Episode 372: Digging Into Family Dynamics with Sue Dominus
Sue Dominus, New York Times writer and author of The Family Dynamic: A Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success, joins Doree and Elise to discuss how birth order does and doesn’t affect our identities, how to outsource discipline and make the home life safe and loving, and the thing she wishes she had done more with her kids.
Photo credit: Audrey deWys
Mentioned in this Episode:
The Family Dynamic: A Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success by Susan Dominus
Julia Leonard
Lauren Groff
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Transcript
The transcript for this episode is AI generated.
Doree Shafrir (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise Hu (00:17):
And I'm Elise Hu. And we are just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.
Doree Shafrir (00:21):
Do you want to just give a little preview of our guest today, Elise?
Elise Hu (00:27):
Yeah. I'm really excited that we have the New York Times writer, Sue Dominus on the show later today. She has written her first book, the Family Dynamic, a Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success. And listeners, y'all know that Dorie and I talk a lot about our siblings and being eldest daughters and how birth order seems to be destiny oftentimes. But Sue Dominus looks into all of that and how our siblings have an influence on our lives. And one of the takeaways that I remember was how our siblings can kind of see us in a way that doesn't dote on us. They can see us in this more dispassionate and evaluative way, and that can actually be really helpful. They've known us our whole lives, but they're not charged with taking care of us, and they're not really competitive with us, I guess They somewhat are.
Doree Shafrir (01:29):
No, I mean, they can be for sure.
Elise Hu (01:31):
Yeah. But that can have advantages for our lives. Yes. So Dory, for you, you have a brother and a sister. I only have the brother. Does gender play a role with your sibling dynamics, do you
Doree Shafrir (01:44):
Think? I think it does. I think also, I'm seven years older than my sister, so when we were growing up, that was a pretty significant age difference and we didn't really become close until we were in our twenties. And now we're very close. We're very different, but we're very close. And then my brother is not only the only boy, but he's also the middle child. So there's, it's funny, Sue, I thought Sue had some really astute observations about middle children that we talk about and Yeah, I mean, I think gender definitely does play a role for sure.
Elise Hu (02:34):
I'm really glad I had a brother. I felt like I kind of had a more lot of my friends, even to this day tend to be men. I have a lot of guy friends that I roll around with. Last night I went to a concert with one of my dad friends, Alex, and I think it's because I was always surrounded by boys, kind of a bro vibe in my life. Even when I was very, very young, like my younger brother, all his friends I babysat, all my neighbor kids were boys all in the same grade.
Doree Shafrir (03:03):
Oh, that's
Elise Hu (03:03):
Interesting. I grew up in the nineties when we were all allowed to just go outside and run around until dark. And so all we did was kick the can capture the flag goes from the graveyard soccer at night in our shared yards with Tommy Ryan, Craig, and the other Craig. That was my friend group. And it was like this all the way until about middle school when things kind of get weird with boys because you start liking them.
(03:30)
Oh my God, I embarrassed the crap out of Ava at school. At school drop off yesterday. What happened? She actually told me she was going to murder me. She was like, mom, I'm going to murder you. I was so obnoxious, so obnoxious to her. So she talks on the phone with this other boy who I have known since they were in school together in second grade, but it's not like I ever talked to him until this year when they talk on the phone at night and they're on speaker. She insists on having all her conversations on speaker, both in the car and in her room. And so then I'm like, what's up? Name redacted. And so every night I end up talking to him and he's like, hi, how's it going? And he's so embarrassed and he doesn't really want to be chatting with me, but it's Ava's fault because he's on speaker. And so I had been really used to talking to him all the time, but I guess something changed over the last couple of days.
Doree Shafrir (04:29):
Oh no.
Elise Hu (04:30):
And they stopped talking as much.
Doree Shafrir (04:33):
Oh no.
Elise Hu (04:33):
And I was sort of aware that something had changed,
(04:41)
But she hasn't been really clear on what exactly happened such that they're not talking to each other as much. She just told me, she's like, name redacted and I haven't been talking at school that much. I think we're just kind of taking a break from each other. And so as I'm dropping her off at school, she's on the passenger side and she opens the door to walk towards the building and she looks to her left and says, oh my gosh, there's name redacted. He's coming our way. I take this as an opportunity to be like, oh, name redacted is coming. I haven't seen him in person. And I talk to him every night. So I rolled down the window and I'm like, name redacted. What's up? Oh my God. And he breezes and he's like, oh, hey. And I'm like, I'm Ava's mom. We talk all the time. And he turned Bee Red.
Elise Hu (05:34):
No,
Elise Hu (05:35):
A sweet kid. He has really sweet little dimples too. But he was frozen. He was just standing there in his hoodie with his hands in his pockets, and he's like nodding his head up and down. And I was like, oh my, well, you seem kind of embarrassed, but I should be embarrassed because I'm sitting here in my pajamas and Ava has walked away. Ava is gone, was like, I want
Doree Shafrir (05:58):
To be excluded from this
Elise Hu (05:59):
Narrative. She's like, may I be excused? She said nothing. She saw me engaging with him and she was just gone. And that poor kid was so polite. He stood there and talked and I was like, is this just weird? Because we usually talk on the phone and not in person. He's like, yeah, I guess. And I was like, okay, I'll let you go, man. Oh God. Anyway, God, it was very upset with me. I couldn't help it. I was so excited to see him. I told Rob, he's like, are you crazy? You can't mess with middle school dynamics like that. Oh boy.
Doree Shafrir (06:33):
There was a disruption in the force.
Elise Hu (06:35):
It just was too much. It was too much. And I feel bad now. Ava was very upset after school when I picked her up and she told me I was going to be murdered. Oh my God. I know. She says they're just not going to talk for a while and maybe it'll blow over. I mean,
Doree Shafrir (06:53):
Okay, but stuff happens.
Elise Hu (06:55):
But she was like, you know what, now, name redacted thinks I'm weirder than ever. And I'm like, does he think you're weirder than ever? Or me? Because I feel this could actually be a uniting kind of situation for the two of you because both of you can unite against me who made a fool of myself, her
Doree Shafrir (07:11):
Weird mom,
Elise Hu (07:12):
A weird obnoxious mom. Yeah. So I don't know. I feel like it could have gone both ways. And she was like, I know you didn't intend to hurt me, but I feel very hurt by the situation. So anyway,
Doree Shafrir (07:25):
Good for her for being able to name that and say it.
Elise Hu (07:30):
Yeah. She's like, oh shoot. Yeah. Anyway, adventures. Yes.
Doree Shafrir (07:37):
That feels like a good segue into introducing Sue Dominus, who I think you and I have both been reading for years. She has been working for The New York Times since 2007. First she was a metro columnist and she's been a staff writer for The Times Magazine for a while now. She won a Pulitzer in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment. She won a national magazine award in 2024 for her article about menopause and her book, the Family Dynamic, A Journey into The Mystery of Sibling Success was published in May. And it's a really excellent and fascinating book that I recommend, especially if you have siblings, but even if you don't, and it's really interesting. And if you have children, there's just a lot there. And she also
Elise Hu (08:37):
Teaches if you're part of a family, it's great.
Doree Shafrir (08:40):
It's a part of a family. She also teaches journalism at Yale and yeah, it was such a great conversation. Before we get to her though, I do just want to remind everyone, our website is Forever35podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mentioned on the show. Our Instagram is Forever35podcast. You can join our Patreon and get our casual chats, our monthly pop culture episodes and more at patreon.com/forever three five oh, including ad free episodes. Our favorite products are at shopmy.us/Forever35. Our newsletter is at Forever35podcast.com/newsletter. And you can call or text us at eight one five nine one zero three nine zero and email us at Forever35podcast@gmail.com. And here is Sue. Sue, welcome to Forever35. We have so much to talk about. Really excited to get into it.
Sue Dominus (09:37):
I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.
Doree Shafrir (09:39):
Yay. Well, we start off by asking all of our guests the same question, which is do you have a self-care practice that you can share with our listeners?
Sue Dominus (09:51):
I have a ritual in the morning that has become self-care, which is I make coffee and while it's brewing, I put on my, and just like that inspired kimono bathroom.
Elise Hu (10:09):
I have one, I have one also.
Sue Dominus (10:10):
Okay. Flannel I realized was not cutting it after watching that series. And then I wander out to my garden and I see what's what. And usually I pick something, whether it is a tomato or a flour or some greenery, and then I wander back inside and I drink my coffee. And then often I wander back outside and do a little more gardening. But it makes me excited to get up in the morning. And that is huge, having something that I am excited to do first thing in the morning. That is very helpful.
Elise Hu (10:44):
Alright, so for context, I am the eldest daughter of two, but the only girl, just so that since we're going to be talking about siblings and complicated or complex family dynamics, I'm the eldest daughter, Dorie. You're also eldest daughter, right?
Doree Shafrir (11:02):
I'm also the eldest daughter of three, a brother and a sister, but I only have one child, so I have a lot of questions for you.
Elise Hu (11:12):
And I have three girls and Oh wow. All girls, whereas I only had a brother. So I know kind of gender plays into a lot of sibling dynamics as well based on what you have so well synthesized for us in your book Family Dynamic. So to get into what you've learned about sibling dynamics, let's start with how one of the reasons you're a journalist today and still a working journalist is because of your older brother and how he envisioned it for you, even though your parents maybe didn't.
Sue Dominus (11:45):
I think I was 14 years old and I remember I was reading on my bed and my brother who's six years older had come home from college and he was asking me if I had joined the high school newspaper and I said no because it had folded. And then he kind of stood in the doorway of my room and ranted at me about the decline of democracy and this apathetic student body and urged me to single handedly reinvigorate the high school newspaper. And he kind of bullied me into doing it actually, but he knew me well enough to know it was exactly the right thing for me to be doing. I did a lot of other things in high school, but it wasn't until I started starting the newspaper that I felt keenly that that was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. And I don't think I wanted to be a journalist at that point. I wanted to write fiction. I had all kinds of ideas, but it really suited me and he knew me well enough to know that would be the right thing for me to do. And also I think if my parents had told me to start a high school newspaper, which by the way, they never would have, they just weren't those kinds of parents, I think frankly, they weren't paying that close attention. I think I would've rolled my eyes.
(13:02)
So I think sibling advice can be really powerful and heard in a way that especially for adolescents, parental advice is often not heard.
Elise Hu (13:12):
Okay, let's take a break and we will be right back.
Doree Shafrir (13:22):
Could you talk a little bit just about how this interest in family dynamics and siblings was also sort of germinating when you became sort of fascinated by the family dynamics of one of your college friends?
Sue Dominus (13:35):
I mean, I would say I was always interested in family dynamics because I spent a lot of time as a kid spending a week or two at a time at family friends' homes because my parents traveled a lot. But in college she's still, my dear friend, dearest friend, Anya Epstein, her father was the head of the creative writing department at bu. And her grandfather had been one of the writers of Casablanca. They were like this very literary family. And her father used to read Dickens to her in bed and take her to the theater. And they had guests like John Updike and Doris Lessing, people I read in high school
Elise Hu (14:12):
And
Sue Dominus (14:12):
Revered for better or for worse, coming for dinner parties at their home. And I just always wondered whether having that kind of background was a blessing and the thing that gave her the boost to believe she could be a writer. She's an incredibly talented writer, mostly for television right now, but also a screenwriter or whether it was a burden to have all of those expectations over you and this insistence on excellence, which had really never been a huge part of my upbringing, to tell you the truth.
Elise Hu (14:49):
Yeah, so wasn't this family was kind of the catalyst, but you met so many families. Maybe just since we're just getting started, you can just pick out one that really sticks out to you in terms of what you learned about excellence and any through lines there.
Sue Dominus (15:04):
I think one of the through lines that I saw through all of the families was that the parents themselves were people who had done something extraordinary. They weren't necessarily famous, they hadn't necessarily done something of note, but they had often built lives for themselves that were much more stable and cultured and let's say even affluent than the ones from which they had come. The Lauren Gr, the novelist and her sister Sarah True, who's an Olympic triathlete, and her brother Adam Gr, who's a serial, very successful healthcare entrepreneur. Their parents, their father had actually been so poor growing up that he was in an orphanage at one point and their mother had also come from quite a hard scrabble background and with a pretty violent father who at least was prone to violence when he drank. And they both were scholarship kids at Franklin and Marshall.
(16:01)
And I think there was, when you have parents who have overcome something difficult, I think it both narratively teaches you that you can overcome challenging circumstances and excel, and I think it also inspires you. So it's both the reaffirming of this idea that anything is possible if you put your mind to it, but it's also you want to live up to what they themselves have done and what they have shown in their own lives. And the Bronte family runs throughout the book. I was always obsessed with the Bronte's and people think of the Bronte's as being incredibly the consummate English family, but in fact they were the child of an Irish immigrant. And he himself, his own story was extraordinary. He grew up the mythology at least that he was a dirt floor kind of child of farmer, a tenant farmer, and ended up getting a scholarship to Cambridge. And that kind of class leap was really unheard of for people of his low income in Ireland at the time. So he himself had a pretty extraordinary story before he even gave birth to the Bronte sisters.
Elise Hu (17:10):
So this is the parents of course, but there's this great line in your book about how parents don't, or parents can dot, but siblings see you dispassionately. What does that unlock for us in terms of our understanding about siblings?
Sue Dominus (17:26):
I think that siblings really do see each other in this very sophisticated and deeply analytical way. And the advice that they give you is going to be more dispassionate than the advice maybe that you're going to get from your parents who have an idealized version of you or who have. The other thing about parents, by the way, is that they're only operating within their framework, which is outdated by the time they're really in a position to give anybody career advice.
Elise Hu (17:54):
Oh yes, I'm reminded of this by my teen constantly. She's like, that doesn't
Sue Dominus (17:59):
Apply. Well, it's really funny that you say that because Julia Leonard, who's a character in the book, she does a lot of developmental work on what motivates children. She has also done research that finds that kids want to get advice from people who both know them well, but also deeply understand their circumstances. And when you think about it, when you think about the anthropology of a high school, it's so elaborate, it's so complicated when kids say to their parents, you just don't understand. I actually think they don't understand. They can't possibly understand why you can't audition for the this because that girl knows that you already, it's, they'll never get it, but your siblings get it. They understand, and I think they can be really helpful and strategic. And I just saw that in the families that I wrote about. There was a lot of professional guidance and encouragement that the siblings got from each other and really specific, the parents might've set a tone, a tone of we're a social justice family or we're an artsy family, or we believe in creativity, or we believe in being terrific athletes or musicians. But when it came to the logistics, how do you get from point A to point B? I think that siblings are often better at that than parents are.
Doree Shafrir (19:20):
Can we talk a little bit about the roles that siblings often find themselves in? I mentioned that I'm the oldest of three, Elisa is the oldest of two, and we both had very specific roles within our families. I was the smart one, but my brother and sister are also very smart. That was kind of the role that I was type into. I was typecast, yes. And my sister was the athletic one. Meanwhile, I love sports too. And so it's just, so as parents, and I guess I'm asking this not so much for myself because again, I only have one child, but for the parents of multiple children out there, is there a way to avoid this type casting? Should we even try to avoid this type casting? Are there benefits to this kind of type podcasting?
Sue Dominus (20:18):
I mean, evolutionary biologists would say that niche finding is helpful because it creates less conflict when everybody knows what they're going for. And there is some research that suggests that kids do consciously seek out niche. So it's not a coincidence that your parents thought you were the most academic one. Very often the oldest child does have the highest iq. I hate to sort of generalize. And of course there are always exceptions. She says as the daughter, the youngest of, but the oldest child is the only child who is ever the only child
Elise Hu (20:54):
In
Sue Dominus (20:54):
Their family.
(20:55)
And so this is one of the reasons that we know that those first months are so crucial is because you see this gap. I mean only children, they have all this enrichment poured into them from their parents in a single-minded focus. And then there's also good research that suggests that there's something beneficial about teaching younger siblings that it consolidates information and knowledge in a way that is very helpful. So what happens often is the oldest child has designated the academic one, and then the younger children, like your younger sister, they're like, well, what am I going to do? And they throw themselves into sports because that is the venue that is open to them. And there's a lot of research that suggests that younger children are overrepresented in sports, do better in sports, where even their older siblings are competing. I think the idea is that they throw more energy into that because there's just less of a competition for that position. There's also research that shows that even knowing that oldest children tend to have the highest IQ in the family, even when they don't, parents tend to think the oldest child does have the highest iq. Why? Because they're the oldest. So they always do seem to be the farthest along and parents think they can correct for that age, discre age.
(22:22)
A lot of it's just age, but they can't quite remember what that 7-year-old was like when she too was a 4-year-old.
(22:30)
And there is research that shows that when parents make those arbitrary assessments, it's reflected in the kinds of choices the kids make and the way that they do in school and the kinds of extracurriculars they choose. So I think the first step to all parenting is self-awareness and just checking in with yourself and being honest with yourself and not taking for granted whatever your assumptions are, even if you are going to think that your oldest child is the most academic because you can't shake that notion. Are there ways that you can make a conscious point of encouraging younger children to pursue more academic extracurriculars or I mean something as subtle as, I don't know, there are some families where they do math games at the table. Who do you look at for the answer first, what are kids picking up on? Parenting advice should come with a warning, which is don't try this at home. The idea being that it's very hard if we want our kids, we want our kids to change all the time. We want them to be more something. We want them to be grittier, we want them to be harder working. We want them to be more conscientious. At least many parents do.
Elise Hu (23:38):
But
Sue Dominus (23:38):
If you think it's hard to change your kid, it's really hard to change yourself. So there are things I think that parents can do, try to be more egalitarian among their children, but it's also just to some degree, it's very hard to shake some of our habits and some of the ways we talk to our kids. It's just all you can do is try to be more conscious.
Elise Hu (23:59):
We have talked about oldest children. We have talked about youngest children, but because they are kind of going extinct, we have ignored the middle child even in our questions. So what did you learn about them?
Sue Dominus (24:11):
I mean, in a way. So the one thing I can say about birth order is that the oldest child tends to have the highest iq. We see younger kids overrepresented in sports. There actually is not a lot of convincing research to suggest that birth order predicts all that much else about who a kid is going to be. And one of the reasons this, by the way, is because sometimes you'll talk to somebody who's a middle child and they'll say, well, I'm the typical middle child. I'm the peacemaker. And then other times they'll say, oh, you know me, I'm the typical middle child. I'm the one who was forgotten and bitter. I mean, it's just even conversationally, people really do tend to explain their personality via their birth order. But the best research on birth order finds that there are not consistent personality traits based on birth order. What really affects families and how siblings outcomes differ is not so much birth order as the economics of the family.
(25:13)
Where are you in the musical chairs of your family's finances? When it's time to go to college, when it's time to get private ballet lessons, when it's time to need a tutor, when you see really big discrepancies in kids' outcomes from the same family, it's usually either about some innate talent or it is about which exists and is real and is unfair. But it can also just be about real economic differences in the family at different points in time. I wish I had a great answer for you about middle children, but I don't think there is any consistent, really good research on how they differ from other siblings.
Elise Hu (25:51):
No, and it's such a good reminder too that our systems have effects on families.
Sue Dominus (25:57):
They have effects on families, and frankly, economic systems have much more effect on families than parenting does. I mean, parenting operates within an economic structure. There's only so much a parent can do if their child has no reason to believe that they're going to ever be able to afford to go to college, or they don't know anybody in their world who has pursued the kind of career that they themselves dream of.
(26:20)
You get lucky with an extraordinary teacher or a particularly good school system. But I do think that sometimes when we put the emphasis on parenting, we forget how much of what happens in children's lives, even in high income families. You see the difference in the high net worth families whose kids have a dramatic edge over the merely upper middle class income kids. Many, many people want their kid to go to Harvard, and it's just a fact of life that for very high net worth individuals, it's a lot easier for those kids. I mean, this is what the research has shown in recent years.
Doree Shafrir (26:55):
So we're just going to take a short break and we will be right back for those of us who are not very high net worth or I think a lot of people right now are just sort of trying to make it through. And this idea that we need to be constantly sort of cultivating our children's achievement or even their happiness as you talk about throughout the book, feels very overwhelming asking for a friend. And I'm just kind of wondering, and I know your book isn't necessarily prescriptive, but what are some things that we sort of normal, average parents, let's say can do with our kids that we'll sort of set them up for success and happiness?
Sue Dominus (27:58):
Well, one thing that I wish I had done, I don't know how young your kids still are. Mine are now 19, they're in college. But one thing I wish I had done that I think I really could have done is taken counsel from research that has found that when parents intervene in something that young children are trying to do, solve a puzzle.
(28:19)
It's just incredibly demotivating. And that in general, this is also research from Julia Leonard that in general, parents jump in too quickly to try to solve a problem. And we are all in a rush, but that's only part of it. We also hate to see our kids struggle and fail. We also are so eager to be present for our children that we want to jump in and show that we're in it with them. But if anything, I think that I would've done much better to be a little bit more laid back in the sense that I waited, I paused, I didn't jump in so quickly to try to solve someone's anxiety about where his missing magic the gathering cards were, or to help him tie his karate. Gee, I think that, I mean, just Lauren Grs mom, the GRS mom, Janine, I love this tiny detail in the book.
(29:14)
She had plastic cups on the lower cabinets and a step stool by the sink so that anytime her kids wanted to, her grandchildren rather wanted to get something to drink, they could help themselves at a very young age. It's such a small thing, small, but I love the autonomy that encouraged. And I think in general, the struggle to let your kid struggle is real. And I think that letting your kid work it out. So that's one small thing I would say that can start really young and it trickles with older kids into not being enmeshed in their achievements. There's a director named Diane Paula, who's featured in the book Her other, she's one of her sisters is a concert harpist at an orchestra in Mexico. Her brother was one of the founders in Friers of New York, one very influential family. Diane Paulist, a jagged little pill.
(30:10)
I mean, she's just Pippin, she's kind of a legend. But her mother, who was also an overcomer, a Japanese immigrant who left Tokyo an orphan following the war, she always said that her mom would watch her during piano recitals or watch her during ballet recitals. She danced with the American Ballet Theater at a very young age that her mother had a way of watching without desire. In other words, she was there for her. She was present. I think it's great for parents to be present, but it was always clear that whatever was happening on stage was between Diane, the choreographer and the audience, and not Diane and her mother. And I think parents know when they're on the sidelines of a soccer game and they have crossed over into something that's more about what they need than what the kid needs. And I think I thought a lot about Diane, Paul's mother, myself when I was on the sidelines, or Marilyn Hollifield told me that her mom used to watch her play piano and would sit, I love this advice.
(31:14)
She would sit in the living room when Marilyn played and just enjoy it. But she never critiqued it. She never said, oh, I think maybe you're a little bit too fast in that. Or, I mean for me, my son plays piano. I played piano until I heard that story, I hadn't realized what a waste of a relationship it was for me to feel that I needed to chime in and tell he has a piano teacher. What am I doing doing anything other than enjoying my son's piano playing? So I think I went into this book thinking I was going to find stories about, we had an accounting at the end of every day, and if she could tell me that she had practiced for an hour, then she got a this or I was looking for these really prescriptive stories. And instead what I realized is that what parents can do is expose their children as much as they can to a lot of possibilities that might strike their passion. But once they have identified something that interests them, get out of the way. Let it be theirs. Don't try to solve the puzzle. Don't try to give the critique. Let the coach coach and you parent. A lot of the parents, I felt like they found ways to outsource discipline. They found great coaches or great piano teachers, or they had a neighbor whom they all really admired. But I think it's great when families can outsource the discipline and make the home life a really safe loving space with a lot of room for creativity and exploration.
Doree Shafrir (32:48):
I love that.
Elise Hu (32:51):
And it makes me wonder whether my kids have deliberately chosen activities that I didn't do sports, I don't play instruments that I don't play pursuits. Their pursuits are so different than mine probably because they know I would be super annoying if they decided to play piano.
Sue Dominus (33:08):
You know what I mean? I can't imagine that's true, Elise.
Elise Hu (33:10):
It's so funny because they choose these sports that I know nothing about, and the two of them are dancers. I never dance. I'm the most uncoordinated person on the planet. But it's great because when I go to a recital, I'm like, all of it's great. I have no comments. I can't judge this.
Sue Dominus (33:29):
I love that. I mean, it's so funny. I always feel like it's great to have at least one parent at the game who does not care. I mean, my friend, we have good friends and the dad was the coach. He kind of cared. But the wife, we were always just talking and I'd be like, oh my god, Aiden just scored a goal. And she'd be like, oh, he did great. Good for you, Aiden. But anyway, and I just thought that was the healthiest thing and probably so good for Aiden too.
Elise Hu (33:56):
Yeah, I'm constantly learning from their activities because I'm like, oh, that is the rule for this sport. Okay,
Sue Dominus (34:02):
Exactly. But you're never going to be invested in it the way you would if you yourself have played that sport.
Elise Hu (34:07):
And yeah,
Sue Dominus (34:07):
I think that is a relief for everybody involved. If you want your child to be a world-class tennis player, the parent has to be involved. We're talking, but these are obviously Richard Williams. He did make those girls, those women into the incredible superstars that they were. So this is, even though it was a book that was really about outliers, it was about really extraordinary families and people who had done very extraordinary things. I think most parents don't need their kids to be Serena and Venus Williams. They just want them to have the satisfaction of mastery and feeling passionate about something that they love. And to see that the more work they put in, the better the results. That's what we all want to see. And
Doree Shafrir (34:53):
Also, I don't want to be Richard Williams. That seems exhausting. Exhausting. I agree.
Sue Dominus (35:01):
I could not agree more.
Elise Hu (35:02):
And to that point, Sue, before we let you go, one of the sort of most liberating or encouraging takeaways I think from the whole of your book is that parenting isn't even that influential on the kids in the scheme of things. Right? Can you just drive home that point? Because I found it really liberating. Like, okay, great, I can't mess them up too much. But you also don't, aren't the only influence on your kids. Of course.
Sue Dominus (35:27):
Yeah. I think that is a really important takeaway for parents because I think a lot of bad parenting happens speaking for a friend when you feel bad that you can't fix a situation or that it's not going the way you want it to go, and then you kind of act out because you're feeling frustrated. But the truth is that when it comes to parenting and when it comes to sort of personality development and habits and choices, when you think about how much time your children spend consuming media in the company of teachers, in the company of friends, compared to how much time they spend with you, especially as they get older,
(36:05)
This just supports what the research shows, which is that parental effects are much smaller than we think they are. They matter for whether a kid is going to go to college or not. And as we've already discussed, at least traditionally, that has been hugely influential in how someone fares economically. But in terms of the kind of personality they develop, whether they're conscientious or not, whether they're empathetic or not, there's some portion of that that is going to be genetic. And there's some portion of that that is going to be the environment around them, what we call nurture. But nurture is not just parenting. It's the entire environment. It's the neighborhood, it's the political environment, it's the weather they grow up in. It's the millions of tiny, idiosyncratic things that happen to them every day that make them a new person that then interacts in the millions of new idiosyncratic things that are happening the next day. So parenting matters. It matters how a kid feels in their home. It matters how the kids feel about their parents, but it's not all determining the way I think that we really kind of think that it is.
Elise Hu (37:10):
Okay. That's a great note to end on.
Doree Shafrir (37:12):
Yes, I will take that with me. My son is sick. Relax ladies. So I have a long way to go.
Elise Hu (37:21):
Sue, where can folks find you?
Sue Dominus (37:23):
I am on Instagram at Sue Dominus and I am on Facebook at Susan Dominus and I am on Twitter at Susan Dominus. Although I'm so old that I am mostly on Facebook and I write for the New York Times.
Doree Shafrir (37:39):
Thank you so much. This is such a fascinating conversation.
Elise Hu (37:43):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Doree Shafrir (37:44):
Truly my pleasure. I'm so thrilled to be here. I really am.
Elise Hu (37:51):
Thank you to Sue Dominus. Thank you. Thank you. Again, that book is called The Family Dynamic. If y'all should pick it up, it's also beautiful. The cover is awesome. I mean, it would be just to have on your shelf, but it is time for us to move into the intention zone or how did you do with your intention last week and what is your next one?
Doree Shafrir (38:11):
I got to say I'm doing well. I also got these checklists for Henry's morning and evening routines, and he's gotten very into checking them off. We'll link to those in the show notes because it's a checklist with a thing that you move over and he finds it very satisfying. There's a little click. Oh, nice. And they're just up on the fridge. So yeah, so really trying to work on that executive function for all of us. And this week, my intention is to start tackling his room. We as alluded to before, we have a weirdly packed weekend, so I don't know how much I'm going to be able to actually get done, but I hope to at least get started on it. I think that'll be the next frontier. How about you? I mean, I know you said you were going to digitize tapes last week, and it sounds like you have been doing that.
Elise Hu (39:12):
I've gotten through one batch. I have some key items to come that still need to be dropped off at my place. But it's great. It's an awesome service. I feel good about not shipping off these old VHS and mini dvs and CDs somewhere in the ether. I don't know where Legacy Box and some of these companies that digitize your memories are based. But
Doree Shafrir (39:36):
I'll just say Legacy Box was a sponsor of this show at one point, and I think they actually send a really good job. Yeah. I mean, I think there is always the risk when you send something off, they can be the best company in the entire world. And someone somewhere, I'm sure has had something lost. So I hear you. If you want the ironclad guarantee that something is not going to get lost,
Elise Hu (40:03):
I'm driving it to a place
Doree Shafrir (40:04):
I just felt, yeah, you're
Elise Hu (40:05):
Driving traumatized by losing so much already that I was
Doree Shafrir (40:08):
Like, I need to Totally, I get it. Yeah, of
Elise Hu (40:09):
Course. I need to do this for my peace of mind. So I'm moving along on that intention. My intention for next week is I just finished the Gwyneth Paltrow book, which I'll talk about on our pop culture episode for our Patreon subscribers. But it's, it's a biography. It was a really blazingly fast read. I read that after reading other nonfiction like Sue's book. And so I just want to kind of disappear into a fictional tale. So my intention is to read fiction, to read a novel again and get that back into I guess my repertoire.
Doree Shafrir (40:47):
Nice. I love that. Alright, well this is the time of the month where we thank our Patreon supporters at the suite and spa levels.
Elise Hu (41:00):
Thank you to Christie, Heather Whaley, Caitlyn h Katie, Ashley Taylor, Theresa Anderson, Michelle Maya, Barbara C Amy, Amy Schnitzer, Megan Helen, de Moy, Shelly Lee, Kim Beagler, Sarah Boozy, Alison Cohen, Susan Eth, Fran, Kelsey Wolf, Dena, Laura Eddy, Janelle, APDI, Valerie, Bruno, Julie, Daniel, E, Jackson, Amy, Mako, Liz, rank DK, Hannah M, Julia P, mad O Day, Marissa, Sarah Bell, Maria, Diana, Coco Bean, Laura Hadden, Josie, h, Nikki, Bossert, Juliana Duff, Chelsea Torres, Tiffany G, Emily McIntyre, Stephanie Germana, Olivia Fahe, Elizabeth a Christine Basses, Jessica Gale, Zulema, Lundy, Carolyn Rodriguez, Carrie Golds and T, Catherine Ellingson, Kara Brugmann, Sarah H Sarah Egan, Jess Koman, Jennifer Olson, Jennifer, HS, Eliza Gibson, Jillian Bowman, Brianne, Macy, Elizabeth, Holland, Karen Perelman, Katie, Jordan, Sarah, MK, M, Josie, Alquist, Tara, Todd, Elizabeth, Cleary, and Monica. Thank you to all of you. Thank you so much.
Doree Shafrir (42:05):
Thank you for reading all the names, Elise. Appreciate that. And I will just say that Foreve35 is hosted and produced by me, Doree Shafrir and Elise Hu, and produced and edited by Samee Junio. Sami Reed is our project manager in our Network Partner's Acast. And we'll talk to you soon. Take care.
Elise Hu (42:21):
Okay, bye
Doree Shafrir (42:22):
Bye.