How to Raise the Next Scott Galloway

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Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher.

Scott Galloway: And I'm Scott Galloway. And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, today we're bringing you our very first parenting show.

Kara Swisher: We have a lot of kids between us. Six, I think, correct? That I mean, that I know of. I know I only have four. I don't know how many you have. But in any case, we've been asking you all, listeners, to send in your questions, which have been great. We've also gotten some advice from some experts and parents in the field. A quick note, some of our listener questions have been edited for length and clarity. Scott, welcome to our parenting show. We had a dating show. Now we have a parenting show.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, this is very exciting. And for me, parenting takes on really a lot of dimensions personally and economically because, Kara, unvaxed sperm is a new Bitcoin.

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. From the Vox Media Podcast Network. Oh, my God. I love that. I love that. By the way, do you know— Try to bring it up. Let us in— True story. True story. I paid for my junior year of college as a sperm donor.

Scott Galloway: So you have children all over L.A., in other words.

Kara Swisher: Probably. Probably. Anybody who thinks they're Scott's child, please write me.

Scott Galloway: No, no, no, no. We will have a lovely cat together.

Kara Swisher: In any case, we love parenting more than anything, actually. I think it's our favorite thing. So let's just get right in there. We're going to give some advice. By the way, we're not perfect parents, are we? Are we?

Scott Galloway: Except for me.

Kara Swisher: No, I'm kidding. No, we're not perfect parents. I do. I mean this sincerely. People always ask about you when I get interviewed, and I say the thing I admire most about you is your ability to work as hard as you do, but put your kids first. I love the way you parent. I've learned a lot from you.

Scott Galloway: I try. They don't think that always.

Kara Swisher: That's their job is not to think that. I know that, but I think they've turned out rather well. I think many people tell me, especially my older sons, I think they're really fine young men. Anyway, let's kick it off with a question that came in via email. I'll read. Hi, Kara and Scott. How do you know if you want to become a parent? My fiance and I are both professionally successful and are currently pursuing his MBA at Duke University. I see us settling down in our long-term city in a few years, and it makes me wonder about our future. I hear people saying that having children is one of the best things a person can do, but I also see us having a happy life if we don't. I think we'd be good parents, but there's a lot of fear that comes along with that. We'd love to hear each of your thoughts on this. Thank you, Jolene, Durham, North Carolina. This is a great question. I was actually talking to my son about this. A lot of young people don't want to have kids. Lots of reasons: the economy, environmental issues, climate change and stuff like that. I, of course, take the different tack. And I get it. I'm right now in San Francisco and I got to sleep all night so happy. I couldn't be happier by being alone. But I think I've wanted to become a parent since I was very young. When I was 17, 18 years old, I was buying baby clothes. So it's always been something I've wanted to do. I think it's important for our future. It says you believe in the future and you work harder for the future in a lot of ways. I think about it a lot more. And it is the best thing I have done, I would have to say, except for my fifth child, Scott Galloway, having my fifth child.

Scott Galloway: There you go. Thanks for that.

Kara Swisher: I think you can have a happy life without children. So I have a lot of friends who do not have children. But they have made my life happier. What about you, Scott?

Scott Galloway: So there's a lot there. This is a deeply personal decision. And there's a lot you said that I agree with. One, I don't think having kids is a requisite to being happy. I have a lot of friends who are married or single, no desire to have kids, have very happy lives. I did not want to have children. I never wanted them. I found other people's children awful. I loved being selfish. I recognized that I was a pretty selfish person. And also, I do think there's some fairly sober conversations you have to have with yourself. Regardless of what's right or wrong about your ability to have kids. I think it's much easier to have a loving, secure household when you have zone coverage. And that is you have two parents or more than one caregiver. And that's not to say that you shouldn't have kids if it's just you. I think it's wonderful that women are freezing their eggs and deciding, you know what, I'm not going to let a romantic relationship or lack thereof make that decision for me. But there's just no getting around it. Dan Quayle was sort of right. Two parents are better than one. Where he got it wrong is it doesn't really matter the gender, the relationship. It can be a grandmother and a mother deciding to raise kids together. But zone coverage helps.

Kara Swisher: Or excellent daycare or excellent childcare ability, and that's a real problem in this country.

Scott Galloway: Huge, biggest problem, I think. Nothing replaces the irrational passion for a child's well-being as someone who takes— it can be a step-parent, it can be a relative, whatever it might be. The other sober conversation you have to have, and I think it's very important and very unfortunate, is economics. It's expensive to raise kids and raising kids brings stress. And the thing you don't want to add to that is a crazy amount of stress because you have economic stress. Because any economic stress you have as an individual will be exponential with children. Because you, as a working professional adult, can, if needed, go sleep on a friend's couch or move to a lower-cost neighborhood. When you have kids, they've got to stay in school. You have to provide for them. And if you want to talk about shame, the most stress I think I've ever felt, a real fear, was when my son came marching out of my girlfriend. and I thought, okay, I've made good money, but it was 2008, it was a financial crisis. I was less wealthy than I expected to be at that point. And all of a sudden I was like, fuck, I don't have enough money. We're living in New York. We're gonna need a three bedroom. And it was very, very stressful. Let me cut to the chase and I ended up at the same place you ended up. I did not wanna have kids. I was forced to. I was forced to because my girlfriend, who is, you know, just scores higher on a balanced scorecard on every dimension than me. And I didn't want to lose her said, I'm having kids. So we had kids.

Kara Swisher: She is better than you, but go ahead.

Scott Galloway: I recognize that. I'm smart enough to recognize that. Having kids for me has checked a box in indelible ink that I didn't even know the box existed. I did not love my children when they first showed up. I fell in love with them. And now it is hands down, hands down, the most joyous thing in my life. Every time I turn the corner, my block or my house is, you know that rush of excitement? You know when you just fall in love with someone or you're seeing friends from college for the first time in 10 years? Those moments happen so irregularly where you have that moment of excitement, anticipation. I get that every time I come up to the door to my house. I can't wait to see my kids.

Kara Swisher: I would agree. It's amazing. When Louie, he's a big hugger, my oldest son, and he goes, mama, like that. Still, to this day, when he was little and to today, I am the happiest person. All the kids, when they do that. And the other night I came home and Clara was just, she rushed around the corner and was so happy to see you. And she goes, I need a hug. And I was like, oh, God, this is fair. And it sounds kind of weepy and that kind of stuff, but it's really, I've always wanted to have kids and Scott didn't. So it's kind of an interesting thing, different. I never thought I wouldn't. And in fact, at my advanced age to have more kids, which I did during the pandemic with my wife, Amanda, wasn't even a choice. I was like, didn't even think about it. Yes, there was a yes before there was a yes, which is interesting.

Scott Galloway: I hope my partner doesn't hear this because she will kill me. I regret not having a third. I regret not having a girl. And I laid down the law, I was getting older. It's something I wish I'd had a third.

Kara Swisher: Listen to Kara Swisher. And also, Jolene, you're in what sounds like a loving, secure relationship. You're economically viable. You're, quite frankly, you're out of central casting to have kids. And I'm comfortable saying that just given what I know about your situation, that there's a really, really strong likelihood the rest of your life, you will look back and think, that was a great idea. That was just a great idea, having kids.

Scott Galloway: Indeed. That is absolutely, that's why I had more kids. I regretted not getting pregnant again. And I wanted a girl too. So I got a girl and a boy. Anyway, is this the Jolene from the Dolly Parton song? Congratulations for getting your man and taking it away from Dolly Parton. Anyway, this one comes from Chelsea. She left us a voicemail. Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays]: Chelsea (voicemail): Hey, Kara and Scott. This is Chelsea from Salt Lake City, Utah. I noticed that I was becoming a very distracted parent and deleted my social media profiles. I didn't just take them off my phone. I got rid of them altogether. And it's helped a lot to just not be distracted when I'm around my kids. But what I've noticed is that this is really lonely because everybody else still has their distractions on their phones. And I often find myself being the only parent at the library or the children's museum or the park that isn't on my phone. I know that there's been a lot of studies about the effects of social media on kids, but what do you guys think about the effects of distracted parents on a generation of kids? Love to hear your input. You have a wonderful show. Thank you so much. I love to listen every week. Bye.

Kara Swisher: Oh, that's a great question. I would agree with you. Look, social media is addictive. That's it. And you reach for it. And so it is, I know I shouldn't be using it as much, especially Twitter, for example. And I would find it very hard not to have looking at something, whether it's television. I watched all the crowd. I binge watched The Crown last night. And I had a lot of other work to do. I happened to be alone, so I was able to do that. But I think it's really, it does have an effect on kids. It makes them twitchier. It makes parents twitchier, makes them distracted. I have done different things like putting the phone somewhere else or turning it upside down. I do a lot of that. I definitely don't use it driving. That's something I'm very particular about in that I put it down and do not pick it up. And I get angry when anybody who's driving my kids or me does that. But I agree, it's really hard. And you do feel lonely because everybody else is looking at it. I was on the subway the other day and everyone was looking at their phones. The only way I felt sort of better about it is it used to be a newspaper or book in their hand before and now it was this. This is 10 times more addictive, but it's very not akin to that when you're sitting on a subway. And not just the ability to just look around is very hard without like reaching for news or information and getting it right away. Scott?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, there's several dimensions of this. So there's, in terms of your own use of social media, it does add a lot of value to certain people. The business I'm in, it adds a lot of value in terms of reach and relevance. And I enjoy it. I do find, I get a lot of discovery. People always ask me, what are your news sources? And I'm like, quite frankly, it's Twitter. And also, but there's a dark side to it. I'm desperate for other people's affirmation. I don't know how pathetic that is. And I would say the five or six times over the last 12 months, I have felt really down. A couple of them started or originated or catalyzed on Twitter. As it relates to your kids, what I've tried to do is when I'm just around the phone and this is not easy for me because I realize I'm addicted to my phone. I do it, I look at stock prices, I do all sorts of information, I proof documents on my phone. What I try and do when I'm around my kids is I try to put the phone away because I do think your kids will mirror you. I think they will mimic you, and if they see you on your phone addicted all the time, it kind of gives them license to be on their phones all the time. So I do think it's important to be off your phone when you're in visual shot of your kids. The other thing I do with my kids, I would like to see age gating of social media. That's not going to happen because they're all on it now. But I don't let my kids spend too much time on their phones. I take their phones from them and I don't let them be anywhere alone on their phone for more than 20 or 30 minutes unsupervised. Because when I read these cases and I go into a rabbit hole, when I read about these awful cases about self-harm, it usually involves a young boy or girl in their room alone with their phone for hours on end, and they go down a rabbit hole. So if my youngest, I want to be clear, I'm not a purist. I think anyone who tells you not to have your kids on screens does not have kids. When my youngest goes into his room at night, he wants 20 minutes to talk to his friends back in America. I'm like, fine. And I hear their voices and I hear them laughing. That's fine. There's some actually wonderful things about the phone and social, but I will not let them go into their room for hours on. I take their phone before they go to sleep.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, good idea. That's a really good idea. Well, you know, it's interesting because you said that about the phone is my second son, he's got a really lovely girlfriend and he's talking to her quite a bit on the phone and I'm thrilled with it. And I try not to overhear, but it just, the social development happening is massive and fantastic. And I love that he's talking to her on the phone and they use the screen and everything. And sometimes he comes up and it's like, she's, you know, I'm not going to say her name because, well, anyway, she's great. And he like asked the question and should we do this? This person he's going out with thinks this. What do you think, mom? It's a really great device for that. And I feel great about that. Both of my sons use phones in a very healthy way. Alex likes to watch videos on it. So does Louis, whether it's John Oliver or he was the other day, you know, I walked downstairs for breakfast and I was like, oh, he's using the phone. But he's listening to the best video about World War II. I was thrilled that he was listening to it. And I was overhearing it. And I thought, oh, well, he's studying this. It's good. And it was well done. And Louie is the same way. He's often looking at cooking things or things like that. So I think that's great. Louie has taken off all social media things from his phone. He just doesn't feel good. He did it on his own. I did not ask him to. He said, I just don't feel good. Doesn't make me feel good. I don't like it. And I was very thrilled that they did it. So I think I need to cut down even more around the little kids for sure. And I should be putting it away. The only thing is you kind of need the phone if your kids are trying to get in touch with you too. Like Alex is always trying to get in touch with me or my ex-wife or my son or my mom. And so that's one thing that I like to keep it so I can see if someone's trying to reach me for various and sundry reasons. And some of them are important to know that they're trying to reach you. So that's something I don't want to necessarily not have it around for. Anything else, Scott?

Scott Galloway: No, I think it's an important question. And we all struggle with this. And I don't think anyone gets it right here. And a lot of it is about the kid. I mean, what you just described, Louie, just the fact that he's done that means he's more self-aware than the majority of adults.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Scott Galloway: Because I realize it would be better for my mental health for extended periods of time to not be on social. And I don't have that discipline.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, he's great. He was doing Tinder and things like that. And then the other day, he's like, oh, I met someone cool at a party. And he was much happier. You know, it may not work out, by the way. I don't even know. I haven't talked to him about it. But that's such a healthier way. Whether it works or doesn't, that's a much healthier way. Anyway, we reached out to some friends. By the way, we're not purists. Neither of us are purists, for sure. We reached out to some friends of Pivot to get their tips on parenting. We're going to play this one and then go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about measuring success as a parent. It's not just marks on the doorframe, although I have a doorframe here in San Francisco that has all my kids, my older kids' heights, and I'm going to keep doing it with the younger kids. All right, here's our first tip from a friend of Pivot.

[Audio clip plays]: Janet Lansbury: Hi, Kara and Scott. It's Janet Lansbury from Unruffled. I wanted to share the best parenting advice I've ever received. It was to stop stimulating my baby so much and to instead just let her be in a safe place on a stable surface where she was free to move her body and then for me to just observe her. The amazing thing that happened was I saw my baby as her own person for the very first time. She had her own thoughts, interests, ideas. She didn't need me to come up with the play ideas for her. And it soon became clear that I should really try not to interrupt hers, except to respond to her overtures, of course. So beyond taking care of her physical and emotional needs, which certainly kept me busy enough, I could relax, trust, and enjoy discovering the uniquely capable person in my child. And honestly, 30 years later, I'm still doing that.

[Ad break]:

Kara Swisher: Okay, Scott, we're back. Next, we have some thoughts from your friend, Richard Reeves. Let's listen.

[Audio clip plays]: Richard Reeves: I'm Richard Reeves, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of Boys and Men, Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why That Matters, and What to Do About It. And I'm quite hopeful at the moment that parents are starting to realize that many of our boys are struggling. They're struggling in the classroom, that can very often lead to struggles in life. They're struggling with the question of how to be a good man in this modern world. And they have an education system that very often doesn't suit them. And that's not because there's something wrong with them. We're really, I think, coming to realize that it's not a defect that lies within our boys, within our sons, but very often something about the structure of the systems that surround them. And also, I think, a failure to provide a more positive script for masculinity and for what it means to grow from boy to man. And I'm sensing a real growing recognition on the part of parents that we shouldn't just assume our boys will be okay. We have to help them to be okay and that we're willing to step up to that task and to help our sons to become really, really good men.

Kara Swisher: Oh, that's a really great thing. Why don't you start and then I'll say something.

Scott Galloway: So I have maybe four or five kind of current role models where I think I feel something, I've been observing it, but I need a Yoda around it. And someone comes along and fills that void around polarization and kind of, I don't know, accountability or cancel culture became Jonathan Haidt. Valuations, Aswath Damodaran. Richard Reeves is my new Yoda. And by the way, his podcast with me on Prop G is our most downloaded podcast in our history. I think that book is a landmark book. Two years ago, there was a zero-sum game-itis, I'll call it. And that is if you ever advocated for young men or said something is wrong in Mudville, people saw it as a zero-sum game and immediately labeled you as being anti-women. And we've made a lot of progress. And because of the good work that Richard's done, feminist academics are waking up to the notion that the education system right now is biased against men. And I struggle with threading this needle, and I think a lot of us struggle with it. And that is boys, some of their attributes, their restlessness does not foot well to school. And I have a 12-year-old and I can't figure out the balance between trying to implement. He's gone from 50-minute classes in the U.S. to 80-minute classes here in London. And I think for my 12-year-old son to sit in a seat for 80 minutes and learn French is mildly torturous for him. At the same time, I recognize that as a parent, you're basically the prefrontal cortex for your son. And so I'm struggling with the balance between implementing some discipline, delay of gratification, and at the same time recognizing that some boys probably aren't meant to be shoved through the traditional decorum of a traditional education. And it's something I really struggle with. And I see more and more young men. There's so many weird things. Testosterone levels are plummeting. Men are leaving the workforce or young men. The bottom half of men in terms of attractiveness, and when I say attractiveness, this very crude metric around their ability to demonstrate current or future resources, are being totally shut out of the mating market. Yeah. Anyways, I'll sum it up just by saying I think Richard Reeves has done really important work, and I would encourage anyone to read his book who has sons or is interested in the issue.

Kara Swisher: Let me first preface it that men do have more advantages than women in general, in the workplace, in earnings, in their size. They're, you know, look, men run everything. And so it's not to say you should feel sorry for boys, but I do say raising two kids, I would agree with Scott on this, is that they, my son, my older son had to, they, he really was jumpy and he needed to get out and run a little bit more. And he wasn't as able to control himself and it wasn't by any of his nature. He just couldn't. And so one of the things we ended up doing is two things. We used to put weights on him and then also let him run around, which was kind of funny. Like they, whenever he'd get jumpy, they'd let him run around the playground three times, which worked much better because they kept doing this executive function thing.

Scott Galloway: That's a great school.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it was great. Well, it took a while. It took a while to get them to do that, which was interesting. And I always used to notice, so I used to go to class sometimes to watch him to see how we would deal with it. And girls were doing all kinds of shit and they got away with it. It was fascinating. And I was like, boys, you're really dumb. You get caught super easy. And so, and I do think the teachers were more attuned to explosions of energy versus a little different kind of stuff. That definitely was happening. That said, I think it's really important to make boys aware of their status in society. I spend, I don't spend a lot of time shaming my sons about things, but I want them to be aware of their advantages and also look around and pay attention to other people's lived experiences. And that's not being woke or anything else. But one of the times I was walking with the two of them and one of them is very tall. The other is tall and big. And I was looking around at night in a part of D.C. that, you know, has more, not crime, but just as a woman, you always are looking for, you're always looking around. You just do. Even if nothing's ever happened to you, you're aware of your surroundings a lot more. And my son was like, what are you looking at, Mom? And I'm like, oh, my God, you don't think like I do. So I started talking about it. And why would he think about it? It was really, he's the same thing. We had a police officer say, my son pulled a leaf off a tree and a police officer said, what did you do? And he was kidding. He was teasing my son. And my son was like, what? And I was like, imagine you're a different person. Like it was a really good opportunity.

Scott Galloway: Yes, exactly.

Kara Swisher: Yes. And this guy was laughing with him. And my son felt no lack of safety because why would he? And so it was interesting. I don't think he'll ever live in other people's bodies, and it's really hard. So I spent a lot of time doing that. I do see the loneliness and the difficulty of meeting people, about creating relationships. This world is, you know, I had a long discussion with one of my second son, Alex, about climate. You know, it makes people feel a little bit like, what have you done to us? What have you left us with? And so anything that can push back on making boys, one, more aware, and two, able to say they're vulnerable, able to say they're upset. Some of the best discussions I've had with Louis is when he actually got upset and cried. And he's able to do that much more than Alex is. But they're both able to cry when they're upset. And I think that's the best thing I'm – sometimes I say to them, and Amanda does too, is we're making you better men for the women. I think they're straight, right? At this moment, they're straight. But for the women you're going to be with. And that's what I think about a lot, making really good fathers and partners is what we're trying to do for the next generation.

Scott Galloway: Can I just want to respond to some of the things you said?

Scott Galloway: Please do. In terms of your sons having advantages, they have advantages physically. Everywhere. When you're big and you're strong, people are less likely to commit violence against you. And to not recognize that women and, in general, people who are smaller, who are physically smaller, under a greater threat, and have every reason to have to think about that. But to always have that kind of anxiety present when they're walking around, to not be cognizant of you are advantaged there and to not use your physical strength to try and dial down or deescalate situations is an abuse of that power. You have power when you're big and physically. You use it to protect people. You use it to create an environment of safety with people. They are advantaged there. They are advantaged that they were born into wealth. They were advantaged that they were born into the greatest country in the world, the United States. However, adjusting for all of that, they don't have advantages, Kara. The school system is biased against them. On an earnings level, if you're under the age of 30 and you're a college graduate, women and men's compensation has equalized. Where they become disadvantaged as women is when they have kids. Kids, yeah. But young men and women, compensation is leveled up. You could make an argument that the education system, which your boys are kind of in the epicenter of, is actually biased against men. You could also argue that the mating market that your young men are entering in, specifically apps, is biased against them. So I don't think that they – I think everyone should recognize their advantages and be humble and grateful. But young men right now are, and not only that, their father was advantaged. Their grandfather was hugely advantaged. But that doesn't mean in any way we should resent them for that.

Kara Swisher: No, no, I don't. I don't. I don't say that. I just want them to be aware of their place in society. That's all. I spent a lot. I don't like, listen, I do not harp on this with them because I do think sometimes just making people feel bad is the worst parenting thing, making your kids feel bad. And I've done it. And every time I've done it, I've regretted it.

[Audio clip plays]

Emily Oster: Hi Karen Scott. It's Emily Oster here, professor of economics at Brown University and author of *Expecting Better*, *Cribsheet*, and *The Family Firm*. My biggest concerns for parents in the upcoming year is that we are all exhausted. Parents have gone through two years of COVID quarantines, of childcare shortages, of formula shortages, of RSV. There are so many challenges and facing each new one seems incredibly daunting. At the same time, the pandemic created a lot of problems that we still need to solve, and we're still waiting on solutions to the setbacks that the kids have experienced through the pandemic and to the problems it's created for parents. I am hopeful that over the next year, we can begin to refocus and try to look for solutions to some of these problems so the next year can be a better one than this has been.

Kara Swisher: Well, that's true. I have to say, the only thing I would push back on that, Emily, is that we've spent a lot of time together as a family because of pandemic. And I suspect the two younger kids are going to feel a lot more secure. We've been able to, we've had the privilege to be able to do that. Listen, I've gotten all those illnesses and I'm sick all the time, but because of small kids, but we have that having those younger children, it'd be really interesting to study the pandemic babies because they've had so much more face time with their families probably overall. Scott, any thoughts?

Scott Galloway: Look, I think what she's saying, if you want to talk about people who really, outside of what I'll call health risks, the people who had the greatest blow to their lives and stress were single mothers who weren't economically secure. Because the remote schooling was Latin for mom is now the teacher. I mean, I saw my kid on an iPad doing math supposedly for an hour, And I'm like, this is literally ridiculous. And then if you didn't have the technology and you didn't have broadband, we lost decades of female participation in the workforce. We're slowly getting it back. But women were – and the reality is for a long time, I don't know if it's societal, I don't know if it's biological, it doesn't matter. Women shoulder a disproportionate share of the household responsibilities and a disproportionate share of child rearing. So you had the triple whammy of kids, any sort of health risk in a single mom. That was just literally untenable. All of a sudden, eight hours a day, you have your kid at home and you're responsible for learning from child care. Now, here's the dirty secret of the pandemic. If you're in the top 10%, maybe even the top 1%, and this is true of me, and I'm very self-conscious saying this, these have been the best two years of my life. The pandemic for me meant more time with my kids, more time with Netflix, and my stock skyrocketed.

Kara Swisher: Oh, dear.

Scott Galloway: And this is the problem with the government's response to the pandemic. And that is rather than getting money to the people who needed it, we threw some loaves of bread and some circuses for the poor and the middle class. But what we really did was flush so much market into the economy that it ended up in the market. So guys like me got wealthier and didn't really have to pay a price for it. And it was criminal. It was absolutely criminal. And if we're going to the next time and what we could have done with that money, do you realize we spent six trillion dollars?

Kara Swisher: Yes.

Scott Galloway: What would that have done to child poverty? What would that have done to mental illness? What would that have done to obesity? What would that have done to relationships, childhood trauma? Instead, we put it all in the fucking market. We figured out an elegant way to put it in the market, but we put it all in the market such that the 1% made off like bandits.

Kara Swisher: No, you're going a whole economic direction versus parenting. I like it. I agree with you. I agree with you. And we did it on our kids and our grandkids' credit cards, who was hard on in my life. It was hard on my youngest, who without school came off the rails, without socialization. I had never seen anything like it. It was one of the scariest moments in my life. I came home, and I said to my partner, I said, his voice is different. Something's wrong here. And it was terrifying. And then also my in-laws, who I wouldn't allow in our house for several months because I was worried about their health. and you just saw their inability to see their hangout and socialize with their grandkids was hugely damaging.

Scott Galloway: But here's the dirty secret of the pandemic. It would have been solved faster. If the NASDAQ had gone down 30%, when someone walked into Walmart without a mask, we would have tased them and then asked questions later.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, that's fair.

Scott Galloway: So it took a huge toll on certain communities. The biggest toll, obviously people who lost loved ones who were affected their health and health. The second biggest toll, single mothers were not economically secure. But this is the dirty secret. The top 10%, and I don't know how you feel about this, I look back on the best years of my life, and the last two have probably been it.

Kara Swisher: Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I saw the effect on my kids at school and my son's graduation and this and that. I think there's going to be-

Scott Galloway: Yeah, your kids are at a weird age for that. High school is a terrible time.

Kara Swisher: You know, he graduated in a car driving by the high school. And, you know, look, everyone's got problems, but it wasn't great. And same thing as first year of college. I think it'd be interesting to study my older sons and my younger kids and what their personality. I think that would be fascinating because they were the most, and I think Alex missing all that high school, now it's turned out a lot better for him now, but that was hard. And I have to say, my wife does much more of the childcare of the younger. I do my older kids, but they're easier, obviously. And my ex-wife is also very, participates a lot. We do that together. But Amanda did most of the work and I had a better job and more jobs and more work. And she definitely has shouldered a lot more of the child care. And I think, you know, wants to have, she's working now as an editor at the Washington Post. But she did a lot more of the child care. And definitely, even though I also am tired, it's definitely been a tiring time. And I think, like Emily, I'm hoping for more.

[Audio clip plays]

Phoebe: Hi, Scott and Kara. It's Phoebe in Brooklyn, and I'm curious how you measure your success as working parents. I am a small business owner. I have two preschool-aged children, and there is no end to the time and attention that I could give them that I know that they would benefit from. But at the same time, I need to provide them economic security. I'm also entering my prime earning years. I don't want to miss out on that. And so I'm just curious, what signals do do you look at that let you know you're doing a good job balancing earning out in the world and being a good parent at home? I just feel like the two are constantly at odds with each other.

Kara Swisher: Well, Phoebe, just as I noted, they're constantly at odds with each other. I am also doing really well from a work point of view. And when I had my older kids, same thing. I was doing really well. And it's really hard. I think in both times, I know I was sacrificing some parenting when I was doing so well at work. I don't think they're ever not going to be at odds. I don't know how you do it. You just have to be aware of it and not necessarily feel guilty all the time. I would say I'm doing a better job of it now, but I'm lucky enough to have, let me just thank Amanda again, someone who's shouldering more of the parenting responsibilities than me, although I think I'm pretty good. And at the same time, understand if this is your time to shine at work, it is your time to shine at work. And so there's lots of studies showing people who work have more stable kids. There's all kinds of studies about that. But it's constantly at odds. Scott?

Scott Galloway: Yeah, daughters whose mothers work make more money because they see their mom working. Look, I'm a capitalist on this. I've always been very focused on money. And rich people will tell you that they don't think about money and they're lying to you. They think about it all the time. That's like saying Roger Federer doesn't think about tennis when he's not on the court. He thinks about tennis all the fucking time. And that's why it's Roger Federer. And I did not see my kids very much at all the first five years of their life. And you know what? It was worth it. Because I decided that one of the things I was going to do as their dad was I was going to provide economic security for them. I see that. I think America becomes more like America every day. And that is it is a loving, generous place if you have money. And it's a rapacious, violent place if you don't. And I never wanted my kids, A, to have that stress, and B, I saw that the things I would want to do with my kids and that my ability to be a good dad and not have that stress would be unfortunately, tragically, largely correlated to our economic security. And you can't have it all. You just can't have it all at once. So I am taking my boys who are soccer mad to World Cup. It's going to cost a crazy amount of money. it's going to be amazing. And there's no free lunch here. The reason we can do that is because the first five years of their life, I didn't see them a hell of a lot. And I'm not suggesting you ignore your kids, but I think someone in the household, maybe both, have to take economic responsibility for the household. And there is no free lunch here. It requires sacrifice. It came at a huge cost to me, a huge cost. I missed a lot. I missed a lot. and, but now it affords me the opportunity to do a lot of wonderful things with my kids. But I think it's important and this trope or this mythology of balance and always be there for your kids. No such thing. No such thing. Balance is a myth. You can't stay in touch with them every day. I try to reach out. Text them, get home for bath time, go back to work, whatever it might be. You You try, but I saw my job. I'm out to hunt the fucking mastodon and bring it home. And if it means I can't be home alone, if it means I can't be home a lot for extended periods of time, it's terrible. It's too bad for me. It's too bad for them. And also, and this sounds aggrieved, it was really hard on me. I did not like being away from my family. I was roaming the earth trying to make a shit ton of money because I see that's what you need to live the way we would want to live.

Kara Swisher: All right, mastodon. I would agree. Just take some time. Take some time every day. Scott, we're going to hear some advice from another friend of Pivot, Jamila Lemieux.

[Audio clip plays]

Jamila Lemieux: It's Jamila Lemieux from *Mom and Dad are Fighting*, Slate's Parenting Podcast. One piece of advice I wish I'd gotten on parenting, I wish that someone had encouraged me early on to be more forgiving of myself. We as parents, moms in particular, but really all parents put so much pressure on ourselves to function, to be good at this thing that we're trying to do, which is raising children. And you make a lot of mistakes along the way. Even my failed parenting moments are wins in many ways. There's been lessons learned and my child is still here, still breathing, nine and a half years old. I've kept her alive this long. So, yeah, I wish that someone had encouraged me to just be a lot more forgiving of myself.

Kara Swisher: Absolutely. You just said that, Scott. Absolutely. Give yourself a break. You're not as bad as you think you are.

Scott Galloway: My colleague at NYU, Adam Alter, who's got appointments to the psychology department and the business school, does a lot of research on end of life. He sits with people in palliative care and asks them their biggest regrets. and typically at the top in addition to they wish they'd stayed in touch with people invest more in relationships wish they'd lived the life that they wanted to leave live instead of trying to conform to society number one or number two people wish they'd been more forgiving of themselves not only across parenting but just the majority of the regret isn't about the bad decisions they made but how hard on themselves they were so cut yourself cut yourself some slack. Forgive yourself.

Kara Swisher: There's a wonderful moment, a really powerful moment in the mayor of Binghamton. What was it called? Oh, mayor of Easton. Mayor of Easton. Thank you. But Jean Smart, who plays the grandmother, says to the mother, the mother is giving Jean Smart a hard time. The story is about a young man, the son who commits suicide. And the grandmother, the mother is getting mad at Jean Smart and saying, well, you weren't a great mother. She said, You're right, I wasn't. You know what? I forgave myself. And she says to her, she says, you know what? You need to forgive yourself. I thought that was so powerful. It was Kate Winslet. Kate Winslet, excuse me. That relationship with the mother and the daughter was so fantastic. Great show. Kate Winslet and Jean Smart. Great show. Great, great show. You're right. You're right. Forgive yourself. I never give myself too hard a time in that regard. I think about it myself, but I do.

Scott Galloway: Yeah, give yourself a fucking break, everybody. Most people really are trying to be good parents. And you're not doing your kid any favor feeling guilty or bad. Try and transition or leverage that guilt into just being better. Whatever you're upset about, just don't do it again.

Kara Swisher: Guilt always ends up in a fight with your spouse. Whenever I'm guilty is when I have a fight with Amanda, which isn't about the kids. It's really interesting. I should think about that more and be more reflective about it. Okay, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll take questions about schooling and moral teaching. Ooh, a slippery slope for Scott Galloway.

[Ad break]

Kara Swisher: Okay Scott, we back. Here a question that came in via voicemail about a topic we know many parents grapple with.

[Audio clip plays]

Caller: Hi, Kara. Hi, Scott. My partner and I are new parents and have long discussed how we would approach our child's education, particularly K-12 and whether or not to try and place our daughter in private school. Financial burden aside, we find ourselves going back and forth on a single point of consideration, that is providing our child the best opportunity we can avail them to. I find within our own network, those who went to private school, on average, have more interesting networks, a more global worldview, more affinity for culture and the arts, and what generally, at least from an outward perspective, appears to be more professional success, versus sending our daughter to the local public school, where she no doubt will not only be more exposed to different socioeconomic circles, walks of life, etc., but will also play our small part in stopping a cycle of what I would call segregation light. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

Kara Swisher: Oh, this is a good question. My first kids went all private school. I also went to private school. My ex-wife went to public school and actually went to accelerated programs. Her family didn't have the money and did really well, went on to MIT on scholarships, scholarships all over the place. She really wanted to send our kids to private school and ended up having the money to do so because of her working so hard her whole life. I was against this. I wanted our kids to be in public schools. We were in an area with good public schools, and I didn't want that. Our daughter right now is in a preschool that's private because she's too young to go to the preschools of D.C., but we want to send our kids to public school as much as we can. I get this issue. I just feel as if there are so many good public schools and obviously you have to be active in them. I think putting my kids with, I very much like the school my kids went to, but it was a bunch of privileged kids and just like them. And anytime they were out of that, they did a lot better in their lives. So I think about this a lot. And it's not just the money savings, although it's insane how expensive these schools are. We're going to give it a go with public schools for lots of reasons, not just this, I would agree, segregation light, but that it's worth it to invest in our public schools and everybody at every associate level should be involved in them. Scott, your thoughts?

Scott Galloway: So I had a different experience growing up. I went to public schools all the way through graduate school. And my two best friends, Adam and David, when our junior high, I was at Emerson Junior High School the year they started busing. and all of a sudden one day we showed up and 40% of the school was black kids who had to get on a bus for an hour and a half from downtown. And you'd like to think-

Kara Swisher: This is Los Angeles.

Scott Galloway: In Los Angeles. And you'd like to think that it was a hallmark channel moving we all got along. I want to be clear, we hated each other. We used to have black against white softball games. Do you believe the faculty used to allow that? It was violent. It was scary. It must've been terrible for them. They're spending two and a half hours on a bus every goddamn day. It was a frightening, not wonderful time of my life. And immediately, my two best friends, whose parents had more money than my mom, pulled them out and sent them to this wonderful little private school called Windward. They got better educations than I did, better connections. But I also got what I'd call a little bit more – I got more life skills. I think I developed more empathy. My two best friends, one was a Mormon kid who went to Stanford. The other was a black kid who wasn't going to college unless he got a football scholarship. And I think it gave me both aspirational motivation, but also empathy. I learned how to navigate certain people. You just learn certain skills. Having said that, now that I have kids, it's a tension between wanting to be a good citizen, because every time thoughtful parents like this individual leave the public school system, the public school systems die a little bit, because it's not about even resources. It's about parental engagement. And so my whole life thought our kids are going to public school. And then you end up in an area that doesn't have great public schools and your kid comes first. And you end up, at least we did, putting them in private schools. It is very hard. I don't have moral clarity around this issue because I thought my whole life I'd have my kids in public school just like I did because it did. I think over the long term, really, it did pay off for me. But at the time, there was a lot. But if my mom had the bandwidth to be all over and involved in my life the way we are involved in my kids' lives, we would have pulled them out because it wasn't great. And you want to be a good citizen, but at the end of the day, you'll always defer to what you think is right given your situation for the kid.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, don't feel bad. It's really hard. The public school where I grew up was quite good. I wish we had gone there. I definitely wish we had. It was a better school. I would have been a better student. I would have worked harder. And I, you know, it depends on where you are. It really does. I don't, you don't want, it's very difficult decision. Don't feel bad about any of them, but we're going to go for public school for our kids. And I wish I had with my sons. I do. Even today, I do. I think we happen to have a very good private school in San Francisco. I like the one in DC, but there's definitely, it's definitely a group of people. and I would like them to meet another group of people and struggle maybe a little bit more.

Scott Galloway: But here's one of the socials in America is school funding is based on property taxes. So if you live in a wealthy neighborhood, the public school is usually pretty good. And if you don't live in a wealthy neighborhood, the public school usually isn't.

Kara Swisher: Yep, that's right. Correct. Anyway, we also heard from Paul from Canada who homeschools his child. He asked, have you come across successful individuals who homeschooled? Many, many people in San Francisco did and I knew. And these students were terrific. And even there's a lot of evangelicals who do this, homeschool their kids. And I got to say, they're very well educated, whether you agree with their politics or not or their religion or anything else. Homeschooling can be very – the only thing is the socialization aspect. You have to really try.

Scott Galloway: I got to be honest with you, Kara. I hear that. I think it's strange. And I don't have data to back it up. And I think I'm being biased here and stereotyping it. I think that 49% to 51% of the value is being around a ton of strange kids and going through the lunch cafeteria and all that. I both thought homeschooling was strange. I do, but I've run across students, and they're very good. They're very good. They just are.

Kara Swisher: So are most kids from Europe, by the way. Anyway, last question. This one comes in via email. It says, how do you teach morality to your children? My husband and I have decided to leave organized religion for now, but we want to make sure we still provide our four kids with solid foundation and morality and allow them the chance to learn about different faiths. We have a bit unmoored, both being cradle Catholics. And although there are reasons for why we finally broke with the church, we also know it's important for families to mark traditions and belong in the community. Any advice on how to navigate spirituality, morality, and religion with your kids? Love your shows. Love you both. Kelly from Roswell, Georgia. Ooh, this is a big one. My ex-wife took my kids to all kinds of churches. I was a cradle Catholic, too, and the minute I was confirmed, largely from my grandmother, I never entered the Catholic Church again. It was anti-women. It was anti-gay. There was all kinds of reasons. But I do miss it. I do miss it. I go by churches lately, and I'm like, oh, I liked that. There was something about it that was very comforting, the community and having faith. I still can't do it, but my ex-wife did a great job in introducing them. My kids do not go to church. Amanda is Jewish, and we're just talking about that, where to enter them into that. Another thing I don't know a lot about, I probably won't be the spiritual person and religious person for my kids ever. I think it's important to talk to them about morality, obviously, and things like that. But I don't know. What are your kids' church, Scott? I don't think you do, right?

Scott Galloway: Oh, no, I'm a rabid atheist. And we have conversations around this, and we talk about the differences between kind of the fundamental differences between religions. And I talk to my kids a lot about my atheism and that one of my role models is Jesus Christ. I like the notion of love the poor as a beginning, a starting point. But I don't believe, you know, he was the son of God. And I talk about what I think is great about religion, what is not so great about it. And I ask them if they want to go to church or temple. You know, I was raised sort of semi-Jewish, if you will. Like, atheism is a huge source of comfort for me, but I don't want to impose it on my kids. in terms of teaching morality, you know, God, that's a tough one. I think you just, I'm cognizant of it. I try to be an especially, I try to be a better citizen in front of my kids. My kids have motivated me to be a better man. And that is you just got to assume your kids are going to look to you more than anyone in terms of a role model. The other thing I'll say is for all the criticism that schools get about quote unquote, their wokeness, most of it is basically saying, try to be a really good human. You know, it's, and my kids learn a lot. Don't be an asshole.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, my kids learn a lot of wonderful things at school. Like mental health has been de-stigmatized at school. They've really taken a stand against bullying. Everyone complains about, and there are some bad things about what you, whatever you want to call woke culture going over the, you know, oppressors on this side of the classroom are pressed on this side. That doesn't happen that often. It does, but it doesn't happen that often. And the majority of the foundation there is trying to take lessons in history and say, this is why everyone deserves dignity. This is why the American Disabilities Act was so wonderful. So I think that the, I think actually good schools do a pretty good job of instilling some of those, some of those values. My kid, we're not religious. He has to go to chapel on Sunday night.

Scott Galloway: Oh, yeah.

Kara Swisher: London loves that. Immediately, my antenna go up. You know what they talk about in chapel? They did a ceremony last week honoring fallen men during World War I and World War II.

Scott Galloway: Oh, it's very British. But you know what, Kara?

Scott Galloway: It's wonderful. It was young men. It was young men who were fighting the agency of something bigger than themselves. And the reason I'm alive is my mom was a five-year-old Jew living in London, had these brave men go and basically die. And the fact that they do that is morality.

Kara Swisher: You try and surround yourself with that, but unfortunately, the thing you can't control, which I think is hugely important, is their peer group. You can control your own behavior. You control the school they go to, to a certain extent. The thing you can't control that's so important is their peer group. I got so lucky growing up. My two best friends, Adam and David, they were just fundamentally gentle, sweet boys. They were nice, good kids. I'd like to think I got a lot of that from them. Your kid follows the wrong crowd or the right crowd, and you can't control it. You're lucky that way.

Scott Galloway: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: I would say, it's really hard. As I said, I have lately walked by churches. It's not the religion. I'm an agnostic. I'm not an atheist like Scott is. I don't know. Every now and then, there's some comfort in faith. There is.

Scott Galloway: Agnostics are closeted atheists.

Kara Swisher: They are not. They are not. You lack the sack to admit you don't believe in a super being or an invisible friend.

Scott Galloway: No, I do, actually. I don't know. I don't know. Do not bully me, speaking of a little bullying.

Kara Swisher: I do find there's morality everywhere. Teaching morality doesn't come from a church necessarily. It comes from teachers. It comes from parents. It comes from friends. It comes from making mistakes. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life and things I regret. Not a ton, but definitely. I think being able to talk about that honestly with your kids is really important.

Scott Galloway: I was self-conscious when I say atheism. I went to a temple. I went to church. And I always loved both. People getting together in the agency of something that basically says, be good to your neighbor. I love that part during the service where they would say, introduce yourself to the person in front of you, behind you. Generally speaking, my experience with organized religion has always been very positive. There is a strength to religion as a guide.

Kara Swisher: I think some exposure to religion—

Scott Galloway: So you're trying to shove it down your throat is the problem.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, this is a tough one. This is a very individual decision. But my experience with what I'll call fairly progressive or reformed churches and temples was always very positive. Let's go to church together or temple. You're always saying that. You and I. We're going to go. A little Christmas service.

[Discussion continues...]

Kara Swisher: Anyway, these were great questions. We are imperfect parents, but we think we're pretty good at it. And we think we've done a pretty good job and we hope to do a better job tomorrow. As always, if you've got a question about business, tech, politics, or anything else, including parenting, go to nymag.com slash pivot and submit it to the show. Scott, that's the show. I want everyone to go hug their kids. There's not enough hugs in the world. The problem with the world is not enough kids got hugged by their parents. That's my whole theory. Anyway, we'll be back on Tuesday with a regular episode. We hope that everyone is spending the holiday with someone they love, whether it's a parent, child, someone very dear, a friend, person you met on the subway. I don't care. Just spend it with someone. Anyway, drive safe and be careful around candles. Scott, your final words?

Scott Galloway: Biggest surprise in my life to the upside? Having kids. Full stop. Full stop.

Kara Swisher: So read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. And thanks also to Drew Burrows and Miel Silverio. Ernie Indertot engineered this episode. Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to great podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from Vox Media. We'll be back next week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. And we love our kids. Yay, kids. To Louie, Alex, Clara, and Saul, you're the best kids. What about yours, Scott?

Scott Galloway: Nolan and Alec, everything has meaning now. Everything has meaning. And you won't understand what that means until you have sons.

Kara Swisher: Our daughters. You.