The Powerful Ways Siblings Influence Success w/ Susan Dominus

26:16Was like fascinated by it until the moment when Mr. Goldie said to me, so Susie, a plane, you know, and I had a slight nervous breakdown at the table because I was, I could not do that, But I did wonder, you know, what would it have been like to have grown up with that all the time? And maybe for me, that would have been easy to do that math problem by then because I'd been doing it since the time I was six or seven. And maybe math wouldn't have been as intimidating to me as it was. And I definitely didn't know anything about current events. And so I actually was kind of a little bit of an overachiever.

26:47And I think there was a little part of me that was like, oh, no, like what's being left on the table here? You know, that I'm not doing this at home. That said, it was a big relief to go home to my own family, you know, where the expectations for the dinner table were a little bit more low-key. So I think because of that, I really was always interested in other families' culture around enrichment. Like, I was riveted by the fact that my friend Anya's father used to read Dickens to her before bedtime and that, you know, famous authors like John Updike and Doris Lessing came to dinner. I mean, to her, those people were just, you know, John Updike was kind of a drunken, you know, guy her dad knew he wasn't that way.

27:27And so, but I really wondered like, again, what would be different, you know, if I had been raised with this enrichment and really encouraged to think of myself as somebody who, you know, and again, my parents supported me and they sent me to college and they, you know, they were pretty frugal people, but like really they were quite frugal people in fact, But if I wanted journals or books, you know, I mean, I went to the library every week. That was like a big thing, 10 books a week. But they would buy me journals and occasionally books and things like that. Like they, they, that was something they would splurge on, you know.

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31:08Truly go get a cashmere sweater. Get yourself that luxury item. I love them. You know, I find it so interesting because in all of the families, it's maybe not all of them, but it felt like reading was a real expectation. And I actually had like a pang of panic for everybody reading it thinking it's like how do we recapture something that is so hard to do? Even my oldest is a really voracious reader, but even in the last couple of years, I mean, it worked out because in high school you have to read, but she's like, her leisure reading has really turned down quite a bit. And I did have a pang because I was like, God, how do you, you, you really can't do this without reading.

32:01You really can't. Is that what you think? I don't know that that's true because, you know, we don't know yet. We don't know yet. And what's interesting to me, I mean, because for a while I was a little bit like, but you know what, there's a lot to be learned from television and cinema and that's part of popular culture. Sure. Headache from that. Maybe it's not quite the same. I mean, as reclines done great episodes about like the value of deep reading and what it does to your brain and how it organizes your brain. But I was like, okay, television, television smart. It's going to be funny. It can be satire.

32:27You can pick up on a lot. Totally. But then now kids barely watch television. They don't have the patience for movies even. Yeah, no, I, I actually think that goes, that probably should go into the bucket of, of literature because I think about like all the people who have stories of like sitting down with their parent and watching like this, you know, the list of great films or something like that or a series together. But yeah, it's, it's quick. I'm not on the bandwagon of like the world will be destroyed by technology and social media and all that. I, I'm not excited by it, but I don't, I don't think anything is as extreme as we're made to feel it is, but I do worry.

33:10And I, I feel like my worry got larger when I was reading this and maybe to your point, it isn't just the reading. It's maybe just like the attention skills. Yeah, I do wonder about that. I mean, obviously it's like so hard to predict the future, right? And so, because maybe, you know, you want to say like, well, if you're going to do deep analytical legal thinking, like how can you not have years of reading behind you? But like, I don't know, is AI going to replace most legal work? Maybe, like the future is so hard to predict. I mean, I think for me, a lot of what parents can do. I mean, the best thing about reading, it's not necessarily that it's going to set you up for success, although I think there is a lot to suggest that it helps.

33:51But I don't know. It's just one of life's great pleasures and joys that you want to put children and really give them a chance to connect to it, even if it is Captain Underpants. Like the debate over whether to give kids, that seems so crazy to me. Like just read a book, whatever you want to read, that is fine. You know, you want to read flowers in the attic. A-okay with me. That's sweet. Totally agree. Dated reference, but you know what I'm talking about. That was so dated. Yes. Well, whatever it is that your kid wants to read, like I say, like, go for it. And I think if you do things, anything you do early enough wires your brain to have an easier time doing it later.

34:30So like you're, you know, when you're doing math, did the early music help you a little bit? It just probably, it was just a muscle you were exercising earlier. Yeah. And a comfort level that you have with it. Here's the thing about this book. That's so cool. It's just very thought provoking. It's just like you, it just, you, you start to go through all of your experiences and other people's experiences. And then you just wonder about nurturing nature and like all of the things. There were some themes that you found. Yeah. I would say that I found one of the things we've talked, we've a spirit of optimism and can do.

35:07And my friend Meg used the example that it was almost like whoever broke, you know, it wasn't until somebody broke the four minute mile that then everybody else could follow, you know, and do the same thing within the same year. These, you know, these young people did have parents who themselves had done the equivalent of something pretty extraordinary. And I think that they, you know, the sound barrier was not like, you know, holding them back. But so the spirit, but, you know, even if you yourself have not done something extraordinary, you can still foster a spirit of like any, you know, you know, all things possible.

35:37Like I wish I, I kind of wish I'd called the book all things possible. Cause I think that is a really healthy sentiment to give kids. Actually. I think that a lot of the parents know, do you disagree? No, you know, it's funny. Cause I, I always, I'm so torn with that particular sentiment. And I was thinking about it in the book because sometimes I think, well, no, not all things are possible and a realistic appraisal with an optimistic bend is probably like a path to maybe a healthier mental state than the idea of all things possible. So you're always, your potential maybe is so limitless that you always feel like you haven't hit it yet.

36:21On the other hand, that's so sad because I remember a poster on my wall as a child. if you can imagine it you can achieve it if you can dream it you can become it amazing like on my wall my entire childhood and it was a ballerina and I wanted to be a ballerina and I would never be a ballerina like I was really good I hit my peak at 15 and had to quit because it was so not my body type it was so not my natural skill set like my feet were flat and I worked my tail off to do all the exercises you can do to make your arches look decent enough but ultimately with that poster up I was like my dreams were so crushed and I'm so glad they were crushed because it ended up bringing me to other things and it taught me so much and And in hindsight, I'm so thrilled with all the different ways that life took a turn.

37:23But at the time, I was like, you just, you can dream it, but you cannot become it. Well, it's true. So that's the funny thing. David Epstein wrote this brilliant book, The Talent Gene. And he talks about how most professional baseball players have better than 20-20 vision. To get to that level, it's not enough just to work your tail off. Like you actually, it helps to have some kind of frankly genetic, you know, boost that puts that everybody works their tail off. Everybody wants to be a professional baseball player, you know, but you've got to have everything going for you. Everything. Right.

37:53Because I think there are also talented people that just don't have the capacity to be disciplined. And then they're not going to get there either. But I do love the hopefulness, but I was like, you know, I'm always torn. I'm, it's so annoying. It's an annoying thing. I also think psychologists are always like on the one hand, on the other hand. Well, I came to think about it. It's striking a balance between you don't have to go out and conquer the world or, you know, find a cure for cancer or run, you know, a multinational, you know, corporation or a hugely influential nonprofit or find, you know, a new way or break the sound barrier, whatever it is.

38:32You don't have to do that. But if you want to go for it, you know, I think a go for it spirit is. is something that is not an unreasonable, you know, kind of energy to have. I totally agree. I think that go for it is so huge. And also it makes you think, at a minimum, the adults in my life who believe in me and my siblings, to bring it back to this book as well, think I can go for it, even if the world is going to say no. And even, and it's up to me to decide whether I want to or not. Like, you know, in our family, you know, we like, we speak with reverence of teachers in our household. You know, we are, we really, we believe that is like a great service that, you know, people do for the world and we can't thank them enough.

39:17And, you know, so I, I don't, I don't think that there's only one kind of ambition that you can foster in your kids, but I do think the, I, you know, I guess maybe because of my own upbringing, you know, I wish there'd been a little bit more of that energy in the household, you know, of like, whatever you want, go for it, you know, because I, I think I felt a little fearful and tentative heading out into the world. I don't know what would have been different. I love what I do. Don't you have a Pulitzer Prize? Well, I was, I was part of a team that won the Pulitzer Prize. Yeah. That feels like just to, just to set the stage, like for, it's interesting because when you were saying, well, at my house, we were just sort of goofing around at the table or whatever.

40:00Oh, we were. but you also that like when you throw in 10 books a week plus goofing around at the dinner table I think that's a that sounds like an idyllic upbringing in in a way like a balance I do think I had an idyllic upbringing I mean I was the one going I was the one dragging my mother to the library I loved to read and and I it was my escape from everything and I you know I mean And the thing I really hated was being dragged away from a book to go set the table or something like that. But my parents - But they made you do it. Oh, sure. Yes. Oh, definitely. You say that casually, but I think that that's a rarity now.

40:43I'm shocked. I mean, we have my kids, my boys did their own laundry from the time they were maybe in 10th grade, which by the way, meant that there was usually a pile of laundry in the basement. Every morning they'd run down to the basement and like get it one - dirty clothes or do they do the laundry, but just not want to put it away. Correct. So like at one t-shirt at a time, you know, and get, but they did it, you know, and people were often surprised. And for some of my friends, their kids, it was like going to college. The first thing they needed to do was learn how to do their laundry. And I always said, look, if I did it as a child, you can do it as a child too.

41:11And we didn't have tons and tons of chores by a long stretch, but I do think that stuff, I, it is sort of part of, you know, what Julia Leonard's work is about. Like parents underestimate what kids are capable of for sure. You know, I end the book by saying in the acknowledgements that I was really grateful to my parents because they wanted us to go to, we were going to college. And by the way, as daughters, my sister and I, we were going to work. You know, we were going to have careers. We were going to be independent. We were going to be able to walk away from a bad marriage if we wanted to.

41:39Like, and ideally we were going to have financial security that we created for ourselves. So there was a very feminist message coming from my mother. But that said, they didn't need us to achieve in any profound way. If anything, they were always telling me, just turn in the paper. It's fine if you get a B. Can we get on with our lives here? You know, they were not, you know, it's partly it was because I was innately for whatever reason. So they definitely pushed. I mean, my siblings are, you know, hugely professionally successful people. But I would say that like, I remember moments when there was discussion over a grade or a paper that was laid, you know, like they could push my parents, but yeah, there were, there were expectations for sure, but that you didn't have to be the best.

42:20You didn't have to be, I mean, I was gutted when I didn't win the major English prize in college. And my father was like, wait, I don't understand. You go to one of the most competitive colleges in the country. You're in a huge major. It's not enough for you that like you had to be the best person in the major. Like they couldn't really relate to that even, you know, which is healthy and was a huge relief to hear him put it that way. My daughter said to me that she feels like if I, because now she's 18, I think I can say this. she's, she's has said to me for many years now, if you had just been more like so-and-so's mom, who's like really like on, like just a mom who's like, sees the potential in a kid and is like, we're going to fly you to the moon.

43:05She was like, I would be so much more accomplished. And I keep hoping that you will look back the way you're looking back someday and say, I was given the opportunities, but I was not told that this had to be or whatever. But every once in a while, like my best friend and I had kids of the same age and they're very close. And the two of them were doing a talent show in like, we were probably in like sixth grade at some camp and they decided to be the jump rope sisters. And it was, they were practicing for us. And it was the dumbest, worst possible thing you could do in a talent show. And we both looked at each other.

43:48And at the same time, this friend that I will not name, we said, I think she might've been right. She might've been onto something like, oh, what have we done here? And now they're both, you know, 18. And so like, we're very, we're so thrilled with the humans that they are. But in that moment, I was like, I mean, we could be a little bit like we could have pushed that a little bit, but I think it depends on the kids in the family. Yeah. And I think that your daughter will, I mean, just based on my own experience, she will come to be very grateful for the fact that she really charted her own path and whatever happened happened because of her.

44:26I mean, you don't want to become like, I mean, just on the face of it, the idea that one would be enmeshed with one's child's accomplishments, it doesn't sound right, right? You know what? That brings me to the Paulus family with the greatest quote of all time. Oh my God, please tell that story. It is exactly, I thought it was the coolest way to describe how you want support from your mother. I felt the same way. And my friend read the book and thought this woman, Taruka Paulus, is like the hero of the book. Incredible. Yeah. So Diane Paulus was a very accomplished young lady and she actually was dancing, you know, in part because her family just lived at Lincoln Center, you know, lived just blocks from Lincoln Center.

45:08It was, if you were, you know, a reasonably talented girl who worked hard, you could conceivably end up dancing with the American Ballet Theater, which she did as a very young child. And her mother used to go with her sometimes, you know, and Diane loved to perform at like, you know, the bandstand and Grand Central, but she also danced with Baryshnikov on a regular, not on a regular, but she danced with the American Ballet Theater. And her mom, who worked extremely hard as a kind of seamstress and designer of beautiful table linens, very bespoke kinds of things, would come and watch and enjoy her daughter.

45:45And by the way, Marilyn Holifield told me that her mother used to just sit in the living room. Marilyn was also an accomplished piano player. And her mother would just sit and take it in and never comment, never say, pick it up at the end or, you know, just enjoyed her daughter. And so Diane said that her mother would come and watch without desire, you know, that she was observing and she was present and she was there for her, but she was, she let the, you know, at the American Ballet Theater, there's plenty of instructors there to tell you when you need to like pull in your core or, you know, move more gracefully.

46:16He did not do that. She was, the discipline happened at the ballet school and home was a place for like support and love. And I love that. Watch without desire is such a, whether that is so translatable to sports, to ballet, to any art, to anything, just watch without desire. And I think that that is an antidote to being enmeshed in the accomplishment side of it all. Yeah, I agree. I just think if your child is afraid of, you know, disappointing you, is afraid that, you know, you're going to walk in the door and they won't be practicing, you know, just none of these things seem healthy. It seems like you're taking away the very thing that is the joy of accomplishment, which is a sense of agency and moving through the world towards a goal that is your own and that you've established.

47:07But I appreciated that she was there at every performance, even if it meant standing in the back of the theater for hours after a very long day of working on her feet. And now for a quick break. I want to tell you about Suvi. It's so cool. Suvi, S-U-V-I-E. It's a way you can feed your family at home without any planning, any prepping or any exhausting cleanup? Have I gotten that across? How great is that? It's a smart countertop oven and it's a flexible new meal delivery service. So that's what Suvi is. And now they have Suvi kitchen robots. It's got a built-in refrigeration so you can set up dinner in the morning and Suvi keeps it cold until it's actually time to cook, which you can schedule.

47:53so you don't even have to be home to start it. You just do this tap to cook technology. You can prep dinner in a couple of minutes. You load the meals into the sous vide cooking pans, tap the card to your appliance and set what time you want the food to be ready. How great is that? It's like living in the Jetsons and the chef crafted meals are delivered right to the door. So you can choose from over 50 meals. They have new options added each week. We did a salmon and rice. The meals are delicious. And Suvi Kitchen Robots fit the counter and they have 15 cook modes. They have air fry, they have slow cook, the whole thing.

48:32I mean, I'm not even advanced enough to understand how many options there are. And there is a 100-day risk-free trial, so give it a try. Go to suvi.com slash humans to get 16 free meals when you order. That's S-U-V-I-E dot com slash humans. Save time and eat better with Suvi. You guys know that I am not like, it's not that I'm into vitamins because I think if you have an incredible, rich, and varied diet and you're so good about everything and you don't have any deficiencies, then you don't need them. But I, it turns out, need them. So I like to try them. And I want to tell you about Nature's Sunshine Brain Edge, which is, you know, like for people of brain fog, for example, if you get to a certain age and you're like, I cannot, where is what's happening there?

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50:14Go to naturesunshine.com and use the code humans at checkout. That's the code humans at naturesunshine.com. When you hear stories of great athletes, like a lot of times I think the, you know, the parent was like practicing with them for hours and hours and hours and it starts to feel like, was that okay? Yeah. Well, Andre Agassi's book, Open, is such an incredible indictment. I didn't read it. It's a very extreme case of, you know, a near abusive parent taking raw material and making a tremendous athlete out of him against his own will, really, you know. And that's one of the things that I also talk about in the book.

50:55Like, there are some parents who clearly managed to, you know, elicit high performance from kids who were reluctant or did extraordinary things with their children. You know, the kinds of parents who have their kids up at six in the morning doing calisthenics, you know, or practicing their instruments before they go to school. But it's not like you can look at those stories and say like, oh, now I too will be the kind of parent who gets my kids up at six in the morning to do calisthenics. Like either you are or you're not. And if you're not, it's going to be pretty hard to pull that off. You know, I have, there's my, one of my favorite quotes in the book is from a guy named Dan Belsky, who we were just making conversation.

51:32And he said, you know, if you think it's hard to change your child, try changing yourself, you know, into the person who could change a child, you know, like that's very hard to do. Now you're really looking at, you understand how hard this, if your kid's not like gritty and conscientiousness, are you single handedly going to make your child that way? I mean, I, I did say we were going to wake up and do yoga every morning for just 10 minutes. And I've been saying it every year for 18 years and we've never done it. And I'm literally like, I can't believe it's all this time has gone by. I keep putting it off.

52:08Well, even Ron Lieber wrote this wonderful book called The Unspoiled Child. Is that what it was called? And he, I love his idea that you tell your kid that like a third goes into savings and a third goes to charity and a third goes for spending. And I try to do that with my kids and you will not be surprised to hear that I failed. Why? Because I can't do that with my own finances. You know what I mean? Like I just, I wish that I were that kind of person who was like super organized and, you know, intentional and, you know, really like mapped things out, but I'm kind of not, you know. I did have like another takeaway I forgot to say.

52:39Tell me your other takeaway. I think the other one was that these were parents who were not afraid to let their children do something very, very hard. And it could have been something as intense as like, I want to desegregate this high school. I want to be one of three kids. Well, you know, Marilyn Hall, if you didn't know, she'd be only one of three when she arrived at Tallahassee High School, Leon High School, but she knew that she wanted to be in the first class of Black kids who went to this massive white school in Tallahassee. And her parents were not that excited about it. Like they knew it was going to be hell.

53:09It wasn't usually, you know, often the impetus came from the parents, you know, who wanted to really help progress happen by encouraging their children to do this. But they let her do it, you know, and it was awful. It was truly searing and awful. And I don't know if she would say she was glad she did it or not, but it definitely helped shape her into the unbelievably steely and fierce person that she became. And then even something as minor as Sarah True as a 13-year-old wanting to swim the length of the lake in her hometown, her parents were dreading it because they were convinced that she wouldn't succeed, that she wouldn't even make it across.

53:42They had like a family member drive around the lake so they could pick her up when she needed to stop. And instead, she broke the town record for women and it still stands. It's kind of an incredible story. It really shaped her. So, you know, I think you can't be afraid, afraid of watching your kid struggle, afraid of watching your kid fail. It's part of life and they may surprise you. And it's painful. It is painful. It was painful. But that's our, we can, I like to remember how much pain we've incurred over these years of just being alive, whether it's been, we've been lucky and it hasn't been big P pain, but those moments when you just were in high school and sobbing, everybody had them.

54:27And it's just like remembering that those were temporary and just remembering that they were necessary feelings to have experienced so that you don't just like show up as an adult, never having experienced them. But it's still hard. I know, and your fear, like they smell your fear, right? Like you have to show them that big emotion. That is something I'm sure you talk about. Like you have to show kids, don't be afraid of your big feelings. Like those big feelings are actually natural. And I mean, that was something that a friend of Marilyn's said about her mother, which, or maybe Marilyn, Marilyn said it about her mother.

55:00Fear was not her thing. I love that line. And, you know, you never want to be more nervous for your child than your child is herself. You never have one of those like bigger emotions and you want them to feel your internal confidence in, in the child, I think. So I culturally, we've sometimes think of siblings as these, these, you know, like the oldest is this, the middle child is this, or the youngest is this. And this is my successful one. And this is my one who's going to take care of me. And this is, you know, all these sort of cliches. And one of the things that was interesting about this book was the dynamic of the siblings themselves lift each other up to expectations and opportunities that maybe have nothing to do with anybody but the siblings, or maybe it is the family dynamic and the culture.

55:52But I wanted to just get into that a little bit. Yeah. I mean, it is amazing how ingrained the notion of birth order and personality is. And the best research that we have, and people hate hearing this, but it's true, that we have on birth order is that the oldest children, they may be the most conscientious relative to the younger siblings, but if you put them out into the world in a workplace, they're not necessarily the most conscientious relative to everybody else around them. Like, it doesn't actually make you, you know, more conscientious than you would have been if you were the third child.

56:27Right. It's your, it's your household dynamic, the context here. Yes, exactly. And like in my household, I'm the youngest of three and I definitely am more quiet there. And I'm, um, you know, no, I'm not the person like making the big plan for mom's 80th birthday. You know what I mean? Like I'm not the boss that way, you know, I'm not the boss in my real life either, but I definitely think I have more agency in my real life than I do in my family life in some ways, for sure. But there is this weird thing that does happen, which is they really do consistently find that the oldest child has the highest IQ in the family or is the most academically successful.

57:03And there's all kinds of reasons for why that is. But I do think that because of that, there are other kinds of trickle down things that happen. And that is interesting. And in The True Family, Sarah talks about how her older siblings were such academic stars that she really wanted to carve out a space in something that she knew they wouldn't touch, which was sports and that athletes are overrepresented in our over youngest children are overrepresented in elite sports, that kind of thing. It's so interesting. And I, I do, I do think the, the higher IQ thing annoys people a little bit and I'm a younger sibling, so it always annoyed me, but, but it is true for whatever reason we can come up with many of them.

57:47even in my own household, like thinking about the care with which we used language and blocks and playing and we were just more careful about sleep and just all the things. All the things. Yeah. It's just my one-on-one and it's new and everything is fascinating. You have more time than when you, than you do it too. Yeah. There's a great study that looked, it found that even by age, like if you take the, if you test the cognitive skills of the oldest child at age one, and then you test the cognitive skills of the younger children at the same age, it still holds. So it's not this idea that like the oldest child is teaching the younger one, and therefore they're solidifying their knowledge and, you know, teaching itself is enhancing.

58:29No, it's just, there's something going on with the attention that the parents are paying the first child. No, I remember reading, and it's like parody. So if you have six kids, on the other hand, you hear plenty of stories of, you know, these are always, you know, on average there. Yes, yes, yes. We're like, it's never, this is not like to think we're exceptions. Maybe I actually shouldn't say that. That's a terrible thing to say. Well, no, I think, I think that maybe we had, I sometimes wonder if I had more hustle, like everybody in my family actually had a lot of hustle, but I think being a journalist does require like kind of a lot of it.

59:08And I think maybe wanting to prove myself as the youngest to three and feeling, you know, you are always, even if you were not cognitively, like, you know, objectively the dumbest one in the family, you actually are as the youngest child, the dumbest one in the family, because you've been around less. You're just the youngest. We're just the youngest. Fewer references. You've heard less. You can do less. You know, you've been around less. So I think sometimes there's some catching up. I mean, we're now I'm really generalizing based on nothing. But so, yeah, that's what we know about birth order effects.

59:35And yeah, it's complicated, actually. And the only other thing that I wanted to get into is like when older siblings are given appropriate room to mentor younger siblings, like not raise them. Although I did let my older daughter, I was basically like, watch your sister. And every time it seems like she might have to go bathroom, just bring her right to that little portable potty. Cause I just wanted to like, not be like so focused. And I definitely think she ultimately potty trained her younger sibling. My brother taught me how to ride a bike. And when I think about a lot of my milestones, like passing the third crib test at summer camp, he was the person who was there really cheering me on.

1:00:25Yeah. That's really sweet. Cause by the time I came around, you know, my parents had already taught two kids how to ride a bike. Like they'd done that and they're done that, you know, and it was really, and that's just, that's a really happy memory for me. And I'm sure for him, what a cool feeling to have the skillset to teach you how to do something. I wonder if he even remembers, I should ask him actually. I would love for you to ask him and tell me. I will. Because I think it feels, I would feel, I think, I mean, I didn't have any younger siblings, but I would feel probably so good if there was something I could offer.

1:00:57I know, I know. No, but how, what are, what do you think? What did you observe? Let's just say in these families that we might be able to consider when we're kind of trying to decide how much is like asking, like parentifying the older kids versus just giving them more responsibilities because they are capable. I do think it's really, I think in general, kids today are not given enough responsibilities that are unpaid. Do you know what I mean? In other words, you're going to do this because it's the right thing to do, not because someone is paying you. I'm a big believer in having kids, by the way.

1:01:33Like, you know, if you've got a power washer and a beloved family friend needs some power washing, like, no, don't let them pay you. Do it because you're a good neighbor and you love them. And they've carpooled you around for the past five years and say, thank you very much, you know? So I think it's just great for kids to have that responsibility. And, you know, I do think like, you know, Bishop Holifield told me that he remembered his father, the only time his father ever, and of course we do not believe in corporal punishment, but the only time his father ever hit him was when he didn't bring his younger siblings home from school and it left a huge impression on him.

1:02:03I think he really did feel responsible to some degree for especially Marilyn's wellbeing and helping her chart a path. And he was very proud of her also. You know, he just thought she was, that she hung the moon and was so bright and so beautiful and interesting. And so he really did a lot of path clearing for her in the world, I would say. And so I think that kind of thing is healthy. Yeah, walk your sister home, you know, take a little responsibility. And, you know, in the Maria household, they had an older brother named Alfred who went to college before his younger siblings did. And he absolutely took joy in, you know, standing in that role of helping them navigate a big state school when, you know, they didn't have tons of experience in family experience with that.

1:02:47And, you know, I think it was great for them. It was not great for him. He was the first person in the family to go to college. And we now know how hard a position that puts a young person in, you know, to be low-income, first-generation. Schools back then didn't have the kind of supports they do now for kids who are like that. So, but I, you know, Mary Merguia, or Janet Merguia, I should say, the first time she talked to me about her brother Alfred, she teared up. She just felt so much gratitude for what he had done for the younger siblings. And that's a really beautiful thing. Where did you see or not see jealousy?

1:03:21So I think that that, if I'm totally honest with you, I think that that subject was like very hot to the touch. One of the things I did in the book is I talked a lot about the family experiences of the researchers in the book. Like why were they researching what they were researching? Because they had some family drama themselves that was motivating. Oh, research is me-search. Yes, research is me-search. Julia Leonard, you know, from the Julia Leonard Learning Lab at Yale, She works on like effort and grit. And I spoke to both her and she's moved on from that into just more like fostering autonomy in children and that kind of thing.

1:03:56But she, and curiosity. But, you know, I would say that she and her sister, you know, I think her sister did, her sister became a dramaturg and then like basically a cultural arts programmer and is like very happy in her career. But she did talk kind of frankly to me about, it was a duality. It was that she, on the one hand, everybody loved Julia. Julia was good at everything. She was good at magic tricks. She was good at like palm reading. She was good at ice skating, you know, and, and she was very sociable and, and also got incredible grades at school. But, you know, that kind of person, it's often driven by a kind of, it can be perfectionism.

1:04:31It can be a little bit of anxiety that everything has to be perfect, that you have to be the best. And so Julia, I think, you know, Sarah, her sister both was honest with me about sometimes being jealous, but also thinking like, kind of glad I don't have that motor, you know, I'm a little bit relieved that that's not, I'm not tormented by the, I don't have to be the best. Like that's a relief also. So that came up. Nancy Siegel is another researcher who is a fraternal twin. And her, you know, I don't think she and her sister are extremely close and I don't think she would ever use the word jealous.

1:05:03But her sister had a couple of lucky breaks along the way that I think were frustrating to Nancy. If she's tremendously professionally successful now, it all evens out in the end. And but I think that there were things about being a fraternal twin for her growing up that led to sometimes unfair outcomes. Like Nancy was very chatty and very social and her sister was a little bit more subdued. And then somehow ended up in the like they both tested the same. But her sister ended up in like the gifted class or the more gifted classroom, you know, things like that that were very frustrating. And even in the Graf household, I would say, Lauren talked about resenting her brother because she considered him to be so smart.

1:05:41But with that came, like, I think what she thought was a certain smugness, you know? I think the jealousy and the rivalry, that stuff is really primal and really powerful. And to sort of weave it all together, where did the Bronte sisters land there? Well, I, so I'm, you know, for the same reason, honestly, For the same reason I was obsessed with these high-achieving families from the time I was very young, I was obsessed with the Brontes, not just because I loved their writing, but I was the only kid, I think, who wasn't just like, oh my God, Wuthering Heights, it's so beautiful and moody and dramatic, but was also like, how is it that all three of those sisters were so extraordinary?

1:06:18And meeting Anne Bronte was such a pleasure. I mean, she's also so extraordinary. I mean, not quite as literary or innovative, but she was really a trailblazer for her time. And I think that they had all of the elements that you see in a lot of these families. They had an overcomer for a father. They had competition among them for sure. Charlotte and her brother Branwell were very competitive and they used to write these magazines in which they would sort of like write digs about each other's fictitious characters. And it was very witty, but very scathing. But then they had incredible collaboration.

1:06:53I mean, we wouldn't know who the Brontes were if Charlotte hadn't stumbled on some of Emily's poetry. and thought like, oh, hey, if we get all our poetry together, we could actually publish a not a volume of poetry. And they turned to Anne and they were like, do you have anything? And she gave them it. She gave them some of her poetry and they basically were like, yeah, that'll do, you know, and she wasn't, she was no Emily Bronte for poetry, but she was talented. And so it was the collaborative effort that they were, their work was literally bound up with each other's, you know, in a volume that, that introduced them to the world under a pseudonym, under three different pseudonyms, but they were extremely collaborative.

1:07:30And their work does reflect each other's work. And I bet there was competition. You know, Anne wrote a novel called Agnes Gray that was about a governess. And it was the first time that a story had really been, a novel had been written about a governess in that way. And it was like pretty good, but it didn't get published. And then here comes Charlotte and writes Jane Eyre from the first person. So she took the idea of the governess and turned it around and used a first person take and made it even more intimate. And, you know, she gets the credit for like, you know, writing about this like very humble figure and making her a great character in literature.

1:08:03So I don't know what those conversations were like about that in that household, but they clearly influenced each other. And they, you know, the professional element of their career wasn't like somebody else discovered them. No, Charlotte made that happen. So I think that's fascinating. It is fascinating.

1:08:41Thank you.