The Suburban Women Problem: Episode 8

Amanda: Hi everyone. Thanks for listening. I'm Amanda Weinstein. 

Jasmine: I'm Jasmine Clark.

Rachel: I'm Rachel Vindman.

Amanda: And this is The Suburban Women Problem. Welcome back. And thank you for being part of this amazing. Speaking of community, here in America, we love to hold up independence and self-reliance as the ideal. But when you really dig into it, you realize that nobody can be successful on their own. We all had help in becoming who we are today. We all had support. We all use infrastructure, social infrastructure, the connections from other people, the connections to our community. So, we're going to talk about those mythical bootstraps and how important it is to have empathy for people who had different life experiences than us. Later, Beverly Batte who works at Red, Wine and Blue and is one of the women behind the scenes of this podcast will join us and share her story. And after that, I sit down with Sheryl WuDunn, author of Half the Sky and Tightrope, about poverty in America and the importance of empathy.

So, let's talk about it. Why do people still hold onto this idea of individualism and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps?  What do you guys think? 

Jasmine: I think that this idea of being self-made is it's one of those things that we present to people, but it's a fantasy world. It's a myth. It's not how it actually works.

I had a friend, her name was Liz, and she used to always say one of her biggest regrets was that she was not born to rich parents. And it's always funny when she says it, but I mean that her statement makes sense. We actually have zero choice in the situation that we are born into. And a lot of the foundations and our life, a lot of the, the trajectory of our life starts at ages that we don't really have the ability to really make that many decisions yet. Like it's really the adults in our lives that are making the decisions for us. We have to understand that everyone does not start at the same starting line. And therefore, when we're talking about, being successful, we have to really, be mindful that everyone is not you.

I think if we start there, we can be a lot more empathetic about people's situations.

Rachel: And it doesn't diminish your experience. It doesn't diminish your experience to say that you had some help along the way or some luck. 

Amanda: That's a good point. Like both can be true. You can both work really hard and also have a really good support system.

Jasmine: Another good example of this is a lot of the systems that we have in America, they require you to kind of have that support system. So, good example of this is applying for college and trying to get financial aid for college. And so, I was in a relationship with someone who, uh, you know, told me the story about how, when they were in high school, they wanted to go to college.

However, uh, when they went to their parents with the FAFSA form, their parents looked at them, they said college is for rich white people. Um, we are not rich white people and therefore I'm not filling out that form. I'm not giving those people my information. And so here you have a child who wanted to do a certain thing, but because of the environment that they grew up in, the people around them, the people that they actually needed, did not support that decision. And they did not really have that many options outside of trying to emancipate themselves, in which case, the only way they were able to do that was to go to the military. They end up, going, getting deployed multiple times. And you know, when they came back from those deployments, they came back with a lot of other things that they're still having to deal with now.

PTSD, stress, anxiety, and they may not necessarily have had to even go through any of that. If they just had parents that said, “Sure, hand me the form, where do I sign?” That's their story. But that's the story of a lot of people where the steps or some might say roadblocks or obstacles that we have in place to get from point A to point B are surmountable for some and insurmountable for others through no fault of their own.

Amanda: Yeah. So, you're talking about mobility and it's interesting. If you look at data on mobility, we are less mobile actually in America than some of these European countries that have better social infrastructure. Right. And it's not that Americans don't work hard is that Europeans have better support systems, so that it's easier for them to rise above the means they were born into.

Right. So, people can be so judgmental. And to be clear by people I mean, all of us, because it is hard to step out of our own experiences and our own neighborhoods and our own lives. It takes practice, it takes work. So, when it comes to going to college, when it comes to the opioid crisis, when it comes to any big life decisions, it's easy to judge when it's not a situation you've personally been in right. But when it happens in your family, whether it's not getting a college degree or whether it's dealing with mental health issues or dealing with addiction, all things that people in my family have dealt with, you can understand it better because you've experienced it.

Rachel: Everyone is fighting a hard battle, just be nice. I will fully admit, I have a hard time with that a lot of days. I want things to go smoothly. And when they don't, I can be not nice about it sometimes and sometimes to other people. So, this is an admission on my part. Let's just try to remember that no one is going out of their way to make your day a hard day.

Let's just be more empathetic. And to your point, Amanda, it requires us to get out of our perspective to really understand other people's lives and to be empathetic. And that's hard. 

Jasmine: I agree with that 100%. I also think it's interesting cause I am Black and so I have also heard that Black people are in the position they're in because of their own bad decisions or Black fathers are absent or Black mothers are don't prioritize being married and they just have babies just to have babies. This is where we the people try to ignore systemic inequities in our history as a nation that have put certain groups of people in a position to make decisions that may not seem rational. To other people who have not had been subjected to be systems.

I also know that it's not just Black people who get stereotyped into believing, that they are, you know, just need to figure things out on our own it's their own fault. And I'm reminded of when I wanted to, to change sex education here in Georgia, I had a bill about sex education.

 We took our message to school boards, and I'll never forget one of the school board members comments about the, the students in the schools that she is, I guess, over, you know, they're mostly Latina, Latino students. And she basically said, well, you know, the reason why those kids get pregnant young is because their parents encourage it. They actually want their kids to have a whole bunch of babies.

This is a person who is in a position of leadership and a position of making decisions for students. It made me realize number one, that we need better representation when it comes to people on our school boards. We have to really be mindful of who are the decision makers and the policy makers that are in place. 

Amanda: Yeah, it's so important whether we're talking about sex education or critical race theory, all of these issues, it goes back to how important it is to run for things like your local school board. And I think the idea of pulling ourselves by our bootstraps without any kind of social infrastructure or support is absurd.

It is just simply absurd. So, let's take this opportunity to talk about the kind of support, if we want to call it bootstrap, support, infrastructure, whatever, right. That we need, and that we had to get where we are today. 

Jasmine: So, let's name it. Let's name, our quote, “bootstraps.” And I'll start. Um, so my parents were, my dad was a doctor. My mom was a nurse. We were not necessarily rich, but number one, they were both college educated. So, I grew up in a house knowing I was going to college. I always thought I was going to be a doctor, just like my dad, because that was the example that I had for myself. And they also knew that in order for me to get into good schools, I needed to have those extra curriculars. So, I did sports and all these different things. You know, my bootstraps were definitely my parents and my support system. Um, you know, I did not get here on my own. I am not in politics. I am not in microbiologists. Teaching at Emory university because I just did it without any other help. They definitely helped set a foundation for me.

Rachel: So, you know, Jasmine that's great. My experience is very, very similar. Um, I grew up in a family where we were all encouraged to do whatever activities that we wanted to pursue. One summer, I wanted to volunteer at a horseback riding center for handicapped children. My grandfather took me every day that I wanted to do it and picked me up.

I never questioned whether it would be possible. I realize now how blessed I was because of that. But at the time I didn't realize it. Part of the reason I didn't realize it is most of the people that I grew up with. Didn't think about that either, and that just goes back to what we're saying. These are the little things and the little advantages we talked about micro-aggressions. These are kind of micro-advantages that people have that we don't acknowledge. And we don't think about because they've always been there. They're part of our lives and not everyone has it.

Amanda: I went to the Air Force academy because a family friend, who graduated there mentored me since sixth grade, he taught me how to shake hands. He taught me interview skills. He is the one who told me which extracurricular activities I needed to be in, in order to have a better shot to go to this college. We didn't have a lot of extra money. I knew money was tight for us. And we had a very, you know, I had a fixed budget of new clothes each fall, and I was the one of my friends who would rewear outfits more than everyone else.

And I remember, and I never told my mom this, cause I didn't want her to feel bad cause I knew how hard they worked. But when I was going to interview with my congressperson to get a nomination to the air force academy. My mom spent the extra money to buy me a blue suit, and this was a big deal for me because this was beyond the budget of new clothes for the year.

But she knew that when I walked into that room, I would be judged as someone who didn't fit into the air force academy because I was a girl. So, by spending the money to buy me this blue suit, she knew I would walk into this interview room. Looking like I belonged at the air force academy. Which would give me that leg up, but it's clear that none of us got to where we are today without help, without support whatever we call it, our bootstraps, our support without infrastructure.

So, let's talk to another mom who circumstances could have led to a very different life story. Beverly Batte works for Red, Wine, and Blue, and she's actually one of the producers of this podcast. Beverly welcome to this side of the microphone. 

Beverly: Oh my gosh. I'm so excited. Long time listener. First time caller. I'm so excited to be here. 

Amanda: So, Beverly, can you start us off just like a little bit about your background growing up. Where you're from, how you got to being here today? 

Beverly: I'd love to my two favorite topics myself and why JD. Vance's an idiot. I'm ready to go. You know, I was born I'm from the land of Dolly Parton, right.

I'm from Sevier County, Tennessee, which is an Appalachian County. And if you know anything about Dolly Parton, you kind of know a little bit about what it's like to grow up in the Hills around that area. You know, my mother was very, very poor, was in an abusive situation. Um, the man involved in my conception told her to get an abortion and get lost and left her on her own.

And, but through some very long story circumstances, I ended up living with a couple of names, Gary and Kay Wicker. And they took me in and became my grandparents. They're not biologically related to me, but they are the closest thing to family. I have they're the most dear people to me, my grandmother has since passed away.

But, uh, it was really through the kindness. Of strangers that I was able to have any kind of semblance of a somewhat normal childhood and not just the kindness of strangers, but the kindness of community. And that's one of the things that I think people get so wrong. It takes a village to get somebody out of poverty.

It takes a village to, to raise somebody to, any level of, anything. Right. 

Rachel: What would you say to someone like JD Vance who thinks that everyone should just be able to. Pull these opportunities out of thin air. 

Beverly: I would say that he's full of shit. That's what I would say to JD Vance.

I read Hillbilly Elegy when it came out, because again, I'm Team Appalachia. I want to read all of it. And it, had been suggested to me, you know, oh, this sounds like you, why don't you, why don't you read that? Uh, and then I read it and laughed in that person’s face. I think a couple of things about that book right off the bat.

When I think of what JD Vance would say about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and that he did it. If you read the book, you see, he didn't do it alone. He did it because people kept thinking he was special. Right. And, oh, I'm so shocked that somebody thought the little white boy was special and giving him the extra stuff or whatever.

If you look at that book and take it and look at his story next to his sister. Right where she had the same exact situation that he was in yet. She still ended up pregnant at a young age. Right. She's still, she didn't get any of these other opportunities, but yet they had so many similarities. And then on the other end of that, he talks a lot about if the person that lived next door at one of their residents, right?

With one of these welfare queens, a Reagan welfare queen, right, that always had a new man and had been married a lot. That's how my mom got out of poverty. All my mom got out of poverty by marrying, and that was her option. And a lot of people will look down at that and think poorly of her. And I know that she would never admit that that's how she got out of poverty, but that's the facts and that if you're looking at a survival situation and that is how you can survive, how dare he.

Look down at somebody for how they're choosing. I mean, we look at the systemic barriers that women face anyways, you know, sometimes their best option when you're in those kinds of situations is to hitch yourself to a man. 

Rachel: That's very common actually. In other parts of the world, it's extremely common. I lived in Eastern Europe and it's a common thing there. So, we kind of need to get over ourselves in that regard. 

Beverly: Yeah. And it's for one, a lot of us that have escaped poverty, it can be easy to be like; Yep. It was me. I did that. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, right. Because it is hard work. Nobody's saying that it's not right. It's ridiculously hard, but you also can have the temerity to say that it took folks, right. It took help. It took kindness. It takes a village to escape poverty. It just does.

Amanda: We have glorified the story of the self-made person. And the problem with the glorification of that story is that we all will forget the places where we weren't self-made. We weren't self-made because we had parents, we weren't self-made because we had a community that support us.

Cause we had good education system. Cause we had healthcare. Right. There are so many ways we all aren't self-made that it's so easy to forget about because we glorify this self-made story instead of glorifying the ways that our community has supported us and our parents, like we have isn't mother's day and father's day.

So great. It's like the one day where we're going to remember we're not self-made and then all the other 360, whatever days we're going to think we're self-made. 

Beverly: So just before you guys boot me out of here and get on to this excellent interview is Sheryl WuDunn and your Toast to Joy. I just want to take a moment of personal privilege to say what a joy it is for me to produce this podcast with Amy, and I am so grateful that I got to come on and be vulnerable with the three of you.

And we talk about vulnerability and being honest and having these conversations all the time. So again, thank you. Thank you so much. 

Amanda: Thank you Beverly, and I would just like to say, I think from all of our perspectives, your experiences and all of the skillsets you do have, we see every time we do a podcast.

Beverly, thank you so much for being with us today and sharing your story. 

After this. My interview is Sheryl WuDunn. Sheryl is a Pulitzer Prize winner and an author and a business leader. Her latest book, Tightrope: Americans Reaching for Hope is a heartbreaking exploration of the poverty crisis and working-class America.

The interview is coming up after the break.

BREAK

Our guest today is Sheryl WuDunn. Sheryl is a business leader, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and an author together with her husband, New York times columnist Nicholas Kristoff. She's written several books on politics, economics, and women's rights. Her most recent book is called Tightrope. America's reaching for hope.

Sheryl: Great to be here, Amanda.

Amanda: So, your previous books have explored women's rights, Chinese politics and culture, and how to make a difference in the world. What made you and your husband decide to turn your focus to the crisis of poverty and despair in America with Tightrope?

Sheryl: Well, Amanda, it started out when we, basically we're based abroad. And we would come home every year, every summer and spend some time on the farm in Oregon. And Nick grew up with a lot of people there. We would see his friends. And over the years we started noticing that some of his friends were gone. I mean, missing because they died.

And then we started talking to some of these people who, you know, a couple of them worked on our farm. And we had never really talked to them about their home life or what was going on in their life. And we started asking them questions and what rolled out of their mouth was just stunning. I mean, it was just an enormous amount of pain and suffering and, dysfunction in their lives that rivaled all of the stuff that we've been seeing abroad, we covered, crisis areas we've covered, impoverished areas we've covered, challenged areas and, you know, this was right up there. And so, we realized that there's something to be said about what's going on in America that no one is talking about. And then of course, we went beyond Oregon as well. We went to other places in the U S, and we discovered that that's there too. And what's been striking is that people who have read tightrope, said, “Oh my God, this is like my hometown.” 

And they grew up in Maine. Or Maryland or West Virginia. It was like, wait a second. This is going on around the country. 

Amanda: Wow. It reminds me of it. So, in half the sky, you talked about the missing. That are around the world. And so now your kind of talking about missing Americans that aren't here anymore. A lot of the stories in your book are quite tragic of people who didn't make it.

Sheryl: For sure, and unfortunately, it's the case that there is this underclass of Americans who are just not being heard. And now we have seen, the ramifications of that. When we don't listen to a whole wide swath of Americans, they, you know, express their resentment, partly by electing Trump. And we saw the intense fan base that he had, partly because he spoke to those people.

He reached out to them and said, “You guys are hurting.”” You don't like immigrants because they take your jobs.” I mean, he would say things that were offensive to many other Americans, but were really speaking to this, this class of people who, who had been neglected. So, it's understandable. You know, here was a democratic base, uh, used to be a democratic base in many ways, the working class and yet alienation.

And so, when that happens, you know, it became a crisis and we saw the consequences and that's… if the democratic party doesn't really try and get back to its roots of the working class, you know, this is going to go on. 

Amanda: Yeah, we all, we all just want to be heard and be seen. And he picked up on that, that there were people that being heard, not being seen.

So, how do you think this crisis affects all of us? Not just people in rural areas, but even those of us in the suburbs. How does this affect us?

Sheryl: Okay. Well, as we've seen, you know, it showed up in the elections. And Trump's election obviously affected the entire country and, you know, in many ways set the entire country back and, you know, for the sake of a certain amount, of fan adulation because the thing is that President Trump did not even address the issues. Facing these working-class Americans. It's not as though they had their problem solved. I mean, especially when it comes to, you know, we saw what happened with the farmers. And so, the other thing is that we also learned in this past year during a pandemic that, when you don't take care of everyone in America, poor Americans, just as much as richer Americans can spread an infectious disease like COVID-19. It was the perfect example.

 Unfortunately, it was a perfect storm, but the example of where if we don't give healthcare to, you know, the most downtrodden, the working-class essential workers. We see what happens. We saw that many of these people, you know, essential workers are the very people who don't have the healthcare, who really, in the very beginning, didn't have even their own masks to wear.

You know, they didn't have adequate masks to wear. And so, and where are they supposed to get them, if they can barely make ends meet at a minimum wage of 7.25. You know, in terms of the federal minimum wage, there are a lot of challenges that they, that they were facing. And I think that we all realize that, now as a nation, we need to take care, at least address the concerns and the problems and the challenges facing even, the working class.

Amanda: Yeah, I never thought about it that way. So, when you think about the pandemic, it showed how connected we all are to the world, to rural areas, suburban America, urban America, we're all very much more connected than we think we are. 

Sheryl: Yup.

Amanda: So, some other books have discussed poverty, especially in rural areas, books like Hillbilly Elegy, and Hilbilly Elegy kind of focuses on this individualism and this kind of rising star out of these rural roots.

Kind of this idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, but your book talks instead about how poverty has more to do with the choices we've made as a nation, then as individuals. So, what collective choices have led us here and how can we do better? 

Sheryl: Well, first, let me be clear that it's both.

It is not one or the other. It is both the individual decision-making and the, the collective decision-making. So, I mean, in individually, it's very unusual, obviously in Hillbilly Elegy, you had a rising star. But we should have more rising stars and the society should create better conditions to create more rising stars.

Um, mobility in the U. S. used to be really, really high. I mean, you used to be able to go from rags to riches. We cannot do that. Now. It is much harder to do that, and you need special circumstances. You need to be a bright light, you know, and that's unusual, but we can create better conditions for more such rising stars to be found.

And so that has to do with things like early childhood education. It's really shameful that in the U. S. one out of seven American students doesn't graduate from high school. We're not talking about college. We're talking about high school, which, you know, the U.S. was a pioneer in secondary school education.

We were the best. We were out front there, mass education, no one had done it before in Europe, they had elite education. They'd never had mass education. And so here we would happen to that because we're not graduating high school students in masses, the way we used to. So, our high school graduation rate, in the eighties, the low to mid-eighties really should be way up there.

And we've got so many other countries around the world that are jumping, leapfrogging are way ahead of us. We're way down there in terms of the social progress index, which is a framework that was based on research of three Nobel prize winners. And they look at. Uh, several dozen different measures of society, progress in society and education has several different measures, but you know, we're really way back there.

And, you know, there are so many other countries that are way ahead of us. We should be… shouldn't we be at the top? We like to think of ourselves at the top. So early childhood education is really important because if you don't spend the money upfront, it is much harder to address someone who has not been educated, who's been in jail several times who has been, you know, committing crimes.

It is very hard to reform much harder, not impossible to reform you know, older adolescent or, even young adult than it is to catch them at 3, 4, 5 years old. When you know, their brain is much more malleable, you can actually educate them, even if they've been through some hardships in the first years of their life, but their brain is much more malleable and it's cheaper to do it.

It's cheaper to educate little kids and you, you know, that you can change their life trajectory by focusing on early childhood. 

Amanda: I love that you talked about how it's cheaper. Cause I often think about this within the framework of kind of fiscal conservatism, right? And so, we often think about fiscal conservatism as in, well, we can't spend money on anything, but that's not really what it is.

I think about it as you know, are these dollars a good investment? And the truth is if you spend those dollars upfront, it's cheaper than being forced to spend them later on. You know, the opioid crisis or, you know, name your crisis. It's going to be cheaper just to spend it earlier, earlier on in people's lives.

Sheryl: In fact, if you invest a dollar, now you're likely to get $7 in return for something like early childhood education for, addressing fetal alcohol syndrome so that the, you know. There’s a very interesting program called nurse family partnership. That sends nurses because they've got a lot of credibility with young, you know, soon to be mothers and they say “Look, don't drink while you're pregnant, because if the kid grows up with fetal alcohol syndrome, that is going to be really difficult to deal with, and you don't want to have to deal with that.”

 So, there are a lot of things can be done. That kind of investment one, you know, $7, 11, you know, $10 returns. On a dollar spent.

It is an upfront which people don't like to do. But the return is so much greater and it's not just that we're not even taking into account cause none of these programs can, the ability to compete better. If you have a much stronger generation rising through the ranks, we're going to be able to better compete in the world against China, against India.

Amanda: Absolutely. We want more of our kids to compete. It's like what you said about, you know, we want more of these rising stars. Right? And essentially, so I've seen the statistics and economics of showing that our mobility is declining over time, but you don't really think, or we maybe don't often connect those statistics with what that means in the real world.

Right. With the stories that you tell in your book of what it looks like in real cities and in real places to have so many people not be able to be those rising stars. That in previous decades maybe would have had a shot to be, you know, those rising stars. So, it's really interesting for me to see kind of and hear, those real, those real stories.

So, your book ends with 10 steps we can take to make a difference. What are some of those steps that someone who's listening to this right now can take? 

Sheryl: Yeah. Well, there's a number of things. First of all, it's get educated, learn more about the problem so that you can say, hey, you know, I'm really excited Early childhood education, or I'm interested in more at the high school level, uh, or I'm interested in something else. I mean, you could be interested in healthcare for instance, you know, there's a lot of issues with relating to healthcare. If we spend up front and give people healthcare, we're not going to have some problems later on.

And a lot of these are connected. So, for instance, look at early childhood education. So, you think, okay. Yes. Well, if a child, you know, there’s something called ACEs, it's basically. Adverse childhood experiences that kids face when they're young, a lot of us have one or two, like our parents got divorced or we had a big move in the family.

So, we're in a new environment. It's okay. One or two or three, we can, you know, little kid can, can deal with that. They're resilient enough for that. But when you start piling on six, seven, yeah. You know, ACEs, you know, there's child abuse, there's, you know, a spousal abuse, there's verbal abuse, there's physical abuse.

There's all sorts of things. There are fires going on. There are drugs in the house, all sorts of things. Then. That child faces stress. And that means cortisol is traversing through their brain. And when that happens, when they're young, like, you know, zero to five, um, the cortisol impairs the brain development, the architecture of the brain.

So that really does create some problems. But the good thing is that if you catch it early enough, you can reverse that. Because again, as I mentioned earlier, the brain is very malleable at a young age, but as you start getting later on, Adolescent that is much harder. So, you can see if, if nothing changes, then that kid might be more likely to, you know, live a life of crime, to be you're shoplifting to then be picked up as a juvenile and maybe thrown into, you know, juvenile to jail.

Um, not only that, but believe it or not decades later, they, they see that, a lot of these challenges have health implications. So, these people later on in life are much more likely to have chronic disease. Chronic heart disease, diabetes. So, think of all that cost to the society of people going to the hospital, to the emergency rooms and, you know, basically, you know, using the emergency room as their, as their healthcare.

It's extremely costly to all of society. So again, if you invest early on, uh, you really can avoid some of these huge social costs where just, which are just dragging the society. 

Amanda: So, we talked about finding something that you're interested in. Last week's podcast. We talked about getting angry and we talked about anger, and we talked about kind of using that anger and channeling it into, you know, a force for good.

But today we're talking about empathy, and I know compassion and altruism are topics you've explored in several of your books. How do you think we can kind of be more compassionate and why is it so important? 

Sheryl: I think it's a number of things, altruism and compassion, you know, it's the squishy things that we really don't know how to measure very well.

There are some ways that we can measure it. And so, we know that storytelling really does help, spark sort of the, the fires of compassion, and so that's important. But I also think that it's understanding the other side so that we don't otherize people. So, it's really saying, wait a second, gosh, you know, there was one point in my life when I was really sad or when I lost that job and I was really, gosh, am I going to get another job?

I think that it's really a matter of saying to yourself, hey, let me put myself in the shoes of someone else. And so, ways to do that are to step out of your comfort zone and to walk on the other side of that or to visit a homeless shelter more frequently to get to know people in your church who you don't realize are living sort of on the edge.

And when you get involved are going to be people around you, who you, who you have fun with, and that's going to make it more pleasurable. 

Amanda: So, you talked about using stories to build empathy, and I know your books have so many, very compelling stories about girls in, you know, Half the Sky from Around the Aorld and in your new book, Tight Rope.

Is there a story in your new book, Tight rope that kind of sticks with you? 

Sheryl: You know, maybe one that is quite poignant is the story of a family, the Knapp family, that, my husband went on the school bus with every day, and they were five happy-go-lucky kids. You know, jumping onto the bus, number one, number two, number three, number four, number five, you know, Pharrell in Keelan, Zealand, Nathan, you know, Regina, they are all really full of joy and full of happiness when they were young. Over the years, none of them graduated from high school.

The high school that Nick went to, none of them made it partly because their dad, he had never graduated from high school, but he had been a pipe layer. He had, you know, he had a decent job there. So, he thought, well, why do I. You know, uh, high school degree, well, back then, you really didn't. You could get a decent job, you know, paying quite a bit without a high school degree, but life went by them and now you need a high school degree, and they didn't get it.

So, it made it hard for them to get jobs. So, they may have started out in a stable job, but then they lost it and couldn't find it again. So, you know, like for instance, Farlan turned to meth, he became one of the two meth dealers in the yeah. Great. So, if only had done well in chemistry in high school, maybe he would have gotten going onto something more professional in chemistry, but, you know, he applied his chemistry skills to, making meth and then he passed away, you know, he died from alcoholism, and the drug abuse didn't help.

Then, you know, his sister Regina died from hepatitis from, over-drinking and, you know, His other brother, Nathan actually, died making meth. He blew up in a fire that when he was making meth and Dylan died in a house fire, partly because he was drunk and there was a house fire and he died because he was, so he was passed out drunk and the fifth one, so he had survived for many, many years, mainly because he was in the state penitentiary.

He got out. He, um, his mother moved to Oklahoma where there was family. He went there. And so, um, after Tightrope came out, we got invited to all sorts of places and someone said, you know, how about Keelan? And so, we thought, yeah, let's bring Keelan into one of these conferences. So, we were all set to have him go to a conference. It was in the spring of 2020. Right. So of course, we all know what happened, COVID happened. He was really excited about that. Well, he lost his job and then we got a phone call. That, Keelan had overdosed most likely on, well, they thought it was heroin, but probably it was fentanyl, which, you know, can really take you by surprise if it's really high, concentrated con concentrated version.

So that's five kids. The mother still is alive. That's five, you know, five out of five kids who all passed away related to drug and alcoholism. And it was just, it's just heartbreaking that shouldn't happen.

Amanda: No, I love that you described them and you kind of can made this connection. You have these five joyful kids hopping on the bus, like oh, they're going to make fun of me now because I cry at every one of these, but get these by joyful kids.

I love that you connect these, and you get this picture of these bio joyful kids, like hopping on the bus and those five kids that could have been so many different things. Doctors and nurses and engineers and chemists. Didn't really have the chance to be those things. And now we have a society where we don't have that chemist.

We don't have that doctor. We don't have that engineer, whoever they might have been had, they had kind of a better structure to kind of put their feet on that they just didn't have. All right. So, with all the topics that you tackle, I'm already crying at this one. So how do you protect your mental health?

Sheryl: So, when I think about a lot of the people who have come up with solutions, it's very inspiring. So, there's this one great organization in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they have focused on drug addiction of women. And they've created a program that diverts women who normally would be sent to five, 10 years in jail.

And of course, that's not going to help them right. Being in jail, they say, well, let's take that money that normally you would spend on jail for her and let's put it into this program. It's a rehabilitation program where they basically detox, give you intense therapy because a lot of it has to do with your own mental state.

You have therapy, medical doctors, dental dentist. They've never had dentists often, and then give them skills to coping skills and then let's give them business skills. So, they get sort of business, basic business training, how to use computer basics like that. And then they get apprenticeships and then often they get jobs.

Just as they graduate from the program, because this organization has worked with a lot of local employers to say, look, these people are going to be ex-convicts. Will you take them? And because these employers knew what a great program this is and how hard and successful that this organization has been, it's called women in recovery has been, you know, really transforming these women.

They're willing to take a chance on them. And so. It's inspiring when you see someone like that who is running a program like that, or people who are working in a program like that, it's just remarkable that there are so many solutions that are being tested and applied throughout the country. You know, we really need to scale them up. 

Amanda: That is the bright spot is seeing that we have the solutions. We have a lot of research out there; all a lot of these problems aren't new. We just need the action, and you're seeing people who are kind of taking that action. 

Okay. Now we're going to jump into some fun, rapid fire questions. Sheryl, are you ready?

 Your family has a farm in Oregon, but you grew up in Manhattan.

What's one thing that has surprised you about life on a farm. 

Sheryl: Oh, well, um, I'm still used to shutting the door, sorry. I'm used to locking the car door and you don't need to lock your car door on a farm. 

Amanda: That's true. I actually used to live across the Creek from a farm and we had some relatives visit from DC and we would always leave our back door open, and our dogs were just kind of running in and out and they were shocked.

All right. Who's better at adapting to the unexpected, you or your husband, Nick?

Sheryl: Oh, I think both in different areas. So, like, he's really good at adapting when he's in Darfur, I would not do well there. I'm really good at adapting in the city. So, it really depends on what it is. 

Amanda: If they made a movie of your life, who would you cast to play yourself? 

Sheryl: Oh my gosh. Well, I just saw a movie with Sandra O. So yes. I thought she was terrific. So, I'll say her 

Amanda: Great casting. What's one thing in your house that you have to keep stocked at all times.

Sheryl: Oh, I guess decaf coffee. 

Amanda: Oh, decaf? 

Sheryl: I know I don't drink CAF coffee. I drink decaf coffee, Because the caffeine keeps me up too much. And so, but I like coffee, so. That's what I, that's what I drink. 

Amanda: Oh, pretty healthy. That's going to be healthier than mine. Mine’s nachos, but nachos just not as healthy.

 So, I heard that you sang in choirs when you were growing up. What's your favorite song to sing?

Sheryl: Oh, my goodness. I do really like The Circle Game. By Joni Mitchell.

Amanda: Oh, I love Joni Mitchell. I love… 

Sheryl: It is hard to beat her voice. 

Amanda: It is. Okay, that's all for our rapid-fire questions. Thanks for joining me today. Where can people find you and your work online? 

Sheryl: Oh, they can go to tightropeusa.com, there's information there about both the book and also the documentary.

And yeah, there's also random house has lots of stuff on all of our books because they've published all of them.

Amanda: This was such a pleasure, Sheryl, thank you again for being here on the Suburban Women Problem. 

Sheryl: Yes, my, my pleasure being here, Amanda. Thank you.

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Jasmine: Welcome back everyone. So, Amanda, that was an amazing conversation you had with Sheryl. I think the part that probably resonated with me the most was when you talked about the cortisol levels. How it courses and you know, me being in science that really resonated with me because it makes so much sense how it not only leads to, stress and other issues, but also health issues because all of those things are connected. So, great, great conversation. 

Amanda: I love talking with her for kind of a similar reason, Jasmine, that I come to this kind of as an economist. And I kind of know some of the figures. I know some of the stats on, you know, mobility decreasing over time, but then she comes to it with those facts and the science in there too.

And she links them with stories. And so, hearing those stories is kind of especially impactful and realizing there's so many stories behind like stats and numbers and a lot of the science that we hear about, but there's people.

 We like to end each podcast with a toast to joy. So, my toast to joy today is really about support.

So, we just had a party to welcome our son Brady to our family. It was our gotcha party after we adopted him. And it was a time for… really, we wanted to invite our community, our community of friends who support us and also so that his grandma who placed him with us could see the kind of support that we have.

So my total joy is to all of the support we have that I probably don't always do the best job about thanking people for that support.

Rachel: I think it's great that you acknowledge your family of support that you have, um, made up of actual family and friends. So my toast today is a little different it’s to our national parks.

My husband and I have gotten away a little bit to enjoy some of our national parks in the Pacific Northwest. And the peacefulness that I think it brought both of us was not something we knew we needed, but we definitely needed that. So, my toast to joy is to the national park system and all those who worked so hard to leave this special place for us.

Jasmine: Yeah, I would love to go for a hike right now. I had a challenging weekend. I had some good things happen. I gave a Ted talk and got a chance to catch up with a friend and things like that. But between those, I also had, some pretty stressful moments and a hike, would be nice. I ended up doing like an hour walk even this morning when I first woke up.

Cause I felt like I still needed to decompress. It's from like all the stress of the weekend. That said my toast to joy is actually to my friend who came through and, rescued me this weekend. So, I had to give a Ted talk on Sunday, and it was supposed to be at 1230. And so, you know, 10 o'clock I'm like searching everywhere for my keys.

Like where are my keys? I cannot find my keys anywhere. And so, my daughter goes to the car and she's like, mom, your keys are in the car. So, the battery had been running all night. Now it's 1015, and my car won't start. Thank goodness for things like Lyft and the ability to kind of troubleshoot that situation.

And so, I did get there. I got there on time. I did the speech, it went great, but after I called a friend and I was like, Hey, can you help me with my car? And she showed up. She helps me with my car. It takes like 10 minutes. My car is running again. I'm very happy. And then after that, she and I just sat on my back patio and just chatted.

And I did not realize how much I needed to just sit down with a friend and just have a conversation about a whole bunch of stuff. Like we weren't even talking about anything specific. And so, I, my toast to joy is to her number one for helping me with my car, but also helping me a little bit with some self-care and just helping me mentally.

Even if she doesn't realize that that's what she was doing in that moment, but I needed that little moment of just friendship, companionship, camaraderie. You know, to be able to have a conversation. So that's my toast to joy this week.

Amanda: Oh, I still feel that I went to a fundraiser with a friend, and it was just like the two of us girlfriends going.

And I think, I didn't realize how much I needed that too where we, after the fundraiser, we're like, oh, let's go get some apps and drinks together quick. Like the kids are fine, let's do this. And I probably didn't realize I needed to do that as much as I did. 

Thanks so much to everyone for joining us. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it with someone, you know. We'll see you again next week on another episode of The Suburban Women Problem.