The Examined Life
The Examined Life podcast explores the questions we should be asking ourselves with a range of leading thinkers. Each episode features a different interview, and appeals to those interested in wisdom, personal development, and what it might mean to live a good life. Topics vary from discussing the role of dopamine mining and status anxiety, to exploring the science of awe and attention.
The Examined Life
Michaeleen Doucleff - what are the universals of childhood?
What if the Western approach to parenting is based on spurious cultural assumptions, not human nature? In this episode, science writer Michaeleen Doucleff takes us inside indigenous communities around the world to reveal what Western parenting gets backwards, as we explore her question - what are the universals of childhood? From the origins of modern parenting in orphanage manuals to the power of kids contributing to real family life, we explore what children actually need to thrive — and how small shifts can create big changes in connection, confidence, and calm at home.
Happiness in life and feeling good in life isn't just about being entertained and having things, that, oh that feels so good, and it's also about meaning and purpose and eudaimonia, right, like this whole aspect of working and then seeing that I'm helping and I contribute, and we've just thrown that out when it comes to small children, and then that builds over time and by their time they're nine, ten. What is their meaning? What is their purpose?
Kenneth Primrose:Hello and welcome to the third season of the Examined Life podcast with me, kenny Primrose. For the last eight years or so, I've been asking leading thinkers about the question they think we should be asking ourselves. A couple of years ago, this developed into a podcast series. In previous episodes you can hear conversations with Terry Waite, oliver Berkman, lisa Miller, anna Lemke, eve Poole, liz Oldfield, ian McGilchrist and many others besides. I found these conversations really stimulating and practically helpful and decided to do another series. For the next 10 weeks or so, I'm going to be dropping a new episode every week with a different thinker. You'll hear conversations on childhood and parenthood values, purpose, technology, collapse and much else besides. If you follow me on my Substack channel, positively Maladjusted, you'll find that each episode is accompanied by an essay where I try to think through and apply each of these questions.
Kenneth Primrose:I hope that these conversations are both interesting and helpful. If they are, then do please rate and review the podcast. It really helps other people find it. Share it with someone who you think might enjoy it. In this first episode, I speak to the wonderful science writer, michaelene Duclef, who I first came across through her book Hunt Gather Parent what ancient cultures can teach us about raising happy, helpful little humans? In our conversation today, we dive into the universal elements of childhood and parenting that we find across cultures and throughout time. We also explore what might have gone wrong with Western parenting such that we've ended up with a mental health crisis among young people today. I found this conversation, practically as an educator and a parent, helpful and interesting, but I think it has value even if you don't work with children or have children. I'm going to hand over now to my conversation with Michaelene Ducliffe. Michaelene, I'm delighted to be speaking to you and I wonder if we could just dive straight in with the question that has preoccupied you in recent years.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yeah, so I, like I was saying earlier, when my little girl was one years old. That was about 2016. So a while ago, almost 10 years ago, I started trying to figure out kind of what were the universal elements of parenting. What did parents do all around the world? You could find in every single culture and in maybe even throughout time, and that question led me to really want to understand and see. I started opening my eyes to this question of like how our culture Western culture, european culture influences our parenting and changes our parenting, and it also changes the way we view and see the child, like what we assume about the child, and it turns out that we do a lot of things that are really unique and you don't find elsewhere, and those perceptions and assumptions really affect how we relate to children.
Kenneth Primrose:Fascinating. A theme that comes out, I think, of various conversations in this podcast are the ways that our society has shaped us, and not always to the good. So you use the acronym WEIRD in your book. We are weird people if we are listening to this and we're Western. And what is it? Educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. Yes, I wonder if we could productively begin with that. What are the assumptions that we take into parenting, about childhood and so on?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yes, so we definitely like that acronym comes from looking at just our society as a whole. But then we have research. Anthropologists and psychologists have focused on the parenting aspect of that, and we are definitely weird parents in the sense that we do maybe 50 things that you don't see really anywhere else besides places that have been westernized right, and these things have huge impact and they're also like really deeply baked into our parenting. We think they're like things that we have to do. We think they're like truths. So do you want me to list off a couple of the big ones?
Kenneth Primrose:Yeah, let's go for a couple of the ones that really stand out for you, that you think this is a weird thing rather than a universal thing.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:So one of the things that affects us, maybe one of the most, is that we think that children need to be entertained or stimulated, or we are in charge of creating and managing their attention. So, for instance, like on a Saturday afternoon, by weird parenting rules, I'm supposed to plan what Rosie does, my daughter Rosie. I'm supposed to plan what she does, and a lot of times that, or really that planning that activity involves direct kind of instruction to her, whether it's a class, whether it's me managing it and doing it, or even a screen, if you think about it, when a child is in front of a screen, they are being instructed. That activity also needs to involve, oftentimes, some entertainment, right, so it makes her feel good, it makes her feel happy, it makes her like it often doesn't have meaning or purpose, but it's chosen by me, it's managed by me, it's executed by me, the parent, me being the parent, and so I'm this key part of it and she is supposed to do what I say and go with it and be happy.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:And what this does is it creates, kind of. One of the second big things that makes this weird is it creates this world that is only for the child and that world is totally separate from the adult world, and so one of the things that we do is we separate the child from the adult world. We rarely let children into the adult world until they're grown, and then we say now it's time, go into the adult world, be productive, have meaning, right. And so this is extremely weird, that children are just separated and excluded and we think it's good for them, we think it's helping them, it's the right thing to do as a parent and, in fact, bringing them into the adult world is down upon and denigrated right.
Kenneth Primrose:And so, but at least the way you're speaking about this, you think there's consequences which are not good. So we assume this is good for the parents to have these two worlds and that you have child-centric activity or whatever, but this has negative consequences, you think, for the well-being or development of the child.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Absolutely. I think it's a huge disservice to the child. I also think it's and I think there's good evidence for it it's not just what. I believe. I think there's a lot of evidence for it and I think it's also. I think it really can cause a huge amount of conflict between the parent and the child.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I think that children, human children and I think that there's good evidence for this are made to be somewhat in the adult world. Right, they're not made for the adult world at every moment, but they are made to move in and out of the adult world and then they're made to create their own world themselves. So the child world exists in every culture, but the children create it. It comes from within them. It doesn't, it's not directed and created by the adults. In fact, the adults think they can't create the child world. They don't want to. That's for children. Adults think they can't create the child world. They don't want to. That's for children, right. So what you normally see across the world and probably throughout human history, is the children create their own world that they live in and they design it, they implement it, they execute it. It comes from within them and the parents think yes, that's how it's supposed to be. I'm not supposed to be in there. The parents don't go in there, Maybe a little tiny bit when they're babies, but that's not the child world, that's just the baby, right? A baby is very different than a toddler.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:And then the children pop in and out of the adult world during the day, on the weekends, after school, and they're welcome in it. If they're acting crazy and really making a mess or really like disturbing things, they're kicked out. There's some level of code of conduct and as they get older that level rises, but they're totally welcome. In fact, when they want to come into the adult world, the parent is excited oh great, you want to learn, you want to grow. And the parent sees this as opportunities to teach the child slowly, over time, from like age two until whatever age they become fully capable.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Teach the child how to live in the adult world, how to do meaningful tasks and develop meaningful, useful skills, and I would argue that's what children need. You, that's what children need. Children want to develop meaningful, useful skills that contribute to their home, their family and their society, and in Western culture we have really in many cases denied them that and I think it hurts them. I think it hurts them mentally and some children are more resilient to it than others. I can see they want to contribute to their home, they want to contribute to their family and they can't because they're in this child world.
Kenneth Primrose:And they are consumers rather than contributors. They are passive recipients of whatever the parents or teachers or whatever are telling them.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I think that's a beautiful way to put it that they are consumers instead of contributors and, in fact, like, if we look at the data and this is the new book, I'm finishing right now most of what they consume is the screen. They're consuming from the parents, right, the parents are giving them, and I think that the assumption there is that the parent has all the information, and the information comes from the parent and goes into the child, right? Or comes from the teacher and goes into the child, and so it's a very one-way flow, right. So you're exactly right, they're consuming, they're taking in.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:But actually, if you talk to many parents around the world and you look at how children learn and parents teach them, there is a two-way street that the child is actually also has something to give, even at very little age, something to teach the parent, that the child directs their learning, and I have a beautiful example of that recently.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I was thinking about last night that recently happened in our home and so there's this assumption that the child can't do that, right, that the child can't teach themselves something with your guidance, right, that you are going to teach, that the parent is going to teach them it. But actually, in many cultures. What is seen is that the child has this innate desire to learn, this strong motivation to learn, and they will lead the charge on it. The parent is there to guide, the parent is there to support, the parent is there to. It's, like I say, like a stagehand hand almost, but the child is really leading their learning and it happens slowly and it happens by being in, that, popping in and out of that adult world so there's something there isn't there about developing an internal locus of control and, as psychologists put it, that it's just not allowed, not given much oxygen when everything's prescribed or done for you, and also like predetermined by the parent what to do and like where you're going, and absolutely, and that locus of control.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Data show that starts very young. This is a human need, right, like we need this autonomy, right, we need this. I'm going to make most of my decision. At the same time, we need cooperation, we need support, we need to be part of a group, we need to feel like we belong in a group. Cross-cultural psychologists and anthropologists talk about between being autonomous and being in control of yourself and also working together in a group, and that's the skill that I think children develop through play in the child world and develop through interactions in the adult world. They need both. The play is the area. The child's world is the area where the child practices these skills and there's low stakes, right. They reenact them, they imagine them, they pretend them, and that allows them to practice them and learn from people, people that are closer to them in age and skill level. And then the adult world is where they really hone in and execute it I'm interested.
Kenneth Primrose:you say this, in fact, because I'm going to be speaking to peter gray. Do you know play makes us human? Yeah, I'm going to be speaking to him, gray, do you know Play Makes Us Human? Yes, absolutely yeah, I'm going to be speaking to him for this series. I'm interested to hear more about the deprivation of play and what that's doing to us and de-skilling things that are innately wired in children to learn through play. I wonder if I could ask a big question about this how do weird societies view children? Because I see childhood in our society. It's almost sacred in a culture with very few sacred things, but at the same time, it's like the data shows in mental health or whatever else. The way we're viewing childhood clearly isn't leading to flourishing children. So, yeah, I wonder, could you speak into that question? How do we view children as opposed to, say, an indigenous society in Tanzania?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:So I think your word sacred is really good. I think that there's so a lot of this thinking comes from one of Peter's close colleagues, of David Lancey. He has a whole book on how different societies view childhood. And yes, we've, he taught. He told me one time, like we view them as shrink wraps that's what was really sticks in my mind Like we've wrapped them up in plastic and we don't want them to get dirty, we don't want them to get hurt. We like there's this and that is sacred, right, and this hurts them mentally. It's like you've alluded to right, because that's not who they are. They're not something, an object you put on a stand and try to keep it from being hurt and preserved, right. That is so far from the human need, right? So I think that in many indigenous cultures and I can't speak for all, but you see some patterns and I think one of the patterns is that children are seen as little children.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I think one of the patterns is that children are seen as little children. Little toddlers and babies are seen as these very irrational creatures, very illogical creatures. They don't have emotional control, so if they yell and scream and hit, that's just how they are. We don't need to fix it right away. Emotional skills are these things that you learn over time, like math and reading, and they take time to develop, and so that's one of the big differences in our society. We think these. We actually think that children are intentionally mean and nefarious, like little kings, like that. They intentionally want to hurt us. This is if you keep your ear open, you will hear this that they're pushing our buttons, manipulating us, testing boundaries, all these things that are very negative socially, manipulating us, testing boundaries all these things that are very negative socially, antisocial characteristics right, but in many cultures, that behavior which looks nefarious is just viewed as irrationality and like crazy, illogical creatures that are growing into their logic and growing into their understanding. So that changes a lot of the way you interact with a young child. Instead of getting mad at them when they act crazy and mean and antisocial, you just like that's the way it is and we need to teach them. It's not personal Versus. I'm going to show you how to act right now and don't do that to me this kind of very defensive thing.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:The other thing that they see children as and this is really important to mental health that first one is too for sure, but is they see them as capable, contributing members of the family and the society from a very early age, in the family, in the group, and the job of the parent is to help find that purpose and cultivate it. And examples of this abound when we traveled, when Rosie and I traveled, as we traveled to three different communities and lived with them. You see this everywhere that a little four-year-old can contribute, a six-year-old can contribute. Everybody has a purpose and the job of this society is to help find that purpose and bring it out.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Whereas we view children as, like I said earlier, as these things that are to be entertained, right, and we they can't. What could they do? What do they want to do? They don't even want to help. I hear this all the time. My mother doesn't want to help. No, every human being wants to help.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:It's about that, isn't? That was what makes us human in many ways. It's about finding, first of all, cultivating that instead of denying it. We deny it at a very early age. We push them away A little.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Two, three four-year-old comes over and wants to do the dishes, starts making a mess, starts spraying the water everywhere.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:We say get away, go play, go watch cartoons.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I need to get this done.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:So that is denying them some purpose and meaning in life. I know it sounds silly, but like cleaning the dishes is needed and it has to get done and it's done every day. And a child that comes in and wants to help with that in many cultures is seen as wow, this is great, she wants to help, she wants to contribute. I'm going to help her do that, and maybe we're going to make a mess at first, but I'm going to teach her how to do that. And the thing, kenny, is, if you look at positive psychology right now, they're starting to really figure out that we've missed this boat, especially with children. That happiness in life and feeling good in life isn't just about being entertained and having things that, oh, that feels so good, and it's also about meaning and purpose and eudaimonia, right, like this whole aspect of working, and then seeing that I'm helping and I contribute and we've just thrown that out when it comes to small children. And then that builds over time and by their time they're nine, ten, what is their meaning, what is their purpose?
Kenneth Primrose:Yeah, it's hard to course correct, isn't it In the teenage years, when you've taught someone that they're not helpful and then you expect them to help when they're 14, 15 and couldn't find some kind of purpose? Yeah, it's a first.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:You can, of course, correct. People ask me all the time like you can and you have to. I think you have to believe, like you have to believe, that a child has this desire in them, that every human being has this desire. If you don't believe it, as a parent, it's going to be really hard. Some kids are going to be like, yes, and it won't matter what the parent does, right, they're going to, they're going to want to contribute. Rosie is like no matter what, I thought she was going to contribute, and but some kids they need their parent to see, it to see and believe that they want to help.
Kenneth Primrose:So you think, this is like your question what are the universals? This is a universal, this is one of them that we are born to help, and it's interesting that you're. I had a conversation with the anthropologist tim ingold and he makes this really good observation that we only we think of generations as like strata, one stacked on top of the next, and they each got to remake the world and deal with the problems. And if you're old, you're useless. If you're young, you're useless. It's that middle section who can work in an industrialized society that have any value, and so you've got this totally unsustainable, uh, model of generations stacked on top of one another rather than their ear, the metaphor of a piece of rope that's intertwined and they each have which I I think is a beautiful picture.
Kenneth Primrose:Yes, the industrialized, the weird model that we've grown up with, has a relatively bleak view of human nature. So if you think of um lord, of of the Flies, or even, I think, common understandings of natural selection, would suggest that we are selfish, self-interested.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Obviously, it's more complicated than that, the norm of self-interest. I think psychologists call it that. We are assuming that everybody is only interested in themselves. So we treat other people that way and we treat children that way. And I just got interviewed for a piece in New York Magazine where it was about this that two-year-olds, three-year-olds, four-year-olds can't share because they're just so selfish. And if you actually look at that, I told the reporter that's just wrong. That is just completely wrong. If you actually look at the data, a two, three-year-old is incredibly giving, incredibly helpful, incredibly able to think about other people. But they learn through what? The norm of self-interest? They learn that in their home, in their environment, everyone's looking out for themselves, and so they become that.
Kenneth Primrose:You've got this really helpful bit which would be good to explain in your book, about the Muller-lyer illusion and how it was based on 12 percent of the global population. But it's universalized as this. This is how we, this is how we perceive. Could you explain what that shows us about the anthropology we inherit?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:yeah, this is actually from that acronym, weird, the research paper that coined that term from Harvard researchers. So I don't know. There's a very famous illusion where there's two lines right and one line has the arrowheads on either side pointing out like a regular arrowhead, and then the other line has the arrowheads flipped out so that it looks very strange right, has the arrowheads flipped out so that it looks very strange right, and if you and I look at that, we think the one with the arrowheads flipped out is longer. I believe that's right and it's very obvious, right? You're like oh, the one on the bottom is longer, for sure, it looks really longer. I think we say 20% longer or something so significantly longer, and that's what psychologists thought. Everybody must see it that way around the world. But then in most studies they did, because in most studies the vast majority of studies were done in Europe or America.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:But then some researchers have gone around the world and given people, largely in indigenous communities, the same test and in many communities they actually don't. So I should say it's an illusion. Right, the two lines are the same. We see them as 20% different, but they are exactly the same. And when researchers give this test to people, some undergatherers, in Africa, many parts of the world. A lot of them see them as the same. They're not tricked by that illusion. A lot of them see them as the same. They're not tricked by that illusion.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:And to me it was such a strong finding because it means, look, if my culture can change how I see two lines, then of course it's going to shape something as complicated as a relationship with another person, or human being, or parenting, right, and so that's when I really was like, let's see how my, what I grew up with as given, what I grew up with as what I believe was like basic human nature, let's see how that's actually um, shaped by industrialization, by capitalism, by these things that we are immersed in, and and, like you said, one of them, one of them really is that we are always acting, and it's interesting because we are always acting selfishly. That's what we're, but it really is. We're trying to get as much stuff as possible like you know, like that's what this is.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Because it? Because, actually, if you look at what makes us feel good and what makes us feel like a full human being, flourishing human being, it's not stuff, it's helping other people, it's giving to other people. So we say it's selfish, but it's really just like accumulation of goods. Yeah.
Kenneth Primrose:I think the psychologist Jamil Daki, who's positive psychology? He says that there is good in us and it does good for us. We just feel better by being good, Whereas we've been slipped this lie by consumerism, anti-capitalism, that it's status.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Or yeah, absolutely.
Kenneth Primrose:Yeah, so this is helpful. We've got one so far. We want to help, but what else? Because it sounds like you had a few rude to damascus experiences you mean, what are the other universals of parenting?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:yeah, like you know our human universals.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yeah, yeah, yeah sorry, human universals okay, there's another one that's huge and, like I alluded it to before, it conflicts with this one. Right, we want to help, but we also want to. Humans have this in very innate need for autonomy, to feel like they're making their moment to moment decisions in life, that they're in charge, kind, of their destiny. Now, it's not independent, it's not I'm doing this on my own, I'm separate from everybody. We would not have survived that way.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:That, like one of this, all of this kind of comes from this idea of what made homo sapiens win through time and the other Homo species not. And one of them is that we were very cooperative, right, especially raising children. I think that's considered a key one. But at the same time, we have this really innate need for autonomy, to be in charge, to feel like, when I'm moving through my day-to-day, I know what's going to happen because I'm making those decisions and I know that I'm capable of handling the things that come into my world and the problems that arise.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:And so if you ask American parents I'm not sure about French, english one, but if you ask American parents they will say that this is really important in their lives and this is a really important feature of parenting. But then if you actually look at what they do, their children in America, and I'm sure in England too, have very little autonomy, almost none, some. But this is absolutely a human, universal need and it conflicts it's a little bit paradoxical with wanting to help and contribute and be part of the group, but they work together. They work together because it's not like I say, it's not independent. I'm basically in charge, but I also have to look towards the group and help the group and respect the group and do my part within this group.
Kenneth Primrose:And the fact that we don't give that much autonomy to kids at all is partly because we don't trust them, right, because we don't trust that basic. Their intuitions are good, they want to help. We think it's nefarious. They're going to end up in mischief. If they're not, that's right.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Like I don't want to Learning and growing with that autonomy, and we also don't trust the society around us. Right, it's actually really fascinating, because we don't trust the physical, three-dimensional world, but we somehow trusted the internet, which I'm not sure I understand.
Kenneth Primrose:This is like it's insane. It's insane and I'm glad there's a movement now that's waking up to it, but it's yeah, we don't need to go there at the moment. We both know this is crazy, that how much freedom people have online and how little freedom kids have in the physical space and they're fulfilling that need there.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Right, it we've taken away, like I think about. I have very many examples of this in my life where the parent doesn't allow the child to walk a couple blocks to the park, even though no child has been abducted, no thing has been wrong for 10 years. Right, they don't let the child walk a couple blocks to the park, but they let the child. So what's the child doing? The child isn't helping around the house. Right, we've gone over that. They're not part of learning a skill inside the house that's useful or was useful in the past. So what are they doing, right? Like, where do they spend their time? And they have needs as human beings. We have needs to help, we have needs to create, we have needs to grow, we have needs to explore.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Peter Gray talks a lot about play and he'll tell you all about play, but one of the things I was interested in is like, like, what aspect of play is important? Right, because you could say, oh, the child's playing on the ipad, but actually what we need is adventure, exploration, learnings, and if we're not letting them go to the park, we're not letting them develop adult skills inside the home. So then, what are they doing right, and and what they ended up doing is is really sitting on a computer right which which does try to fulfill some of these needs, but it's just. It's like a hollow form of it there.
Kenneth Primrose:It's missing big components of it, and then you're also got these risks that we alluded to and so that this, these kind of assumptions, are also the foundation of the way we educate in lots of ways, and that's. I don't want to depart too far from the parenting thing, but it's part of the same piece, isn't it? Because if the kids are coming in, if they've learned to be selfish and mean or whatever, then they require that same kind of I. Yeah, I wonder if you could speak into that.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yes, it is. It overlaps right, because a big job of parents is to teach children things right. And it's fascinating because in some cultures, like in the Inuit with the Inuit, they actually have two words one for the way that, traditionally, children learn and parents teach and one for the way that westerners have come in and showed schooling basically right and they're. They don't. They're completely different, they're not the same thing at all, and because they didn't have teaching like Western teaching for 5,000 years. And then it comes in. So they very clearly make this distinction. One is more of what I described earlier and the other one is I think I described them both. So the Western teaching is this idea that the child sits there and you tell them what to learn through words, through these abstract ideas, right, very little practical. And, yes, that is school, but it is parenting too, right? Okay, how am I going to teach Rosie fractions? Okay, I'm going to write them down and I'm going to show her on the board and then I'm going to ask her questions and she's going to tell me the right answer Highly verbal, highly abstract. She's going to tell me the right answer Highly verbal, highly abstract, but traditionally, in the way arguably children have learned for probably 100,000 years or more experience the anthropologist psychologist Barbara Rogoff and her colleague Lucia Alcala.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:They call it LOPI, l-o-p-i Learning through observation and pitching in.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:You're there, you're not pushed aside. When the parent is doing something useful cooking, cleaning, weaving, building a house the child is welcome to watch, encouraged to watch, and then the parent gives them tiny little things to do, but meaningful, real things to do and I have to say this is how I taught my husband to cook Through Lopi, through learning, the observation and pitching in. It's a really beautiful way to learn because it's not stressful. It's very slow. It's basically like the five minutes each day right, those build up right and it focuses on what the child already wants to day right. Those build up right and it focuses on what the child already wants to do right. And all through the process the child feels like the child is fulfilling this need we talked about of helping right and contributing and learning skills. So, for instance, if you wanted to teach a child to cook, you say, hey, come over and tell me about whatever their favorite thing is in all the world. Tell me about Sonic the Hedgehog 3 or whatever some kid wants to talk about, come tell me about it.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I'm going to cook dinner and come tell me about it. And so you're sitting there chopping up, doing your stuff, cooking dinner, and you're talking to the kid and the kid's there, and the kid is learning by just being there. I'm telling you I've seen it many times. Every parent around the world will tell you this and then you say, hey, can you grab those onions from the refrigerator? Or can you come over here and stir this pot for me real quick? I got to do this thing, right and you give them like one or two tiny things that they can accomplish and that are real, that you need, that are not fake, right? It's not? Oh, go stir this pot over here that we're never going to use. Or they chop the vegetables and you don't use them. No, this is like real things.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:And I'm telling you, over the course of a couple months, an older child will learn to cook, I guarantee it and over the course of a couple years, a younger child will. Right, and the younger child will do a couple things and then walk away. And in our way of educating, we'd be like no, stay here and you're learning. No, you can't walk away. This is learning, but in many cultures. It's no, that was enough. The child knows they've had enough. They're guiding the learning and so they're telling you I've had enough, I've learned enough, and tomorrow I'll come back because I enjoyed it and it was fun, and nobody yelled at me, nobody forced me to do anything I didn't want to do, and over the course of a couple of years they will learn incredible skills in the kitchen.
Kenneth Primrose:Hope you're enjoying this conversation with Michaelene Duclef. If you are, then do please like and subscribe to the channel. It helps other people find us and you'll also be subscribed to many other fascinating conversations that have been and will be to come. So you've got this, you've got the autonomy there, you've got the desire to help and I see the way that sometimes we parent and you spoke about this in the early years of being a mother with Rosie, but also in schools. It's the meeting of two oceans and it's just tumultuous and wild and one must overcome the other in terms of this battle of wills. Yeah, mum, from your writing, from your learning in these indigenous cultures, that kind of confrontation and combative and authority top-down approach that's nearly absent in those places.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Oh, absolutely. In fact, in many places it's thought of as immature. I would say it's thought of as not understanding human nature. Right, if you yell, in some cultures you're basically like a child. Right, if you're telling somebody else what to do with a stern tone, it's very it's thought of as like a child. That's like a bossy child. Well, yes, absolutely it's. There is in some cultures. There is some hierarchy in the sense that, like elders are respected, revered, there's some sort of respect hierarchy, I would say, and we listen and we learn. But it's not this. I'm going to tell you what to do by. Any Autonomy is really respected. It's really seen as a human need. It's how you treat other people. You respect their autonomy and that conflict isn't productive. And so it's not earned autonomy.
Kenneth Primrose:The autonomy is not earned. It's like it's part of you as a child, which I think is a distinction, because people in work cultures earn autonomy, but until then they can be micromanaged because you can't trust them.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I think it's very similar. I think we just take how we treat children and we put it into the workplace and I think you made that very astute observation early on in the conversation that we this is all. I think some of it, or it's probably cyclical, but it comes from this being useful in an industrial society.
Kenneth Primrose:Yeah, the way we value, I suppose, the way it is invariably turned to, comes from productivity progress.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:that kind of thing In that context. This is like productivity, say, and making people feel good, productivity in the home. Right, think about what. Like? Rosie's nine now and she's incredibly productive in the home. She helps clean, she made dinner last night. She's been making dinner now like crazy. I can't even imagine. And I see that as valuable for us, not just because she could go and get a job with it, but as this is value to her because she feels pride and accomplishment and eudaimonia when she sees us eating her food and enjoying it.
Kenneth Primrose:That's really interesting because I think part of the damage we've done to ourselves in weird society is instrumentalizing everything for some future gain.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yes, yes, absolutely. That's a very good way to put it. But this is in contrast to those societies where, yeah, as you say, flourishing or eudaimonia is present moment interesting there's some really interesting research looking at latin american societies versus western societies, in this sense of if you look at I don't know if you looked at this at all, but if you look at those happy surveys and happiness scores and you know, how, like, the scandinavian countries are always at the top and the happiest place in the world.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:but if you look, if you actually like scale that for GDP or like income, then the Latin American countries are really high.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:So there's like something about Latin American communities that like creates really happy people for their economic situation right, because there's a lot of issues in some places and there's a couple of people that study this and one of the things that the he's actually an economist One of the things that he's found is that in Latin America, families value just the joy of other people and like helping other people, being with other people for no other reason. There's no transactions. There's no. I'm going to get this from you or you do this and I'm going to. I help you and you're going to get this back to me. It's they actually just really want to be and spend time and give to other people and help other people because it brings them joy. Long time to really understand it, but it's like helping other people with just the sake of your own joy, and this is what I think is missing in a lot of people's lives in western cultures today is just doing things for other people, with other people, because it brings you joy it brings to mind.
Kenneth Primrose:So happening upon what you think are universals of childhood and parenting and so on is one of the hallmarks of something you think that is just fundamentally like our wiring, our human nature. Is it enjoyment, joy, happiness? Is that one of the tell signs? And do you know what I mean? So you could say we are clearly doing something wrong because we've got a mental health crisis. Let's figure out what it is. But let's say Latin American countries, people are happier. Or maybe you could look at blue zones they live longer, whatever and say they're doing something right. What are the tell signs that something's universal rather than context specific?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I do think that the mental health crisis which I do think it is a crisis that we have is a tell sign that we're missing some needs of children, that, like some multiple needs of children are going unmet. And I do think that, like, when you go into a society where the children are like thriving, flourishing, right, nothing's perfect, of course, but like their day-to-day it's different. There's flourishing, right, nothing's perfect, of course, but like their day-to-day it's different. There's a different feeling, right, when the children, when there's like a cohesion between the children and the parents. Right, that's what was really striking for me and that's what really made me want to write this book, was when I traveled for my job, I could see this easiness, this cohesion between the parents and the children. Right, there wasn't this constant tension and conflict and struggle, and maybe that's like a telltale sign.
Kenneth Primrose:It's like the children live and exist and work together with the adults in a way that's missing here, right, there's a kind of like flow is maybe a word I think you use, and like intuition as well that this like resonates. This feels different from when your cortisol is up and you're engaged in some kind of childish kind of argument with your kid. You're like this doesn't feel flowy or like intuitively, it's like constant.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:It's to the point where I didn't want to be with her. And this is, and I read that at the beginning of the book, and readers write me and say this is how I felt. This is parents don't want to be with their children. Think about the pandemic, like it was like this. It was like this crisis in our society because the parents had to be with their children. I should not laugh, I shouldn't, yeah, but it's true though. But it's like something, if you go so in the Maya community that we were in the books.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:The researchers actually went there and interviewed them about the pandemic and the parents were happy to be with their children. The parents were happy to have the children out of school and they could be together, and there was not this oh my God, what do I do with the child? How do I interact? We're going to argue, right, but if you, during the pandemic in America and in right, like, parents were like what do we do with this child? I don't want to be with them all day, I don't know how to be with them all day, and there was this enormous amount of conflict that was between the parents and children and it was documented To me. That's a telltale sign something's wrong. They can't be with their children.
Kenneth Primrose:Yeah, it goes against all of human nature and human history, right? Yeah, yeah, we're supposed to.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Like I remember one of the moms in the Maya village was like she told me. She said I love being with my children, like they're my favorite people, and I think that's a sign that, like, the society is working a little bit better and so this is actually before I ask the next question.
Kenneth Primrose:It's worth pointing out this really interesting bit of your book where you describe where we get our parenting techniques, and it's a little bit shocking. Do you want to say something about that, because I think it's a fantastic bit of advice, not a bit of evidence, rather, that our foundations are a bit shaky here yes, and it speaks to what you said earlier about the.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:The rope entwined right. The generations are entwined, they're not. These stacked up right for thousand hundred years and in most societies parents learn to parent from their parents right, or from an older person or from their siblings that are older right. They learn through the knowledge that generations pass along right, and when a young woman has a baby, the mother or the neighbor or the aunt or the close friend will come and multiple people will help her and teach her. Not to mention she's learned by watching her siblings or her cousins grow up right. So this knowledge is really experiential and passed down directly from family or neighbors or close or extended kin.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:But somewhere around, and it goes back pretty far, I think like 1600, 1700 is when it really started Kins and extended families started shrinking and parents lost that source of knowledge, started to lose that source of knowledge, and it depended on your economic class and many factors, and so they didn't know what to do when they had a baby because they had lost the source of information or they were starting to lose it. And at the same time, doctors and nurses were writing manuals for orphanages or for hospitals that were taking care of 50 babies. So at the same time there was this kind of growing need for children that didn't have parents. And so there are these places orphanages and hospitals that were taking care of many children kind of industrial scale and doctors and nurses started writing pamphlets to describe how to take care of all these children at one time, all these babies and what ended up happening was those turned into our parenting books and you can actually, like the parents that were taking care of their own baby were like oh, I need this information because I don't know what to do or how do you handle this situation? I don't know, I don't have this source because the extended family was shrinking.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:And it's really incredible because you can find many things in parenting books today, like the most popular ones today In these 1,700 pamphlets, many of them from England, and some of them weren't even written by doctors or they were written by people that weren't even parents, or many, most of them are written by men. One of them, one of the most famous one, was written by like a guy, a sports writer, who, like saw his hand off, like with a gun, like he was a really big gun enthusiast and he was probably the one, the most important person for popularizing a big sleep regime right now, and oh my gosh this stuff, everybody should know this stuff.
Kenneth Primrose:This is what everybody should know. This stuff, this should is everybody should know this stuff, this should be, broadcast from the rooftops that your advice comes from foundling hospitals, not parents and men.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:And not clients. It's always, I think, that there's this idea that it comes from science, right From experiments, and but it's it very little comes from science, very little. It's really hard to do an experiment on babies and parents and get really any sort of in behavior right and yes, with nutrition and vaccines and there. But like behavior, sleep tantrums there's no science cannot answer this question. I think one psychologist told me it is much easier for us to like land on mars than than to answer a question about, like, how to get into tantrums with science. It's just, it's as a big myth in our society and it breaks down very fast and I think parents know that because it doesn't work. A lot of the stuff doesn't work right.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yes, there's a book written by an English journalist. I did my, I cite it, but it's really fascinating. She reads all of the. She goes back in time and reads many of these pamphlets and these very early parenting books and then finds these threads to today and it's really interesting. I think it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that we've lost this intergenerational knowledge that's been passed down in many societies for thousands and thousands of years.
Kenneth Primrose:And so, when you visited these societies, am I right in thinking they'd be more collectivist than individualist?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Oh for sure, Absolutely, and if your eyes are open to it, you see it every moment.
Kenneth Primrose:And so you've got our weird society, which is atomized, it's individualized, it's technologically advanced and there's lots we could say about industry and technology and things like that playing into how we parent. How do we turn the clock back like how, what can you take from those cultures that actually works in an atomized society?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:people ask me this all the time and and I always tell them, like you know, just adding a little bit of it makes a huge difference. Right, there's, there's no way you can raise a child that's going to be like a Maya kid or an Inuit kid or a Hadzabe kid in America. It's just, it's not going to work and it's not. It's not, it's a fantasy, right, but we've just gone so far in the other direction, right, we just have.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I really want to advocate for just a little bit more of a balance. Sure, they're going to be in middle, in middle, upper class Western society. The kid is going to be learn individualism. The kid is going to learn the value, valuing a property, which is a big difference in the societies that we're talking about. Is this valuing a property? Right, we teach children this very early in our society and they're going to learn that you don't need to teach them this, they will learn it, but you do need to push back on it.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I think that's what it is. It's like pushing back with a little bit of autonomy, a little bit of helping, an expectation of helping, a seeing that they want to help. I say, like you, kids in violin lessons, they're playing soccer. They've got all this stuff that they're doing. Set aside a couple hours a week for the helping activity. One morning a week, saturday or Sunday make the activity that the whole family is going to help make breakfast. We're going to all help do something together and like just adding back a little bit of that skill and that valuing of that activity and that of helping, I think can make a really big difference in a child's life. A little bit more autonomy, a little bit less instruction, a little bit of room for them to explore how they would learn something. You don't need to swing the pendulum all the way back, but just push it over a little bit.
Kenneth Primrose:And you're super helpful in terms of practical tips to do that in the book, which I really appreciated and I've tried to implement in bits and pieces. May I ask what you're doing in terms of educating Rosie, because what's the school situation there? Yeah, is that a question I'm allowed to ask?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yes, absolutely, it's a fascinating question. So we actually we lived in San Francisco when I wrote the book and so we lived in the city and she was at like a very expensive private preschool and it was, but we actually moved. We live now in a very rural part of Texas and we actually live right at the Mexican border. So we live in a community that's very influenced by rural, indigenous Mexican culture. So that makes our lives a little bit different than like an average suburban American Montessori school because, as some readers point out, there's a lot of overlap, especially in the beginning of the book, with Montessori. It's not the same, but isn't it fascinating, right, that when people look for these universalities they find the same ones? But I put her in a Montessori school and I have to say, kenny, that it was missing these things. It was missing so much of what's in Hug Other Parents, and so we opened a school. Wow.
Kenneth Primrose:That brings up a whole new conversation.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I should say it's like a whole. I think legally it's like a homeschool group.
Kenneth Primrose:Okay.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:It's not an officially like Texas doesn't acknowledge it as a school but it's like a homeschool group where we had at one point we had six kids, three different families, and where we had at one point we had six kids, three different families, and we it's in our, it's in our garage and in our backyard and where we try to implement these things and we try to teach more through these principles of autonomous learning and, and I have to say, I love it that's fascinating.
Kenneth Primrose:Yeah, we did in lockdown the first. We moved in with another family and it was like a commune. There was eight kids, six kids. We shared the cooking, everyone got involved, but it was loads of forest school, loads of autonomous learning. I feel guilty when I speak about it, because I know people had a hellish time, we had an amazing time, and then we had to go back to these walls and the structures that just, I think, certainly seemed to make my kids less happy than when they were free range. Is there anything in weird parenting that you would take into Indigenous parenting? Anything you think this is of value and Absolutely.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I think, having worked now two years with the school that we have, I really think a combination of learning the two styles works amazing. I think that in the LOPI the learning through observation and pitching is very slow. It's hard to teach math that way. It's hard to teach reading that way. I think you need both and I think combining the two and really looking to the child okay, with this we're going to take a little bit softer approach because it doesn't come as easy and really being skilled at both ways of learning I think is incredible.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:I think it's like blockbuster learning. So I'm not saying we should throw that whole thing out. I think it's like blockbuster learning. So I don't think I'm not saying we should throw that whole thing out. I just think that there's value in the old traditional way too. So like we teach the combination method and it's probably less Montessori than Maria Montessori would say there's some memorization and there's some me pushing her a little bit and like pushing kids and stuff, but it is looking also to that one valuing and knowing that the child can do things on their own, you don't need to micromanage everything, and that children will really learn and tell you whoa, I've had enough. I can't take any more in.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:But I also think Western culture is really good at teaching kids to use their imagination, being innovative, coming up with crazy designs and ideas. This is rare in many cultures this very imaginative play and kind of crazy, but this is what creates the things that we have in the innovation, and so I think that's wonderful. I just I think parents and I tell parents this a lot, and actually I should say that there's a woman that's in the book in Alaska that's doing this with medicine and health care. She's an Inuit woman and she's combining Western health care with the indigenous and she says it's better than either of them.
Kenneth Primrose:It makes sense that Western culture got some things right. They've done some tremendous things, but also the traditional and indigenous societies have a huge amount of value to teach as well.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:One of the researchers at UC Irvine she's not in the book, belinda Campos. She told me one time she said she studies Chicano psychology and she said I think it's also about understanding there's multiple right ways, you know, yeah, yeah that's. She said I think it's also about understanding there's multiple right ways, you know.
Kenneth Primrose:Yeah, yeah, that's liberating, I think it feels. And it's interesting. You get these books totally contradictory, but they'll say they're the only method that you should use to get your kid ready for school or whatever. I wonder if there's time for a third one. I like threes. We've got kids want to help. We've got kids want to help. We've got autonomy. Is there one other thing that bubbles up for you as like a universal this one is going to be controversial.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Maybe we'll end on it, and that's a good way. Great. And I don't talk too much about this in the book. But what is absolutely universal is that children don't sleep by themselves.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Ah, the sleep thing yeah yeah yeah, yeah people don't sleep by themselves, but definitely children. It definitely not in their own room alone. This is if you and there's tons of data to back this up yale has a. Yale has this amazing ethnographic database of like all the anthropology, cross-cultural psychology and you can search for things in there and in ethnographic record and you can find hundreds of examples from all over the world.
Kenneth Primrose:And no, there's no examples of a of a child sleeping alone yeah, and obviously, like in in the uk, you go to in any national trust they had the bed where everybody slept. It is quite a modern thing that you have your own room and also quite an individualized thing.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Let's like get painted the color that you want and get the it's also a consumer thing, right, because that requires a lot more space, a lot more things, a lot more construction, the rise of privacy. So that's another universal. Kids just don't have much privacy. People don't really have much privacy, right. Everyone's always around. There's somebody watching you do everything. So this is a very new thing. I have my private space and my private time. But yes, I made light of it. But I think it hurts some children to sleep by themselves. I think sleep is this incredibly vulnerable time for any mammal and, I think, some children. That's why they fight it so much, like we're really fighting an incredibly deep-rooted instinct.
Kenneth Primrose:It makes me wonder you maybe know the research in this whether, if you have Bowlby's attachment model and how securely attached kids are, are they more securely attached in indigenous cultures where they sleep with their family than when they're sleep trained?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Again, like it's really hard to show that scientifically and people have tried. I've looked at those studies. It's just really hard because there's just so many variables. But just your personal experience and just looking at again, like you said, what are the telltale signs of the problems? Just think about how much energy and time and struggle and conflict and stress and cortisol families put in to getting a child to sleep by themselves.
Kenneth Primrose:This seems like a good. It seems like a really good rule is like if there's a spike in cortisol and it's combative, let's take a beat and rethink the approach here.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:The woman that I talked about in Alaska that is combining the healthcare. She read the book my book, hunt, gather, find and I got her to read it beforehand and I said, okay, tell me what you think about it. She's actually half Inuit, half German, but she grew up and lives in a tiny Inuit village and she said to me she said the book is great. She had some issues and we fixed it, and she's like you don't need this. She's like all you have to do is look to see is this going to cause conflict with my child or is this going to help our relationship? And if it's going to help our relationship, then do it. If it's going to cause conflict, then take a beat and figure out a different way of doing it. It sounds so simple, but I've tried that to implement that more in my life too.
Kenneth Primrose:I love that as a piece of advice. It makes me, I think, with a bit of regret, though I wonder what you'd say. I have two daughters. One of them I was taking to drama club. She really didn't want to go, she was super shy and things like that, and I just thought this is good for you. You've got to learn resilience. You're going to come out happier. And it was like tears and it was all that stuff. It was horrible and I think it did remove a bit of a fear. There was a bit of resilience developed there. What do you say to that way of thinking that this character building this is going to suffer but ultimately there's going to be some second degree fun perhaps, but also it'll build you.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:It's a very great example, I love it, and I think I would say this I think you could do the same without that struggle, or as much struggle so I, or as much struggle so I think you could probably get her to go to drama, but without kind of that much heavy handedness on it. Yeah, and it could have been a little bit of a slower process, right, it could have been a little bit like okay, this seems, if it's really causing that much trouble, let's wait on it, let's try it next year or let's try it the next day. So it's a little it's like I say, it's not just throwing it all out, it's just going a little slower, because you do run the risk of making her hate it. You also run the risk of teaching her to not listen to herself.
Kenneth Primrose:Yeah, yeah, to kind of detach.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yeah, where she's flying, all this fear and problems you're feeling right now and which we need to do. I'm not saying we don't need to do, but I think it it it can come a little slower, a little softer, and the child can be more of deciding when it happens. So in the book I'm writing right now, I list off seven fundamental needs of children and I always thought play was one of them, and you can talk to Peter about this. I actually think it's like it's risk, right, it's adventure, it's. This idea of this is scary but fun, right, it's a little bit of a titrated risk and the child gets to decide that titration, right, that amount of risk, instead of the parent. And the parent can push a little bit and like guide, but at the end of the day it's about the child learning. I feel a little afraid and then I overcame it. Wow, look at that. Right, but if the parent is like pushing the child off the cliff a little bit, I don't think it teaches them that pushing the child off the cliff a little bit.
Kenneth Primrose:I don't think it teaches them that. Yeah, I'm a hundred percent with you in that. I it's. Yeah, it's interesting. What's coming to mind is a line from the writer he wrote about improvisational comedy called Keith Johnson, and he said we think of children as adults in training but actually adults are atrophied children and you think there's something in that I really love and it's how keyed into intuitions and feeling and nature as well, Children are. And you've got a lovely few pages on awe and how close that is to a child's experience all the time. And this is something we lose and then we force our kids to lose it. We atrophy them, yeah, yeah.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yeah, I think it's a fine line. I think it's. I think should I push her? Does she really want to do it? I ask Rosie. I say is this really scary, or is this like scary and exciting? And when it's scary and exciting I know she wants a little push. That's a great question, if it's really scary and I don't want to do it. I'm sorry I didn't want to do it. Then let's try it next year.
Kenneth Primrose:I love that. I'm going to take that and use it with my girls. I want to be respectful of your time, micheline. There's so much in what we've discussed I'd love to do, but also in your book we haven't got onto your team acronym. Let me just recommend this to all the listeners that this is a really wise book. I think that I wish I'd discovered many years before I had it wasn't written until a few years ago.
Kenneth Primrose:Do you want to say anything about the book that you're currently finishing or point people towards where they can find out more about your work?
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yes, so I'm writing a book called Dopamine Kids, which is about screens and food, processed food, ultra-processed food, and it's the opposite. It's okay. What are the things in our lives that we can't use ancient wisdom for? And these are the things, and it's about how they affect our brain and our children's brains and then what we can do about it, and I think it's coming out. I'm just finishing it and I think it's coming out next winter. So it's a little bit got a ways. Sadly, or not sadly, I'm, I don't really well, I'm not on social media and but you can email me and I'm and I try to respond to everybody. So it might take a while, but and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start a newsletter in a couple months, so I'll have that on my website and hopefully I can answer questions there and that'll be easier way of connecting.
Kenneth Primrose:Thank you for responding to my email. I really appreciate it and it sounds like you've got your hands very full with the school in Texas. I'm fascinated that you've done that and a bit inspired too.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:Yeah, it's interesting because I spend two hours at the school every day two and a half and it's almost the same amount of time as I spent just dropping Rosie off and picking her back up from school. So it's really not. Yes, it is more work in some ways, but in some ways it's the same amount. But very enjoyable work Again. It's that thing of like pure joy from helping other people.
Kenneth Primrose:I hope you write about this school one day. I would love to. I'd love to read about it.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:And there's this combination of the indigenous cultures and the Western ones. So yeah that. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. It was really a pleasure. It's such a wonderful podcast, so thank you.
Kenneth Primrose:I hope you enjoyed listening to this conversation as much as I enjoyed having it. For me, there were some really insightful takeaways, starting with the fundamental insight that the culture we grew up in and the conventional wisdom that we receive from it may well sit on very questionable foundations. I particularly valued Michaelene's point that children need to contribute to the household and not just be kind of passive consumers. That way lies a lack of meaning and purpose. They also require autonomy freedom from constant supervision something I'll pick up in a future episode with psychologist Peter Gray and also the truth of that adage that it takes a village to raise a child. I am personally grateful to the significant alloparents, as they're called, in my own life and those of my children today. To me, it's yet another reason to resist the atomized ideal of the nuclear family.
Kenneth Primrose:Next week I'll be speaking to Michael Sarkasas, author of the hugely popular Substack blog, the Convivial Society, and one of the most influential thinkers on technology and human flourishing. Today I'll leave you with a clip from our forthcoming conversation. As ever, do please get in touch with feedback, rate, review, comment, share. All that's appreciated. And if you want to support the podcast, then please do so via Substack. That's how this podcast is in any way financed. Thank you for tuning in. I look forward to joining you this time next week for the episode with Michael Sarkazas, who I will leave you with now.
Michael Sacasas:Modern technology is a way of so arranging the world that we don't have to experience it.
Michaeleen Doucleffe:And.
Michael Sacasas:I think. Then we wonder why am I unhappy? Why do I feel like I have a purpose, meaning? Is there something good, given the sorts of creatures, beings that we are, with a body in this world of flesh and blood, with a world that, in many respects, has obviously countless challenges, right, but so much beauty and goodness in it? But we're not sufficiently attentive to it so as to receive what it does offer us.