Child Star, Neuroscientist, Crunchy Mom: The Many Sides of Mayim Bialik

25:42I didn't wear pants outside the house for all those years. For modesty reasons. Yeah, yeah. I studied with a Partners in Torah teacher. And yeah, I took on Tznius for observance all those years, yeah. You're like the Joe Lieberman of Hollywood. And your parents kind of sound like hippies. Yeah, they were total hippies, documentary filmmakers. But then my dad taught. He became a teacher to avoid the draft. They were, you know, against the Vietnam War, and they were tear gassed at Washington, and they made amazing films, and like had this, they didn't have kids for seven years, which in 1964 was very - Radical.

26:16Very radical. My mom was a feminist. Like, she didn't call it that. She was just like, I want to live my life. Like, I just got out of my parents' home. Why would I want to be chained to a human? But then eventually she, you know, obviously had kids and, you know, did a really efficient and appropriate job, you know, of parenting, as it were. But was Israel a topic of discussion growing up? Yeah, my aunt and my uncle and my four cousins made Aliyah the year I was born. And so I grew up knowing that I had family in Israel. And then my fifth cousin was born when I was six years old in Israel. I didn't meet them.

26:51We couldn't afford to go to Israel. We could barely afford to talk on the phone to them. My mom would speak to her sister like once a month and we had to be like really quick and it was like a really quick phone call. The connection was horrible. and then I went to Israel for the first time when I was 16 and met my whole family and like they're exact, like my cousins are just, they're kind of exactly like me. It's like they went to a different planet. Yeah, they really was a different planet and you know, so that was always this notion of like, and they were religious Zionists so there was also this notion in my mind that like that's what happens in Israel, that everyone's a religious Zionist, which is actually not true.

27:25I mean, a lot of people are, meaning people who move there to build like a state that will bring the Messiah, like it's a whole thing and you know there are various shades of observance now but I also do now have secular family there and yeah I went to Israel just about every other year from the time I was 16 until October 7th then obviously didn't go and then was just there last December so yeah we we didn't really you know my parents had this real fear that if you put all the Jews in one place it's a scary thing right that was just sort of like this story but the Holocaust was like right here my whole childhood.

28:00So it was kind of like, yeah, it made sense to me. And I grew up, you know, in a very beautiful reform synagogue. Rabbi John Rossoff was my rabbi. He's a tremendous thinker and liberal Zionist. And I'm so grateful that I was raised like singing Hatikvah, believing it, loving it, and also believing that it was okay to be a liberal and it was okay to have liberal values. And as the complexity, you know, of Israel evolved, so did our understanding of it, you know? So yeah, that's like a brief you know and when you say the holocaust was right here i think that means different things for different people for some people it's be so grateful for some people it's um be very paranoid yeah they're coming for you yeah they're coming for you was that your experience my yeah i mean my my grandmother could not speak about her childhood or any really any of her life i would try as a kid because i saw it on the tv movies everybody was always asking their grandparents like tell me about the old days and i'm like we had a story here she could not Like the crying was, no, it was like, anytime you asked her, and this was 20, 30, 40, 50 years after, like it was not.

29:05What do you think happened? I mean, she lost half of her siblings in the Holocaust. I know that. My grandmother was just unmoored. She was an orphan and she arrived through Ellis Island as a teenager. We don't even know how old she is because she had to lie. Horrendous things probably happened to her, you know? And she, you know, it was a time in life where you didn't have to love your partner. And my grandfather was a very, I mean, they had like a seventh grade education. Like this was a very different world that my grandmother grew up in. She was a laborer in her own home. She took care of his parents.

29:39My great grandfather had active tuberculosis. Like everyone was exposed. And my grandmother was just like making another dinner. Like she had a hard life. And I think a lot of women's stories for a lot of history might sound a little bit like that. She was not a lover. She was a worker, you know. And on some level heroic, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. She was a real. She was a paragon. I can't. She was an amazing seamstress. Yeah, I love that. And I should also note that you are the second most famous Ayim Bialik. You are related to Haim Bialik. I'm related to Haim Bialik. The national poet of Israel.

30:13That's right. Was that part of your legacy? That was part of, yes, that was part of our heritage. Yeah, that was part of our heritage. Like, I mean, the most exciting thing is we get in free. It's at the Bialik Museum. You know, the first time we went. Very big. Yeah. So I'm his brother's line, meaning it was my great great grandfather's first cousin. So if you loop around. But we do. I have one signed copy in our family of a book. I have a little Bialik library in my house. And yeah, it was a thing of, you know, tremendous significance. and when I went to Israel, you know, I mean, there's a Bialik Street in every major city.

30:46We had a Bialik Street sign framed in our house my whole life. And as I got older, obviously understood more of the complexity. My grandfather met Chaim Nachman Bialik on his trip to America, I guess in the 20s, but my grandfather died before I got to know more about it. Is there a thread with your, you know, clear interest in your own heritage, your religion, your spirituality with the quest for scientific understanding? Like I see you as someone who is a bringer together of the thinkers and the feelers. You are like you're holding the summit. I really like that. I hadn't thought of it. You know, when you think about kind of like who who are we in our essence?

31:25Right. Who are we if we strip away our job or the people around us that make us who we are? Right. I'm these children's mother. I'm this person's partner. I'm this person's child. You know, when we look in the mirror, right, when we're three years old and it's the same person that's looking when you're 13 and 23 and 83. Right. Who's that person? You know, I'm placed here in this meat suit right now for this, like, you know, brief. This blink of an eye. Blink of an eye. And yeah, I'd say the threat is I am. I'm I'm a real I mean, I'm a seeker, I think. You know, I want more knowledge. I want more understanding.

32:05yeah I have a kind of a greedy appetite I'd say for knowledge. There was a there was a podcast you did or a video I saw of you where you wrote you talked about being curious about the things that science can explain and the things that it can't explain. Yeah. And being I think humble enough to understand the difference. Well yeah I mean I think that's you know for me that's more of a concept that brings in the spiritual you know are we human beings having a spiritual experience or are we spiritual beings having a human experience? You know, the reason I have a podcast. Wait, which is it? It's called Mya Bialik's Breakdown.

32:36No, which is it? What do you think? I think we're spiritual beings having a human experience. Yeah, and that means that you can believe that more exists before or after, however you want to see it. But yeah, this is our moment now, right? In this meat suit. But yeah, I think that this notion that we get to stand in awe of this universe right like when people ask me how are you a person of science and a person of faith how could you not think that there has to be something to explain the unbelievable things that we experience as physical beings you know the anatomy of the eye to me that's not like see god exists it's like this is unbelievable that sense of awe for me i find best suited to a spiritual and religious practice that lets me honor that right i'm hearing a lot of like abraham Joshua Heschel, who talks a lot about radical amazement, where it's just like, look at this plate of grass.

33:34Are you kidding me? Correct. That's exactly. My younger son's middle name is Heschel for Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. Yeah, I think there's something of that also in, you know, some of the modern, you know, kind of Judaism of this, you know, last century or so. This notion of, you know, is religious faith, is ritual the only way to have access? No. Does it help? Yes. And for thousands of years in every tradition, we've learned that repetition helps, helps your brain, helps you, you know, create other associations, all those things, Matt, music is so incredibly important to so many traditions.

34:08But yeah, this notion of also being in the world is, is a very special, it's a very special, and I think kind of divine place to be. Can I bring us back to this world? Whenever you want. Because you audition for the show called the Big Bang Theory.

34:27It's like I needed health insurance. I did. It's like a not dramatic exit and a not dramatic entrance back in. Yeah, I was very happy being an academic. I was happy not knowing what size clothing I wore. I just wore whatever was around. I don't think I had worn a proper bra in like 15 years. And yeah, I was a graduate student and you get a year of health insurance. And I had a baby and a toddler and I had had a home birth. Like I was a hardcore hippie. You know, my hair was like down to here. You like march up to the Paramount Law. Pretty much. Well, I mean, I like, you know, I wrangled together a manager, which kind of came together serendipitously.

35:07Someone that I used to be friends with, who I didn't even know had become a manager. And she took me on. And I started auditioning for things. I hadn't watched TV in years. I had children, you know, like I wasn't watching anything. I did. I had never seen The Big Bang Theory. So, yeah, I auditioned. I did an episode of Saving Grace with Holly Hunter. I did an episode of Bones. Bones, amazing. I felt like I had like two lines. Like I'm not, it was not even a thing. And then, yeah, I was cast as Amy Farrah Fowler in the season finale of season three of Big Bang. Well, you said you had never seen The Big Bang Theory.

35:40You were the only one. Everyone else had seen it. It was apparently the most popular show in America. It was the biggest and most successful show ever. At its peak, it was pulling in like 20 million viewers an episode. And people like to watch it live too, which was special. Oh, yeah, it was appointment viewing, which was so rare. I mean, it was like a piece of the monoculture, really. It went on longer than Friends. And I'm always curious, people who are like selling out stadiums. You're Lady Gaga and you're on the cover of 15 covers at once. What is it like being in like the top of the mountain?

36:09Did it feel that way? Was there ever a moment that felt that way? No, I was always like leaking milk. My breasts were sore. I got a divorce. My dad died. It was like life went on while you were like for all of us. it's like you're living your life this is my job I spent you know more hours with those cast members and writers and our crew than I did with my own family right at that time to be an employed actor you know for for me for nine years that's incredible and that does it means insurance for your kids it means like you know what's roughly going on it's really unheard of you know for an actor to have job security that's what we had and it was a pleasant place to work it was an intelligent place to work.

36:52You know, the writer's room was a group of fascinating people. And like, they seemed much more like a group of academics than a group of comedy writers. It was an incredible place to work. Did you feel like it sounds like in your earlier experience on the sitcom in the 90s, it was like, yeah, you were going to work, but you were kind of like a widget. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, put the gadget here and like, yeah, acting as an adult was very, very different. It was very different. And also, you know, I had the perspective of like, I had gotten a PhD, life had beat me up, I had had two kids, I was constantly breastfeeding and pumping.

37:25It was like I had a whole other identity. So just everything felt like a blessing. I did not expect to be a full-time actor when I went back to acting. I was teaching neuroscience, I was teaching Hebrew, I taught piano. I mean, I taught with my kids strapped to my chest in a baby carrier. I was doing things to make ends meet. I needed to work. And there wasn't a moment where you realized, oh, this thing I needed to do for work is a cash cow, one of the most successful media brands. I never thought I'd be on another TV show. I was on Blossom. Who gets that opportunity once? I was like a poor kid from Hollywood who got my own TV show.

38:02What? And like my grandparents like barely speak English. Like what? That doesn't happen. But then it happened twice. It happened twice. And if you count Call Me Cat. Which I do. Which we do. So it happened three times that I was on a series that went more than a season. It's like crazy. That's right when people are like, what show are you going to do next? I'm like, honey, I'm tired. Like, mama's so tired. Yeah, you try getting struck by lightning three times. I just want to take a nap, you know? Why do you think you were struck by lightning three times? Is that a question for the big man? Yeah.

38:34Yeah, I think, like, God only knows why each of us are given the opportunities, the situations, the circumstances, the tragedies that befall us. I don't know. When October 7th happened, my partner in Torah, her name's Allison Josephs, and she runs a really, really fantastic media conglomerate called Jew in the City. And she called me after October 7th, you know, after I, whatever, just did what a lot of humans did, which was like, grieve. Break, you know, have my heart broken, you know. And she said to me, it's like, it makes me emotional. She said to me, do you think this is why? Like why you were placed here?

39:14And I said, I can't know that. Like this is why you were given a platform. Yeah. To stand on. Right. And I'm no Queen Esther. But like our liturgy teaches us that Esther was told this is why. Like you have to do something. And if you don't do it, don't think someone else won't come and do it. And you were chosen for a time such as this. Right. And it's like and also I don't like this. you know we're all chosen right we're all chosen for all sorts of things you know when people like chosen people I'm like yeah we were chosen for it's like to be never said for what yeah persecuted in every century we had to wear funny hats like you know it went back a long time but um I felt like when October 7th happened what I felt like was like I'm grateful that I have a place to find people who might need to hear it's okay to be Jewish.

40:07It's okay to be sad and it's okay to feel like this is complicated. But I would never say like, God only knows why any of us are placed where we're placed when we're placed. It's so beautiful because not only are you like, I'm a public Jew, I'm a public Jew who's not willing to abandon liberalism. Correct. Did you feel just because you brought up October 7th and speaking out about it? Was there any part of you that hesitated before you did it? Sure. Every part of me. There wasn't a part of me that did not hesitate. In the same way, like, did you have that around other things or was this a special?

40:44Sorry, what I should what I should say is that for years, people had been bothering me about going to Israel, being in Israel, death threats, curses that had been going on for years. Since social media started, I began experiencing threats, insults, trolls, all sorts of things. When I would go to Israel, I ended up turning off comments. Also, how many times do you need baby killer on your Facebook page when you're just trying to tell people about the benefits of breastfeeding or about the loveliness of Shabbat? You know, I did not want social media to become a battlefield. And I remember that, I mean, I had been protested.

41:28This is before October 7th. I had been protested by a pro-Palestinian group who handed out flyers. And this was years ago. And the flyer said Mayim Bialik is a Zionist. And I thought, well, that's odd. I didn't know that had a negative connotation. Right, like they're saying this as a slur. Correct. And so then I thought, OK, these are people who don't believe Israel should exist because that's what anti-Zionists are. That was my limited understanding. What we now know is that it was considered a slur because people who support the right of Israel to exist and defend herself are equated with people who support Palestinian suffering, which is actually not the definition of Zionism.

42:04I don't know any other minority group who would allow people who dislike them to determine the moniker that they use for their self-identity. Would you tell a black person, no, no, no, that's not racist. You're not understanding. You don't call that racism. Would you tell a gay person that wasn't homophobic? You think it was? Why? That's so crazy to me. And you're saying it's like telling a Jew, if you believe in this, you also believe that. Right. Or if you think you're Zionist, that must mean you hate Palestinians. And if you don't hate Palestinians, you're not a Zionist. What? So to me, I was like, so when October 7th happened, it just magnified.

42:41And it was actually Sacha Baron Cohen who said, we're about to see the largest campaign of anti-Semitism we've ever seen in history. And I was like, what's he talking about? That's what happened. So, of course, like I was afraid. I was afraid like a lot of public Jews were afraid. I didn't know what I was going to find when I opened the gate to my house. I don't live in an expensive gated community. I live in a place where people can see me walking. I did not know what my children would experience. they they have my name in their name my older one is a doppelganger i hate to say it it's like mayan bialik walking around like you know a little mayan bialik that was terrifying to me and when i saw what started happening to jewish leaders when i still see it i of course many of us wondered am i next i had people approach me wearing zionism is racism shirts in a parking lot not far from here at my favorite vegan joint with my children.

43:37And the thought occurred to me, what are my kids about to witness? Like a big dude coming up to me as I'm getting into my car? What is happening? What do you say? That's terrifying. Oh, that's Mayim Bialik. And I said, get in the car, get in the car. But I'm like, I have like a chill right now going off the side of my head. Because like whatever we believe, we don't approach people in public parking lots, right? Like with a counted, a grown man approaching a five foot four, like mom, like what? You don't even know anything. You actually don't know. You don't know anything about me. And my son, my sons would say to me, well, when's the last time you posted that you care about Palestinians?

44:20I said, I could tattoo it on my face. There's going to be people who don't care. Like, I don't understand the world we're living in. It's so crazy. That's what it felt like, you know? Did you feel like, why am I the only Jewish entertainer standing up? I don't know another way to put it. No, because there are many others. There were many others. You know, Deborah Messing led the charge, you know, for so many of us. But, I mean, Jerry Seinfeld and his wife. You know, Gal Gadot. I mean, she had a really, really rough go also as an Israeli. No, there were those of us. You know, and I remember when Amy Schumer, you know, got taken to task and I was like, fuck, they got her, you know, like, no, I know exactly why people don't speak up.

45:06And when Ben Stiller wrote that beautiful piece in Time magazine, why wasn't that on everybody's tongue? He wrote a beautiful piece saying you cannot attack secular Jews. You cannot hunt Jews down in the name of what the government of Israel is doing. Many of us don't agree with the policies of many countries around the world. we don't go attacking civilians in other places who share that religious, ethnic, spiritual, historical identity. And like, that was fucking brave. That was so brave. Like if I was you, I might have the thought of like, I have entertained you people for my entire life. And you're like, you know, intimidating me in a parking lot.

45:50Is there any element of you? It's like, I was like dancing for you this whole time. No, because Jew. Because my grandparents always said, it didn't matter what country I lived in. I was Jew. And that's kind of what it feels like. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't. None of us have been exempt. And there are. There's a category of Jews, and I understand them too, who have said, I'm going to take it all on. It's our fault. We're the enemy. Like, yes, give it to me. And guess what? You'll be sent the same way, to the same place. You will. And like if you think that throwing out that white flag will save you, you have another thing coming because no one cares that I'm a bleeding heart liberal.

46:39No one cares that I mean, I shouldn't say no one. That's not fair. Plenty of people do not care that I cry for Palestinian children when they are killed. Plenty of people don't care because Jew. And that's a sad statement on where we are. And then when they're saying, my Bialik is a Zionist, what they're really saying is, my Bialik's a dirty Jew. Correct. It's used like she's a Nazi or a racist, right? And I, at one point, clarified that for the Facebook audience, right? To like the 16 million people that I can reach, right? Guess what? Zionism is the, and I defined it like we were taught to define it.

47:24Little did I know people were laughing in my face because they have their own definition. Is there something about being told you are a bad person on a mass scale? Like, what does that feel like? I mean, it's happened to me, but it's like, what does it feel like to be like bad? You are bad. Like at a certain point, are you just like, oh, you're all lying and the people who are close to me in my life know my heart and therefore I don't care about you? I feel like it says more about them than me. Yeah. You know, there's a unity in the Jewish community we never had before. We don't need tragedy to unite us.

47:56We have plenty of other things that do unite us. But there has been a unity and a coming together and like, you know, forgive the expression, a come to Jesus moment for a lot of Jews. No question. We've been pushed out of liberal spaces. And a lot of young Jews. Oh, yeah. I mean, look, I don't envy young Jews right now because it's very, very difficult. And to be on the campuses that many of our students are on, it's very, very difficult. You've been kicked out of liberal spaces for your Zionism. Yeah, many of us have been in very conspicuous ways, in ways that like I was like, do I blow this up?

48:27Do I take one of the largest, most prominent feminist organizations that everyone donates to and say I was eliminated from a campaign because of investor needs? Planned Parenthood? I'm not saying. Yeah. Do you think you've been a political progressive your whole life? Is the left still an okay place to be a Jew, a proud Jew? I don't even know what I am anymore. I know that I'm a bleeding heart liberal for all the reasons that my parents raised me to be a bleeding heart liberal. None of that has changed. I don't believe in the death penalty. You know, like I'm that person. I grieve for anyone suffering who commits crimes.

49:05I do. That's like absolutely true. I believe in all the, you know, left wing things that many people tease us about. However, I do not feel part in many ways of the Democratic Party that I knew. And I don't want that to be true. But that is the story I was raised with. Be careful who you're friends with. Be careful. Right. Be really, really careful. And now a quick word from our sponsor. At The Free Press, we're pretty obsessed with one big idea, that most topics deserve more honesty and more depth than they're getting. So I want to tell you about a podcast that's doing exactly that. It's called Unpacking Israeli History.

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50:14And in today's climate, that's rare. Find Unpacking Israeli History on your favorite podcast app or YouTube and subscribe today. We're going to get into it, but I want to stay on sitcoms randomly for one second because I'm curious, is there a neurological reason why we like them so much? They're like, it's so like, what is it? It's the same reason you like Candy and Taylor Swift. Just like. It's good. It's instant. It's good. It fits an easy rhythm. Like the formula is good for us. Yeah, like set up, set up, punchline. There's a rhythm to that that makes sense to us. We like storytelling for all of human history.

50:54And we like storytelling. We like to hear our stories. We like irony. We like comedy. We like a fish out of water. Find any sitcom you like, it's a fish out of water. Every single one. Like there's not an element. Like 30 Rock. No, like go back to Three's Company. Like go back to any, any, any sitcom in particular. It's Vashada Water. We like those stories. We like to see our conflict projected in ways that we can release and we can laugh about them. If you don't laugh, you'll cry, right? The greatest Jewish adage of my family. So yeah, that's why sitcom feels good. And it's concise. It's got a beginning and a middle and an end.

51:34and whatever problem comes up, no matter how serious, we can have a sense of humor about it and it's resolved in 22 minutes. It's 21 now. Back when I was on Blossom, it was 24. I know, those attention spans, they're getting to nothing. That was actually like a perfect explanation of why they like that. Your sitcom, Call Me Cat. It's about a 39-year-old woman who's okay being single and takes her marriage-saving funds and opens a cat cafe. And then I was sort of thinking about that premise and I was thinking about... It's based on the Miranda show, the British show. Oh, really? Yes, that's what we're based on.

52:07Well, there's so many shows that are about women or about female friendship, but really they're about marriage and love. They're about sex in the city, girls, sex lives of college girls, even like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Was it really important to you to create an alternative to this thing where everyone is just clamoring for domestic lists? I think initially, and you know, that show, Jim Parsons and his company produced Call Me Cat. Who was your co-star on Big Bang? Correct. He played Chalden. Your love interest? My husband, eventually. Yeah, he produced it. And what it was was an American version of Miranda.

52:40You know, the Miranda show, which was this very, she was this very quirky. I mean, she's an incredible comedian, this very quirky, outrageous female. We wanted to do that. In all honesty, I don't think it worked for an American audience. She did. And also, my character did end up coupling up because, unfortunately, or fortunately, that is the stories that we like to hear. and you know I think it was Brett Butler who said you know having your own show is like being beaten to death with your dream that's literally what it was like and I loved I loved we had an unbelievable crew we had unbelievable directors the cast was so much fun and I got to work with Leslie Jordan who passed away while you know we were filming the show you know it was an unbelievable experience but it is like being beaten to death with your dream the complexity of writers and what should you wear and the network oh she shouldn't wear sneakers it's to this is it dykey is like it was just like ah a crazy and then by the end of the year you're like this is not the it's exhausting and I was like it's exhausting already to be a woman and like to be a woman on television like that also trying to break down barriers and be like she's an unbelievable different woman it was very very difficult the last thing I saw you in in theaters was Jim Jarmusch's mother sister father mother sister brother father mother sister brother yeah and you played opposite Adam Driver.

54:00Yes. How was that? It was insane. I played opposite Adam Driver and Tom Waits, which like, yeah, he's this place your dad musical legend. Yeah. I was a Jim Jarmusch fan. And he saw me on Jeopardy and literally sent me an email saying I've been watching you on Jeopardy. I'm a huge Jeopardy fan. I'd like you to be in my next movie. Like what? Who does that happen to? Like, that's nuts. Well, it happens to you. Evidently. Yeah. And apparently he was watching Jeopardy and he was like she kind of looks like a female Adam Driver whoa and he cast us as siblings and I was like that's about right like it's kind of like it it really worked it was incredible I mean and also you know I I hadn't the last movie I was in was Beaches like I'm not a movie actor and I was very intimidated it's like Adam Driver he's like freaking serious like he's a real actor I know you didn't read Lena Dunham's book but he talks she talks about how I've heard about that I've heard.

54:54Oh, he's very intense. He didn't throw a chair at you? No. He's also very playful and like great sense of humor. And also like, you know, we're Star Wars fans in my house. So my kids were like, you're working with Kylo Ren. Like it was very intense. But he was great. Jim was amazing. But also, you know, Cate Blanchett was in the movie. And like Charlotte Ramp. Like it was a crazy cast. It was a stacked cast. It was crazy. I've also never been to a film festival, which I don't know why people assume that if you're a sitcom actor who then got a PhD, You've been to Cannes 45 times. I literally was like, what the fuck is happening?

55:26Like people everywhere. It was bananas. And then we won the top award. And also there was a tremendous amount of anti-Israel activity at that film festival, among others. So it was also a very complicated, very complicated time. Is there any director you're like, I'd kill to work with this person? Greta Gerwig. Yeah. I'm a huge Greta Gerwig fan. not so much a Barbie fan also Free Press was very helpful with me understanding my Barbie issues no, Greta Gerwig is a person yeah, I wouldn't name others, I mean I'd, you know happy for, I mean, Coen Brothers I auditioned for the Coen Brothers once, it was on tape yeah, those are the kind of you know, people that I love unspoken so far, and then I want to get to Parenthood is Jeopardy which is another American institution, this thing that That is for entertainment and is clean and brings people together without turning them against other people.

56:29It's like one of the last things left. I know you had to walk away because of the strike, but do you ever think about what would have happened if you could have stayed on and done that? I mean, not to be pedantic, I didn't have to walk away. I chose not to cross the picket line and subsequently was told that my services were not required, which was also just months after October 7th. It was a very interesting several months of my life. I think also we had a producer change. I don't shut up about injustice and I don't especially cower about anything relating to the Jewish people or the state of Israel.

57:18and I would not be surprised if that theoretically might not have been a good fit, you know, for an American institution like Jeopardy that already, you know, has a lot of complexity around, ooh, a woman, because there was a lot of conversation about, oh, should a woman be, oh, should be a man, and, you know, I loved hosting Jeopardy. I miss hosting Jeopardy. You're so good at it. I got to host Celebrity Jeopardy, which was really incredible to get to interface with, like, you know, actors and comedians and, you know, all these people. As you were doing it, you're like, oh, I crush? Like, I really know how to do it.

57:52No, no, terrified. Terrified. And, you know, that also might be, you know, Ken Jennings is not terrified, right? Like, he is, like, in the zone. He is a Jeopardy champion. You know, like, he's a million times amazing, right? I don't have that ease. I really don't. And, like, I think that's not very different from what it's like for me to go to the Emmys, you know? A lot of people assume that I'm very confident because I have a big mouth. That's actually not true. I actually have a huge imposter syndrome. I have a lot of complexes. They go with me everywhere I go. And there's a way that I operate that is different than the way other women operate or other people operate.

58:30Well, it's a differentness and an unwilling to sand down your corners to fit. Correct, but also, when I was not asked back to Jeopardy, I wasn't like, all right. I wept. There was a loss for me. And also it was like right after October 7th, everything was very raw. I felt very, like a lot of Jews, I felt very out of place. Where do we belong? And I did, I took it personally, meaning I don't belong here. See, we don't belong. I don't belong. And that's just what our brains do to try and make sense of something. We try and find a pattern. I will find that pattern. But that's just self-esteem that I'm still working on.

59:11But yeah, it's sad. It's painful. That was my job. For two years I got my fifth Emmy nomination for that. It's a big deal. And I was also very, very attached to the writers, who are an incredible group of people in the research department there. It was beautiful. It was a really beautiful place to work. Yeah, and it's a big disappointment. Yeah. You mentioned that you're unwilling to cower, and you're unwilling to not stand up for what you believe is right. I think maybe the second most controversial thing one might comment on behind the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is parenting, which you also do.

59:48Or you did. You wrote this book called Beyond the Sling about attachment parenting. Which at the time people were like, attachment what? And now people talk about attachment styles. Well, you were really early on to even talk about parenting styles. For sure. I was one of the early they called us mommy bloggers. I wrote for Kveller. I helped build up like, you know, that kind of parenting perspective. I know I wasn't working at the time. You know, that was when we would work. You were probably a young child. We would work to be paid 250 bucks to write an essay, 500 bucks. If you were lucky, if USA Today wanted something, you might be getting$1 ,000.

1:00:23Like that was part of this is like before I was working. I wasn't on Big Bang. I was like, that's a way to make money. But were you doing it for money or were you like, I have like important thoughts about parenting? Well, I mean, I don't know that I thought I had important thoughts. I had experience. Debbie Colbin was my editor at Kfeller, and she helped me craft a voice, you know, and I was always a writer. So I didn't do it for the money, but wow, that was pretty cool that I could write about my experience. I wrote a lot about Judaism, wrote a lot about the basics of Judaism, traditional Judaism, like why a feminist would go to the mikveh, right?

1:00:54I wrote posts about ritual when my father passed away. I wrote about why we say Kaddish every day and really tried to put like a reasonable lens again as a liberal person why I do these rituals and why I believe in the system of halacha right that was a lot of what I wrote at Kfeller and yeah I wrote my first book Beyond the Sling I wrote a cookbook and then I had two New York Times bestsellers Girling Up and Boying Up which were you know essentially about like the puberty yeah puberty the endocrine system and yeah we're gonna get to puberty but like this the way you describe parenting you say it's like the way a primate parents which i think is really interesting it's a lot about um you know breastfeeding and you know extended and not being so obsessed with scheduling and you know there was elimination communication and not right which is outside of attachment parenting per se but yeah the idea and also you know i studied neuroscience as a grad student studied neuroembryology and like yeah what made sense to me was to parent essentially the way primates parent and this is not like some like crazy idea this is how most people parent it and how pretty much most communities have have parented and many still do.

1:02:03Yeah. Like wearing your baby on your body is actually a regulatory thing that we do. Right. Like other like primates obviously have their babies on them. But, you know, there are entire communities of individuals where colic doesn't exist. Those communities typically have babies worn a lot, fed on demand. Babies have shorter naps. There's not this notion of you must nap in a crib for three hours. Yeah. And the way that I sort of describe it, and also to say that breastfeeding is a component of attachment parenting, breastfeeding is the natural physiological way that mammals feed their babies. That's what it is.

1:02:36Do you have to breastfeed? Of course not. Are you a better person for breastfeeding? Of course not. But to make it like this is a strange decision and that I'm trying to oppress women and I'm an anti-feminist, no, this is just the way that your body was actually programmed to nourish a baby, to feed it. And sleeping near your child is something that is also, it's physiologically regulatory, like safely sleeping near your child. Like, that's not a crazy idea. It's how most people do. But these things were grouped under and also not hitting your children, which, you know, I'm going to go ahead with the longitudinal research on this one.

1:03:09It never makes sense to a child to be hit by the person who is supposed to love and support them. There are ways to discipline a child without speaking down to them, without timeouts. There are. There are ways to do it. does that mean I'm a permissive parent? Absolutely not. I have a lot of boundaries. My children are actually more, I'd say, obedient than a lot of people would assume. People parent all sorts of ways, but believing in these things doesn't mean that you're a helicopter parent. It doesn't mean that you're constantly monitoring every single thing they do. I think parenting has gotten completely out of control.

1:03:42And I think a lot of it is that many women took the office work politics and brought it into their homes. And we don't need to parent the way we would function if we're trying to climb the corporate ladder. It's not the same thing. They don't have the same metrics. They don't need to. It doesn't have to be a linear, like if you're trying to like wean your baby, it's not like a military system. It's like things that like require spreadsheets in a skyscraper are not going to be helpful at home. You don't need to track your, like if you need an app to track your cycle, you're welcome to it. Your body knows how to tell you actually when you're ovulating without an app.

1:04:19You don't need an app for breastfeeding. It's a really interesting idea. All of us parented without cell phones. All of us parented without a smartphone telling us when to switch sides. It's really like that stuff's fun and it's part of a – Cottage industry. Yeah. Women are big buyers. But yeah, I think that a lot of that early mommy blogging and a lot of the conflict that we saw did come out of women taking the tools of the workplace and bringing them into your home. And of course it's boring to play with blocks all day. It is. It's kind of boring. The way you're describing parenting, this sort of naturalistic approach, is historically kind of like the left-wing thing, but it's sort of migrated to the right.

1:05:01Have you noticed that? Yeah. I mean, I think, look, in kind of breastfeeding circles, like Lelechi League circles, we sort of like, and this is sort of like, Breastfeeding circles. Right. What I was doing was not like novel with like the friends that I had. Like I was just one of the hippies. I was the only hippie that was like on TV. But we were all doing this. Like we were doing elimination communication, which is not using diapers, but learning a baby's signals so that they essentially can use a potty. You start with a bowl. Like I was just one of those ladies doing that. But in those kind of circles, there are a lot of conservative right wing Republican kind of families that that do this, that have tons of kids and that like do it with ease.

1:05:39Right. But you're right, those things got associated with like, oh, those wacky liberals, like with their spirulina and their wheat germ, right? But now I think like when I see the sort of like trad wife thing, like to me, that's a little bit different. And I think also, you know, I didn't have nannies and teachers and tutors. Like it was me and my ex-husband. We did not have help in the home. I cleaned my own toilets. We cooked our own food. Like we did all those things without babysitters. Like we were like all the other attachment parenting hippies that we knew. We were not special celebrity, you know, couple like that's just not it.

1:06:15And that's not how my kids saw it. My kids were homeschooled and they were homeschooled with a bunch of families where most people lived on one salary because they wanted a parent home to be schooling their kid and supervising their kid at the park. Were you like a maha mommy? No. Oh, sorry. So there's a lot of things that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. talks about. Yeah. Yeah. We've been talking about for this whole time. It's 25 years. There's a lot of things obviously I don't agree with. I think that it's not if there's a message, he's not my messenger. Wow. You know, but yeah, plenty of us didn't give our kids fluoride in their toothpaste.

1:06:55Like, I hate to break it to you. Like, and my kids are like, their teeth are totally fine and their brains are fine. And I think also this notion that there's one way to do thing is the partisanship of parenting, which is also not necessary. But yeah, plenty of people talk about all those RFK Jr. things for decades. When he said it, I'm like, uh-huh. And? Like seed oils? Of course. Well, there's like, I think a big thing of switching all of these naturalistic coded things from the left to the right happened around COVID. Oh, yeah. And the big distrust of institutions. COVID messed everything up six ways to Sunday.

1:07:31Yes. And also that's when that circle of right and left became like, oh, we're not it's not polls. It's just a big circle. It's just a big circle. Crazy people on the left sounded as crazy as the people on the right. It's also when for me, I had to turn to free press. I had to turn to somewhere that was like, wait a second. Something's not making sense and it's not OK. And even like in my own home, I was accused of being a Republican. Right. Which like nothing wrong with Republicans. I am not a Republican, though. Like I'm a bleeding heart liberal. Like name it. I'm a liberal. Yeah. The notion that if I questioned what we were doing about school closures, church closures, Black Lives Matter marches, like I just wanted to talk about it.

1:08:16And even in my own home, it did not always feel safe. Right. Like this notion that like or when I said, I think it's time for Joe Biden to not be running for president. You've turned on us. You're a hidden Republican. And I'm like, to me, it is the most Democratic thing. You're like, I actually just have two eyes. Correct. I have two eyes, two ears. To me, that's the most Democratic thing to be able to say we don't all have to agree. But something's not right here. I think there's a place where the mistrust goes kind of off the deep end. Well, and also, and I think, and this is a thing, too, and I don't feel like this should be a partisan statement because many people I know who voted for Trump or even still like Trump agree the kind of rhetoric that we are hearing coming out of the highest office in this country is not it's not helpful.

1:09:03Right. Meaning, you know, and I said this in his first term, the president speaks in a way that I do not allow my children to speak at the dinner table. And I had to tell my children that. And they were younger. And I said, I don't want you just spouting that like we hate him because he's a Republican. We're not those kind of Democrats. That's not how we do. However, it is not acceptable to tease people. It is not acceptable to mock people. It is not acceptable to use a limited vocabulary to try and explain a really elaborate, nuanced concept. And it is not OK to speak about women the way we are hearing him speaking about women.

1:09:38Full stop. I think one thread of your career is like explaining things. and it's like I'm an infotainer you're an infotainer and you wrote two books about puberty one for girls and one for boys back when you could talk about girls and boys back when you could talk about girls and boys but it's like it's so weird because there's so much obsession with young women young boys what are they listening to what's going wrong you know are they lonely are they having sex whatever's happening and yet when it comes to actual puberty it's sort of like that sucks anyway like there's not a lot of like Like, well, it just feels I think as a woman, oh, my body is totally betraying me in every way.

1:10:18Yeah, I think. Well, and I think also as women of your generation are growing up, you're seeing that a lot of the things that we were kind of stuck with, you don't have to be stuck with. And the notion that every girl who comes into a doctor's office should be put on birth control is actually an erroneous treatment, not only of the female population, but of the population at large. This is not a way to do medicine. Right, if you're treating half of the population with something, it's everyone. Correct, you're impacting everyone. And the notion that like bitches be cray, right? Which is what many of us grew up with boys saying.

1:10:53It's like, your hormones are crazy and you're crazy when you get pregnant and you're crazy when the baby. And then you're crazy when you're on your period and then you're always complaining at me. And I'm thinking back and I'm like, did all of our moms hate our dads or were they in menopause and no one cared, right? So I think this notion of also like, Do we know how our bodies work? How many grown women don't know when ovulation actually happens? Do you know your body's own signals for when you're ovulating? It gives a really, really specific, specific signal, which I can tell you about. No, that's part of it.

1:11:27There are many things that happen, but there's a really specific way that you can know when you're ovulating and it's not that hard, right? So the fact that most women don't know that, the fact that most women don't know the reason that I'm having this shift, the reason my poop is weird, the reason I feel tender, the reason I want to have sex, but I don't want to talk to him, right? What is that? The reason that arousal changes, the reason that I have a rhythm, the reason that my body is producing one chance a month, right? Men can do this all freaking day, and some of them do. We have one chance a month for the most expensive thing that our body produces, and that's an egg, right?

1:12:09That is sacred. That is special. However you want to deal with your body, fine. Learn to respect it. We're not taught that. Instead, we're told hide it, cover it up. Medicate it. Medicate it and also make sure no one knows. So when they came out with these period undies, I was like, the fuck? Who would think of that? Also, it's amazing. But the generation I come from, no, no. We did to make it go away. Right. We don't talk about it. Don't let it leak. Also, you might die if you leave a tampon in. That felt good. Yeah, that was crazy. That's crazy. I mean, I don't know if TSS is real, but I... It's real.

1:12:49Okay, I've been blessed then because I've really had some close calls. But I am curious. Was your thesis in writing those books, like if people know more about what's actually happening, they won't reach for the quick fix? Oh. Is that what you were trying to make happen? What I was trying to do is what I did when I taught high school biology, which was explained to you your body in terms that are not creepy, that are not scary, and that show you the preciousness of the human body. Learning the value of breath, learning how to process pain when you feel it and discomfort, learning the things that help you, those are the tools that are free.

1:13:26And for many women, that might be what stops you from being put on a medication that you do not need, and that will introduce a variety of other problems that you did not want and set you up for a lifetime of thinking that there's something wrong with you because you were born female. You talk about like the body experiencing pain and something we debate a lot at the free press. And I think we have people on both sides of this question. Yes. Is whether the body keeps the score. Of course it does. You think like epigenetic trauma lives on from generation to generation. So I can explain epigenetic trauma as you know as easily as I can like intergenerational trauma.

1:14:05So what happens when you are a woman is you have the eggs, right? That will be your child. And you also have gametes, right? For what will be your grandchildren. And what happens when there is trauma, and we're talking significant trauma, not he didn't like me, that movie was scary. You know, those are like, obviously can be triggering things. I wasn't allowed to go to prom or whatever. Correct. When you have significant trauma, when you have trauma that happens, certain genes get upregulated and certain genes get downregulated. And that becomes the system of your biological milieu. That milieu is what is housing the eggs that become your children, your grandchildren, all of those things that were downregulated or upregulated.

1:14:53And there's all sorts of positive and negative feedback loops. Those are things that become the environment of that next generation. And the most famous studies were done, Rachel Yehuda and all these people out of Israel. The Holocaust gave us a generation with which many researchers said, what's happening here? Yeah, you don't have to be raised in an environment of terror to have your body process that you are in an environment of vigilance, necessary and terror. And then it's a combination of nature and nurture because then you have parents who experienced firsthand the primary source of the terror.

1:15:27You're like, what's wrong with you? No, and the other thing, if the body is allowed to go through processes linked to that trauma, the body will show that it is holding. It often will shake. You will have spontaneous crying. You will have release that happens. Those things can be transformative in moving through trauma. The body absolutely keeps the score. You don't need to debate it. You can fly me out. Okay, we're done. I have some text to send after this. You had a short film that you participated in called Like a Jew. Yes. Which I really love. Yeah. And it goes through all of these Jewish stereotypes.

1:16:03That's yeah, Jew in the city, yeah. That are becoming more and more prevalent. Yes. There's the Jap. There's like the kind of physically weak Jew. The Woody Allen Jew. The Woody Allen Jew, yeah. I can't say that anymore, but yes. Yeah, the book Jew. The one who's annoyed by his mom. The annoying mom. The one who's money obsessed. Do you find depictions of Jews in Hollywood to be mocking or hateful for the most part? I think they're limited. OK. I think in a lot of cases they're also true. People would ask me, what do you think about Wallowicz's mom on Big Bang Theory, which is actually played by a wonderful actress who passed away, Caroline Susie, who was Italian, not Jewish.

1:16:38Did that bother you? No, because I was like, that's exactly what a lot of moms sound like. And to me, like, you know, stereotypes work because they're based on fact. They're based on reality. Right. And we can make them comedic. We can make them entertaining. But I think there's a very limited view of Jews. I think that orthodoxy is something that's really fetishized. I think that it's seen as kind of the enemy of, you know, liberal thinkers, which I think is also unfair. there's a lot of different kinds of Jews. We don't all have to be one thing. There are things we're allowed to joke about with each other that we cannot joke about with other people.

1:17:19I mean, I've heard people use incredible expressions about Jewing you down. Like I've heard that. I've heard a lot of things like that. It still exists. It's still very prevalent. And I hate to say it, it's becoming more prevalent. Yeah, it's becoming more prevalent. And then there's this added indignity of being like, you're being hysterical, which I it's like adds insult to injury in a second it's like oh they're being paranoid or whatever it is you're so sensitive it's like nope just Jewish are you a feminist? yeah and that was easy yeah there you go I mean you know when I was a teenager that was a horrible thing to be they called us feminazis the boys called us feminazis I didn't shave my legs I've never shaved my legs actually or my underarms my whole life I was that feminist I was the like army boot wearing and this is and now you see it I mean I see it in fashion magazines I'm like what?

1:18:10Like I had to fight, you know, I had to hide that I like I wasn't doing it to show everybody. I was doing it because of, you know, a deeply held fear that I would die and cut myself, but also a deeply held belief that like this meant something. So to me, feminism is the belief that women hold a very special place in our society that has the ability to to really conquer race, class and gender for all people. that's what I was like academic feminism that's what I was taught by the feminist professors that were employed at the university I went to feminism was a special set of skills so that we could see race class and gender not be weapons against all people not just women well that's such an like in my head that's such a more sophisticated definition but I I mean the like the anti-aging beauty industrial complex that has been pointed at you for your entire life.

1:19:11Correct. Well, it's worse now, but yeah. It is worse now. Oh, yeah. Well, it's worse now also because, you know, God bless third and fourth, and I don't know how many waves of feminism there are, this notion of choice feminism, which was this like, well, you can choose to get liposuction. You can choose to get your, which like, it's not for me to define anybody else's feminism. I really would not. You don't see that stuff as a betrayal? Oh, yeah. for me personally. Yeah, you're like, for sure. No, I'm a second wave feminist. I'm like a Hillary Clinton pantsuit kind of person. Like, that's where we kind of, like, we ended, you know?

1:19:42Like, I get it and it's amazing and all these women who are young and are like, you can't talk to me like that. I'm like, that's amazing. Like, I thought being catcalled by grown men was a feature of my childhood growing up in Hollywood. You'd be just, like, walking to the bus. And that was just a normal, oh, there they go again. Like, oh, God. Like, that was, like, men in trucks driving by hooting and hollering at you as a child like normal for my generation so we've evolved so much but yeah for me that's just not it's not my feminism and like let us not forget that the right to an abortion is one of the most important things for us to identify for women like a woman's right to make decisions about her body like I'm an old feminist if they take away your right to an abortion, lay your body on the ground.

1:20:31Like, I will fund that. I will fund any woman who wants to, like, go to the Capitol. Do it. We are here to fund this generation of, like, liberal politics. You go do it. I'm too tired. Like, that's not my work anymore. But that's what I want to, like, stimulate young women to do. Fight for those rights, for equal pay, for equal work, for child care, for medical care, for women to have access to mental health care and hormone replacement therapy if they need it, like for women not to be told that they're hysterical. Yes, it's important to be able to show your vagina on Instagram, but also let us not forget the foundations of feminism, right?

1:21:11Those are important still. We're still fighting for that. Do you feel like they've been forgotten? Or, I mean, I have a lot of discussions where it's like, yeah, like if the feminist movement can't, you know, tell the difference between a man and a woman, that's really hard. And I think that's a live question. Yeah, I think. And look, as a lactation educator counselor, right? Like I interact with a lot of women, a lot of uteruses, a lot of breasts, right? A lot of that part also of womanhood, which I think is special and beautiful and should be celebrated. Yeah, the complexity around certain aspects, again, of the left and their inability to sort of be able to say women get pregnant instead of like uterus.

1:21:54I just like I meaning my head can't handle it. And also, you know, the notion and like, you know, I really don't want my head served to me on a platter, but just even the J.K. Rowling exploration, you know, that free press encouraged. Right. Also about just learning what things you're actually mad about. Right. And the problem is social media and the forums that a lot of young liberals are operating in there. There's no room for nuance. There's no room for intellectual exploration. And guess what? You don't have the same processes when you're skipping that. I love that idea of understanding what it is that you're even mad about.

1:22:30Do you find that GLP ones are a betrayal of feminism? Like if everyone's walking around in a bobblehead and like, do you feel like, I think there's a lot of, I've read someone say it's just like, you're shrinking yourself down. Oh yeah. No, I think, I mean, look, I would say the same. And I grew up in the, what's it? Dexatrim, you know, era where women were just like given methamphetamine and it was like, I'm skinny. It's amazing. You know? And then I lived through, you know, a larger conversation about anorexia, right? Which we're kind of still having. And there are many, many brave women, you know, who speak about, you know, their struggles with these things and the larger implications.

1:23:05I don't know that I'd say it's a betrayal of feminism. I think it falls into this choice feminism, right? Are you choosing to conform? And the fact is, you know, I'm one of these like crotchety second wave feminists who would say like, Like, if you think that you feel better when you're underweight, that's because the patriarchal industrial complex taught you that that's beautiful. Right. But now it's sort of like, I feel so confident and beautiful when I am 90 pounds. And look, and the fact is, and I think this is important, and we talked about this with Johan Hari, you know, these are medications that are very, very serious.

1:23:38Yeah. They're very significant. And the reason you lose weight is because the muscle comes off your body. And guess what? Muscle weighs more than fat, right? Right. It is not, to me, it is not conscionable for a physician to prescribe these medications, especially with the price inflation. It is not conscionable to prescribe these medications to people who do not need them for medical reasons. And of course, like I'm in menopause. Like, do I wish I was still a size four? Part of me, yeah. Life's a lot easier when you're a four or a six. But also like, I'm 50. Mama's so tired. You know? I just like she's tired yeah we're just not gonna we just can't obsess over that and really like chocolate and you're not gonna spend the next 20 years of your life thinking about how you could look 20 years younger no I've never done any work on my face this is the face were you ever tempted no I really wasn't because I just find it so for me that's not acceptance and for some women it might be for me that's not being an acceptance and look I we interviewed Justine Bateman you know because she does all this incredible work here.

1:24:42And I was like, look, if I looked like you, of course I would never be upset. You know, she's like, when I look in the mirror, I rejoice. And I'm like, I look in the mirror and I weep. Like, I don't look in the mirror. Meaning like, you know, the collagen has started going here. But this, and I have to tell this to makeup artists. I have to say to them, just so you know, I don't have any filler and I've never had any filler and I don't have any Botox. This is a normal face. So act accordingly. Act accordingly. Like, it's gonna wilt. the lines are gonna pick up makeup like it's it's not polished and when I wrinkle my forehead it's like for reals yo so that's been something also even as a podcaster which you know when you're on camera it's like oh my gosh the high definition cameras show everything so are you like what I'm hearing from you it's like a constant process of disappointment in yourself and then just feeling like you know getting over it in a way or just learning to love yourself or muscling through Correct.

1:25:37And I do. I live by the serenity prayer. Yeah. Like I sit in all the other rooms. OK, I sit in just about every other room. I don't drink because it's not good for me. And I get itchy palms. COVID granted me that. So I no longer can drink because the only fun that I was having, the universe was like, no, you don't get to have any liquid courage. So anyway, but the serenity prayer, which is you don't even have to be in program to believe in this. God, which whatever you want to call it, grant me the serenity to accept what I can't change, right? Like to be in acceptance. Like I can't change this, right?

1:26:13The courage to be able to say, yes, I can change that. But the wisdom to be able to say, I know what's what. So the wisdom to say, I need to be in acceptance of my leg hair seems to be falling out. Is that a normal thing? My hair never grew back after I had my son. Why? I don't know why my hormones do the things they do, right? But that's what I have to live by. So it is a constant tension. That's also a very Jewish concept. I was raised to hold both of those things, right? I think it's a midrash. It's in the Talmud. You know, in one pocket, you hold a piece of paper that says, for me, the world was created.

1:26:47And in your other pocket, you hold a piece of paper that says, I'm nothing. I'm dust and ashes. like that's the tension for me of my whole life that's the metaphor for my whole life whether it's beauty, career, love my vagina, right? whatever it is you're in that tension of like I'm in acceptance and I'm so amazing and also I'm nothing so I also don't want to give it too much attention because I'm nothing I'm Biala that was just too good not to end on it thank you so much thank you Thanks for listening to this episode of Second Thought. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, please give the show a follow.

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