So We're Banning Books Now? Ok, Let's Talk About It - S03E05

On this week’s show Kristin and I are talking about our frustration with the book bans that are happening all over the US and how it impacts communication, growth, and child development.

DISCLAIMER:
The views expressed on the Hey Let Me Ask You Something Podcast are solely the opinions of your hosts Kristin Wood and Ralph Andracchio and are based on their years of practical and clinical experience. These opinions do not constitute any kind of advice, diagnosis, or treatment of any mental, physical, or emotional issues. If you are having an emergency or any serious ongoing situations please contact your local hospital or a trusted professional.

Kristin's Website
Ralph's Linktree
Book Bans Are Targeting the History of Oppression - The Atlantic

Transcript

The Hey Let Me Ask You Something Podcast
Season 03
Episode 05
So We're Banning Books Now? Ok, Let's Talk About It.

[MUSIC INTRO PLAYS] - 00:00

Ralph Andracchio  
Hey folks, it's Ralph and you're listening to The Hey Let Me Ask You Something Podcast. The show dedicated to inspiring more people to ask more questions and have more interesting conversations. On this week's show, Kristin and I are talking about our frustration with the book bans that are popping up all over the US and how it impacts not only communication and growth, but childhood development.

Kristin Wood  
And how do you think keeping a look from them is going to keep them away from all that

Ralph Andracchio  
Kids are very open and accepting bigotry and hatred are learned 

Kristin Wood  
just the mear statement to your children. I don't want you reading this book. or I don't want you reading books about X. is, telling them there's something wrong with X

Ralph Andracchio  
you if you don't know your history, you're bound to repeat it

Kristin Wood  
and you're not protecting your kids in fact doing them a disservice. But you're not preparing them for going out into the world.

Ralph Andracchio  
The best way for you to help us inspire more conversations and easily find more of our killer episodes is to hit that subscribe button and share this show with your friends. And check us out on YouTube and Instagram. And remember, we love that you're listening but this show is for entertainment and we are not your therapist or your coach. We are not providing professional advice either from us or from any guests we have. Give the full disclaimer in the show notes a once over for more info on that. Alright friends, let's start the conversation. 

Ralph Andracchio  
I wasn't ready I started everything and I wasn't ready. No I'm fine. 

Kristin Wood  
You look ready. You got your fancy sweater on. 

Ralph Andracchio  
This is an old Old Navy sweater. I think

Kristin Wood  
it's like a retro

Ralph Andracchio  
it is very retro. Like, I don't know, like I'm at the academy or something. 

Kristin Wood  
Yeah, or you're producing a movie or a podcast.

Ralph Andracchio  
Well, then I dressed appropriately. Oh my gosh, it's February. It is it is as we speak right now it's 2 2 22

Kristin Wood  
I know is that good luck or bad luck? Should we be playing the lottery? Or hiding inside

Ralph Andracchio  
hiding in plain sight. We should definitely should definitely play the lottery.

Kristin Wood  
I never play I just talk about it. I don't even know what I'm doing. If I tried to go in there as people are like in the store like bam bam we'll have this I'll twenty I'll what do they call the different 

Ralph Andracchio  
I don't even know 

Kristin Wood  
I don't even know the language

Ralph Andracchio  
don't even know I'm lost 

Kristin Wood  
like I wanna play the lottery. 

Ralph Andracchio  
And I don't want to encourage gambling but you know if you have the if you have the money and you want to buy a ticket or two I like to scratch off more than anything.

Kristin Wood  
I don't even know. Powerball. That's the one I was trying. That's the one with the balls flying a little thing and they come up and then you see if you have them

Ralph Andracchio  
I want you to described the lottery all the time. It's where the balls they fly around and they go in a little thing and it's right it's technically correct

Ralph Andracchio  
and all the balls have numbers on them. And it says right you're right. 

Kristin Wood  
I'm not saying another word about the lottery. I'm done.

Ralph Andracchio  
No we are we are done. We are done. shilling for the lottery. You're on your own Pennsylvania lottery with what's there who's the really annoying thing they have right now? Phil the Groundhog? 

Kristin Wood  
Oh, it's Groundhog Day. Today. 

Ralph Andracchio  
It is his groundhog today. Oh It is and he saw his shadow. Six more weeks of winter.

Kristin Wood  
I don't. Someone was saying this whole six weeks. I'm like there's way more weeks than six of crappy weather. I'm sorry to be a negative Nancy. But, in six weeks the weather is not nice. March is not lovely

Ralph Andracchio  
No March is the one is that the one that goes in like a lion out like a lamb

Kristin Wood  
It has like teasers in it but it's still I think definitely Anyway we had our first full snow storm which it really wasn't

Ralph Andracchio  
It was very disappointing. I'm very upset about it. If you told me it's gonna snow and like, Oh, you better get all your provisions and stay inside There better be like a monsoon of snow. Like I've I've we've had snow storms here where I opened my front door and it was like up to my waist. That's the snow storm, six inches is not a snowstorm.

Kristin Wood  
No but that says they like put it up with the news like blizzard. That's what they're saying. Blizzard of '22 That's what they say in Philadelphia. For six inches. And I obsessed with the weather so I told you before I already knew it was six inches and they actually called it right it just that it was very icy cuz it was very, very cold and blowing really bad that made it slightly unpleasant. So most people I know spent the day inside which I'd spent most of the day inside watching movies

Ralph Andracchio  
Oh, yeah. What was Did you do anything in particular?

Kristin Wood  
I watched a movie that was actually really interesting that my friend wanted me to watch called 23 with Jim Carrey.

Ralph Andracchio  
Oh is he like obsessed? Yeah,

Kristin Wood  
it's actually really good. I will give it a definite thumbs up and then I made this my friend watch one of my favorite movies which have seen 1000 times Good Will Hunting.

Ralph Andracchio  
I've never seen it. 

Kristin Wood  
Oh my god Ralph. 

Ralph Andracchio  
I know. I know

Kristin Wood  
I'm sorry, everyone that's upsetting to me.

Ralph Andracchio  
I know. It's upsetting to me too.

Unknown Speaker  
It really is to me a fantastic movie. 

Ralph Andracchio  
I'll watch it. It's on my list. We just we just finished Archive 81 on Netflix so if you we great. Very like I'm a big fan of X Files very like. X-Files-ey, podcasty like fun mystery kind of stuff. Supernatural. Awesome. Check it out. And we just started watching Euphoria. Last night. I have never felt older in my entire life I feel like I am 98 years old. Because I'm like this high school. They're all in high school. Like this is what happens in high school. I can't I can't I was I was born in the 1900s 

Kristin Wood  
You were like, no, 

Ralph Andracchio  
No, I just I'm scared. I would I would never fit in.

Kristin Wood  
I've never seen it but now you've intrigued me at least check out an episode

Ralph Andracchio  
Give it a shot. It was it was good. And we only saw the pilot. Oh no. We saw it. We watched two episodes, I think. It was good. I'm definitely gonna watch more. But yeah, I felt super old. I was such a grandpa because the whole time I was like, you don't have a helmet while you're riding your bike

Kristin Wood  
Isn't it past your curfew.

Ralph Andracchio  
When is this party? 10 o'clock? No, sir. You will be home by 1030 go and say hi. Have a shot and then go back home. I'm not a total like dork.

Kristin Wood  
It's fine. It's some shows that I've just aged out of and I can't watch anymore, but I'm watching this really great series. But guess what? I can't even really tell you what it's called because the title is so long and it's the I'm sorry to whoever named this the show that I can't even remember the title that's how long it is something about the woman in the window looking at the little girl in the window across the street. It's so long, but the show is really really good. it's Kristen Bell. She's She's fabulous.

Ralph Andracchio  
Another Kristin.

Kristin Wood  
It's really good. I was really sucked into it last night. Um, and it's kind of left me hanging where I got to pick it back up. But the title come on already.

Ralph Andracchio  
It was very we thought it was a joke because it's Kristen Bell and she's a comedian. Like really good comedic actress. And it was like the woman across the street from the woman in the Windows house across the street and we were like, come on, this is this is like a Judd Aptow thing. Right

Kristin Wood  
It's a terrible title because no one can remember what it is and tell people about it.

Ralph Andracchio  
Well, if you say it's good is it a whole series I thought was just a movie Oh, all right.

Kristin Wood  
And it's she's not she has funny moments, but it's not a comedy. At all. 

Ralph Andracchio  
All right, I'll definitely give it a shot

Kristin Wood  
Give it a whirl. Watch one episode of that. You know, It gets better and better and it's one of those just sucks ya in 

Ralph Andracchio  
Okay. So I had the idea for today's topic, because I am I'm I'm pretty pissed about it. Like I'm I'm livid about it. And I felt like this was a good opportunity to get it out of my soul so it doesn't burn a hole through my soul. But also I think it fits in nicely to the kind of point of our show is to like get people to talk more and have more conversations about things and ask questions. So get ready to lose... Get ready to lose listeners in 3-2-1 I want to talk about all the book banning that's happening right now in the United States. News flash. It's, it's aggravating and infuriating to me for a number of reasons. But above all, it just goes against the whole idea of education, period like little backstory, from what I've heard on the news and in print, because I read the papers. I read the daily papers and such. There are school systems, school districts around the country in different states that are banning books, they're pulling them off the shelves. And if I had to give you five seconds to guess which kind of books are being banned. I'm not even going to give you five I'll spot ya two seconds. I'll give you three seconds to take a wild stab about what kind of books it's all books on race and culture and LGBTQ issues and religion and gender issues. And the rationale that I've been hearing of why they're being pulled is that people don't want first of all, don't want their kids to be exposed to this kind of stuff. I'm using scare quotes. Don't want their kids to be exposed. That's a whole other that can be a whole other topic for us to like, people hiding behind their kids when it's really just them that's uncomfortable, okay. They don't want to expose their kids and they don't want to make their kids are uncomfortable because we're we're uncomfortable why make our kids uncomfortable about all this stuff? So that's that's what I wanted to kind of get off my chest this week. And I think there's something there we can kind of pick through.

Kristin Wood  
Yeah, do you feel any better or are you still just bubbling?

Ralph Andracchio  
A little I'm bumbling but I feel better knowing that we can kind of talk through and get it out. Yeah.

Kristin Wood  
Do you want to lay on the couch with your feet up during this one?

Ralph Andracchio  
I do but I'm worried my feet stink. So I'm gonna keep them down where nobody can see em. So what I have you heard of this? Have you been...

Kristin Wood  
I heard similar things the books I have not and I feel a little ignorant that I haven't but I have been limiting my news intake quite a bit lately probably a little too much.

Ralph Andracchio  
It is healthy to unplug from the news cycle. 

Kristin Wood  
Yeah, so but I think that soon as you started talking about it, I was like, Oh my God, what? Yes, we need to talk about this. 

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah. and it's I mean, there's so it's like a minefield as soon as I as soon as I stepped into this, I'm like, oh, there's gonna be a lot of places. I don't want to put my foot down, especially in my mouth, right. So I want to be very careful about what we what we're what I'm saying. But I mean, honestly, it is usually white parents who are saying like, I don't want to expose my kids to LGBTQ stuff, or race stuff, or you know, gender stuff. And I'm like, where else your kids gonna learn all this stuff?

Kristin Wood  
And how do you think keeping a book from them is going to keep them away from all this? I mean, look at our country, look, so you don't want a book on LGBTQ or trans people but yet they are everywhere in our world and your children are going to like I don't how do you avoid this stuff? And how is avoiding it? Helping our children?

Ralph Andracchio  
Its not, and also, kids are very open and accepting. bigotry, and hatred are learned. They are not inherent. People are not born saying I hate trans people, That's not something I can tell you with 100% accuracy. Nobody is born like that. Kids are very curious. They want to learn they want to ask questions. They want to be exposed to different ways of thinking and different people who have different ideas and grew up different and different cultures and traditions. That's how people learn and grow. Kids are very open to this stuff. And they, they don't know they don't assign good or bad to anything. It just is it's just a new thing to learn and a new person to meet, you know, so you're not really protecting your kids. From anything. All you're doing is, is stunting their growth emotionally, intellectually, socially, by keeping information from them and, you know, reverse psychology. The thing that you say they can't do, guess what? They're going to want to do it 100 times more, because you said you can't do it. We've all been kids. We've all been there when when your parents are like, don't go in that cabinet. The cookies are in there. You're not allowed to go in there. And guess what we want to do when everybody's away? We want to go and get in the cabinet and eat the cookies.

Kristin Wood  
Yeah. Yeah. Not only that, but just the mere statement to your children. I don't want you reading this book, or I don't want you reading books about X is telling them there's something wrong with X, Without even doing anything else. That there's something wrong with that because mommy and daddy are saying I shouldn't read that, or I shouldn't be exposed to that, that it's bad for me. That in and of itself, saying no more is telling them that understanding and knowing about racism and the Holocaust and of examples you LGBTQ is bad and it's bad for you. And so that's where you're just you're just laying the groundwork there for teaching them there's something wrong with it. Something bad about it. 

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah. And the I'm glad you said the Holocaust. I totally forgot about that specific one is one like they there's a lot of school districts that are banning a graphic novel called Maus that was won a Pulitzer It's the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer and it's about the Holocaust told from the point of view of you know, the the the author's parents, grandparents or parents. He's like a descendant of and it tells their family story and has oh boy it was banned because there's there's nudity and again, I'm using scare quotes with my fingers. There's, there's nudity in it. It's a graphic novel, okay. And it's called Maus because the Jewish people in the novel are mice, and the Nazis. are cats. So the nudity that people are complaining about is one panel of a cartoon mouse, female mouse, okay, I'm just putting that out there. And there's like curse words in it.

Kristin Wood  
I go back to what I said to you before, how do you teach history? If you cannot talk about if you cannot have books on the Holocaust, just as an example, how do you teach history? 

Ralph Andracchio  
You can't. 

Kristin Wood  
How do you teach current events? How do you teach kids about the world today if they can't read about any of these things we're talking about

Ralph Andracchio  
Right? You can't or you can't, or they want to teach both sides. Well, there's both sides. There's two sides to every story. Actually, no, there's not. No, there's that there's there there's, there's the terrible things that happens and the terrible people that did the terrible things. And then there's the people that the terrible things were done to that's history. Like you you can't two sides, the Holocaust, you know, like, well, there were, you know, let's see things from the Nazi point of view. You can't you can't do that. Because then what happened? There's these false equivalencies everywhere of like, oh, there's two sides to every story. We got to we got to hear the other the other side to and. We can't just assume stuff. There's no assuming anything.

Ralph Andracchio  
That's like saying there's two sides to 911.

Ralph Andracchio  
Right. Well, we have to be understanding I mean, you know, we hear no, stop doing it. It's it's bad to do that. And I understand this is a show about conversation and like, asking questions and hearing both sides of things, but sometimes that gets taken to a really ugly extreme. where it's really used just to obfuscate the truth and not open up discussion for the truth. You know, there's a way to analyze events from an objective point of view, where you can like get the full picture of it without saying, Well, no, now we got to hear from this person. And then usually that person is just spreading lies about stuff like that, like COVID. You know, there's two sides to COVID the other people who don't wear masks and don't get vaccinated, we want to hear their sides. There's not two sides.

Kristin Wood  
I agree I don't think there's two sides either some of you might disagree with us.

Ralph Andracchio  
Some of you might disagree That's that is what conversation is and that's, you know, we're allowed to disagree with each other.

Kristin Wood  
Yeah. This is pressure from the parents on the school district?

Ralph Andracchio  
And it all came about with like critical race theory. This is something that I can't let me get my work straight. People are worried about grade schools and high schools teaching critical race theory to their kids, which doesn't happen it's never happened and never will happen. It's a college level examination of race in the United States. And it's like a legal I think my limited knowledge of it is it's like a legal principle or something that's taught in college. It's like a college university level thing. But it's been co opted and like we don't want to teach our kids critical race theory it makes the white kids feel bad. Who cares? Who cares? It doesn't make anybody you know what history is uncomfortable. History is going to be uncomfortable. And but that's the that's the beauty of it. You if you don't know your history, you're bound to repeat it. History is uncomfortable. It's not all like wine and roses, bad things happen in history. But the more we learn about it, the more we remember it and then it doesn't happen. Again.

Kristin Wood  
I mean, yeah, I mean, I think that's so many people recognize that over the past few years, like we're finally there's discussion about like privilege and more than there's ever been, and people are and it has been uncomfortable for some people but needed to be uncomfortable needed to understand what was going on and see it through a different lens. And more people have now which is a good start. It's long way to go, but it's a good start. So it's like how can you understand different groups if maybe you don't understand some of the terrible stuff that happened? How can you be better too as a person by understanding people and having respect for differences and yeah, I don't even know how you begin to do that without knowing.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah, and I get the parents want to protect their children. I get that and I get that parents want to have some kind of say in what their children learn. I get that I'm not discounting the parents feelings or point of view at all. But what I'm my point of view is and I think our point of view, but the point of view of the show is, you need to hear all the information if you if you have something that's forbidden to you knowledge wise or conversation wise. You can't have a full conversation. You don't learn anything. If you have bits and pieces or whole big chunks of the story that you're forbidden to talk about because it just doesn't make sense. And then and then everything you you have this really disjointed conversation about stuff where you don't have all the facts and you you're not allowed to know all the facts and then people aren't allowed to talk about stuff and then you kind of lose good conversations and good communication with other people is a muscle like anything else. And if you start to cut out bits and pieces of of it you start to lose the muscle starts to wither

Kristin Wood  
and you're not protecting your kids. In fact, you're doing them a disservice because you're not preparing them for going out into the world.

Ralph Andracchio  
Can you speak to from your your therapists point of view about what that does to somebody as they mature if if they have all this stuff that's kind of kept from them? Knowledge wise, and like learning wise?

Kristin Wood  
Well, I think I might have to let that process but what I was gonna say earlier was the thing we were talking about earlier with children being exposed to some of these groups of people, right. And maybe being friends with like I said, one of the friends at school who has gay parents was the example I used and they may love their parents, their friend's parents and and then they're getting this message from their own parents and from the school. And then that makes it very confusing. Number one, and it sort of lends itself to what we were just talking about last week, where it's like, what I see that it's this way, and you're telling me it's this way, like I feel like these are good people and I like them. But you're telling me that's wrong and bad, which can actually affect children's ability to trust their instincts and trust themselves. Because what they're experiencing with them going with this example with their friend's parents and enjoying being around them and the kind of people they are, is being whats the word is being challenged and told that that's bad by their parents who they when you're a little look, you look at them as knowing, all knowing everything they tell you right, so you should do it. So can really affect a child's ability to trust themselves. 

Kristin Wood  
Number one, you asked me the other piece where they go out into the world, um, know how that would affect them develop it really would depend on on what their path was. They're going to stay in the same area that's if they're around like minded people, then they're gonna continue and it might not be they may not have any exposure. And they may just latch right into everything they were told by their parents and move on that way. I think if they, in most circumstances I don't I think it's hard to avoid receiving information at the very least that contradicts that thinking. Right? Um, and then I think it can make them either just ill prepared to deal with people who are different from them. Afraid maybe, of interacting or knowing very limited and who they can connect with and like they would I feel that this group will be small, wherever they would go, and that, for the most part, it might be very, very difficult for them to integrate. I don't know. I know. It really so depends where they live. Where they move on as adults to who they surround themselves with. But if you took somebody from one of these families and placed them in a very large university with all sorts of diversity, how are they going to function on that?

Ralph Andracchio  
And that's that's, I think, one of the benefits of going to a higher education place like a university or college, because that's the first time I think, where people are away from their parents away from their families and do get exposed to different people, different cultures, different points of view. So you don't know you do not have to go to college. But for some people, that's their first step into the real world where they get to be exposed to all this stuff and don't really have that veil. of secrecy. That's over stuff. And speaking just from my point of view, and I've I've had this conversation with a couple people growing up LGBTQ, we really don't have a lot of resources available of us. We don't have a lot of examples of elders in the community that we can talk to books that we can read shows that we can watch so I'm talking about Euphoria before but I'm really kind of envious of kids growing up today because they do have a lot of these shows and books and magazines and podcasts and music that does cover a ton of area and like different genders and sexualities. 

Ralph Andracchio  
And nothing I would have never dreamed about all this when I was growing up. And you just speaking from my experience, I think Gen X which I am, grew up stunted growth wise because there's a lot of guys and women out there. And you know, whatever, whatever gender the case may be, where we don't know how to function properly. We don't know how to date we don't know how to be in a long term relationship. We don't know how to, to to do all these simple things. And everybody's like, What are you talking about? I learned how to do that in grade school. Like I had. I had a boyfriend in grade school I had a girlfriend grade school. Great for you. I didn't I mean, I did but I was like, because I had to like I didn't know how to make everything line up in my own sense of self because I didn't have all those resources. So you I mean, I did the best with what I got. And I think I'm doing okay now but it took me 46 years to get here. And it's you know, you're no matter what the case is. Gender, Sexuality, race, culture, anything like that. You know, the holocaust the the atrocities that happen, no matter what the case is, learning your history and knowing there's other people out there. There's resources out there, there's people to talk to and learn from. It helps you grow as a full human being into the world

Kristin Wood  
and being able to see and understand people that are like you that you didn't see. And then as a result, which you touched on last time, you know, feeling like you have to hide who you were. And the whole comedy piece that we mentioned, Listen to last week. And yeah, and then the shame perhaps the not being able to fit in the secrecy stuff. I agree that that now since there's more out there and more resources and more books and more everything you said that it makes sense to me that that would make some of that stuff a little bit easier. I'm not going to go out and say it's, oh, it's so easy, but there especially as a white cisgender woman, but that there's just there's there's there's more opportunity for it. More information out there more people more resources like you were just saying.

Ralph Andracchio  
And I mean, but let's talk about gender for a second. I mean, women's studies, is is vital. You know, there's this whole fight of you know, gender equality and reproductive health goes hand in hand with that and grow I mean, I can't speak for anybody who is you know, who identifies as a female but you know, growing up with all that information and books you can read people you can talk to it like it makes it makes your your existence as a woman. It makes it all kind of make more sense. I would think you know, and if you're cut off from that, things happen where the Supreme Court says, Guess what, you don't have as many rights as you think you do. And I'm in I'm in danger that too. They're of course they're going to go after marriage equality. Of course, there are people already talking about it. Oh, we should get rid of that too

Kristin Wood  
Makes me think of Handmaid's Tale and I get freaked out, 

Ralph Andracchio  
We're there like oh Handmaid's Tale is a great fiction story. Not anymore!

Kristin Wood  
That's like a horror show to me. Like I could watch, like, any horror movie before that show. Well, and then there's just the basic piece of education. So if you grow up in one of these school districts where all this is restricted, and then you do go on to college or some type of higher learning you're going to be way in the dark like you're going to be way behind you're going to have major chunks that are going to be I would think pretty critical. Just not there for you. You're not like to me if you are a parent that feels this strongly about this, then homeschool your children. I mean I don't agree with it either which way home, school, in a bus wherever you're doing it, but are not doing it. But I just I just think that making it whole thing for the entire school. I don't know my kid would be pulled out of there so fast it wouldn't be funny but

Ralph Andracchio  
And I again I want to see it from the parents point of view to like again, I get it.

Kristin Wood  
I'd love for a parent in one of these districts to email us love to I love to hear that because I don't we can't seem to wrap our head around what the other perspective is because that's not stuff the traumas traumatizes children. it's difficult but it's stuff that can be processed in an age appropriate level.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah. And I mean not for nothing. But if you're Christian, and you think like, oh, the only the only book I want my kids to read is the Bible. Great. Awesome. You know, not not judging that. But the Bible. I grew up Catholic. I read the Bible. I had to take tests on it. There are some pretty freaking crazy stories in the Bible about like, drugs and incest and rape and murder and the end of the world and like, there's a lot of stuff in there, that people if it was in any other book, they'd be like, No, get that off the shelf. I don't want to I don't wanna expose my children to that, but I'm at a loss for words.

Kristin Wood  
I hear Yeah. It's it's a lot to process and, you know, we're obviously coming from a very strong opinion on this one pretty one sided because we just can't get it. And like you were saying are repeating myself here, but you were saying that I understand that parents want to protect their children. This is not protecting your children. this is i This is my area of profession and that's that's not protecting children. Looking at it from a child development, parenting perspective.

Ralph Andracchio  
And I know these I know that. I know there's an aspect of it. That's just like, it's a hard conversation to have with my kid and I don't want to have it. Yes, agree. 100%. There are those those conversations that we don't want to have with our kids because it's really uncomfortable and weird and icky. I get it. I mean, I don't have kids, but I get it. But I think that's part and parcel of the whole like parent thing. You know, it's it's having those hard conversations. And I mean, speaking for me, if I had a kid, I would want them to grow up with as much information as they needed. Like, I would want them to ask questions. I would want them to stay curious and learn new things because I want them to grow up to be amazing. You know, I mean, what would you tell if you had parents that were your your clients who were going through this and like, wanting to protect their kids and didn't want to have the hard conversations? Like what would

Kristin Wood  
I would explore their own stuff with that?

Ralph Andracchio  
Ooh, right. 

Kristin Wood  
Yeah. Because that's what that's about is is their own discomfort, where does that come from? And, and tried to piece that, excuse me together. And then if they're able to see that recognize that maybe they would then have a different approach or thought process on the way they were parenting their children. I mean, I don't know. I mean, that would be the only way I would know how to go about it because they're, they're talking about their kids and what their kids need, but that's, that's not what kids need. If you just look at again, I'm not a parent, but if you just know basic child development, children need to understand children need to be taught, children need to, they're going to have the they're going to have these questions and have these experiences even if you try to keep them from like most likely, unless you live in like a what you call those spaces a compound. Couldnt think of the word. Um, that's what I would do. I would go right to the parents and about the parents, rather than like trying to go about and if they weren't ready to go there, then there wasn't going to be any room for change if they weren't willing. To try to approach it differently with their children then there would really kind of be no no area for growth there. You know, not from what I the way I do my work.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah, no, yeah. No, I hear you. And also, I think I have a hard time making connection in my brain. Between literature like children's books, children's TV shows like Peppa Pig and like Teletubbies and all that stuff where it's it really it preaches tolerance and inclusion and respect and love and curiosity. You know, all these books, you're like, ask questions. Be curious. Who's that? Let's learn about that person. Let's do this stuff. Where's the line? Where does the line form in the sand where it's like? Yes, be curious, be open. Be you know, ask people questions. Oh, would talk to your neighbor. Look at that dog. You know? That's one of my favorites. Look at that dog. It's a book. Look it up. Where does that end? Where does it where is it like Okay, now it's not acceptable to do that. I don't know the answer. I'm just curious where that distinction happens where we cross over into the dark lands or the dark world, you know,

Kristin Wood  
But also thinking about the fact that you know, there were a lot of people that that were talking about the fairy tales, and how they are scary. Sometimes some of the fairy tales are very, very scary. And it could be looked at as traumatizing to children also, as well as sending some terrible messages, in particular with women. So it's like, I don't know why I brought that up. But I just felt like it was along the same lines of people. There was a big group wanting to ban them at some point, banning these these fairytales being so accessible to children. And this is kind of like, again, we can start banning everything if we start going down these route. About like we've been saying over and over again, about a conversation about a splaining talking about it with their kids, not just reading it or not reading it, but talking about it and what it means and like, you know, I don't know like some of the messages that are that are sent and then are sent about women in particular and some of the old school fairy tales, like, Should you not allow your children to know these stories? That's up to you, but I think it's actually a really good opportunity to talk to them about how it's different now how back then, it was this way, or whatever the case may be, but now today, it's this way and now today, the movies they're making for kids and shows are so much more advanced. Like women are like kicking ass and everything else. Am I allowed to say kicking ass or is that an explative?

Ralph Andracchio  
You could say... ass is fine. Ass is fine. Yeah, no, I think ass is fine. We just said it like 20 times. 

Kristin Wood  
Alright. Ass 

Ralph Andracchio  
Ass. Along the same line of things being scary. I think that's a great tie into what we've been talking about. Because if you do not teach about other cultures, other genders other sexuality other you know religion, other anything, they stay other. And then when people get older and they go out into the world high school's over you're now in the real world, you go to college or whatever, go get a job or you know, start your life then you see you run into these people you run into somebody who is doesn't share your religious beliefs, who was of a different race, of a different sexuality, you know, they do not register as real people. 

Kristin Wood  
No they're like from another planet, 

Ralph Andracchio  
Right. And it's easier then to discriminate against them because you have not been taught these are people they have been this these abstract others that don't exist in the real world. So then when you meet one, it's like, it's easy for me to hate you because you're not real to me. You know, it is sad. So there's so much danger in this and I think I think my my anger and I feel better. I do feel better. 

Kristin Wood  
Ok good. We might have to do a deep breath at the end.

Ralph Andracchio  
I know we're gonna do some breathing exercises after this a little a little Roku? What is it with the hot stones? 

Kristin Wood  
Reiki? 

Ralph Andracchio  
Reiki? Reiki! Roku, is a TV app.

Kristin Wood  
Warm stone fire...

Ralph Andracchio  
Warm. Stone Reiki Yes, oh man. You can tell how much I got that done. it well. I think what bugs me the most about it is that it's detrimental to everybody. But especially to the person you're keeping the knowledge from. No, no at no time anywhere in the history of anything has keeping keeping knowledge and facts and history from somebody did them any favors. And the more we can share information and talk and share ideas and ask questions and not get offended and like you know, I don't want I don't want to feel bad about this. So I'm not going to tell them too bad. That's you know, sometimes conversations are difficult and you're going to feel bad but it's that means it's working.

Kristin Wood  
And discomfort. means change means growth. Growth. That's a better word. I say it all the time to my clients like if you're uncomfortable when you try to do X thing. That's, that's good. Because if you were comfortable, you're not doing something different. And you're, you're growing and you're Yeah, I mean, I don't want to keep saying the same thing over and over again.

Ralph Andracchio  
Well, sometimes it's necessary just to say, beat the dead horse. Yeah, but yeah, just I think if there's one thing to take away from this conversation today, it's like, be Yes, conversations are not always going to be happy go lucky. There's going to be difficult ones but that that's good. If it's a difficult conversation, that means there's something there that the universe is telling you. You need to consider this to grow as a person. And banning books is not the way to do it.

Kristin Wood  
No, I can't even believe we're talking about banning books in 2022

Ralph Andracchio  
It's 2022 and we're talking about banning books.

Ralph Andracchio  
So the people aren't comfortable with literally all... I don't know if we're getting angry emails or what's going to happen from this. 

Ralph Andracchio  
I'm fine. I'm fine with that. 

Kristin Wood  
I'm fine with it, too. But I would we would love to hear from either side. Anything on this piece but.

Ralph Andracchio  
You know, I would be happy to have somebody on as a guests. If somebody wanted to explore the other side, not an angry way. We're aren't fighters. We're lovers.

Ralph Andracchio  
We want to learn

Ralph Andracchio  
We wanna learn. We want to learn and explore but it's I say angry but I'm just more like surprised and shocked and disheartened and saddened by the whole thing. So it comes out as anger but it's just like, what are we doing? This is this is weird. So yes, if you if you have a strongly worded email you want to shoot to us. We love it, send it along. We're We're not hiding. We're everywhere. We're on all the social medias, but it's just we want people to have conversations. We don't want to hide information from anybody. So that's that's the big thing. I don't know. What do you think?

Kristin Wood  
Ralph is feeling so much better.

Ralph Andracchio  
I feel so much better. 

Kristin Wood  
I'll keep him breathing more freely... and no, I think it was really an important thing to talk about and I'm glad we did cover it today.

Ralph Andracchio  
Yeah, I'm, I'm glad we we could we could explore it because I know there's people out there who feel the same way. And we there's people in other countries that listen to us who may be listening to this and going what is going on over there? 

Kristin Wood  
Every I always they always think it can't get worse and then more crazy stuff.

Ralph Andracchio  
They're all like United States. Are you okay? Do you need a hug? 

Kristin Wood  
Right, right. 

Ralph Andracchio  
We do. 

Kristin Wood  
We do. 

Ralph Andracchio  
We the US needs a hug. Big, Big hug from all the rest of the world. Oh, boy. All right. I'm gonna go read a book.

Kristin Wood  
And you're especially going to pick one that might be banned in schools

Ralph Andracchio  
I am going to pick a book that's been banned and read it on my front porch with a flashlight out loud. Read to the children of the neighborhood. Can you imagine? 

Kristin Wood  
That would be creepy 

Ralph Andracchio  
That would be that would be a little creepy. Alright friends, thank you for listening. See you next time. Bye.

[OUTRO MUSIC PLAYS AND FADES]

[END OF EPISODE] - 44:07

Transcribed by https://otter.ai