Claudia Rowe (on the foster care system)

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armed Chair expert experts on expert. I'm Dan Shepherd and I'm joined by Lily Patman. Hi. Hello. Today we have Claudia Roe. She is an award-winning journalist and author, her previous book, which is super interesting. We actually learned a bit about her previous book, The Spider and the Fly with her inner twinement. Yeah. Yeah, with a killer. It's that one. Oof, oof, oof. That is not why we invited her. She has written a book called Wards of the State, The Long Shadow of American foster care. As anyone who listens to the show knows, we kind of talk about foster care a lot. This is a real bummer of a situation and she shines a very bright light on many of its imperfections. And it's, it's a sobering account of what's going on. I don't normally do this on here. In fact, I don't know that I ever have, but I would love for people to share this episode. Yeah. I think this is a really important episode for people to listen. There needs to be like a cultural reckoning around this situation that we're in. And you'll learn all the reasons why. So please enjoy Claudia Roe. We are supported by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses, Monica, only use 20% of their data. That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Yeah, or a pain for a coffee that's one fifth full. Yuck. Point is you miss a lot. Unless you use HubSpot, their customer platform gives you access to the data. You need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs and transcripts, all that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. And when you get a full cup of coffee, you can do more too. But I digress. Visit HubSpot.com today. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. So all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. 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So, head to squarespace.com slash dacks for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. He's an outshared man. He's an outshared man. He's an outshared man. He's an outshared man. Are you in from Washington? Yes, I came in last night. Okay, and where do you live in Washington? Seattle. In Seattle. Do you like it there? I do love Seattle. I am New York native, born and raised and everything, but I've been Seattle about 22 years. What brought you there? You needed to change my life. I needed to leave the East. That's great. Under penalty of law. I had to get away. Sure. You could talk about that. Yeah. You're rolling. So, you're from New York originally? Are we actually rolling? Yeah, we always roll. Is this here you? That's fine. Where in New York are you from? Upper West Side. What did mom and dad do? Mom was a literature professor. Dad was an executive at NBC. Oh, wow. And you didn't want to go into show business? I'm writer. I've always been. And does that mean you're more like mom than dad? I think I'm a blend in truth, more like her. But he was NBC News promotion. Okay. So he's News Guy, Politics Guy. She's literature writer person. Yeah, that's a marriage of both what you've gone into. Yeah. News and literature. This feels like a dreamy parent situation. Yeah. Both are smart, clearly, industrious, accomplished. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so where did you go to school? Did you go to New York? I went to Trinity High School. And what about college? Bennington College. Where's that? Bennington Vermont. It is a teeny, teeny, teeny college that I think when I was there a thousand million years ago. There were 600 total students and that was a high at the time. Oh, really? Tenney. Yeah. And why that school? Bennington was, I probably still is, but certainly was kind of create your own major. No grades. We didn't have grades. Passfail? Passfail. No SATs required. The white took them and gave them and they were fine. But it was a very unconventional, semi-experimental, very free form, make your own, it was an art school. Yeah. Most people there were art people. I had gone to Trinity. Very traditional as you might guess. No, I don't. Is that a private school that is of repute? Yeah. It's sort of in that New York City private school. Did you have crazy classmates that went on to rule the world? I had a classmate and best friend who did become pretty successful out here on about ruling the world. Oh. But she's a successful writer. Okay. So she's in root to ruling the world. Are there other? No, like George Clooney or anything. Not like that. No. No Goldman Sachs, presidents. Probably. So that makes sense. You were in a very elite and you're like, I wanted the opposite. I want no structure, no status. That was my parents. They pushed for that. My mom. She knew Trinity was fine academically at least, but I think she recognized I needed something different. And I was a more free form kind of kid. Yeah. Would I be right to assume that this is some pretty privileged kids that are having some pretty exceptional lives? Was it life in the fast lane? It was all the things you've heard about New York in the 1980s. Highly corrupt, highly messed up, over drugged, over sexed, over moneyed, over everything. Yeah. Was all that. Yeah, Wall Street. Do you fit into that? No. How much cocaine were you doing? I do not fit into that, which is why I went to a little teeny college in Vermont. And did you get a journalism degree from there? They did not have a journalism program. They did not have anything. They did not have anything. She got degree. Literature major, creative writing. Okay. I knew then that I had the idea that journalism might be for me, but I kind of had to create it there because they didn't have it. I cared about social issues, but I just wanted to be a writer. And I think I recognized pretty quickly. You know, I wanted to be like a magazine journalist. Yes. The whole porn magazine writing. Back when magazines were like a pot, a square, harpers. Back in the heyday of magazine journalism. And then I think I recognized that print journalism was going to teach me these skills, these disciplines, like structure, pacing, deadlines, turn it in that I didn't get it my flaky free form. Yeah. Be anything you want college. I knew that I needed some tools. And I think I recognized that newspapers would give that to me. And they did. They also became kind of a crutch and a hard thing to break out of. Well, you end up so busy there, right? And they're sort of unindicative. You perform this trick, this thing, and then they go, good. Yeah. And it comes out, which is rewarding. Very gratifying. And people respond. And love of the reader response. And that became kind of hard to break out of. Yes. When I finally had a story that I really felt I needed to tell in a book, which is not this book, but the previous. This about a murder. You got that. Right. So how do we get from this bonkers liberal arts, going Vermont to Washington to city known and spending a lot of time with the murderer? And then ultimately what lands you in a courtroom in Seattle, witnessing the murder trial of a 16 year old now 18. This is a long answer. Is that okay? Oh, we love long answers. Okay. This is going to be six hours. I don't know if you were learning. The reason I ask is I love your writing. Thank you. I love your writing not just because the words, Smithery, your essential viewpoint is present to me or at least what I think it is. And it's incredibly non judgmental and not saccharine. It's like I'm rooting for this person on some level. And this person's fucked up. And here's the whole thing. And I appreciate that so much because I feel like so many things land. Whether they're tearing some of the down or they're building them up. There seems to be little nuance and even sidedness. And the way you write, I appreciate as being as close as you get to the truth, which is like it's all things. So you have a perspective. That's why I asked because I think it's rare. Thank you. Look, I think all of the journalism that I do is powered by confusion, edging into fear. People who are scary. Yeah. My way of confronting that is not to run from it, to drive toward it, try to understand. How do they understand themselves? How do they understand what they're doing? How do they think this helps me? Yes. They become then demystified, brought down a little bit to where all humans, we all have a logic for what we do, even if it's not obvious to others. And I'll argue we're more comfortable thinking these people that scare us are like seven deviations away from us, but they're one. If that's what's more interesting. Right. So I think that the world sees it like you do most people like these are these others in doing the first book with this serial killer who killed at least eight women. He was referred to constantly as he was a monster. And to me, at the time, I was much younger than that was really frustrating like monster. That gives me nothing. Yes. How does one be a common monster? What do we do with a monster? So it's a made up fake thing. Right. It's a made up thing. Exactly. He's not some mythic figure. He's a dude. Yeah. So monster really bothered me this idea. And I found it incredibly opaque, like not illuminating in any way. In fact, almost determinately not illuminating. Yeah. So that exasperated me. So it's the late 1990s. And I am in upstate New York Hudson Valley. I had worked at the local small town paper, the Pekipsi Journal. I had left that paper and was kind of unsure what I was going to do with myself. I had very mixed feelings about journalism as a result of working at that paper. But I was at this point freelancing for the New York Times because there are a lot of people in Hudson Valley who are New York Times readers and New York Times recognized, hey, we got somebody there and she can sort of babysit stories for us. And so my boyfriend at the time was still working at the Pekipsi Journal. And we lived together. He would come home and say, hey, Claudia, there are these women missing and nobody's writing about it. The paper won't write about it. The paper isn't covering it. Everyone's saying, oh, these are like streetwalkers. And if they're missing, they want to be missing. They don't want to be found. That's what the police were saying. And this boyfriend of mine said, you're writing for the New York Times. You got to tell them. This is a thing and no one's really taking it seriously here. So my editor at the Times, you know, what's going on up there this week? What boring thing is happening? Pekipsi was kind of known for weird news, freaky news. Oh, really? Yeah, there's a lot of weird, like the Tohanna Brawley story. I don't know. You are too young. You're still younger than me. I don't know, I'm 50. You're younger than me. Oh, wow, you look incredible. Congratulations. Okay. So the Tohanna Brawley story was you're going to look it up. Backtrick it. Yeah, we will. A lot of weird crime in the area. So when the editor said what's going on up there, I said, well, I don't really know if this is a story. But there are these women. I don't know at that point, maybe six or seven who were missing. And nobody had really done a serious look at this. And I said, hey, I don't know if this is a thing, but it's something. He said, get on that. Oh, nice. Right now, start making phone calls. So I did started sort of running down their families and their boyfriends and talking to them and the moms who were looking for these women. Was there a pattern? Yes. They were all women who were mostly sort of slight white women, not unlike myself. Oh, yeah. They all were supporting drug habits, mostly crack by walking Main Street in Pekipsi. Got it. So they were street walkers supporting drug habits. And this is why maybe nobody was much looking at them. Duchess County, as you may or may not know, is beautiful, wealthy, horse country. A lot of movie stars live there except in the city of Pekipsi, which is kind of not that nice. I love Grittier a lot. That's a good one. Love the euphemism. I'm talking to these women's families, a guy turned himself in a week later in no way because of what I'm doing. It's just this confluence of timing. In fact, that morning I had an appointment to interview the chief of detectives. What are you doing about these women? And I show up at his office and he hands me a piece of paper with an address on it. Go. And it's Dudes House where they have now found the bodies of eight women who have been in the home. I hate to say you're lucky, but you've already done all the interviews with the family. It's a tiny mean of this is insane. Yes. I get my car drive it's five minutes. So there were these eight women's bodies in this little house about a block from Vassar College. Oh, and they had been decaying in there some of them two years. Oh, my God. Was he living in there? Yeah, with his mom and dad and teenage sister. No. No. No. Yeah. So all this stuff comes out. So there are quarters like the whole ecosystem of the house. Dead bodies kind of just blend into the general. Whoa. Are they exposed or are they like, okay? No, there are five in the attic three in the basement. Anyway. So there I am standing out there. I am still at this point kind of a young reporter. I've been a reporter five years or something. TV is a massing 48 hours. Everybody's showing up and I'm just this little local reporter on the scene. I'm writing all this for the New York Times because I'm ahead of the story. I got, of course, obsessed. Right. Who is this guy? How does this happen? He became kind of infatuated with finding out. Not infatuated. That's the wrong word. That is the wrong word. Okay. Because that implies some kind of attraction. Right. I don't mean that. Fixated. Fixated. Fixated. Fixated. Thank you. How does this happen? What makes this person? This had to be answered. I just could not stop. So it's 1998 when he confesses. And I'm thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it. And I finally wrote to him a year later. So I didn't do anything. I just sort of ruminated on it. And then that sort of touches off this five-year correspondence. By this point, of course, he's arrested. He's imprisoned. He played guilty. He was initially at Duchess County Jail still when I first wrote to him. He eventually ended up at Attica, some phone calls, some visits. I tried a lot of letters. I'm trying to figure out what makes this person. Like, who is this monster? How do you get to be that person? What are the forces that contribute to this person? Of course, his family, who would never talk to me. His mom through a lawyer said she would if I paid her. It's not what I do. It's not how I do it. And I don't have any money anyway. So they never talked to me. So it was kind of back on me to understand the women. How they got to be in the position of knowing him. And then, as I went on and on, it got to be, well, why are you doing this, Claudia? Why are you so fixated on this? What is it about you? Yes. So then it becomes kind of a memoir. It's this true crime. What's him and memoir. What's me? And that's the book. What's the name of it? The spider and the fly. The spider and the fly. Who's the spider? That's the fly. Oh, I just got chills. Yeah, that sounds wonderful. Is there a movie? It did get optioned. Okay, yeah, I was going to say. But that spider and I was like, okay, it's a pretty complicated and complex. There's also some racial elements. He's African-American. All the victims are white women, except for one who was never actually found. And she's African-American. Whole different thing. So I wrote that book, or I was attempting to write that book. So it's 99 through 2003. I'm in this psychological tango with this guy. Can I ask quickly? Is it pleasurable? Utterly horrifying and terrifying to me. He was mean. He was not charming serial killer like of the movie. He was not Ted Bond. He was an asshole. Oh, God. You can use all the words. He was really mean and really ugly and really abusive. And anyone who had an ounce of self confidence or self worth would have been like, well, fuck this guy. But I didn't. Because I was sort of addicted to understanding. I just had to get into his head. So I did somewhat whatever you can see. I'm going on a big limb, but I would imagine too. The guy's kind of got to be a master of leverage if he got other people in these situations. Like the man probably enjoys that I have something you want. Chotes. And he knew. You were his entertainment long. This is science of the lambs. Right. He's not the first person to know that observation. We just had Anthony Hopkins on it. Right. You did make it. Right. So this guy is no Anthony Hopkins. Okay. He is a guy who impressed no one in his virtually all white high school as anything. He's an enormous person. He was an enormous person physically, but sort of a very shy, retiring person socially. So I was attempting to do this book. It was completely taking over my life. The boyfriend who I mentioned. Yeah. Blowing that apart is not a good situation. Yeah. So then it ends up that I'm sort of alone in a little cabin in the Hudson Valley. And the only person I have steady contact with is that guy. This is so fascinating. Well, it was also not that healthy. Yeah. It sounds flippery, very slippery. Thus I had to... I'm scone to the Pacific Northwest. Yeah. By the way, I love that story. You're like the trope in the cop movie where he's into deep. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a total reason. But it's a total reason. You lose yourself in this story. Because it is something to do with me. Yeah. What is the thing, right? Yeah. Okay. I eventually figured that out. But during all this, I didn't know the West Coast at all. I'm in this sort of weird hot house environment with this person. I'm sort of estranged from everybody. And I start applying to some writers' residency programs. I didn't know the West. And I thought, oh, maybe this is a way to see another part of the country. A couple of residency programs. They saw parts of this book in progress and said, oh, yeah, it's common. Finish your crazy insane book out here in Washington state. And I went to one. This is in 2002 or three. And then when I was at one in Washington state, another one in Washington states of war. And she'd come here. So I was like, oh, Washington likes it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Love who loves you back. Went back to New York, put on my stuff and storage, got in the car, don't know a soul in Washington. I'm driving out there. And I'm just going to sublet this place and finish this insane book. That is not what happened. Oh. That I'd be in Seattle three months finishing this insane book. And then I didn't have any other ideas. But in fact, this insane book was really too much for me at the time. You know, I was still freelancing for the New York Times. And I sent my clips to the Seattle Post Intelligence or thinking maybe I'll get some freelance work while I'm out here while I'm wrestling with this monstrosity. Man, you script not person. And the Seattle P.I. says, why don't you just come and be a staff reporter here full time and I thank goodness because I can't deal with this book. And I'm just going to do that. And it was an interesting experience. And I'll just put it away and that's unfinished business. And that's that. So I'm a reporter at the P.I. for five and a half years, social issues, child welfare, juvenile justice. I'm doing my stuff that I care about. And then the paper folds. Good night. Goodbye. No more. We're all laid off. It was quite stressful. By then I had gotten married and I was nine months pregnant when the paper folded. Husband was also at the paper. So now we double unemployed with a baby on the way and his daughter. Well, what are we going to do? So I end up getting a job in philanthropy writing for a foundation. He goes to school to complete his degree. And during that period I thought, you know, that killer book that I never finished. I'm a better reporter now. More grounded in my life. I think I can make something out of that. I think that was a real thing that I didn't see through. I think it says something and I'm going to finish it. And I did finish it and sold the book. And that is that. That's the spider in the fly. And that came out in 2017. Okay. Have a weird question. When you left New York for the West Coast and you kind of like put that away. Did you miss him? I did not miss him, but I never put it away. So I had this home office and I had piles and boxes of notes and notes. And letters and files and everything. I never put them away. They were just all around me in my office for years just sort of haunting me. I did not miss him, but I knew that I had abruptly absconded. You know, I never said, I'm done with you and here's why I just disappeared. Yeah. And I wondered often what was that like for him? And it was kind of a turning of the tables and seizing control. Yeah. You left him. Yeah. I can imagine not missing him, but for me personally, I could imagine missing the obsession. In that, when I'm in an obsession, it cancels out all of their distractions. The one nice thing about being an addict is you have a single mission in the day. But you're like, stay high. You're not worried about all the other stuff. You get sober and you're like, oh, fuck, there's all this other stuff I didn't have to think about. Because I was only thinking about this one thing. It's part of what the drug is doing is masking all the other stuff. Yeah, it's just, it's just, it's giving you a single priority, which is in some weird way comforting. I don't want to give away the end of the book, but there is a sort of eye circle back as an older person. Hey, you, hey me. And that becomes kind of the end of the book. Oh, my God. I can't wait to read this. Yeah. So then to get to your point about how am I in this courtroom with this girl? So I'm very interested in what makes people do the things that they do. How do they understand their actions, especially extremely violent, hard to comprehend actions, especially actions that seem counter to one's own interest? What is this? So I've done this book. I'm back in the newsroom. Now I'm at the Seattle Times because I'm in a different newsroom. I'm an education reporter. I kind of frustrated that the news thing is taking up all my headspace. I can't get any ideas. I'm exasperated. I want to do another book, but news is sort of blinding me. I can't think of anything except the day's deadline. And it's nonstop. And I can't get separate from it. I also am not able to do news writing and book writing. I can't do them at the same time. It's two different rhythms and it's not a quick toggle. The news thing is easy for me to get. To get into the long form book thing, it takes a while. So I left the newsroom. I'm never going to come up with anything if I'm still in the newsroom. I can't do it. So I get this other gig, ghost writing, business people's books. But during that period, I think, hmm, there's this forensic psychologist I know who often testifies in juvenile homicide cases generally for the defense. He was sort of interesting to me. I was intrigued by his work. I thought maybe I would want to write something about that. So he goes, okay, I'm going to be testifying in this case of this teenage girl. He's actually going to testify for the prosecution and what he thinks a proper sentence should be. So this is unusual for him because he's usually for the defense. And this is a teenage girl whose case kind of come across my radar. I was going to say you must have heard about it when it had happened two years prior. I knew when it had happened, but I was a good, beautiful education reporter. And I was going to keep it straight. I wasn't doing much studying. I wasn't involved. I wasn't digging into her case. In any way, I knew her name. I knew what had supposedly happened. And that's all I knew. So now I'm in court and it's February 2019. She has just turned 19 at this point. And she has pled guilty. And so we're in the sentencing hearing. And she's pled guilty to shooting a man in his car. When she was 16 years old, he was 21 years old. Correct. And she shot him in the head in his car. Took his phone in his wallet. And cold winters night in Seattle. That's all I know. Go to court. The forensic psychologist never testifies. He's never called. But the sentencing hearing, very atypically, is continued over three days, not consecutive, but over the course of six weeks. They have another one and another one. And by the end of that period, she's in court. I see you're crying. Can I have one detail? I think it's relevant. The judge was previously a real estate attorney, but specialized in real estate law. He's a new judge. And this is his very first murder trial. And it is a girl that was 16 that they purposely delayed her trial. So it should be an adult. Yes. This is a lot on the students. Yes. And the prosecutor is a very talented, powerful prosecutor. She is really a seasoned veteran, even though she's not that old. She's just a very talented prosecutor and zealous, hard driving. I was going to use the word rabbit, but continue. So I think she intimidated the judge who didn't want to mess up, didn't want to do anything wrong. You know, I do anything questionable. And so this teenage girl got a 19 year sentence. By the way, that's the new book, Words of the State, The Long Shadow of American. Foster Care. I have to say the name of the book. So by the end of this sentencing proceeding, I realize this isn't really a crime story. This is a foster care story because her reality of running from her foster care placement and being on the street and how it was that she was in this guy's car. And the whole thing, her history suddenly is in front of me. And it meshes with all the stuff I've covered as a reporter years prior back at the old Seattle PI. I had written stories about what happens to older youth in foster care. Was they quote age out? Correct. And, you know, I wrote a couple of stories. I didn't get that deep, but it was in my head. Some of the stats about the outcomes for kids when they age out had always shocked me. Oh, yeah. And even more shocking was that it seemed like nobody thought this was a thing. Nobody made a big deal of it. Yeah. Yeah, there were some reports and yeah, some reporters wrote some stories. But it wasn't some like national issue. And can I read a couple of those stats? So, yeah, this is the foster care to prison pipeline. 25% of all inmates were in foster care. 20 to 25% of state prison inmates are believed to be alumni. This wasn't in your book, but I learned this in a previous episode and I re-looked it up. But 50% of homeless people spent time in foster care. In my book, I'm a little more conservative. Okay. So, that's probably true, but what we say or what I can document is that roughly 25 to 30% of youth and young adult homeless. So homeless people who are saying their mid 20s are alumni, which is where you drive around L.A. The vast majority are below 30. So, they are very likely to be former foster youth. Yes. I wrote this down. This is a direct quote. So, I know I'm going to get this one right. A study of nearly 1000 foster youth in the Midwest found that half left the system with criminal records. And more than 30% were in prison for violent crime within a year of leaving state care. Their post-traumatic stress is nearly twice the rate of Iraq war veterans. Wow. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare, we are supported by all state. Checking all state first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking the pockets of your genes before doing laundry, classic oversight, that mystery clunky in the dryer. Yeah. That was your lip balm's final moments. And somehow, there's always one random receipt in there to dissolve into confetti. Yeah. Checking first is smart. So, check all state first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with all state. Potential savings vary subject to terms, conditions, and availability all state, North America insurance, Co-In Affiliates, North Park Illinois. We are supported by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses Monica only use 20% of their data. That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. Yeah, or a pain for a coffee that's one fifth full. Yuck. Point is, you miss a lot unless you use HubSpot. Their customer platform gives you access to the data. You need to grow your business. The insights trapped in emails, call logs, and transcripts, all that unstructured data that makes all the difference. Because when you know more, you grow more. And when you get a full cup of coffee, you can do more too. But I digress. Visit HubSpot.com today. And something I didn't really consider this as a quote to. Legions of middle class and affluent kids grow up in homes. Convulsed with addiction, abuse, and neglect. But their families rarely face that risk. So it's almost exclusively poor kids that end up in foster care. Absolutely. So there's all these numbers right out of the gates. Fuck. I mean, if ever there's a smoking gun to a problem. Let's even say it was 10% of the prison population. Or five. This is a system supposed to save kids. And these are the results. Yeah. So one reason the criminal record number is so high is that a lot of kids are in Juvee. Right? They're in juvenile detention while they're still in foster care. So that's the record. There are many young people who age out and then they're on the street and then they're in the county jail. And then they're in state prison. So that's contributing to that. And they also pick up records by running so many of them run from these houses. Or they run from their family they were assigned to. Right. So you run. So this was Marianne, this first girl. You run not necessarily because of abuse in your foster home. More often, very often, foster kids are on the street. And you know, if you're running, it doesn't mean you're running. It means you're not where you're supposed to be. You're out of your assigned placement. Because they are often looking for their families. Marianne was often looking for her mother who was on the street. Who's a heroin addict. Or they are looking for other foster kids, other street kids, kids who get them. They're trying. They're looking for connection, right? Yeah. They're not necessarily fleeing abuse. They are looking for something. Craving connection. You're on the street. You have no money. You are very likely to shop lift because you're hungry. And so you get picked up by the cops and you go to Juvee. So there you just got to be part of that massive statistic. That's how it happens. Or you don't get adopted by the time you're a teenager. You end up in a group home. And group homes are typically very violent. So kids fight one another. They assault staff. Cops are called. Someone goes to Juvee. You just became part of that statistic again. There are a couple of like really basic ways that are driving that number. So anyway, I'm in court. I see that this girl Marianne is kind of the embodiment of all this stuff. That had been sort of rumbling around in my head for years as a reporter. And there she is in front of me. So I want to understand you. Help me get in your head. Yeah. How do we end up shooting somebody? There has to be a lot of reasons. So that was the start. And then the book goes way beyond Marianne. Marianne is one of six main characters in this book. They range in age. The youngest was not Marianne. The youngest was 18 when she and I started talking. And the oldest was 18. And the oldest was in his late 50s. And the point being. This is not some recent trend or some sudden spike. This has been the case for a long time for virtually as long as we've had foster care over a century. This overlap with the criminal justice system or the criminal legal system. Whatever is your preferred. This has been a thing all along. It seems like you've read the book. So I'm going to say, you know, I'm going to say, you know, this has been a thing all along. It seems like you've read the book. So you know that even in 1892, the first person legally executed in the brand new state of Wyoming, foster kid who shot two guys. Again, desperate, um, street hungry. But again, here's what I love about your book. It's like, it would be very easy for you to just become a champion of Marianne. And just explain how nothing's her fault. fall. And in some way, nothing is her fault. But I think you're just very honest about she was fucking hard to deal with. So she's nine years old when she enters. She lives with her father. She got a bloody nose when they arrive. The dad beats her. They've called Child Protective Services up team times. Yes. She's clearly in a bad, dangerous situation. She enters. She goes first with a friend of the dad. Yes. She's there with her. And then she's a lot to deal with. She's very clingy, I guess. Obviously. Right. And she gets returned. Not returned to her dad. Return to the state. So that person is a foster placement. And that person says, state, take her. I cannot deal. That person was actually the second person. There's first a couple that Mary Ann said she loved who had puppies at Christmas time or whatever. Elderly couple. That's sort of an emergency placement. It's never intended to be long term. But Mary Ann kid doesn't know that kids don't know. But then they pretty quickly pick up because Mary Ann is moved to this friend of the dads. And even though, yeah, the friend of the dad when she finds out she's no longer living there, she gets picked up at school. Now, woman never says goodbye to her or tells her, Hey, I can't handle this. It's just, I'm here. I'm going to take you to another stranger's place. And she gets picked up at school. Social worker goes, Hey, your stuff's in the car, getting the car. This is really typical. The main thing about Mary Ann is the first thing I needed to find out is, is she some kind of aberration, some kind of extreme case or what? She's not at all. I mean, not everyone is going to shoot someone in the head. But her path through foster care was totally standard. She's in half dozen placements. So there's this friend of the dad can't deal. They take Mary Ann to this other woman who she says was more geared toward teenagers couldn't deal with a younger kid. That person sort of shunts her over to a family where she lives for a year or so. And then the aim of foster care, the stated aim is permanence, which means you get adopted or you're going to your original parents. Her parents parental rights have been severed long before. So the only avenue for her is adoption. So from this family where she is being fostered, there's kind of several potential suitor families who are going to adopt Mary Ann. And for one reason or another, nothing works out. There are these things that nobody knows about adoption fairs where the kids are plunked down at a table with like arts and crafts and prospective families walk by. It's like puppies in the house. Check them out. And again, this was the same in the 19th century. In that case, kids were like on stage performing a little ditty or a little poem or a little song. Annie. Yeah. Right. Literally. And so by this point, Mary Ann is 12, which is sort of like your last chance. If you're not adopted by that point, you're not a cute little kid anymore. Families typically don't want an older kid understandable reasons. And that the child already has so much history, so much trauma, so a lot of families go, no, this family said, yes, they said she's ours. We'll take her and the state like all states. So there are financial incentives to get kids adopted. Federal government gives the state money for the kids who are adopted. For every successful adoption. So they want it to happen fast and they do not want to reverse it. Two lunches in an overnight and boom, she's with them. They're her parents. Yeah, it's kind of a foster to adopt situation. So there's like a brief few months, but it's foster to adopt like least to own. Oh, yeah, yeah. But here's where you don't gloss over how impossible it is to raise Mary Ann at this has no idea has never in her entire life been part of like a conventional family. Doesn't know about the family dinner. Yeah. She wants to eat in a room. Of course, yeah. They want to watch movies together as a family weird about it. Do they get training? So this is the thing. Very little state support. Yes, there is a social worker involved, but there's not intensive prep for adoptive families, particularly families adopting from foster care, particularly families adopting a kid who was demonstrably abused. Yeah. I was I think there's a weird thing and you point out in the very liberal state of Washington. You cannot force a kid over the age of 13 to have counseling. So it's like what should be definitely a mandatory as part of all this is like she should have had to go a few times. So she did have a lot of counsel. She did. Okay. She hated all her therapists. Okay. She says and you can kind of understand because you need to forge a connection with a therapist and foster kids are like moving around and everyone comes in and out. Social workers change lawyers change and foster parents change. I would they trust the therapist. I can't trust anything. At some point you accept this is reality. I'm not getting place. I'm never going to be anywhere for longer. You have to throw in the towel. I think you have to give up hope. Pretty early into this as a survival instinct. I don't know how many times could you have your hopes up that this is going to work out and then you get jerked out without any warnings. Like eventually you'd be like I know how this works. I mean the kids need there. But the parents should have mandatory therapy too. Yes. And a social worker observed that because they pretty quickly after about two years even sooner than that. They're like no, we got to sever this adoption. We got to break this apart. She scared them. Yeah. Right. Through her eyes they overreacted to everything. They never really got her. They freaked out about everything. That's her line. They I will say never talk to me. I attempted many times to interview them. Not interested. They're probably a bit ashamed that it didn't talk to the defense or the prosecution either. They basically hired a lawyer. Here are our files. We're done. This is a point I want to enter into this incredibly complex situation, which is there are multiple factors happening here too. There is the nurture which is not ideal, which is why they ended up in foster. But then there's a reality of she is the child of an addict and a physically abusive man. Okay. Yeah. So both addicts, one physically abusive, those are also her genetics. Yes. This is the really unfortunate part. It's like not only do they need the amount of help any kid would need. They actually probably need more because there's a pretty good clue about where they're coming from. I bet a lot of people who decide to foster or adopt they have this idea probably that I can save this kid or once they're in my care, they'll be better. Love will heal all. Yeah. It is like that. It's like. It's all love. A little bit of a savior complex. I'm reading the book and I'm just feeling fucking terrible and I'm going. Oh my god. I gotta somehow figure out how to help these little people. So it can be very genuine. Yes. And then you get in the rally of like, so am I bringing someone into my two kids' lives that could have all these things and should they take on that? It's complicated. It's super hard. You're very well intentioned. Absolutely. She's one of six main characters in the book. All of them illuminate some aspect of this connection with prison, like group homes running away, broken adoptions. She's not the only one in the book who had a broken adoption and then aging out without support. So kids age out of the system at 18. You're 18. Thanks. You're legal adult. Goodbye. Yeah. Or 21. Zero skills. Right. You're zero skills and no support system and 50% of kids in foster care who grow up in foster care do not get a high school diploma. You are likely to be 18 years old with no high school diploma, no support. What do you think is going to happen? Right. And you know, you can get extended foster care till 21 if you are working or in school. But a lot of kids by the time there's a possibility of the state not running their life. Yes. They're like, fuck this. I'm out. You know, and the other thing is that when you grow up in foster care, normal teenage stuff like having a job after school or going to friends houses for a sleepover or having friends come to your house for a sleepover is not happening. There are other young people in the book who are growing up in group homes. You're in a group home. At this appointed hour, you are here. The doors are locked and no, there's no guest hanging out with you staying over and no, you can't have a job after school after school. You're back here. Also, these tiny things like when they got her one of the things that one of the concern people called Mary and protective service on is they looked through her window of her bedroom and she had no clothes in her closet. She had nothing hanging on the walls. She was just this little girl with nothing sitting in a box. Even these little things of how you build your identity and that's a safety net. It's like, I have these items and I'm into this band and I have this poster and I have these CDs. All those little building blocks of identity, you can't have them. The other thing that's super prevalent and certainly happened with Mary and I was like, she loses her virginity at 13. Pretty soon thereafter, she's sex trafficked. So her adopted parents say we cannot deal and they sort of hand her over to her older half sister, but they are still technically her people. The older half sister moves out of state and then Mary and is just on her own, on the street. Her adopted parents don't want her. Her older sister is gone. It's just boom. What do you think is gonna happen? Yeah. She's doing whatever she can to survive and she is eventually picked up again by the state and handed over to the last foster parent, but at that point, yes, she is a chronic runner, not because she doesn't like that last foster parent. In fact, she kind of loved that last foster parent who is a pretty fascinating character. But by this point, it's just like a chronic fighter flight thing, also a girl who she befriended at that last foster parent's home, another foster girl. She's out on the street all the time. Mary and a sort of glombed on to her. They do all this stuff together out on the street. They do all this stuff and then there she is in the car with the dude on a cold winter's night. She's 16 and living with her boyfriend. Sort of, yeah, and sort of on the run intermittently back at the foster parent's home. But when you go, when you take off from your placement, the state goes, okay, we need that bed for someone else. So if you want to come back, you can't come back. So she's living with her boyfriend. She's 16. She's with this 21 year old dude who's got a Jaguar. He's got a handgun. He's got drugs. He's got money. Though she barely knows the guy. She's with him like one time and they drive around. He seems nice and cool. He lets her hold his gun. She posts a picture of herself on Facebook holding the gun and munging for the camera. She becomes part of the trial because of this some kind of pattern of hers. So then the next night they're on the street driving around. What was the plan really? The sort of defense argument is a robbery gone wrong. Maybe she and this other girl on the street who she was with and they're both in the dude's car. That's the prosecution's theory, no? Well, the defense has a couple of stories and that was part of the reason that this sentence in hearing kept getting continued because the judge said, hey, get your story straight. What are you trying to say? You know, at one point she says, it's a rape. Then there's this robbery gone wrong. I could say what I think it was. What do you think? What I think it was was a planned robbery. And basically what happened is that her friend also in the car splits because dude, the victim also had another person in the car, his younger brother, younger brother and friend both leave, not in a good way. Younger brother is sort of harassing the girls. So younger brother gets out, friend gets out and then there's Marianne alone with the guy and maybe their plan to rob this guy is not really working out as she anticipates. He pulls over, which is deserted clearing. He wants to have sex. She allows it to happen. But in her telling, while it was happening, he starts getting really abusive, calling her a hoe and another stuff and she doesn't want it to be happening anymore. I was also thinking how sad the duplicity of men can be, which is like he had been so nice to her and so generous, according to her. And then yeah, post coitle, he's a fucking asshole. You got what he wanted or in the middle of it. Oh, yeah, whatever. Anyway, once he's getting what he wants. Yes. Whatever happened, eventually it's over. There is a condom like on the street. A red condom. Yes, a red condom. Oh, you read with great attention. Anyway, she shoots him in the head with his gun. Did she shoot him in the head while they were fighting? Right. The prosecution says it doesn't look like that. The prosecution says it looks like she shot him when he's sleeping afterward. So it looks more cold blooded. Right. Right. Self defense. She shoots him in the head. Okay. He's dead and she takes off. The cops don't find her for quite a while. Like six weeks. Oh, wow. She's also in the middle of nowhere. 16 years old. She just shot a guy. She gets out of the car and she has to walk out of this weird rural pocket of Seattle that she doesn't really know. I mean, you just got pictures of 16-year-old girl dealing with what just happened in that car. Yeah. She got fucked by a dude she didn't want to and then she shot him in the head. Abuse. Abuse. And now she's wandering the street. Yeah. This is also someone who was abused by their father too. So the trauma, I have often wondered this. So she is abused by her dad and the sexual abuse question there is undetermined, suspected, unproven, but she herself told me and she has had sex with dudes and I don't think she wanted to prostitution or trafficking. I don't think she wanted to, but she was in this sort of world and she was doing it. And I have often wondered exactly what you're suggesting that in that moment was it all the dudes? Exactly. Was it her dad? Was it everyone? I've wondered. I mean, I can try to put myself in the head of a 16-year-old girl. I also have been a 16-year-old girl sometimes in a pretty desperate situation. I mean, I did not have her life in any way, but I did have some pretty dark times in those years. Yeah. And I can imagine. Yeah. Life is valueless. Who gives a fuck? Yeah. When that's your life. It's like, life doesn't have a ton of value. And I experience the great side of people and having these lovely, wonderful loving connections. It's not even the same value that I would have. So interesting that you touched on that because one thing that I learned in doing all the reporting for this book, it was a six-year process. It was a significant amount of time. This idea of envisioning the future of goals of, I want to be this someday. This does not exist with many, many foster kids. There are some in the book, I should say, who have gone on to great things. But who told me it's because my foster mom said, think of the future. Think of who you'll be. But this idea of envisioning a future of goal and how to get there step by step is really foreign. No, it's minute to minute survival. Claudia, I did this show where we drove around delivered food. I interviewed all these kind of random people. And one of them was a homeless dude I met under the bridge. Happened to be from Michigan. As I learned from his story, he had been in foster care his whole life in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in and out. And what I was so struck by was I would say like, so how long do you think you're going to stay? And he's like, I don't know. Any time I asked him any question that was forward-facing or future, he was incapable of it to the point where I was like, is his frontal cortex just completely damaged? Like the area of your brain that would be able to model out a potential future. It's something happened to his. So to hear you say that that's so common is interesting because that's the thing that stuck with me. I'm like, I don't think this guy can make a plan whether he's staying or not staying in LA. To pivot a little and say, look, this book has some pretty hard truths in it. However, there are paths for repair. This can be reversed. And I saw it happen with one guy in the book, Jay. I can tell you that story in a minute. And I saw it happen kind of with Mary Ann. Arthur Longworth too. Arthur is interesting, right? So early in as you start developing this relationship with her and you're visiting her in prison, you need her to help you understand, but she's not entirely capable of that. He's not at all. Okay, great. I was trying to be nice. Someone brings Arthur to your attention. And here's a guy who's in prison. He murdered someone and he's older and he has become an essayist and he's incredibly articulate about explaining experience. So art was initially going to be a source for me. Help me get it. But then the more I got to know and understand art and his story, you're not just a source, you're character in this book. So art is sort of walking me through because he's like recognizing this thing that is driving me crazy like how come all these kids in this savior system are not at all being saved. What is happening here? And I'm trying to figure it out by myself on the outside, but art from within maximum security prison has recognized the same dynamic because huge numbers of all the other inmates around him are dudes he knew in foster care or their kids and even kind of started a little group of other foster kids in the prison. All these former foster youth in the prison who have serious serious sentences. So art is recognizing this same phenomenon from his personal experience and that of all the people around him at the same time, just independently, that I'm sort of like what is this? How does this work? So I write to art ghosts of the previous killer correspondence of the other book in my head. Like oh no, oh no, what am I doing? Yeah, believe me, I had those worries, but art is not that guy at all. And I really was worried. What is he? Is he a manipulators, he's sociopath? No, I don't think so. What was he in prison for? First degree murder. Okay. He killed a young woman in an incredibly brutal crime, not a quick shot to the head. He stabbed her to death in a car and let her bleed out. It's really, really cold. Wow. So art. You help me understand you help me understand all of this, but art has written this incredible essay, which is called How to Kill Someone. And it won some awards. So it's out there online. Anybody can read it. And you come to realize it's not only why and how he killed his victim, but how he perceives that he was sort of soul murdered by the system. How to turn someone into what he calls an animal. He says, you know, I acted like an animal because the system raised me to be an animal. It is art who really articulates the cyclical nature that the book, words of the state, is trying to get at this system pumping out kids so ill equipped for productive adulthood that homelessness or incarceration are kind of the most likely outcomes. We don't mean got into addiction numbers, but they have to be astronomical and poverty across the board. People will hear this podcast and be like, you're not being fair and broad-grush and too dark of a picture. Okay, there might be better outcomes for some people when they are taken into the system much younger and with stable placements. And there's all kinds of stuff in the book about attachment theory and connection and what that does to hormones and cortisol and how those things affect behavior. We'll just leave it there. But all the people who go, not fair picture of foster care, I say, but what about these numbers? You are not confronting the reality of these numbers. Maybe for younger little babies who are adopted out of foster care and they have one family. Maybe it's better, but I know of cases where that is the case and weird behavioral stuff comes out when they're teenagers and one wonders. Anyway, art becomes a character in the book because he's a fantastic writer. Why he was important and frankly useful to me is that because prison has kind of a paralyzing effect in some ways on development. And I've seen this with other guys in prison that because part of your life kind of stops, you're still able to touch the mind of that person who was the killer, the whatever on the street. But now, your many decades older, in his case, he's been there more than three decades by the time I reached out to him. But he still can sort of touch this adolescent rage and what it is and how it powers his actions. But he can understand it and articulate it the way an older person can because he has taught himself to be a writer, despite having only a seventh grade education. So he can touch this experience, but he can articulate it with the tools of an older person. This is what I needed. This is what Mary Ann could not do for me. Art is also just a very bright guy and a very proactive. He is deciding from prison. Okay, life sentence is what he got. And we won't say what happened to art because it's a spoiler. But he got a life sentence and he decides, despite that, I'm going to try and reach out to lawmakers, policymakers, all these people on the outside who need to understand the way foster care is an engine in his mind, powering the carceral system. It is pumping out future inmates. And I think that there's really something to that. And it was the same question I was wondering about. That doesn't mean you need to leap into conspiracy theory that like there's some big cabal. Oh, not at all. I can see people going in that direction. No, without any intention. This is happening. Correct. Yeah, in fact, probably the opposite intention. This is yeah, I think that most people involved with this system are entirely well-intentioned. Yes. I think that the system was created in the 19th century out of good intentions for what do we do for kids who have no family who can care for them? It is originally conceived as a saving system. It is a well-intended thing. The problem with foster care is in 1890, whatever, right. But now, in the last 20 years, we, American society, we have learned an enormous amount about brain development, particularly youth brain development. And that is the problem that foster care as a system structurally, it is not aligned with what we now know about what all humans need to develop in a healthy way. That is the issue that the structure of foster care, despite its stated aims of permanence, the experience is one of impermanence, right? You're moved around. These people change if you're lawyer, you're foster parent, you're social worker, you're therapist, everyone's different. You're a cost advocate. Your mom is a cost. Oh, good job. How do you know that? Report or dude. People change in your life. It's all about impermanence. The system is not aligned. It is structurally built around impermanence, which is not helpful to it to healthy brain development. So that is the thing like an inherent problem built into it. So people go cladde, what should happen here? I'm not a policy maker. I'm not an advocate. Just a writer, but I do have a thought or two. Please tell me also in the book, there are many people saying, minimally, if you left every single kid in every single abusive situation that exists currently, the outcome will be better. There are people saying that. There are people saying the opposite. I know when my mom was a cost person, she said the priority is to get the kids with their family. Regardless of what's up with the family sometimes. In my mom's, all these, I mean, they're couldn't be a harder situation. It's society. You're talking about leaving a kid in a house where they're going to get molested or beaten or maybe killed. So this is the thing. Most kids who come into foster care, it's not because of abuse and it's not because of sexual abuse either. It's because of neglect, the sort of majority reason on every kid's admission form. Right. So neglect can look a lot like poverty. Kids shows up at school in the same dirty clothes for two weeks or it never has food at lunchtime and a teacher is going to make a phone call or kid is left at day care. Parents never show up. Somebody's going to make a phone call to CPS. What's up with this kids? If you visit the house and there's three little kids and no parents around, there's no food in the refrigerator. The lights aren't on. Maybe there is no house, right? Maybe they're homeless. You're not supposed to take kids from their parents because of homelessness, but happens all the time and you can understand why it would. So yes, too many kids have been taken into foster care because just because you're poor doesn't mean you don't love your kids. And maybe there are not maybe there surely are some parents who are on the margins do not have the means to support their kids. And if we supported people more families more, we wouldn't be taking their kids into foster care, right? If we help people keep the lights on, have housing stability, sick stuff, we wouldn't be compelled to take their kids into foster care. Okay. So yes, make the system smaller, use the savings that you're not giving to foster parents now for family preservation services, more mental health, substance abuse treatment. There are kids who cannot be safe at home. Really, like I want to say, the number because no one would know it off the top of the head, but there's 400,000 kids in foster right now. Which is down from even a couple of years ago because everyone goes, oh, foster care is such a damaging system. So the priority is keep them with their families. However you can say you did these things, but there certainly are kids who are being sexually abused or tortured at home and cannot be safe at home. So you have a smaller system that is just focused on those kids, these extreme cases. This is like a dreamy hypothetical. You've given more services to their biological families. So some kids are staying at home more safely. The system itself is smaller now. Maybe it has 200 or 300,000 kids in it or maybe 100,000. But the system is a housing system, right? It is essentially, you got a bed, you'll be fed. It needs to be a healing system. It obviously needs to be conceived as a rehabilitative system because we know that every single kid in there has undergone really damaging trauma, even if it is merely the trauma of being removed or ripped away from their biological parents who they love and forgive even neglect. Even if the kid should have never been taken into foster care and if you just help their family and they love their family and maybe they'll be reunited. But that kid is in foster care and has severe trauma from being removed and then moved around to all these people that they don't connect with because they can't connect because they're going to be moved. So that's a housing system. That's sort of a, we'll keep you housed until you're 18 and then thanks goodbye. That is insane. Yeah. It is not working. Yeah. It needs to be a rehabilitative system and not like psychodropic drug cocktails, which is what we do. So Marianne and most of the kids in the book have been drugs since they were little kids with this combination of anti-psychotics and antidepressants and drugs to sleep and anti-anxiety and these drugs are never designed for use on children and children are taking four or five. Cocktail. And that's the healing. Yeah. Okay. So no. Yeah. Yeah. And then they go and they sell drugs and people are like, oh, put them in jail. It's like what they've been. Also, then you're 18 and you're cut off and you don't have your meds anymore. That's exactly you need it. Yeah. Yeah. Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare. Okay. Here's what I've been saying for a very long time. I want you to evaluate this theory. And when you look at these numbers, this is a fiscally responsible approach. Like if you added up what 25% of the prison population costs a year, if you added up with homelessness and LA costs in San Francisco, you're talking on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars at this point. We're spending $31 billion a year on foster care. The prison system's insane. So if you could approach Congress and just go like, hey, I'm here to save you $50 billion. But here's how it works. If you are unlucky enough to be born into a house that you have to be removed from, you should be then lucky enough to go to Hogwarts. I think that our foster care should be a place you die to go to with the greatest services and the best healthcare professionals. It should be all hands on deck. Let's save this group of people and let's spend a fucking fortune doing it. And that is going to save us money down. River, this is gonna be like half the cost to take these incredibly unlucky kids and make them the luckiest kids immediately. That's to me what the approach should be. Is that flawed or impossible? It's not flawed. And so one thing that is really surprised me. So in general, the response to this book has been like, yes, this is it. But there are some people who have not felt that way and who have written to me, including researchers who have built their whole career on researching foster care, who have said to me, it's not that many, but it's a couple and it is stuck out to me. There are some kids you can't do anything for. This one researcher who is a very credible person wrote to me and said, there's like 18% of kids that are chronically criminally involved and it's too late for them. This is not the only person who said that to me. I am shocked. Maybe you feel that way. I'm kind of offended by that attitude. And I saw through the reporting in this book that need not be true, even with Mary Ann who got this chance. I don't want to give away the end because there's actually like a narrative arc to this book. She got this chance after being sentenced and sent to adult prison when she was a teenager adult women's prison Washington state. There was a chance because there was a new law and it allowed for people charged and convicted as adults when they were minors to be in a youth facility until they're in their mid 20s. The thinking being brain development youth facility more oriented toward therapy, education, right, a more therapeutic environment wouldn't this be better than putting teenager directly into snake pit prison where she falls in love with an inmate immediately 11 years older than her two doors down in prison. She gets this reprieve. Yeah. After a year in prison, she is sort of in the first cohort to experience this new law and she is sent to a youth facility even though by this point she's 20 years old. So I visited her there a lot and I saw a clear change. I don't want to say then what happened because that is a spoiler. But I will pivot to another person in the book who his name is Jay is a foster kid in New York City. He has been kicked out or dropped out of three high schools. He lands at his fourth high school. Is the kid lugging his stuff around New York City in a garbage bag. His clothes, his food, his birth certificate. He lands at his fourth high school. He's I think 17. Nobody thinks he's going to even get a high school diploma. It sure doesn't look like it. He connects with this 23 year old youth advocate at this last chance high school. She's not some highly trained credentialed therapist. Anything like that her job is get the kids over the finish line. Get them to graduation. Yeah. Get them off our desk. Whatever it takes. So this kid Jay is very gang involved. One reason he doesn't go to school ever is because he's always afraid of getting jumped by a rival set. In fact, he has been jumped and nearly killed and landed in the hospital. He has also assaulted other people. He's heavily involved. He connects with this youth advocate. He's this huge dude, tatted, weeping in her office. She's 23 years old. She's like, Oh my God. Yeah. But they connect and their connection is merely Jay coming by her office once or twice a week and they look at Google Maps and they decide a new route to school. You can go this way. You can go this way. That's it. It's not the deep, deep thing. They do that nine months. Jay gets his high school diploma right before this book was published. I watched him defend his dissertation and be awarded a PhD. No one thought would graduate high school. He's now a professor on a tenure track. He was already violent. He had been. Yeah. And he was able to of course correct. Yeah, you're saying it's a possibility. It could happen. It can happen. Will it happen with every single kid? But it doesn't say no to everyone because it's not going to work for every single day. I hate that. Right. If it doesn't pencil out, don't bother. If it works for 10% of the kids. I'll take it. It's like a a a is only 32% successful. But relative to what? Right. Zero percent is successful. So it's pretty fucking good. Look, some people if you have no compassion for this, okay. But for you, it's better. Do you want people out on the street committing crimes? It affects you. Exactly. So art really articulates this lack of empathy that he came out of the system with. That it forces kids to not develop empathy. And that's exactly what you're saying. Do you want that out there? No. Yeah, because I'll add. And this is again, the thing I appreciate it is like you're not trying to paint a rosy picture of Mary Ann. She had rackets. She gets into jail first thing. She does is clog her toilet and flood the place with piss and shit. She beat some girl up that was pregnant violently. I mean, she's a handful. It's not like this is easy. Correct. And I think that's important. Also, it's scary. And people are scared. And they don't know what to do. And they're like, this is fucking lock them away. So I also understand. It's like if you're looking at 16 years old, you've done all this stuff. First time you meet her. She's in custody for the first time. And she's like, I'm going to shit on the floor. She's a handful. But people can change. I know. Yeah. And part of the reason she's a handful, if it was earlier on intervention, it wouldn't have gotten to this point. Yes. necessarily. Yes. Now look, I'm not a psychiatric professional. I guess that some people maybe have inborn psychopathy. Yeah. Of course. But this is a minuscule percentage. Yes. Yes. And almost now we're talking about what's your setup? What's your genetics? Okay. But I saw her change. Some things happen that maybe that change is in flux. But I saw her change. I definitely know that Jay changed. People can change. Yeah. Oh, man. So you tell the story of Arthur Monique Tina. You have a lot of characters in this book. And they have varying outcomes with their life. As you said, he just defended his PhD dissertation. Incredible. I'm believe it. He was crying when they said, yes, you're a doctor. Oh, my. I was crying. Yes. Amazing. Oh, how beautiful. It was beautiful. Well, okay. I'm co-signing on you. I mean, yes, if you can cut the thing down by half just to begin with by these neglect things that are probably uncomfortable for us to witness, but far preferred to detachment and isolation. And then it needs an overhaul. The kids that do end up there, we got to reward them with like a lottery ticket. It's just so unfair. They deserve them the complete opposite to right size of the ship. And the drug thing is pretty weird. Basically, we're managing them by drugging them. It's one flew over the kukus nest. It's pretty creepy. But then being mad at their drug addicts. To make the case for them, you're working at this place. There's 20 kids. They're violent all the time. You're taking a kid to the hospital and you're like, okay, well, trips to the hospital or over medicating. I don't think anyone's evil. You're in a bunch of terrible situations. You're picking between lesser of terrible options and maybe the medications the best of the lesser options. That is what this book is saying. There's not some villain. No, it is merely the structure of a system that is not aligned to what we know. Humans need to be healthy. Yeah. But we had a systems expert on once and he said the simplest okami razor things like whatever results you're seeing of the system, that is what the system produces. Exactly. Period. The results are the proof of what the system produces. So it's like, we're just at a point with these numbers. You can't pretend it does anything, but what it does. Yeah. And just one more number. Okay. So you have this roughly 50, maybe 59% of kids who age out of foster care have serious criminal involvement by the time they are 26. That's out of that Midwest evaluation study. So 59% versus fewer than 5%, some people will say 3% of kids who grow up in foster care will ever get a four-year college degree. 59% versus 3% these are the outcomes. Yeah. That's what the system produces. Back to the beginning, this is not a secret. People know these numbers. Yeah. And everyone's like, like, nobody knows that worked up about it. I guess I got worked up. But yeah, but we have all these psychologists writing all these books on mental development. We know all this information. They're out there talking about it and yet we're applying it where? Love your rich. Yeah. Exactly. You get all that help. And spending 31 billion dollars every year for these outcomes. I don't know why it never occurred to me. It's like, well, we know addiction knows no boundaries. Just as many rich people are addicted as poor people, professionals are addicted as much as blue color. Addictions addiction, sexual abuse, sexual abuse, all these things, they have no respect for socioeconomic level. And the notion that yeah, there's no rich kids in foster care. Are you telling me that they're not in the same situation as they are other than the neglect? So there's one other thing that I should mention about responses that are happening. So kinship care. So people have only very recently, like in the past few years, and I'm not talking the past 10 years. I'm talking the past three years or so, a recognition that, okay, there seems to be better outcomes. If a kid is placed with someone, they know a relative or even fictive kin, which could be like a family friend or a teacher or a coach. Someone who knows the kid or knows their community is connected with them in some way. Kinship care. So it used to always be that grandma took in her grandkids, but those people never got the state money. So they never got the money that goes to foster parents to strangers. They were just bankrupting their retirement by caring for their kin. The change is that more and more states, including Washington state, and nationally, it is happening that you can now become licensed as a kinship provider just for your relatives. So you don't have to jump through all the hoops and all the training that are required of sort of conventional foster parent strangers. You can just be licensed for your relative and get the state support. So this is a change. Is it perfect? Probably not. Nothing is, but it is better. Certainly a significant reform. And incredibly, even until pretty recently, perhaps even to this moment, there are definitely people who go, well, why would we give the kid to their grandmother? Their grandmother fucked up her own daughter who is the kid's mother and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and the whole family screwed up. This has been sort of the prevailing attitude. Why we don't give kids, why we have traditionally not placed children with kin because this belief, they were the problem. The first. Perhaps they're thinking they're that much closer to the abuser we just took them for. They can now stop by their brother's house. Right. So this is what I mean. Like is it a perfect solution? Not necessarily. It is surely better than moving the kid amongst strangers for years. Yes, this is we already talked about it, but yes, this is a notion that we're going to wait for a perfect solution. I know. We got it. We happy with some improvements and we have to have an appetite for the downside we discover. And for saying this work, this didn't work. I think we get so, uh oh, we did it. And now it's too late. It's like you can change it if we see it, that doesn't work. Well, you have kids and I have kids in the minute you have kids, I feel like you're incredibly aware of the luck or not luck a kid gets. My mom always said this like you get brought home from the hospital to a house and that you don't make zero decisions. You get brought from home to that hospital and you're in a situation. And I don't know why I'm going to say this, but maybe back to art was any part of his explanation when I try to make peace with some of my totally amoral behavior, which I had a lot of it, the way I would justify this stuff was, yeah, man, it's unjust. I didn't get my fair shake. All of empathy and interpersonal relationships, they're all built on reciprocity. So if no one is showing you kindness in generosity, well, guess what? You don't fucking show it back. You're like, no, no, I get it. I got to take mine. I felt very justified in that at times. Like this was unjust. So the system is fucked up. So why would I play by the rules of the system that I was a victim of? You have no regard for it. He would absolutely say yes. Sure. If I was that kid, I'd be saying, please and thank you and showing up on time, but I didn't get that. No one. Yeah. So fuck everyone. He would say I don't understand, I guess they got it. And so they know it, but I don't know how to be that way. I didn't ever learn it. Yeah. It's not as innate as we'd like to believe it is. He always says empathy is learned. I wonder, I look at my own kids and I felt like I saw empathy very, very, very early. Yes. I do think any social animal has empathy. You have to deco exist in a organization. And he did for his sister. I think you can lose it. I think it's practice. Yes. Because again, the whole reason it has it is for group cohesion. And if there is no group cohesion in your life, that is nothing for you to protect. Somehow he kind of got it back. Well, I think the group in the prison with the other foster kids. So they're no longer kids by this point. I think that's what happens in an A.A. meeting. You're like looking around at all these people that you have a lot in common with and you start going, Oh, this is so interesting. Why do we have this in common? What's the overlap? There's a ton. Absolutely. Well, Claudia, I love the book. It's gritty. It's an unflinching look at the reality of all the things that were happening. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. I love it. The book is wards of the state, the long shadow of American foster care. And I really, really hope a lot of people read it. And I really, really hope a lot of us start caring about this myself included. I was talking to my wife about it while reading it. And we're both like, Oh, my, my, my, my, you, sorry. So we got to do something, you know, yeah. Like, so reading. Yeah. I loved it. I loved it. We're coming on. Yes. Great. Can't wait for you to come back with your next book. Have some ideas. Oh, good. Good. All right. Thank you so much, Claudia. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Unfortunately, they made some mistakes. Oh, my God. It's like I'm looking through binoculars. Why? I just got my new lenses that have my far prescription up top transitions that come. Oh, sure. Yes. And then my near-siderness down here. I've never had the top. I feel like I'm looking at through binoculars. I can see every poor on your face. Great. My favorite thing. So happy to hear that. I'm totally teasing. I cannot see your pores. That's just an example. One would give if they can see perfectly. Okay. I just want to apologize to everyone because we didn't armchair an anonymous story a while back where a woman drank a rat in a water bottle, which we've referred to a couple times. But it's really fucked is really fucked with some people, including me. As we know, I thought a rat got in my kettle into the straw part of the kettle. I still am not positive that that didn't happen. Even though physics would say it. Clenet. Anything's possible. Yeah. My friend Sally, she voiced my mother with me the other day. And she said. Sally from Argent. Sally who owns the amazing suit company, Argent. Yeah. Very successful. Very smart woman. Smart woman is successful woman. So get in line, folks. That's right. Well, don't. She is married and has children. But get in line to buy her stuff. She tells me a voice memo and said, I make this dessert for my kids where I puree strawberries and lemons. And then it sounds amazing. And she like slices the strawberries. She puts the puree on and whips cream. It puts that on there with some honey and vanilla or something. And then I know. And she layers that up. She sometimes makes this for the kid. She says then she makes a little bit for her. So she did this. And she says she was, she was eating it. And she tasted something weird. There was a weird texture. And so she pulled out this little piece, this little white tiny piece. And then there was more. And she's convinced that it was a rat. She now now there's rats in all of our foods. Okay. Well, you know, I have been laughing about it thus far. I don't state with you really. It's really strong. It's it's a big one for you. Yeah. And I had made a water in the gym. Oh boy. Last week. And then I put it in a little holder next to my machine. And then like two days went by and then I went and I had another sip of it. No. And what? It tasted weird. And I will admit, I was like, oh no. Is there a mouse in here? I had it. I had the feeling. Of course, there was not a mouse in there. Yes. And I was like, I don't how could I even entertain this? Like it was up so high on a rack. Like there's no way a mouse got up. Of course they can. And the top was closed. But it tasted funky. And you'll be happy to know that it is in my subconscious as well. Because the now the minute I taste something funky in water, I now do think, oh, there's a mouse inside. Does it? I hate I hate to tell you a mouse went in there. So we have around for a while and then came out. Just a nice bag. He opened the lunch. It's conscientious. Yeah. I mean, we are as a group. My are conscientious and hardworking and good at covering our tracks. So I feel like that mouse opened that lid when in there did a swim. Took a bath. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. And then they're playing mice. They're playing. They're cleaner than you think. Where are you coming? I was like, oh, my god. That's coming. Ran up and close it and and you drank it. And now I have bubonic plague. Should we make water bottles with fake right mice in them? Oh, wow. No, I like a mice mouse ice cube thing. Oh, that's cute. Actually, there's a toy one that floats in there. Yeah. Um, I think we might get sued choking wise. I guess it could be huge. Yeah, I can't fit out the hole. You'd be surprised. What you can show on. Oh, what you can sue. Yeah, I just heard a story about someone. I'm afraid to tell him. Oh, what? Well, just someone sat on the hot bar at a whole food and they burnt themselves and then they sued all food. And now they're the reason there's a sign. And I said to my kids, that's I said, what's this thing? You pick up the tongs and slam them into your eyeball. We've got to have fucking signs on the tongs. Don't slam these into your eyeball. I don't like this. That on the hot bar. Yes, it got burned. Why did they? Oh, also, there's a childish old enough child that I, you know, I have to say something. That is so disgusting that someone's butt was on the hot bar. I think they were clothes. I don't care. I started in their pants and put their pants on the hot bar. Yeah, maybe hopefully she just sued them. Exactly. Yeah, in my mind, I'm in Galton's. I'm not sure. So don't sue me if you're either of those stores, but apparently this happened. It could have been lazy acres. My kids were thrilled by this story. And I was like, this is not a good story. This people should be suing companies. We're sitting on top of a hot pool. Did the kids think like, yeah, stick it to the man. I guess. Oh, I don't know. They're just probably excited. Someone they knew had a story that involved changing a policy and a grocery. Was it one of their friends who sat on the hot bar? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Are one of their friends sisters or something? Oh my god. Don't, please don't sit on the hot bar. Yeah. That's silly. I feel bad because I'd like a buffet and theory. I used to like them a lot. We know you love a buffet. Love. And it's getting the older I get, the more I resist open food situation. Because of your afraid of, I'm just like, ew, like too many people breathing on it. Like, I just don't trust people. Sure. That's why these salad bars often, they have such a restrictive plexiglass plate over it. So you can't cough on it. That it's nearly impossible to get your arms under the thing and operate. And I'm like, I'd rather take on some illness and have the freedom to move and do my magic. You want that? Yeah, I want to, I want it wide open so I can operate. Oh, no. You know me. I'm a risk taker. I'm an adrenaline judge. You also have germy stuff. You have weird stuff. Not very much. I guess you just don't like fish. Yeah, I think you're confusing fish in germ. I guess I work under the assumption you're going to get every single germ and it's kind of a waste of time to worry about it. Okay. Well, I disagree. I don't think you have to get Listeria. And you actually, you don't, you do not want to be born from the people coughing on it. That's coming from the field. Yeah. So that's a lot of that. Listeria. Right. But we're trusting that whoever put that huge vat of lettuce cleaned the lettuce. Yes, but okay, this will be a very unpopular opinion and people we mad about it. But it's like when we have friends that are like, they were going to come over and they're like, I don't think we should come over because so and so got sick. I'm like, well, great. We're either going to get it today or we're going to get it in four days. We live in LA or kids go to a schools. I'm going to get everything. So I know there's like all I'm doing is picking what time I think is most convenient for me to get a cold. Yes, I totally disagree with you. Yes. Yeah. I often avoid many sicknesses by just not seeing the person that sick. I think some people's lives are controllable in that manner. But I think once you have kids that are in a public school, that that's there's no control. It's like whatever is in the Gen Pop, you're going to get because they're going to be at school with other kids that have it. So it maybe this is just me accepting the reality of my last 13 years, which is like when you have kids, you're not going to be able to choose who you interact with. That's out the window. Sure. So when we have friends that are like, you know, so and so sick, I'm like, yeah, well, if it's in her school, it's in my kid's school. It certainly will be by Tuesday. And then they're going to bring it home to me. It's like, well, it's just all we're talking about is timeline. Yeah, but sometimes timeline makes a difference. Like if you have a huge fucking thing at work or you have something big and you don't, you're like, I'm not, I don't want that. Right. For that. I want it on the weekend. I'd rather have if I have to get it, I got to get a different time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaking of sicknesses, I was at the hospital visiting a friend. For a positive thing. For a positive thing, but that's my whole point. Hospitals are so, there's such a mind-fuck because the best possible things are happening there and the worst possible thing. Sure. Life is coming into the world and life is leaving for us. And living simultaneously. The circle of life is all in that city. In one building. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I was visiting a friend who had a baby and I was pulling up and I could feel myself. I was like getting kind of anxious as I was like driving up to the hospital. And I was like, what is this feeling? Like is it? And it was like at night and I was just kind of tired. So I was like, oh, maybe I'm just tired. But then, then I was like, no, I really, I don't want to be here. I don't like hospitals at all. And I, it was kind of a new realization and maybe it's, maybe it's newer, the older I get. And where I know like, oh, death is upon us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just, I did not like it there. And I was happy to be there to support my friend. I was really happy I went. I wrote in my journal. That was the best part of my day. Yeah. I don't know if that was like a lie to myself. But I was happy. Do you find that you lie in your journal a lot? No. Okay. Well, I don't know. Sure. No, no, like I'm writing down the correct amount of water. I'm writing down the correct amount of alcohol. I'm, I'm doing. But I would Are you writing down takeaways that you wish were your takeaways versus what they really were? No, like yesterday I wrote, am I depressed? What do I have an infection? That was in my note section. No, I think I'm pretty honest in there. Okay. Anyway, so it was just like very overcome with the idea that these nurses, there's like, and they're so happy. Some nurses came in and out. Like, yeah, they're truly a special breed. They're the best we've got. They really are. And, and we're so lucky like to have them. It's truly. And like the Nick you nurses and stuff. I mean, the doctors, you're like, oh, the doctors are rich. Exactly. But the nurses aren't rich. And, and you're like, God bless. The nurses are doing the dirty work. I think 95% of everything. Yeah, they're doing most of the work and all the dirty work. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the thankless work. And they're so smiley. And that the patients are often quite cranky. They're in their worst mood. They're likely to be in their whole life. I know. So I was so amazing. I mean, truly, I'm not pandering to anyone. They're fucking mind blowing. And they're, you know, one of the night nurses, my friend was talking to and I was like, what, why do you do the night shift? You know, they work seven to seven. And she said, well, then, you know, I get to be with my kids during the day. And my friend was like, well, when do you sleep then? Yeah. And she was like, well, I'm not with my kid. And basically, I'm not with my kid. I'm like, you get one hour of sleep a day. Like this is, and she's so smiley and happy and kind. And I mean, it's, they are really special. And then they have to see so much death. I wish my dad were had been a little gentler on some of the nurse staff towards the end. But he got a couple wild things in his mind that he thought had happened. You know, as after he got brain radiation and stuff, there were a couple of things where it's like, I showed up and he was at war with the entire nurse staff because they had, well, they had come, he had this story about how they had come in in the middle of the night and like assaulted him in all these ways. And as I was listening to the details, I'm like, I think they changed this diaper. Like I think that's, that's what happened. But it is like delirium. Yeah. It was this crazy event that happened. Yeah. But they're used to that because like a lot of patients with dementia, like my grandfather, like, you know, well, after that, I star every time I came, I brought flowers for the nurses. And I would say to them, thank you for your patients with my dad. I was afraid he was going to get kicked out. I'm like, he needs to be like, like, bud, you bet, if you get kicked out of here, with the fuck. They're not to the hospital thing. This is a brag. I do think my super power as a person, I just isolated this recently. So I was going to see a friend that's very ill. And Chris was like, as I was leaving, she's like, I get in some way, like, you know, oh, this will be hard. You know, good luck kind of thing. And I said, oh, I'm going to have a blast. Like that's what I can do. I can have a blast anywhere. That's that's the thing I can decide is like, I'm going to have a blast here. And I've been in the hospital quite a bit of my day visiting people. And for the most part, it's been a party, you know, I just I can that's the one thing I can do is I can figure out how to have fun nearly anywhere or my, um, Lincoln and Kristen went to a funeral in Toledo, leading up to it, you know, they're of course, somber. They're also sad about the person. And I said, you know, don't forget a lot of times these funos are so fucking fun because you're seeing a bunch of your family members you haven't seen in a long time or even in Lincoln's case meeting some that she hasn't met. And um, this funeral, yeah, halfway through, they bounced and went, uh, sledding with cousins she had never met. And I was like, you know, these things can turn into a, but always be open to the fact that you can turn into a party. Right. I do not sell you on this. I think that's right that you, I think you do do that. I think you can do that and you do do that. And it's like my one skill. I can't fix anything that's going on with these friends and family members I've had that have gotten ill. Like I can't, I feel so powerless. There's nothing that can be done. Um, but then I think, well, the only thing I can do is like, I can be a party when I'm there. I can be, I can try to be a reprieve from the heaviness of all this. Sure. Yeah. That's true. I mean, for the person that's like sick, that's a huge gift. Unless they're like, Hey, why are you so goddamn happy, man? I'm fucking dying. I guess I could go that way. Well, it's not time for jokes, my friend. It depends on who it is. Yeah. Everyone's different. Yeah. I think if you're sick, you want lightness, probably, mostly. So that's probably good to have you around. I think the flip of that coin, because all super powers have a dark side. Yeah. Um, double edge sword. In some ways, I think that there's a compartmentalization that you have to do to do that, right? You have to be like, that part's not here. I just simply go to if I were them, and I was towards the end, the last thing I would want is to watch person after person come and cry in front of me and me to know I'm the source of all this sadness. That would be very hard for me with my disposition. Right. Like I have always been trying to make everyone around me as happy as possible. So if I was the source of all this sadness around me, that would just be a very miserable last period for me. It's like, oh my god, all these broken, all these people's hearts. This is like one person. You know, I just, so I just, I assume right or wrong that they're in that situation that they've mostly been dealing with people coming in and crying. And they maybe even feeling inclined to have to comfort all these people. And so yeah, I want to, I want to, I want it to be like, we have limited time to party. Yeah. Let's do. No, I don't mean for the person. I mean for like, for me, well, what is true probably is that quite often? I don't experience the thing that people were experiencing in the hospital room till months later. So I do think that is true. Like I'll, I'll, I'll get a wave of sadness hugged everything. Yeah. You know, yeah, with Barton, it wasn't till I got on an airplane to fly to Detroit, or I was like, oh my god, all that just happened, you know, because I wasn't allowing it to happen at the time. I don't know which one's better or worse, whether I feel it a month later or in the moment, I don't know. Yeah. I, I don't mean, yeah, I don't think it's, there's better or worse for it's just individual, but I wonder if you expect more people to have that mentality. You're very, very quick to move on to like the bright side, the happy side. The, remember, funerals can be a party. You can't spell funeral without fun if you end. Sure. Yeah. That part. Yeah. And I think that is definitely a way that you cope, but I don't think it's, however, I think a lot of people like need to feel it. Oh, sure. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't think most people are like me in that way, for sure. Yeah. Now, this is Borderline, a sacraman story, but truly it's one of the most exceptional things I've ever witnessed in my life, which is I was in Afghanistan with Tom Arnold. We were in just starting this comedy show we were going to do. Then they started firing the, the Halitzer, which is this huge cannon, it's shaking the whole thing. We're on this tiny little base on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. And they come in at some point. There's a lot of firing, firing, firing, firing. And then they come in, they go, okay, it's over. Go out to the flight line. They're bringing back two dead soldiers and like four wounded soldiers. And so they take us to the flight line and they teach us how to salute. And we're going to do this whole thing, right? And now it's getting really intense. Like it's also that the air is incredible. Like it is all very memorable. It's like very warm, but it's it's raining and we're saluting. And it's emotional and they play their playing the bagpipe. Yeah. And I'm like, wow, this is fucking crazy real. Like how am I standing here? Yeah. And then after the, we salute, they send us back to our little temporary where we're staying in these barracks. And then about 20 minutes later, they come and they go, okay, guys, you are off. Go go to the emergency room. Oh, we want you to talk with the guys that are wounded. And now I'm thinking like, are we qualified to go do that? I mean, this is these guys are like 30 minutes out from being ambushed. Yeah. So we go into this little tiny plywood hospital where they are like they're doing some radical stuff on these guys really quick. And I see them put an X-ray up. They've just x-rayed this guy that they've just also wheeled over. And I can see he has shrapnel all over his chest, right? So this guy is quite fucked up. And without missing a beat, Tom Arnold stepped up and he's like, Hey, buddy, where you from? And Tom started letting it rip. And he's telling stories about Roseanne and about all this getting stabbed in the chest in the kitchen. And this guy is starts laughing so hard that the doctor has to come over and go, okay, hold on, hold on. Back off a little bit. That's nice. And I was just sitting there. It was the Tom show. I wasn't involved at all. And I was just watching like this is insanely powerful. Yeah. This thing Tom Arnold can do fearlessly without any, he just ran right in there, started letting rip. The guy had already been given morphine, but that wasn't necessarily changing anything. But this it was it was insane. Yeah, that's amazing. And I was like on the verge of tears watching this power Tom Arnold had. And what he did to this dude in this moment. And then we then went on to other bases and blah, blah. And then when we got back to the main base, we ran into that dude. He had been sent there for more medical treatment. And he was well enough that we saw him. And yeah, the way he thanked Tom for that was like, that's huge. It was incredible. Yeah, that's incredible. I think that's great if you can give someone that. Yeah, like what he bought him in that moment is like, you can't there's not even a drug you can give somebody for that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I showed Link in your favorite movie. I know you just heard that previous interview. Yes. Yes. Ocean top five oceans 11 oceans 11. So good. What'd she think? So she loved it. It's so clever. It is. It's so clever. What a screen plate. It's so fun and smart. Like you are trying to fake like you the way it all comes together in the end. Any oceans very clever. It's very clever. It was fun for it too. Because I think she's only been seen Brad Pitt at his current age. Yes. And for her, not me, he's a very old man. That's wild. You know, in your 12, 62 year old man. Yeah. It's quite old. Yeah. So seeing him at whatever he was in that movie, I think it was 2001. Yeah. He's probably, I don't know, 40 or something. But he looked probably 35. Yeah, he looks and he's so youthful looking. And she was like, she was getting it. She's like, oh my god. He's so cute. Yeah. He's cute. That whole cast. Oh my god. I know everyone. I heard you're doing another one with the original cast. I don't know if that's a rumor. But I hope they bring them all. But everyone is so good in it. Casey is so funny in that movie. I have no trechitos and craddle ball. Damien's. They're all fucking phenomenal. I know. What a movie. And no women. One woman, one woman, Julia Roberts. Yeah. The biggest movie star of all time. Yeah. And she has a few scenes. Yeah. It's just funny because as this already came up in this interview, we just, but yeah, as I watch all these movies with my daughters, it's like it's almost impossible to not acknowledge that there was almost no women in any of these movies. We know that. I know. I mean, obviously women know that. You know, like women see it and understand. I do think it's, it's reasonable, but it is so funny that it requires like having women in your life, not even like a wife, but like, specifically daughters to be able to like see the injustices for women. But you just said we knew, but do you think that's true? Because like, Kristen will be the first to like, when you were watching oceans 11, were you thinking there's no women or were you just enjoying the movie? No, I was in the show. I think now you're we're cognizant of it, but we were in the water at that time. I don't even think you notice because it's all that existed. Well, no, you know, like, no, you enjoyed the movie, but you're aware that like, there's one female role in a movie that you'd want to have or there's two. There's the role and the best friend often. And that's it. Yeah. So when you're an actor, even when you're just like an acting class looking for scenes and stuff, like you're very aware, like, oh, that this is limited or there's two tropes only. But like when you were 14 and watching that, or like Beverly Hills calm. Yeah, I didn't see that. Yeah, it's just zero. Yeah, much of these movies that were huge. Yes. Yes. I didn't notice. Yeah, yeah. Because that's just what a movie was. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Written by men geared toward men. Yeah, it's men writing stories that interest them, which are going to be adventure conquer, you know, yeah. But I also think men now that things have changed to an extent and are changing, it's I men still enjoy those. It's just, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think we've all. Yeah. Now you're like, duh. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, that fun dissonance of like having grown up without ever thinking of anything. And then, you know, and this is this goes for a bunch of things. Totally. Yeah. It's pretty weird. You know, you watch movies from the 80s with your kids and it's just like there might be a fat runner that goes on for like 13 scenes over the course of the movie. There might be, I mean, my god, uh, revenge of the nerds. It's like they they're a girl. A huge hit movie. I know. You know, like, oh, but they're nerds. You feel bad for it? Like it's insane. I know. I know. You watch it now. It's just like, wow, I just don't understand how that wasn't obvious to me back. It is. It is so it is crazy. Have time. Um, moves. Yeah. And society moves on what's acceptable moves. And I think that is, you know, when we when we get into like, oh, like everyone's so woke, I think that's just like a tension with the changing times. Like at some point, this is going to look crazy. Something's going to look crazy. People are going to watch them be like, oh, my god, they were saying that. They were doing that. They yeah, that's inevitable. Yeah. And I think they'll always be a group that's like, what? We should be allowed to do that. We should, but it's like, we got to keep evolving. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Tiz. Tiz. Um, okay. Oh, I also wrote, do you think Asians have a resistance to water? Could they? How much water does? You know, me, I like to I know Asians have a resistance to actos. Okay. It says there's no biological resistance or genetic inability for Asians. Oh, this is confusing to swim or float in water. That's not what I'm asking. Yeah. There's no, nobody's allergic to water. Not allergic, not allergic. Okay. But just like, maybe it doesn't. Okay. First of all, you know more than anyone. There's no such thing as nobody. No. Um, there are some nobody's. There are some. Nobody's there's no human. That's allergic to oxygen. Well, they're poly isn't then they die. Well, then they're not a human. They didn't even make it. Well, they were a different species if they couldn't process oxygen. I mean, there are some things. You know, humans will die if they're left in a room. It's 200 degrees. Uh, we have some limits that that doesn't, uh, no one is excused from. So yeah, we need water. All we need water. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And nobody's allergic to water. I didn't. Okay. But do you know what you think some bodies could process things differently? And you might not know. So yes, people have different salinity counts, baselines salinity counts. Like how well they process and or hold on to to salt. And so yes, there are people that have a higher salinity count who will dehydrate slower than people with a very low salinity count. So sure, there could be populations of people that have a predisposition to dehydration and some that are less likely to dehydrate based on that populations differing. So that's an excellent. Because then certain populations have a high salinity count. They might not need as much water. That's true. And then they might be like full off of water. Well, no, they get it. So we agree with you. All I don't agree with you is that anyone would not need water. Okay. Well, not not need at all. Just making me less and also like totally possible. When I'm with people and they're drinking so much water and then I'm like trying to drink more water. It's not like mostly white people love water. Is that the white people? It's not all whites. It's not all whites. I think it's socioeconomic to some degree. I would love to see a graph of socioeconomics and water intake. Why? That's interesting. Because I think rich people have the bandwidth to be micromanaging their health in a way that people are just trying to survive would be. And so I think they have more of an obsession with water and say, oh yeah, that's probably true. I just mean the way my body feels. I'm with people and their glass is gone and gone and gone. And then I'll be like, I need to drink water to match. And then I'll start. And then I'm halfway through the cup and I'm full of water. It's not an exaggeration. It's not like I'm like, I'm full. Sure. Yeah. You're a maximum water. I don't want my cup in my body. My cup is full. It's full and it will run it over. And it's uncomfortable for me because at night I drink a ton of water because of my vitamins. So I'm just like drinking so much water and I'm uncomfortable for at least 20 to 30 minutes. Wow. So I could be a medical marvel. The only thing I would offer as a counterpoint to all this is that I do think you should be peeing more often. Yeah, but then since I've been drinking more water because of my planner, I've been peeing more. Yeah, and you're going to be less likely to get a UTI. Well, that's why I was doing it because I think I'm getting an infection. So I need to I think there is a baseline of what we would say is healthy amount of urination. How many peas and when you check into a hospital, they do ask when's the last time you peeing? Like peeing is a big marker of your health. I peeing at least once a day. I'd be three times that in just the night. Well, now I know. Well, now I have, you know, you get it in your head and then now I wake up and then I'm like, I got a pee and then I don't, but I make myself. Okay, how many peas a day is normal? Okay, six to eight times for adults. Yeah, that's your way on. Okay, but it says about four to ten times can be considered healthy. And does it say one in there? No, I don't do one. I at least do two because I pee first thing in the morning and I definitely pee at night and I normally pee at least once during the day. Three times. Can you find three on that chart? But I probably pee four times a day. Let's see today. I just peed. Congrats. But by the way, this is new. You and I have worked together for almost eight years now and they're seven and a half of those years. You did not pee at all day. Yeah. Well, true. Maybe I only peed once on set when I was on set that day. Yeah. And I was there 13 hours. Yeah, like I'm going to Disneyland this weekend. And what will happen to me is I will make it the first couple hours of the day without having to go to the bathroom. Yeah. And then it'll get progressively crazier. Well, I will be peeing every hour. Like when we see a bathroom, I know I need to stop in there because that's why it's you broke the seal. I never break the seal. Yeah. And I think I like it minus the occasional infection. Sure, sure, sure. Now when I'm driving, I can I can alter that a bit when I'm driving. See, I think I was peeing cups while I drive, as you know, right. But not ever. You don't pee like eight times in a cup. When I'm driving for 16 hours straight, yeah, which I do often, I will make it the first like seven hours without pee. And but by the time I pee, I'm in trouble. And I've been wanting to pee for a couple hours, but I've been ignoring it. And then yeah, and then again, like everything else, it starts then I'll pee three hours later, and then I'll have to pee an hour and a half later. Right. You broke the seal. Yeah. So I now my theory is peeing is mental. I feel like mental, a mental game. We probably only need to pee three to four times. Well, I think you just read the six times. It says the normal number of times. That's like average. That doesn't mean that's what we have to do. No. That's what people do. I think it's a brain power. Like what is it? Mind over manner. Yeah, it's mind over matter. Mind over bladder. And yeah, it's mind over bladder. And a lot of positions will warn about holding pee. It can get. Yeah, I'm going to get in trouble for this because it isn't it's like, you know, it's not great advice. I drink less water and pee less. My mom's always she's so worried about my pee because she thinks about it all. She does. I bet a few times a day she thinks about your pee. Yeah, because it's weird. It's kind of I feel bad for her. You know, when we were in India when I was four, I had this like horrible bladder infection. She didn't want to use any of the bathrooms. I don't know why. Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably. Or like I was I was scared. I was in a new place. I didn't want to leave my mom. So then I got this. You look like everyone. You could get mixed up. I stole it and stand out. Kidnapping. Yeah. And I already had a fear of that as we know. So then you know, they were like force making me drink coconut water from the coconut. Oh, cool. Nature's high. It sounds cool. Now it wasn't cool. Then I just think it's cool that nature was provided. Yeah, it's me too. Also, it is cool. Now I would love to drink. Yeah, they say it's very hydrating coconut water. Well, that's what they were trying to force me. And I was like, no, you know, I was so stubborn. I was so stubborn. Am I more mom? It's just like trying to cure my infection. I feel bad. I'm not going to tell her. You're not going to apologize. Okay. I hope this gets back to her. Um, moms have that tough. I call my mom probably once every eight months. To apologize. And apologize for something that I am not dealing with with my own kids. Yeah. Well, your mom, I mean, that spring break was the app. That was the biggest wake up call my life. I was like, Oh, when you took them on your own. Yeah. And I was like, they were fighting. The whole time was like, I mean, she had a third one in the mix that was fighting. And she couldn't afford the vacation we were on. That's a lot of stress. And my brother and I fist fought like the fights were, you know, they were scary. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we'd be in the back seat like there's two lions in the back seat going at it. You know, she belts off wrestling around. And she's trying to like read a map. Oh, yeah, exactly. It doesn't have any gas in the car. Run on our fumes. Run on fumes. Oh, yeah, that's hard. God bless, mom. That's nurses and moms. This fact check was I like that brought to you by nurses and moms. Okay, let's do some facts. Stay tuned for more armchair expert. If you dare. Claudia. I say Claudia because we have a friend named Claudia and it's more fun to say it that way. And I feel like that's the German way to say it. Claudia. Yeah. I say Claudia. Yeah, I think Claudia would prefer you. I agree. Because I think that's how you say it. And you probably say row, but I say row. We oh, I say Claudia. Row. We yeah, but it's really Claudia row. It is. Yeah, it is. In fact, I love this episode. Yeah, I've been repeating. For me, the most salient point that was made and the entire thing is that poverty looks a lot like neglect. Exactly. Exactly. And the real statistics about taking kids from their parents, even if their parents aren't what you think are fit or because I could I could see myself have having definitely thought that for a long time. Like, well, they just, but they they aren't fit to take care of that. They're hungry sometimes. Exactly. Yeah. They're not good parents or what are and like doesn't matter. The other option is worse. The other option is worse. Yeah. And it's yeah, that really struck me. And now I've been very aware of like when I hear about the system or also when I look around at all these unhoused people and I just think like they're all from it. I even observe something this morning weirdly that made me think of it as I was walking Delta in the school and then there was a kid dressed in their pajamas. And they do have pajamas days some days, right? Yeah. But no one else was in pajamas and then this teacher was asking the student. And then I just had again this thought and like, maybe she didn't have someone that got her help her get dressed. Yeah. And I don't know that that's the scenario. Maybe she thought it was pajamas. But the teacher was concerned. Right. And then I was a little bit like that's how this ball gets rolling. I know. And it's well intentioned. But also it's not necessarily outcome is not better. It's really it's very hard to like to accept. Yeah. Because I understand the impulse like, well, we got to get this kid in a situation. They can't be living in a house where they don't have clothes and stuff. But they really can't be living in a house where they don't have parents or someone that loves them or knows them. Right. You got to go like, oh shit, they're, they clearly haven't bathed in a long time and they're in the same clothes, 60s in a row. That's troubling. But probably not as troubling as sending them to prison, which they'll have a 65% chance of happening. Well, that's the other now. I've been so I'm like so angry about when a kid is removed from their family, I'm like, you ruined it. Immediately you ruined it. Yeah. Yeah. And you started this cycle. And now that kid is traumatized. Yeah. And probably will do something that confirms that you think this system is bad. Yeah. And it's like, don't do that. And then look, there's going to be some percentage that are getting sexually abused and physically. And I can't be there. And then in that case, it's like, we need a great place for those kids to go. And even the thing about like what she, which is a fact about kinship care, like that has to be the first resort. I mean, you could build that hog war. I mean, I can't afford to build the hog wards, but I could probably yes help get a hog wards built. I'll teach there. I'll teach dark art. Yeah. And then I'll say like, I'll it'll probably be hard at first to get good teacher. So I can do multiple subjects. Okay. So I'll do dark arts. And then I will do transfiguration. Okay. That's exciting. Okay. I'm not interested in teaching herbology. So don't ask me to do that. I won't. Okay. I'm going to teach mischief. Yeah, sure. Sure. Is there right dosage of mischief that everyone should have in their life? I understand. Any who. Okay, let's see. So how many students in Beddington College, where she went, she said it was so small. About a thousand total students, 700 to 800 undergraduates and a smaller graduate population. Very small. Trinity high school where she went and she was like alluding to the fact that it's fancy. Okay. Which wasn't for her. I looked at prestigious schools in New York City. But top contenders consistently mentioned for academic rigor history and elite college placement, Ivy League Plus, include Horace Man School, Brearly School, which is girls Trinity School. Okay. Dalton School, Collegiate School Boys. They sound fans. They really do. Yeah, they deliver. Spent school girls and chappin. I'm probably saying that wrong because I didn't go to any of these school girls. That's the first test to admit you to the school. How do you pronounce this? Any who, so tuition for Trinity School. 70,000. 70,000. Hello. What grades does it go from? Do we know? Is it just high school or is it? That's a good question. 6 through 12. I want to do some fast math. With figures. Like if I sang in singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles singles Christmas. Christmas story. Ralphie's father. He's always fighting the furnace downstairs. Oh, brother, brother, brother, brother. My dad stringed together or he meld together a string of swear words. What are we doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is me in this door. Oh, what's happened? My front door. I think I already told you that I got a part of I was gliding on a cloud for two days. Right. Because I had packed this hole that I thought was going to and it worked for two days and then today I noticed it wasn't working again. Okay. As I am, mother fucking back scratch and turn it. Oh, you became too bit rat soup beaten mother fucker. Oh, and I got the tremble out today. Okay. And I cut pieces of the door out. Oh boy. Okay. And it's working incredibly now. Okay. But my ongoing battle with this door. Now are you are you a little bit like I kind of want to just prep you like David Faganbaum who we had on, you know, and he cured his own disease. Oh, yeah. But, you know, he kept thinking he cured the disease and celebrate and then the disease came back. Yeah, that's right. Well, that's what that's what stage I was at this morning. But I'm worried. But today I cured it. You sure? Yeah, because I removed the offensive piece that was getting bound up. And I really studied it for a long time. I'm like, if that's out of there, is it not going to function? And I did a lot of different little tests. So I'm like, I think world work just fine without that piece. And then I cut it out. And if fucking works right now. Okay. I'm happy for you. That's good. That feels good. Oh, okay. So she mentioned she said the tawana Brawley story and asked us if we knew about it. And we didn't. So I looked it up. An African American woman from New York who gained notoriety in 87. Recently, you knew to this world at age 15. When it was a legend, she falsely accused four white men of kidnapping and raping her over a four day period. At the end of November of that year, Brawley was found in a trash bag after having been missing for four days from her home in New York. This is God awful. She had racial slurs written on her body and was covered in feces. Fuck dude. The feces came from a calli owned by a resident of the building where Brawley was found. Brawley accused four men of having raped her. I do think I've seen a dog about this now. This that trash bag part feels familiar. Oh, God. Um, yeah, the savagery that humans are capable of. Time is really. Isn't it shot unimaginable? Yeah. It's jarring. Yeah. Like when we Elizabeth Smardan, it was interesting talking to her because I think I. And I think this is just to from me to feel better. About living in this world. I choke everything up to just like mental health issues. I'm just like that person sick. people are sick and do horrible things. But it's like very strict, yeah, it makes it hard for me to breathe, thinking that that's not the case that they just are doing it. Normal people. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, you look at historically how many times mass amounts of people have participated and some pretty vile stuff and you get into the, the power of your tribe, you know? Yeah. And I mean, I guess this whole episode spoke to a lot of this, like the people she met in these prisons who've done horrible, horrible things and they are products of their environment. Mm-hmm. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Okay. Oh, what states have adopted kinship care? All US states have adopted kinship care to some degree with many actively expanding programs, especially since the Family First Act encouraged prioritizing wildhills for children in foster care with specific states. Like Michigan, ding, ding, ding, ding. We like that. Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Washington implementing distinct licensing standards for kin caregivers to access federal funds. I'm not seeing California on there, which I don't like. Okay. Get me some on the horn. Exactly. That's, oh, I thought I had more. That was it. That was it. She, Claudia Rowe came with the flat, flex. Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, the whole thing is, you know, it, uh, I get so frustrated when we treat symptoms and not I know. Does he, isn't it? We don't do anything up river. I know. We all know, but we know so why? Because they won't fund it. And they think it's fiscally responsible, but it's not. It's fiscally irresponsible. The homeless crisis is so expensive. The prison system's so expensive. The state run rehabs are so expensive. The theft and loss of property. All of it is like, it's so expensive. I know. I think it could not cost more than Hogwarts. No, I am going to charge a fair amount of money. Oh, geez. I could know. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not allowed to do it. It's just like a skill I have. No, no, no, no, no. I don't think any of those teachers were getting paid at Hogwarts. Yes, they were. They were in great roads. Yeah, they'll supply all kinds of great stuff. Because you're supposed to be living a very fond, you're eating great food. You've seen them. Oh, I know. They were just, they were, they just fill up automatically. Oh, I can't wait. Okay, fine. I'll only charge like 75%. Oh. I'm just kidding. I'll obviously do it for free. Pro bono. Yes, I'm doing that pro bono. Dark arts. Ooh, that can get a little dicey though. I'm doing it for free. Because then I like, I might get really dark and I'll really try it myself. When you're a wizard, you don't need money. I know, I don't really understand money. But because some are poorer than others, so I don't really get that. I don't either, just make money. Like obviously they are these skills turn, let into gold. And they have the bank. They have their own currency, right? Yeah, green dots. Yes, okay. I want to live there so fast. I wish that for you. I know. I want a time machine and you want Hogwarts. I do. I forget. God, what I zipper on in my time machine. You think I'd be a good wizard? I don't. I want to know what you think. That's like asking you, do you like this dress? Question that can't be answered, right? I want honesty. I don't want to answer. Why don't you think I'd be a good wizard? I didn't say you wouldn't be a good wizard. But this is just right for... Listen, we know if you thought I'd be a good wizard and you'd say that. I've never even thought about it. I know, but I immediately thought if my answer was bad witch, then that's not gonna work out. Bad witch? Whatever you're asking. Like if my answer were dark arts or whatever you're asking. Oh no, I'm... Oh! Oh! Oh, okay. You took it as would I be a good wizard or a bad witch? That's right. Like morally. Yes. But I was asking, do you think I would make a good wizard? Oh, yes, great. Absolutely. But now... No, I don't even want it. Oh no, you think I'd be an evil woman. Oh my God, no. I was saying that. What I immediately thought is as I was evaluating. I was like, well, this is already an errand. I don't want to be on because if I conclude, you'd be a naughty witch. I don't want to say that and then have you be upset. And so I immediately recused myself from the question. I know, but we like to talk about fun stuff and thought experiments. Well, fun stuff stuff where people's feelings don't get hurt. I'm not gonna get my feelings hurt. I just want to know why I'd be in bad wizard. I don't think you would be a bad wizard. But you think I'd have some things that were bad. I'm not thinking at all about you. Oh, okay. No, I'm not going to. Well, now you have hurt my feelings as you won't answer. This is a no win. Even in it not participating, it was a loss. Well, like, yeah, you didn't, yeah, Sam. It's okay if you think I'm naughty, I just want to know why. I don't think anything about what kind of wizard you would be. I don't even understand what makes a good or bad wizard. Some of the characters are likeable, that were bad, right? Well, they turn out some turn out to be good, but they weren't nice. Okay. But they did the right thing at the end. But like slithering on the surface, I'm like, oh, yeah, to say someone would be in slithering is an insult, but that's not true, right? To be so there's fine. Well, there's, okay, some people think that there's good and bad in all of the houses, okay? And it sounds consistent with what we know about humans. Right. But there are traits and tropes, you know? And look, there's a lot of people who are diagnosed slithering. Yeah. And they, like, mostly they all love that. Yeah. Yeah. They're taking charge of their sprite. Exactly. Yeah, it's just true. Yeah, great. She says she's a slithering, she's really proud of it. Yeah. And I don't like that. Right. Because I'm like, guys, it's like so iraleigh to like, like being bad. See, so this is kind of my point is that I know how much it all means to you. So I don't want to tiptoe in and accidentally trigger something that like I wouldn't even think would be a thing. I'm letting you, I'm telling you now it won't. I'm letting you, I'm giving you permission to be a free cell. I'm giving you permission. Do you think I'm a huffled puff? That's okay if you do. What do you want to be? No, we're not doing that. You're a grisandor. No, we're not doing that. Rizwold. Okay. I love you. I love you. That's probably why I'm a muggle. It's like somebody didn't want to make the decision. So they just make a muggle. And even like muggle, I don't even that means a lot to you. Yeah, because it's a non magic girl. Okay.