Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard XX
[0] Hi.
[1] We have one of your idols on today.
[2] My very faves.
[3] One of the people that I think is just an exemplary person living on the planet.
[4] And, you know, does not come without controversy.
[5] Sure.
[6] But every person does.
[7] And I think just, you know, she has lived a life that is crazy.
[8] She was a journalist covering human rights.
[9] She saw the world from that perspective for so long.
[10] that when she got into politics, I just felt every time I was tracking her reading about her, she just had such a level head about dignity.
[11] And her name is Samantha Power.
[12] And I just love her like crazy.
[13] And she's currently the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development under the Biden administration and was the United States ambassador to the United Nations under Obama.
[14] And she was with President Obama from.
[15] the inception of his run for president.
[16] Yeah, and this is neither here nor there.
[17] This is a just weird ding, ding, ding.
[18] Her husband, Cass, co -wrote Danny Kahneman's most recent book.
[19] Really?
[20] Noise.
[21] Yes.
[22] And it was so bizarre.
[23] It was so weird because we interviewed her, and then the next day Danny Kahneman's team reached out to us for armchair and I saw the book and I was like, whoa, that is too simulationy.
[24] It's very simulation.
[25] I mean, they write books.
[26] That couple.
[27] Oh, she's a, speaking of a Pulitzer Prize winner.
[28] Yeah.
[29] That's actually how I discovered her because I read her book, a problem from hell, probably, I don't know, 15 years ago when I was studying and researching and trying to figure out all of these wars that were happening everywhere where sort of America was getting involved and what's right and what's wrong.
[30] And I was specifically concerned with the child soldiers in Uganda, but she had a really amazing perspective on that, but she wrote this really dense book called A Problem From Hell.
[31] And she's just so thorough and so thoughtful.
[32] And then she also just, in the midst of all this, became a mom a few times over and hid her pregnancy when she was first working in the White House because she was like, I don't want them to think I can't do my job because I can do my job.
[33] And so she was just wearing like really big shirts and running to the bathroom all the time.
[34] Yeah.
[35] What I really like about the show that we're doing is we are trying to show women in different lines of work in different areas and trying to cover all of that spectrum.
[36] And the political one is so specific and so male driven often.
[37] And so it was really, really, really cool to hear this powerful woman who's among all these men all the time has to find.
[38] find a way to make her voice heard.
[39] And I just, I really enjoyed hearing how she did that.
[40] And never has a victim's attitude about it.
[41] Because she's definitely like in her new book and education of an idealist, which I loved reading, because it's very much, you know, sort of an autobiography, she's got such an idealistic point of view.
[42] And she talks about how she was sort of schooled about what has to happen and how you have to compromise and what can you give up, but in it she goes into a lot of situations where, you know, she's three minutes late for a meeting in the White House, but to walk into a meeting where the president and, you know, 10 heads of state are waiting for you.
[43] To walk in three minutes late is excruciating.
[44] You might as well walk in completely nude.
[45] Yeah.
[46] And she just talks about that with such levity.
[47] She's just a real human being that you hear speak when she writes, and I couldn't love her more.
[48] And I'm glad that you brought her to the table and it was such a fun conversation.
[49] So please enjoy Samantha Power.
[50] We are supported by Wondrium.
[51] I find that I'm endlessly curious.
[52] Yet, if the television comes on, I will watch something mindless.
[53] Absolutely.
[54] I'll watch, you know, three hours of a reality show that I didn't need to have in my life.
[55] And then I'll feel like, man, I could have been educating myself.
[56] And Wondrium gives that to you.
[57] There's curiosity at your fingertips, video learning experiences, audio learning experiences, going so much further than what you'd find searching on the web.
[58] There was one called the Brain -based Guide to Communicating Better.
[59] So good.
[60] So good.
[61] For your personal and professional life, communication is key for everything.
[62] And there were like lessons and practical strategies.
[63] And it was just really, really cool.
[64] And they have documentaries, tutorials, and a ton of collections.
[65] It's really, really great.
[66] If your curiosity has ever been piqued about anything, you will love Wondrium.
[67] OneDream is the best.
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[73] That's W -O -N -D -R -I -U -M -com slash glass.
[74] Okay.
[75] Well, wait, first of all, which is more difficult?
[76] Setting a podcast equipment or asking the world to acknowledge genocides?
[77] Be honest.
[78] Be honest.
[79] Well, asking is easy.
[80] It's succeeding in getting them to do anything that's harder.
[81] How are you guys?
[82] How's it going for you with this?
[83] Well, we hate to be happy, but we are, you know.
[84] You can't be happy.
[85] You cannot be happy now.
[86] Well, because we're talking to people that we have an undying amount of respect for, and you were at the very top of my list and I've admired you for so long and read even some of your really dense stuff because you can write dense, girl.
[87] That's no joke.
[88] A problem from hell was not a light book.
[89] Yeah, that was when you outed yourself as being more nerd than glam.
[90] That's fine with me. Look, in preparing for this, searching on the internet and seeing that people have Samantha Power fan club t -shirts and then coming to the realization that they're not sold they were made and that I can't get one was something that did not make me happy I was like well obviously I need one I'm going to wear it to the interview couldn't find it and then I just felt an immediate my competitive glory kicked in and I was like who does this girl in the t -shirt think she is oh I'm the president of the Samantha Power fan club we can all be Okay, you're right.
[91] You're right.
[92] Kristen Bell.
[93] That's what we're working out here.
[94] And also, Kristen is going to put an Etsy store up because all she's been doing over quarantine is crafting and gel nails.
[95] So she's going to do a store.
[96] We keep talking about my A -list crafting to keep me busy.
[97] I've knitted a sweater and a half.
[98] I'm like to make clay figurines of all my family.
[99] So there's just like mish -mosh -faced clay figurines everywhere.
[100] And I figure, why not an Etsy store?
[101] And you can do Samantha Power T -shirts.
[102] Hold on one of them.
[103] Oh, no. And the text I get, Finley pooped in Rian's room when I open the phone.
[104] Finley is not a child.
[105] That's a mother's text.
[106] Finley is a dog.
[107] Well, yeah, we should say this interview is happening in February.
[108] Okay.
[109] But it will come out later in the year.
[110] And so at that point, you will be in the job.
[111] Yes.
[112] Of, of.
[113] Of.
[114] U .S .A. Administrator or administrator of the agency for international development.
[115] When Kristen was saying, you know, we get to sit here and we get to talk to people that were incredibly taken by, don't you feel fraudulent?
[116] A hundred percent.
[117] We feel so fraudulent.
[118] And I wondered what your experience was, do you feel that, Samantha?
[119] Like, do you feel fraudulent in these spaces?
[120] Because you're in this insane arena.
[121] Like when we come at you with the Sam Power fan club stuff, do you feel as fraudulent as I feel?
[122] Because mine, I think mine goes deeper because I'm like even saying someone else's words.
[123] Like, I can't take credit for the good place.
[124] But do you find that at all?
[125] I mean, the short answer is yes, but it's complicated, partly because of the things that I tried to do that didn't pan out that are much more salient in my memory.
[126] It's partly because virtually on any issue where I've even made modest inroads, it's what you were just saying about the good place.
[127] There's some team of people that you're working with where when I was UN ambassador, I was the person out in front.
[128] But then I had all my sanctions nerds or my humanitarian experts or my climate law people.
[129] And yet I'm the bright, shiny object.
[130] So absolutely feel, I don't know what the right word is, not sort of chastened, I suppose, and just a little bit like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's move on.
[131] Let's talk about something else.
[132] In how much I feel like I've exposed myself to your life and your work, I feel like you've set such a tone and an example for me as to how to give credit to other people.
[133] Because one thing I love about when I read your writing is you take such time and loving tone when you describe the people that you work with.
[134] And I'm not talking about colleagues that are peers.
[135] I'm talking about like there's a chapter in education of an idealist when you talk about having gotten a new position and how much Maria, the nanny you hired for your family to watch after, how much she did, the kudos that you give to the people that you work alongside, not just in compliments, but in they are literally the wind beneath my wings.
[136] I couldn't be here.
[137] It's just honorable from my perspective of, oh yeah, this is a woman who recognizes it's not just her.
[138] There is an entire support system here and not only recognizes it, but you take the time to put that information out there?
[139] Well, when I chose to write about my life, I think the way I rationalized doing so because it felt a little bit self -indulgent, it's one thing to write a book about what we should do about, you know, sexual trafficking or about climate change.
[140] It's another thing to write a book about oneself when those problems are out there in the world.
[141] And part of my logic was I'd had this experience of being an activist and being before that a reporter on the outside looking in and thinking I had a pretty decent understanding of how things worked in the U .S. government.
[142] And then I got in there and I started to see this tapestry of humanity, right, both in terms of where people were from, where their parents had immigrated from, religion, race, gender, just the range of backgrounds and people that I was coming in contact with.
[143] And I on the outside would have tended to focus on sort of the Secretary of State or the President or the National Security Advisor.
[144] Then I get inside, I'm looking under the hood and I say, oh, my goodness, gracious.
[145] It's so much more interesting and rich than that.
[146] And it's a scrum at virtually every level of government.
[147] And who are these people, you know, who aren't interviewed by the press, aren't profiled in Vogue or any place?
[148] else, and yet they're the lifeblood of the system.
[149] So the idea was open it up and tell a story about that, and I want people who read to not just see themselves and ask themselves, oh, maybe one day I can be UN ambassador, but there's so many ways to make a difference.
[150] That was an objective was to show, look at all these different ways of making different.
[151] Separately, though, describing Maria, who was our nanny, was, I suppose, motivated by something else, a what's factual, and true, which is there's no way in hell.
[152] I would have been able to do anything without her so that was an imperative to tell that story, but also to show that it isn't easy and to show the privilege that I had to be able to hire somebody like that, both to have the resources to do so, which so many working women don't have or working parents don't have.
[153] So I just felt like, let me own this.
[154] Like, I am lucky.
[155] Not everybody gets to do this.
[156] And even with Maria, who is a magical human, and for it to still be me barely hanging on, barely hanging on.
[157] Having the conversation with John Kerry about Russia sanctions and having Declan, my son at the time, still my son, my son at the time, six or six or seven at me trying to get my attention and, you know, being on with Carrie and trying to shoe him away as we all working parents have the experience of doing and having him trying and trying again.
[158] And finally him stomping off and saying Putin, Putin, Putin, Putin, when is it going to be Declan, Declan, Declan, Declan, Declan, and that's my version of it.
[159] But every working parent has a version of that story, right?
[160] And that's when I have a Maria, and that's with all the blessings and privileges that I've had.
[161] And so I wanted to open it up rather than, like, sometimes I feel like it's so stylized, you know.
[162] Yeah.
[163] Me and my children and my work -life balance, you know, everything is going so swimmingly.
[164] Yeah, it's a charade often.
[165] Well, I also know that you said that obviously you're telling people to lean in, but also to lean on.
[166] And I think that's so important because there is this ideal that like women have to do it all.
[167] They have to be the mom and they have to also work and they have to do this and they have to be loving and nurturing and also disciplinarian and also like they have to be all the things.
[168] And I think it's really good to say like, no, rely on your village, rely on the people around you because they bring you up.
[169] And I also wanted to give you, Kristen.
[170] I mean, maybe you learned it from Sam, but...
[171] Probably.
[172] I mean, maybe it's a fisherman seeing another fisherman at sea.
[173] But you are the epitome of that.
[174] I would not be sitting here if you hadn't done that for me. All you do is bring people up and acknowledge them and give credit.
[175] And you should take...
[176] Well, you know, I will say...
[177] I'll only compliment I'll give you for the week.
[178] Copy that?
[179] I will say also, I was downwind of Mike Scher, the creator of the good place for many, many years.
[180] and he just reeks of lifting people up.
[181] I was going to ask you if someone modeled that for you.
[182] Yeah, that's beautiful.
[183] Oh, he stinks of it.
[184] He is the best boss I've ever had.
[185] I was desperate to figure him out, like, what is it?
[186] What's his special magic?
[187] What's the recipe?
[188] And number one, it's that he's just kind and respectful.
[189] But also he goes out of his way to uplift people in a very practical and tangible way, like he will see our prop master, who is exquisitely talented, and he'll say, the next time I'd like you to be the production designer.
[190] But it was the specific desire he had to isolate people's talents and then just see how he could water that seed.
[191] And it doesn't make sense in my brain to not do that.
[192] And you were so apparent in the beginning when I met you just as I was like an acquaintance.
[193] And I was like, oh, this girl's going to do great.
[194] She's going to be my boss very soon.
[195] And And lo and behold, here we are.
[196] But I do think in a female space that can be hard to do.
[197] I think there's a lot of feelings of this can go into race as well.
[198] But like, you know, there's only one slot or there's only two slots.
[199] And I got one.
[200] So I got to hoard it for myself.
[201] That's natural to feel that way.
[202] I mean, we have to combat it.
[203] But I think it, I don't know if it's natural or if it's societal.
[204] And that there's only been one place at the table and it's been looked up as a gift.
[205] We need to fight it for sure.
[206] And not fight each other.
[207] Did you have a group of women who you felt like you could lean on, like professional or personal?
[208] So in my early 20s, I was in a pack of female war correspondents and they were all like me, but by and large freelancers who would have been prone to not be that welcoming because in the freelance environment, you know, you get strings, you get a string that connects you with a publication with a magazine or a TV station or a newspaper.
[209] And so if you're seeking to acquire lots of strings so you can make piecemeal enough to get by on, it's not in your interest for some other correspondent male or female to show up.
[210] And yet, when I arrived, all the men were like, no, there are no, there are no strings available.
[211] We got it covered.
[212] And this woman who was Time Magazine's freelancer, Laura Pitter, said to me, just don't listen to those assholes.
[213] Of course there's work.
[214] Come, and come, and she wrote her number on a coaster, you know, which I tucked into like some book I was reading.
[215] And then I was back in America and I was thinking, just been to the Balkans that one time.
[216] Should I go back?
[217] And I have her little, I remember it was a comp you serve email address that she had.
[218] You know, it was like the first internet where you had to plug your computer into the wall.
[219] And I thought, will I email her?
[220] Will I call her?
[221] Should she write her those guys?
[222] Is that what it's going to be like?
[223] And I trusted her and I went and I stayed in her apartment and she taught me how to write a lead and do a radio and NPR radio spot.
[224] She kind of educated me. And then the circle expanded of just more and more female corresponds like this.
[225] And they were all in my wedding.
[226] They're my best friends.
[227] To this day, we have, you know, one of those message chats.
[228] You know, we're posting the latest outrage on this or that or the latest book we've read that we recommend to everybody.
[229] So that was just a kind of network that grew up and really defied, I think, journalism's reputation and maybe some of the reputation.
[230] that some women have for kicking the chair away once they've achieved something for themselves.
[231] That was not my experience.
[232] Then when I got to the White House, I was not conscious initially of being a woman in the workplace.
[233] Weirdly, I was pregnant.
[234] Then I was initially the mother of a newborn.
[235] I was new to government.
[236] So how do you get a decision out of the president on something that matters and is urgent?
[237] I had to learn that as well as I was the human rights advisor, which is likened to being the skunk at the, lawn party because there are a lot of trends and tendencies in American foreign policy that cut against human rights.
[238] So initially I thought, number one, I'm bad at my job, which is terrible because there are people outside counting on me. And number two, I'm bad because I'm new and I suck.
[239] And that's it.
[240] And I've just got to get better.
[241] And it's all about me. And it was only when a female colleague of mine named Liz Sherwood Randall, who's now President Biden's Homeland Security Advisor you're in a huge job at the White House.
[242] Yeah.
[243] She said, ladies, there are only six of us out of 26 senior national security staff.
[244] We're meeting in my office on Wednesday night.
[245] We're going to have one glass of wine.
[246] And bear in mind that the NSC offices at the White House, if you work on national security because of all the intelligence, you work inside a safe.
[247] So you literally have to turn one of those dials like in a heist movie and you walk into that safe.
[248] And so something there's a bottle of wine in the middle of this safe.
[249] And these five other women I've kind of we work on different issues, and so they seemed to totally have their acts together.
[250] They had none of these thought bubbles, it seemed to me, from the outside that I was having of why am I so bad of this?
[251] Why am I not getting things done?
[252] Then we sat down and one after the other told stories just like mine.
[253] And then I realized, wait a minute.
[254] There's something else going on here.
[255] I mean, everybody who was there working for Obama at that time was a progressive in their orientation and probably would have self -identified man and woman alike as a feminist.
[256] But it didn't matter.
[257] There just were these ways in which a woman's comments weren't elevated or taken as seriously.
[258] It felt like at least that was the other women's impression and certainly was the impression of my own contributions or my own inability to get things done.
[259] So once we had just that one glass of wine in that venting session and I heard, I was like, okay, wait, she works on nonproliferation and she works on counterterrorism.
[260] And they're having the same experience I am.
[261] So it's not because it's human rights.
[262] There's some other dynamics here.
[263] And numbers matter, right?
[264] You go from being the only woman in a room to being a majority and how just things change in such subtle and essential ways without you even noticing.
[265] But it was that experience.
[266] And Liz convened this group then every week any one of us was in town.
[267] It was called the Wednesday group.
[268] And it was on our calendar.
[269] It was like a permanent thing.
[270] It totally changed the way we thought about ourselves and our own abilities.
[271] And it changed the way we interacted with one another.
[272] If one of us was in a meeting, even if we were disagreeing, Liz and I disagreed fervently on a couple issues, we would say, you know, let's come back to Liz's point.
[273] I'm not sure we've engaged fully.
[274] And just make sure that the dignity and the agency of the individual was respected and elevated.
[275] And that was an intentionality and a self -consciousness.
[276] I had never had before now running a large agency.
[277] I'm thinking about it every day.
[278] How do I make the workforce feel that.
[279] And not just on gender and not just other people who have long been marginalized or not been present in big numbers, but diverse viewpoints too, right?
[280] People who are bringing contrarian perspectives.
[281] That may be valuable.
[282] You know, because you have to be efficient.
[283] You have to get decisions.
[284] You can't have long, lyrical debates about everything at all times.
[285] And you got to keep your GSD up high.
[286] You got to keep your GSD quotient at the right level.
[287] But at the same time, that feeling that people can have of being attached to something that's inclusive, big priority and a huge opportunity, I feel like, to at scale, see what's possible.
[288] There's so much to unpack here.
[289] I mean, this is why you're my favorite.
[290] Well, and also, I think, you know, we interviewed Amy Poehler on armchair and her and three other men created Upright Citizens Brigade, which is a formative comedy experience for so many comedians.
[291] And we were talking about this idea that you almost feel like to succeed, you have to be a guys girl.
[292] You know, like, you have to be someone who gets along with the guys and who can hang with the guys, quote.
[293] And like, I just love this idea that you guys had a girls night essentially.
[294] In a giant safe.
[295] Yes.
[296] The female relationships are important and to not disregard those so that you can like climb a ladder or you can like get along with the men.
[297] And of course, the reason we feel this is because men dominate so many of these professions.
[298] But I love that, It's just like, no, also focus on the girls.
[299] But I never would have done it.
[300] I mean, the reason I'm so careful here on this one to give credit where credit is due is that Liz had been, she'd worked at the Pentagon for years.
[301] She'd been in some of the most male dominant.
[302] And she just knew that this was a place that she could create just with this small act, right, a place of refuge and a place to inculcate a solidarity that wasn't there before.
[303] And when I became UN ambassador, I had talked to Madeline Albright, who was America's first female secretary of state, shattered some serious glass of her own.
[304] Big time.
[305] Before that, she was UN ambassador back in 1993, so 20 years before I was in the job.
[306] And she had had this insight as well that I would not have had but for Liz and but for Madeline, which is when she got to the UN, there were 183 countries represented there.
[307] and only seven of the ambassadors out of 183 were women.
[308] So she created something she called the G7, which, of course, there's the group of seven among countries, but girl seven.
[309] And she gathered those seven female ambassadors together.
[310] And I think they managed to notch some not trivial policy achievements insofar as they got female judges elected to the war crimes tribunals.
[311] And those judges ended up being involved in passing down the first ever verdicts on rape as a weapon of war and as a form of genocide.
[312] So it ended up having this knock -on effect.
[313] But beyond that, they just met and it allows you to identify kind of what's you and what's the and what's the vibe and what's society or what's the community, the broader dynamics.
[314] And it was across region and religion and because just what these seven countries happened to be that had put women forward.
[315] When I got there, flash forward 20 years, there were 193 countries in the world, about 10 countries had joined the U .N. since.
[316] And when I arrived, we had 37 female permanent representatives, female ambassadors.
[317] And so on Madeline's advice, I convened the G37.
[318] And it would fluctuate.
[319] It went up at one point.
[320] I think it was the G41, G42.
[321] Do you know this book, Confidence Code?
[322] No. Writing it down.
[323] Tattooing it on my body.
[324] Women and girls in confidence and so forth.
[325] So we brought these authors to talk to these female PRs about confidence.
[326] And these are women, who were often the first person in their, not only in their family, but in their village to go to college.
[327] And here they were representing their country at the United Nations, just breathtaking stories of courage and resilience and so forth.
[328] And yet, here they are talking about confidence and disclosing what it's been like for them at every stage when they've been, you know, breaking through some barrier in Nepal or in Vietnam or in Mozambique or whatever.
[329] And so that was amazing.
[330] And then we had a dinner with Gloria Steinem.
[331] and for them, you know, in their own countries to be able to reflect to her about what the feminist movement in the United States meant in their own communities.
[332] And so some of it, again, was breeding that solidarity, but some of it was cooperating, as Madeline had done, on concrete issues and things that we were trying to achieve, you know, for example, getting more female police and soldiers into peacekeeping missions because sexual violence is such a recurring challenge.
[333] So again, it's practical, but it's spiritual.
[334] For sure.
[335] And it takes time.
[336] And that's what goes, right?
[337] When you get busy, when you get stressed, when you're in challenging or competitive work situations, that's what gives because it's the first thing that gets dropped from your schedule.
[338] And yet it pays off.
[339] It pays such dividends.
[340] So make that time.
[341] Oh, my God.
[342] Again, there's so much to unpack.
[343] Wait, but first, we have to fix this.
[344] I want to help you fix this.
[345] Listen, what if you took those headphones off and you flipped them over, right?
[346] Like, invert them, right?
[347] And then still put it on the back.
[348] Is there a hook that goes over your ears?
[349] There must be something.
[350] There's something.
[351] I am doing this wrong.
[352] See that whole, the little space between the actual speaker and the like black hook thing.
[353] That goes over the top of your ear.
[354] Oh, this.
[355] Does that mean?
[356] Yes, yes, yes.
[357] How do you feel now?
[358] Breakthrough.
[359] Women helping women.
[360] What I thought you were going to say, shows you how old fashion.
[361] I thought you were going to say what I've tried to do multiple times, which is that, you know how they used to be able to adjust?
[362] Expand.
[363] Yeah, yeah.
[364] And then I'm like, no, I've tried it, Kristen.
[365] But you're a great listener, and you knew there was a small possibility that I had something to contribute, and you went with it, and this is why I love you.
[366] Oh, deliberation of that.
[367] Now you can, like, do anything you want with your hands.
[368] They call it hands free.
[369] They call it hands free for a reason.
[370] And we fixed it.
[371] We have no wine.
[372] We're not in the safe and we did it.
[373] This is the power.
[374] I would love to go into the safe.
[375] Oh, me too.
[376] I feel jealous.
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[379] I love burritos.
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[383] And you made me. the most delicious burrito the other night from HelloFresh.
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[406] makes me feel like a peeky blinder.
[407] I say it every time.
[408] It's necessary to have in the house for when I want to participate in my favorite TV shows, peeky blinders, because when it's peeky blinders time, it's bourbon time.
[409] Maker's Mark is just such a trusted whiskey brand.
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[411] So I'm down for any movement that includes a happy hour.
[412] Yeah, and it can also be whatever makes you the happiest, do it between six and seven.
[413] And you can consider pouring yourself some of this delicious bourbon for bourbon time.
[414] It's so smooth.
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[416] So no matter what you like to do for you, it's important that you just do it.
[417] Join us in reclaiming six to seven as the happiest hour so you can do whatever makes you happy.
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[445] I would love for you to explain a little bit your thoughts and feelings on being pregnant in the White House.
[446] Okay, so I hid my pregnancy late.
[447] Hid in quotes, you know, pathetically thought I was hiding.
[448] Sure, sure.
[449] Like I did on House of Lies when I had a whole bunch of briefcases in front of my giant belly.
[450] You were doing the same thing.
[451] But in, I presume people on the set were in the know.
[452] Yeah, it was pretty obvious.
[453] It's now been, my son is 11, so by definition, it's been 11 years since I felt I had to do this.
[454] So I met my husband, Cass Sunstein, on the Obama campaign in the early part of 2008.
[455] He proposed shockingly quickly.
[456] We got married in July 2008.
[457] The election of Obama was in November 2008, and by then we knew we were pregnant.
[458] We got him pregnant in sort of August.
[459] So I was only a couple months pregnant at that point and then thinking about what job am I going to do in the Obama administration.
[460] And to be honest, my thought was not they're going to hold it against me that I'm pregnant.
[461] I actually internalized.
[462] We have the massive global financial crisis at that time.
[463] We're trying to get our troops out of multiple wars.
[464] America's in a big hole and they would want someone who won't go away for three months.
[465] I looked at a at it, putting myself in their shoes and just thought, well, gosh, I mean, it's an emergency situation.
[466] And so even if they won't mean to because they're progressives and understand the rights of women, they're not going to be able to help themselves.
[467] That's an important acknowledgement, I think.
[468] And it's a sort of a contrarians acknowledgement of like, you weren't coming at it from the place of it being sexist or that they wouldn't, they would hold it against you.
[469] But it's simply a reality sometimes for the other side to go, oh, I'm supportive of this.
[470] she's going to leave for three months.
[471] We need someone to fill the position.
[472] Yeah.
[473] And so I did the whole scarf thing.
[474] And then my vanity started to kick in at a certain point.
[475] So then I was sort of torn, but a colleague of mine who was one of Obama's climate advisors, we were due right around the same time.
[476] And we had a kind of one of those where we noticed we were both wearing scarfs in much the same style and sort of mixing it up.
[477] We had one of those looks across the room.
[478] And so we chatted.
[479] And our boys ended up being born, you know, within days of one another.
[480] And so this became a recurring sisterhood of, you know, then we had to deal with pumping and visiting our babies during the workday once we went back after maternity leave.
[481] I mentioned that just because whatever it is that we, women do internalize about the culture, it can impede or contribute to delaying the enjoyment of full rights.
[482] Exactly.
[483] What I wish I had done is just said, here's the situation.
[484] in part because there were younger women behind me. I was in my late 30s when I had my first child.
[485] And so me hiding, what signal does that send to people are thinking, do I have a baby?
[486] Do I not have a baby?
[487] Me hiding badly, maybe even more like the worst of all worlds, right?
[488] So I think just to have the confidence to know that these systems are there to protect you.
[489] I mean, there was no paid leave, right?
[490] Any at that time at all, it's something we still have to work on.
[491] We're still like the last.
[492] developed country that doesn't have that.
[493] So that's another issue related to it, as if once everybody was well aware that I was having a baby, I was lucky to be able to take the three months and use the vacation days and the sick days and then have savings that I could draw on or have my husband still working.
[494] But just the choices that forces people in the federal workforce to make, right, where you're not going to be with your baby even for three months.
[495] You're going to have to go back after six weeks because it's not covered and you can't afford to buy formula or send your kid to daycare without the income that you get.
[496] So I think there were a lot of dimensions to being pregnant.
[497] And then when I went back, I really did go back, whole hog.
[498] I had met Maria, this amazing immigrant from Mexico, who spoke to my son in Spanish.
[499] And I'd come home and she'd be dancing to Mexican music, you know, around the apartment.
[500] And just so full of love and prayer.
[501] and, again, this kind of effervescence.
[502] So that made it easier to leave.
[503] Of course, the first day I said goodbye, you're bawling.
[504] And Cass and I are driving together, and he's quite stoic about it.
[505] He's like, you'll be back tonight.
[506] You know, he's chemical.
[507] I have to be with this child.
[508] I meant to be with this child.
[509] But we put him in a daycare right across from the White House, so I would sprint in my very modest heels, looking like a Washington working woman.
[510] and then like sprinting down the corridors of the old executive office building, darting across the street, trying to get my feed in.
[511] And then on a few occasions, you're not even thinking about it.
[512] I just know I have the meeting on atrocities in this country to come back to.
[513] And so as I'm hustling across 17th Street, without even knowing I'm doing it, unbuttoning the top couple buttons.
[514] Like, wow, you know, like the efficiencies have to be found.
[515] and then on a couple occasions just getting so busted, kind of pointing and saying, you know, you go, girl.
[516] What do you think your most embarrassing or comedic intersection of having a career and being a mom is?
[517] The thing that is coming to my mind is less about the many times in which, you know, I'm swooping up my daughter and have the, it was a Blackberry in those days, but the Blackberry wedged up to my ears.
[518] and then I feel her peeing as I'm release, release, is a better word.
[519] Thank you.
[520] I'm on with John Kerry and I'm holding her and it's going all down my suit and then I realize I don't.
[521] So there's that.
[522] There's that whole genre.
[523] But I think maybe the better example because it's parent or not parent, I think it's got a larger truth in it was before I had Declan, so just a couple months into my time at the White House when I was still very much feeling like a novice where I was adjusting to having been quite close to Barack Obama, the senator and the candidate, to now there being some layers between me and him, not having walk -in privileges, certainly at the Oval, and really not seeing him much as he was dealing with the financial crisis and other very grave matters in the early part of 2009.
[524] So I'm, I think, around seven months pregnant at this time, I finally get summoned to the Oval to brief him.
[525] because he's having a meeting with the U .N. Secretary General.
[526] And in addition to being his human rights advisor, I'm his U .N. advisor.
[527] So I'm absolutely psyched.
[528] And this is it.
[529] I'm going to remind him of what he is missing by not having me in the inner circle.
[530] I'm going to nail the brief.
[531] And the way our offices are structured, there's the old executive office building where the National Security Council staff and other White House staff work.
[532] And then just across a tiny little lane is the West Wing.
[533] And when I get over to the West Wing and I realize, I know where the West Wing is, I've been to the Situation Room many times had many important meetings.
[534] Just, I'd never been to the Oval, ever.
[535] I'd never been on a White House tour before I'd.
[536] So I was like, damn, where's the Oval?
[537] And instead of doing what I should have done and what I'm confident most dudes would have done, which is just ask somebody, how do I get to the Oval?
[538] I hustle back across this little lane, back to my office, up these lights of stairs to my office.
[539] And I go.
[540] Oh, no. Google, West Wing map, Oval Office.
[541] You wanted to do it by yourself.
[542] Damn straight.
[543] Because you don't want people to know that you've not been to the Oval Office two months into the...
[544] So, it turns out there is a map online, but it's a Washington Post map that's really mainly about who's powerful and kind of who's close to whom, and it's not about actually finding...
[545] It's not like a guide to getting to the Oval.
[546] So I printed out, but it's not drawn to scale.
[547] I get back over there.
[548] I'm still...
[549] there's a chance I can make it on time still.
[550] It's my only briefing, like it's, you know, and I'm just desperate and I'm so panicked and I'm still holding my little battered Poland Springs water bottle because I'd fainted as a pregnant mother in my first week at the White House, so I'd carry that water bottle ever since.
[551] So, bottom line is I'm 10 minutes late for this meeting, and I come in and everybody's seated the National Security Advisor at the Secretary of State with this.
[552] Bunky Moon is not in the meeting.
[553] It's still in the pre -brief.
[554] I put this, you know, and it's a water bottle, again, that I've been carrying for weeks.
[555] So, you know, the green sticker is like all, you know, the green sticker on the pole.
[556] Yeah, of course.
[557] I mean, we shouldn't be carrying such bottles.
[558] And I no longer carry such bottles.
[559] I want to assure people.
[560] You were reusing it.
[561] I was reusing it, but nonetheless.
[562] But I had the bottle.
[563] I put it on this coffee table in front of Obama where his apples were.
[564] And next thing, this, like, Butler comes over and just picks it up.
[565] And he's got this look on it, like it's just, just this.
[566] unsanitary thing, like out of the view of the president.
[567] So I'm late.
[568] I do my briefing.
[569] I'm breathless.
[570] Obama ends up, like, cutting me off and just saying, why don't you catch your breath?
[571] We'll come back to you.
[572] Oh, no. It's so humiliating.
[573] And it's exactly what you don't want to do.
[574] You don't want to be the pregnant woman who can't finish her sentence.
[575] So what's important about the story, though, because it's not really a mothering story.
[576] It's just more the inelegance of it all when you're trying to do too much at once, is that I was so mortified.
[577] I didn't tell anybody the backstory, the map, you know.
[578] And after about two years working at the White House, I'd say I had come across a half dozen people who used the exact same Washington Post map and got lost in exactly the same way.
[579] Oh, my gosh.
[580] And because I told it for when I started to feel more confident, I did, I told the story like in a commencement address or something.
[581] And one by one, these people come up to me, said, I use that same map.
[582] Like, oh, my God, that happened to you too, you know.
[583] So it's more just that, you know, you aim to sort of show that you have it together and it makes matters worse.
[584] There's that.
[585] But it's also just so many people who look like they're strutting around with poise and so collected, whereas you're the scattered one.
[586] There's this great expression, never compare your insides to somebody else's outsides.
[587] A -A, baby.
[588] And I just love that.
[589] Al -Anon.
[590] I love it.
[591] And that, Al -Anon.
[592] Exactly.
[593] That's where I learned it.
[594] An Al -Anon, exactly.
[595] And I think that that is a story that just shows that, that so many people have that same churn of, like, how am I coming across?
[596] I've learned my list of it.
[597] I try to be an authentically humble person, but, man, I will switch on a dime to an overly confident person.
[598] I'm picturing myself going through that walking in.
[599] And just the first thing I say, like, not even maybe waiting for the president to address me being like, I got lost.
[600] it's all happened to y 'all everybody's used that stupid map i'd like to sit down and this is where like i can switch on a dime but i would look around and be like yeah okay is anyone else in here sustaining another life no okay moving on oh i love that i do feel a real desire to own when i feel like i'm either putting up with some shit it's learned because if you're in an environment where you're afraid you're going to lose your job or you're afraid yeah there's something somebody in line, then yeah, you have to come with the map because you have to prove you're competent.
[601] You can't ask for help because that shows that you don't know what you're doing and you've never been there.
[602] If you've never been there, then you're probably not good enough to be there.
[603] And, you know, it just like spirals out.
[604] That definitely it's learned then because I think that my owning my privilege is I've been in a position of privilege for so long being an actor who could pay my bills.
[605] People want you in the room.
[606] 100%.
[607] Yes, exactly.
[608] And then And so I have the luxury of not dealing with that of, uh -oh, I'm going to be kicked out and actually just going straight to, bitch, I've been through a lot this morning.
[609] I want everyone to be able to fast forward to that.
[610] I know.
[611] That's what I'm saying.
[612] I wish I could bestow that feeling because it is a quite a liberating feeling that I don't necessarily feel as combative, but rather ownership of my space and honesty.
[613] I wish desperately that I could like bottle that and hand a bottle to everyone who needs it because I...
[614] We're going to sell it in our merch store.
[615] Oh, on Etsy.
[616] We're going to be able to sell it.
[617] Don't you think COVID and the circumstances of the Zoom life could be throwing a spanner in the works here in interesting ways?
[618] You know, even small things like Zoom bombs and dogs barking and for us as women and parents, there's just no way around that the personal life is going to, quote, unquote, intrude on the professional life.
[619] And yet now, that's true for way more people, right?
[620] Just that kind of integration.
[621] I just wonder if we're passing through this season of vulnerability of the deepest and most primal sense, but also of exposure and whether that creates more give or more of a willingness on the part of people to assert that life is life.
[622] But like Zoom brings it all, right?
[623] Because both lives are often captured.
[624] But there are upsides to it in that like I'm seeing what's behind you right.
[625] now.
[626] You're seeing what's behind us right now.
[627] You're seeing the actual practical, tangible space.
[628] And there's something to that, like, especially a comparison you brought up in your book that I love so much is when you would get to know people at the UN, you were saying that, like, you valued it because when you walked into the room of someone else who was from another side of the country, you didn't just look at them as the representative of Seneca.
[629] You looked at it as, oh, this person has a picture of their family on their desk.
[630] And I see now what this person likes to drink for lunch, what kind of tea or coffee they like.
[631] And you're able to humanize people so much more.
[632] And maybe even these little boxes where we get a glimpse into each other's spaces is actually partly bringing us closer together.
[633] Yeah.
[634] And just in the gender space, like, yeah, if the dad is on a Zoom, the kids probably coming in there too for like maybe the first time a dad is experiencing the intrusion of life.
[635] Like that amazing BBC.
[636] interview that we all made fun of from like eight years ago when the baby came in.
[637] And he was talking about something so serious.
[638] And now that's everybody.
[639] It is.
[640] It's bringing some equity in, I think, in a fun way that no one expected, which when you were talking about maternity leave and that whole period of time where you had kept it quiet, the reality of the situation is they needed you there.
[641] So you had to be there.
[642] And I think that's a really big reason we need paternity leave, not just for men so that they can spend time with the kids, but so that it's equal so that if a child is born, it's not just like, well, the mom's going to be gone for three months.
[643] It's like, well, the dad's going to be gone for three months too.
[644] So it's all one thing, you know, and you can't parse out the female element of it.
[645] Right, right.
[646] No, absolutely.
[647] Yeah.
[648] You had also referred to that when you were, I think, appointed to the National Security Cabinet position, there was like a picture taken of deckling.
[649] running to you.
[650] And I just want you to express what the reaction was to that picture from people that wrote you.
[651] So first let me set the scene, which is in order to become UN ambassador, I had to go through Senate confirmation, just as I did for U .S. aid.
[652] And I had written prior to that point, maybe a million words as an activist, critic of U .S. foreign policy, I'd written books and so forth as well.
[653] But those words were, I knew going in were going to be picked apart and challenged and what you said this and how can you defend having said that.
[654] And so sure enough, that's what happened.
[655] And so Declan at that time was four and he was sitting behind me. Maria was there with our daughter, but that didn't last long.
[656] That was going to be the, how could anybody be mean to me if my infant daughter was behind me?
[657] But that didn't work out so well.
[658] That was your insurance.
[659] Exactly.
[660] So I could hear it Rianoff in the hallway, you know, Maria walking her back and forth, and I just wanted to go out.
[661] But I was there answering tough questions for a good few hours.
[662] And when finally the gavel went and this quite difficult few hours for which I'd been preparing for weeks finally was over, Declan just leaped over two rows of chairs and just went into my arms.
[663] And it was so beautiful.
[664] He and I talk about it even because it was, I think, priming.
[665] his sense that I needed protection on one level, you know, and sort of things in reverse a little bit.
[666] And I had needed protection, but I was all alone there for the prior few hours.
[667] So he jumps into my arms.
[668] And next thing, because it's a high profile position, this Washington scale paparazzi, like a press scrum that just sort of descended on the table.
[669] And my thought bubble in that moment was, finally, there's going to be a picture of me and my son.
[670] Because every damn photo is me taking a picture of Cass and the kids and him never taking a picture of him.
[671] So like immediately it's just I thought of like, oh I like I will exist in this boy's life.
[672] So I had that thought, which speaks to some division of labor issues that we may have to work on still in our household.
[673] And then it ended up in the newspaper and it was sort of a very sweet photo of just like my relief and his protectiveness and was beautiful.
[674] And then I guess it was picked up on the wires and so went around the country and was published in other places, but it was in the Washington Post.
[675] And I started getting these emails and letters from people, all different walks of life, just saying how inspiring they felt that photo was.
[676] The message was some version of usually, it was just really great to see a person with small kids, you know, going into such an important and high pressure and time -consuming national security role, you know, gives me renewed faith that we can all do it, that we just all have to just go for it.
[677] Pursue your professional dreams and we'll figure it out.
[678] And lean in and lean on.
[679] Yeah, the lean on, lean on your, in that instance, I was leaning on my boy.
[680] But what was interesting for me was it really caught me off guard, like, oh, you know, I'm just living, but now I'm doing something else.
[681] I'm modeling unwittingly in that case.
[682] And so it made me, though, act differently than for the next four years when I was in the job in being really conscious about how I interacted with my kids or giving more, let me put it this way, giving more visibility into the chaos and into the questions that come at home.
[683] There is this great British book series called The Mr. Men.
[684] I don't know if you all ever came across it, but it's, oh, it's the best.
[685] Writing it down, tattooing it on my body.
[686] It's actually the best baby gift when someone has a baby because it's for kids just a little bit young.
[687] Maybe you're a youngest, Kristen, would still go for him.
[688] It's Mr. Greedy, Mr. Chatterbox, Mr. Me, it's basically parables about the human condition.
[689] Are they little circles?
[690] Yeah, they're little circles.
[691] Wait, they also have Little Miss, because I have a Little Miss set.
[692] Yeah, little Miss books, yes, exactly.
[693] And my mom got me Little Miss Bossy, which I found to be a compliment and an insult.
[694] It's passive aggressive.
[695] 100%.
[696] So I got reading the Miss Books and Declan reads the Mr. Books and the Miss Books, but because you want to explain kind of why you're away and not just bring your kids into the darkness of why you're away and all the crises, but I started to, to explain, you know, each of the ambassadors and kind of likened them to one of the Mr. men characters so that, you know, who was the Russian ambassador most like, you know, who was the, who was the one who was the one who was the one and on and on and on in the security council meetings where you could never get home for dinner on time.
[697] That was Mr. Chatterbox.
[698] Oh, my gosh.
[699] And so we would take the globe out and I would show him on the globe where the country was.
[700] Yeah.
[701] And it was all great until they would actually come to the ambassador's residence.
[702] Oh, oh.
[703] Is that Mr. Chatterbock?
[704] Oh, my God.
[705] Exactly.
[706] So out and busted again.
[707] But giving voice in public remarks or in interviews with journalists about this experimentation almost or exploration of how to do both, knowing you're not going to be at full cylinder on both at once at any one time.
[708] But instead of internalizing all of that to kind of externalize it, we do beat ourselves up.
[709] And so if you show that you yourself are carrying that same sense of, oh, I'll never be enough.
[710] to be in two places at once or even use your platform to urge self -forgiveness and that others, you know, kind of forgive themselves.
[711] Making all of that more open.
[712] And in education idealist, you know, I wrote about the fertility stuff and miscarriages and IVF, which women, I think, are starting to do much more.
[713] And that's another example where if you looked at our literature or our memoirs, you would think that this really was a very rare phenomenon, the fertility challenge or the miscarriage challenges which are related.
[714] it's so prevalent.
[715] And in writing the book, you know, I thought I'll surface this and describe my own journey and knowing how many women are going through it and just so they know that so many of us have gone through something similar.
[716] The number of people at book events who come up and the conversation the one I have is about that experience and about that commonality, that solidarity.
[717] Someone will identify with you if you're saying something honest.
[718] And I think part of the, something we get into this rut as humans to find one identity that is doing it right.
[719] And I do that as well.
[720] Like I'm looking for like the way to do it.
[721] And this is one thing I've come across and just like, you know, looking at what feminism means.
[722] And I'm like, I wonder if we're chasing this one thing when in actuality, it's all the things.
[723] Because I know in my heart of hearts, I never feel more powerful than when I'm doing sort of my, what you'd look at as like domesticated duties.
[724] Like when I get my laundry done and my sink is clean, I'm like, fuck yes.
[725] I nailed it.
[726] And I don't necessarily have that feeling like when I get off a set or anything.
[727] But like I am elated.
[728] I like the feeling of when I'm taking care of my shit at home.
[729] And I don't necessarily feel like I'm not a feminist when I'm having those feelings.
[730] And so it's like someone who's like, you know what?
[731] I'm a working woman.
[732] I don't want to have children.
[733] This is not my path.
[734] I want to just be a career woman.
[735] Or someone who's like, I'm, you know, 40 years old and I don't have kids.
[736] and I have a loving marriage and I'm more of a party animal.
[737] I like to leisure time or having someone who's like, I want to be just a stay -at -home mom, which is a huge job with one or multiple children.
[738] And then the people, yeah, who have it, who want both.
[739] And it's like all those identities are important to represent to women because they're all choices.
[740] And not one I don't think is more feminist than another.
[741] I think if any of us doubted the, endurance and multitasking skills and the empathy and the patience that it took to be at stay -at -home mom.
[742] COVID homeschooling has given us some window into why, yeah, you're absolutely right.
[743] Like that phrase, you know, just to stay -at -home mom, which the, you know, the words sort of in popular culture probably still go together too much.
[744] And oh, how these women do it.
[745] I have no idea.
[746] The best meme that came out right in the beginning, it said, and just like that, no one ever judged a stay -at -home mom again.
[747] And I was like, yeah.
[748] Perfect.
[749] I really thought you were going to say your most comedic intersection of being a mom and a career woman was when you were pumping in Aanyang Suu Kyi's bathroom.
[750] Oh.
[751] Because I find that to be one of the most spectacular stories that I've ever read.
[752] Because I have followed her for years.
[753] Ongi Tsuchy's was this, what's the accurate?
[754] for her party in Burma?
[755] NLD.
[756] NLD.
[757] You're going to be able to speak to it better, but she's a very important figure and she was under house arrest for 21 years, I think.
[758] The president and Hillary Clinton were in the other room talking with her about major peacekeeping stuff and you were like, wong, wah, wah, wah.
[759] No, I mean, I was in a meeting.
[760] I mean, it was a historic meeting.
[761] It was the first sitting president's trip to Myanmar.
[762] There had been liberalization where a Democratic election had occurred and the results were being respected, it looked like, and things were liberalizing, political prisoners were getting out of jail.
[763] I'd actually negotiated the communique before Obama came with a whole set of concessions by the Burmese government.
[764] Obama showed up.
[765] The communique was negotiated and people were happy with it.
[766] And there I found myself in her house in a meeting with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the rest of the team, a very small meeting of maybe a half dozen people in Aung San Suu.
[767] And luckily, even though I was incredibly uncomfortable in the meeting, you're busting out.
[768] You're in this security bubble, especially when you're in a foreign country, but even in America, where you can't get separated from the bubbles.
[769] You can't be like, time out, I've got to go pump or whatever.
[770] So I just got swept along.
[771] You can't raise your hand and say, so excuse me, my skin's about to rip.
[772] I need to relieve some of this pressure because you should be able to.
[773] You feel like your skin's about to rip.
[774] Anyway, so luckily, there was a moment where the meeting got so -called skinny down, where only the principals were left.
[775] And I think what was left was Secretary Clinton, Aung -Sukchi, and President Obama.
[776] So it was very reasonable.
[777] The rest of us were kind of shooed away.
[778] And I was like, thank God Almighty.
[779] So I run out to the armored car, and I get my little pump bag, and I run back and say, where's the restroom?
[780] Where's the restroom?
[781] So they put me in the restroom, and I close the toilet seat.
[782] I sit on the seat.
[783] I take out the implements.
[784] And I'm doing the thing, and it's making this noise.
[785] and I have that moment.
[786] That moment, as you say, you are swept up in it and you are just, it's like the next thing and you're so busy that you're not going meta on your life, but just sitting there and having to do that for whatever it would have been five minutes thinking about this.
[787] You know, how did it happen that I'm even married?
[788] Because I met the pass on the Obama campaign and then it was all so whirlwind.
[789] And then how does it happen that Myanmar has appeared to liberalize in this way and that Aung San Suu Kyi, that anybody can even be at her?
[790] her house and that she can be, you know, the de facto leader of this country and, wait, how can it be that I had two kids and that I'm pumping for one of them?
[791] And so it was sort of the professional and the person was in all of it to just to say, if any part of this scene, you know, any shard of this scene, if somebody had painted that picture for me, it would have been completely implausible.
[792] It would have been me, you know, kind of doing swim laps on the moon or something.
[793] It was crazy because I then went meta and me going meta and I thought, oh, I'm getting a little carried away.
[794] Like, where is everybody?
[795] I wonder, let me end my reverie and figure out what the hell is, you know, where should I be at the moment.
[796] So I knew that the press had been gathered outside her house.
[797] It hadn't occurred to me that the bathroom might be proximate to where the press was gathered.
[798] And so I opened the curtain to kind of check out, like, I wonder if they're done with their meeting.
[799] And then as soon as I open, I see like the back of Aung San Suu Kyi and her sort of beautiful Burmese fabric and the back of Obama and his suit and the back of a podium and they're there and they have just started their press conference and I'm like behind with the curtain and you know two inches more and I'm like flashed to the world.
[800] I'm news baby.
[801] I would have been news.
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[826] Oh, yes.
[827] It's mainly because I am really bad at camping, so I'm bringing like a piece of bread, you know, like I don't know what to do.
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[829] Not just a piece.
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[845] I will say that pumping does give you that reflecting on your life, A, because there is a physiological good feeling, like it's a dopamine or an oxytocin release, the letdown that they talk about.
[846] But also, I found that I had some of my greatest thoughts.
[847] And also, this is another feeling I wish I could bottle and give to people.
[848] My husband used to say, why do you exclusively pump when my guy friends are over?
[849] And I'm like, I'm so sorry, sir.
[850] I don't exclusively pump.
[851] You only notice when it's relevant for you.
[852] Yeah, exactly.
[853] I was like, let me just be clear.
[854] I pump when I need to pump.
[855] If your friends are over, that's irrelevant.
[856] Because again, I think that that was given.
[857] to me. That privilege was bestowed upon me from being an actor.
[858] When I went back to work after getting pregnant, I said I can come back and I'm going to need, you know, every three hours, I'm going to need to go to my trailer for 20 minutes.
[859] And they were like, great, I had the leverage.
[860] So I just want women that choose this path of having a baby.
[861] And in addition, pumping, have the leverage to be able to say that.
[862] And I want the people around them to know how important it is.
[863] Yeah, that just women on earth have the leverage because they're making more people on earth.
[864] There's no people without us.
[865] Yeah, exactly.
[866] Like, we sometimes forget that.
[867] Did Obama break your water?
[868] Not like with a...
[869] Physically.