Air Date: 7/26/21
The Upgrade by Lifehacker How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes, With MelindaWenner Moyer
Jordan
Hey, and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcastfrom the team at Lifehacker,where we help you improve your life one week at atime. I'm Jordan Calhoun, editor inchief of Lifehacker.
Meghan
And I'm Meghan Walbert, Lifehacker's managingeditor.
Jordan
And this week we're talking about some toughparenting questions, specificallyhow to raise kids who aren't assholes.
Meghan
Yeah, we really are. And we're going to tryto answer the questions that seemunanswerable, and we're going to do that with sciencejournalist Melinda Wenner Moyer.
Melinda Wenner Moyer
Most parents are worried abouttheir kids being bullied, but theynever, ever think that their kids are going to bully.And there's really interesting research,too, that suggests that actually the parents of kidswho bully are the least likely to think thattheir kids bully. So that's a real problem.
Jordan
Melinda's an award winning journalist who writesabout science, parenting andmedicine, and she's a contributing editor at ScientificAmerican, The New York Times, TheWashington Post and several other national outlets.
Meghan
She's also a faculty member at NYU, ArthurL. Carter Journalism Institute, andshe just published her first book, How to Raise KidsWho Aren't Assholes, which is full of science backed strategies for raising kids of allages to hopefully not turn out to beassholes.
Jordan
So my question here for you, Meghan, our formerparenting editor, is do you thinkparents know when their kids are assholes?
Meghan
Kids are assholes a lot is the problem.
Jordan
Right, right.
Meghan
And and, you know, I think what's tough asyou you start off with them...Well,they're not assholes when they're babies. But by thetime they're toddlers. Yeah, prettysure they get there real quick and they kind of keepit going. You know, it's like everydifferent phase that they go through, you know, kidsare great in lots of ways, but they canalso be very self-centered, which is just a normaldevelopmental thing. They can, youknow, sort of play around with being disrespectful,pushing boundaries. And they'reteenagers and they don't want anything to do withyou. So, yeah, it's kind of hard to it'skind of hard to see into the future sometimes andask yourself, you know, what is normal?
Jordan
Yeah.
Meghan
What is part of the learning process of becominga person, and what is anindication that my kid is going to grow up to be anasshole?
Jordan
Right.1
Air Date: 7/26/21
Meghan
It's a tough one.
Jordan
Right. Yeah, exactly.
Meghan
And Jordan, I'm curious what your thoughtsare on this, because, you know, asyou know, some of us at Lifehacker know you have beenthrust into the temporaryparenting role of your teenage nephews. And that'sit's kind of been a joy for me to seeparenting through your fresh eyes. And so I'm wonderingfrom you, like, what hassurprised you about this experience?
Jordan
Man, OK, so what surprised me, aside from thesmall parenting things about, youknow, just how much time it takes to do their laundryand how much time it takes to feedthem when it comes to them in interpersonal relationships,how they treat each other, howI see them treating other kids while they're hereat basketball camp is how often they canteeter back and forth between being the sweetest,most respectful kids that I've ever seenand then suddenly being assholes and not realizingit. Like I feel like there's so many waysthat they'll treat each other or ways that they'lltreat their friends, that I really don't thinkthat they even realize that they're being jerks. Andthen the question that I have to askmyself to your point is like, how often do I interveneand sort of stop the scene right thereand say, like, "oh, this isn't cool for X, Y or Zreasons," or just let it go because they're, youknow, young teenagers and they're just learning howto navigate relationships andpeople's reactions to these type of situations willnaturally teach them on their own? Right.Like, how much do I need to intervene on certain teachingthem certain basicconsequences that will happen if they say or do certainthings versus me explaining that tothem and trying to keep them from those scenarios?
Meghan
See, that's the that's the age old, pick yourbattles, right?
Jordan
Yeah.
Meghan
It's just figuring out which battle to pick—.
Jordan
Yeah.
Meghan
—Is, the problematic part.
Jordan
Yeah. Yeah. And I think so far I've been leaningtowards fighting a lot of thosebattles, which is exhausting.
Meghan
I was going to say it's just because you'renot tired enough yet.
Jordan
Yeah.
Meghan
You'll get there, you'll get there.
Jordan
I'm getting there pretty quick. It's been afew weeks and I already noticed myself like hearing certain things or seeing certain thingsand being like, "All right, if it happensagain, then I'll say something."
Meghan
Right. One more time. That's going to be it.2
Air Date: 7/26/21
Jordan
Exactly. Well, I think Melinda will be able to help us with all of this. So let's diveinto that interview.
Meghan
Absolutely.
Jordan
Melinda, thanks for joining us on the upgrade,glad to have you.
Melinda Wenner Moyer
Thank you so much for havingme. I'm excited to be here.
Jordan
All right, so for context, I am not a parent,but I have two nephews who are 14years old who are staying with me for the summer.So I have like temporary parentingexperience. Meghan is a parent. I want to start withsome broader context for the book.Great title. How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes.What's an asshole? I like, I feel likewe need to operationalize that for listeners. Right.So like, what's your definition of anasshole? And is that different for adults than children?
Melinda Wenner Moyer
Yes, that's a really good question.So, yeah, as I was conceivingof the book, I actually came up with the title beforeI really thought about what was going tobe in it. I tried to like list out what are the whatare the characteristics of assholes. And Iwas thinking like mainly of adults. So the the titleis How to Raise Kids Who Aren't Assholes, but it's really how to raise kids who don'tgrow up to be assholes, because I feellike kids are like kids are often assholes and likethey have to make mistakes in order tolearn from them. They they have to learn the culturalnorms of what's polite. Like they don'tthey don't know. So they're going to they're goingto be assholes sometimes. So I, I madea list of like what I thought were the key aspectsof asshole. And then in order to then likedig into the research to find what do we know aboutparenting approaches that shapethese traits. And so so the first one that came tomind was like selfishness was really like abig core part, like. So then I looked into, you know,how to, how do we raise kids whoaren't selfish, who are generous and helpful? Thatseemed like a really core thing. Bullyinglike how bullying seems like an aspect of asshole-eryfor both adults and for kids. So I waslooking into also like what do we know about whatshapes, what makes kids bully? I alsolike I realized I felt like laziness and whiny-nesswas kind of like a component, too. And soI looked into like, how do we raise kids who are resilientand motivated and stuff? Whatelse? Oh, well, racism, sexism. Those are anothertwo really big ones where I was like, Iwant to know what the research says on on raisingkids who aren't racist aren't sexist. Soit's like kind of all over the place. I guess I don'thave like a singular definition, but I saw itas like this umbrella term that comprised all of thesespecific, different specificcharacteristics that were bad.
Jordan
Assholes are multifaceted people.
Melinda Wenner Moyer
They are there's a lot of thingsthat can make somebody anasshole. Yeah.
Meghan
You know, you started with selfishness. AndI want to kind of dig into that a littlebit because, you know, when I think of kids, I thinkof when they're really very little toddler age, you know, they really do kind of think that theworld revolves around them. I mean,that's really actually sort of their worldview. Butthen as they get a little older, you know,you think they're going to reach a point where, youknow, they're they're developing moreempathy. They're understanding that people other thanthem have feelings andexperiences and memories of their own. But it doesn'tseem like it happens as fast as it3