What's The New Fresh Hell In Public Health?

Claire: [00:00:00] I had to unsubscribe from someone's Substack 'cause she's a pediatrician and she'll pose these questions and sometimes they are like so absurd. And one is does white noise damage your child's hearing? And I was like, I don't care.

Quinn: Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this.

Claire: We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like

Quinn: AI homework detection, and they just don't do their homework.

Claire: Pride flags and dirty sports uniforms and how many plastic Gatorade water bottles is it possible for one child to lose?

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Claire: It's a you're not alone and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kind of show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches.

Quinn: And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important, Not Important.

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Claire: And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to questions at not right now dot show.

Quinn: We have a guest today, and her name is Dr. Devika Bhushan. Devika is a mom, a pediatrician, public health leader, a mental health activist, an immigrant, and an author. She serves on adjunct faculty at Stanford and is a senior advisor to a boatload of mental health startups. Devika serves on the National Board of Directors for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and was previously California's acting Surgeon General and first Chief Health Officer, where and when she bravely and publicly shared her own journey with bipolar disorder. Really, pretty incredible stuff. We're obviously super excited to have her on the show today, so please enjoy our conversation [00:02:00] with Devika.

Claire: How old is your son now, Devika? So we know the ballpark of what you're dealing with kid wise, parenting wise.

Devika Bhushan: 4-year-old.

Quinn: Oh, hello. Okay. Oh, that's right. A COVID baby. Yes. Good stuff.

Devika Bhushan: Yeah. Yeah. COVID baby.

Quinn: Awesome. Awesome. Very exciting.

Claire: Two of Quinn's, three kids are sick right now. So we were comparing notes on kids sickness. So how is illness treating you guys so far this autumn?

Devika Bhushan: I have a hundred percent of my child is sick. He is like coughing all night. You know, it's one of those really fun segments.

Claire: Among us, like when kids are sick, who jumps into action versus who is more let it roll. 'cause my husband, like my kid will have a cold or a chest cough. And he'll say does he need to go to the pediatrician? And I'm like, absolutely not. The pediatrician is for when medicine is involved and I can just tell in my gut when it's a medicine thing versus not a medicine thing. And I'm just curious who in your family is more likely to jump the gun and try to find some cure [00:03:00] for a cough, you know, versus just letting it roll on.

Devika Bhushan: Yeah, I mean the one sort of non-medical intervention that we do like to use, 'cause it's evidence-based is honey, it shortens the duration of cough. But yeah, in terms of running to the doctor, generally when kids are getting really dehydrated or when they're having any kind of trouble breathing with it. So those are the two. But yeah, I'm in your camp of most colds will just ride themselves out.

Quinn: I figure if they have four limbs, we're doing okay. We're gonna make it.

Claire: My older son has a heart murmur and every year the pediatrician is like, it's still there, and we still get it checked out, but I'm like, what's gonna happen? I guess, what's the end game? I'm kinda like, I'm over it a little bit and he still does sports.

I don't know. His color looks good. Do tell me if I'm ignoring something really potentially dangerous. But otherwise, like he's gotten a couple of you know, echocardiograms or whatever, like we have a cardiologist that he checks on, but I don't know what else?

Quinn: [00:04:00] I'm over it. It could have definitely also been the name of this podcast. Besides not right now. There's like a, I'm trying to think of the long list of things that I'm over, but continue with actual medical advice.

Devika Bhushan: I like that name. I'm over it.

Claire: Devika, what is new with you at work in public health and what is, I feel like a lot of your, when I see your Substack posts, you are reacting to something that's going on in the news and I'm like, I feel like you just saw a news article or someone else's cockamamie post about ignoring science that like pissed you off and you're reacting to. So I'm just curious what's in your world right now that's either making you feel optimistic or really making you mad?

Devika Bhushan: There is so much misinformation and disinformation out there, and that is definitely in the camp of making me mad. But I feel like there's a lot of really good people who are trying to band together to still do really good work. So an example of a project I'm really excited about is I'm working with Dr. Bruce Perry, who is a child trauma expert to really distill down [00:05:00] the basics on what we know about stress and resilience and how that applies to early childhood. And we're creating a series of children's books because, you know, when you're in early parenting, none of us really have time to dig into long form books, courses, all of the myriad of resources that are out there that are really high quality. But all of us have some time to read to our kids, right? So wouldn't it be so amazing if that experience was also packed with nuggets of information that could actually help you respond to those hard moments in ways that build your kids' resilience and coping tools and long-term skills. And so that's what we're trying to do.

It's a six part series. So the first three books are for the preschool age group. And then the second set of books is about getting kids in the early elementary, early reader period to continue learning about all of these great things and it's done through the world of a family of [00:06:00] dragons and who doesn't love dragons, adults to preschoolers? So I'm really excited about it.

Quinn: Do they love tacos? These dragons.

Devika Bhushan: You know, I do like that book. We haven’t incorporated tacos into this particular series.

Quinn: Saying those, the end of that book, it's pretty stressful. So there's something there about, there is some trauma related, you read it enough times with your kids and you start to extrapolate on the whole thing. Kind of like how, when you realize Thomas the Train is horrific at his job and how does he still have one? Yeah, just saying there's something there. Well, that's super cool.

Claire: So we're in a news cycle right now that is absurd. And like right now, as of today, like I was doing a lot of like grocery shopping and today was one of those days where I was actually putting everything away, putting the laundry away quickly. 'cause I was like, I cannot be on the news too much.

'cause the president is like threatening to assassinate people now. But I was like, wow, they really have pushed down like the MAHA news, like if RFK is in the news for anything right now, it's 'cause of his former affair with that journalist. And I feel like, so [00:07:00] things are maybe a little bit more under the radar but maybe not just 'cause the news cycle's so crazy.

And so I guess I'm just wondering like what battles you are waging, you know, online, like what's happening either actively or what's coming up that people are just like playing the fool with, whether it's like vaccines or untested remedies, things like that? I'm just curious what the fresh hell is right now.

Devika Bhushan: The fresh hell. I like that phrase. You're full of really good one-liners. Claire. I really appreciate that.

Well, I do have to say, I think across the board vaccine hesitancy and distrust is growing and it's really alarming because we're seeing so many outbreaks of measles, for example, in this country. And measles had been nearly eradicated in the Americas and now we've sort of lost our elimination status. Thanks only to misinformation and disinformation. Right. And we're seeing, I mean, very well intentioned caregivers and parents who are believing things like [00:08:00] fluoride in the water is bad for them, or there are secret ingredients in vaccines that are actually going to hinder a child's immunity.

Right. Like the exact opposite of what we've been working so hard over the last several decades to try to help people understand. Right. And just the fact that people are listening to the federal leadership on many of these points of misinformation and disinformation because they're in positions of power, right?

And they have the bully pulpit, but they are giving out information that actually is either personally enriching or otherwise tainted in some way and just isn't what we need to rely on for good, high quality, evidence-based health and wellness information. So it's a really troubling time all around. You mentioned listening to the news and trying to keep your head out of it. I myself try not to get too bogged down [00:09:00] in the latest and greatest of whatever is trending, honestly, because it is very easy to start feeling very infuriated and helpless, right?

And so I try to limit my doses of the information that's coming in, but then I try to really do what I can to shore up community, build partnerships with the kinds of folks who I know are doing really good work in this domain. You know, pay attention to what the American Academy of Pediatrics and other industry groups are coming out with and trying to bolster their efforts.

Right. For example, the AAP sued RFK Jr. and Health and Human Services for spreading all of this blatant misinformation about what the vaccine, the COVID vaccine does during pregnancy, for example. That was one piece of that lawsuit. And they've come out with their own vaccine guidance. Because of, you know, [00:10:00] fraying trust in the processes that lead to federal recommendations. And so being able to band together with other people in coordinated counter attacks, if you will, counter resistance to all of the very systematized ways in which public health information and trust is starting to be frayed across the board. I think you can't do it, you know, working on your own.

You really have to be in partnership and in collaboration with so many others who are wanting the right information to find people.

Claire: Do you guys, both you guys, like where you live and like where your kids go through, do you guys encounter a lot of folks who believe goofy stuff basically? And like, how do you manage that when you encounter someone in the wild who you're like, oh wow, you are drinking, like you went and got unpasteurized milk, or you know, you're taking a weird medication that is not authorized, or you have some strange ideas about that kind of stuff. Like [00:11:00] how do you handle that?

Devika Bhushan: I'd love to hear your response to that Quinn, but I have to say, when it's in the wild and it's, you know, maybe acquaintances, maybe friends, maybe family members, one thing I've learned to do honestly is if they're not looking for my opinion or my input and they're doing something that maybe I wouldn't do, I sometimes just let that be.

Claire: Yeah.

Devika Bhushan: What about you, Quinn?

Quinn: It's a struggle. I mean, I have the wonderful job of all I do is work on existential things. So, it's really great as my wife says you know, when we go to parties, which we don't, she tells people I have a climate change podcast and then everybody walks away. But I wrestle with this and I thought about this, you know, doing a little research on you, in not a creepy way, and how you know, shared your story, your mental health story and how important it's to shine a light on things.

And it made me think of one of my climate heroes. This scientist, Dr. Katherine Hayhoe down in Texas, who's amazing, wonderful scientist, science communicator, Christian, tries to really stay in touch with [00:12:00] that block of people to try to help them make better decisions for themselves and for the planet and their communities.

And her biggest thing is like when people say, what can I do about it? She says, talk about it. We have to normalize it, for yourself at home, in your communities, on the news, wherever it might be at your workplace. And I think you can do that in a way that's not obnoxious while also like you said not hitting people over the head for it if they didn't ask for it. Right. Everyone's joking about how the Thanksgiving dinner table's gonna go in a week. Right. And everyone's got that one uncle, but it's a fine line. Right? So we had someone say in our life oh yeah, well, I'm going over to, I think this was like last year when it was all the rage. So I'm going over this person. She's got raw milk in her fridge and she sells it outta there, and I'm gonna go get it and have some. It's a relative, seems like a smart person, a great mom as far as I can tell.

And I was proud of myself for not immediately reacting and saying something obstinate. But I feel like there's probably [00:13:00] a version where you can say, I don't know. What do you say? Well, I probably wouldn't do that. Or maybe don't do that to your kids. It's a hard one, right?

It's a hard one. And I think the difference between that and vaccines is, as I try to always tell people is, but what your choice is actually affecting me and my children. And that's what makes it different. And, you know, look well, I guess smoking secondhand smoke too, you know, I think there's a difference between these personal choices that are, you're gonna do what you're gonna do and things that are gonna affect everybody else.

When, Claire, I don't even know if I've told you this one. When we were in LA for 15 years and let's see, my second oldest was like one and a half. And my kids right now are 10, 11, 12. So at one point they were 3 under 3. My second oldest was like one and a half. And she got whooping cough probably from some daycare or something like that or you know, a little gym class or something.

And we had just had our third kid, and this is back in the day when the CDC found out and they [00:14:00] called every day, how's it going? This and this. And they were basically like, you have to wall off two sides of your house, essentially. Do not let those children be near each other. because that's how it works, you know, that's public health and we can talk about all the policies, change this and this.

So I guess that's my very long answer, surprise Claire, to how I would address those things when they come up is if it's a personal choice and it's purely personal, then okay, if it's something that's directly putting someone's kids in harm, I'm gonna have a pretty hard time not saying something, but when it concerns like actual public health, I do try to set the record straight at least and make it clear things as I do to my children. Things that are not dad's opinion and are just facts. So I don't know.

Claire: Can I tell you my one raw milk story? And this is like gonna lead, this will lead to my question or topic about maternal guilt, sort of. But I have a loved one whose spouse is sort of, you know, dabbles in, I don't know what, he has some, I don't know. He listens to a lot of podcasts. Let's just say that.

Podcasts I don't listen to that deal with health. And last [00:15:00] year she told me that on spring break, her husband was really ill, like really sick with a, you know, horrible GI thing. And they were traveling and he couldn't drive. And, you know, I was like, God, he must have norovirus. And then she said, it turned out da dah dah, he'd been drinking raw milk and that was what made him sick. And I have kind of been through it with this relative and sort of accepting that we have different beliefs and I love them and I don't wanna, it's not worth getting into it. So I just said, oh, wow. And she said, yeah. And I said something along the lines of it's too bad that his choice has affected you so much and your kids. And she's like, yeah. And that was just like a way of kind of being like his little experiment really, it wasn't just him, you know, it didn't affect the whole community. But you know, when it all comes down and your wife is driving the four kids through the panhandle 'cause you drank some weirdo milk that you heard about, you know, like that's a whole other thing.

But my transition does not seamless, but Devika, I [00:16:00] was thinking of you with the Tylenol causes autism thing because everything's always mom's fault no matter what. You know, obviously, Quinn must be nice. And that just made me so mad all over again because what was the takeaway?

Just tough it out if you have a headache or just tough it out if you have a, you know, horrible you know, virus or whatever it is. And it made me think about your posts about breastfeeding also, because I really love that you are a voice for the folks who can't or choose not to breastfeed and like just reminding people that babies get fed. Of course right now there's a formula recall. So that's like bad timing basically. But you know, do you mind talking a little bit about like why that's something that you like to talk about and remind people about when you were on Substack and other places?

Devika Bhushan: Yes, absolutely. About a year ago, almost two years ago now, actually, I wrote a piece for Slate where I talked about my own personal journey in terms of being [00:17:00] pregnant and then planning for a postpartum period where I started to think very seriously about not breastfeeding at all. And that was because my treatment team, including my psychiatrist, I live with bipolar disorder and sleep protection is a huge piece of staying well. Postpartum, like for many other folks with health challenges, is a very challenging period and you can have a relapse risk somewhere in the ballpark of 50%. So it was a very serious risk that I was looking to head off. And one of the things that we could do was of course, get additional help at night so that lots of good quality sleep could happen. But the other thing was that if you can give feeding away from you as a mother as you're recovering, that is one of the biggest things that keeps people awake, right? So if you're breastfeeding, for example, in order to just establish a supply, you need to be up every couple of [00:18:00] hours, including overnight, whether you're pumping or going direct to breast with your infant, all of those interrupted hours of sleep basically add up to bad news bears if you have a health condition that relies on good quality sleep. So I made the decision that we were gonna do a hundred percent formula feeding from the get-go. And initially it was a hard pill to swallow because as a pediatrician, as an OB, you know, in the medical establishment there is a very serious dogma and bias towards breast is best. But when you start to break that down and say where do these guidelines really come from and what does the best randomized data actually show us. And people like Emily Oster have done a great job of sounding the alarm on this, that actually the guidelines are not reflecting the best evidence. They're actually summarizing data that is observational and has a lot of confounding variables like, for example, [00:19:00] education and wealth have a lot to do with some of the outcomes that are reported to be associated with breastfeeding.

But when you break it all down, and I'm happy to share a link to my Slate article where I summarize this, but essentially there are two benefits for babies in the randomized data. From breastfeeding relative to formula feeding, and that is a 4% reduced risk of gut infections and a 3% reduced risk for eczema in the first year of life.

That is it. There's no other impacts for maternal infant bonding, for longer term health impacts, like diabetes or obesity or anything else, including cognitive outcomes. And then for moms, there is a lower risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and that's well worth looking into and paying attention to, but otherwise everything else that we hear the whole bag of, you know, all of the putative benefits are actually when you strip it away, not worn out by the best data. And so why are we making [00:20:00] parents and specifically mothers feel so incredibly ashamed when they're either unable to or choose not to, for a variety of reasons give this bodily milk essentially to their babies. We're making people feel like we are setting their kids up for a lifetime of poorer health and cognitive outcomes, when that's just not the case. And so when you really sit down with it's really part of this greater narrative of, you know, mothers are responsible for so much. That really when you sit down and you look at it, we can't blame mothers for everything that goes wrong in early or midlife. Yeah, we do. We used to say that schizophrenia was caused by having a cold mother, right? Like we used to say like these very wild things in medicine.

It was called a schizophrenogenic mother. And in this whole [00:21:00] Tylenol thing, you know, if you don't treat the fever or the infection or the, you know, the pain syndrome, that inflammatory burden and that actually fever response can be harmful to the fetus in and of itself. And so we're setting up all of these not only false narratives that are shaming and blaming of mothers, but we're actually giving people the wrong conclusions and we're giving them the wrong thing to do right. And so I think this whole thing about vilifying formula feeding, it's just wrong.

Claire: Yeah, when I gave birth my first kid, I got induced out of left field and it was a really long, terrifying process. And I was on magnesium and I had a balloon and it took days and it was terrifying. And when I gave birth, I was really shell shellshocked and I couldn't imagine that recovery process and breastfeeding on top of that.

And I was so glad my husband was there to feed him, just literally. And then of course, when we got home and took care of [00:22:00] that. But I have a friend who his wife, his poor wife, just gave birth to this massive 10 pound baby. And of course, like she was induced. And then she labored for 46 hours and then she got the emergency C-section.

And I just like always put a little like she needs a formula friend. I'm here for you. Because I have no regrets. I love it when people talk about breastfeeding going well for them, but also when people are killing themselves. And I know it's hard, it's really hard. But like when your kids are a little bit older like Quinn's and mine, you don't walk around seeing like the best swimmers on the swim team were breastfed or like the smartest kids were breastfed.

That all falls away. Like you stopped paying attention to that. I don't know. Quinn, did you guys have to deal with any kind of, I don't know if we got into breastfeeding at all. Maybe Dana had a good, a nice, easy time with it.

Quinn: No, I mean she can obviously speak to it more from what I, well, frankly, what we both haven't blacked out since we had three under three. Beggars can't be choosers. We had a bunch of, I've said on the show plenty of times, and we've been very public. We had a bunch of miscarriages.

We had a [00:23:00] bunch of IVF that basically we spent every dollar trying to make 'em made. The first one my wife was told, of course, 'cause she was over at the time, 33 or something that was a geriatric pregnancy, of which we didn't just realize that's what it meant. We were just like, she was like, I'm sorry, like what are you talking about?

But it was a shit show. And then we had to do IVF for the second one if we ever wanted another one. And then of course, the third one was an accident while she was breastfeeding, which we're told that's pretty difficult, not impossible, but pretty difficult, especially for people who science had been like, you can't make a child essentially, you know, two years before that.

But we definitely had plenty of latching issues. We were really lucky to have a lactation nurse come and help out with that kind of stuff. You know, at one point, I don't remember what she was eating, it seemed so innocuous, but one of them ended up having terrible gas. And so we did lactose-free formula for a while and it's like, great, fine.

But of course, like we could hear the bullshit and especially among older generations for sure. But we were like, well, we have to do it. But the other part was, and this is part of the rest of my job [00:24:00] is trying to help folks understand the broader externalities of our choices.

Whether that's climate investing or medicine or public health or food and how these things all intersect, which is, you know, my wife had to have a pretty brutal C-section for the first one. And then we were in the hospital for a week, and then the baby not latching after that. When we got home after you've had nurses who are incredible taking care of you for a week and you're exhausted and you've basically had the Alien surgery essentially, because, I mean, it's incredible how traumatic it is to then take sleep away, right? All these externalities of all these different things affect you and even if it goes quote unquote, you know, normally, no major procedures like we had with our second and our third.

Again, that fact of sleep, like we know so much about sleep and how it affects you. We know so much more now, not enough about postpartum depression and struggles about how those can affect you. That it is both completely predictable, that we make people who have babies feel shit [00:25:00] about not breastfeeding.

But at the same time it's just such a wildly poor choice to not say what works best for you in your overall life and family life right now is probably what you should do. Because everything else considered, like you're saying, it's fine. Like they're being fed, as long as they're not drinking outta lead pipes, right? Like we know the things that are a problem. This is not a problem. Let's deal with all the other shit that are actual problems.

Devika Bhushan: This is not a problem.

Quinn: There's plenty of other ones. So that was our experience really, which is like we went back and forth based on what we needed to. She loved to do it, but couldn't do it all the time. My wife had to go back to work after a week. So we did what we could, you know, we were very lucky to be able to do that. We weren't, didn't have little kids during this formula shortage, which again is just a purely infrastructure problem that we've created on our own. So I don't know. We were lucky, but it drives me crazy.

Claire: There was an article, I was telling Quinn to read it, and I don't know if you saw Devika. It was in the New York Times magazine about this woman who frankly is mentally ill. I'm diagnosing her myself from afar, even though I have no medical degree, but she's addicted to having babies basically.

And [00:26:00] she had maybe like 12 or 13 babies. And then she lied to her husband basically about using an egg donor to implant a surrogate. But with one of her babies that she had when she was like in her late fifties, I wanna say, she got some kind of experimental medicine over the internet so that she could induce lactation.

And I was like, okay, this is not, can we call this not normal? Is that, I mean, I don't know at what point, like all, none of it is working. None of it is sounding great. But I was like, maybe that's a case where formula, if you have to have this, you know. If you're making your adult children watch your 14th baby while you are, you know, in AARP yourself. Like it's okay to have formula if you gotta do it, but you know, she really likes babies more than I do. I'll just say that. I guess you can never accuse me of being too sentimental. But that's just her choice. So, Devika, did you, kind of shifting topics a little bit, but I know your son's just a little guy. But I'm just curious like how much you [00:27:00] have talked with him, if you have at all about, you know, you talked about, you know, your bipolar disorder, like mental health stuff, like how much have you talked to him about that kind of stuff so far? Are you kind of waiting till he is a little bit older?

Devika Bhushan: Well, I believe in being as open as you can because there are things I need to do daily to make sure I'm healthy and good for myself, but also for him. And I mentioned earlier that sleep protection is a big piece of that. So these days, for better or for worse, our little guy, four years old, likes to sleep with somebody at night.

Okay? So that somebody is my husband, right? So the two of them are off in their room and I'm in my own room, sort of ensconced in my, you know, pillows and my eye mask and my earbuds. And I usually go to bed, you know, we all go to bed around the same time. And then I usually get about an hour extra of sleep in the morning.

And the two boys in the house wake up early. And my son knows that I need sleep to feel my [00:28:00] best. So he knows about that on that level, but he also knows that his dad is a heavy sleeper and he doesn't get woken up if there's a little person next to him moving around, kicking him, et cetera. And he knows that I'm a light sleeper, and that's apart from me having bipolar disorder. But he knows that's the reason I'm not the adult that's sleeping next to him because we never wanted for him to feel like, you know, the choices that we're making to help me stay healthy. We never want him to feel like he's being rejected.

So there has to be a very tactical and a very practical reason for the differences where they exist in terms of my husband being present and me not, or me parenting in a different way or around different circumstances. So we try to be really open about that. And actually earlier this year I also developed a second chronic health condition more in the physical health domain.

So arthritis and, you know, that kept me, yeah, it was painful and [00:29:00] terrible. And you know, there were a couple of weeks where I literally could not bear weight. I couldn't walk. So of course that changed what I was able to do as far as being a parent to my son. And so we were, again, very open and frank with him about, Hey, mama's got a new health thing that she's figuring out.

Her toes are hurting, her toes are swollen, and we're gonna figure this out. But for right now, what that means is that you're gonna walk to school with papa and you can come hang out with mama, but sometimes she's gonna need to stay in bed and sometimes she's not gonna feel super, you know, energetic or peppy.

She might be in pain. So all of that stuff is very absorbable, I think for a then 3-year-old or a 4-year-old. And I think it's really important if there's gonna be any shifts in the household, whether they're health related or finances related, or any other major change that kids know what's going on because, not to overwhelm [00:30:00] them with information, but just to be factual, help them work through whatever change looks like is gonna happen, whether it's temporary or more permanent, just so they have the fact and they're not making things up. 'cause the worst thing that can happen is, you know, a parent has to recede, let's say from a major you know, a hands-on parenting role. And kids then make up stories about what that's about. And a lot of those stories, if you don't confront it directly, can be stories like, I wasn't good enough or I made this happen. Right? Kids have a lot of magical thinking, so I think it's really important to meet them exactly where they're at, answer their questions, be factual, and try to have it be very age appropriate. But intentional.

Claire: Yeah, I had a little sort of crack the ice with my sons a little bit. God, the things that you do. I don't even know why I was doing this. I have a pill case now because I'm just at the age now where [00:31:00] I take so many pills that I have to be like an old lady and put them in.

And so I was like shaking it around and I talked about the pills I take and I was like, I take pills for my hair and pills for my skin and pills for my depression. And my son was like, you take pills for depression? And I said, yeah, you know, and he was, God bless him, not incredibly curious about it. He's got a level of self, you know, centeredness that can kind of make life easier. But I was like, I'm here for you guys if you wanna talk about it. Because between my husband and me, one of them, they're probably gonna have depression and or anxiety and you know, I don't wanna get in their head too much about it, but at the same time, you know, I don't want them to ignore it or, I don't know, I wanna normalize it, I suppose, you know? I don't know. Quinn, how much have you guys talked to your kids about that kind of stuff?

Quinn: I mean, our kids know that they're gonna be very damaged, to be clear. Like they see their parents operate on a daily basis. No, I mean, jokes aside, which are half jokes, you know, we try to be, I take, what do I take Claire? Prozac? What's my thing? I think Prozac. I don't fucking know. [00:32:00] I had a mini heart attack two years ago for stress, which is awful.

And I exercise, meditation, all the different things. They do it, but not enough. They weren't enough. And so finally I said, yeah, I gotta do something. I got three kids here. It's one of those moments where you go well, I have to figure this out. There's not a this can kick the can down the road. So I'm very open to that. And part of that again, is also they're old, they're wrestling with stuff. They were, you know, homeschooled during COVID kids.

They've got you know, shooting drills in their classrooms. And they know that I work on climate change and politics and all that kind of stuff. They know that things are hard. They're shielded from a lot of it because they're wealthy or healthy, relatively healthy white kids. But, you know, one's got pretty crippling anxiety and some depression.

And so we're really open about that and stuff. So it's all to say we are where we can be and where it makes sense to be, to let them know that I guess the primary thing we always try to come back to is if you are feeling something like everybody else has something going on. This is not, [00:33:00] you are not alone in whatever the thing is you're dealing with. Everybody has something going on, whether they share it or they don't. So I guess that is sort of the primary function of us using those examples as much as we can on top of just like explaining why a certain situation might be the way that it is.

Does that make sense? And then I just tell them, we joke all the time, like it's half joking when they're like, I wanna stay awake. I'm like, you cannot because I need to go to sleep and mom's been asleep for an hour. I need you to stop asking questions and go to sleep. Which is a health thing. But also, please stop talking.

Claire: You would've liked this last night, Quinn, because Steve, my husband's been out all last week and this week doing work stuff, and I've been filled with resentment and not been handling it gracefully. So when he comes home, I'm like, you're in, like you're doing it. But then my younger son, like he has been with me so much that he kind of is like a little bit extra when the new guy, my husband taps in. So I heard this argument the other night where James wouldn't stay in bed. He's our kid with ADHD. And he like popped [00:34:00] out quickly, you know, he is like, I can't sleep. And Steve was like, try harder. And James was like, how can I try harder at falling asleep? And then last night, there's another round of this, 'cause he takes a pill, clonidine to try to quiet his mind when he sleeps. And he popped outta bed 10 minutes after Steve put him to bed and he said, mom, I don't think the pill's working. And I said, what do you want me to do about it? And he said, I don't know.

And I texted Steve and I was like, can you come in and just deal with it? And I just run outta gas at the end of the night, and I'm just like, I cannot put the ability for you to fall asleep in your head. And I think my husband identifies with that more so he has more patience and will do more of the back rub, you know, and things like that and hanging out.

But I'm more like, good luck. You know, you can always put a light on and read, but yeah, I'm not the nice guy when it comes to bedtime like that. And I, you know,I'm much meaner than I ever thought I could be.

Quinn: Well, 'cause you're fucking tired and it's fucking hard.

Claire: Quinn and I have compared notes about all the accoutrement that we need to fall asleep. Like I have a special machine that blows dry [00:35:00] air under the sheets 'cause I sweat so much. And he has like a litany of special pillows. So you mentioned AirPods or ear buds?

Quinn: Yeah. Take us through your list, like what's non-negotiable on a basic night.

Devika Bhushan: Okay, well, it's not just what happens at night for me, right? So in the daytime, I have to make sure I see the sun when it's out. 'cause that helps set your circadian rhythms. And then at night I turn the lights fairly low all throughout the house. If I'm watching TV, I'm going to be using blue light blocking glasses, right?

Because that prevents the blue light from entering your brain and waking your brain up and telling yourself that it's day. So all those things are really important. So all of the light sensitivity, then the dark you know, inducement and then the actual wind down is pretty routine, so it's, you know, me reading to my kid settling down, we cuddle. He usually falls asleep next to me, and then we swap him over to his [00:36:00] bed. And then I put on my, I have this very luxe eye mask that has holes, is sort of like a cutout area for your eyeballs, because I would find that, you know, those flat ones, I would wake up and like my eyelashes in the morning would be like separated. They would have a distinct like part in them, right? So I had to get these like basically pillowed eye masks which are absolutely key, right?

Quinn: Will you send us the link to whatever that is? People love that.

Devika Bhushan: Yes, I will definitely send that over. I can send you my blue light blocking glasses link as well. And then I have these great very soft earbuds that I like put into my ears. I can't hear anything. Once those are on, if someone walks into the room, tries to say something to me, I have no idea what they're saying. I just hear like background noise, like a drone. So it's great. You're basically sensorily totally deprived. You can sleep through anything.

Claire: I hate the feeling of ear things like that. My husband and I don't co-sleep 'cause he snores, he probably has sleep apnea. I can't hold [00:37:00] his hand through that journey that's on him. But I hate the feeling of earplugs. It just, I just yearned to pull them out.

So I just get rid of the noise maker. And also my machine makes like a white noise. But yeah, it's a whole like routine. Quinn has a little, I'll never stop thinking about, you have a little pillow for just between your feet, right.

Quinn: Claire, do you want me to start? I can go over the whole list. Like our beloved guest, anyone who says their nighttime routine starts at night is an amateur. Like this is, the entire day plans up to it. This time of year it's actually, sometimes it's even this time of year, it's fine because it's like a cheat coat.

It's been dark out for an hour already here. But I mean, in the summer I'm like dimming our house lights at five o'clock and my kids are like, it's light out for another four fucking hours, buddy. This has gotta stop. And I'm like, sorry, this is for me. But also, you know, trying to teach you. But mostly for me. The room's gotta be arctic.

Like it's gotta be very cold. Which is just, that's non-negotiable. We've got one of the little mattresses that cool things 'cause my wife also like super [00:38:00] hot. And then, yeah, the pillows are straightforward. It's two different systems. Claire, thank you for asking. Depending on whether my wife is there or not, it's when my wife, I like, I don't know which one is really, you might use the word egregious, is it the one that I'm using while she's there because there is another human. Do I need all of these, which is, I have a special foam one with a little divot for my head, but I don't put my head on it. I put another one on top of it. It's like a cooling pillow. So it's just kind of a support.

Then there's another one to the side, which is kind of the backup, and I switch 'em every once in a while. And then I stole my wife's pregnancy pillow 12 years ago. The body pillow that's on the side, a big foam guy. And then yes, I've got a foam one between my knees and I added the one in my feet, which I gotta say is a game changer.

It's really great. But when she's not here, oh yeah. Then there's literally four more in various positions in an effort to essentially recreate her, poorly, I should add. But I have to do what I can. Same thing. Very loud sound machine to the point where I could see how people are like, it's gonna hurt [00:39:00] your hearing. And I'm like, I don't care. Like I don't care. I need to sleep.

Claire: I had to unsubscribe from someone's substack 'cause she's a pediatrician and she'll pose these questions and sometimes they are like so absurd. And one is does white noise damage your child's hearing? And I was like, I don't care.

Quinn: Yeah, exactly. We solved that. I don't care. Great work, everybody.

Claire: Yeah, I have a, I call it my baby pillow. It's not really, it's not a baby at all, but I like hold it and like it's my comfort pillow, you know? And I actually have it hidden in my room. I put it behind the pillow so no one would see it. But every once in a while my kids' head will touch it and I will slap 'em away and do not, that is not for you. You can touch my glasses. You can touch my medicine. You can touch the knives, but don't touch my pillow 'cause you are disgusting.

Quinn: No. When we moved recently, somehow the pillows got mixed up. I can't explain how like upset I was. I was just going through the children's rooms, taking all of them saying I'm taking all these till I figure out which ones are mine, and then you can have them back.

Devika Bhushan: Oh my God. Every time you move and your particular pillow, the one that you need under your head gets dislodged. It is so [00:40:00] troubling.

Quinn: Yeah. It's not great.

Claire: I booked a trip to Sweden next year. I decided to go for a midlife crisis. And I'm going on this women's hiking trip and I've been thinking about can I pack my pillow? Can I take it like internationally? Is that absurd though for a hiking trip to take like a feather pillow? Like that might be, I may just have to like, tough it out, but I'm like, but my elbows gonna be rattling around and what am I gonna do with my arms while I'm sleeping?

Quinn: No, my entire life revolves around sleep and I didn't know if I would get there. But I'm really proud of it, and every time I get in bed, I think I should have done this an hour ago, except it's only eight o'clock at the time.

Claire: My problem is that sometimes I get into bed and then I'm so happy that I'm in bed that I like wake up more, you know? 'cause I'm like, I did it, you know? And I'm just so excited that I, you know, got to the place I wanted to go to that I'm not tired anymore.

Quinn: Can I mention this just from a public health perspective for a minute though? Because again, we know how important sleep is to teenagers, to babies, to toddlers, to moms, to dads, to [00:41:00] elderly folks, this and this, and the sleep hygiene, all that, which so many people are incapable of doing for a potpourri of socioeconomic reasons.

Right. But this is a lot of what I will work on in the rest of my job is air conditioning in classrooms, air conditioning at home. Because the worst part about global warming isn't actually health wise the heat during the day. It's that your body doesn't cool down at night. A lot of times.

So many places don't have air conditioning at night and this and that and these fundamental things that like, we're so addicted to, correctly probably, are completely unavailable in so many ways to so many folks. So it is something that I think about, not just because I benefit from it and need it, but also the fact that so many people don't have these, like to jack your air conditioning down or have these insane pillows or whatever it might be, to not be able to have five people sleeping in your room. Right. Again it's hard and it compounds, it makes everything much, much more difficult.

Devika Bhushan: You're right. Getting good sleep or doing any sustainable [00:42:00] self-care really requires a lot of privilege. And that's a hundred percent true across the board, right? Whether we're talking about the ability to sleep in your own room, independent of five other humans, right? Having enough space in a place to have the noise level controlled or the temperature exactly as you would like it. Like all of these things are vast privileges and it's out of reach for so many.

Claire: I wanna like pivot to something like a little bit more fun and cute 'cause your son is a little guy and Quinn's and my kids are old.

Quinn: Awful. Oh, old. Yes. Sorry. Old. Yeah.

Claire: Old, full stop. Tell us a little bit what Rumi is into lately. What are he and his friends talking about? Our kids are all like, they, you know, Quinn sent me a picture of, I showed the boys, his kids are, our kids are all the six, seven, and I don't know if Rumi is even knows that, but just tell us what he's up to, what he is into these days, what he is up to, what he likes. Like what's the word with him right now?

Devika Bhushan: So he is in a very adorable phase of life, right? Because he's still [00:43:00] very innocent. He experiences so many things as if it's for the first time as like un-muted joy and excitement, and exhilaration. And frustration and, you know, all of the hard emotions in the wheel as well. But he's just so fully present when he's experiencing anything. So he loves color. His favorite color is, used to be rainbow. It is now morphed into seven specific colors. So you could see that he doesn't like to choose. He's like, why? Why do I have to choose?

Quinn: Yeah. But why should he have to choose? Fuck that.

Devika Bhushan: He likes silver and pink, and, right. Why do we make kids choose favorite colors? It's actually a very interesting thing that we make them do anyway, so he loves color, he loves glitter. He loves dressing up. He is fairly gender bendy. So, you know, he loves painting his nails and sometimes he'll wear like an Elsa dress on top of shorts because he's in an Elsa dress mood and, you know, things like that.

So, he's just, he's a very joyful and embracing life full, [00:44:00] very extroverted kind of little person. And, recently, actually at bedtime when we set the clocks back, you'll remember that day is like a shit show for parents and for kids universally.

Claire: We never recovered, I feel like.

Devika Bhushan: We're still thinking about it. But that day he comes to bed, it's 7:00 PM but you know, on the clock it says eight and he is wired and every now and again, almost every day, he'll surprise us with something new that he's learned that we haven't taught him because he's in school for the first time. He's in proper elementary school this year in transitional kindergarten, which is California's pre-K. And he just started singing the song to himself. He's like, I can relax, I can take a moment to breathe. And he starts doing this deep breathing and it turns out their teacher who's a godsend has had them doing this sort of self grounding, reflective, beautiful, mindful song [00:45:00] every single day after they come in from recess to be able to reset and shift their energy.

And so he literally, in that moment, he was like, I feel wired. He was probably thinking, he was saying to himself, he started singing this song. He sings it about six or seven times and gets himself calmed down and falls asleep.

Claire: Oh my God.

Devika Bhushan: Okay. School has been so worth it, you know, literally like every day or every other day, honestly, you guys, he's coming home with something interesting, new, a new word, a new concept, but like that moment took the cake, you know? I was like, woo, this public school system, I am all about it. It's so good.

Claire: That’s so sweet. Oh my gosh, that's so adorable. James, our younger son, he's the one with ADHD, so he, you know, has had a couple of years of school where, you know, he jas had a hard time settling down. That was one of his parent teacher conference moments that he's loud sometimes. And I was like, yes, he is. But he had this like cup of like little sticks in his bedroom for a [00:46:00] long time where he had to write down like good aspects of himself. And it was like, I am kind, I am patient, you know, and it like just broke my heart even though it's so sweet. But at the same time, like just watching, having it be there I dunno why it just the kind of thing, it's so sweet. It makes me sad and I don't know why that is the response. But have you ever taken him for a pedicure, like at a salon?

Devika Bhushan: Not an actual salon pedicure, but we give each other pedicures at home all the time. So that's something that we do that's fun together.

Claire: I will say, at least where I go, nobody is more popular than a little boy or a little boy presenting kid at the nail salon. Like they just love a little boy. I don't know what it is, but my kids get treated like little princes and the ladies are so nice to them.

Devika Bhushan: Oh, I love it.

Claire: And yeah, it's fun to go together.

Devika Bhushan: We'll have to go.

Claire: Yeah, you should go. Like my older one is too cool now for school, but my younger one, he let me take him and I promised him, you don't have to get polish. He just got, so he got all cleaned up, but he got the chair and the nice drink and things like that. I took him to the magazine store and bought him a magazine ahead of [00:47:00] time. So it was a nice little way to kill an hour together.

Quinn: What a dream.

Claire: Yeah, I'm pretty nice once in a while.

Devika Bhushan: Quinn. You've never taken your kids?

Quinn: Oh, no we do it all the time. No, I do. And again, like a, you know, Claire and I caveat everything, but lucky to be able to do it. I take them not only 'cause for all those reasons it's fun, but because I didn't get a manicure and pedicure until five years ago, and I'm a runner, all the stuff, and not for any sexist reasons, more time, I was like, I have a foam roller.

My wife's like, they're not the fucking same thing. You're wrong, that you're dumb. And I eventually went and I thought, I am the dumbest person alive. Like, why haven't I been doing this for my entire life? So now when we propose it, I'm like, you're welcome that someone is telling you need to start doing this.

'cause like you said, a magazine with your feet in the bath and the hand, like it's the greatest thing in the world. How lucky are you? Yeah. So, yeah. Oh no, we'll do it for sure. It's fantastic.

Claire: Yeah, [00:48:00] it's great. I have a toenail that doesn't always behave, and the lady, I always see the same lady and sometimes she'll fix it for me and she'll show me that she dug it out like triumphantly and like the, you know, we have a very special relationship. Devika, I know that you work on some serious stuff.

You think about a lot of serious downer shit sometimes. What do you do when you want to just, you know, make it, you know, calgon take me away. What do you do for yourself when you're like, I just, it's just time to decompress. What do you have on the docket for yourself?

Devika Bhushan: Yeah, well, I'm a big fan of massage, so I love a good deep tissue massage. Again, takes money, takes time, you know, it requires privilege, but very intrinsically relaxing for me. And I am a big fan of romance novels and reality TV. It's one of those things that just my brain in a very relaxed state. So that's what I'd like to indulge in.

Claire: Let's go deeper. [00:49:00] Reality TV, what’s your poison?

Quinn: Yeah. Be specific.

Devika Bhushan: Okay. So I like, Love is Blind. I don't like the most recent season because I feel like there's no one that I really connect with and really wanna root for. But the first several seasons of Love is Blind. My husband and I were all about because they were very relatable people and then couples that you were rooting for and hoping they would make it through all of the mess that they have to walk through in that show. So it's shows that are like, that get your heart to feel something and are very just warm and fuzzy at the heart, at the root of it. So it's not reality TV for reality TV's sake. It's reality TV that helps you feel warm fuzzies. And then I like, you know, good drama that does that too. So things like This Is Us, Parenthood, those kinds of TV shows give me a lot of joy as well.

Claire: Quinn, you sit this out for a second 'cause you don't watch Love is Blind. I don't think you even know what it was.

Quinn: Nope. [00:50:00] Go get him. I should bring Willow on. All she wants to do is talk about this.

Claire: Do you follow Cameron and Lauren from season one?

Devika Bhushan: Oh my God. They were the best.

Claire: And they just had a baby.

Devika Bhushan: The best couple in the history of television, I think. You know, and I'm slightly overstanding the case, but were our favorite couple on the whole enterprise. How about you?

Claire: Quinn, they were the, well, I follow them on Instagram and I don't normally care about this. Quinn, they were like the ground zero couple basically. And I have a theory that the couples that last are the most boring ones to be honest. And that just makes sense, I think. But it was very endearing because they're an interracial couple and she's beautiful Black excellence. And he is a white guy who I think I said like an engineering or science background, and he just loves her. And they had a cute like social media presence and people would always ask them when they were gonna get pregnant, which I hate 'cause it's like none of your business, you know?

And having a baby is not easy, especially when you met in this cocamimi way. But they just had a baby. And [00:51:00] like I love them. I think we just root for them. 'cause they just seem like real people.

Devika Bhushan: We root for them. That's right. Yeah. It's who you can get really behind whose stories you can fall in love with and support.

Claire: Yeah. Quinn, did you watch any reality TV or are you too good for all of it?

Quinn: Hold on. Those are two different questions. There's no need to do one of your fucking drive-bys just 'cause I'm sitting here. I will pretend you stopped with, do you watch any reality TV? And the answer is, I think these qualify, but we will watch, my wife and I have watched Top Chef since inception.

Kristen's an incredible new host. She slotted right in. That's great. Occasionally, even two tenths for us in a world where we're picking soft and fuzzy, like you were saying which is when we will just stream any episode of British Bake Off at any given moment, which is truly like, that is my safe place, is genuinely, we put it on. There are three segments. Every word [00:52:00] they say in every show is the same. Every segment is the exact same. The structure of the season's the same. It is so easy. It is so great. And by halfway through the second segment, I'm asleep and my one little tiny gummy has kicked in and I'm like, I can shut it down now And that's it. So that's my reality TV.

Claire: I almost don't count that as reality TV. That's so you know, like educational and warm, you know, it's almost like, it's called The Midwife where you're like, I'm learning, there's a little bit of drama, but I'm mostly learning things, you know. But I kind of did an accidental drive by on my, informational drive by, I like to dump things on my kids quickly and move on, you know?

And we were out to breakfast with two friends a couple weeks ago, and they happened to be Democratic Socialists. And so we were talking about, you know, the new mayor of New York and they happened to, you know, partake in cannabis a lot. So we were talking about that and my friend asked me if I was still partaking and I said, no it's not, you know, not working for me well, so I'm off it. And Paul, my older son, who [00:53:00] you never know when he is listening, right? But the lesson is, they're always listening when you think they're not. He said, you, what did he say? He said, you take cannabis? And I said, I have.

Quinn: Did he ask it like that? You take cannabis, which is incredible.

Claire: Something like that. Yeah, something like you take cannabis. And I was like, I have, and I thought he was scandalized by that, but what really scandalized him was that we were friends with communists. 'cause they're reading about the Red Scare right now in school. So he was like, extra. Yeah. So I really rocked his world that day, and then afterwards I was like, do you have any questions about any of this?

And he said, no. So, you know, I'm always like, here's the big bomb you wanna talk about it? And he is like no, I'm good. So, you know, whether it's death, mental health, like they have no follow-ups. So, you know, for better or for worse.

Quinn: There are advantages to the way you do it. And we do, we call them drive-bys 'cause they're, her children will be minding their business for once and she'll walk by and just be like, kids get raped on Roblox all the time and then just keep walking. And again, they definitely, they weren't prepared for it.

They don't want to hear it. They're not gonna have questions. I think there's pluses and [00:54:00] minuses to it, you know, I think that's smart. As opposed to like, Hey guys, let's sit down. We want to give you some context. We want to talk about this whole thing. Let's ask some questions.

Claire: Yeah, we tried talking about eating disorders yesterday 'cause we're talking about actresses who are very thin right now. And I was trying to explain anorexia and how it's more than just trying to weigh a certain amount. You know, it involves your head and the way that you see yourself and you know, you are hurting yourself.

And totally went over my younger kids' head. He said, well I won't have anorexia 'cause I'm the smallest kid in my class and I'm always trying to gain weight. And I was like, that's not it. But also fine. It's dinner time. I'm tired. We're not gonna get into this, but we'll see. It's just kind of cute sometimes how they're like, we're fine. We're okay. We'll get it. Oh, and the other thing is that we were talking about dementia, 'cause my mom has a, she's going through it and we were talking about how she's changed and how it manifests. And my son said, is it a symptom of her dementia that she always wants to go eat at Walker Brothers, her favorite [00:55:00] restaurant? I was like, no, that's just where she likes to eat. Like maybe she's more comfortable there 'cause she knows the food. But that's not, dementia doesn't make you wanna go to a certain restaurant all the time.

Devika Bhushan: That's amazing.

Claire: Can you let us know, our listeners know, like where they can find you, your Substack, like what else you're working on when we can look for this series of books?

Devika Bhushan: Absolutely. So the best place to find me is on Substack. It's ask DR Devika, B-D-E-V-I-K-A B dot substack dot com. The book publication timeline is still being finalized. It'll hopefully be sometime next year, but you'll get all the details on that in the Substack. And I'm also on other social media platforms, Instagram, Threads, et cetera, as Dr. Devika B. D-R-D-E-V-I-K-A-B. So I look forward to staying connected with all of you, and I really appreciate both of you for having me on. This has been really fun.

Claire: Thank you for chatting with us.

Quinn: Thank you for your time. You'll never [00:56:00] get it back, but thank you.