was very important.
[3:48]Yeah.
[3:49]All the regular things you think about with puberty, but you have things like what to do
[3:53]about teen sports and oversp, you know, kids sports and over specialization and how that
[3:57]can be a detriment and other things that maybe you don't think about as much.
[4:01]And especially your whole chapter, well, we could talk about sports, but the whole chapter
[4:04]on eating behaviors, disorders, all of that I found so interesting.
[4:09]Like every kid has to eat, you know, like, I mean, so how do you handle it?
[4:14]I think the way to think about how we want to about choosing topics to cover was we took
[4:20]the narrow definition of puberty, right, which is just the path through sexual maturation.
[4:25]And that's an easy set of chapters to cover because, you know, my background is pediatrician
[4:29]Vanessa's background is puberty educator.
[4:31]It's a very easy path to go through.
[4:33]But then we pulled the lens back and looked at the much broader definition.
[4:37]So all of the other things that the reproductive hormones impact.
[4:44]So estrogen and progesterone and testosterone impact your mood.
[4:48]Your mood impacts your friendships and your family dynamics.
[4:52]So how do you write a book about puberty and how puberty has changed without talking
[4:58]about friendships and romance and sports because those hormones impact your joints and impact
[5:07]overuse injury.
[5:08]So all these things that people never tethered to puberty before were like, hi, we're here
[5:12]to tell you, they're all connected.
[5:14]And I think also, I mean, I have four kids, cars, two kids.
[5:17]They're all between 13 and 20, all six of them.
[5:22]And we were thinking about our lives.
[5:24]I mean, the book is totally based in science and data and research, but it's also informed
[5:29]by us as human beings and as parents.
[5:31]And we were thinking about God, what are the things day to day that like no one thinks
[5:36]about his puberty, but are really big deals.
[5:38]So the use sports over specialization chapter affects both of us deeply and very personally.
[5:46]And I come from a background of coaching girls and sports.
[5:50]And we talk to people and we're like, do we keep this chapter?
[5:54]Do we cut this chapter?
[5:55]And everyone was like, no, keep it because everyone deals with this.
[6:00]And nobody thinks of it as a puberty thing, but it really is a big part of adolescence
[6:05]and supporting kids throughout us.
[6:07]And so that's just one example, but we just, we loved, we sat down and we thought about
[6:12]everything.
[6:13]I mean, I'm curious to be like, what were you shocked at any of the chapters or just
[6:18]pleasantly surprised by certain topics coming your way?
[6:23]Yeah, I was just pleasantly surprised that it was more that it had a wider breadth than
[6:28]I expected.
[6:29]Although the whole time I kept thinking, I need them to write a menopause book called
[6:32]This is so depressing.
[6:34]So maybe you could do like a follow up for the parents of the teenager or something like
[6:41]we're on it.
[6:42]We're on it.
[6:43]We probably won't call it.
[6:44]This is sort of pressing because we're trying to stay optimistic and constructive, but
[6:47]we'll, I might be a little further along in that journey than Vanessa.
[6:52]And she's got some serious foreshadowing happening.
[6:55]It's all, it's all, it's all before me.
[6:58]It's all late ahead.
[6:59]But it is because that's another part of it, right?
[7:02]So many people who are caring for kids in puberty are themselves on their own rollercoaster,
[7:08]a physical and emotional changes.
[7:11]And it's like, if you're down at the same time or you're up at the same time at
[7:16]all in our sex and affects the things you say, the things you shouldn't have said, all
[7:22]of the regrets, which one of you was who when your son asked you about rape, you were
[7:28]just like, oh, that was him.
[7:30]It was like, it was like four kids getting breakfast on a Saturday morning.
[7:35]And I cannot believe as like an ardent feminist that that was how I responded to the question
[7:41]of rape.
[7:42]I'm like, still like, oh my God, my mad culpa is that I wrote about it in the book with
[7:46]such brutal honesty.
[7:48]But like that's how it is.
[7:50]You're just getting by every day and doing your best.
[7:53]And we all screw up.
[7:56]I mean, Cara and I screw up every single day, multiple times a day, well, maybe just
[8:01]once a day.
[8:02]Oh, no, mine is multiple times a day.
[8:04]I mean, Zippy, I had my 13 year old lost his backpack last Friday and called me.
[8:10]And I was like screaming at him on the phone with all of his friends around him, right?
[8:15]So I like was doubly terrible.
[8:18]And then he got in the car and I was like, I am so sorry, I'm so sorry.
[8:25]I shouldn't have done that.
[8:26]It's not that big of a deal.
[8:28]And he was like, it's okay, mom, you were allowed to be angry.
[8:31]But it's in the humanity of it.
[8:33]It's in the, it's in the mess up and the go back and the repair of it where we really,
[8:39]I think, do our best work with kids in puberty.
[8:42]I had that too.
[8:43]I messed up the bus situation yesterday and they were like on the bus off the bus.
[8:47]I forgot, I forgot to do the form right blah, blah, blah.
[8:50]And like, you know, one of my kids got off the bus and just was like glaring at me.
[8:54]I was like, I know.
[8:55]I know.
[8:56]And he's like, but you weren't, I was like, I know.
[8:58]I know.
[8:59]And it was like a whole thing.
[9:00]And then again this morning when like we were all calm, I was like, listen, I just want
[9:04]you to know again that I am so sorry.
[9:07]And I felt so terrible and it will never happen again, which it probably will.
[9:10]But whatever.
[9:11]I hope it won't.
[9:13]I mean, you have to fill out these words every day.
[9:16]Anyway, yes, I think a big piece of parenting in general, regardless of age is owning
[9:21]up to your mistakes and seeing, you know, that we're all human beings, especially, you
[9:25]know.
[9:26]But anyway, I love that you put that in the book in like every little, it's a bit that
[9:29]you put in about your own journeys was was relevant.
[9:33]I was hoping we could go back to the eating disorders chapter and like, you even had
[9:38]all these really helpful Q&As about what are you supposed to say if you notice somebody
[9:43]avoiding a food group, if you see, you know, sneaking food wrappers and all of that stuff,
[9:48]which I used to do as a kid, I have to be honest with the time Hershey kisses under
[9:52]my bed and stuff.
[9:53]So I was like, what should my mom have said?
[9:55]What should I say?
[9:56]Well, I mean, right, because we can give all the data.
[10:00]in the world. And we can set up the problem till the cows come home. But if we don't give solutions
[10:05]and we don't help people understand different ways through, there's not one way through,
[10:11]by the way, depending upon the family set up, depending upon the personalities in the house,
[10:17]depending upon age, depending upon all these different factors, health and all the social dynamics,
[10:23]everyone's path through, even through eating issues, which feel very, almost very binary,
[10:30]right? Like, here's how you avoid them here. No, they're different conversations. They're
[10:34]different levels of sophistication. They're different self-esteem drivers. Is your kid on social
[10:39]media or not? That's really going to change the way you have the conversation. So, you know,
[10:43]the reason that we wrote this book together, I mean, other than the fact that we were looking for
[10:47]and excuse to spend yet another five million hours together on Zoom, was that my background,
[10:54]at my strength, is data and science and health and medicine. And Vanessa's superpower is understanding
[11:04]how to translate that into conversation, into action. And together, we've now had the opportunity
[11:14]to work together for years, to have a podcast together, to run workshops together, and to get
[11:19]direct feedback. I mean, my direct feedback started when I started seeing patients 20, almost 25 years
[11:25]ago, but this is a very different and very important form of direct feedback when you put
[11:32]suggestions out into the wild. So, when it comes to eating issues, the numbers are staggering.
[11:39]They are staggering. When you look at body dissatisfaction, if you think that this is a predominantly
[11:47]female issue, you are wrong. This has no gender. Half of all body image issues belong to people who
[11:55]identify as male, half belong to people who identify as female. And if you are on the gender spectrum,
[12:01]you're risk of having an issue with how your body looks, whether it's body dysmorphia or eating
[12:06]disorder, or whatnot, is significantly higher than if you are not on the gender spectrum. If you start
[12:13]digging into some of the specifics about what kids do and why, it doesn't take a rocket scientist
[12:21]to look at all the downward pressures in our society and all the drivers of that behavior,
[12:26]right? But that leaves the adults in these kids' lives feeling very helpless. And you're not
[12:33]helpless. If you are looking for spark notes of this book, it's one sentence, engage in conversation.
[12:41]That's it. Without judgment, without shame, and eating and body image is the very best example
[12:47]of engaging in conversation and beginning to understand how different kids that are in your lives
[12:54]feel about what's going into their body or how their body looks. And it's also the perfect example
[13:00]of places where we all bring our own stuff into the conversation. I mean, a lot of us struggle
[13:07]with body image stuff as well into adulthood. Many people still struggle with eating disorders
[13:14]well into adulthood. And so this is an example where our own baggage can be really difficult
[13:24]to leave behind in our conversations with kids. And one of the things we like to talk about
[13:30]in the book and it's really, really critical with respect to body image stuff is we can have our
[13:36]own internal monologue, right? We can look at our kid and Zoe Bizbang, who ran the full Bloom
[13:42]project and now as an Instagram account called my body positive home, talks about registering your
[13:49]own disgust when you look at your kid, like do not self-edit when you look at a kid and think,
[13:56]oh my god, that's not how I thought their body was going to turn out or like, oh my god, they're taking
[14:01]another helping of food when I just bought them new pants, right? Like be really honest internally
[14:07]about how you are reacting to your kids changing body. Just don't say it to your kid. Say it to
[14:14]your partner, say it to your therapist, say it to your best friend, like find a safe place to let
[14:19]that stuff out. But leave the comments to your kid as neutral, positive, supportive, empowering,
[14:29]and there's so many parts of puberty, not just body image. We're like, what we're thinking in our
[14:34]own minds is exactly what we don't want to say to a kid. But we have to make space somewhere in
[14:42]our lives for that internal monologue to come out because eventually it will come out somehow
[14:47]somewhere sometime and it will come out sideways if we don't give it a chance to come out in a
[14:53]safe, constructive way. And if you need a rationale for why you might approach a conversation that way,
[15:00]just flash back to your own transformation. Okay. Which, by the way, must I?
[15:05]Yeah. Oh, yes. Welcome to your hair. We're here for use of it. Thank you. Yours, yours went twice as
[15:14]fast as the story. That was another thing about the book. And I was like, oh gosh, really?
[15:20]Yes. So it's going twice as, twice as slow. And I have four kids. So I'm like, oh my god,
[15:25]that's like the rest of my life. It is. I always say, I wanted to call this book puberty is like
[15:31]Taffy. Everyone else hated that title, but I love that title because it is. It has just stretched
[15:36]and stretched and stretched. And so I want you to flash back to your own puberty, your own body
[15:43]transformation. A, it felt like forever. And it was half as long as it is now. And B, you had no idea
[15:51]where it was going. You didn't know how tall you were going to be. You didn't know how
[15:54]curvy you were going to be. You didn't know how your hair texture was going to change or your
[15:58]hair color. You didn't know if you were going to have zits everywhere or no zits anywhere. You had
[16:02]no idea of any of it. And that is their same reality. And so when it comes to things like body image,
[16:11]sometimes we adults approach things as if they should have clarity that it's all going to be
[16:17]fine in the end. Well, first of all, that's really a very destructive approach, right? We don't know
[16:24]where any of it is landing. And second of all, their brains don't really care what's happening
[16:28]in another five, 10, 15, 20 years. That is not their mental orientation. And so as you, you know,
[16:37]to unwrap your own kind of layers of your own onion on all of this. And our advice is very
[16:43]strongly to leave those layers behind when you get into conversation with kids. But as you start
[16:48]to sort of think about your own experiences through and your own biases, you have to transport
[16:55]yourself back to that moment where you didn't know how it was going to all work out because that's
[16:59]what they're living. Yeah, no fun. I did appreciate, by the way, you mentioned that we had no idea
[17:04]how tall we would be and all that stuff. I loved your calculator of how the equations of how tall
[17:09]I was like, no way. So I'm like sitting there, like grab my phone and like calculator. It makes me
[17:17]popular. Do you like this line? My mother always says to me, you were supposed to be taller.
[17:25]You were supposed to be five, nine. I'm like, I'm really sorry. Like, I don't know what to tell you.
[17:32]That's the thing. Even with the little calculator, we can end up, you know,
[17:36]are all of our expectations, our hopes and dreams of how they're going to turn out,
[17:41]you know, it may just not happen that way. But it is a, it is a really fun. We spent a long time
[17:48]formatting that in the book, actually, because we wanted to make sure it was just right,
[17:53]the calculations. I took my daughter to the Barnes Noble and Union Square the other day,
[18:00]and they have a Starbucks there. So she was ordering her a fresher, which we've gotten like
[18:04]all summer long. I don't know if you can. Oh my god. Yeah. My daughter's obsessed.
[18:08]Right. So the first was like, just so you know, there's as much caffeine in here as an
[18:12]an espresso. And I was like, what? There's caffeine in refreshers. And then, and literally my
[18:18]daughter who's 10 was like, looks out for me. She's like, that's why I'm so short.
[18:22]I was like, no, get your short because I'm five, two. Like, you know,
[18:28]you're not going to be tall. Like, I'm sorry. You've had like, or a fresher or something.
[18:32]Maybe like 10 refreshers. I don't know. Anyway, wait. My daughter drinks those weird,
[18:37]dragon fruit. Yeah, coconut milk. There's caffeine in this. Yeah. Oh my god. She has so much
[18:43]energy already. So I think we need to cut back. I'm like, this explains a lot.
[18:48]This explains a lot. I like flash back to all the bedtime. So like, anyway,
[18:53]no, but it's nice that you had some some predictive stuff in here.
[18:58]Well, quick math. A quick math. How do you prepare kids then while they're in the throws of it?
[19:05]And things are changing. Now it's slower. There is no way to predict it's hard for
[19:13]grownups to handle things that are out of our control. And I know you address a lot of
[19:17]things in this book. It was a great script, which I honestly found very, very helpful. But
[19:22]how do you cope? I mean, how do you let? How do you make kids who were so young? See that they're
[19:27]really just about you? They can't really understand. You know what I'm talking about? Like,
[19:30]that they're part of a bigger context of life and this will pass. They're not going to believe you.
[19:35]You know, no, I mean, it's so hard for kids when you're like, oh, don't worry. It'll be fine.
[19:41]Like, they don't know what that means. And the hardest part about talking to kids about
[19:47]puberty when they ask about the when. Is that often the answer is, I don't know. And that's
[19:54]so hard as a parent to say to a kid, I don't know. I wish I had the answer.
[20:00]for you, but I don't know. And, you know, we've gotten those questions from hundreds and hundreds
[20:05]of kids in workshops. We've gotten those questions in our own homes and everything in between.
[20:11]And depending on the topic, there are some signs of like a super common question is,
[20:16]when is, how do I know when my daughter's going to get her period, right? That's like a really,
[20:20]really common question. And the short answer is, I don't know, but there are some signs and, you know,
[20:26]there's some, some like goal posts along the way. With other stuff, it's like kids will say,
[20:33]when am I going to grow? Everybody else is taller than I am. When am I going to grow? And again,
[20:38]the short answer is, I don't know. But the longer answer is, we can talk to your pediatrician. We can
[20:45]check in. There may be stuff happening that we don't know as lay people, but a medical professional
[20:50]could actually give us some more information. And sometimes that's just a nice form of reassurance.
[20:56]I think that the most interesting part is being along for the ride in the discomfort with kids,
[21:04]like that shows them two things. One that you love them no matter what, whether they're, you know,
[21:11]growing and blooming and glowing up or whether they look the same as they did a year ago and
[21:15]are feeling crummy about it. And the second thing is life is uncomfortable. And so when we look at
[21:21]puberty in the context of the larger panoply of life, learning to sit and discomfort and uncertainty
[21:28]is actually a really great skill to develop. And if we can be their companions in it,
[21:33]I think that's really powerful for kids. Okay, I have a couple of side comments. Let's see if
[21:39]I can remember when always. Did you write my menopausal brain is really struggling right now.
[21:46]Okay. Side comment number one is the three words. I don't know are a tremendous cred builder.
[21:53]So don't ever go to a doctor who never utters those words. Okay. If a doctor says, I don't know,
[21:58]that's a smart thoughtful doctor. I don't know. I'm going to get to the bottom of it. That's
[22:02]it. And so you want to be a prefer that they know, but okay. Of course, of course, but, but I don't
[22:08]think you're making sippy feel better. There's this posturing need to always know everything
[22:16]always be right. And it's not that like you can't look in the air and go, yeah, it's an air infection,
[22:20]but there are bigger questions in life to which the answer is, I don't know. I'm going to get back to
[22:26]you or I'm going to do some tests or I'm going to do whatever. I don't know when you're the adult
[22:30]in the situation. That's cred building. What that says is, I do not pretend to have all the information.
[22:36]I will validate whatever I tell you. What comes out of my mouth is reliable. You can trust it.
[22:43]Okay. And it's not to say you should answer it always that way, but I don't want people to be
[22:47]afraid of that phrase. So that was number one. Number two, oh, come on, pray. Number two was,
[22:55]as Vanessa was talking about, the different scenarios of kids who prompt you with questions,
[23:00]there is, of course, the gigantic subset of kids who don't ask a thing. They don't ask,
[23:08]they don't engage in conversation. And even when you prompt them, they don't answer,
[23:14]they might grunt, they might just walk away, they might just shut the door. We don't like the word
[23:20]normal because normal converse judgment. However, this is a time when I want to emphasize that that
[23:26]is totally normal. It can, you know, kids who shut you out can also be kids who are struggling with
[23:31]other things and it can be very hard to distinguish, but it is a very, very typical developmental
[23:37]stage for kids to shut their parents out of the equation. And if you ever want to be reassured
[23:42]by your kid's silence, just put your ear up to their door and listen to them laughing and chatting
[23:46]with all their friends. And you can be like, okay, we're good. They're just being age appropriate with
[23:51]me. But that just is an invitation to work harder to get into conversation. And it doesn't mean
[23:58]lecturing them, except when it's really an emergency and necessary. But what it does mean is
[24:05]constantly circling back with the prompt, hey, I'm going to ask you again. I'm just going to,
[24:10]I'm going to keep asking because I love you. Like I'm just curious about this one thing. And if
[24:15]they don't engage and they don't engage and they don't engage, it's like when they were babies
[24:18]and they needed to try a new food 10 times before they didn't spit it out anymore.
[24:22]Conversations around all of this very tricky stuff that that that you have to try them. And then
[24:29]the third thing, I can't remember, I did all three. I'm so excited. The third thing is that
[24:35]you want to baby step this. So even if you feel like you're starting a little bit late,
[24:42]don't go in big and heavy and and get to the really juicy stuff first toe your way into
[24:50]these conversations. Start basic. If a kid rolls their eyes, you great. That's confirmation that
[24:56]they are way past that part of the conversation. But you know, you want to work your way into it.
[25:01]There's it's really never too early to start having open conversations with kids
[25:06]real never too early. It's just the content of those conversations that will shift. Okay,
[25:11]that's it. Did you expect when you started your podcast that it would be as huge as it has become
[25:20]or was this a surprise? How do you feel about it? What do you think? Can you tell the
[25:24]the butments with story, please? Okay. I'll tell the story. So we are thrilled that so many
[25:30]people find the podcast meaningful and valuable to their lives. And I will tell you that on the
[25:37]bar mitzvah circuit, we are celebrities because I was at a bar mitzvah. It was actually a family
[25:44]bar mitzvah and my brother, Nick Roles, this super famous comedian was on one side of me and my
[25:50]husband, Roger Bennett, who's host of the men and blazers podcast was on the other side of me.
[25:56]And a pack of women ignored my brother and ignored my husband and came out to me and were like,
[26:03]are you the puberty podcast? We are so excited to meet you. And I called car and I was like,
[26:10]okay, we're good. We made it. And I will tell you one other thing about our podcast is 25% of our
[26:19]listeners are male, which tells us that people write off men as not caring and not being involved
[26:28]in these conversations with kids. But we are here to tell you they care. They want to be involved.
[26:36]They want to be a part of it. So for people listening who are soldering the burden themselves and feel
[26:42]like their partners or ex-partners or co-parents are not in on it, they can do this. And it's awesome
[26:50]for the kids in our lives if they are included. So yes, we are the puberty revolution, Zibi,
[26:58]you have to come on our podcast. Sure. I'd love to. Okay. And you can talk about we can share all of
[27:05]our painful past stories. That's originally what the podcast was going to be. People coming on and
[27:10]telling their own puberty stories. And then we would go from there. But we decided that people
[27:18]wanted a lot more science and a lot more advice and maybe less trauma. So we
[27:24]don't want a little trauma. They love that. Yeah, they do like that. They do like the trauma.
[27:30]From a book perspective, what is your advice for people who want to write a book with a friend
[27:36]or a colleague and don't know how to really do that in a good way? How do you? I love this question.
[27:42]I love this question so much because this is Cara's 10th book. For those of you who don't know
[27:48]Cara wrote the Karen keeping a view series, she updated the first book, wrote a bunch of others.
[27:53]She also wrote Decoding Boys and a bunch of other amazing books. This is my first book.
[27:58]So slightly different experience. It was an incredible experience writing together. I learned
[28:07]so much from Cara. She's a brutal editor, brutal in the best way because my philosophy is why I
[28:15]say something in three words when you can say it in 20. But we had so much fun together. And for
[28:20]people who are thinking, I can't possibly do it. I mean, Zavi, you've shown the world that nothing
[28:26]is impossible. You have like taken the entire publishing and book world on your shoulders and
[28:30]are like, here, let's just go forth and give it a shot. But I will tell you, the joy of writing
[28:37]this book together was one of the most thrilling experiences of my life. And we did it in a summer
[28:45]on Zoom for three months straight. We said, yeah, I think that dido dido dido dido. I think it
[28:51]deserves a little mention that when we sold our book, the contract had us turning it in
[28:59]the first week of September of 2023. So now, basically. And that would put it on bookstore shelves
[29:09]in the very run-up to a presidential election. And the last book that I published,
[29:15]that's when I published, I published in February of 2020, great time to publish a book.
[29:19]And, you know, pandemic aside, it was all political news. And I said to Vanessa, I'm not going to do
[29:26]that. And this we know everything we want to write. We live this. This is not us figuring out or
[29:33]doing research. This is us just sharing everything we know. So listen, people do this. I said to
[29:40]Vanessa lying through my teeth. So fine. People do this. They write a book in three months. It's totally
[29:47]fine. And Vanessa is like, you think they do? And I said, yes, it's totally doable. And she's like,
[29:52]okay, that sounds great. So we turned in in September of 2022 in order to be able to publish now,
[29:59]only after-
[30:00]we turned in, did Vanessa say to me, is that really something people do?
[30:04]Because I feel like that was really hard to do.
[30:06]And I was like, yes, that's I've no one's ever done that.
[30:08]And our editor was like, you people are massacres, you know, but it was a,
[30:13]it was a three month brain dump.
[30:15]And it was so fun.
[30:17]It was so fun.
[30:19]That's amazing.
[30:20]I love that.
[30:21]So get ahead of your deadlines.
[30:24]Find someone who is totally in the dark about the process and
[30:28]mag them through your legs and have we, we tease one of us is a Google
[30:33]Sheets person and one of us is a Google God person.
[30:36]I have to tell you box person.
[30:38]Yeah, thank you.
[30:40]You need one of each, if you're going to write together because a Google
[30:44]Sheets person at the outlines, the timelines, right?
[30:49]There's some structure.
[30:50]And the Google Docs person is the creative and the ability to bring in story.
[30:57]I'm just saying it's a great comedy.
[30:59]This is what every single morning sounded like when we were writing the book.
[31:02]No, it was like this.
[31:05]So in the to do sheet, and I just want to cross some stuff off our list.
[31:11]Okay, great.
[31:12]Now I'm going to tell you exactly how things are going to go today.
[31:16]And you've known me long enough for the last 35 minutes to know, I am normally
[31:20]someone who's like, okay, people, here's how life is going to go.
[31:24]But meanwhile, cars like here's how life is going to go.
[31:26]And my sister who I've lost around our whole childhood was just laughing in
[31:32]the corner that I found someone who is as comfortable directing the future of the
[31:38]day as I am.
[31:39]And it was just like, it's totally it's, but it's when you write about, you
[31:44]know this when you write about something you love, something that feels so
[31:48]incredibly important to you that you're passionate about that you believe in.
[31:52]It's like anything is possible, including dealing with someone who loves
[31:58]Google Sheets as much as Karen does.
[32:01]And when you respect your partner, our managing editor at my company has all these
[32:06]like production deadlines and all this stuff.
[32:08]I literally emailed her yesterday.
[32:09]I was like, I'm really sorry, but I'm going to need you to put this word in
[32:14]like, and here's how like, this is the date and here's it, it's all in letters.
[32:19]You know, I can't like see it.
[32:21]I can help her translate.
[32:23]Yeah, it's a be asked.
[32:26]You never translate it.
[32:27]You just make me, we didn't have time for that.
[32:31]Well, somehow YouTube pulled it off and the book is great.
[32:34]This is so awkward.
[32:36]Congratulations.
[32:37]I'll wait for the second volume, which I'll eagerly take my title.
[32:43]It's fine.
[32:44]And I hope to see you guys soon.
[32:46]I'm so excited you're doing the event into Facebook store.
[32:48]It's a piece of bookshop.
[32:49]I can't even get my own thing right.
[32:51]And thank you for coming on.
[32:53]Really appreciate it.
[32:54]Thank you so much.
[32:55]Thank you so much.
[32:56]So happy to be with you.
[32:57]Okay.
[32:58]Hope to see you soon.
[32:59]Bye.
[33:00]Bye.
[33:02]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books.
[33:06]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebioans and at moms don't have time to
[33:10]read books.
[33:11]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[33:15]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[33:18]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[33:21]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[33:25]outro music.