Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From house topports
Speaker 1: dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline. And Caroline A stuff my mom did
Speaker 1: tell me when I was a kid. Don't nag? Oh?
Speaker 1: Do you not nag me? Oh? Yeah? Would you nag
Speaker 1: your mother? They were probably times when I did repeatedly
Speaker 1: ask her for the same thing. So I don't know though,
Speaker 1: whether her suggesting requesting that I not nag her was
Speaker 1: more a product of her being a stressed out mother
Speaker 1: of five and also working, or if I really was
Speaker 1: a little nag running around. Yeah, I don't I this
Speaker 1: is going to be another one of those episodes where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of real talk and a lot of
Speaker 1: like looking looking deep inside Kristen. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: mean looking deep inside Kristen, I mean looking deep inside myself. Comma, Kristen,
Speaker 1: you can look inside of me too and talk about
Speaker 1: all of our complaining. Um, because really, sometimes there's nothing
Speaker 1: better than a really good wine. Yeah. But are those
Speaker 1: three distinct things, nagging, complaining and whining? Nagging? Is they're
Speaker 1: all related? Obviously, it's not a stretch to imagine how
Speaker 1: those things are related. Um, complaining and nagging are a
Speaker 1: little bit different. There's there's a little Van diagram where
Speaker 1: nagging and complaining are on separate circles and they overlap
Speaker 1: in the middle. Um, whining. I think it's also it
Speaker 1: would be like a three wave in diagram let's get
Speaker 1: let's get real interesting, So whining would also be in there,
Speaker 1: But that's more of like a maybe you don't want
Speaker 1: your problem solved, you're literally just whining. Maybe you're me
Speaker 1: and haven't had anything to eat yet and you start
Speaker 1: to get like a little bit whiny and sound like
Speaker 1: a four year old. Or maybe you're comedian Matt Belassie
Speaker 1: who drinks wine and then wines about it and makes
Speaker 1: hilarious videos out of it. Yes. No, my friend did
Speaker 1: recently have a get together referred to as wine and
Speaker 1: whining that was basically meant for us to all just
Speaker 1: get together and complain and did it feel good? Um, well,
Speaker 1: I think we didn't stick to the whining part of it.
Speaker 1: I think we just chitch atted. Winning was certainly a
Speaker 1: part of it, because I don't think you can separate
Speaker 1: complaining out of any conversation. You've got to really try hard.
Speaker 1: There are so many people out there on the internet
Speaker 1: right now who are writing columns and blogs about how
Speaker 1: they've tried to give up complaining for a week or
Speaker 1: a month or a year and and what it does
Speaker 1: to them. And it's so funny to see the difference
Speaker 1: between the people who are so earnest about it, who
Speaker 1: are like, I need to change my life, I need
Speaker 1: to get right and live right and stop planning and
Speaker 1: be grateful, versus the people who were like, oh, not
Speaker 1: complaining is the worst. Complain complain, complain, because I feel
Speaker 1: like I would be in that second camp of people
Speaker 1: that not complaining it's the worst. Yeah, And and not
Speaker 1: that I not that I don't agree that we need
Speaker 1: all collectively too maybe complain less, be grateful more. But
Speaker 1: there's so many different facets to complaining and what it
Speaker 1: means for you and your friends versus maybe your boss
Speaker 1: versus maybe your mom and your co workers. Like, there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of different language and bonding connections that can
Speaker 1: be made around complaining. And so one of those columns
Speaker 1: we were reading by one of those women who bravely
Speaker 1: tried to go without complaining, she ended up pointing out that,
Speaker 1: like listen, it's a noble cause to try to stop
Speaker 1: complaining about every single thing every minute of the day,
Speaker 1: like let go lighten up. But there is something to
Speaker 1: be said for being able to bond over a shared like, Man,
Speaker 1: that movie was terrible or that food was gross. That's
Speaker 1: stuff I've never told you. Podcasts, thanks, there's so much
Speaker 1: vocal fry. Vocal fry. Yeah, I'm personally seeking more of
Speaker 1: a complaint balance in my life because on the one hand,
Speaker 1: I know that I am probably not a very productive
Speaker 1: complainer because if there's something really really upsetting me, once
Speaker 1: I get going, I have to tell you every single
Speaker 1: detail of it, and that's probably too much. But then
Speaker 1: on the other hand, if I'm not telling you anything
Speaker 1: that's wrong in my life, that probably means I'm shutting
Speaker 1: down emotionally and bottling things up and finding a happy
Speaker 1: medium is actually kind of challenging for me. So this
Speaker 1: research person and only was very illuminating and gave me
Speaker 1: lots of food for thought flash complaining, because the thing
Speaker 1: about it, the first complaint we can have about complaining
Speaker 1: is that we develop in it a way from our
Speaker 1: parents that that parent child communication me talking to my
Speaker 1: mom and her telling me not to be a nagg.
Speaker 1: It's all rooted back there, not surprisingly. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: a learned behavior. Basically, we would use it to wear
Speaker 1: our parents down to get what we wanted. And it's
Speaker 1: often the only way that kids can communicate when they're uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: If they're very very very young, very little kids, and
Speaker 1: they don't have great communication skills, they might only know
Speaker 1: how to tell you that they're uncomfortable, hungry, tired, cold,
Speaker 1: scared by whining. And this is especially true if maybe
Speaker 1: they've tried to communicate with you quietly or sweetly or
Speaker 1: whatever previously, but you don't set down the whatever project
Speaker 1: you're doing or whatever and look at them until they
Speaker 1: start to throw a fit and wine. An evolutionary psychologist
Speaker 1: would tell you that we do this because it's an
Speaker 1: evolved instinct to raise a stink essentially about potential serious threat.
Speaker 1: So now I like to imagine that like a cave woman,
Speaker 1: Mom is pushing a grocery cart through the aisle and
Speaker 1: she's got her cave baby, and the cave baby's like, Mom,
Speaker 1: the saber tooth tiger watch all. And she's like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, we've got to watch out of the saber
Speaker 1: tooth tiger sye, so like it has a great evolutionary benefit,
Speaker 1: as I just proved for avoiding saber tooth tiger attacks
Speaker 1: in prehistoric grocery stores. Right exactly, No, I'm glad you understand. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: so if we look at the types of adult human
Speaker 1: people complainers it we deal with today, it is interesting
Speaker 1: to see who complains and how much and why because
Speaker 1: there are different wise of complaining. So on average, these
Speaker 1: human people I'm referring to complain to each other about
Speaker 1: once a minute, which sort of blew my mind. And
Speaker 1: then I just, you know, thought about any thought process
Speaker 1: or conversation I ever have, and then it made sense
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, I again again. I'm just
Speaker 1: proven research all over the place. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to personalities, no surprise. People high on the agreeableness scale
Speaker 1: are less likely to complain because there's so gosh they're
Speaker 1: in agreeable. But this relationship surprised me. People with high
Speaker 1: self esteem, Oh yeah, they're complainers, but they're probably complaining
Speaker 1: differently than just your average win er. Yeah. So these
Speaker 1: people complain with a goal, and this is what's referred
Speaker 1: to as instrumental complaints. And these people with high self
Speaker 1: esteem are more confident that their grievances are actually legit
Speaker 1: and that speaking up will turn the tide in their favor.
Speaker 1: So these are people who will say, instead of just
Speaker 1: suffering with a terrible hotel room or a bad dining experience,
Speaker 1: they will speak up. They're not gonna whine about it.
Speaker 1: They're gonna have the facts and the logic and the
Speaker 1: knowledge in their brain of what to say and who
Speaker 1: to say it too, not just opening their mouths and
Speaker 1: flapping their lips about how terrible an experience was. They
Speaker 1: go into a situation with the confidence that I am
Speaker 1: going to address this. And there's even a relationship between
Speaker 1: that more instrumental complaining and happiness, as psychology professor Robin
Speaker 1: Kowalski has researched, because she's looked a lot into mindfulness
Speaker 1: and this idea of really focusing on the present and
Speaker 1: its connection to happiness, because obviously, if you're more focused
Speaker 1: on the present than all the what if surrounding you,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be a little bit happier. And her
Speaker 1: research has found that those mindful people act with more
Speaker 1: intention and complain with more intention. They're only complaining when
Speaker 1: it's serving a purpose, and that leads to happier outcomes. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so those are just a couple of goals of complaining.
Speaker 1: And there are so many more. Though. I talked about
Speaker 1: the facets of a complaint, and there are so many
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe some of these apply to you today,
Speaker 1: maybe some of them apply to you tomorrow. You can
Speaker 1: have many different reasons for complaining. Um, But basically there
Speaker 1: are two main types. You're either complaining about yourself or
Speaker 1: somebody else. Right, So, when you complain about yourself, that's
Speaker 1: called a reflexive complaint. Maybe you're complaining about how I
Speaker 1: really screwed up that test, or God, I'm so cold,
Speaker 1: this is awful. Um. When you're complaining about someone else,
Speaker 1: that is called an ostensive complaint. And the fancy term
Speaker 1: for venting, which would usually probably go under ostensive complaints,
Speaker 1: would be referred to as an expressive complaints because we
Speaker 1: have these things called intrapsychic goals, and that is the
Speaker 1: goal of venting or these expressive complaints, because we're looking
Speaker 1: to make ourselves feel better mentally. Rather than changing something,
Speaker 1: we just need to get it off our minds inventing
Speaker 1: that that's my problem, my VENTI problem, which makes me
Speaker 1: think that I'm at Starbucks and I need to tell
Speaker 1: you every single thing because I just need to get
Speaker 1: it out of me exactly and and again. And we'll
Speaker 1: we'll get into this a little bit later. But venting
Speaker 1: is good. You need to vent, you need to blow
Speaker 1: off steam. It becomes bad when it crosses a line
Speaker 1: into like, Okay, well maybe you're fixated and you're obsessing
Speaker 1: about things that you obviously can't change. And so but
Speaker 1: don't worry. I don't want to spoil anything yet. Let's
Speaker 1: talk some more about what's called blasting. So this falls
Speaker 1: under venting. Uh. Kristen mentioned intrapsychic goals, which is basically
Speaker 1: the goal of venting to make yourself feel better. But
Speaker 1: there's also interpersonal goals of venting, which is called blasting.
Speaker 1: And that's when you complain in order to distance yourself
Speaker 1: from someone else, to demonstrate superiority or potentially distract from
Speaker 1: your own poor performance. So complaining about oh, he's such
Speaker 1: a bad driver, she's so messy, you're then kind of
Speaker 1: putting yourself up a little bit higher than someone by
Speaker 1: complaining about them. And then you have complaining in order
Speaker 1: to convince others of your importance and this is distinct
Speaker 1: from blasting, which is just to demonstrate your superiority, because
Speaker 1: this belongs more under the old humble bragging umbrella that
Speaker 1: we devoted an entire episode two. It's the whole thing
Speaker 1: of like, oh, I'm so busy, I work so hard,
Speaker 1: I've got so many important things to do, and it
Speaker 1: just stresses me out so much. Do you know how
Speaker 1: hard it is to be this beautiful? And that's all
Speaker 1: about impression management because you want to you want to complain,
Speaker 1: you don't want to stay out right, I'm gorgeous, love
Speaker 1: me and said, You'll say, you know how hard it
Speaker 1: is to be beautiful because no one can relate to you.
Speaker 1: Right in the example that in Atlanta article that we
Speaker 1: read gave for impression management was you know, going to
Speaker 1: a fancy restaurant and complaining that they don't have the
Speaker 1: perfect wine, the wine that you just love, because it's
Speaker 1: it's giving an impression to your fellow diners that, like,
Speaker 1: my standards are just so incredibly high, you wouldn't even
Speaker 1: believe in this restaurant. Well, it's it's fine. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, it's three d dollars a plate. It's it's
Speaker 1: just okay, talk about whining about it. But then let's
Speaker 1: say you're at that fancy restaurant with hopefully not this
Speaker 1: insufferable person who is really proud of his or her
Speaker 1: wine knowledge, and you need to break the ice. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're on a first date, or maybe things are awkward.
Speaker 1: Complaining via small talk is a reliable way to bond. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's a really quick and reliable way to
Speaker 1: develop a poor If I come up to you at
Speaker 1: a party and it's like, oh, hey, it's really it's fault.
Speaker 1: It's gorgeous outside, you're like, yeah, it's it's really nice.
Speaker 1: But if I come up to you, it's almost like
Speaker 1: developing a quick unit. Complaining helps you be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I know, I hate when that's so and so person talks,
Speaker 1: or oh I know traffic around here is terrible, let
Speaker 1: me tell you about what happened to me. We really
Speaker 1: seem to get off like as humans on complaining to
Speaker 1: each other about stuff around us, and it really ties
Speaker 1: into the other another facet of why we complain, which
Speaker 1: is to feel more validated, more supported, and less alone.
Speaker 1: One example that we read was parents at a play
Speaker 1: group complaining about their wild toddlers because not only are
Speaker 1: they getting to bonds through this complaining, but they get
Speaker 1: to feel less guilty about sort of being annoyed with
Speaker 1: their own children because everybody else is complaining about it too.
Speaker 1: And the whole thing about feeling less alone, I mean,
Speaker 1: the wine or whoever is doing the complaining might simply
Speaker 1: feel powerless over something, whether it is the the toddler
Speaker 1: who's out of control, or whether it's something else in
Speaker 1: their life. They might just not know how to soothe
Speaker 1: themselves or take control of the situation, and so by
Speaker 1: complaining to others, you're sort of seeking acknowledgement, like I'm
Speaker 1: having a problem. I need you to acknowledge me and
Speaker 1: validate me and tell me that I'm not crazy, and
Speaker 1: then I'll feel better. Well, And in some regards to
Speaker 1: you might not really know how to interact with this
Speaker 1: particular person or group of people, because there's also the
Speaker 1: aspect of ritualistic complaining, which I think is a common thing,
Speaker 1: especially among co workers. You go for a happy hour
Speaker 1: drinks and what are you gonna do. You're gonna say
Speaker 1: all of the horrible, terrible, no good things about all
Speaker 1: of your bosses, which Caroline, for the record, have just
Speaker 1: never ever ever done. And there are so many stories
Speaker 1: of this kind of ritualistic complaining even within couples. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of of it just being a thing where you go
Speaker 1: home at night, you pour your glass of wine, you
Speaker 1: complain for however long, and that's that's fine to a degree,
Speaker 1: but there needs to be boundaries. I a co worker
Speaker 1: at my last job who I love her. I love her,
Speaker 1: and she'll be the first to admit that she's a
Speaker 1: negative nancy and complains all the time, and the job
Speaker 1: that she was in at that company, it was really
Speaker 1: really wearing her down to the point where she probably
Speaker 1: should have quit years before UM because she found literally
Speaker 1: zero positive stuff in it UM And so she would
Speaker 1: talk about how she would go home every night and
Speaker 1: her relationship with her husband was becoming toxic because she
Speaker 1: would just go home and literally couldn't talk about anything
Speaker 1: else other than how miserable she was. So finally her husband,
Speaker 1: UH set up a time limit. He's like, you literally
Speaker 1: have thirty minutes or one glass of wine, whichever comes first,
Speaker 1: to complain about your day. Like let loose call people names, yell,
Speaker 1: do whatever you want, but like at the end of
Speaker 1: that thirty minutes, we're changing the subject. We will talk
Speaker 1: about our families or the weather, or like what what
Speaker 1: I did today? Maybe, but you know, like you can't
Speaker 1: spiral out of control. And the thing is that that
Speaker 1: could sound patronizing in the wrong context, but my friend
Speaker 1: greatly appreciated because she's like, it's it's just taking over
Speaker 1: my life. Oh yeah, I mean that kind of accountability
Speaker 1: and boundary setting is a super healthy sign for a relationship.
Speaker 1: So what about the benefits of complaining, Because counterintuitive, science time,
Speaker 1: it can be helpful. Yeah. Well, you know, anybody who's
Speaker 1: ever called Comcast and complain and threatened to cancel their service,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm talking about when you end up
Speaker 1: getting either like a reduced cable bill or something for free. Um.
Speaker 1: I've complained on Yelp before about a restaurant here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: which is such a terrible experience. And it wasn't necessarily
Speaker 1: the restaurant's fault dot dot dot, but we had a
Speaker 1: terrible waiter and there were all these other like weird
Speaker 1: circumstances that made it a terrible experience. And I went
Speaker 1: on yell and I complained and the manager actually wrote
Speaker 1: back and said like, oh, I'm so sorry about this.
Speaker 1: Stuff like everything's been taken care of. I would love
Speaker 1: to have you come back in on my dime. Of
Speaker 1: course I've never on back because no thanks. But when
Speaker 1: you do it, like we talked about earlier, when you
Speaker 1: do productively complain for a purpose with a goal in mind,
Speaker 1: you're more likely to have a positive outcome than if
Speaker 1: you're just running your mouth. Basically. Yeah, I mean in
Speaker 1: all of the benefits that we just discussing, the various
Speaker 1: types of complaining make a lot of sense for how
Speaker 1: they could be healthy as well, such as relieving stress,
Speaker 1: forging connections with other people we don't feel so alone
Speaker 1: and despondent, and might garner you sympathy, all these kinds
Speaker 1: of just like very basic human needs that complaining can fulfill. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And if it's constructive, it can be a way of
Speaker 1: communicating your pain rather than holding it in and stewing,
Speaker 1: which that's not good either. That's what Christian was talking
Speaker 1: about earlier. Once you're stewing about something and you're not
Speaker 1: talking about it, it's just gonna make things harder to overcome.
Speaker 1: You're gonna feel more stressed, more resentful, whatever, and so
Speaker 1: Psychology professor Barbara Held was talking to web MD and
Speaker 1: she was talking about how you can find the right balance.
Speaker 1: She recommended that you be direct about what's bothering you
Speaker 1: if your complaint is actually about something solvable, So if
Speaker 1: your friend is doing something that's bothering you, or if
Speaker 1: you're if you are having a bad dining experience, be direct.
Speaker 1: Don't try to post me, foot around and beat around
Speaker 1: the bush um. She also said to be up front
Speaker 1: about your need to complain. So if you really are
Speaker 1: calling a friend to get a drink and it literally
Speaker 1: is because you have to blow off steam or you're
Speaker 1: going to explode, she says, just be upfront rather than
Speaker 1: trying to pretend you're just having a regular conversation. Limit
Speaker 1: your complaining time, and don't act as though your grapes
Speaker 1: trump everyone else's. Above all, she says, select an appropriate listener.
Speaker 1: So if you are just venting, find that friend who's
Speaker 1: cool with letting you vent. If you are like having
Speaker 1: a terrible experience at a restaurant, find the manager. Don't
Speaker 1: just like complain to another customer or whatever. And she
Speaker 1: said that the most effective complaints once you found that
Speaker 1: appropriate person to direct your complaint too, they use facts
Speaker 1: and logic, and they have a clear goal of what
Speaker 1: they want the outcome to be. So basically, when you
Speaker 1: start complaining, you need to know what you want to
Speaker 1: get out of it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's like beyond time.
Speaker 1: Don't flake on me. Give me more money, right exactly, Yes,
Speaker 1: give me more money. I'm complaining about that to all
Speaker 1: sorts of people. No wonder, it hasn't worked out yet well,
Speaker 1: And sometimes the whole complaint could just be listened to me,
Speaker 1: Listen to me complain. You never do that. But of course,
Speaker 1: sometimes complaining, especially if it's not this more productive and
Speaker 1: focused kind of complaining, can totally backfire and destroy your
Speaker 1: chances of affecting any change, whether it is changing your
Speaker 1: own comfort level or change of the things that are
Speaker 1: bothering you to begin with. And this is something that
Speaker 1: frequent complainers should watch out for because a lot of times,
Speaker 1: if you are known as a negative nancy, you're viewed negatively,
Speaker 1: your thought up as grumpy, argumentative, or just boring. Because yeah,
Speaker 1: if you are only complaining about things, that gets very boring.
Speaker 1: That's very predictable. Oh, let me guess you're not gonna
Speaker 1: like it. Surprised, Uh, Kristen drops real talk. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And the whole thing is that chronic complainers get stuck
Speaker 1: in victim mode, which should be no surprise to anyone
Speaker 1: who ever hangs out with a chronic complainer. This is irritating,
Speaker 1: It spreads negativity. You're bugging the universe, as dude groommate
Speaker 1: would say. And these whiners are chronic complainers because they
Speaker 1: get trapped in this cycle, right, They feel hurt or
Speaker 1: rejected or mad, and then they complain about it, and
Speaker 1: then they get rejected for their irritating behavior, and they
Speaker 1: feel hurt and mad about getting rejected, and then it
Speaker 1: just spirals on and on and on. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: these chronic complainers might not even realize what they're doing.
Speaker 1: They might just be struggling with obsessive thoughts. They're so
Speaker 1: in their own heads and can't break out of it,
Speaker 1: so they just might not even hear themselves. And this
Speaker 1: is especially irritating if you're if you're friends with a
Speaker 1: chronic complainer because a lot of times these people don't
Speaker 1: take advice. And the thing is, there's an actual psychiatry
Speaker 1: term for this. They're called help rejecting complainers. I remember
Speaker 1: when I worked at the newspaper. A coworker of mine
Speaker 1: was just sort of helpless in love, like he could
Speaker 1: not find a date to save his life. Or he
Speaker 1: could find a date and then he would muck it
Speaker 1: up by doing something silly, or they just didn't have chemistry.
Speaker 1: I mean, then there was nothing wrong, like whatever. Um,
Speaker 1: And so he would complain and complain endlessly, bless his
Speaker 1: hard he's happily married now, um. And I would give
Speaker 1: him advice like, hey, have you thought about this? Try this,
Speaker 1: what about this? And the thing is he didn't want
Speaker 1: to hear it. And so I finally like had that
Speaker 1: crystal clear clarity moment of like, oh, he just wants
Speaker 1: to complain. I'm not interested in this anymore, because that
Speaker 1: becomes incredibly boring and energies dapping to the people around you.
Speaker 1: If you literally are just complaining to hear yourself complain
Speaker 1: and you're not interested in fixing the situation at all, well,
Speaker 1: in one way that you might not. You might think
Speaker 1: you're interested in fixing the situation, but you're handicapping yourself
Speaker 1: from doing that. Is relying on humor too much to complain.
Speaker 1: And I have been guilty of this, just being like, well,
Speaker 1: well if I deliver it with a laugh and a wink,
Speaker 1: but it'll be fine. But research has found that humorous
Speaker 1: complaining can Yeah, I mean like it engenders sympathy and
Speaker 1: like people laughing and people enjoying your your clever tweets,
Speaker 1: but it backfires because people are laughing, Yeah, they're not
Speaker 1: really taking you seriously. Yeah, because I mean, it makes
Speaker 1: your complaints seem almost positive, and that leads to the
Speaker 1: fact that you're less lucky to be taken seriously. People
Speaker 1: are going to know that you had a negative experience,
Speaker 1: but it will come off like you don't need your
Speaker 1: problem addressed. And one of the in the paper we
Speaker 1: read about this, the example was this musician who had
Speaker 1: had his guitar busted on a United Airlines flight and
Speaker 1: he made a humorous video about it on YouTube to complain.
Speaker 1: And the thing is it just it was shared a
Speaker 1: million times. United was fully aware of the problem that
Speaker 1: they had broken his guitar, but because he presented it
Speaker 1: in a way of like ha ha, I'm gonna poke
Speaker 1: snarky fun at you and and make this video, people
Speaker 1: were like, oh, well, clearly he's not too upset about it,
Speaker 1: when really it's a great coping mechanism and people are
Speaker 1: more likely to approve of that type of complaining, but
Speaker 1: it's still just complaining. So what about nagging though, because,
Speaker 1: like you said earlier in the podcast, the ven diagram overlaps.
Speaker 1: But there are distinct hallmarks of nagging and this especially
Speaker 1: is one that will almost inevitably backfire. Oh yeah, oh
Speaker 1: my god, come to my parents house. Jeez. Uh So,
Speaker 1: nagging is the chronic ostensive complaint. You're trying to get
Speaker 1: someone to do something, but they're obviously not complying, or
Speaker 1: your nag does work in the short term. It does,
Speaker 1: finally you browbeat someone into finally washing the dishes, but
Speaker 1: it's not a long term solution because by definition, a
Speaker 1: nag is something that you know goes on for ever
Speaker 1: and ever. And I what I thought was so interesting
Speaker 1: about nagging though, and this is so true if you
Speaker 1: think about it, we nagged the people were closest to
Speaker 1: So just think about that the next time your mom
Speaker 1: tells you to clean up after yourself. And there's typically
Speaker 1: a good motivation. You're trying to help a person avoids
Speaker 1: in your mind, you're trying to help a person avoid disaster,
Speaker 1: You're trying to be nurturing or be helpful. Uh, if
Speaker 1: it's you and your partner, maybe you're trying to get
Speaker 1: them back on some safe, happy common ground of like
Speaker 1: you're thinking, oh, well, when we first started living together,
Speaker 1: he did the dishes all the time, and now I
Speaker 1: can barely get him to pick up his shoes off
Speaker 1: the floor. So it's just like, I just want us
Speaker 1: to be happy again, Please do this thing. Um Or
Speaker 1: maybe if you're a parent, you're just trying to get
Speaker 1: your kids to be their best. But the downside of
Speaker 1: all that, no matter how good your intentions are, is
Speaker 1: that everyone hates nagging. This should come as no surprise.
Speaker 1: The person who is nagged ends up feeling guilty because
Speaker 1: chances are they know they should be doing it. Chances
Speaker 1: are my father knows he should be putting away all
Speaker 1: of the mail off the counter and just doesn't do it.
Speaker 1: They end up feeling judged out of control, so like,
Speaker 1: I already know I need to put away all the mail,
Speaker 1: but I just I feel like it's too much to do,
Speaker 1: And they end up feeling unappreciated, like they're not trusted
Speaker 1: or good enough or smart enough to actually do something
Speaker 1: on their own. Well, then the person doing the nagging
Speaker 1: just feels resentful and unheard. So it's lose lose for everybody.
Speaker 1: And if we look at it on a more biological level,
Speaker 1: nagging impacts of people around us negatively as well because
Speaker 1: it sets off fight or flight responses, which then tends
Speaker 1: to result in a demand withdraw pattern within the relationship. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So like if you imagine if you go back to
Speaker 1: the cave mom and the cave baby in the cave
Speaker 1: grocery store. So if you imagine though, that the mom
Speaker 1: the cave mom is nagging at the cave baby, um,
Speaker 1: that is going to set off a fight or flight
Speaker 1: response because they're like nagging about how we've got to
Speaker 1: get away from the saber tooth tiger. And so it's
Speaker 1: a good idea for that fight or flight to kick in.
Speaker 1: But if you're just like a couple sitting around on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday night and you start in about the dishes,
Speaker 1: if your partner's fight or flight kicks in, that's really
Speaker 1: not healthy because then your partner obviously doesn't want to
Speaker 1: physically fight you because you are not a saber tooth tiger.
Speaker 1: So that a lot of times can then spark the
Speaker 1: demand and withdraw your partner will choose to withdraw instead
Speaker 1: of engaging, and they're all sorts of negative mental and
Speaker 1: emotional effects of this will have in addition to the
Speaker 1: ones that we've already outlined, because, for instance, excessive complaining
Speaker 1: is linked with depression and anxiety. One Stanford study found
Speaker 1: that just a half hour of complaining a day does
Speaker 1: not keep the doctor away like an apple, which also
Speaker 1: doesn't keep the doctor away, but just a half hour
Speaker 1: of complaining will release stress hormones that harm our neural
Speaker 1: connections in the brain's problem solving areas. And I, for one,
Speaker 1: can attest to the feeling of those stress hormones being released.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can physically feel what happens if you're
Speaker 1: complaining to a toxic extent. Yeah, exactly, And and I
Speaker 1: you know, just here's Caroline go and proven research again.
Speaker 1: But you know, do you ever feel like you're in
Speaker 1: the thick of a complaint and you literally are so
Speaker 1: wrapped up in it that you can't see a way
Speaker 1: out of the problem. And the person you're talking to
Speaker 1: might be like, like like with my coworker who was
Speaker 1: complaining about his dating woes, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: it's obvious that you could just try this, this or
Speaker 1: this that doesn't seem that complicated, but he's so wrapped
Speaker 1: up in it that he lost sight of there even
Speaker 1: being a problem solving opportunity. Well, and wouldn't that fuel
Speaker 1: this whole cycle of helplessness where you wallow, you feel powerless,
Speaker 1: nothing will help you, And so I mean, it only
Speaker 1: disengages you further for a solution, and then when you're
Speaker 1: inevitably disappointed yet again, it starts a new Yeah. And
Speaker 1: as my therapist frequently says, energy flows where attention goes,
Speaker 1: and so Will Bowen, who's an author of The Complaint
Speaker 1: Free World, says that when we complain, we are using
Speaker 1: our words to focus on things that are not as
Speaker 1: we would like. Our thoughts create our lives, and our
Speaker 1: words indicate what we're thinking. It's vital that we control
Speaker 1: our minds in order to recreate our lives. So changing
Speaker 1: your focus, if you're focusing literally on nothing but the negative,
Speaker 1: it's just going to get you back in that cycle
Speaker 1: of helplessness, that wallowing. Well, one focus of this nagging issue,
Speaker 1: especially in that word nagging, is gender. So it should
Speaker 1: come as no surprise to you, honestly, if you if
Speaker 1: you think about it when I say that men and
Speaker 1: women complain equally, like, that's not surprising, But women are
Speaker 1: naggs Caroline, the nagging wife, right, that is the stereotype.
Speaker 1: And so Christen and I wanted to look into why,
Speaker 1: if men and women statistically complain just as much as
Speaker 1: each other, why do we have this image of women
Speaker 1: being the complainers and men being like the stoic, silent type. Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out, according to research that yes, of course
Speaker 1: we all complain about the same amount, but we complain
Speaker 1: slightly differently. And then, of course, as we'll get into
Speaker 1: the way that we perceive each other's complaints colors the
Speaker 1: whole situation. So there was a two thousand six study
Speaker 1: in Women and Language that found women were more likely
Speaker 1: than men to use complaints as an indirect request for action,
Speaker 1: So like, man, I sure wish the sinc we're clear,
Speaker 1: or god, this floor really is a mess. Passive aggression
Speaker 1: in other words, yeah, while men in this study were
Speaker 1: more likely to use complaints to excuse behavior or to
Speaker 1: make themselves seem superior. So complaining about a situation, well, oh,
Speaker 1: if he's complaining about it, then it's clear that he
Speaker 1: would take action. To fix it or whatever, or that
Speaker 1: superiority distancing yourself motivation that we talked about at the
Speaker 1: top of the podcast. But the thing is our complaining
Speaker 1: can even depend on the audience and whether we want
Speaker 1: to maintain our image and reputation. So this is coming
Speaker 1: out of a study from fourteen in the Journal of
Speaker 1: Consumer Research, which surveyed men and women about a hypothetical
Speaker 1: terrible restaurant experience. It was Caroline at that awful Atlanta restaurant,
Speaker 1: as she later yelped um, and the researchers then asked
Speaker 1: them what they would do if they ran into an
Speaker 1: acquaintance and a really good friend after having this horrible
Speaker 1: dining experience, and there were some gender differences, so women
Speaker 1: who cared more about looking good in the other person's
Speaker 1: eyes were less likely to complain to the acquaintance, not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: but they still told their bff all about it. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: for dudes, didn't matter the relationship, whether it was an
Speaker 1: acquaintance or a best friend. If they cared a lot
Speaker 1: about their reputation or image, they were just going to
Speaker 1: keep quiet to both parties, but if not, they complained
Speaker 1: to both people. So researchers say that men's communication goals
Speaker 1: tend to revolve more around reputation, achievement, and self because hey,
Speaker 1: they don't want to look bad or like they made
Speaker 1: a bad decision. Hey, you should have known not to
Speaker 1: have gone to that horrible restaurant, whereas women's complaint motivations
Speaker 1: revolve more around care and protecting others. So it's like
Speaker 1: your best friend being like, hey, you can't go down
Speaker 1: to that all you can eat buffet because they run
Speaker 1: on a pizza too quick. Don't go. Yeah, And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, there are issues that we could bring up
Speaker 1: of like, oh, is this just falling along those weird
Speaker 1: stereotypical lines of women as nurturer and man as stoic
Speaker 1: like hunter gatherer or whatever. And yes, I'm sure if
Speaker 1: we had the time we could get more deeply into that.
Speaker 1: But for these particular researchers, they did find those correlations.
Speaker 1: And we do tend to complain about different things, at
Speaker 1: least according to a Staples Advantage survey. How about that, Yes,
Speaker 1: I am talking about Staples, the office supply store. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So in this very specific example from the Staples Advantage survey,
Speaker 1: they found it at work, women are more likely than
Speaker 1: men are to complain about working extra hours and feeling
Speaker 1: burned out. They found that men were more likely to
Speaker 1: basically put up and shut up and just deal with it.
Speaker 1: And in another incredibly specific study coming out of the
Speaker 1: Journal of Gerontological Social Work, they looked at nursing homes
Speaker 1: and what people were complaining about. In nursing homes. They
Speaker 1: found that male residents actually lodged more complaints than women,
Speaker 1: which made me think back to our earlier conversation and like, oh,
Speaker 1: are they more confident? Why are they complaining more than women?
Speaker 1: Maybe they're just crankier about the pudding running low. Well,
Speaker 1: if the pudding is technical pudding, then yeah. They found
Speaker 1: that male residents complain more about technical, imper personal and
Speaker 1: legal issues going on at the nursing home, whereas female
Speaker 1: residents were complaining more about personal care and socio emotional
Speaker 1: environmental issues like quality of life. This still sounds like
Speaker 1: it breaks right down gender stereotype exactly. Ladies always be
Speaker 1: so emotional, that care and of about that pin so much. Uh.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. We also clearly tend to perceive
Speaker 1: complaining both ours and other people's complaining differently. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I was wondering if that was the reasoning behind
Speaker 1: why we say that women are the ones who nag
Speaker 1: versus men, and yeah, kind of, and all of the
Speaker 1: reading we did it seemed like it's all in the
Speaker 1: perception of who's talking and how we think about their
Speaker 1: language or their complaint or their requests, sort of like
Speaker 1: it's all in the ear of the beholder. So what
Speaker 1: is nagging? Right, We've talked about nagging. It's making multiple
Speaker 1: requests for an action, and it can come from a
Speaker 1: place of asking for something indirectly, which is more of
Speaker 1: a hallmark of stereotypical women's communication. But the whole thing
Speaker 1: is that this indirect communication can also lead to the
Speaker 1: assumption that it's not urgent. If I'm just like man,
Speaker 1: I'd love it, like, you know, if the floor were swept.
Speaker 1: I'm totally not using an example from a conversation my
Speaker 1: boyfriend and I had last night. There's just gonna be
Speaker 1: this assumption that it doesn't need to be taken care
Speaker 1: of right away, which then might lead hypothetical Caroline to
Speaker 1: feel ignored and unheard. That's only going to trigger me
Speaker 1: complaining about it more, and then I'm going to end
Speaker 1: up being perceived as the nagging woman. But this is
Speaker 1: still just blaming the nagging woman for how she communicates.
Speaker 1: The onus is still on you, right, It's not focused
Speaker 1: on in this situation. When you're just calling someone a
Speaker 1: nag um, there's no focus on actually fixing the situation
Speaker 1: or the communication on either person's parts. And this is
Speaker 1: something that Susan crass Whipborne wrote about in Psychology Today.
Speaker 1: She said that we frame women's indirect requests differently than
Speaker 1: we do when it comes to men. She says, by
Speaker 1: using the derogatory term nag, a man trivializes the woman's
Speaker 1: request and at the same time puts her in her place.
Speaker 1: In other words, it's a double edged power play. It
Speaker 1: saves the man actually having to do anything in response
Speaker 1: to her request until he's good and ready, if at all.
Speaker 1: By resisting her efforts to mold him to her will,
Speaker 1: the man can look as if he's in control when
Speaker 1: he agrees to the request, which everybody in the situation
Speaker 1: just sounds like the worst. I hate it, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be in it. Yeah, And I think it's
Speaker 1: also worth remembering, as we often have to do with
Speaker 1: so many of these relationship psychology topics is that this
Speaker 1: is working within a very heteronormative framework and that obviously
Speaker 1: nagging patterns can take place within any relationship. And it's
Speaker 1: how well to remember that, I think across the board,
Speaker 1: regardless of the gender of the person you're talking about,
Speaker 1: nagging is a trivializing or marginalizing kind of term. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes yes, I mean the nagging pattern is unproductive and unhelpful,
Speaker 1: and it is a nag. But if you write someone
Speaker 1: off as just being a nagg, and it's a person
Speaker 1: you're in a relationship with, then you might need to
Speaker 1: step back and check your own communication skills and what
Speaker 1: you're doing or not doing that might be contributing to it.
Speaker 1: But when we look at that very female gendered nag,
Speaker 1: it has a really scary implications, as noted by Jane
Speaker 1: Mockton Smith in her book Murder, Gender in the Media,
Speaker 1: which is just a perfect page turner for the holiday
Speaker 1: season as it is right now. In the recording this
Speaker 1: podcast um she cites research of Susan Lees who looked
Speaker 1: at a sample of cases in which quote female provocation
Speaker 1: in the form of nagging was used as a nationalization
Speaker 1: for homicide in court because essentially it was the whole
Speaker 1: thing of like, well, the husband killed his wife because
Speaker 1: she was such a nag. She never she she provoked
Speaker 1: him by nagging. Yeah, it's seen as a particularly female
Speaker 1: deviant behavior that can drive men in these cases in
Speaker 1: the court opinions to try to correct women. And there
Speaker 1: was one case, one example she gave where they the
Speaker 1: judge was essentially saying like, listen, I know that your
Speaker 1: wife was clearly an unpleasant person. She was clearly a nag,
Speaker 1: as you said. But also you're still going to jail
Speaker 1: because you killed her. But the fact that it's even
Speaker 1: like it holds water at all is so terrifying because
Speaker 1: everybody complains. Everybody complains, Um, we all have communication difficulties
Speaker 1: sometimes and misunderstanding not mean definitely not definitely not Christian,
Speaker 1: but like especially for feeling powerless or helpless in a situation.
Speaker 1: Uh So that leads us to communicate into directly the
Speaker 1: fact that that coming from women is so dismissed as
Speaker 1: nagging and used as an excuse of like, well, of
Speaker 1: course you should be annoyed. You could kill her, that's fine,
Speaker 1: just kill her, kill the nag. Well I mean that
Speaker 1: that's horrifying. Well, and I mean, And I do wonder
Speaker 1: how often that comes up just in domestic abuse cases especially,
Speaker 1: I mean that word in particular. I bet if you
Speaker 1: start going through case files it comes up over and
Speaker 1: over and yeah, well it's such a chilling The word
Speaker 1: is so chilling, and it's such a hurdle to appropriate
Speaker 1: communication and healthy relationships because, like we were saying, if
Speaker 1: you're just dismissing someone as a nag, if you are nagging,
Speaker 1: or if you're dismissing someone as a nag, then both
Speaker 1: of you need to examine the way that you communicate
Speaker 1: and what you're trying to accomplish. And a more productive
Speaker 1: way to communicate it would be a little something called
Speaker 1: carefrontation love it. Yes, that is a play on confrontation.
Speaker 1: And this is something Lisa Belkin was writing all about
Speaker 1: in one of Caroline's phaves Oh magazine, Oh that's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She was citing research from psychologists Harold A. Straightener, basically saying,
Speaker 1: instead of indirectly communicating your annoyance or your problem or
Speaker 1: your question, to someone, uh, try employing empathy. Try being like, hey,
Speaker 1: I know that this X y Z thing is very
Speaker 1: hard for you, and I really feel like we could
Speaker 1: reach some common ground. Let's work together. For instance, my
Speaker 1: mother for years has complained to my father about the
Speaker 1: state of the basement at the house because my dad
Speaker 1: is a hoarder, true story, and the basement is crazy.
Speaker 1: It's totally insane, and so for years my mother has
Speaker 1: been sort of brating him about it, and finally she
Speaker 1: broke through to him by employing a different tactic, because
Speaker 1: she finally said, Hey, it's kind of crazy down there,
Speaker 1: and I know that you probably go down there and
Speaker 1: don't even like to spend time down there because it's
Speaker 1: so overwhelming. And I'm sure the idea of even starting
Speaker 1: to clean seems overwhelming because where would you even start.
Speaker 1: And so I just want to let you know I'm here,
Speaker 1: like whenever you want to tackle this, like, let's do
Speaker 1: it together. And I'd like to say that they rode
Speaker 1: off into the clean basement sunset, that they did not um.
Speaker 1: But that's the whole idea behind care frontation, that you're
Speaker 1: removing the shaming and blaming from your complaint and employing
Speaker 1: empathy instead. And I guess, regardless of the side of
Speaker 1: the nagging equation you might be on, awareness is important.
Speaker 1: Paying attention to what's coming out of your mouth and
Speaker 1: how people react to you approa trip. If you're someone
Speaker 1: like me who is a granular complainer as the needs
Speaker 1: to get down to the granular details, and you notice
Speaker 1: the person you're talking to his eyes start to glaze
Speaker 1: over on like minute, you might be over the line.
Speaker 1: You might be going into unnecessary detail that that guy
Speaker 1: of awareness can be really helpful. I've been there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've been there in front of me. Five No, I've
Speaker 1: definitely been been in that that chair of like I
Speaker 1: just have to analyze everything about why this is the worst.
Speaker 1: And the thing is if you get together with someone,
Speaker 1: like if you and I are complaining about something a
Speaker 1: situation that we're in together, or like when I was
Speaker 1: with living with dude roommate and we were working together
Speaker 1: at the same time at my old company, and we
Speaker 1: would be complaining about a coworker or a policy or
Speaker 1: like the day that was so bad. Like there's no
Speaker 1: breaks on the situation because you're both in it and
Speaker 1: you're both just it's so satisfying to root out every
Speaker 1: granular detail of how annoying that person was or that
Speaker 1: event was. Um. But if you are literally just telling
Speaker 1: a friend who's outside of the situation. I was yelled
Speaker 1: at and I appreciated it. My friend Miranda, Um this
Speaker 1: was years ago, and I worked at the newspaper and
Speaker 1: we would go out and we would complain about working
Speaker 1: at the newspaper after work, and finally Miranda looked at
Speaker 1: all of specifically me, and was like, enough enough enough.
Speaker 1: You're either going to quit your job or you're gonna
Speaker 1: figure out how to deal with it. But I cannot
Speaker 1: listen to this anymore. So anyhow, that was appreciated. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think what uh if in in her yelling
Speaker 1: with some love uh And I think what she would
Speaker 1: have said also would be that we should be mindful
Speaker 1: and intentional. We talked about this with those confident complainers earlier.
Speaker 1: It's really about recognizing that it's up to you to
Speaker 1: control your own behavior and your own perception of events
Speaker 1: in the world around you. You can choose to engage
Speaker 1: in activities that make you feel good, that are rewarding.
Speaker 1: You can choose to say, hey, I get to pick
Speaker 1: my kids up from carpool today, not I have to
Speaker 1: pick my kids up from carpool. I hate that I
Speaker 1: have to get my children back, or in minding Caroline's cases,
Speaker 1: we'd be like, why are we picking up kids from carpool?
Speaker 1: We don't have children? What is happening? And get to
Speaker 1: pick up chill Aldren. This is weird. I'm not complaining,
Speaker 1: I'm just scared. But if you're on the receiving end
Speaker 1: of complaints, if you are Miranda, if you're the Miranda
Speaker 1: of the group sex in the city terms, or if
Speaker 1: it is your partner who's complaining. My my fiance is
Speaker 1: just endlessly patient with my granular complaining. There are things
Speaker 1: that you can do that can help direct more productive complaints,
Speaker 1: such as expressing sympathy and also pointing out patterns I
Speaker 1: as a complainer, yes, have found it very helpful when
Speaker 1: the complainee has been able to say, hey, you know
Speaker 1: what you were talking about this X time ago, or
Speaker 1: you've been saying this. I've heard you say this, not
Speaker 1: a judgmental way, but just say this sounds very familiar.
Speaker 1: I've heard you say this many times. Because I think
Speaker 1: when we're complaining, when we get so caught up in it,
Speaker 1: we don't even realize, oh, we're talking about the same
Speaker 1: thing over and over and over again, which is a
Speaker 1: massive red that we need to make some changes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a Wall Street Journal article that even talked
Speaker 1: about how there are therapists who now employ this tactic
Speaker 1: of basically telling you to get over it, which can
Speaker 1: be horrifying if it's like an actual deep rooted problem
Speaker 1: that you need to fix. But it's not so much like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's not talk about the abuse you suffered as a child,
Speaker 1: stop being ridiculous. It's more like when you literally can't
Speaker 1: stop talking about the same thing, and you talk about
Speaker 1: the same thing over and over and over again, that
Speaker 1: more and more people are going to therapy requesting this
Speaker 1: sort of tough love approach of your therapist, being like
Speaker 1: you've literally talked about going to the grocery store every
Speaker 1: single time you've come to see me. Enough about it,
Speaker 1: all right, the savor tooth tiger, it does not exist.
Speaker 1: And that reading about that kind of therapy, Oh, it
Speaker 1: made me so nervous. I couldn't imagine that I could.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not for me. No, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's for me either. I think what is for
Speaker 1: me is what you were saying in terms of helpfully
Speaker 1: pointing out like I've heard you talk about this one
Speaker 1: on saying a lot, and so like, what's really going on?
Speaker 1: What's behind that? Well? An accountability is important because while
Speaker 1: not being allowed to complain whatsoever does sound very harsh
Speaker 1: to my ears, accountability is crucial because it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you're coming to me complaining about the exact same
Speaker 1: thing over and over and over again, what are you
Speaker 1: going to do about that? And you need to be able,
Speaker 1: especially if you are the complainer. You need to be
Speaker 1: able to accept that accountability. Yeah, And I mean once
Speaker 1: you do it, it does instill a sense of control. Finally,
Speaker 1: you feel less powerless when you finally sit down and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tackle this, I'm going to handle this
Speaker 1: um because so much of that chronic complaining, like we
Speaker 1: talked about, comes from that sense of powerlessness. I literally
Speaker 1: don't know what to do except complain about it. And
Speaker 1: maybe if your friend is complaining to you can help
Speaker 1: them think of alternatives, like have you thought about keeping
Speaker 1: a journal and writing the stuff down? If you thought
Speaker 1: about maybe going for a run every day to help
Speaker 1: alleviate that stress. And also, like my friend's husband did
Speaker 1: set a time limit, be like, hey, I hear that
Speaker 1: you're going down this road and I hate it for you,
Speaker 1: and it sounds so awful what you're going through. But
Speaker 1: like you get, you get fifteen minutes, which also sounds
Speaker 1: really productive. I mean I would take fifteen minutes or
Speaker 1: a glass of wine. Hello, just like free complaint zone.
Speaker 1: I might have to pass that along to my fiance. Yea,
Speaker 1: set the timer, set your little kitchen timer. But you
Speaker 1: can also give positive reinforcement and help redirect the conversation
Speaker 1: as the friend. You know, encourage your friend to tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me what it is you love about your mother,
Speaker 1: or about your job, or about I was going to
Speaker 1: say traffic, but well you could even say, well, hey,
Speaker 1: I get to listen to podcasts. I was about to
Speaker 1: say the same thing. That's a positive thing about traffic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I over the holidays, all the driving that I
Speaker 1: have to do back and forth, do parents house I
Speaker 1: catch up on the pods or should I say my casts?
Speaker 1: I don't know what the kids call it these days,
Speaker 1: we make them, we should know, but we don't. We
Speaker 1: don't really don't help us listen to hers. But seriously,
Speaker 1: being mindful like this is so hard, Caroline and I
Speaker 1: know this well. It is a daily and sometimes minute
Speaker 1: by minute practice. So listeners were really curious to hear
Speaker 1: your insights, tips and experiences on this. What do you
Speaker 1: do to manage you're complaining or what do you do
Speaker 1: to manage your partner or friends complaining? Mom? Stuff at
Speaker 1: house Stuff works dot com is where you can send
Speaker 1: your emails, and we've got a couple of those who
Speaker 1: share with you right now. So I have a letter
Speaker 1: here from c and I'm I'm assuming she might just
Speaker 1: want to remain seat because she's writing about our Crisco
Speaker 1: episode see Rights. And by the way, this sea is
Speaker 1: neither see nor Sea of Christen and Caroline Differency writing
Speaker 1: about loub It's fine Differency Rights. I'm still listening to
Speaker 1: the latest podcast about lub, but had to jump right
Speaker 1: on my email with a story I thought you'd find funny.
Speaker 1: I'm American but live in Northern Europe, and a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, an American friend and I were trying
Speaker 1: to make old fashioned, homemade American biscuits from her grandmother's recipe.
Speaker 1: It's often difficult to find products we know well here,
Speaker 1: like Libby's pumpkin pie, Graham crackers, or chocolate chips. These
Speaker 1: biscuits called for Crisco, which is so impossible to find here.
Speaker 1: My friend had her family sent her a care package
Speaker 1: full of Crisco sticks. A few months ago, I happen
Speaker 1: to be searching for some eco friendly lube on an
Speaker 1: adult website locally and was absolutely shocked to find those
Speaker 1: big tubs of Chrisco advertised as lube. Checking a few
Speaker 1: other local places confirmed Chrisco is available, but only insect
Speaker 1: shops in Northern Europe. And they don't even change the packaging.
Speaker 1: It's the blue can with the picture of pie on it. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love that so much. I just thought it was
Speaker 1: funny that you mentioned this. It was a huge culture
Speaker 1: shock to me, and I thought you might like to
Speaker 1: note the practice is apparently alive and well here in
Speaker 1: Northern Europe. Keep up the great work you make us
Speaker 1: all more informed and entertained about our world. Oh my goodness, DIFFERENCYE,
Speaker 1: this is just a fantastic story. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for sharing. I have a letter here from Samantha about
Speaker 1: her hashtag blessed episode, which she said was really on point.
Speaker 1: So Samantha writes, I've seen a lot of my Facebook
Speaker 1: friends posting about how hashtag blessed they are to have
Speaker 1: great office views of Manhattan, or the first red cup
Speaker 1: Starbucks of the season, or whatever. But I'm emailing because
Speaker 1: I want to tell you about a more bizarre, humble
Speaker 1: brag I've encountered on the Internet. After the birth of
Speaker 1: my daughter, I spent way too much time on the
Speaker 1: Baby Center birthboards. If you don't know, the birthboards are
Speaker 1: for people who are having or have had babe these
Speaker 1: in the same month or year. Once our babies were
Speaker 1: all born, the boards started to fill with posts about
Speaker 1: how these new moms haven't brushed their hair, how to
Speaker 1: shower in days, or slept more than an hour, but
Speaker 1: we're loving every minute of it. It was very strange
Speaker 1: to me, like a which mom can sacrifice herself the
Speaker 1: most and therefore be the best mother competition. Very few
Speaker 1: people bragged or even just talked about doing laundry or dishes,
Speaker 1: or god forbid, leaving the baby for more than five
Speaker 1: minutes to do just about anything other than stare at
Speaker 1: the baby. I'm sure there's a class component to this.
Speaker 1: I don't think many single moms are working class moms
Speaker 1: feel very hashtag blessed if they have to go back
Speaker 1: to work only a few weeks after postpartum or struggling
Speaker 1: on one income. Most people don't have the resources to
Speaker 1: be able to take the time to just lie around
Speaker 1: in breastfeed all day. It all reminds me of something
Speaker 1: I've read, I think in Jessica Valenti's Why Have Kids,
Speaker 1: about how motivated and intelligent women who leave or forced
Speaker 1: out of the workforce when they have kids throw themselves
Speaker 1: entirely into motherhood. I guess if you can't humble brag
Speaker 1: about your promotion, you can do it about your dedication
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