The Talk
The Talk
BODIES (Part 2)
In part two of this episode, sex educator Julia Feldman joins me for a round of rapid-fire questions about bodily autonomy, exploration, boundaries, language, and about pushing back against cultural expectations.
I also talk with Lori Mannette about her adopted child Charlie, and how she encourages him (and everyone) to critically investigate their own beliefs and opinions.
Then I’m joined by Ellen & Tom Macy, about the things they bring to their parenting from their own upbringings, and about Ellen’s relationship with her body through a cancer diagnosis at age 24.
And to round out the episode, I chat with playwright, screenwriter, and educator Topher Payne, about how he learned the importance of personal boundaries, and about how he uses his writing to show children the value of creating boundaries in their own lives.
You can find "The Talk" on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and If you'd like to contribute to the conversation by sharing your story about one of our episode topics, you can do so by sending a voice memo or an email to thetalk@thetalkthepodcast.com.
Voicememo (Lisa): What do you do when you open your eight-year-old's lunch box and find a Post-it with an unopened cheese stick that says, "If you get your back handspring"? This happened to me after my daughter came home from her three hour gymnastics class. Obviously, it's been scary to realize that the same types of food and body images that I experienced in my childhood are being lived through hers. Our first visit video visit (hello, COVID era) with a mental health specialist, marriage and family therapist, an MFT, is scheduled for Saturday morning. Now, the question is, how do we get our daughter on board to begin to talk to a therapist about what's going on deep within her?
Jeremy: You're listening to "The Talk". A podcast where we explore the possibility of creating a radical new communication environment between parents and children. An environment that's open, honest and candid. And where nothing is off limits.
Voicememo (Melanie): A conversation that my parents did not have with me that I wish they had was around my diagnosis of ulcerative colitis. I was six years old when I was diagnosed, and I honestly don't think that they ever explained to me why my body was different, and why sometimes I needed to modify my behavior and my diet and take medication and all of that stuff that I needed to do, and to advocate for myself in health care and in school. And now my daughter has severe food allergies, which is different, but what I'm trying to do with her is instill that advocacy for her own health, which is something that I did not learn how to do as a kid.
Lori Mannette: The more marriages I looked at, the more disillusioned I became with marriage and the more children that I looked at, the more enchanted I became with parenting. So I actually thought, like, I might flip this on its head and instead of, like, getting married but not having children, I might just not get married. But have the kid.
Jeremy: That's Lori Mannette, one of my guests on this, part two of our episode all about BODIES. We'll hear more from Lori a bit later, as well as from Tom & Ellen about the things they bring to parenting from their own upbringing, and from Topher Payne, an Atlanta-based playwright and screenwriter, about how he learned to create boundaries in his own life and how he uses his writing to encourage children to see the value in embracing their own. But first, I sat down with Julia Feldman, a sex education writer, educator, and consultant in the San Francisco Bay Area, for a round of rapid-fire questions about healthy ways to talk to our young kids about bodily autonomy, exploration, language, and about how to navigate the problematic cultural messaging that our kids are frequently exposed to.
Jeremy: Masturbation is a is a very culturally sort of taboo topic, and it's hard for people to imagine that it's appropriate for kids to even know about...that that exists. And and then from there to put a positive spin on it and encourage kids to explore their bodies.
Julia Feldman: There's a lot of stigma and shame around pleasure in general. And as parents, I think that one of our roles is to model that pleasure is an important part of a fulfilling life. And we want our kids to have fulfilling lives. What I usually start with is by telling parents that there's ultrasound footage of infants in the womb stimulating their genitals for pleasure. A lot of it's also in understanding the difference between pleasure and sexuality. And as parents, we tend to put our adult frame on things. So we think if they're stimulating their genitals, they're probably thinking about something sexually explicit, where's their mind going, what's going on? And we need to stop and pump the brakes significantly and realize that our story and the way that we understand our sexuality is completely different from a young child who's starting to explore their body and experience pleasure. And I'm sure that we all have experiences that maybe weren't so positive that we want to protect them from. And so a lot of it's understanding where our capacity as parents ends in terms of our ability to kind of create the narrative around their own experience and where we need to allow them to kind of pick that up and define their own experience. So, pleasure is wonderful. We eat ice cream because it makes us happy and it feels good. And we touch our genitals because it feels good, can calm us down, it can help us sleep, and there's a lot of compelling evidence about the health benefits of self pleasure and self touch and masturbation. So our job is really to help them understand: This is your body, it's yours. What a joy, what a gift you have! It makes other people uncomfortable when we do this in public. So we want to do this in the privacy of our own rooms by ourselves. We want to have clean hands and you want to make sure that it's something that you're doing because it feels good to you. And if it hurts or something doesn't feel right, you stop.
Jeremy: Yeah, I feel like a lot of us as adults, especially if we came up in more religious or conservative communities, have to do a lot of kind of undoing and relearning when it comes to our relationships with our own bodies. I mean, the faith community where I grew up, you know, modesty was a hugely important element of that, and privacy and purity. And so when the message that you're sending to kids is that your body is supposed to be hidden and totally private, you're not really telling them that it's OK to have a relationship with your own body. And so when we bring that kind of baggage to our parenting, it's a hugely difficult thing to navigate.
J.F.: Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things I talk a lot about is body literacy, the importance of getting to know your body: how it works, what's normal and what's not. And experiencing experimenting with your own pleasure and your own genitals as a young child is a huge part of body literacy. It's how people come to understand their bodies and how they work and how they can begin to establish a sexual identity on their own terms, and especially for people with vulvas to begin to establish your own sense of pleasure and sexuality on your own terms long before you have a sexual partner who you then maybe feel compelled to have do it for you or kind of navigate in some sort of way...to be able to determine, "oh, this is how my body experiences pleasure. I can do this for myself. This is a fulfilling, normal, comfortable interaction." And for us to normalize that, they'll be a lot more fulfilled later on and a lot less likely to seek out unhealthy relationships because they know they can provide themselves with that pleasure. And so those are kind of like foundational building blocks.
Jeremy: On part one of this episode, I talked to the actress, Shakina Nayfack, and she was talking about not just giving kids the freedom to feel like they can talk to us about their bodies, but actually giving them the language to do that. And so I wonder how you might encourage parents who maybe didn't grow up with that language and vocabulary themselves to give that to their kids and encourage that kind of conversation in that way.
J.F.: So when it comes to language, I think that modeling our own comfort with our bodies, talking about our body parts, talking about body parts in general and showing that it's a topic that's not only acceptable but expected and normal and comfortable and just kind of engaging in those conversations. Asking them how they're feeling, not shying away from, you know, sometimes kids scratch their butts a lot, ask them what's going on. Why are we pretending like there's this very performative nature to how we should dance around these topics instead of being direct? We would talk about a scratch on our foot. We should be able to talk about an itch on our vulva, like these are normal types of things. So it's kind of normalizing it and modeling that comfort. We often think that this is kind of a sensitive topic. We need to make sure that they know that this very one specific topic is going to be heard. But our kids need to know that they're going to be heard regardless of what the topic is. And when it comes to our bodies, that's no different. And so, again, when an opportunity comes up, really showing that you're listening, asking follow-up questions to show that you're curious about their perspective. But above all else, it's about normalizing talking and listening and taking turns and empowering them to have their own preferences, their own opinions all the time. And, of course, then connects to this topic as well. I mean, I talk about that with consent all the time, right? We want to encourage kids to choose what kind of vegetables they want for dinner, give them opportunities to state a preference and respect their preference and show them that you're hearing that so that when it's a bigger topic that foundation's already laid. Of course, I'm going to trust your perspective, your opinion. That's what we do in this family.
Jeremy: I know that I've been guilty of things that I didn't even realize in that realm. Like when my kid tells me he's full and I tell him, "no, you have to eat more". And I've started to realize these moments that we don't really think of will set the mental framework for how it's OK for people to talk to them and how it's OK for people to expect things of them.
J.F.: One of the ways that I usually talk with parents about teaching that kind of bodily autonomy and consent early on is through tickling because it's a really common game that people engage with. And there's a lot of custom in our society about not honoring people's "no" when it comes to tickling, that there's something fun about pushing boundaries there. So I usually use tickling as a great example, especially for parents and kids to play together, to practice communicating boundaries, to practice honoring those boundaries, to practice navigating ongoing consent: "Are you sure you want me to tickle you? Or should I do it now?" And so to kind of play around with that as a really safe way to show your kids that you're going to respect their boundaries.
Jeremy: If we have done this well with our kids, if we get to a point where we've communicated all these things well and listened to them, there's a risk that they're...I mean, I don't want to call it a risk, really, but there's a reality that at some point they're going to say to you, "listen, you have taught me that this is my body, my choice. I'm not going to go to bed right now because this is about my body." So how do we balance those boundaries of, like, being the authoritative parental figure at young ages and also giving them that space and honoring that?
J.F.: Kids are going to test boundaries always. And that's healthy, right? They're testing boundaries with us because we're safe and trusted and loving and they want to do that with us before they enter the world and try testing boundaries with other people. So regardless of what you're talking about, you're going to get pushback sometimes. Your body, you get to choose all these different things, but the context is key. And for us, the primary context is about keeping you safe and healthy. So if their desire runs in conflict with the goal of keeping them safe and healthy, then that's when we have some challenging conversations around those boundaries. So one example is about car seats. We want to teach our kids that they have autonomy, but sometimes they don't want to go in a car seat. And so if there are major concerns about ways they're pushing back, related to health and safety, then that's the conversation we need to have. Your body belongs to you. And as your parent and caregiver, my job is to help keep you healthy and safe. I know you want to stay up late. It is your body. But my job is to keep you safe and healthy. If you don't sleep well tonight, you might get sick. You might be crabby. We're not going to have a productive day tomorrow. And so I think the more that we can kind of contextualize why we might be pushing back against their boundaries, the more they can understand, oh, it's not arbitrary. It's a logical context.
Jeremy: And then just one final thing just to talk a little bit about, like cultural messaging. The way that our culture presents bodies and representation of bodies can be really problematic.
J.F.: Yes.
Jeremy: You know, without, like, sheltering our kids under a rock or in a yurt or something, what can we do to push back against that or help them understand what they're seeing?
J.F.: I mean, I think a large part of that is about finding our own ways to increase the representation that they see. We have lots of art books, photography books that just show different types of bodies. When I talk about body image with young kids, one of the things I bring up is just that, you know, you've probably only seen a couple types of bodies in the media that will make you think that there's only a couple of types of bodies out there that are acceptable. And if you don't have a body like that, there's something wrong. I think that representation is just key. It's about talking about our bodies and really talking about them in a kind way. Parents have no idea how often they cut themselves down and criticize themselves while looking in the mirror. So it's about how we talk about our bodies, how we talk to our bodies in the presence of our kids. As parents, we often feel the pressure to encourage our kids to grow in one way or meet a milestone or, you know, like there's just pressure to compare. And I think that as much as they can to move away from that, the desire to compare, and just reminding our kids that they are uniquely themselves and that is a strength and that is an asset instead of that perpetual comparison that they're drawn to do and that we're drawn to do living in our society that tries to make us feel inferior because of how we look. Because of capitalism.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Thanks so much to Julia Feldman for willingly and eloquently fielding this barrage of questions. You can find Julia on the web at GivingTheTalk.com. And a special thanks to Melissa Carnagey at Sex Positive Families for connecting me with Julia.
In 2017, Lori Mannette was at her wits end. After deciding to start a family on her own, she had endured a long, harrowing, expensive, and nearly tragic course of IVF procedures, and was about ready to give up. Then she found Charlie. Actually, her mother found Charlie's adoption listing and sent it to Lori. And as soon as she saw Charlie's picture, she knew. Charlie was born in China and he was four years old at the time, Lori was pretty sure she would be turned down as a candidate for adoption, but she applied anyway and in 2018 brought Charlie home to Jersey City. Like approximately 1.7% of the entire population, Charlie is intersex, about the same percentage of people who have red hair, both naturally occurring human variations. This figure comes from research conducted by Anne Fausto-Sterling, who uses the term to include chromosomal and phenotypic expressions of non-binary sex characteristics. From my conversation with Lori, it became apparent that her mode of communication with Charlie is frank, thoughtful, and refreshingly inquisitive. We started off by talking about the beginning of their life together as a family and some of the discoveries and challenges that entailed.
Lori Mannette: It's certainly an interesting question for me, especially because I didn't raise this child from birth, right? So I wasn't able to cultivate the early ideas. I inherited a child. And when I did, I wasn't sure what his knowledge of bodies was, what his attitude toward bodies was, what his what his knowledge about his own anatomy was, because of course he does have atypical anatomy, and I didn't know whether he knew that. It's like trying to figure out what he knew, what he thought, what he'd been taught, and there was a language barrier on top of all of this, was very complicated. But definitely one of the first things that happened, like, we were in China, I had known him like three days. And this is like day three, and I'm still super excited that, like, I finally have a kid. And he, in Chinese, referred to me as being "very fat". And I was like shocked and heartbroken and...not because I have any shame over my own body, but just because I sort of realized at least like where we were starting from and how I felt like it was going to take a long time to undo some of those cultural insults that had been built into him, where I felt like if I had had him since birth, then I could embrace this very body- positive child. Fortunately, actually, children are very moldable and it didn't take nearly as long as I thought to sort of deconstruct ideas of normal and acceptable and that everybody has a right to their own body and all bodies look different, and some bodies have one arm and some bodies have three! That any variation is acceptable and that we try not to make people feel bad about their uniqueness with their own bodies.
Jeremy: I'm curious, when you went about that process of starting to try to deconstruct things with Charlie, how did you approach that? How did you talk to him?
L.M.: Well, honestly, I think it's the same exercise in teaching children how to think independently. And it crosses everything. It crosses culture and race and diversity and everything that we think of as normal you have to challenge. So when he would say something like that idea, well, that person must be a girl because of the long hair. “Who told you girls have long hair?” “Well, they just do.” “Says who? What data are you looking at?” “Does that mean if a boy…” who do we know? Uncle Joel. “If Uncle Joel grows long hair, then he will become a girl? Is that what that means? Can you become a girl if you are a boy? Is it impossible for a boy to grow long hair?” So when you sort of teach them how to think in those ways, to challenge their own initial assumptions and ask themselves why they think that, I think that you're really creating, like, not just a person who thinks of bodies in an open way, but actually thinks of all things in a more open way and will hopefully, as he gets a little bit older, start challenging me in some of the ways that, like, I don't even realize that my mind is closed and I haven't challenged my own ideas of things. I mean, that's what we all have to do all the time is "How do I know this? Why do I know it? What makes it true?"
Jeremy: Yeah, absolutely. Like just going steps deeper until you can uncover something.
L.M.: And this is how I always approach people who say, you know, that trans identities aren't real or this isn't real. We are born one way or the other. And I say, "Well, how do you know that?" "Well we just...we are. You've got a thing or you don't have a thing!" "All babies? Do you know that all babies are born that way? What if a baby wasn't born with clear differentiation? What would you do with that child?" And it is shocking to see how little they've considered it. And again, it's so much better than just shouting at somebody. "You're a homophobe, you're a bad person!" It's just like literally just asking questions. But what if it wasn't that way?
Jeremy: Yeah.
L.M.: So that's what I do with my child, you know?
Jeremy: And it sounds like you do that on all fronts with him, which is thrilling to me.
L.M.: Yeah. Because I mean, I really think that teaching your children about the world matters. But teaching your children how to think is like obviously the most important thing you can do as a parent. Not what to think, but how to think. And I do think that because children have to function in a society that is certain ways, we do need to explain, like, "the way the world works." So you may say, like, typically this is what we see, or mostly this is what we see. But that's not going to be the whole thing that we see.
Jeremy: Right.
L.M.: I mean, you know, I wish there was actually some way to grade parenting. I am a person who likes grades. I like to be evaluated and I want a rubric. And I was the valedictorian of my high school because, like, if there is a number-one position, I will be in it. Tell me how to get there and I will get there. And it is frustrating for me that as a parent, you have no idea how to judge yourself.
Jeremy: Yeah. And you will have no idea how you're doing it for a very long time, probably.
L.M.: You just don't know. But we all do our best and I'm doing my best. And I do know that he is very body positive. He is very aware of lots of different types of physical differentiations that he can expect in humans. And he is wonderful with different kinds of humans. You know, he's got a friend who has Down's syndrome and he's got friends who have, like, other kinds of things. It was also, by the way, very interesting taking a child from an extremely homogenous culture and plopping them into America. He had no concept of race. He didn't know who was what, but he sort of understood that, like, there were lots of kinds of people that he'd never seen. My sister has blue eyes and blonde hair, and he found that fascinating. And early on, as he was sort of figuring out that there were different kinds of people, he identified himself as black.
Jeremy: Oh, wow.
L.M.: He thought that he was black. He eventually decided that everybody was, like, sorted by hair color. And because he has black hair, that must make him a black person because those people also had black hair. And then you get into this weird stage where you're like, "Wait, do I explain race to my child and say, like, these people are that kind, that these people are that kind?" I don't think I want to explain the differences to him. How am I supposed to tell him that he's Asian? Like, what makes him Asian? Again, how have I conceptualized of, like, how people fit into groups? And if I've done it in the backwards way, I don't want to teach it to him. But I also don't necessarily want him going around telling people that he's black. So yeah, it's been an interesting journey. The other thing is like I am a body positive person and I am a person who tries to convey that appearance is not important. But at the same time, I do tell my child that he is beautiful because he is. And so I think that you have to strike a balance between, like, pretending it doesn't exist, like the color blindness of the past. "Oh, color doesn't exist." And actually saying, like, our bodies exist, people judge certain things by how they look at us that we can control in terms of like wardrobe and hair and tattoos and this and that. All of these things send out different signals about what types of tribes we associate ourselves with and some of those things we can't control. And it's wonderful to admire something that is beautiful, whether it's like a nice house or a nice body. But that's not important. Like, we're not friends with people because they have a big house and we don't reject people because they live in a tiny apartment. That's just where you live. But if somebody has a beautiful house, I will certainly tell them they have a beautiful house. And I kind of think that way about bodies. Like if you have a great body, good for you. But that doesn't increase your value. It's just one thing.
Jeremy: Right. But there's so much in our culture that does say that certain qualities do increase your value.
L.M.: Oh, absolutely. That's what I would like to just come away from. Like if I could create my own movement, it's like the acknowledgment of the existence of beauty without that being valuable.
Jeremy: Thanks to Lori for this delightful and illuminating conversation.
Coming up next, Tom and Ellen Macy recently left Brooklyn with their three daughters and moved in with Tom's parents. We talk about boundaries, conservative upbringings, and Ellen's relationship with her body through a cancer diagnosis at age 24.
But first, I want to say thanks for listening to "The Talk". If you appreciate what we do and would like to support us, you can do so by visiting thetalkthepodcast.com/donate. Because we are a fully independent podcast, we rely on the support of listeners to ensure that we can continue. Anything you feel you can donate will go straight to hosting and subscription costs, technical equipment and software, and coffee, which fuels my late night editing sessions. Thanks also to those of you who sent voice memos about bodies. At the beginning of this episode, we heard from Lisa about the confusion and pain of realizing that her daughter is suffering from many of the same body image pressures that she experienced as a child. And we heard from Melanie about wishing that her parents had impressed upon her the importance of medical advocacy after her childhood diagnosis of ulcerative colitis, and how she's determined to break that cycle with her own child.
The next episode of "The Talk" is all about death. I'm curious to explore our culture's relationship with the concept and realities of death and try to uncover ways that we can raise our kids with healthy perspectives on death that are not centered around fear. And I want all of you to be part of this conversation. I want to know how you first became aware of or witnessed death, how your parents and community talked to you about it, or how you talk with your own kids about the knowns and unknowns, the beauty and the sadness, the loss and the learning, when it comes to life and death. If you'd be willing to share your story you can send me a voice memo or a note at thetalk@thetalkthepodcast.com. I look forward to hearing from you.
Ellen & Tom Macy and their three daughters have a lot that they're adjusting to right now. Tom has a new business that's quickly gaining momentum. They moved out of a New York City apartment during a global pandemic, and now they have brand new roommates.
Tom Macy: We live with my parents now, north of the city, and they have this big old farmhouse. So it's pretty wild. Like, everyone can spread out.
Jeremy: You're living in the same house with them?
T.M.: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Jeremy: How has that been?
Ellen Macy: It's been really good. I think that we wouldn't...well, maybe we would have attempted it anyway, even if we were kind of worried about the dynamic. But, you know, knowing Tom's parents as we do, we were really not worried about cohabitating. And we were right. It's been really smooth.
Jeremy: I kind of love that you're living with your parents right now because it's kind of the perfect situation to talk about boundaries and how the like, intergenerational parenting techniques interact or intersect. I remember when I was a kid, my parents did a really good job, like when we were at big family gatherings, of not pressuring us to hug anybody goodbye that we didn't feel like. And they would give us alternatives like, you know, waving goodbye, shaking hands or whatever. And I feel like that was a great way of them, early on, giving us this lesson that our bodies were our own to make decisions about. And I wonder if you, with your kids living in a house with your parents, brush up against or kind of have the need for those kinds of conversations.
E.M.: I hear that problem. Like, that's a very common problem. And it's funny because, like my parents, I feel like they're usually pretty good about that. But, you know, there have been a couple of times where my mom will be looking for some sort of physical affection and she'll, you know, like chase after it. It's never really been a problem because the girls are usually happy to oblige. But, you know, I've noticed that for sure.
T.M.: Your mom will sometimes make like a passive aggressive comment like, "Oh, well, no hugs or kisses for grandma" or whatever. It goes over the kids' heads. So it's fine. And she knows that she can't...like, I think she knows that she's not supposed to demand it, but she wants to.
Jeremy: Right. My wonder, in circumstances like that...I always wonder, like, is this stuff really going over my kids heads? And to teach a child that if you don't offer that use of your body when asked or when demanded that like you're hurting someone else... To me, that's a little dangerous.
E.M.: Yeah. I feel like my parents have done that on occasion as well. You know, and I definitely, like, I mean that's a whole other podcast. I struggle with, like communicating with them just about anything. But yeah, it's definitely one of those things where it happens really fast and then the moment's gone and you're like, "Oh, if I bring it up now, it's going to be a whole thing." You know, usually when it comes to the kids, I'm much more bold in addressing things than like, say, when it comes to myself.
Jeremy: You mean when you're addressing something on their behalf?
E.M.: Yes. Yeah, it's so much easier for me to have uncomfortable conversations if it's for their benefit.
T.M.: I can remember seeing...it's like I have a few memories of my dad, like being naked, you know? But like that's got to be when I'm like 4 or 5, or I don't know if I'm even 5. You know, it's one of those things where it's like I have, like, the one stock image or whatever.
Jeremy: Yes, I have that too.
T.M.: And that's it, you know, I don't ever remember my mom not wearing clothes or even like being in underwear or anything. So that was just not a thing that I thought about at all, really. As early as I can remember, being naked was like a very private thing, you know? And not to veer off into like the other podcast of weird childhood sexuality and stuff, but like, you know, playing doctor and stuff like that was like at ages like three I knew that there was something about being naked that was private. And then I think that, you know, it's funny. I was thinking about it like at our house I don't like wear shirts a lot at home, certainly like in the summer. And it's like to the point where people, like, comment on Ellen's Instagram stories, like "Your husband never wears a shirt" like in the background.
Jeremy: Are they complaining or what's the...?
T.M.: I think it's an observation. In the apartment, it just feels like one big room—where we used to live. And I think it was like, I'm in the bedroom in my underwear, I'm in the kitchen in my underwear. It's the same thing. Kind of just like how I was used to behaving. And it definitely became a point where I was like, "Should I, like, not be in my underwear like in the kitchen?
Jeremy: Tom's comment about living in an apartment brings up an interesting point. When families live in small spaces together, there's often not a lot of privacy and our kids may be exposed to the existence of their parents' bodies in a way that may not happen naturally if the parents, say, have their own bedroom with a private bathroom in another part of the house. Exposure is an integral part of conversations about bodies because it's a way that bodies become normalized for kids and can also open the door to questions and conversations that parents can then use to make body talk a part of natural everyday conversation.
Jeremy: Were there times when your parents talked to you about ways that are OK to use your body, or were those things just kind of implicitly conveyed?
T.M.: Uh....no. I just remember one time when I was 13 or my 14th birthday or something, one of my friends got me a condom for a present, which was totally a joke. We were like years away from being sexually active, you know? But it got like left out somewhere and my parents found it. And so, you know, I understand they were like, you know, "What is this?" And I was like, "Oh, man, that was a joke. It was like, not real." And he just was like, "Whatever level..." this is the exact words, because I remember it pretty well, it was like, "Whatever level of intimacy you're at with a woman, you just make sure that she's comfortable with it."
Jeremy: Wow. That's more than a lot of parents say.
T.M.: And at the time I was like, of course, dad, let's stop! You know, but looking back I'm like, damn straight, you know?
E.M.: I've actually thought about this a lot because there was a lot of shame around bodies, around bodily function, about hygiene, sexuality. It was all like pretty taboo. And there was yeah, there was a lot of shaming.
Jeremy: Did you grow up in a religious or faith based community?
E.M.: Yes, yes. Extremely religious. So that definitely influenced it as well. But not only that, but, you know, for the longest time I thought that I had been raised to be modest. And now when I look back on it, I think it was really just body shaming disguised as modesty. Because it was...I mean, when I got older, I remember it was just sort of like my mom made sure that, like, my underwear lines wouldn't be showing through my pants. Like if I was wearing a tank top, she would safety pin my bra straps to the inside of the tank top before I went to school, because God forbid, anybody should see that I'm wearing underwear. Yeah, I sort of felt like every normal aspect of being a human in a human body was sort of colored in a way that was really negative.
Jeremy: Yeah. How old are your girls?
T.M.: Seven, six, and three.
Jeremy: Do they have questions yet about things they see like on TV, in the media that have to do with bodies and health and body image? Have they noticed things that they've asked you about?
E.M.: I feel like most of the pointed questions that the girls have asked me about bodies have just been about my own body because I am naked around the kids quite a lot, which is not something that I consciously planned. It's, you know, it's something that sort of happened after years of living in the city where the radiators are so hot in the winter and it's so hot in the summer that I would take a shower and I'd be like, well, I don't want to get dressed because I'm just going to sweat through my clothes. And now I just, you know, there's a period of time each day that I find myself naked. There came a time when the girls started noticing it. And then I made a conscious effort to make sure that I didn't show any sort of self-consciousness or say anything negative about myself when I was naked around them.
Jeremy: Yeah. And if they had questions, would you just sort of answer them factually or what was your approach to that?
E.M.: Yeah, my approach to any sort of question from the kids is to just answer it as honestly as possible. And that's, you know, sometimes that's difficult if it's like a question that has a scary answer. But, you know, if the kids are asking me, like, why do you have hair on your body here? You know, I'll just tell them in a way they can understand, like, when you grow up you go through a period where you grow hair. I feel like most of the time they're still so young that they listen a little bit and they're like, "OK, bye!", you know? They don't really...
T.M.: But definitely—and I think this is you saying it and then I was like, oh totally we've got to do that—was like using the correct words for anatomy and stuff and just being very nonchalant about...
E.M.: Yeah, I feel like we just try to normalize it as much as possible and actively try to be comfortable with discussing whatever it is that they want to talk about. And yeah, really up until this point, it hasn't really been a whole lot.
Jeremy: Ellen, are you comfortable talking a little bit about your cancer experience and how that affected your view of and relationship with your body in terms of health, in terms of taking care of yourself, in terms of how you saw yourself?
E.M.: Yeah, I mean I was 24 when I was diagnosed and so I was really young and I think initially the feeling that I felt was like betrayal. Just, I didn't understand how something that felt so frightening and dramatic could happen to me, and not only that, but as I learned more about thyroid cancer, which is what I had, is that it's a very slow growing cancer, and that in order for it to have progressed to where it was when I was diagnosed, it's very possible that I could have been like 13 when it started. And I even remember, like, seeing some picture of myself from that age in which, like, my neck was exposed and I was just sort of like, oh my God. Like, it's totally there. So yeah, just feeling betrayed. And I'm normally somebody who's annoyingly in touch with my body. And for me to not have known for so long that something was wrong, felt very uncomfortable. But, you know, after I had time to process it and I worked through a lot of waves of fear of mortality and then acceptance and even celebration of mortality, I think that now on the other side of it, I think that I feel kinder towards my body. My metabolism now is entirely controlled by a pill that I take every day and that is something that can be a lot. It's a daily reminder to try to take care of myself the best I can. And, you know, I think initially I ricocheted a lot where I felt like I had to make like really drastic changes in order to properly take care of my body. Be like this can never happen again, you know? And then I realized that even with that, it's all about balance and just making choices for my body that were based out of love and not fear. And so allowing myself moderation and enjoying what I want to enjoy. And, you know, just trying to accept it for what it is.
Jeremy: Thanks to Ellen and Tom for sharing their experience with me.
As parents, it's important that we communicate openly with our kids. But it's also important to find time to relax and recharge and connect with each other. If you miss having date night drinks out at a bar with your partner or by yourself, fear not. Tom and his business partner, Julie Reiner have created Social Hour Cocktails, a line of canned cocktails that will have you right back in that space from the comfort of your own Netflix and Chill. I've had the Whiskey Mule and the Pacific Spritz and they are delicious, refreshing, and perfect for a night in. Social Hour Cocktails are currently available in the New York City area and for shipping throughout New York State. And if you use the promo code "SOCIAL" at socialhourcocktails.com, you'll be supporting a small business and you'll get 50 percent off shipping on all orders.
I discovered Topher Payne this past summer through a social media post that caught my eye about The Giving Tree, the Shel Silverstein book. Topher had created an alternate ending to the book, one that addresses the problematic way the tree gives and gives and gives to the little boy until she has literally nothing left. Topher's version of the book is called The Tree Who Set Healthy Boundaries, and is part of an ongoing series called "Topher Fixed It". He has reworked four classic children's books in a similar way, and they're all wonderful examples of the responsibility we have as parents to teach our kids not only about setting healthy personal boundaries, but about the importance of analyzing and questioning the messages and values that we see around us. Topher is a playwright, actor, director, and educator and has penned screenplays for five Hallmark movies, he's a three time winner of the Gene Gabriel Moore Playwriting Award, a recipient of the 2016 Suzi Bass Award for best world premiere for Let Nothing You Dismay and in 2018 was inducted into the Georgia Theater Hall of Fame. This conversation with Topher is an excerpt from a longer interview, which you'll be able to hear as a bonus episode on this podcast, and if you're interested in seeing Topher's work during quarantine, his play, Gifted: A Socially Distant Holiday Comedy, premieres December 3rd online at QueensTheatre.org.
Topher Payne: My mother loves to tell the story, when I was like 11 or 12—she's the youngest of four sisters and they would gather around the dining room table in cold months and the patio table in warm months and I would unapologetically eavesdrop on those exchanges. And I wrote a story that included a pretty baffling spelling of the word hysterectomy without the slightest understanding of what it was. So I was I was using language in my storytelling that I didn't even have a frame of reference for at that point. It was just what I was hearing and what I was processing. Because kids are a sponge, they will soak up whatever surrounds them. And I just knew "hysterectomy" was a thing that women in their 40s talked about. And so I put it in a story.
Jeremy: And it just rolls off the tongue. It's like an easy word to say.
T.P.: And it does. It was, you know, when you have no context for it, it sounds very pretty. When you think they're not listening, especially when you think they're not listening, is when they're really soaking up every single thing you say. Which can be a very powerful means of communicating and empowering a young person. But there is absolutely the weight of responsibility on that.
Jeremy: Yeah. And let me use that to transition to talking a little bit about "Topher Fixed It."
T.P.: Oh, nice segue, Jeremy. Lovely.
Jeremy: Thank you. Thank you. One of those books, The Giving Tree, of course I grew up with. I think we all grew up with that book. And then...are the other two books, books that you knew from your childhood? The Rainbow Fish and Love You Forever?
T.P.: Love You Forever was one I knew from my childhood because my mother in particular hates that book. And Rainbow Fish was not introduced to me until I was teaching and I was assigned doing a stage adaptation with four and five year olds. So I read the book and it was going along so nicely. And then it took a turn and I had sincere concerns about the messaging. And I wish I had spoken up more then, but when I started working on "Topher Fixed It" yeah, my laser sights set on Rainbow Fish pretty quick.
Jeremy: Yeah. I became aware of that book last spring when my five year old started remote school and his teacher sent it as like a read-aloud for the kids. She was reading it aloud to them over Zoom or whatever. And at that exact moment that you described, I was like, "Whoa, what?
T.P.: What?!
Jeremy: What is this thing that that we're telling kids right now? And so after the thing, we had to talk about it. I had to talk with my five year old about it. And then to see your parody of it, it just really struck. It just really resonated. And I read your version to him as well over the summer after discovering it. Oh, I think it's a remarkable thing to do. And I'm curious, was it a thing partly that you did for yourself as sort of a reflection or healing exercise?
T.P.: Certainly with The Giving Tree. I got that book from one of my cousins when I was a kid. And I distinctly remember the conversation that followed between—I want to say both parents were there. Both of my parents read to me, but rarely together. But I, remember mama and daddy both talking about how the tree got shafted.
Jeremy: Oh wow.
T.P.: So my memory of the book is kind of intrinsically tied with the life lesson that my parents offered up immediately after reading. Which if every adult that is reading that book to a child uses it as a springboard to a conversation, then I think that's a fantastic thing. But that's not how The Giving Tree is usually received, in my experience. It's used as this lesson on the beauty of self-sacrifice and, you know, they'll say it's a metaphor for parenting or a Christ metaphor. There are churches that use it as an example of how to be a submissive wife. And I find that infuriating. And I think there is such beauty in Silverstein's work. I don't think every book aimed at young audiences has to be relentlessly happy. But I do think it's important that if you're reading something to a child where the behavior that's being modeled is not addressed in the text, then the onus is on the adult reading the book to the child to address the behavior. And if you don't, what message are you sending? So when we started doing this story time in Atlanta, and I've got, you know, from all of the various kids in my life, I've got a pretty decent selection of children's books I've picked up over the years. And I started going through my shelf to see what I could do for story time, and went "The Giving Tree, ugh, well not that one." And then that sparked the idea.
T.P.: I don't know how you prepare the parents of young children, because the early years are when these things are ingrained. They're when the expectations are ingrained of what gender roles are, of what beliefs are considered valid. If you think those are conversations that you're having with them when they’re 12, no, you did the work on that eight years ago. And the foundation's already laid, and what it is, it is. I had very, very attentive and wonderful parents. They got so many things right, both within their control and without. They did not prepare for the concept of me being queer.
Jeremy: They did not prepare themselves?
T.P.: Yeah. Nor did they prepare me. Because what I was becoming was an anathema to their spiritual teachings and therefore they did not prepare me. And the point of frustration that I look back on that now with and of course, you know, hindsight being what it is. There are a lot of things that I learned from observing my parents marriage that has absolutely held true in my own. But when we talk about that concept of bodily autonomy...no one taught me what consent was. No one modeled for me what a loving and positive relationship was going to look like in my life. And so when scenarios arrived, both with people taking advantage of my lack of knowledge or people genuinely having a positive mutual expression of attraction, I didn't know the language for it. I didn't know the rules for it, and I was pretty adrift out there. No one told me what consent looks like between two men and when everything was so shame based. and this core expression of who I am. Who you love, is such a fundamental part of who you are, and I was flying blind. And the only thing I knew for certain was that it was wrong. And so I didn't have control or power over my own body, because no one had ever given me permission to to find joy in that expression.
Jeremy: Yeah, there were no examples of it. And the things you heard about it were expressly...
T.P.: Uniformly negative.
Jeremy: Yeah. So where did you where did you eventually find yourself growing into healthy relationships with those thoughts and with those concepts?
T.P.: Well, like like many of us, the first step is to get it wrong repeatedly. When I came to Atlanta in my early 20s, I started developing friendships with other gay men. And so what I saw was. A group that led with positivity, with celebration of self, and also a lot of people that did not have any relationship whatsoever with their family of origin. And the most valuable lesson that I learned from that community is it is their problem, not yours. You do not have to receive their hurt while they are working through it. And you can establish a boundary of no contact until they come out on the other side of it.
Jeremy: Yeah, did you do that with your family for a period?
T.P.: I did, I did. To this day one of the hardest things I've ever done, is "I am not going to listen to your disappointment about this anymore."
During that period of non-contact, Topher was diagnosed with non Hodgkin's lymphoma. His parents asked to come to Atlanta to help support him through chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and he told them "no."
Jeremy: I'm curious if you have a sense for where you got or found the inner kind of strength to create that boundary that you knew you needed, even though there was a desire for them to to come and be there with you.
T.P.: I think…at the end of the day, whoever the most powerful influences were on your upbringing, even if that relationship, upon reflection, was really toxic, you still have that innate desire for the people who influenced your upbringing. You still have that impulse. And the wonderful thing that I learned from men and women who had not had contact with their families for 20 or 30 years, which I absolutely did not want, was that they were thriving in a community of choice. They were thriving. And I knew every single one of them still had that piece of them that would crave daddy's approval or mama's affection or whatever it was they were denied that they had a memory of before they failed to live up to an expectation. I had no examples of that in my own childhood. But at the crucial moment when I needed to see what that life looked like, I was able to seek out the mentorship of others.
Jeremy: Yeah.
T.P.: You know, with Love You Forever. After doing the first two "Fixed Its" and then I take on Love You Forever, and I showed my husband the first pass and he said, "This one doesn't really feel like it's directed at kids."
Jeremy: This is exactly how I felt. About about all of these too.
T.P.: And and I said, well, with Love You Forever the problem is the book was never appropriate for children in the first place. If I can teach a young person in the "Fixed It" ending of Rainbow Fish that you should never diminish yourself for the comfort of others. That was my entire lived experience of being a queer kid. Tone it down. To make other people comfortable. Screw that! No! There are times when you need to turn your volume down depending upon the location that you're in, you know, but that's just being polite and understanding the environment you're in. But the fire and energy of who you are. Don't you dare turn that down. People will adjust, people will make space for you when you make clear how much space you need.
Jeremy: Yeah. Well, with that I want to say thank you and this has been a wonderful conversation. I'm so happy to be able to talk to you, and number two, just that you're on my radar now. I'm going to keep tabs on what you're doing.
T.P.: Thank you. It was a pleasure meeting you.
Jeremy: Likewise.
If you'd like to hear my full conversation with Topher Payne, it will be available as a bonus episode of this podcast. We talked more about growing up in small town Mississippi, Topher's career path, mentorship, and more about what his parents got right. It's a truly joyful and thought-provoking conversation, and I hope you'll check it out. And don't forget to visit QueensTheatre.org to see the play that Topher wrote and directed called Gifted, A Socially Distant Holiday Comedy Miniseries. Part one premieres December 3rd.
Jeremy: I do want to know, though, during COVID, what are you...are you focusing a lot on wr...what are you doing with yourself?
T.P.: I have been planting things in the yard, crepe myrtles and emerald green arborvitae, and things that you provide care in the beginning and then sort of take on an attitude of benign neglect.
Jeremy: Like like a child.
Thanks so much for listening to "The Talk". You can find us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetalkthepodcast. And if you'd like to support us, you can do so by visiting thetalkthepodcast.com/donate. Dana Gertz's designed all of our original artwork, and the biggest thanks of all goes to my wife, Jenny, and our kids for putting up with my Grinch like tendencies around the holidays. Goodbye.