Episode 352: Motherhood in the Age of Surveillance with Amanda Hess
Doree and Elise speak with New York Times journalist Amanda Hess about her new book Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age, how online surveillance has permeated every aspect of womanhood and motherhood, and why community care is so crucial to being a good parent.
Photo Credit: Loreto Caceres
Mentioned in this Episode
Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age by Amanda Hess
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Transcript
The transcript for this episode Ai generated.
Doree (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever 35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise (00:17):
And I'm Elise Hu. And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Doree (00:21):
How's it going, Elise?
Elise (00:23):
Well, we owe our listeners an update on your hair status because last time we recorded a Monday episode, you talked about how you were going to find out from your dermatologist whether your hair treatment or the minoxidil you've been taking has worked. So
Doree (00:43):
That's true. Our
Elise (00:44):
Casual chat listeners already know this because they are part of our Patreon community. But for everyone else, give us the update.
Doree (00:52):
So I've been taking generic Minoxidil for six months now, and my dermatologist, when I first started, he really wanted to set expectations and he was like, it's going to take several months to see results. Don't get discouraged. It's not like you instantly start growing hair. And I was like, okay. But I would say three months in, I started noticing that I was losing less hair.
Amanda Hess (01:22):
So
Doree (01:22):
That was a big change in the shower. I was losing a lot less hair. And then I started noticing little hairs growing in places that had been very sparse, and I just went back for my six months checkup and everything seems to be working. He
Elise (01:42):
Amazing
Doree (01:42):
Said, yeah, he was like, you have growth and you're not losing as much hair and we're just going to stay the course.
Amanda Hess (01:53):
Yay.
Doree (01:54):
If you think you might have hair loss, especially if you're in your thirties and forties, perimenopausal, menopausal, go to your doctor. Because also Minoxidil is a generic, I just paid $3 with insurance for a month's supply, so there's no reason to not go, although you shouldn't be on it if you're pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant. But other than that, I have had no side effects. Some people do have side effects. He was very careful to ramp up my dose. Gradually we started on a pretty low dose. Now it's a little bit higher, but it's still not the full, it's not like a high dose. So I like that he was sort of cautious. I have seen people who started on a high dose report that they had some weird side effects. Yeah,
Elise (02:47):
Well, I'm just glad it works. And then it's $3.
Doree (02:51):
I know.
Elise (02:53):
And it's so much more affordable. If you are fortunate enough to be insured, it's so much more affordable than neutrophil. A lot of folks talk about neutrophil the hair vitamin, but that can be something like 60 to $80 a bottle, and then you have to take multiple pills over the course of a day or the multiple vitamins over the course of a day. So yeah, going to your dermatologist and getting a prescription that insurance pays for, seems like the more frugal option, more bang for your buck.
Doree (03:23):
Yes. It feels like a no-brainer. So that's the update.
Elise (03:29):
Yay.
Doree (03:30):
Yeah, it's going well. And as someone who never had thick hair to begin with, I always had pretty fine hair so that when I started losing some of it, it was like, oh, dear. It felt to me it was quite noticeable. It's really nice to be like, oh, this is, I'm feeling good about my hair in a way that I haven't in a really long time.
Elise (03:59):
Great news, great news. And I want to wish you a happy Mother's Day as well because this is airing just the day after Mother's Day
Doree (04:08):
And likewise, happy Mother's Day.
Elise (04:10):
Thank you. And what a fitting episode to have the day after Mother's Day, because Amanda Hess, who is our guest later in the show, her book Second Life is really all about her journey into motherhood during this hyper digital time that we live in. I've been actually reflecting a lot after we spoke to her about how, because I had my first child now nearly 13 years ago, there was just so much less stuff,
Doree (04:41):
So
Elise (04:41):
Much less digital monitoring of babies and of ourselves and fewer tests available when you were pregnant, but then also less amusements and things for the kids. There were just fewer apps and fewer, there was less gadgetry, I guess. But also there wasn't as much digital storage on my phone, and so I didn't take video. So now I know people have a lot of video of their babies, and I think back on Ava and even Issa, who's going to be 10 this year, my middle, I don't have that much video of them because it would've taken up too much space. Maybe they don't need to have an ultra recorded life. And a lot of kids now, there's a backlash to the mommy blockers who have put their kids out in order to make a brand for themselves and maybe even make money. And that has felt exploitative to a lot of the kids. And so, yeah, it's just raised a lot of questions. I think for me, ever since we spoke to her. I think y'all are going to find this conversation interesting, but even since probably five, six years ago when you were having Henry, things have improved and technology has evolved, and there's so much more AI now involved in our worlds and our digital lives, and I wonder how that's intersecting with early Parenthood.
Doree (06:10):
Yeah, I found Amanda's book so interesting, and her oldest is I think a year younger than Henry. So we had some similar experiences, but also she had a real pandemic baby, and that's like a real dividing line I've noticed among parents of young kids, you either had the pre pandemic experience of having a baby, having an infant, or you didn't, and the people who gave birth in mid to late 2020 and then all of 2021 had an extremely different experience. Experience. And yeah, I think about that all the time.
Elise (06:57):
I remember you had to give birth without your partner
Doree (07:01):
Because
Elise (07:02):
They wouldn't allow visitors in the delivery room for fear of expanding the covid bubble and all of that. Wow.
Doree (07:10):
People had to give birth masked, which is brutal. Just so many things. And also as a new mom, those mommy and me classes were so important just for my mental health and connection and meeting other parents and the people who had pandemic babies didn't get to do those. They had some on Zoom, but it's not the same. And a lot of them didn't get to have family come. I don't know it. It's just interesting how that's become such a dividing line
Elise (07:51):
Among
Doree (07:51):
Kids around Henry's age.
Elise (07:53):
What a time,
Doree (07:54):
What time anyway, should we get to Amanda?
Elise (07:58):
We should. I feel like we've kind of talked generally around it, but you're going to find this conversation, I think very thoughtful or it's going to lead to a lot of different ways to think about the way we live now, whether you're a mom or not.
Doree (08:16):
Before we introduce her, just a couple of reminders. Our website is forever 35 podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mention on the show. We are on Instagram at Forever five podcast. Our Patreon is at patreon.com/forever five. You can shop our favorite products at shop my us slash forever 35, and we have a newsletter at Forever five podcast com newsletter. Also, please call and text us seven eight five nine one zero three nine zero. Email us at forever podcast gmail com. We use your texts and emails and voicemails for our mini apps. We also just love hearing from you, even if you want to text us with something that's not for mini app, do that. And then we are also taking questions about money for our upcoming money month. So if you have any money or personal finance type questions, send those on over and we will have one of our amazing guests respond. Yes. Alright, Elise, do you want to formally introduce Amanda?
Elise (09:19):
Amanda Hess is a critic at large for the New York Times. She writes about internet and pop culture for the culture section and contributes regularly to the New York Times magazine. Hess has worked as an internet columnist for Slate Magazine, an editor at Good Magazine and an arts and nightlife columnist at the Washington City Paper. She has also written for such publications as ESPN, the magazine Wired and Pacific Standard, where her feature on the online harassment of women won a national magazine award for public interest. Her new book, second Life is out now.
Doree (09:55):
Alright, well, we are going to take a short break and we'll be right back.
Elise (10:00):
We'll be back with Amanda Hess.
Doree (10:08):
Amanda, welcome to Forever 35. It is such a delight to have you on the show.
Amanda Hess (10:14):
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm such a fan.
Doree (10:18):
Ditto. We both, I mean, I feel like I've been reading your stuff for over a decade.
Elise (10:23):
You've turned out a lot of content over the years, Amanda
Amanda Hess (10:26):
Sure have. Yeah. One might say too much content,
Doree (10:32):
We'll get to this, but there were so many moments of recognition for me in your experience, they weren't exactly the same as your experiences, obviously, but you had this one part where you described rereading something you had written a long time ago that went against where your life has ended up. And I was like, oh, I, yes, this is
Amanda Hess (10:56):
Very familiar. It was about why I wasn't going to have
Elise (10:59):
Kids have kids,
Amanda Hess (11:02):
And it was all just like needlessly mean to moms also. And I'm like, wow, that really came back to bite me in the ass.
Doree (11:12):
Yeah. Anyway, we'll get to all this. As you may know, we like to start off by asking our guests about a self-care practice that they have. So is there anything that you are doing right now in the midst of book promotion, which is not exactly known for being a period of great, but is there anything that you're doing that you would consider?
Amanda Hess (11:35):
Yeah, I feel like I wrote this book, which is about my first pregnancy and becoming a parent, and then I sold it when I was newly pregnant with my second child. And so I did not take care of myself at all as I was writing the book, and it really became this kind of crisis at a certain point. I remember when I turned in my final draft, my editor was like, I hope this has been a nourishing process for you. And I was like, are you joking? I've never felt so insane, nourishing, so I, he's amazing and he nourished me, but I was not nourishing myself,
Amanda Hess (12:18):
Whatever.
Amanda Hess (12:19):
So I definitely had to take stock of certain things. And one thing is that I actually did this for a very vain reason, but after I finished the book, I had to take author photos and I decided to stop drinking for a couple of weeks before I took them so that I looked somehow refreshed and hydrated and I was so anxious at the end of the two weeks after not having my nightly take the edge off drink that I was like, I think I need to reassess this. So I stopped drinking nine months ago and I feel like it's very helpful at this time where I'm super anxious and I don't have this false anxiety cure that I can reach for. So that's what I'm doing or not doing.
Elise (13:13):
That sounds so
Amanda Hess (13:14):
Healthy, sadly. It really is helpful. No, good,
Elise (13:18):
Good, good, good. Next question, following on that is how do you think the way that, or how have you changed the way you've carved out time for yourself and maintained your relationships and your network amid all of this change in your own life? Can you speak to how you're taking care of yourself now versus say five years ago before you became a mom of two?
Amanda Hess (13:43):
I definitely am healthier than I was before and I treat myself better than I did before. And I think becoming a parent prompted me to do that first because I'm newly afraid of dying. I'm like, oh, my kids need a parent. I need to take care of my kids and I want to be around for them for as long as I can be, which is not something I was thinking about before. I think I like any younger person, just assumed that on some level I wasn't going to die eventually. And I don't know, just growing, helping to raise two kids and seeing them use their bodies and stuff, I'm like, wow, buddies are important. I should be nicer to mine. And I see so much of myself in my kids, and so it's so important to be kinder to myself in order to accept the parts of them that we share.
Doree (14:43):
Yeah, love
Amanda Hess (14:44):
It.
Doree (14:44):
Love it. Well, I'd love to segue into talking about your new book Second Life. Could you just give our listeners a sort of brief overview of what it's about and why you wanted to explore the questions that you get into in the book?
Amanda Hess (15:05):
Yeah. The book is about my relationship with technology as I became a parent and how digital technologies are mediating all of our relationships with our kids and with ourselves. And I think I had this idea before I decided to have kids where I was thinking about writing a book and I wanted to see a nonfiction book where the internet sort of played a kind of embodied character and where it took up as much space on the page as it was taking up in my own brain, but I wasn't sort of sure where to focus it. And then when I got pregnant, my relationship with technology became so intense as the months went on, I was like, those feelings of shame and those things that were brought up are things that are actually recommending this as a subject to me. So I sort of fought the idea of writing a book about parenthood for a while before I ultimately accepted it.
Elise (16:08):
I have to say, as somebody who went through my first pregnancy and the birth of my first child 13 years ago now, I cannot believe how much had changed just between 13 years ago and then five years ago when you were pregnant in terms of how tech assisted and consumerist having a baby or getting pregnant even. So getting pregnant, having a baby, and then raising a child has become, you have this line that kind of summed things up. First, I had learned to track my periods, then my pregnancy, and now I was tracking my kids from a surveillance camera perched above their beds. So talk a little bit about just the mountain of apps and trackers and smart devices and machines that are now involved with early parenting and what you make of it all.
Amanda Hess (17:05):
Yeah, I mean, so I used an app to track my period that then became my fertility assistant and then became my pregnancy app. And that was just the kind of introduction into just this external kind of surveillance that was becoming very intimate during the pregnancy. I so wanted to do what I could to do it, whatever that means that I became really obsessed with understanding what the expectations were of me as a pregnant person, even if I wasn't going to necessarily implement all of the recommendations. I just wanted to know what these kind unfocused judgments were that I was sort of feeling directed at me. And then I became my pregnancy and my body and my mind eventually became so entwined with technology that it wasn't until my son was born that I had to really kind of confront how to unwind it because now he was a person, he wasn't an idea anymore. And there's this very kind of slick way that all of these sort of disciplinary pregnancy technologies can then sort of lead you to these newborn and childhood technologies. And my kids don't even have technologies that they really use yet, so I haven't even encountered
Elise (18:32):
Stuff. That's a whole other thing.
Amanda Hess (18:34):
Yeah, that's your next book. Yeah, I know, but I had, of course, I am reading and seeing everybody talking about kids' relationship with tech, and I think I felt like I needed to understand my own relationship with technology before that started to confront me. But this thing that you're saying about 13 years ago, all this stuff being different, I think that's part of what makes it so insidious is that it's not something that I could ask my mom about. It's not something I could even ask many of my friends about who were offered different prenatal tests even a year before I was pregnant. And so there were so many things that add that on top of earlier in my pregnancy, pregnancy, not wanting to discuss it with anyone, not revealing it with anyone, it really increased my reliance on technology and just this intimacy of my relationship with my phone.
Doree (19:34):
What was it like to look at yourself as a subject in this way? Because you've written so much about technology and culture and done some amazing profiles, and here you're really turning the lens on yourself. It was
Amanda Hess (19:50):
Confusing. I mean, I think the thing above all that I loved about writing a book was that I didn't have to just present my evidence and my conclusions in 900 words and then hit publish and move on.
(20:08):
A book is very much about your process of coming to those thoughts and then changing them. And I wanted to understand why I felt one way when I was pregnant and then a different way after my son was born and stuff like that. But I think there was always something in my mind that was this tension between when you read a book, you want the character to be interesting and you want them to be flawed. I love reading books about people who are evil, but when you talk about a real person, especially one who is a mother, people tend not to that stuff as much. And so there was a part of my brain that I had to be like, well, what if someone took just this paragraph and put it online? What would people think of you? And there was a part of my head that was like, this book is a total referendum on you as a human being that I had to just kind of dispel at a certain point. And now I finished the book it seems now so long ago. And so now I can sort of distance myself from it and be like, this is my ideas on some of these things have changed even further now. So it's just this object in the world that's less, I think feels less close to me
Elise (21:32):
After all of this exploration of both our social norms and our tech reality and the optimization of care. Where do you feel like things are going when it comes to caregiving?
Amanda Hess (21:45):
Yeah, I mean,
Elise (21:50):
Or where are you worried that things are going?
Amanda Hess (21:55):
I think one of the things that I was really interested in exploring in the book was not just how technologies facilitate a kind of surveillance, but how the practice of surveillance is really embedded in our culture and in our politics. And so I didn't want to write a book that was about how period apps represent a completely new threat, and if we just get rid of them, that wouldn't necessarily be helpful. I think you should totally get rid of your period up and throw your phone into the ocean or whatever if you like. But I just came to feel like the problem was so much bigger than that, unfortunately. And the structures that are involved in the surveillance and the criminalization of pregnancy and motherhood are our doctors and our hospitals. And now I think under the second Trump administration, all of that is very overt and sort of reaching a crisis point.
(23:04):
This culture of surveillance lives in all of us, and it's something that we can start to deprogram ourselves from. One of the things that I found most interesting when I was writing the book is just these points where people who I was encountering were taking some kind of perceived benefit from being surveilled or from surveilling their kids. So it's not that we just all agree that surveillance of our bodies is bad. There's this Reddit thread that I found where someone was complaining, I think rightfully about how their doctor had tested, they were pregnant and their had tested their urine for drugs without their consent, and they found this, they were charged for the test, and so they discovered it. So the test was negative, but they were still angry about it, and they were all of these responses that were like, oh, well, what if you don't have anything to hide? Then why do you really care? I guess maybe you shouldn't have had to pay for it, but it's totally acceptable for it to happen. And I think that's something that I had not appreciated enough before that there is this sense of approval that we can also get from these surveillance structures, and it's just as important to sort of approach that and try to dismantle that turning to history and just the history of the ideologies that are coming into play in these technologies has been clarifying for me.
Doree (24:34):
Well, one thing that you highlight that I think is so important is who is behind these apps? You kind of tease out the difference between the founders of Flow and the founder of Clue. And I think looking at those apps in a way that shows that the motivations of the founders and how they've used the data and what their plans are is so important and something that I think sort of gets lost. What is the current status of Flow?
Amanda Hess (25:11):
So Flow is the, it's the period app that I used to track my cycles, and then I used to track my pregnancies and it was created by a couple of twins, these male twins. And it has since become, I think it recently became the first fem tech unicorn company, which means that it's valued at over a billion dollars. So there was a lot of reporting done about Flow specifically a few years ago that became even more salient after ROE was overturned about their data policies. And I think Flow is not the only app or the only period app that has those issues, but they became the sort of face of it, and it seems like they have transcended those critiques. There's just something about it where even for me as someone who I guess I feel like I know something about technology, I chose my period app just by searching in the app store and choosing the first one.
(26:25):
I just chose the first one, and that's the most popular one and the most powerful one. And it's flow, flow has, I think absorbed a lot of its critiques in the past few years. And so they've changed some of their language. They've hired a lot of women to write the content. Even in the five years since I first used it, some of the stuff that I write about has changed. They used to have this image of the pregnant body that looked like this slender white Barbie doll with her head cut off, and they've since changed it to a kind of ethnically ambiguous cartoon type of thing. And so the app is responding to these critiques, but I think it's still helpful to go back to the beginning and understand why it was created because none of these technologies, or very few of them are created selflessly.
(27:29):
They're created to make money. They're created to amass as much power as possible to get you to open them as much as possible. And so there's very few technological advancements that are developed outside of that system. And so when we're thinking about whether technology is good or bad, we don't actually even have an opportunity to understand whether these things are good or bad because they're created in such a bad context. They're not created to help us or for a human betterment or whatever. And so it's so hard to say, yeah, that's flow flow's doing very well for itself.
Doree (28:20):
So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back.
Elise (28:32):
On the other end of the spectrum are the women who seemingly reject all of this and go churn butter out on a homestead. And I assume you don't come down on that side where you have completely rejected technology in your child rearing. Where did you land?
Amanda Hess (28:58):
I mean, I think it's interesting because this tried wife figure that you're alluding to, even though she represents this I ideological throwback, I see her as such a hyper modern figure where she represents this woman who is constantly consuming, constantly producing, she's handling all of her domestic tasks even while she's simultaneously broadcasting herself and making an income that way. And so I think she really represents these demands, even though I don't feel very implicated by her as a figure because she's just too different from me. She really represents all of the, I think, pressures and expectations on mothers most of whom forget about choosing to work. Most people have to work. Most people have to have if live, if they have a family, if they have a partner. In most families, everyone who's capable of working is working.
(30:12):
So if you want to have kids, you're just going to be trying to handle both. And so I think she represents this fantasy that we could just easily do this all at the same time when of course, that's not the case. But I will say that I am not churning butter because I don't have time for that. But I have certainly not as, it's not really a philosophical thing for me. I've just come to understand that a lot of the technologies that I had used when my children were babies are not actually particularly helpful. And I've come to understand that my desire to have access to a certain technology is not the same as that technology being good for my family.
(31:00):
So part of why it's so helpful for me to now just have a very janky audio monitor is that I am someone who would be trying to spy in my kids' bedroom a lot of the time if I had access to that. And very occasionally, there are times when it would be helpful for me to not physically be present, but to understand if my wrestling kids are giving each other a bloody nose, but it's not that hard to also just sort of go in there. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know how you land on something. It's also that my kids are older. They're two and four, they're not babies anymore, and this fantasy that I can control them has been totally obliterated. And so just many of these technologies have lost their sparkle.
Doree (31:48):
Kind of along those lines, in the last chapter of your book, you go to the Matriarch Rising Festival, and your experience there is, I think it's fair to say it was a negative experience as I was reading it. You obviously did the reporting for this book and I think wrote the book before the RFK Maha Movement really kind of emerged. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how people, the free birth, I'm blanking on her name, but the free birth influencer and this Matriarch Rising Festival have led to this Make America Healthy Again movement.
Amanda Hess (32:42):
Yeah. I think one of the final edits I made to the book was to note how the Free Birth Society, which is that they promote giving birth with no medical assistance, was celebrating his appointment. Donald Trump appointing him. I feel like I came to understand what might lead to stuff like an anti-vaccine sentiment so much better after becoming pregnant myself and having a kid and writing this book. And I think it's, before I might've thought it was like a misinformation, a disinformation problem, and I think that's just the end of the funnel where the movement becomes focused on a certain thing like a vaccine over something else. But I really think trying to put myself in the position of someone who, a lot of these women are white. They were raised in conservative, often very religious communities and households where their eventual position as a mother was very important to their identity even as they were kids. I didn't grow up in a situation like that at all. But even so, when I became pregnant, I really internalized this idea that I needed to discipline my body in order to make sure I didn't mess up my pregnancy in some way,
(34:26):
Whatever that means. And then later in my pregnancy, when my son was diagnosed with a genetic condition, only then did I really start to understand that there is, that's not just a misogynistic idea, it's also this idea that's rooted in great stigma against disability. And so even though my kid's genetic condition, nobody knows, may or may not have any environmental element to it, I blamed myself and I needed to know what it was that I had done that had caused it, that had caused my son's body to develop in this certain way while it was inside of me. And then after he was born. I spent many years kind of unpacking those feelings, but it really made me understand how for mothers who are told that it's their sole responsibility to purify in order to create healthy, normal children than to end up having a child who has any kind of difference or who has autism, I just understand how seductive it could be to think that there was an external cause to that, and then to reassert your power and authority as a mother by fighting against it in a political sense. And so I just think all of those pieces are so American and they're just so embedded in our culture and they're really exacerbated by the commodification of healthcare. And I feel like I'm going to be for the rest of my life, we will be trying to work to dismantle those things because it's really moving in the opposite direction at the moment.
Elise (36:38):
Well, what's so pernicious is this idea of a child's health or optimal childhood or optimal pregnancy being framed as a matter of personal responsibility, it it's you individually are responsible for having a healthy child, which is also a loaded term, and that I individually am responsible and the end of your book, and everybody should definitely get this book. So we're talking about so many ideas and themes in it, but the end of your book gets into a lot of the parenting coaches who are selling subscription packs and things for millennial parents. And ultimately, you do have this line that struck me that drives it a conclusion, which is how you believe there is such thing as a good parent. Can you define that for us?
Amanda Hess (37:32):
Yeah, I mean, I was really thinking of, I so wanted to avoid making any recommendation to any person as I was writing this book because if anyone came into my home and saw the chaos, he'd be like, this woman doesn't know anything about parenting. Barely. I'm just figuring out how to parent my kids, really. And I don't know how any other person should parent their own kids, but I do think that we should all be parenting each other more. I really just think that the thing that's missing for me, even as someone who has all of the things that in America are supposed to lift you out of this, I have a great job. I have a union job. I am white. I have some extra money. I had more extra money before my kids were actually born, which is I think how they really get you to invest in all of these prenatal technologies. But even so, I buy a society
(38:39):
And I can't buy sufficient really medical system for myself and my family and my kids. And so there is just a limit to this American model of success, I think. And also it's just no way to live. I can't stand. I think the thing that really bothers me when I see all of this very hyper-specific parenting advice content is just how incapable we are as a society of keeping all kids healthy and safe and having them making sure that they are clothed and housed and fed. We are failing so profoundly on that metric, and I really think that there is, I do have this limited amount of time and energy, and the extent to which I can try to manage my own family while trying to extend my family into my community and bringing those things together in some small way is just, those are the only times when I really feel like I'm doing something right for my kids.
(39:59):
And so for me, it's like there are, I'm so lucky to have had other community members set up various mutual aid things in my community that are really inclusive of kids. And it means that instead of trying to go volunteer somewhere where I don't have time to do that because I'm working during the day and I'm with my kids on the weekends, I can cook food at night and have it be something where I'm feeding my kids the same things that I'm then bringing and just dropping off to a different person later. Or I'm bringing my kids to a distribution line where it's set up for there to be a kid zone for every kid who's there. I didn't set any of that stuff up, and I don't have, I'm not currently at a point in my life where I have the capacity to do such a thing, but it's really felt like the only time that I'm really doing something where I feel like a good, I don't want to say mom because it's so loaded, but I feel like a good parent when I'm doing that.
Amanda Hess (41:06):
And
Amanda Hess (41:07):
I don't necessarily, other times I just feel like parent, I'm just doing it. I'm just trying to do it. It's like, well, as I can or just do the baseline, which is hard enough I think. So that's what it is for me. I don't know.
Elise (41:22):
But I love that. I love that your idea of being a good parent is rooted in community care. It's rooted in caregiving for everybody and to care about all of the kids. And I love that.
Amanda Hess (41:35):
I mean, I really think it would've been great if I had come to this conclusion before I had children. Yeah,
Elise (41:42):
You've been less, you wouldn't self even had to have children. You could have just taken
Amanda Hess (41:45):
Care of other kids mean, and that's the thing that I think is so just depressing about all of these kind of fights between the child free and parents. And they're really, I think, fights over space and resources, and there's just not enough community sort of space for us that is like multi-generational or whatever. And so I can understand as someone who used to be them, how annoying it is when my kids come into a coffee shop and aren't just really loud and disruptive, but there's no place that is sort of built for them unless it's this glorified ball pit that costs me like $40 to bring them to. But the truth is that it's not just kids. It's not just parents who need access to that kind of thing. So yeah, I think hopefully after my kids need less of my time and attention, I can try to become more engaged with my community. But yeah, it's definitely something that I discovered at the time when I had the least amount of bandwidth to do anything else.
Doree (43:00):
Amanda, I'm wondering just before we let you go, is there anything in tech or internet culture right now that is giving you any sort of optimism or hope?
Amanda Hess (43:17):
That's such a good question. I think there's a lot of resentment toward our tech overlords that I think is really actually amazing and productive because we should be hugely skeptical of these people. And I think we're now seeing just the extent of their power. There's no particular tech product that I can recommend, but I do think just the level of tech literacy among my peers and also younger people is just, it's improved from the time when I was first logging on and it felt so exciting. And Bill Clinton was talking about it. It was going to be this,
Elise (44:19):
The bridge, first century freedom century or
Amanda Hess (44:20):
Whatever. Exactly. Yeah. So I think just this resistance, at least in our minds, is helpful. I wish AI wasn't in everything. It's hard to avoid, but at least I can not like it, right?
Amanda Hess (44:40):
Yeah.
Amanda Hess (44:41):
That's all I can do. It's just hate it.
Doree (44:45):
Well, Amanda, thank you so much for coming on to chat with us and talk about your wonderful book. Is there somewhere that people can find you and follow along with your work? Are you going on a book tour?
Amanda Hess (45:00):
Yeah, so I will be doing an event in Brooklyn, one in dc, one in Boston, and one in Providence so far. I might be able to extend it a little bit. You can also find me on Instagram at Arum Wall Hess. One of the very depressing things about writing a book about technology is I have to be so logged on to promote it. It's just so crazy. But you can find me there. Please follow me. I also wanted to say that this, I'm so excited to be on this podcast because this is a book about being 35. It's a book about when I was 35, and I'm turning 40 this year. But it is such an interesting time.
Elise (45:48):
Yeah, it was for me too,
Amanda Hess (45:49):
In a person's life, so it's nice to be able to think about it a little bit. I'm excited about my forties, so
Elise (45:58):
You should be.
Amanda Hess (45:59):
I think you should be. Yeah. I think it's going to be great.
Doree (46:02):
Amanda has, thank you so much, much.
Amanda Hess (46:04):
Thank you so
Doree (46:05):
Much, Amanda. It was wonderful. She also, I think I sent this to you, Elise. She put out a book promo that was so funny and so well done. It was kind of like a sendup of a trad wife influencer sort of. Yes, yes.
Elise (46:26):
And she just, it's on her Instagram, right?
Doree (46:28):
Yes. It's on her Instagram. She does it so deadpan and perfectly that at first you think she's serious, and then it just gets more and more absurd, and it was so genius. So her book is amazing. She's amazing. I've been reading her stuff as I think I said in the interview. I've been reading her stuff for so long, over a decade. Same. So it was really nice to get to talk to her. Yeah. Alright. Intentions. Intentions. Last week I was getting back on the strength training train. I have gotten back on. Oh, good. I did a strength workout yesterday. I also did one last week, and I think sort of might've overdone it. Oh, no. Because I also was like, I played a lot of tennis last week, maybe a little too much tennis.
Elise (47:15):
Yeah. I feel like you did too. I feel like you were playing a lot of tennis last
Doree (47:18):
Week. Yeah, last week was very tennis heavy, and I also did this pretty intense arm workout. And so there was one morning where I was like, is my tennis elbow coming back? And I don't actually think my tennis elbow is coming back, but I think because I'd done an intense arm workout and played tennis the night before that, I then played tennis that morning and was like, oh, my arms are not feeling so great. So I need to just ease back into it, I think a little bit, and not push, not go to my full capacity right away. You know what I mean?
Elise (47:54):
Yeah. Just
Doree (47:55):
Take it a little easier.
Elise (47:57):
Ease in. Yes,
Doree (47:58):
Ease in ease in. Well, so this week is my birthday.
Elise (48:02):
It's your birthday week. It's
Doree (48:03):
My birthday. And I just want to celebrate the fact that I'm a year older, not that much wiser, but I am, knock on wood, I'm healthy. I have my family. Things are good. In that regard. Things are hard. But overall, big picture, I think I'm doing okay. So just want to sort of sit with the fact of turning a year older.
Elise (48:32):
Okay. Evolve. Fantastic. Happy birthday. Happy birthday to Dor and the community. Definitely shower Doree with love for her birthday this week. My intention last week was regarding time management, which I did poorly because I got sick. I caught something, and then I hadn't overscheduled weekend and it was a mess. So I don't know. I feel like if I put that goal back up on the board, it's not realistic during a travel week. This is a travel week for me to get better at my time management. So instead, I want to do a more measurable, small goal, which is to use up my ClassPass credits.
Doree (49:26):
Okay.
Elise (49:27):
I have so many class, I get a certain number of ClassPass credits for my monthly membership. And unless I actually go to the classes, I'm not drawing down the bank. And then you can lose some, because I think they don't roll over every month. So I really need to just go to the classes that I'm paying for with my monthly membership. So my intention is to go to some exercise classes, which I think is a doable intention.
Doree (49:55):
I did ClassPass for a long time and I took some great classes,
Elise (50:00):
And now you can use 'em on facials.
Doree (50:02):
What?
Elise (50:03):
Yeah, it's higher points, but if you get to the end of the month and they're not going to roll over, it's like, huh. Yeah, I'll use that on a facial or
Doree (50:10):
Wow.
Elise (50:11):
Okay. Treatment.
Doree (50:13):
All right. Good to know.
Elise (50:14):
Shout out. Yeah,
Doree (50:15):
Shout out. Shout out. Alright. Well, forever 35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir, and Elise Hu. It's produced and edited by Samee Junio. And Sam Reed is our project manager, our network partner is Acast. Thanks everyone for listening. We'll talk to you soon.
Elise (50:31):
Okay. Talk next time.
Doree (50:32):
Bye.