Schedule Everything (Even Sex) with Emily Oster
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Emily Oster is scheduling everything in her midlife. As an economist and author of multiple books about parenting, pregnancy and motherhood, that makes sense! But Emily even schedules her free time, and her whole family has to get on board. So is the secret to midlife syncing your family’s calendars? Scheduling sex? Accepting that you might just be… boring? Emily gives us her hot takes, so get your notepad ready.
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Transcript
SPEAKERS
Reshma Saujani, Emily Oster
Reshma Saujani 00:00
Should I tell them to leave? Are they that you can hear it right? Hold on, hey guys, hey, I’m trying to take my podcast. I need you to go or be quiet. I know I need you to be quiet.
Reshma Saujani 01:45
Welcome to My So Called Midlife, a podcast where we figure out how to stop just getting through it and start actually living it, I’m Reshma Saujani.
Reshma Saujani 01:59
So our guest today has saved parents countless hours of internet sleuthing. She synthesizes data about parenting, pregnancy and our bodies like no one, and she’s basically a rock star like I have been in a room with her, with parents, and she’s like mob like Taylor Swift at a Swifty convention, and now in her latest newsletter, she’s digging into hormones in midlife. Emily Oster is an economist and award winning author, and specifically now this is my favorite. She refers to herself as the vagina economist. I love that. Her breakout book, Expecting Better, sold over a million copies, and since then, she’s written three data driven books to help parents make these hard decisions, and she’s created a community through her website parent data. But like more than that, she’s on top of her shit in a way that is so foreign to me, I want to study it under a microscope. For example, she sends out a weekly email to her husband, kids and nanny every single week, it outlines the entire run of show for every day, everyone is expected to read it and send questions. And on top of that, her husband’s in charge of the weekend plans. He sends out an email that outlines what their family’s gonna do and when the downtime is gonna happen. I mean, even the fun is scheduled. But here’s the thing, that’s how they avoid conflict, she says, so I can’t wait to talk to her about that, because, as you can tell, I don’t do that with my family. I mean, not even close. Emily Oster, welcome to the show.
Emily Oster 03:42
Hello. I’m so happy to be here.
Reshma Saujani 03:44
So what happened to you this week that felt very midlife?
Emily Oster 03:48
I feel like most of my day feels very 40s. But I would say the thing that feels 40s every morning is when I get up and I feel like I like live to the bathroom. I don’t know. There’s just something about the soreness of, like, just like the morning. You know, when you just feel old, I feel old in the morning, and I that’s, that’s new.
Reshma Saujani 04:10
Yes, I walk around with my little, what’s my little theragun? Yeah. I mean, that’s like, Oh, my best friend. Okay, so. But have you discovered anything to solve the aches and pains? Like, do you do a heating pad? I started doing that. It helps.
Emily Oster 04:23
I have a foam roller.
Reshma Saujani 04:27
A very ugly blue one in the corner of my house.
Emily Oster 04:29
Yeah, mine’s like, mine’s like the Amazon Basics one. It’s like, the only thing that pattern available was, like speckled, to have, like a like, a speckled, dotted foam roller that lives just like around my house.
Reshma Saujani 04:41
Foam rollers are a game changer. But it’s also like, when I was, I was like, is everybody that tight? Like, does is everybody in that much pain and like, am I gonna have to get a hip replacement soon? Like, what’s the deal?
Emily Oster 04:52
I don’t know. This is not my this is not my specialty. I do think that my sense from other people who run is that you definitely do get. It more that stretching is a priority as one ages.
Reshma Saujani 05:05
I want to talk about your tools for managing the household, and I’m gonna admit I don’t do any of the things you say to like I should do all right, so, like, I’m the parent that when my son brings home his backpack, like, I don’t open it up, I don’t take out the homework or fill out the forms, and I normally need to be reminded by the teacher, like five times. So I’m not proud of it. I’m just being honest. Like, that’s my deal, because it’s hard to be a parent when you’re managing your job, you’re managing but then you got to manage the kids, the fridge, the shoes, the healthcare, the whole thing, right? And what I love about what you do, and I hope to take that advice one day, is like, here are some real, concrete ways that, like you can ease the burden. And you know, I want to talk about how you and your husband do it, because you have a very specific way of keeping stuff on track. And you use emails with your husband and your nanny. Tell me your flow like, walk us through your Sunday email.
Emily Oster 06:01
Okay, so let me just step back. The key issue for us is that nobody in my family in particular, my husband and I, but also our kids, like to be surprised, and we’re all busy. And my husband, I in particular, when it’s like, I plan to do X and instead I need to do this with the kids. It makes us really mad. It’s like, upsetting. We’re both, like, routine, driven people.
Reshma Saujani 06:22
So like, when you’re supposed to go to basketball and you’re like, Fuck it, let’s go to ice cream like that does like that throws everybody off.
Emily Oster 06:28
No, that we would, we would never do that. No, that’s my house. It’s more like, if, if, like, I wasn’t warned I needed to pick up. Like, right now I’m it kind of cranky because the school initially told us that pickup from, like, the school trip drop off today was at 3:30 and then, and we planned for it to be 3:30 and then, like, two days ago, they were like, oh, it’s 2:30 that’s annoying. I like, that’s the kind of thing that, like, drives our family nuts. Okay, so the cornerstone of this sort of keeping this thing together is these emails. And so like, on the weekend, I will send an email that just says, it’s super simple actually. It’s just like, here’s what’s happening Monday, here’s what’s happening Tuesday. And mostly it’s like, on Monday, the kids are going to school, here’s what’s happening at the end of the day. Like, on Tuesday, kids are going to school, here’s what’s happened at the end of the day. But it’s a way to kind of call out, like, here’s here’s where somebody has to be, you know, here’s the driving that needs to happen.
Reshma Saujani 07:23
Yeah, it gives people like, like they can make plans because they know what’s happening. So
Emily Oster 07:27
people can make plans. And my husband works in Boston, and so he’s, like, on a train three days a week. And so there’s sort of some logistics, but, like so, much of our family structure just relies on this idea of, like, planning in advance, so we don’t fight later.
Reshma Saujani 07:41
And your husband’s an economist too, right? He’s like, both of your brains that way. Clearly, your kids are gonna be economists, because everybody.
Emily Oster 07:47
Oh my gosh, I hope not. I don’t know. One of them’s planning to have a YouTube channel, Reshma, so we’re going in for a growth area of the economy.
Reshma Saujani 07:58
Yeah, okay, I have two thoughts from what you just told me, one, Are you the manager of this?
Emily Oster 08:03
Yes, I do the weekly email. My husband is the weekend email.
Reshma Saujani 08:09
Okay, does that create more or less emotional labor for you?
Emily Oster 08:15
I think it’s pretty clear. I think he would agree with this, that I am the sort of primary parent and holder of the emotional labor in the household. It definitely improves that writing this email lessens that emotional labor, in part, because it means that everyone else has an opportunity to, like, weigh in on mistakes that I have made and fix things. So it’s not like I was the person responsible for this and then I messed it up. It’s like, if something gets messed up, we kind of all messed it up. So I think that’s this helpful aspect of it.
Reshma Saujani 08:50
Have you ever, like, said, I’m done, I’m not doing this week email, you got to do it. It’s like, this is like me and my house about the trash.
Emily Oster 08:57
Oh no. I don’t think he would be good at the week, the week email.
Reshma Saujani 09:02
So that’s why you do it.
Emily Oster 09:03
I don’t, I guess it just feel to me. It feels like it feels fairly evenly split, like the weekend email is also kind of annoying. So you feel like it’s fair?
Emily Oster 09:13
Yeah, I feel like that aspect is fair.
Reshma Saujani 09:15
My beef with midlife is, like, every day is freaking Groundhog’s Day, like every day is the same, and there’s no excitement, like there’s no and I think that’s why people blow up their life, whether they have an affair, whether, you know, I mean, do something, or quit their job, or, like, move to an ashram, it’s like they’re just bored. You gotta feel that way a little bit, do you sometimes? Don’t you feel like sometimes, just like, writing the wrong thing on your weekly email and saying that, like, pickup is at five instead of six, and just throwing the whole family off and just boo, like, wouldn’t that be exciting?
Emily Oster 09:54
If it was like, we’re have we’re not having veggies on Wednesday. On Wednesday, there’s no veggies at five o’clock, and you can all. Forget it f off. So look, I actually, I think that’s a very Yes. I think people feel that way very much. And this is I had a conversation last year with Pooja Lakshmi about her book about self care, and she makes this point about like, sort of self care being like, something where you prioritize your yourself, and like, I need something that I’m like, trying to do outside of my job. And it has to, it can’t just be, like, I go to yoga for recreation, like I have to be trying to achieve something, or else it like, doesn’t like work for me in terms of, like, helping take my mind off things. And so the thing that I have been doing much more seriously, basically, since I turned 40. So I think it’s quite, quite consistent with your whole thing, is running. And so this weekend, like, I’m going to a race, and I’m nervous about, I’m like, nervous that I won’t be able to achieve my stupid goal. And I understand.
Reshma Saujani 10:59
Your great goal. It’s not stupid.
Emily Oster 11:00
It’s about like, and it’s like, I have these goals, and they’re not important in the sort of grand scheme of my life, but they’re important to me. And it’s something where it’s like, it has a cadence that’s like, almost not the same. It’s like, okay, I’m like, leading up to this thing that I’m gonna try to, that I’m gonna try to do and test myself in various ways. But yeah, I mean, I think most people you probably you want to look for something I don’t know something different.
Reshma Saujani 11:27
One of my biggest fears, in many ways, is that I’m just boring and dull and like, I’ve become lame, right? And I, like you, often pick goals that just make me more lame, right? Like, it’s not going to make you, like, more fun, more loose, more risky, right? It’s actually making you more disciplined.
Emily Oster 11:44
Yeah, isn’t that ridiculous?
Reshma Saujani 11:46
Isn’t that bad? Yes. Aren’t we like doing this? Shouldn’t we be picking things that actually, I don’t know, mix it up more for us. Make us more spontaneous, make us less disciplined. Oh, no, I don’t, because you don’t like those things. I don’t like those.
Emily Oster 12:04
I don’t like those things. I like discipline and achievement. I don’t know. The biggest thing for me and running actually, is like people. There’s a bunch of like people who I would now consider friends, who I get to connect with through this, and that’s that’s that’s new. Like, the people I’ve been friends with who I love very much. I’ve, like, been friends with since college. You know, I met my husband in college. I met my best friend day one of college. And so this is, like, there’s, like, I don’t know there’s a thing about this, but I totally agree. Like, maybe we should be more our hobbies should be more interesting.
Reshma Saujani 12:36
No, but that’s good, because I think what you’re saying is, like, for me too, like, I have to be more social. Like, I think it’s like, when look, I think when you’re on all the time, it’s actually, I’ve become more of an introvert as my career has progressed, when I was always an extrovert, right? And so, and then you, you write, you read all these things, which is, like, the most important thing as you’re getting older is, like, friends. And I’m like, Oh my God, I don’t have any friends. And so it is great that you found something that like helps you get more friends.
Emily Oster 13:04
Yeah, but I agree that the thing I found is boring and kind of just like, I mean, I like it, but it’s just like all the other things about me.
Reshma Saujani 13:13
No, I get it, maybe this will inspire you to find something that, or both of us to find something that’s like in a different land. Painting, should we be painting?
Emily Oster 13:21
No.
Reshma Saujani 13:22
Paintings, I thinking more like, I don’t know, late night DJing or something like that, right? Something that that, that like messes with your sleep.
Reshma Saujani 13:31
Okay like to go to sleep. So I didn’t even in college.
Reshma Saujani 15:35
What I love about your work, so I’m obsessed with cons, right? Like the con about us feeling like women we have to like fix ourselves and that we just need a little more confidence, really, when we’ve had no structural support. And what I love about you two is, like, you really also talk about the con. The con about, like, not exercise when you’re pregnant. The con about how much weight you can gain. You know, the con about, like, when your eggs all disappear you’re and you’re not afraid to be confrontational about it. And your work is so much about the debunking of parenting, pregnancy, women’s bodies. What do you feel in all of your research is the biggest con women have been sold so.
Emily Oster 16:35
Let me give you two answers. So I think in parenting, the biggest con is that little things matter. I think if I could just, like, get people to stop thinking and like, stop asking me, not because I don’t want to answer, but stop, like, getting in their head about like, tiny stuff because someone has told them, like, every choice you make is the most important choice, and every minute is an opportunity to like, optimize your kid and like. And I realized in some weird sense, like, maybe, like, some of my work is like, trying to, but actually I I would just like people to be like, there’s like, three important things, love your kid. Kids need a stable place to be. Try not to yell too much and read to them. That’s great. You’re done, you’re good. And so that’s one I think, for for women, I think we sold people a little bit of a bill of goods on having it all like not that. I don’t think that it is possible to have a career that you love and a family that you love and be super involved with your kid, like I’m trying, like we’re both trying to do that. I think we have to recognize that there are only 24 hours in the day, and sleeping is important for functioning, and it isn’t possible to both be a full time stay at home mom and also a full time employee, yep, because those are both full time jobs, as the title suggests. And I kind of think we sometimes give people the impression that like, if you just like, worked harder, or you thought about it differently, or whatever, like you could do both of those things, and I think we can make it easier to balance those things for sure, with tools or whatever, different approaches being more deliberate, I think we can make it easier, but I do not think that we should expect ourselves to do all those things at the same time.
Reshma Saujani 18:38
That’s right. You had some great advice in your newsletter parent data recently about how we as parents compare ourselves to all the other parents, how we judge ourselves based on what everyone else is doing. You wrote basically that comparison is the thief of joy, yeah. And I think right talk to me about that,
Emily Oster 18:59
yeah. So I think when we look out at other parents very frequently, it’s like, Here are the ways in which, like, I’m not doing good enough. The example I was giving there was, like, what’s in your kid’s lunchbox, right? That like, somebody else’s kid’s lunchbox, like, it’s got, it’s a bento, it’s got the shaped animal Rice’s whatever it is. But there are so many aspects of that where we are comparing ourselves to someone else and finding ourselves coming up short. And if we could take a deep breath in those moments and be like, I don’t really know what is going on with those other people, but I’ve thought about like, what, how the way I want my life to operate, and I am implementing that, and that is working for me. For me, I find this when I talk to parents whose kids are engaged in, like, like a lot of high tech, like, intensive extracurriculars, which, like, isn’t a thing we’ve really gone in for, like, Russian math, yeah, Russian math, like geography be you know, like three different. Instruments, you know, karate nationals. Like, just things which, like, seem great, but you can feel, as a parent, when someone’s describing like, well, you know, my kid is it debate nationals, and now they’re going to the karate World Championships. You like, feel that like, the like, rising panic, you know.
Reshma Saujani 20:16
Oh my god, yeah. Like, like, I’ve ruined my child, right?
Emily Oster 20:18
It’s just the exercise of being like, you know what? Like that sounds great for them. Not not the exercise of being like, that’s stupid. Karate is dumb because it’s not like. That might work great for them, but just the exercise of being like That sounds lovely for them, and it’s not what works for my family.
Reshma Saujani 20:35
Because of this comparison piece. Do you think that that’s why so many women in their midlife are unsatisfied and want to blow up their lives?
Emily Oster 20:45
I actually think what you hit on earlier is the biggest thing, which is the feeling of monotony, kind of the experience of sort of getting out of the ever changing little kid world, right where, like, there’s just, like, a lot of chaos. It’s hard to be bored with a two year old. It’s hard to be rested, but it’s hard to be bored. And, you know, once your kids are, yeah, like a couple kids, and they’re, like, in an elementary middle school, like, trucking along, it’s like, pretty consistent, and people are in their jobs, and usually they’re not still trying to climb the ladder in quite the same way that they were before. Like, you’re a little more settled. And, you know, it’s like, well, what like, okay, like, is it just this? Is this just it till I die, sex with the same person, same kind of school? Like, I mean, Groundhog Day is the right? Is the right way to put it? Like, am I going to the same office, doing the same thing, seeing the same people, eating the same nine meals, you know, every day until just death.
Reshma Saujani 21:41
Do you feel like that?
Emily Oster 21:43
No, but what I’m doing right now, like, trying to build parent data, trying to build something where, you know, it’s, it’s different what from what I’ve done before. Like, yeah, I get the high because it’s hard. It’s like, the thing that gets that, that gets me up, is like, I don’t know what to do. Like, I don’t know what the next step is, like, I’m I’m nervous, I’m like, anxious that it’s not going to work, but super excited about the possibility that it will like, you know, that’s what gets me up in the morning.
Reshma Saujani 22:09
So what’s the secret to reclaiming your midlife?
Emily Oster 22:12
Entrepreneurship is, I think it’s finding, I mean, I think it, it depends, but I think for a lot of people, it’s finding something, something that you want to try for. I mean, I think for me, that’s like, the, that’s the thing that people often missing. It’s like, I’m, I was trying to achieve it. I was trying to get, like, people are trying to get to something. They’re trying to land somewhere, and then they land there with the, you know, the kids and the partner and the job. And then there isn’t something that you’re trying for. And I think that’s where people you want to figure out, like, what are you going to try for? And you know, maybe that’s like, something that is totally outside of everything else you do, like being in a DJ, late night DJ.
Reshma Saujani 22:51
It’s like, what’s your like, for example, what’s your goal this weekend for your run?
Emily Oster 22:54
1930 it’s a 5k My goal is 1930 it’s not a realistic goal. Of my friend Ariel said she would come and we could try to achieve it together.
Reshma Saujani 23:03
That’s amazing, but that’s kind of like, that’s, that’s it, right, a goal, something you want to try for. It could be like, your next half marathon.
Emily Oster 23:11
Yeah, it could be like, just like whatever gets whatever floats your boat.
Reshma Saujani 25:10
Perimenopause. You’ve lately been talking a lot about bodies, how they change. You’ve started a newsletter with Dr.
Emily Oster 25:18
Gillian Goddard, who’s the best,
Reshma Saujani 25:20
Who’s the best, called Hot Flash. Are you in the pause? Like and what motivated you? Oh, yeah, you’re in the pause.
Emily Oster 25:29
So it’s not that well defined. Reshma, so we, you know, we started this newsletter partly because it felt like a good topic that a lot of people are are interested in. And I will say in our first conversation, I was, like, it was just like, like, a quote interview in which I just, like, asked her all the questions about my own personal situation. And, you know, I’m 44 I would say I have some early perimenopause symptoms. And it’s weird, right? I mean, people talk about menopause, and that starts on average at, like, at 50, and, you know, takes a couple years, but there’s an awfully long time of, sort of, like, lead up, yes, in which things will fluctuate around in ways that are sort of unexpected.
Reshma Saujani 26:18
I mean, I’m in it now, like, I’m sweating right now, like, profusely, you know, for no reason. Even though, like, the air conditioning is turned down to 68.
Emily Oster 26:25
My problem is, like, sleep. I just, like, just, just sleep.
Reshma Saujani 26:29
But it is interesting because I think about you don’t know whether you’re blaming everything for it. And the other thing I found really interesting was that so many of my fertility issues work pop back up at this stage while I’m going through perimenopause. And I think we just don’t, we don’t like know enough, it’s so it’s, is that a data problem too?
Emily Oster 26:53
So Jillian’s an endocrinologist, and I think so much of her writing and so much of what’s in hot flash has helped me understand that the core misunderstanding is about just our understanding of hormones. The answer to like, why are your fertility issues seeming like pyramid? Like, that’s because it’s the same set of hormones sort of combined in different ways. And almost always the answer to something about, like, why is this going wrong? Is like, well, your estrogen is down. Like, the estrogen Turner has to be, like, super important to making you feel good. And so many of these answers surround the balance of hormones, and this is not something that we learn a lot about. I don’t think it’s something that medicine understands that much about. I mean, there aren’t that many endocrinologists. Most people will probably never see an endocrinologist or be informed at all about you know, what is the range of hormone kind of cycles over your over life cycle? And it comes up in these times in which the balance of those things are changing a lot.
Reshma Saujani 27:53
So based on your own information, like your own experience, what do you wish women knew?
Emily Oster 27:58
I think it would be great if we could give people a better sense of the range of symptoms that are typical, because you’re absolutely right, there is a little bit of a of a vacuum, where then everything gets attributed to perimenopause or to menopause. It’s, you know, like I’m dizzy, My ears hurt, you know, my foot, like, my my foot is swelling. A whole range of things people ask, like, is this perimenopause? And some of the times, like, no, that’s, that’s not. And so that, like, even, even breasts, right to sort of say, like, cyclical breast pain, which arises anew at, you know, in your early 40s, that is a very common perimenopause symptom, consistent pain in one breast. That’s not perimenopause symptom. That’s something you should have checked out, because that could be something else that you would want to worry about. So even things like that, we’re just helping people understand like what is going to happen, or is likely to happen or could happen, and what are things that are outside of this? And sure, they could be related to your hormones, but they are something you should you should try to understand better.
Reshma Saujani 29:05
So you conducted this intimacy survey about women’s sex life in their midnight also, side note, I didn’t realize that the emoji for sex was a hot pepper. Is that what it is? Yes, that’s true. Yeah. Okay, so I just learned that recently, thanks to you. What are some of the most surprising stuff that you heard from the community about this topic?
Emily Oster 29:27
In the data we got back from people, I think when we did this survey, it was like 26,000 people wrote in, and we asked people, How old are your kids and how much sex do you have? And you know, I think a lot of it is is pretty much what you would expect people have sex less than they did before. Kids very early on, people have less sex, although like when their kids are very small, and then you kind of return back to something closer to the frequency that you had before. I think the typical was in the range of, sort of twice a month, ranging between like every other week and every week. But there’s a really wide range. There are couples who say they never have sex. There are couples who say they have sex every day. That was not common, but he were a few.
Reshma Saujani 30:08
Do you think people lie about that?
Emily Oster 30:10
About how much sex they have?
Reshma Saujani 30:11
Yeah.
Emily Oster 30:12
To on a survey, maybe a bit. I think I’m sure they lie more like to their friends, to their friends, right? Yeah. But maybe a little, I mean, what was, what was interesting about the survey, maybe more than the data was kind of what people said. There’s a lot of like, I like my partner, and I’m sad that this isn’t a way that we’re connecting anymore. Like there was, I have more emotion in those answers than maybe I had expected.
Reshma Saujani 30:42
When I saw it too, it was it was funny about the the older women who had taken their server that said, basically, don’t worry. It gets better when the kids leave the house. I thought that that was, like, super funny, but, but part of that, then, I think, shed some light, a little bit, on why people are unhappy because the spontaneity is gone, right? You almost have to, like schedule it when the kids are out of the house.
Emily Oster 31:05
Yeah, you have to schedule when the kids are out of the house and and, you know, people are not people don’t like to schedule sex like sort of the even though many people actually all of these surveys you will see, and you see this in many places, in data and in anecdotes, is people say, like, I don’t know, you know, we schedule I don’t really like the idea of scheduling it, but once we get into it, I like doing it right and sort of like, you know, it’s fun. I mean, this is not like.
Reshma Saujani 31:34
I mean we, I mean we have to schedule sex. I mean, do you guys have to schedule sex?
Emily Oster 31:37
Everybody schedules sex.
Reshma Saujani 31:39
Yes, you’re like, I’m married to an economist, of course, in schedule sex. Well, that’s the other thing I want to get to. So you called yourself boring in this interview. And I think you love that. I think you love the discipline. You love routine, and is loving a boring life the key to being content in midlife?
Emily Oster 32:03
I think it is helpful if you are a person who likes routine and you’re absolutely right, like, I like routine, I like to do the same thing every day. So since midlife is often quite routine, if you are a person who thrives on that, I think that that can be helpful, but I’m not sure it’s the key to being content, in the sense that you know you could mix it up. You don’t have to have the same coffee at exactly the same time with exactly the same electrolyte drink every morning to be happy. Although, if you’re a person who likes that and like, every morning, there’s like a little spark of joy when you’re like, oh, I get to have my electrolyte drink and my graham crackers and go for a run. Like, that’s lucky.
Reshma Saujani 32:40
That’s amazing. Well, thank you, Emily, this was such a fun conversation.
Emily Oster 32:46
I love talking to you. Could do it forever.
Reshma Saujani 33:01
Okay, here are my takeaways from Emily and how to really live my midlife number one, get comfortable with being boring. Big one. Number two, we don’t have to have it all. In fact, having it all is a con. And three, this is a good one schedule sex. Everyone does it. You don’t have to feel guilty about it. Emily Oster is the author of four best selling books, including Expecting Better. She’s the founder of Parent Data, a data driven guide through pregnancy, Parenthood and Beyond. Thanks Emily for coming on the show. That’s it for our show. See you next week.
CREDITS 33:44
There’s more of My So Called Midlife with Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content like midlife advice that didn’t make it into the show. Subscribe now in Apple podcast, I’m your host, Reshmi Saujani, our producer is Claire Jones, this series is sound designed by Ivan Kuraev Our theme was composed by Ivan Kuraev and performed by Ryan Jewell, Ivan Kuraev and Karen […]. Additional music by APM music. Our senior supervising producer is Kristen Lepore. Our VP of new content is Rachel Neel. Executive Producers include me, Reshma Saujani, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Series consulting and production support from Katie Cordova. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review and let us know how you’re doing in midlife. You can submit your story to be included in this show at speakpipe.com/midlife follow My So Called Midlife, wherever you get your podcast, or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership. Thanks for listening, see you next week, bye.