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We talked a little bit about this over a drink we had a couple weeks ago, but what about the couples that have no kids? couples that just say You know we’re more interested in our intellectual pursuits or traveling or something You think they’re really missing sort of like a key component of of what life is right? I do I really believe that I mean I think they don’t I think that kids have a bad rap. That’s the problem that’s also why I wrote this chapter in part because You know you see this too a lot of Hollywood depictions of children. It’s very rare that you see children Portrayed nobly in a Hollywood film you kind of saw it with Harry Potter I like that and that’s partly why that was so popular I mean those kids had some you know there were bad kids and there were good kids and there were heroic kids like They were treated pretty in some sense realistically given that it was such a magical you know enterprise and But they had some courage and they had some heart and they had some rebelliousness And so so I like that but the thing that you have to understand about kids is they’re unbelievably good company you know and so they pay you back for your care of them and by being Ridiculously amusing they’re they’re little clowns And they’re doing crazy little stunts all the time and they have a sense of humor that kicks in like I have a grandchild now That’s two and a half months old and that child can already smile and has the beginnings of a sense of humor And that’s to me. That’s a miracle. Yeah, that’s pretty it is it and so they’re very funny They’re really playful they really really like you and you can have the kind of relationship with them that you set out to have and So that’s very very interesting now, and you can also like once I had little kids I spent a lot more time with them than I did with my friends say and the reason for that was that I Actually found it more enjoyable to do things with little kids than with the adults and the reason for that is like by the time You’re 30 say you’ve seen so much of the world that you actually don’t see the world anymore And this is technically true like I’m old. I’m 55 when I walk down the street. There’s houses. I don’t look at them I have house icons in my memory, and I just see the house icons and and so the the older you get in some sense The more what you see of the world is your memory and that’s kind of it’s efficient, but it’s sort of dead you know and and Artists help break through that they show you something as if it’s new again You know and and so that’s why van goes irises. You know sell for 160 million dollars It’s like you haven’t looked at flowers since you were three yeah, okay, so the thing that’s cool about having a little kid is Everywhere you go because we’re so good at in putting ourselves in other people’s bodies The kid revitalizes the world and the kids like all I mean that’s what a two-year-old looks like all the time right there just Completely awestruck by everything and you can see that again, and that’s really interesting man I know you know about my love of Star Wars But I watched Empire Strikes Back with my five-year-old at the time nephew and at the moment when Darth Vader told Luke He was his father. I was staring at him, and he loves Star Wars Yeah, and I was looking at him and the way his eyes opened I was like wow like what that that thing like that’s what it’s all about right That’s what it’s all like as an adult. How could I have as a 41 year old have that experience again? And that’s what you’re talking about about art and a movie is art. Oh, yeah, absolutely Well, I took my daughter to see the mask with Jim Carrey when she was like a little bit young for that yeah and I held her on my lap during I think she was she was probably only about five Maybe something like that, but I took her out one night We went saw the mask and it’s pretty intense, and it was like holding a What would you call a bundle of electrically charged barbed wire for an hour and a half? She was just like that and like I said it was perhaps a bit much for her, but yeah, and then had the knife It was a whole thing Exactly, but I mean you you forget how much impact the world has and you know if you bring little kids around old people You can really see this because old people sit around like when we first had my daughter She was the first grandchild on my side we take her up to this lake that I go to see my parents that way the hell up in northern Alberta and She was like a little fire. You know how people sit around a fire and look at it They can’t look away It’s because we’re all the descendants of the first crazy chimpanzee who couldn’t keep his god damn mitts off the fire You know and that’s what little kids are like and and the old people just watch them non-stop And it’s partly because they’re participating in that renewal of the world you know which is like it’s like a reintroduction to the Unsullied paradise of being something like that and But it only works if you if you like your kids and So there’s a disciplinary element that’s really important too and one of the things that modern parents don’t understand and I think this is because of the exceptionally permissive ethos of the 1960s where when we develop this idea that everything that society does to children is bad And so don’t damage your children like by putting restrictions on them It’s like that’s just that’s so wrong that it’s almost impossible It’s why people shy away from kids because they don’t understand that you don’t have to put up with any unpleasant You don’t have to put up with any unnecessary Unpleasant nonsense from children. It’s not necessary. It’s interesting so the you could almost argue that the the 60s led To exactly what you’re talking about these kids who then were taught to be afraid of everything they become a mess They’re the parents of now and that’s probably in part why they’re having less children or at least talking about Family and children in a different way Well, and there’s there’s also less trust in the structure of the family because the divorce rate has proliferated and it’s hard Like there’s a woman in our department In the psychology department who’s? Ellison what’s Ellison’s last name? She’s gonna hate me if she ever watches this I can’t think of it. We’ll post it. You’re gonna get it the second we get on Anyways she showed that if you if you interfere with the maternal relationship between rats and their pups because rat Children are called pups that you can see the detrimental effects of that disruption three generations later Wow right Yeah, so you know you disrupt those early bonds you disrupt the familial structure that echoes It’s like an oral tradition in some sense you know because being a good mother is not just something that you’re taught It’s something that you kind of have in your bones if you were mothered properly like my father was an excellent father especially when I was a little kid he really spent a lot of time with me and I used to love it when he came home and and like I have a natural Affinity for little kids, and I do believe it’s it’s in large part That’s why it’s because I just know how to React with them, and it’s me I do believe it’s because of the way that I was treated when I was a little kid you disrupt that it’s like lots of people Don’t trust themselves as parents say because they were hurt or they didn’t have good role models Or they don’t trust the familial structure, and so you know that all that all makes people afraid You