ASM171 Meet the Honey Badger

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of all the animals the honey badger is my favorite you're about to find out why this week as i interview my wife jenny mccarg on ask he may not sciencemic he'll talk anyway he got problems he won't solve them but he'll talk and talk and talk until he flew in the face science faith in life welcome to ask science mike the podcast where i answer your questions about science faith and life but this week's a little different i said last year i wanted to do more question and answer conversation shows that involved other people and one of the most requested guests of all was my wife jennifer mccarg also known as the honey badger so this week we're taking your questions for her and i think it'll probably be fun so let's get it started jilly how do you feel um a little nervous you're nervous a little nervous we talk all the time i know but i'm sitting here watching the screen the red lights the red lights yeah knowing that whatever i say it's not just a private conversation it'll be i appreciate you doing this broadcasted i'm not feeling well yeah i know and so that's why i offered you've said since my voice is not good my head's not good i'm tired from working on the book you'd help me out yes and did you know that when i asked people who they'd like me to interview this year you were one of the top choices actually the top two were you and hillary mcbride oh well i feel honored yeah that's that's you know that's pretty pretty amazing company so what we've done for this show is i asked my patrons what questions they had for the honey badger aka jenny mccarg now if you've ever wondered why i call my wife the honey badger um and why she doesn't punch me when i do so how'd that come about how did you become the honey badger um i think it has to do a little bit with being a six in the enneagram i'm very loyal and as soon as you're in my circle uh i will go to the mattresses for you um not that i can wallop a punch but um i think you know as you said that the honey badger is a little is tenacious but it's also small cute and they'll and they'll mess you up and they'll mess you up um yeah so yeah it started with that youtube video honey badger don't give a day of honey badger don't give a [ \_\_ ] well it says both oh okay yeah okay yeah and there were some things happening in our life i think at that time where i was felt very defensive of you of us of our family and so yeah i used to be quite um indignant with the things i would say and be ready to fire off it used to be yeah well i still am but it was really apparent then and i think that's when you decided honey badger was a good um call which the badger for all of you harry potter fans is the huffle is the mascot for the hufflepuff house and it's known for being loyal the hufflepuffs are loyal so there you go so even though this is your first ask science mike i think is it have you been on that side um i don't know i've always wanted to do an after dark today's not an after dark everybody not an afternoon in the future but we did kind of a super after dark uh on caroline lee's podcast yes we did that was fun yeah you liked that one i had a cocktail in my hand for that one though so there's no cocktail today i can tell you you do seem a little more nervous even in your body language i i forget like not everyone talks on the internet all the time and so i don't get like uh i don't get nerves about it well at least it's not a video so they can't see me oh i'd hate it if it was a video yeah i like uh the podcast it's a little bit more anonymity in just my voice you want to take some questions you're ready sure let's go feel good let's get it started okay first question came from brandon and he said i am a fellow enneagram six raising a daughter with that in mind what are your top three parenting tips for both mike and jenny okay well i've got one maybe you can come up with the other two no um with our girls and especially with our oldest especially as we're coming into really full-on into the teen years now i think we established early on that uh open communication was a key to um to parenting and to also um having them feel like they could um say anything without judgment um and be able to come to us without with anything that was bothering them and i'm finding more and more especially in the last in the last year that that open communication has really played a key role in our relationship with our children and that i feel like it's a good parent-child relationship because i know that uh there's many times they'll you know that they'll come to us again our oldest especially and feels like she can say whatever she wants without judgment without shame and we um listen you know and we accept her no matter what and she feels like that um it always stays that way so she does she can hit us with whatever and she can still keep coming and not feel like oh well i can't tell mom and dad this anymore and she's always going to get uh responses from us even with questions you know we kind of were very open with what we do um and so in the way we think about things and we don't really keep much from them if anything at this point well especially now that we have like young adults right that's true yeah um so you know and and i just think that's a real key to parenting is the open communication as they get older um let's see two more what would you say i would say balance okay expectations with emotional support when we look at research that shows the highest social and academic outcomes for children households in which the parents have defined expectations for how children behave and and how they perform in school that is coupled with a nurturing emotionally supportive environment those kids tend to be kind of the happiest and the best adjusted and people tend to like by their personality lean one way or the other especially if part of your parenting is in reaction to how your parents parented you but we understand that having very high expectations being very demanding of children without being emotionally responsive to them and answering their questions uh creates a lot of neuroses and a lot of a chronic lack of self-confidence for children we also see that if you're just all encouragement all the time all support with no expectations those children have significant issues basically maintaining friendships and also have some behavioral issues especially in their teenage years but then children who receive neither expectations nor support that's a negligent parenting style they fare the worst of all so i've always tried to strive for setting expectations while providing the emotional support children need to meet those expectations in a way that's developmentally appropriate so that'd be two uh and i think three and this will actually probably be one this is the foundation for all of that is having um an honest relationship with your children that's developmentally appropriate so that means i think it's important for parents to say i'm sorry when they do something wrong i think it's important for parents to demonstrate through their actions that what they say is trustworthy and i think if you do those three things you have a decent shot at kids that are okay who will still talk about you in therapy one day what do you think no no you're right um i i was raised like to where the parent was always right even if the parent if even if i think the parent was wrong you know in looking back in some situations um and there was never an i'm sorry so i have made i've really tried when i recognized my mistakes because we're all human sometimes you know we fire off without thinking about what we're saying and um i think i've i've tried to come back as soon as i've realized that i've i've said something that i shouldn't have said or you know anyway i feel like i try to come back and i do try to say i'm sorry let them know that i do make mistakes i'm human um but i love them and that never changes so yeah okay it's all cost today do i need to tell you if i need to call oh you just turn away like that that's fine we're running it real real conversational style today i'm not doing my little sound effects i just thought we'd leave the tape rolling and see how that comes out uh so our next question is going to come from megan and she said with your husband's faith journey so public and pronounced how do you navigate your own faith journey in a personal way that's true the public aspect of my faith journey had personal implications for you yeah um and i've talked about it i think in in some degree on a couple of other spots i know like we've had um an episode in the liturgists a couple of episodes of that um what his experience did to my faith journey um of course it caused questioning as well and then um but then i also became very bitter toward when we were still in that evangelical world um bitter to the people that i had considered so close like family when you spend um over a decade in a church giving your time and um helping in those ministries there's bitterness there when you feel like um their back has been turned on you and um and it's also hard when you're in a town where you see people that you know at the grocery store and you know what they're saying about your husband and and that he's leading all these people astray or your husband's talked about in other baptist churches in town from the pulpit um in a negative way so it makes it really um hard to you know have positive experiences um we did find healing in the methodist church i found healing there i found a i spent some time not being really involved but then was able to get involved doing things but since we've moved to california it's been a little bit different um it's been harder to find a a church harder to find a place or even a desire to go to church um i wouldn't rule out like my belief in god i still i like to think that there's that god is there um whatever being that is uh watching over us in some sense but yes my faith my my faith journey is it's still a journey it's not like i'm i'm kind of i guess in the middle of it but not feeling like a longing for it to be anywhere right now i don't know if that really makes sense um so i mean i don't know if that's really answering the question um yeah however you want to answer the question is answering the question i mean it doesn't like the way mike feels about like his journey and the fact that it is public and everything um it doesn't bother me um because about when the public knows things before you do that bothers me but i don't know that that's faith that's not a faith journey that wasn't the journey question but knowing knowing things that affect our life affect us personally as a family or as a a couple um that there have been a couple of things this year specifically that have bothered me um i do get tired of talking about my experiences which i do on podcasts that you don't listen to right so that means a lot of times you are less aware of some of the nuance parts of my journey than the public is oh yeah yeah i guess i am interesting i guess it doesn't bother me much though on that part i talked to my internet best friends yeah all right all right yeah sure okay whenever you feel like it's a good i yeah well i could talk the problem is you know me i could go a stream of consciousness on one question the whole time and we'd run out of we'll not run out of time people oh well this is a record on a computer i mean it can record for hours i know but at some point you're gonna have to you know edit it out of course uh although i'm not gonna edit anything out of this episode oh okay sorry robert asked a question okay and his question was what is your favorite book you've read recently and why oh goodness and i'll tell you she's been dreading this question i've been dreading this question because to be married to someone who reads all the time and if you some of you have seen pictures if you've seen what his bookshelf looks like in his office and then he shared pictures of our bookshelf and our living room and honestly we used to have way more books than we do we had more shelves in florida we don't have as much shelf space now so i'm sure if we had that we would have even more books um i put a lot on the kindle yeah um and i love books here's what's funny i was an english teacher for 10 years loved literature taught like some some of the classics you know i was a high school english teacher and um i loved teaching it the the literature portion at least i loved finding all the the nuances in the in the works that we were studying the symbolism and looking at it from a literary criticism point of view you know um but it's been really hard to to read and to enjoy reading and i don't know if that is um a bit of laziness on my part um it's not that i don't have time because i do um but or if or if it was just my job for for those many years and i just was like okay i'm done um but yeah it's hard to i don't i have a really bad habit now if i do start to read something i don't finish it um so yeah mike's book was the first one i had finished in quite some time when i read it and poured over it for two days like helping with edits and stuff um and then i read lisa's book lisa gunger's book um back in june when it came out and that was i think the last full book that i finished um you read a lot though i do read a lot yeah you read often do you am i supposed to confess here you know there's no confession um if you if you listened to the out of line podcast you heard a little bit of snippet of that i was one of those 30-somethings who uh women who somehow got trapped in the twilight craze and i'm almost embarrassed now to even talk about it but i think i do think there were women that appreciated me talking about it and what it meant because it was almost like um like a sexual revolution for for women in that age group everybody wondered why were these 30-something 40-something-year-old women like having these twilight parties i don't know i mean i don't know what it hit as far as that that part because when i look back at that story there are so many things wrong with it um you know from the standpoint of like not a good relationship nothing that it was based on was good as far as like the way you should have a a relationship but it was something about getting trapped in that story and those books i was like sucked in maybe it was because it was a period of life where um our youngest she was one and um i guess i just kind of got sucked into it and read them all like it was after they had already come out so it was like back to back to back reading them and then watching the movies but then i got sucked into this thing called fan fiction um which some of you may have heard about it still is existent and there was twilight fans quite big actually yes there's actual novels that spin off of internet actually get published yeah have you ever looked is there any kind of fan fiction about you and michael oh god hopefully not no no i never look if that ever happens i've never looked either but there get i know that uh there there are all kinds of fan fictions out there for duos um anyway i got sucked into it and it became all like uh like almost like an it was an addiction i think or mike would say whether it's an addiction compulsion um it to the point of it was actually impeding my everyday life um i have an ipad and there were times where i would actually ask mike can you lock me out of my ipad today which is easy um because it was like stuff around the house wouldn't get done i almost felt like i wasn't even paying attention to my young children at the time um because i was so wrapped up in this escape like in this fantasy world of um of romance and and i don't even know like i'm sure it could be a good segment for therapy um but uh so yes every now and then i get kind of sucked in a little bit if i if i go back to the site but it was like i i really kind of had to you know cut myself off cold turkey at one point and not do it anymore because it was taking so much time so there's this really interesting theory in the academy that twilight and similar stories were so powerful because women have been trained and conditioned that their worth comes from being desired by men and so the framework of the twilight stories is this vampire who even the smell of a woman's this particular woman's like blood i guess yeah drives him wild he can't even control himself like whatever it was i have no idea what that means uh but he the whole point is it sings to him right but if if if you've been trained by society the whole your whole life that your value comes from being desired by a man then that novel becomes some kind of wish fulfillment oh to be so desirable that a man would not be able to control himself even at the smell of your blood mm-hmm yeah it sounds really sick right but no i it actually from a brain development perspective it makes a lot of sense especially for someone like you who has like a combination kind of affectionate kind of aloof partner yes yes you know what i mean like i can kind of like get caught in my reading fugues for days and and you have to remind me that i'm a human person and human people like talk to other people and hug other people and yeah talk to their families um so i think i think i'd all like it makes a lot of sense really yeah yeah but it has given you a complicated relationship with reading yes i think it did yeah it actually did because it's it's really hard to get into a book um whether it be a memoir whether it be something like you know kind of self-helpy or um you know even even just a another fictional story um reading fiction it's just it's really hard and um i actually was hoping this year to you know kind of implement like a reading 30 minutes a day and just starting with a book you know on what's funny is our oldest madison she's giving me a book she really wants me to read it's like a young adult book but it's a better book you know as far as um something that she wants to read like a movie's coming out with it i think and she said mom read it it's good uh so i would kind of own it to her to at least try to start that one so hopefully i'll start that one in the next week we'll see okay that was a lot of time on that one sorry that's okay i'm just i have to host the show so i have to look ahead of that i know figure out how to segue don't don't be it's all right you're doing great oh no that's okay all right uh rebecca and i'll just say rebecca marie i don't usually use people's last names but i do rebecca and i don't think she minds being mentioned on the show she says hi jenny first i'd like to thank you for sharing so much of your partner with us we owe you all such a debt of gratitude and in that vein as the partner of someone who vulnerably shares his life with the public do you take good care of yourself in order to partner well with mike what does that self-care look like when you are doing a good job and feeling super healthy bonus question it's clear to mike's audience that he thinks you are the sexiest creature on earth do you love that we know that personally it makes me adore you both a lot more than i already would um okay so um i don't know that i really do take good care of myself necessarily um i think i'm so used to and maybe that's part of my personality um i think the way i feel good about myself is taking care of my family um making sure everything's okay with the kids and taking care of mike you know um mike won't eat lunch unless i unless i come and tell him to stop working he forgets that he hasn't had lunch a lot of times um true yeah um so i do feel like there's uh that there's a lot of satisfaction i guess i get for myself as especially having been a stay-at-home mom in the last um 10 years and i think a lot of my self-worth of course comes from that and so like if you're if that's what your you know job is if that's what we want to call it you know the way you feel affirmed in that is that everybody's functioning everybody's doing well um and so you get enjoyment out of that um i do think i don't feel like i'm being neglected or that i'm neglecting things i want to do in any way but i do think there's probably ways that i could indulge in some kind of self-care uh one of those things is therapy which just recently um as in this week i've started um you know some of you are probably aware that there's been this has been the past year and a half have been big for us you know um since moving here and there's been a lot of things that have you're being los angeles california if you're a new listener yeah um there's been some things that have come to light in that and everything in our personal and mike's life and our personal life and our home life we have kids who are um girls two girls who are you know ones preteen right on the cusp of coming into preteen and then the other one is definitely into the teen years and while you know it's nice when you have kids that age and no longer in the toddler stage and you can leave them on their own for a little bit and stuff and it does come with its own set of um a whole other set of problems or things that you're not problems but you know things that will come up so there's been you know stuff that is warranting me being able to have someone to talk to about it um and so yeah therapy i think if you can do it if you can afford it and if you can find a good one i think it's good to to do that for yourself that is a form of self-care for sure um and also finding time the things that you really enjoy doing trying to find moments to be able to do those and maybe and if you don't know really what you enjoy doing maybe trying to figure that out um you know to bring you some joy i've noticed you'll find like little things that you you enjoy like painting or zumba or different oh yeah and you'll start out and then it kind of falters like it makes you feel good but then if something difficult or challenging happens in life that gets you feeling down then it's hard for you to kind of lean into those routines when you need them the most yeah yeah like the past couple weeks have been kind of rough so zumba's been on the back burner and i haven't gone and zumba's something that really like makes me um happy uh which which is funny that it's now here that i'm doing zuma because we have a wonderful friend back in tallahassee that she was a zumba teacher and she always wanted me to come and i i wouldn't go but i there's a zumba class here at the y um and actually the teacher reminds me a lot of her so um i enjoy it and um it just a smile is on my face when i do it and you don't have to do zumba perfectly either that's what's so great about it is that you're in there and you don't have to do all the moves and everything but it does give me joy and if i feel like i've done that class or there's two of them actually if i do both of them in the week then i feel like oh that's that week's been really great but yeah i've put that on the back burner and i definitely have noticed it so it's time to get back to it to bring some to get that feeling back a little bit and then the bonus question i think we answered a little bit of the feeling how do you do a good job to feel super about the okay um um yeah i guess it's nice to know that everybody thinks knows that you think i'm the shiz or whatever i do a better job telling them than telling i know that does like yeah yeah but i don't know i feel loved i feel loved it doesn't make me necessarily feel any different about myself though like do you feel like i over share with the public no about our life no i think sometimes it benefits them too everybody likes to know that if something's happening like whether it be good bad whatever it is i think people like honesty and so i'm okay with that um you know because i also know i feel like i trust your judgment of like what you're sharing whether or not it would be something i feel like you also know your listeners or know the people that listen to your thing stuff and what they get out of it and what they could use like for example me sharing my whole twilight addiction there um i typically like i said there's embarrassment there for me to admit that but i also feel like maybe people need to hear it in some ways maybe it helps them feel better about whatever's happening with them what so yeah uh-oh what do you say uh-oh for what are you doing what do you what i grabbed another sheet of paper okay so okay were you done with that question yeah yeah okay we'll do another question did i mess something up no that's okay relax relax it's okay you should see jimmy she like i i literally picked up a sheet of paper and she like grabbed her face i thought you're about to spring something on me no these are my notes for how i make the show work okay when we get to the end of a page i have to grab another page that's all okay all right so the next time i grab a page don't panic well and you don't need to stop either i'm not it wasn't necessarily panicking i was just gonna sit in here like well your face turned red you're having a physiological response to anxiety okay so we'll do another question then i'll grab another shooting okay uh so megan said i have a very close family member who processes processes information in a unique way it's not always the way others in the family process information which can lead to misunderstanding hurt feelings and relational tension i found that mike's raw talk about the way he processes information coupled with the open dialogue about acceptance and emotional healing has helped me not only communicate better with her but appreciate her beautiful spirit more deeply pause megan thank you so much that's like the whole point of my work okay back to your question uh not everyone in my family is there yet though we all love each other so much but that doesn't mean we understand or are able to honor each other's uniqueness in healthy ways do you have any advice for strategies to promote empathy and understanding in a family that is made up of radically different information and emotional processing styles that is by the way a phenomenal question but relatively difficult to answer do you have any advice for strategies let's say let's approach it this way have i always gotten along super well with your family no do i get along better today than i used to yeah yeah but it's mutual right have you played a role in that um yeah i guess so i think you have yes so maybe think a little bit about how you guided that process very slowly between very different ways of relating to the world and processing confirmation between me and your folks or even me and your sister i mean gosh mal's like one of my dear friends um i think it was more of they didn't know you they didn't love with you or they didn't have the kind of time i had with you to know the kind of person you are um so all they saw was the surface and the things you would say which now so much makes sense of how they it was different for them um but anyway the i think over time trying to get them to understand the kind of person you were the kind of spouse you are the kind of father you are um anyway i think it just kind of helped them to see us together to see how we interact um and to see from me you know maybe maybe they weren't really judging you on uh the full scale of what they knew it was just the surface of what they knew but they didn't they needed to get to know you better um but originally like when i was looking at this question i was thinking like within our own household too of course i think i think it's maybe if we're talking about parents and children it's easier for a parent to try to have the concept of being patient with your child and trying to like so something happens and you have to maybe take a break for a few minutes step away and give yourself a pause to think about things before you head back into the whatever whether it's a confrontation whether it's a discussion whatever you have to kind of um you know give yourself time to think about okay where's this coming from where is she like if it's your your daughter where what place are these words the things she's saying her reaction where is it coming from what do i need to speak to i need to remember i'm the adult here um and even though sometimes like it can bring out the worst in us we have to remember you know to take that moment to say she's saying this from a place of hurt or she's you know again being understanding i think for us again it all comes back to that open communication but it also comes back to if if i say something without really taking that pause if i say something in the heat of whatever's happening being able as the parent to come back and say i'm sorry i didn't give you a chance to you know for us to talk this out i'm sorry i overreacted or i'm sorry i reacted this way so that i think it's easier for a parent and a child where i think it's difficult is from for us the siblings if there's if we're talking about others in your household who are having a hard time relating to their their sibling if that's it um you know and i think that just kind of takes some time maybe some guidance on their part trying to trying to say you know maybe you want to take that that sibling one-on-one and say okay i know it's really hard for you to think about it maybe put yourself in her shoes for a minute what if this was happening with you or what you know um i think that's a way to go about it um but again it all like when it's siblings it's it's about where their maturity level is what their age difference is and yeah it could it'll take time it they're not gonna necessarily be able to get that right off does that yeah great no what would you have something to add to that because i could be also reading this differently than than you're reading it too uh well you know me like i my goal is always just to communicate honesty without hostility and to stay in my lane yeah stay in your lane big time so i don't i have a hard time staying in my lane mike's always reminding me to stay in my lane like what exactly is it applying to me versus not applying to me and i'm giving a lot of if i give too much time to something that is not in my lane then it's not helping me and it's not helping the other person either i try to model good relational strategies less than interfere in other people's relationship dynamics absolutely yeah let me tell you a story dear listeners uh this is really cool um we have two daughters and they are pre-teens young teens young adults and there's been a multi-year dynamic in our house of either hearing the phrase i'm bored or trying to get their noses out of ipads and devices and the most wonderful thing happened a couple of days ago we got a box in the mail and in that box was let's see some cardboard struts some thumbtacks some plastic syringes and some tubing and a set of instructions and that was basically how to use those raw materials and the box it all came in to create a hydraulic crane and we handed that box to our daughter macy who spent she's 11. what did i say you didn't say how old she was so i but i thought she's 11. i was like i'm pretty good with her age uh so she's 11 and she spent all afternoon into the evening tinkering and building and playing and learning about mechanical engineering so in the history of ask science mike we have only had two sponsors ever because i'm really really selective about sponsor messages because i only want to talk about things that i want to talk about so i talked about an email filtering program that i still use in love i talked about a service the mail miniature pinatas for the sheer joy of it and now i'm happy to tell you about a third sponsor called kiwico and kiwi code helps children and young adults learn about steam meaning science technology engineering arts and math but in hands-on really fun ways it's one of those like subscription products where you pay a monthly fee and you automatically get a box they've got a range of lines that go from ages 0 all the way to 16 plus that are age-appropriate and they're just a lot of fun i mean i was kind of jealous of macy playing around with this engineering product product but it let me kind of walk in and help her tinker at key moments because i've got kind of an engineering brain and kiwi co is just so so cool so they've got they're they're age-appropriate starting with a tadpole crate for kids zero to two they've got the koala crate and the kiwi crate which is ages three and four and five to eight and then as you kind of get into older children they split into different product lines that can include notions of either like geography or arts or more of an engineering focus and parents can switch between lines at any time so you can try a variety of projects they are so much fun and i think we have a problem as a society right now where our children are over invested in electronic learning and over invested in pen and paper learning and lecture style learning but when you look at the research of how children learn they learn from doing things that are hands-on that engage all of their senses you know i would imagine now if macy actually read a text on hydraulics after having built an armature that's controlled by hydraulics she would understand that text a lot better so kiwi co wants kids to have creative confidence to tackle problems where there isn't just necessarily a right answer it empowers them to make a project but also to make a difference to be fearless innovators and to do that in a way that is super fun so here's what kiwi co is doing for listeners of our science mike they're going to let you try one of their boxes for free completely free all they want is your email address so to learn more and redeem this offer go to kiwi.com science uh honestly i think the favorite sponsor i've ever had science mike and i'm actually going to go up to that website myself and sign up tomorrow because macy had so much fun with that kit uh and i really had fun watching her she even like she after she built it and got it working she decorated it um so she turned it into an engineering slash art project and uh man it filled my heart with joy so again that's kiwi.com kiwico.com science uh and there'll be a link to that in the show notes on asksciencemike.com are you able to put pictures on your notes because you should put a picture we can put a picture of the crane on the on the episode i mean as a second on that as a mom who was watching her because you were in the office you were busy and typically mike would have been helping she didn't want any help on it though i mean the fact that she did that herself like she just turned it over to her she had it all out on the table and she didn't even ask me for anything and macy is one that she really can easily get frustrated by something and then she's done with it which is something we have tried to work on with her having patience to work through things when you just can't get them right off the bat instead of getting so frustrated you don't want to do it anyway she you know i could tell there were a couple times where she was trying to figure something out but there was never a time where she was like so frustrated she was gonna quit she was just still trying to figure it out and that was it and she kept on and kept and and made it to the end made it to her her thing and that child is always in her um always likes to be in her devices she does yeah so to not see her in her device and i was impressed because it starts with like really definitive instructions like do this do this do this but then it has a bunch of pictures of different things you can try on your own without any instructions and so she took those pictures and built what was depicted right uh oh man i mean i i know we're talking a really long time here but uh confession i've always liked kiwico and i've kind of always hoped they would show up as a sponsor so i was really thrilled to get their email so uh i do encourage you to go to kiwico.com science sign up for your free box today okay now we've got a question from trent and trent's question is i've lost my faith deconstructed yet my wife has become even more certain conservative and defensive towards me with our children do you have any advice for me to defuse the situation and make everything a little more copacetic um anytime we you know we we get have gotten questions before like since since mike's platform became more like this you know like in the last few years it's always uh we always get questions of course where it's partners um whether you know that and how this kind of thing has happened to them how do we how can we help them like tell them what works and you know i always kind of have a hard time with this because every relationship is different so what worked for us isn't going to necessarily work for you um because everybody's different personalities and i will say like there were some there were some hard times there at first there was resentment on my part for to mike um for uh you know all of a sudden changing in this big way that to me that i thought that we had an agreement of where we stood on it and then for him to like throw this wrench and the whole and the whole way our life was working um i had a lot of resentment for that because it was like well what does this mean um what's this mean for our future and so it was hard there for a while and um i don't think i never really had like talked about him to our children or got defensive with uh towards um towards him with the kids or anything like that but there would i would make some cutting remarks i'm sure to him in those early days of it uh what i had to you still throw an occasional email oh that's different it's different now um but what i will say is that and you just this was where it was going to get good like i had some now i got to try i got to try to find it again what what i had to reconcile with was that just because at that time that he didn't believe in god anymore it didn't mean that he wasn't a good person or that he wasn't a good husband a good provider a good father for our kids and i think when you're when you're in such a con grown up in such a conservative evangelical background you're you're told this format this way your life is supposed to be that too you cannot be equally yoked with another um a non-believer and you know that's just the script that we're given then but that's not what life is about um and it's hard to see past that when that's the script you have so sh if if she's not at this place and everything is because it's hard for her she can't she can't see past that script um and i don't know what the ultimate answer is there you know um except for you to continue to show grace and patience and be willing to let her continue to see the type of human and person that you are uh with with other people with her um with your kids um and let her continue to see that good and that that good has nothing to do with whether you believe in god or not and if she loves you that love will overcome that at some point but it takes time i think um and you know i think there will probably be for her when she does have that realization you know she herself will then go through her own thing because and then that's gonna even be another road um you know that'll come but that's what i i would say is just you have to reconcile with the thing that you've been taught your whole life that it's not that's not the way it really is in life um so yeah all right daniel said i recall from the liturgist parenting and deconstruction episode that you've also been on something of a deconstruction reconstruction journey i'm basing this question off that so i apologize if it's off the mark such considerate questions as an enneagram six how did you begin to trust enough to start rebuilding some sort of faith practice having already decided as i presume that the old structure could no longer be trusted do you find security in a faith that isn't logically justified like evangelicalism is or have you been able to build some sort of structured approach to faith that works for you now i guess more succinctly how does your post deconstruction faith practice support you as an enneagram six and i would i would just go and let the world know this is not the way you talk or think about faith at all no no it's not that's a very very very me way of describing faith journeys um yeah and i think that's one of the biggest differences like with mike and i and i think some people um they probably have a different idea of what happens in our household like how can you know of course somebody like science mike you know what does his wife think what does she talk about what's where's her brain at on some of these things um and it's definitely not there uh to the like thinking about things to such a degree in such a level um because my fate to begin with you know growing up was definitely just always like a childlike faith i believed it because that's what i've been told my whole life um that was the way i was raised you know all my friends were in the church i was in the college group blah blah blah blah did it all um met my husband in the church so you know it was just the normal normal thing of i just there was no questioning it uh and i think from that the previous question i've answered about the where my faith is or deconstruction i mean i don't really know i couldn't really tell you what my faith structure actually is right now um i will say as a six for a while there was a lot of fear in that and that's what kind of was hard when that when the deconstructions started happening when there was like well maybe there isn't god or in all of that um because there's as a six you find comfort and security of course the security of knowing um okay well one day when we die we go to heaven um you know we just live this good life we do good we we serve in the church blah blah blah blah but there's security in that and then when you start to question maybe there isn't god you know what does that mean for an afterlife what does that mean when we die you know all these things it's like yeah it's it's really scary um and i don't know where at what point i stopped worrying about that part doesn't mean that as a six i don't have like issues about security and stuff i just have found that my sick my security issues no longer deal with anything of a faith basis i don't really think about that and i don't know how i was able to compartmentalize and turn that off for a while but um i would say yeah that it can be hard at the beginning for sure i think you start where the trust happens is when you start thinking about the other things the other possibilities um you know we we have visited a couple of churches out here there's one specific that we've gone to and um when i leave from there i do feel uplifted because the things that that church talks about and the the the where they stand on all these the issues that where where we stand um it gives me hope um and so i think it is possible to trust in something again um but the the initial part is hard um and i don't know if i've really fully answered that it's kind of hard to fully answer that when i still feel like i'm in a part of figuring all that out and i could be figuring all that out for quite some time now i don't know um you have such a social communal frame for faith so i've noticed that your faith practices and to some degree your i guess your beliefs mirror your spiritual community yes um which right now is not a church it's not a church it's a bunch of friends who meet on sunday nights it's a bunch of friends who meet on sunday night um yeah we're gonna like we're recording this on a sunday actually so when we're done we'll be heading to see them and uh yeah i mean that's my church i mean in the form of what church brought for me um that's where i find healing that's where i find rejuvenation that's where i find comfort it's where i find friendship it's where i find security and trust honesty um gentleness all the things i mean it's like what you're like well i'm just saying and i want to be clear it's not a christian group no it's not there are christians in it but on thanksgiving on thanksgiving they asked me to say a prayer wasn't that thanksgiving no were we it was a holiday where we were all the way to easter it was easter so they asked me to say a blessing and i like like okay how do i say a blessing that incorporates all the faith journeys and places in this room which includes like some christians and when i say christians i mean like christians like me to oppose christians to atheists to i don't know what i believe to kind of a new age and you know trying to say a blessing that wove that tapestry well uh was actually quite fun for me um yeah and i think that's part of the thing when you're deconstructing where you feel like you've lost your community and i was in that for for quite some time feeling like i lost my community and it is hard it's hard there to get through that um so but there could be something greater on the other side of it um something that's more honest something that's real that wasn't necessarily that before if i'm distracting you i'm sorry no you're not sure i just can't breathe i'm really sick y'all okay um matthew said what's a habit that brings you joy um that's a hard one it shouldn't be i think it kind of let's just go and throw leah's question in at the same time jenny purple heart what in your life is bringing you the most joy or the most frustration um i wish i could say it was like something specific like a a thing or an activity um i'm always kind of like i mean i've always am i don't know if you're an enneagram lover and we've talked about it already on the six i don't know if this is a sixth thing or whatever um the six that's why i think the liturgist shirt for the six was kind of funny because it says all my friends have this shirt too because i have found like the joy in my life even when things are not not going well or great you know and i just was talking about it is having a a group of friends that you know are there that you can depend on and like to me like having friends that are that share your life that brings me a lot of joy um and and rejuvenation like being able to see them on a weekly basis and hang out and just talk about life that brings me joy because when we're not able to get together because everybody's so busy or something um you know you can tell like i think everybody can kind of tell that they kind of just need that and our group does have multiple people who tour for a living so so yeah um friends bring me a lot of joy my children bring me joy um even when sometimes they can be the ones that are frustrating and things that are going on with them but i get a lot of joy out of them and watching them grow and and the things that are happening in their lives when it's especially when it's something that's really great and it's positive and um and things are going well for them um so yeah what about what brings you frustration she cut me a look um actually okay in regards to mike what brings me frustration is when i don't feel like he's taking care of himself yeah when i feel yeah that brings you i always take care of myself yeah um yeah because i do feel like and i know a lot of his listeners and and patreons patrons you you probably notice it too or whatever i will say everybody's always so so sweet about saying mike we know this has to take a toll on you or you know we hope you're finding ways to rest when and because you give yourself so much um and he does he really does uh and that's okay that's his life's work and i'm fully supported but i do have frustration when i feel like he's just go go go go go and it is really depleting his uh energy like he's sick right now and i think he's sick right now because he has been traveling for like three weeks straight and trying to finish a book and so and when he's here i don't see him because he's in the office in his office riding away and um so yeah i don't think he takes care of himself like he should that's what brings me frustration aaron said what do you feel specific and different from mike's about your faith journey as a woman i mean if you have any thoughts beyond what you said already well i think specifically like the evangelical uh background of course women and men are treated differently um and what's acceptable for a woman what's acceptable for a man um i haven't really thought of it though as like our faith journeys especially when i'm still like figuring out my faith journey but um so like one of the things from my like i could look at it as a a defensive wife um when he was going through his struggle you know he all this i i always felt like people were saying like behind our backs or if they saw me in the grocery store i always kind of felt self-conscious i felt like they were saying oh poor jenny sometimes not behind your back yeah not beside my back right to but poor jenny mike's mike's leading so many astray or he's you know what's he done to their family as the leader of the their spiritual household you know because the in that world the husband the father is looked to as the spiritual leader of the home so if if something happens with them then the whole home is you know going down um so yeah i think that's where it can be different for a man for sure um and uh for a woman um i don't know i don't know exactly how i would say mean i'm sure there's stuff there i just can't think of it right off the bat go ahead what do you have do you have some dad nothing no oh let's ask the honey badger i'm just here i know a lot of times i just don't think about it in that term those terms um if as the wife or as the spouse i'm sure they would think well of course jenny's going to have this because her husband this is what happened um leah had a question how is finding out about mike's having autism spectrum disorder helped or changed your relationship what would be your advice to someone who suspects that their spouse also has autism spectrum disorder um i think it ha it's changed and helped it both for the better i've always known there was something with mike of course living with him being with him for this many years um i just always thought they were quirks and i just you know knew well this is how mike is and this is you know what you choose you live with this when when when you choose to love someone and be married to them or be their spouse and commit to life together these are the things that happen this is what you commit to the ways they they are the people that they are the things they need um so i've always been used to that but i've also always felt like i had to excuse mike with with other people like um things that would seem like the social norm that mike wouldn't do i felt like i would have to excuse it like what um uh not to put you on the spot well gosh i used to have them all at the ready right after everything um but you know like if you're you're off on your own somewhere i'd say you know um he's okay he's just had a long day or something or i felt like or if mike didn't uh mike also it's really funny like he had my parents would always think and this was one of the reasons why it was hard at the beginning my parents always think thought mike had this was too self-absorbed that's what they called it um they felt like he he he was too thinking too much of himself for example if mike got hungry and he didn't like what we were eating he'd get in the car and go like to a fast food restaurant get something only get it for himself and bring it back and wouldn't ask anybody else what they wanted um this is like just a small little example and it might but i really think part of that was he gets such this focus first off in his mind he wasn't going to bother anybody else and just because it wasn't something that he wanted to eat he didn't want to make anybody else feel bad about it so he used to be a much pickier eater yeah and he used to be a much pickier eater at that um so that's just a little example i mean that's a really small example but there's a lot of times where i felt like i had to excuse mike you know work i never introduced you to people oh yeah he never introduces me to people or anyone to anyone to anyone um yeah and so it never occurs to me as a thing that should be done yeah i mean again real big like social norms and especially growing up in the south um and north florida is very much the south um when you grow up with that there's certain like etiquette things that you're taught or certain social things that are just socially acceptable and things that are not and um manners you know and mike didn't have any of them and i don't think that it's not because his family didn't teach him i just don't think it occurred to him i mean you have manners but it was like the social thing you know what i'm talking i mean yes and but so in that small little sex part it has been so great and especially with our our group of friends and stuff they totally get mike they know him and they know and and they know i don't have to apologize for him or make an excuse for him um it's sometimes hard having a spouse who is on the autism spectrum that you sometimes do feel alone because your spouse is in like a whole another world than you are so when we are in groups and especially when it's our friends and it's their other and the spouses are together i do feel like a lot of times like i'm in some way a single because mike is um not fully present or fully able to be um with me all there i guess if that makes sense um but i'm also like like i said i've been we've been i've been used to it they're being different things he gets very hyper focused on things um and now that i know there's a reason for it he used to get upset when i would come and try to like i would interrupt him on something and things like that and it would really throw him off but now i actually come to get him out of the hyper focus sometimes when i feel like he's gone down like this rabbit hole of trying to find information for something that's you know so far like doesn't even need whatever it's because he's gone into this hyper focus mode on this subject whatever it may be and so i have to try to tell him hey let's come back out of there um i can give a little example from last night if he's willing for me to share that about staying up till three o'clock in the morning sure to play a game on the computer it's a really good game yeah but like three o'clock in the morning and mike is one that he has to have like 10 hours sleep to be able to function and so that's another reason why he gets sick or gets like run down is because he's not giving his body enough time to sleep and so i kept coming in here multiple times saying hey it's 11 o'clock hey it's midnight hey it's one and at that point i went on to bed i thought because he said i'll be right in and then i thought i would that last boss battle yeah and then i fell asleep woke up at three and he wasn't in bed yet so and then i came and actually yelled at him like what are you doing as far as like you know come on because it's like he gets in this mode and can't get him out sorry i had to beat it i had to beat it and the boss battle literally did take like an hour and a half it's not like i lost i had to go back it was one ongoing thing and i had finally found out i'd reached a point of stasis equilibrium where i wasn't winning and and the computer wasn't winning so when i figured out oh that's the approach then i i couldn't like save and come back to it later obviously here's a related question this is from andrew it says this question is from my wife and then the the big smiley face like the closed-eye smiley face uh as the wife of someone with idiocy socratic tendencies how much do you work to accommodate the more difficult aspects of those quirks and how much do you try to help the person change or be better um so yeah so i actually i think i think that i'm pretty good at like i wouldn't catering is not the word but i do kind of cater to those quirks um because i that was the other great thing about having an official diagnosis because then i was like okay well he can't help this all this all these things that have driven me crazy over the last 18 years he really can't help them and now i actually have something to name it and it kind of made me feel a little bit more sane um as far as you know these things that would constantly bring me frustration was kind of like okay well there is a reason for this you have to just let it go and try to help navigate it i guess which is what i've really already been had been doing um so you know there's little things you know if i wasn't like put on the spot i could probably name a whole bunch of quirks um i named one already the whole lunch thing like mike doesn't he will be to the point of like getting the shakes and if i'm not home then he doesn't realize he he's hungry until he's getting the shakes and that's like two o'clock so he's gone past lunchtime um if i'm home what i make a point do is to go ahead and fix something for him and bring it into the office um but it's like things like that like just everyday things not knowing when to feed yours to get yourself food um not being able to listen to those things what else there's a lot there but there's it's just really hard because it's such a part of our life like a normal um a normal thing i don't want i don't try to make him change i know that that's not gonna that we're kind of at a point now i think he has like from the time we dated i think he really used to try to you don't make me change but you do set you communicate needs and expectations right that's true like we have a conversation like more now like i know you can't help this but this is what i need can you can you try to can you try to put that in your database of of trying to we were getting out of the car recently well not super recently recently ish somewhere and as we're getting close you know she said we're just not doing well as in me and her and our marriage and i was like wait what we're not doing well what does that mean we about to get separated oh my gosh so then i was like running through my database of relational interactions like everything seems fine what's going on so finally i don't know if it was the next day or a couple days later i was like hey what do you mean we're not doing well because everything seems fine to me we live together we eat peanut butter sandwiches i mean what else could we want and then you told me that you you needed some sense of connection and then i felt distant and then i didn't know what that meant so i said what makes you feel like i'm distant what creates that feeling and then you describe specific things like me staying in my office so long or when i came out uh you know not i didn't touch you enough and i didn't uh um i didn't have conversations about practical everyday things or dreams or hopes i talked about rising sea levels and the kind of stuff that i worked on my brain and geo engineering and and socio-political engineering solutions to humanities problems and that just wasn't wasn't making it work for you and so then i responded by what doing little things and then saying the word connection to let you know that i was trying yeah and he has been he has been trying there has been connection but he reminded it reminded me like him being so like what what what do you mean we're not doing well it reminded me that you know he does see things so much differently than i do about like about our time together and what and where we stand where we are as a couple or where we're standing as a couple on the way we see things so it reminded me that um he sometimes doesn't have a clue because he's just on a different i'm sure there's people who believe we that me and that person have a fundamentally broken and dysfunctional relationship and i think we're like close friends and we haven't talked years it's just how my brain works okay colton had a question we're gonna we got two more questions here uh we'll go to a real heavy one and then a real fun one how's that so here's the heavy one colton's question was how has your immediate family responded to your and mike's faith transitions how did those how did you have those hard conversations with him does your mom think you're going to hell i'd love to hear you talk about the dynamics of your relationship with your family members and how you're navigating exposing a piece of yourself you knew would let them down thanks hmm honestly we don't talk about it a whole lot because if we do it goes down a path that doesn't necessarily end well um yeah uh i think my my folks specifically my mom thinks to herself where did we go wrong meaning them you know um and then then thinks how are mike and i uh what are we doing in raising their grandchildren you know what does that mean for their taking them to protest rallies duh yeah um uh what does that mean for their afterlife um with the heavenly father um yeah it when your husband this is the work that he does and you move across the country because it's like to los angeles to los angeles the city of sin voted for hillary clinton by a million votes um you know it's like it's really hard because this is the work he does right and this is um what our life is now built on um and what you know what a lot of our life is about and you can't really i can't really share it with my folks i can't talk too much about it with them um like and even in the uh extended family you know like i know my mother doesn't like i mean it's like kind of a catch-22 so she has a son-in-law that's written a book and that's really great and a son-in-law who works on this these podcasts and who's part of like this movement um that gets like some recognition you know um so you have that but it's all the kind of stuf recognition and all the kind of work he's doing is stuff that goes totally against everything that she has defined as her faith and and what she's come been brought up with and everything um what's funny is when like her cousins um who are her age range like one of them specifically follows mike's work and says how great the stuff is that he's doing and stuff and she's obviously more progressive in her thinking and everything um and it's really funny because she knows more about mike's work than my own parents and my own mother though so um it's it is quite the the balancing act i'm supposed to go home just myself in a couple of weeks to you know just visit with them and see them it makes a little easier that my sister is on the same frame of mind that mike and i are of as far as the where we see eye to eye on things and stuff so it kind of creates a little bit of a nice buffer and there's just things we just don't talk about now um with our folks um i can't and i hate that i really do because i feel like uh there are things i would love to be able to share with them you know fun wonderful things that are happening and even the the the bad things that happen um that i sometimes that i feel like i can't um because there's not an understanding there of it there's a um there's also a fear of it on their part and um so it really is kind of sad when you when you do want to share those things with your family and you feel like you can't um i think you just have to try to get past it and realize that you can't change their minds you can't make them see a different way um and unless you just don't want to have a relationship at all with them anymore you really have to find a way to just um not talk about it and talk about your the things you talk about then maybe become superficial more shallow there it's sad because the depth of your relationship with them isn't what it was before probably um and i do find as human beings where we get so a lot of our fulfillment in life and that's what i've found like with our friends is the depth of our relationship with them now um being able to talk about all these subject matters and things on a like on a level that's not just you know glossing over it um and that's what's hard when it's family when it's people that you love that that raise you and so yeah um it's complicated and that's just my family i'm not i won't i won't talk to mike's they know all about how me relating to my family last question you ready yeah it's anonymous submitted under the letter a lowercase a oh it literally starts with oh what is one of your most favorite things about each other um i love it when mike laughs when it's true when it's true joy when he gets a kick out of something and it's like this it's not a full hearty laugh it is like a giggle especially when it's something he gets a kick out of that something he said or did or that he thinks is funny i am the funniest person um but of course that was one of the things that attracted me to him he made me laugh he made me smile and you're a harder laugh than i am yeah i am harder to laugh i'm a tough yeah you're a tough laugh it's a high high bar yeah um and he does always make me feel like the prettiest person in the room you are this is tough for me because there are so many things you roll your eyes but yeah because you're going to end on this and they're going to be like oh no i'm not yeah i think you're going to be disappointed with what i'm going with but it's like my favorite thing right now okay bruce oh god when you get a two or three drinks in you that like really really really over the top warm touchy lean into conversation uh open place you go is just delightful especially if you start dancing that's uh i wish bruce could come out without the drink bruce can come out without the drink it's really hard though well that's what the therapy's for yeah we'll see but the way the way what alcohol does for you is pacify and quiet your insecurities that's true there's a lot of insecurities and i start seeing the you coming out from under that toxic fog of insecurity that obscures the inner beauty in you from the world that i always know is there which is why i would say here's to bruce oh i mean it i know don't i've always i'm hoping i'm hoping everybody doesn't think that i am like i'm an alcoholic no you don't drink very often at all um but when you do it's a good time yeah our friends know bruce too it's a good time that's really the only time bruce comes out is with our friends well everyone people are gonna want to know why is it bruce okay there's a picture on the internet it's an old old old meme very early meme two cows are standing in a field one of the cows has like a a toddler's pretend car on its head i think it's a little tykes cup like a little tykes car like it got stuck in there yes and the other cow looks at that cow and the subtitle is bruce you are drunk so when i think jenny's in a friend of mine where she might put her head in a little tight car that's what i say everybody bruce is here and then now this one all our friends go bruce bruce bruce get excited because bruce thinks good times are about to happen well jenny thank you for being a guest on ask science mike how do you feel about it feel good i think it's long i hope people stick through where can people reach you online if they want to connect with you oh really yeah on my instagram on your instagram which is um what is it is it at do we say at honeybadger nla yes at honeybadger nla is jenny's instagram and since i'm not on instagram anymore it's your best chance at seeing me on instagram uh everybody i know it's been a while i think it's been three weeks since my last show i'm trying to get back every two weeks until the book is done then we'll get back with every week of ask science mike i do want to do more of these conversational episodes i enjoy them very much it doesn't mean i'll get rid of the q a format that the show started with but i'd like you know maybe a third or even half of the episodes to be conversational like that like this because i really enjoy them uh as always i'd love to hear your thoughts either on patreon for my patrons or you can leave a comment on asksciencemike.com thanks for listening everybody and i'll talk to you soon