Money, Grief, Kids
11/26/21 - We talk with one of our favorite writers, The New Yorker's Ariel Levy, about dynastic wealth, how we experience grief, and big surprises in life, including the joys of getting older and having children. Her podcast that chronicles maternity wear icon Liz Lange, of the New York Steinbergs is The Just Enough Family.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Executive Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Producer: Jordan Bailey
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan
Design Assistant: Brijae Morris
Ad sales: Midroll
TRANSCRIPT: MONEY, GRIEF, KIDS
[Ads]
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend
Ann: A podcast for long distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I’m Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: Hey Ann Friedman. I am very thankful and grateful for you this holiday season.
Ann: Oh my God. Same I, um, and I really feel like just leaving it at gratitude is the right, is the right move. When we are dealing with this particular American holiday. I really like, I really just want to focus on that and I am grateful to hear your voice today. Like a pleasure today and always.
Aminatou: Same, same, same another friend that I am very grateful and thankful for is, who I talked to today.
Ann: Oh my God. You mean like for this episode?
Aminatou: I mean, for this episode, can you tell that I'm like a rusty at doing intros because they don't do them anymore.
Ann: I love that. I'm, I'm so excited to listen. And I also, um, you know, anytime it's like a friend of a friend, I have like a special interest where I'm like, Hmm, it's like me eavesdropping on like, you know what goes on with my friends in law and you in conversation, it's like the biggest treat.
Aminatou: Well, let me tell you about today's amazing guest who is also one of my favorite writers. This is like a, this is kind of like you, it's one of my favorite stories. When you read someone before you meet them and you're like, oh, I was a fan of your ideas and I know you as a human, it makes me happy. But today’s guest is Ariel Levy, who is a staff writer at the New Yorker. She has also written many books, namely Female Chauvinist Pigs, and her incredible memoir, The Rules Do Not Apply. She is also the co-author of Demi Moore’s memoir Inside Out. If you haven't listened to that on audio book, you are really missing out. And, um, Arielle's like us, she's a, uh, she's an immediate entrepreneur. So her latest forays and podcasting, and she is the host of this kind of like memoir, like podcast on Liz Lange. Do you know who Liz Lange is?
Ann: Yes, I think, but I will confess that. I know only because I read like a related article that Arielle wrote tied to the podcast. I don't know if I would have known please explain,
Aminatou: Amazing. Well, I, I am obsessed with Liz Lange because like I like fashion, but Liz Lange revolutionized maternity wear in the nineties and the podcast is called the just enough family. And it like offers insights on like Liz's family, the Steinbergs, they're basically like a tabloid fixture family in like 20th century New York, like our very own Kardashians before, uh, reality TV. And I know truly, and the podcast is truly amazing and I really mean that it is like memoir, like, um, and like all things areas, it's just like very riveting and very personal. And so I was excited to talk to her about like, kind of what she's been up to about like what it was like, um, you know, doing this podcast and also, you know, like what's kind of going on in her world right now.
[theme song]
Ann: I'm so excited to listen. I also have been reading her writing forever. And so this is just a double bonus for me, like friend of friend plus writer I've been reading for ages. I can't wait to listen.
Aminatou: Ah, I just love like a deeply curious person who is not judgemental and just like, lets their curiosity unfold for everyone. Like that has been, um, like a true highlight of like reading Ari and also like now hearing her be a podcast host, it's the best.
[interview begins]
Ariel: I'm Ariel Levy and I'm the host of the Just Enough Family podcast. And I'm a writer at the New Yorker magazine.
Aminatou: Oh my gosh. Wow. When we have royalty come visit the podcast. [laughter]
Ariel: Well, you know, it's good to be here today. It may not. Thanks for rolling out the red carpet.
Aminatou: You know, this is, this is it. This is it, man. It's sorry we didn't send you snacks or some water or some, you know,
Ariel: I'm in my bathtub. I've got my snacks. I've got it all.
Aminatou: I love it. We're both recording from the bathroom today. That makes me very happy. It's the only place to be. You know, sometimes it is the quietest room in the house.
Ariel: It's definitely the nicest room in my house.
Aminatou: Well, you're a podcast or now I've been a long time podcaster. Tell me about your transition into podcasting because wow.
Ariel: I thought it was fun that you went with a whole microphone to interview people. Like it's just a very different, you know, I'm used to sitting, trying to get people to tell me things with like a pad and a pen. So sitting there like–
Aminatou: Wait, you don't record people when you're like going to Diana Nyad’s house? You don't have a recorder with you? You're writing this down?
Ariel: No, I have my like stupid iPhone recording or I used to have, you know, like a little tape recorder. I actually am. So when I started, I had a tape recorder, little tapes that I still have all those tapes. I don't know what to do with them anyway.
Aminatou: We'll donate them to a women's university. Don't worry about it.
Ariel: A women’s ideas festival. So, but now, but so it's very different having that little thing on than it is like actually having a mic that you're holding an earphone and you're like a whole little text unit, like a little robot, you know?
Aminatou: Well, have you been enjoying it, enjoying it or was it challenging or has it been an adjustment? Like, you know, how do you switch from like writer interview brain to podcast interview brain?
Ariel: Well, I just think like gets a little bit more like I'm aware that I'm a part of the show, you know what I mean? Like, so I try to be present, which I always obviously try to do when I'm interviewing people and I even sometimes try to do it in life, but, but when I'm interviewing people, I really trying to get into what they're saying and be fully inside of it. So there's this like slight distraction when you're trying to record them. And you're also aware you're in it to, you know, you're a character in the show in a way that you're not on the paint or that I don't want to be on the page.
Aminatou: Is it uncomfortable or is it just different?
Ariel: It's just different. I thought it was really fun because it's something new that I'd never done before. You know? And that's, that's so much fun to be trying a different thing.
Aminatou: Ah, I love that. You're like a little entrepreneur. You're like, let's try different things.
Ariel: You are exactly the same way. It's how you tried writing TV at this and that and just doing different stuff. So you don't become, so you still enjoy the freshness of like what an awesome thing it is to get to do what we do.
Aminatou: I love that this is how you described the precarity of millennial employment is that you're framing it as freshness. So I appreciate you.
Ariel: You know, why my buddy it's, cause I'm not millennial. 47, I just turned/
Aminatou: Basically a geriatric millennial.
Ariel: I am a middle-aged woman now. A middle-aged Gen X woman. I don't know why I'm so proud of that all of a sudden,
Aminatou: Oh my God. I like, um, I love that for you though. Um, I don't, I've listened to your podcast and I have to say that it is so well done. It is okay. It's called the Just Enough Family for the listeners at home and it's hosted, but this lovely person and it's this eight episode series about, um, the story of the Steinberg family who are some would say the Jewish Kennedy's, it's a very New York kind of story. And it's also a story that I knew nothing about until you started talking to me about it and seeing you both report out the story, but also every single character on this podcast is bananas. I was like, how did you even luck into all of these characters? I can't like perfect, you know, perfect story for the perfect host for the perfect moment. But I don't know. It's been fun. Like being someone who read you and then being someone who now listens to you and like seeing that reportage come alive.
Ariel: Thank you so much. And thank you for even listening. Like it's just really a fun thing to do to be able to say, here's the thing that I was part of making and it isn't made of pages. So it's, I'm still into the novelty of it all. Um, but two things, first of all, it's interesting that you should say it's a very New York story because on the one hand, it absolutely is. It's all about, you know, these, these guy who moved his entire family from long island to park avenue, like with the sheer force of his intellect and a brute force of his wealth that he made, you know, being, at first, an entrepreneur and then later a corporate raider. Anyway, the thing is on the one hand, it's a very New York story. And then it feels so much like Dallas and dynasty to me.
Aminatou: Hundred percent, hundred percent. It is. I don't, there's something about my brain that I, I don't know. There's something about like hyperspecificity of your location and then family drama and then like feuding people and deception and over the top parties, all you put all of that together. I don't care where you're located. I'm into it.
Ariel: Yeah. It's a fun little cocktail. I mean, because on the winning end, you've got all that, that money stuff, which is just always like Dallas dynasty, exciting to hear about. But then on the other hand, this is a family where every member of the family is perfectly happy to get on the microphone and just say a really intimate truth about what their experience was in relation to other members of the family.
Aminatou: I mean, okay, can you walk without giving too many spoilers? Can you walk us through this podcast? Some of the characters and what's at stake here.
Ariel: It all starts with my friend, Liz Lange. And she comes from this family, the Steinbergs who were one of the richest families in America until–
Aminatou: I’m gonna pause you right here, Liz Lange of Liz Lange maternity fame.
Aminatou: That’s correct. Liz Lange, you've heard of her because I mean, it certainly, if you're a gen X or above, you've heard of her because when, because in the nineties she had this line of maternity wear that like turned the maternity wear market inside out now all maternity wear, it looks like that's all stretchy and clingy. Instead of being like a big, you know, tent that makes you look like a baby yourself, like a giant baby, or they look like giant babies and they couldn't go to the boardroom. And so it's being a business woman. They like got these posts. They could go and be taken seriously. And Liz inadvertently did this very feminist thing cause she, of course, doesn't like to call herself a feminist. She's not from that world. She's from this world of the hyper wealthy Jewish immigrants who came to park avenue and are just enlarging it. And that's what they're thinking about is like corporate success. That's their whole frame of reference. Her uncle Saul Steinberg graduated from Wharton, you know, at 16 and then started working at his father's rubber business, Ideal Rubber. And then out of that company started leasing office equipment, other companies before computers, which sounds very unglamorous, but it was a hole in the market just like stretchy tight maternity wear. It was a hole in the market. So he made a fortune on that and the company went public before he was 30. And then he leveraged that to buy reliance insurance where the oldest, you know, insurance companies and most agust in the country and his niece is my friend, Liz Lange. So Liz is father Bobby, who is a fascinating character with a fabulous voice and a pathological liar, like an unbelievable liar becomes clear throughout the course of the podcast. That's her dad, her dad and his big brother saw like we're in it together taking New York by storm, taking the business world by storm. And their family got incredibly famous for all this. And they were just like, you know, if it was, if it was Dallas, but New York and Jews.
Aminatou: Man, how do you get, I mean, I know that, you know, Liz obviously, but how do you get every single member of this family to just sit down and do therapy on the microphone with you? Because the access is insane to me. Like, how?
Ariel: Amina, that's why they pay me the medium bucks. No, I'm just kidding. That's not what I mean. Partly it's why, partly it's because I've been interviewing people now for whatever 25 years. So I have developed some skill for that, but also it's because I knew these people. I mean, I've never done this before. That's the difference for me besides the fact there was a microphone, this isn't my normal journalism where like, there's no crossover between my personal life, my friendships and my reporting. This is a friend. So this was something else.
Aminatou: Were there moments where you were recording and you just couldn't believe what someone was telling you out loud?
Ariel: Yeah, I was constantly like, oh my god, this is gold. Like they were just telling me everything, how they felt about, you know, their mom, how Liz believed her parents, that her sister was the dumb one, like just often. And then the parents are divorced. They're talking about each other. And I mean, I'm making it sound like just like bass gossip, but we try Melinda shops in my, my work wife. And I obviously tried to organize it into a narrative that had some, you know, some beauty to it because the thing I should mention is that it's the reason it's called the Just Enough Family is that when Liz was a kid, she had this, she was writing stories in her head all the time. And she had this one that was called adjust enough family and they weren't hurting. They had just enough. And she just had this cozy idea of a family where they weren't constantly like throwing million dollar parties that like the Temple of Dendur, you know, I mean, she was, she knew that there was this roiling tension around the money, like, you know, on the show succession. And so she had a fantasy of us, of a simple intimate family, you know, like Marie Antoinette playing–
Aminatou: Just enough. We don't have private plans, but we definitely have a driver just enough. And it's God money is such a source of, I mean, it sounds stupid to even say out loud, it's such a source of all of the tension. Yeah. I don't know. As someone who grew up with none of it, I always had the fantasy that Liz Lange you know, like they had everything and I was like, what are they, what are those lip people complaining about? And now that I hear, you know, now that you hear the other side of it, it's like, Hmm, interesting, interesting.
Ariel: I mean, look, it's a, you know, it's the definition of a high class problem. Like, you know, I'm not, I'm not saying like don't cry for them, Argentina, but I just mean it is true that money. I mean, think about your own family. Think about my family. That that is a big source of conflict and a measure. You know, it feels like a measure of love, where's it? You know, where's it going to go? Who owes, who, what, like talking honestly about what that means is fascinating, I think.
Aminatou: I know. And even just this idea, I think of the, just enough family, I, you know, it, it, yeah. It's like, does anybody have an, is there any amount of money that is just enough or just, okay. You know, like what, what is that number for every single person? And that number is different. It's different for every person. It's probably different for every person in their family. And then it's different within all the dynamics that they existed. It's so it w it was like very, yeah, I don't know, listening. I'm still thinking about it because it was just so fascinating to have people be so honest, you know, and these are people who have a lot, usually those are not the people who are very honest and give you like a lot of transparency into kind of how, you know, how their wealth is made, but also how they spend it and how they, whatever. And so it was, I don't know. I was just like, I just could not believe I was hearing all of this.
Ariel: It feels so transgressive. Doesn't it, to hear someone talk honestly, about how much they spent, how much they wanted, how they thought people only wanted to be friends with them because of all of that, just to hear them admit that stuff.
Aminatou: I mean, and then I don't know, there is something also very, you know, either like completely psycho or very honest, also about a family where everyone is okay. Telling their side of the story, you know, and just saying like, hi, we're not protecting each other. I'm going to tell you exactly how I feel. And I don't know someone, I come from a like honor versus shame family. So all we do is protect each other through lying, um, that it was very refreshing to me to see like another family just be like, actually, we're going to put it all out on the table. And I was like, oh, wow, this is wild.
Ariel: Well, they're an interesting mix because on the one hand, there's that sort of enviable thing of everyone just says their truth. They just say it. So you kind of think, well, maybe that's what real intimacy comes from. You know, like if everyone was just upfront, on the other hand, we find out in the middle of the show that one of the characters has a second family. I don't love or envy that. And be that, that doesn't sound so good. So honest.
Aminatou: I mean, listen, it, it doesn't, but also listen, listen to the, Just Enough Family, because I could go on and on and on about this. But I think that the experience of listening to it is even more shocking than talking about it.
Ariel: It is shocking. It is fun. It is like, like we tried and Linda and I were like, let's see if we can make candy, like rock candy in a bathtub.
Aminatou: Oh my gosh. I mean, Melinda Shops is your producer and our pal is, I mean, she had very good podcast producer.
Ariel: She's genius. She real genius.
Aminatou: She's like our audience she's audio, she’s a witch.
Ariel: She's an audio, which should love she called an audio audio, witch. Sounds like a baby.
Aminatou: That's a very good Melinda. Um, how was that relationship like going from working with a producer in words, you know, like an editor for words, and then now you have a different kind of system for audio. Like how did you adapt to that?
Ariel: Well, I only, I don't really have any basis for comparison. Like, I don't know what it's like in general, working with producers. I mean, Melinda and I sort of immediately became really, really close friends. And I mean, you've talked about that a lot of times, like people say like, oh, you shouldn't work with your friends, but it's like, I don't really understand how you get anything–
Aminatou: Only work with your friends any other way.
Ariel: Yeah. Like it's an intimate thing trying to make a work-baby together. You have to, you have to love each other. I, I have to look somewhat. I sound, I sound so earnest, but I, I mean, that's how I feel about it. It's just, I just thought it was really exciting. Like combining brains with this other person who was such a different skill set and knows how to. Melinda, you know, runs a restaurant. She was one of the people who run shops since like she's a real little, you know, chart making dictatorial, baby voice maniac. And I don't have any of those skills. I don't sound like a baby.
Aminatou: [laughter] Melinda is going to love this.
Ariel: She will. She will.
Aminatou: he is going to love this. Um, I guess like I do wonder though, you know, like how, because you're switching formats, I'm just like fascinated by this because Ann and I talk about this all the time and obviously our work takes all these different formats and you do need people who have different skill sets, but I also think that, you know, there is an adjustment period of, for your own self of being like, okay, like I'm doing it in this format versus that format because of XYZ and also learning to take both direction and editing. And, um, you know, I don't know, like hearing someone else's skillset and trusting them, um, for me, at least like that took an adjustment period because I'm, you know, I'm like, I'm generally an idiot about everything, but I just wonder for you, like, did you really just like jump into it being like, this feels great, or were there moments where you were really like, oh, like, here's, what's a little challenging about this.
Ariel: No, I got really stroppy all the time because I wouldn't always know that I didn't understand, you know, like you don't know what you don't know. So I would get all stroppy because I was like, why are you making me do this? You know, and Melinda is bossy as hell, you know? And, and so I was very stroppy about it, but, but I, it was a magic combination because she could handle how outraged I got at being told what to do, and I could handle how bossy she is. And we were able to learn from each other. We were able to get, you know, it's sort of fun and intimate. Like actually even, even that even getting, you know, angry at someone you're working with, it's like, you're really doing this together. You're really in there. Um, I think that's the most important thing, right? Is that you're both like, no, no, no, I'm committed. I'm actually doing this. Like, I'm not walking, I'm going to work through this with you.
Aminatou: I love the bossy audio ladies. Um, because they're always right. They're always right. They're always right.
Ariel: Well, that's the thing.
Aminatou: It's so irritating. They're always right. Like always listen to your producer. They're always right. Yeah.
Ariel: Yeah. I know. Yeah. It's a harsh tone because, because I'm not used, I mean, I have been an editor at the New Yorker, but he's very gentle and he, you know, he's used to writers and sort of talking to us in a way that we can bear to do something other than our instincts.
Aminatou: I think there's just also something about, not to belabor the podcast point, but I think that, I don't know when I'm writing, whether it's like a book or a piece or whatever, it's, I can see where it lives. And so it feels fine to me when we are recording audio. I don't hear it yet. And, and the producers always hear it. You know what I mean? I was like, their brands just work in a different way. And I was like, thank God someone is doing that because I don't know what we're doing over here. Okay.
Ariel: Well, I think it took me, I was thinking about this because my first editor and mentor John Homans died about a year and a half ago when we just had this Memorial, as you know, and I was thinking about how, when I was young and I would work with him on pieces, how I would get so stroppy, I would be outraged. I be fighting and I would be like, you know, like a little cat crying at him. And it was a decade before I was like, oh, you're just trying to make everything better. And you know, than I do 99.99% of the time. So I'm going to stop being, you know, defensive when you try to improve what we're collaborating on a long time to kind of get that. And I mean, the turnover's a little faster now that I'm a middle aged gen X-er because just, you know, I think that's partly, you, that's sort of, what's so fun about being young, right? Is that like, you don't know yet how wrong you are, you know, like you still could, you still could be convinced that you knew everything. I mean, that's how I was in my twenties anyway.
Aminatou: Not me at work. I love to be edited. I love feedback. So my sickness.
Ariel: I know that's amazing. You're a collaborator.
Aminatou: Well, that is true. I like working with other people. And I think that when you work with other people, if you want to stay working with them, there is a part of you that just has to go, like we're all in this together. But also, I don't know. It's like my, um, my first editor was Ann Friedman, so I opt out. So, you know what I mean? I got to work with my editor every day. So it, um, well, something about that, that's like very special.
Ariel: I also think that, you know, John Homans and I, we kind of had a good time, like fighting and sparring over what we were doing. You know what I mean? Like that was how he worked. That was also his way of doing things in relationships. He was always like on the phone yelling at writers. And then we all were just like, you know, worshipped him, worshiped him. So, I mean, not everyone, not every relationship that's productive has to be, you know, I don't know peaceful.
Aminatou: I mean, that certainly is true. Um, Hey, thanks for telling me about him. I know that it's been, you know, it's been a year since he died and it's been it's, you know, it's been really hard for all the people who know,
Ariel: Oh God, we miss his ass. We really miss him. He was the best.
Aminatou: Yeah. And I like, I just, I don't understand that people are still dying. Like we haven't fixed that yet. Like, what are the scientists doing? I'm like, I don't need a battery that last longer, I was like, make the people last longer.
Ariel: It's a heartbreaker. Death is, death is a real heartbreak.
Aminatou: It really is. And it's also very strange to watch people that you love, like experienced their own kind of grief. That you're not a part of. Like, you know, it's been it.
Ariel: Yeah. It's a private experience. Grief. It's, it's I, it's a funny paradox on the one hand, you need all your intimacy to lean on. And on the other hand, you're kind of isolated in it and there's nothing to be done about that.
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Aminatou: I don't know. I've been thinking a lot about the isolation of grief, right? And I think that you're right in one hand, on one hand, it's it just slays you in half so much that you just have to go inside of yourself. Like, I, I don't know that there is a, like, I don't know that you just, you don't know how you will react until you're confronted with having to grieve, but on the other hand, do you not think that at least in Western society, we do ask people to go away and grieve quietly and then come back and join us. And that's weird.
Ariel: Yeah. I think that, I think that, I mean, I found, and I'm not talking about Homans. I'm talking about like, whatever it is now, uh, 10 years ago, when, when I, when I lost my baby, like, and that was my first real experience of grief and I was really in it. And I mean, for one thing, I found it to be a really interesting experience. Like grief is so pure. I mean, you're just there. It's not like murky. You're not like, what is this? What am I, what am I that you're just like, oh, I am grieving my guts out morning till night. Um, and I find that aspect of it. Interesting. And also isolating because you know, you're busy with you, aren't you? I mean, I think, I think that the Jewish Shivah is a ritual. That I'm a big fan of like that sorta, right? Like you need your people around you and you need them to like bring food and just like that you can kind of collapse on them for a while that I believe in. But yeah, I do think that like, we try, well, I think it's more than grief it's death. I think we, as when I say we, I am just speaking about America, I don't really know any other cultures well enough to have any opinion, we in this country try to pretend there's no death. So grief undermines that. So we don't know how to deal with it.
Aminatou: Yeah, it is. You're right there about it being like the purist feelings, because I don't know. It's like, I think about times where I have been in deep grief and there are tiny moments where I kind of enjoy it a little bit, you know, or you're just like destroyed. And then there's usually a moment where I go, wow, I like it is true that my mother has died and I'm very sad, but it's also true that I am very much enjoying that. Nobody can tell me anything right now.
Ariel: I know exactly what you mean for once in your life. Everything's clear,
Aminatou: Just like there is nothing you're like, like, this is my excuse right now. And does nothing, like, you can just feel all your feelings in a way that I find I'm not able to feel all my feelings, any other moments and you know, but then also you, you know, then you, you admit that on a podcast here, like, wow, I am an And then it's fine. You know what I mean? I'm like, we're all a disaster and refined, but I do. Um, yeah. I like, I genuinely enjoy talking to other people who experience other forms of grief because you realize that the grief takes on a different texture for everyone. Sure. But sometimes some of these feelings are the same. And that makes me feel, I was like, okay, that human connection still exists. We'll be okay.
Ariel: You know, Angela, John's love. It's hard to say the word widow about her is such a funny word. John's love, John's wife, John's partner. I just went to see her the other day. And she was just saying how she spent a lot of last year alone and that it had to be that way, you know, it's just how she needed it to be, um, to deal with her grief. And everyone's different. I mean, I know other people who, when they're grieving, can't be alone for a minute. I mean, obviously, you know, it's, it's, it's as personally as of an experience, as any other feeling, it's just so much clearer.
Aminatou: It is so much clearer. Hearing you even say that word, like widow, like it's so weird how we have some vocabulary for this in some, and some we don't like we're widow and what are we? We have like, we have orphan, but like, what do you call parents who have lost their children? We don't have a word for that. What do you call a sibling who has lost their stuff? Like, it's very weird how also we decide how we prioritize these like, kind of these experiences and who gets the front seat table and who doesn't. And you know, and even within the same kind of grief, like everyone has a different relationship with that person. I don't know that. I think about that stuff all the time. Right before I go to bed because I'm, you know, love to be morbid.
Ariel: Is that true? You think about this before you go to bed?
Aminatou: Yeah, because it's just, I dunno, when I was a kid, I used to be afraid of going to sleep because I was convinced that when you went, you would die, you know? And so I would just read all night and I would get in so much trouble with my parents. Cause I had a, I had a little, um, like little flashlight and then I had a little, you know, like it would do all the systems not to fall asleep. And now I know that like all kids are kind of afraid of going to sleep. My own thing was that it was like very specifically relating to, to dying. And uh, and now I'm not afraid of dying because, you know, I was like, oh, actually when you die, it's tough for the other people. It's not as hard for you. You get to sleep. Now that I've made that association with it. It doesn't matter. But I do have a lot of very morbid. Yeah. I have like very morbid thoughts usually when I go, um, right before I go to bed. But now they're mostly around this kind of stuff where I'm just like, Ugh, like why do we not honor the siblings of dead people the same way that we honor those spouses, you know? And so it just is, I don't know. I like, I like words. So I wonder, I wonder about all of it.
Ariel: I think that's really interesting. Yeah. I never thought about that before.
Aminatou: Yeah. I like, I don't know, but we're also just very bad at talking about like, yeah, we don't talk about it. And truly I'm like, it is the most inevitable thing.
Ariel: The only thing, it's the only thing that we know for sure. And yet we don't want to believe it. I'm basically paraphrasing something right now from Sabbath's theater, because I've been reading that book so much. Like that's exactly it. We all try not to know it. And it's the only thing we really know.
Aminatou: Uh, well, death looking forward to it. It will, it will come truly. It's, I'm like, it's sad for other people. It's not sad for me.
Ariel: Death’s tagline should be See Ya.
Aminatou: See ya, sad for someone else. Yeah, I know. But I do think about this where sometimes I will think about like, oh man, like, do you want to be like, my wish is to go very early because I don't think I can stand sitting, sitting at the memorials in the funerals of all my friends. I was like, I don't, I don't want to be that person that's someone else's job. I don't want to be the last one standing. And then at the same time, I'm like, like a party that all my friends are at where they're talking about me and I don't get to control this. I can't like, it's like a wedding in that way. And I'm not happy about that either. So it's very delicate.
Ariel: Also the worst thing about these memorials is you're like, you know who, it would be great if it was here. You're like, oh, we're missing the guest of honor. I mean, it's just terrible.
Aminatou: No, it's almost like I trust me. I, again, again, I'm going to fix this. I'm going to fix this in my right before time. Like right before I go to bed, like I'm going to disrupt to death. That's that's, that's going to be my girl boss moment disrupting death.
Ariel: You’re gonna be so rich.
Aminatou: I mean, I hope so. I hope so. I got little babies to send to college. I like, I love it. Uh, I have a question for you that is not connected to any of this because when I was listening to the podcast, there was just so much of this like eighties stuff that I, I just like didn't know, you know, it's like, wow. The eighties, like very glamorous, according to this set. Um, besides like the, the glamor of the time that Liz is describing and obviously like it's glamorous for them because they have so much money. Um, what about making this podcast today, like feels very palpably different than that world that they were living in?
Ariel: Okay. Well, the biggest difference to me, isn't about money. It's the advent of the inner web. Like there was nothing, there was no online, everything took place in person all the time. So their, the way they, you know, their conspicuous consumption took place. Wasn't on Instagram. It was a party for Saul Steinberg's 50th birthday, where his wife gave for tented, their tennis court had live models, act out. The scenes of that were depicted in the old master paintings. He owned, like, that's what he owned master paintings. He collected art and you know, things like that, like the way excess occurred was so material and the way people found out about it was through print media. So it was also, things could be glamorous in a different way because they were information was harder to come by. Like if you read a tidbit in page six in the New York post about a Steinberg party, it felt like a spy had been on the scene and you had this privileged information, not information doesn't feel privileged that way anymore, kind of ever. I find.
Aminatou: So you're telling me that if Kim Kardashian were born 40 years earlier. She would be seen as a very high class individual?
Ariel: That is entirely possible. Wow. No, I'm kidding. I mean, listen, the Steinbergs are also genuinely smart and interesting. Like I found them to be very compelling storytellers who had interesting insights about themselves and, you know, material culture. Like I, I found them to be vivid people, um, vivid characters in a way that I don't know Kim Kardashians doesn't excite me.
Aminatou: Wow. We'll talk about that. On our other podcast with Curtis, I will say that like you bringing this up honestly, is there was a level of self-awareness to this family that left me feeling very unsettled, you know, because on one hand I'm like, yes, like this is very juicy and it's like very, you know, like it's great. And on the other hand, how can you be so self-aware and also like, one of you is definitely lying, like it's just it's I feel like almost like this is how, you know, like probably how my therapist feels, where it's like, okay, this person is here. And she is saying all of the right things, but are the actions matching? And there was something about it that left me feeling very unsettled.
Ariel: I think that that's kind of always a key element in any story that I've ever wanted to tell is like the distance between what someone understands about themselves and what their actions suggest. Even if they're super, you know, self is even if they're super articulate and introspective, there's always this distance. And that's like the most interesting part. I mean, that's my favorite part about storytelling is sort of trying to psychoanalyze people basically and find a way to convey that.
Aminatou: It is. Yeah. And I guess it is probably just so much more vivid because you're hearing them tell it in their own voice, in a way that reading a quote in a magazine is, you know, I get to say that in my own voice to myself.
Ariel: So interesting. It's like, there, there are different. So this is, there are different conventions in print media than there are in podcasting. Like for example, if someone said something inflammatory, but not totally off base, I might put that in the New Yorker and then say later, you know, so-and-so has a different take on it. What, what Melinda was trying to show me with podcasting that I thought was interesting was that once you hear something, you can't unhear it. Like you can't let someone say something and then have someone else dispute it without the resonance of the first thing echoing in your ears in a different way than it doesn't print.
Aminatou: Yeah. I mean, all I can say is listen to the podcast because wow. It's just, I, yeah. I just been thinking, I've been thinking about it so much because it is, it's the level of transparency that you, you know, you like wish everyone would have. And at the same time you hear it, you're like, thank God, it's not my family.
Ariel: Oh my God, perish the thought I don't want to hear, oh God, I don't want to say, or hear things. This Frank about my family.
Aminatou: I know like I'm still happy that my dad hasn't found Facebook. You know, I like, I like, I'm like the day that man finds Facebook, disappearing, disappearing to, I just don't want to be a part of it. So it's a lot. It's a lot, man. I could talk to you for hours and hours and hours. Can you tell me one thing before we go? What is one thing recently that you've changed your mind about?
Ariel: Motherhood?
Aminatou: Ooh. Say more.
Ariel: Well, I have my baby now as you know, baby Olive and I guess I was always my life, she's a winner. She, I was always told that being a mother was going to be so, so hard every minute of every day. And that is not my experience. I'm not saying it won't happen later. It probably will. But just, I was, I shocked, like get just been a joy and I don't under, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop basically. Cause I just feel like I was always so afraid of how hard it was going to be. Cause everyone's sad. And I'm like, I dunno, it seems okay to me.
Aminatou: Right. And it's, I don't know. I was talking to another friend about this. So it's actually how funny that you bring this up to you because I do not have a baby, but I, I have access to many babies. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me because I was like being an auntie is so fun because you get, you know, I was like, you got all the best parts. And then when they start, like, when they're fussy, I'm like, you're going back to your parents. Like you don't live here. And so it's very like, it's the best I have the best. But I was talking to another friend recently who was saying something along the lines of what you were saying where, you know, and, and again, like, it's obviously like acknowledging like, yes, like we have more help and more resources. Like all of those things are true. And also motherhood is like, it isn't like, it will be harder to parenting will be hard, but there is also something, I think that about the way that we have just been told, like, there's almost like an overcorrection for like, it's like everyone is just telling you how miserable it will be. That I think like strikes fear in the hearts of a lot of people. And I was like, well, you know, like, is it possible that it's just complicated? And it doesn't have to be the most miserable or, you know, some days are fun and some days are hard, unclear. But again, very easy for me to say as the person who I get to, you know, I'm like, I'm going to fill Olive with sugar and like send her back to your house.
Ariel: You’re definitely not giving her any sugar until she's five, but–
Aminatou: Not until she's five, but you know, but by sugar, I also mean like, you know, like nice jackets, you know, like just things. And then she gets to go back to your house.
Ariel: This is what I think about this, honestly. And I, if anyone who wants to send me hate mail about this, like, I don't blame you. I, you're right. Like I should have some.
Aminatou: Yes. Some experiences of mothering are very hard.
Ariel: Oh my God, I'm sure. I just not there yet. And like, I'm not trying to disrespect those experiences, but I am saying something else, which is this. I do think some of what I was afraid of about motherhood was codependency. Basically, I was afraid of like, what's it going to be like, to always have to like fix this other person's feelings? And then I started like reading about it. It was like, oh, wait a minute. What if you didn't look at it that way? What if you just didn't assume that every time your child was crying, it was a problem for every time she was unhappy, you had done something wrong. Like what if it was just another person who had feelings then it's a lot less, you know, grueling.
Aminatou: I mean, that is, I think that that's fair. And that's thank you for making my point better than what I was saying, because I was being very inarticulate. I mean, kind of, but I will say that like for me, my, the thing that has saved the pandemic for me has been like hanging out with small people. I like every good memory I've had in this like wretched time is because someone under the age of 15 has like made me laugh. And it is just like really fun to know small humans and to think of them as small humans. Cause I never, I, you know, again, I was like, that's not how I was raised. And I was like, oh, you're like have your own feelings and your own quirks and your own, like, you know, like your little weirdo and the minute that you account for that, you're just like, okay, like, like let this person become themselves. And there's something about it. That's actually really lovely and wonderful to watch from the outside. At least
Ariel: It's fantastic. I find it very, very that's the other thing, everyone was like, it gets really boring. I'm like, I do not find this boring. This is not boring to me watching like a small person.
Aminatou: Yeah human development are you kidding?
Ariel: Yeah their whole life. Like, I don't find that boring. And, but what you said is exactly it it's, it's realizing that from day one, they're human beings, this woman I'm writing about for the New Yorker, Janet Landsbury, she's writing this book called babies are people. And that's it in a nutshell, if there are people from day one that it's not boring and it's not that tragic. If they're crying.
Aminatou: Does she write about it just from that angle? Or is it like babies or people? So also like, um, you know, like policies should reflect that we should like pay them for being humans. And we should like invest in them and like all like, is there a policy angle to this book?
Ariel: No, there's definitely not.
Aminatou: Janet Landsbury, now you are going to make it hard for me to read this book.
Ariel: Aminatou, you or someone else has to think of the policy. She's just telling you to like tell your kid before you pick her up.
Aminatou: No, I'm just saying this because I've been watching all this Democrat mishegoss with what they're doing with our policies. And I just like, you know what, like the small baby, like children are also humans and we should account for them in how we do politics and we should pay for all of their school. We should buy every single one of their lunches. We should be saving for them for retirement. And we should give them healthcare, like all of these things,
Ariel: If for no other reason, like, I don't understand why the rich don't realize like, oh, that would help me too. If those people were sorted, that'd be better for everyone.
Aminatou: Like the things that you could fill with, like, if the rich realized that XYZ would be living in a different, okay, man, now I'm going to plan some adventurous for me a little Olive, because I do enjoy that little nugget and yeah, you're right. It is like, again, like, you know, it's not like I see her on a day to day, but I like, it's just like the dumbest things like, oh wow, your tongue is getting bigger. Your finger is like, but like, I don't like bodies are wilds to me.
Ariel: Little bodies ecoming bigger bodies. Come on.
Aminatou: I just, yeah, I just cannot. I'm like me spoken, like someone who does not, um, is not a parent and doesn't have to feed a baby, but I just like, I look at them and I'm like, wow. Like things are, like human being things are happening over here.
Ariel: See, that's another thing. I think that's another thing about motherhood. I think people like make it seem as if there's some difference in consciousness that I don't find there to be like, I don't think your experience of children is any less deep or valid just because you don't live with one who is like, quote unquote, yours. You know what I mean? They're never yours are people like.
Aminatou: They are people
Ariel: You get to live with them. It's neat.
Aminatou: Babies are people come on the podcast. Talk about this.
Ariel: I bet you well.
Aminatou: I'm telling you babies. I don't know. This sounds so dumb, but I don't know. I, um, it's I think the reason I'm charmed by all of it too, is that when I was younger, if you had asked me about having children, I was not dismissive of it. I just like, could not imagine it for myself. That's truly what it was. Because on one hand also like the dominant culture has told me that it is hard, but also I know that it's hard because I see how it can be hard. And so, you know, I was just like, when am I ever going to have enough time or money or a partner? Like it just like did not, it was not in the face. Yeah. It just, I can never computed. And so it was never in the frontal cortex. And so now I'm charmed that something, I thought I had a bad attitude about actually, as I was like, oh no, I just did not have enough human year experiences to like have informed opinions or be delighted by this. And now I feel differently about it. I was like, this is the best part about getting older is that you just, you like become a person that you have more input and you and your life can be different.
Ariel: I do think two things. I think that I as much as I'm like, oh, I don't see why people say it's so hard. I meant emotionally.
Aminatou: Yes. Emotionally.
Ariel: Logistically it is hard. Like we don't have help that the reason it works. And the reason it's easy is we work from home and we have a comfortable house where she has like a changing table and a diaper pail, and we have enough diapers. It wouldn't be so fun. And it wouldn't be so easy if I was working full time out of the house and I didn't have a partner and I didn't have enough money for diapers. That doesn't sound so great.
Aminatou: No. The amount of equipment that you people are lugging around all the time, I was like, wow, there's a lot happening here.
Ariel: I mean. That you could do away with. But, but the time to, to not be away at work enough to pay for childcare, I don't know how people do that. I don't, that's we have not made it easy for those people.
Aminatou: Ah, thank you. Thank you, actually, for thank you for being smart, because you are right to make the distinction between the logistics and the feelings. And, but also how the confusion between those two things are why sometimes we offend each other in this conversation, you know, wisdom is a dumb word, but I enjoy the different data and input that you get from just like being alive more days today than you were before.
Ariel: And often tell me that your, your, your prime age you think is what 63 is it?
Aminatou: Yeah. You know, but I suffer from that thing of parents have died where I'm convinced that I will not live a day older than the day my mom died, which I'm reading a book about motherless daughters. And I'm learning that I'm not unique in this hate to hate to be perceived. Um, yeah. So it turns out that like I like 63 is the age I want to be. I was like, I think that I will, I will do my best work that year, but truly there is a part of me that's like, like, you know, like 49, like that will be my last day on earth, but you know, but this is the thing I hear very commonly from people who have lost parents. That it's just hard. It's hard to imagine yourself, like past that age, because that's when you were personally, you know, the imprint like, so we'll see, we'll see. But you know, if I make it to 50, I'm throwing a big party, so, oh my God, I can't wait. And then 63, like, you know, maybe I'll even get married that year. Who knows like wild, anything could happen.
Ariel: Yeah. Anything could have, well, I think it's a really fun thing to think of like, oh my God, 63 is going to be a great year for my career. Like, that's fun. That's a fun way to look at it.
Aminatou: I am calling it. Now, if I'm here at 63, it will be the most exciting year of my career. I feel like I'm telling you right now. Um, it's like, I think that, like I was socialized at least not to, not to be excited about older age. And that is like, I never believed in that. I was like, I was only ever attracted to people who were older in both like ideas and feelings. And I was like, the only interesting people to me are people who've been alive for longer.
Ariel: It's funny. You should say you're my first friend. You're my first person who I adore really deeply, who's younger than me, I think. Cause I've always been the same way I think, because I'm an only child. So I always grew up like imagining that everyone who was my peer was like 30 years older. Um, and I haven't had a lot of younger friends until you.
Aminatou: Well, I don't know how to tell your sister. You're basically a geriatric millennial. So we are the same age. Hello.
Ariel: Lucky me.
Aminatou: Hello. Um, I love you very much. Thanks for being my friend.
Ariel: I love you too. Thanks for being my friend. Thanks for having me on your podcast. I love it.
[interview ends]
Ann: Can I give you a true Ariel levy confession about me as a baby journalist?
Aminatou: Tell me, tell me.
Ann: I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but she wrote a piece for the New Yorker. When I was like an intern, like year one of my career and quoted something I wrote for Feministing, which is a blog I wrote for at the time. And didn't quote me by name said like a blogger on a feminist website. And I was devastated because it was like I was being quoted in the New Yorker, which is like, hello. Oh my God, huge deal. And I wasn't being quoted by name. And like I sent her an email that was like, I can't remember the exact gist of it, but basically like, I'm really sad about this, you know? Um, and, and she wrote me back a really nice reply and I don't know that it really fully took like, you know, my baby outrage out of me, but like, it really, it was really, really kind, and she didn't have to do that. And, um, anyway, like a funny, minor interaction from a lifetime ago.
Aminatou: Wow. They're real like a rise of media. That story like encapsulates so many things. It's like, uh, bloggers versus establishment media. Now the New Yorker has a blog, you know, like we're all bloggers now. We're all writers and we're all bloggers. I kind of, uh, I love that and we're all podcasters. So that is a perfect, here is where the media is at moment.
Ann: The playing field has officially leveled. Okay. I'll see you on the internet. And back on this podcast in a week.
Aminatou: I will see you on the internet, my friend, uh, I hope that you have a very restful weekend and that, um, capitalism does not let you down this holiday weekend. Goodbye.
Ann: Amen.
[outro music]
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our producer is Jordan Bailey and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.