Claudia Rowe (on the foster care system)

Summary

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard:

Episode: Claudia Rowe (on the foster care system)
Date: February 4, 2026

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Overview

In this powerful episode, Dax Shepard and co-hosts welcome award-winning journalist and author Claudia Rowe, whose latest book, Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care, delves into the troubling realities of the American foster care system. The conversation is an unflinching examination of how foster care, intended to provide safety and stability for vulnerable youth, often sets them on a perilous trajectory toward incarceration, homelessness, and lifelong trauma. Both sobering and hopeful, the episode offers statistical evidence, vivid storytelling, and policy critiques, ultimately advocating for a cultural reckoning and overhaul of the system.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Claudia Rowe's Background and Path to the Story

• Claudia grew up in New York City with a literature professor mother and NBC executive father but found herself drawn to journalism and writing about complex social issues (04:02–07:02).
• Her previous book, The Spider and the Fly, chronicled her years-long psychological "tango" with a serial killer—an experience that reshaped her understanding of “monsters” as deeply human and complex (07:14–17:39).

“All of the journalism that I do is powered by confusion, edging into fear. People who are scary. My way of confronting that is not to run from it, but to drive toward it.”
—Claudia Rowe, 09:29

Transition to Foster Care Reporting

• Moving to Seattle, Claudia worked as a reporter covering social issues, child welfare, and juvenile justice (19:18–21:17).
• Her reporting led her to witness a 19-year-old girl, Marianne, be sentenced to 19 years for murder—a case that crystallized for Claudia how the foster care system fails vulnerable youth (24:45–27:15).

The Foster Care–Prison Pipeline

• The episode dives into the staggering numbers linking childhood foster care and adult incarceration:
  • 20–25% of state prison inmates are foster care alumni.
  • 25–30% of youth/young adult homeless once were in foster care.
  • A Midwest study found half of former foster youth left care with criminal records, and over 30% were imprisoned for violent crime within a year of leaving state care (28:43–29:47).

"This is a system supposed to save kids, and these are the results."
—Claudia Rowe, 31:42

• Many foster children enter the juvenile justice system not because they are dangerous, but because the system criminalizes behaviors linked to trauma, survival, or attempts to seek family/connection (32:09–33:47).

Marianne's Story: A Case Study in Systemic Failure

• Claudia follows the life of Marianne, a traumatized youth shuffled through multiple placements, exposed to drugs and violence, whose path—from a “typical” foster care journey to ultimately being convicted of murder—reflects the systemic nature of these failures (34:43–48:39).
• The hosts and Claudia discuss loss of hope, inability to imagine a future, and lack of support structures as fatal gaps in care (49:12–51:20).

“This idea of envisioning the future, of goals...does not exist with many, many foster kids.”
—Claudia Rowe, 50:26

Other Foster Care Narratives & the Importance of Connection

• Claudia introduces other characters, such as Arthur Longworth, whose reflections from prison illuminate how foster care can ‘soul murder’ children, making empathy and social integration almost impossible (51:52–54:37).
• Despite the bleakness, Claudia shares stories of transformation—including “Jay,” a foster youth-turned-PhD, whose progress was enabled by sustained, caring adult mentorship (66:53–68:41).

"This kid Jay is very gang involved... 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."
—Claudia Rowe, 67:38

Systemic Origins and Solutions

• Foster care was rooted in good intentions but has become structurally misaligned with what modern science tells us about childhood development and the need for permanence and attachment (57:20–59:03).
• Most children are taken for neglect (often indistinguishable from poverty) rather than abuse, and removal frequently does more harm than good (59:49–62:09).
• Claudia and Dax advocate for:
  • Shrinking the system, focusing on extreme cases.
  • Massive investment in family supports, mental health, and healing (not just housing and psychiatric medications).
  • Kinship care as a meaningful improvement—placing children with relatives or community connections and providing them state support (74:03–75:22).

Economic and Policy Arguments

• Dax champions a radical investment approach: make foster care a “Hogwarts,” providing the best services and supports money can buy, arguing this would save billions otherwise spent on prisons and homelessness (63:13–64:46).
• Claudia reveals resistance from some researchers who believe some foster kids are “beyond help”—a perspective she rejects, citing evidence of positive change (64:46–68:41).

"Even with Marianne... I saw her change. People can change."
—Claudia Rowe, 70:49

Systemic Realism—but Also Hope

• Claudia and the hosts stress there are no villains—many individuals in the system are well-intentioned. The problem is fundamentally structural (72:07–73:02).

“There’s not some villain. It is merely the structure of a system that is not aligned to what we know humans need to be healthy.”
—Claudia Rowe, 72:10

• Raw statistics drive home the need for a cultural reckoning: 59% of foster care alumni have criminal involvement by 26; only 3% get a four-year degree (73:06).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On writing and confronting darkness:
“I love your writing, not just because of the wordsmithery... it’s incredibly non-judgmental and not saccharine. It’s as close as you get to truth: it’s all things.”
—Dax Shepard, 08:52

On ‘saving’ kids and the trauma of removal:
“Just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you don’t love your kids... If we supported people, helped families more, we wouldn’t be taking their kids into foster care.”
—Claudia Rowe, 60:09

On empathy and survival:
“It is Art who really articulates this cyclical nature... the system pumping out kids so ill-equipped for productive adulthood that homelessness or incarceration are kind of the most likely outcomes.”
—Claudia Rowe, 54:37

On system inertia:
“The results are the proof of what the system produces. You can’t pretend it does anything but what it does.”
—Dax Shepard, 72:26

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Claudia’s Early Career and Serial Killer Story – 03:25–17:39
• How She Transitioned to Foster Care Reporting – 19:18–27:15
• Stats on the Foster Care–Prison Pipeline – 28:08–31:42
• Marianne’s Story, Placement Breakdown, Sex Trafficking – 34:43–48:39
• The "Hopelessness" Foster Youth Feel – 49:12–51:20
• Arthur’s Insight: Foster Care and Empathy – 51:52–54:37
• Systemic Failures and Prospects for Change – 57:20–62:09
• Dax’s “Hogwarts” Proposal & Systemic Costs – 63:13–64:46
• Stories of Recovery and Hope (Jay’s PhD) – 66:53–68:41
• Kinship Care Reforms – 74:03–76:15
• Unflinching Call for Cultural Reckoning – 78:57–79:17

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Closing Thoughts

This unvarnished conversation makes clear that the American foster care system is fundamentally broken and urgently requires a cultural and policy reckoning. Claudia Rowe’s remarkable reporting reveals both the depth of the systemic crisis and the redemptive power of human connection, care, and reimagined systems.

Book plug:
Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care
—Recommended by Dax Shepard and the Armchair Expert team.

"I really, really hope a lot of us start caring about this."
—Dax Shepard, 78:57

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For listeners seeking a nuanced, hopeful, and pragmatic exploration of foster care, systemic inequality, and human resilience, this episode is both essential and unforgettable.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert Experts on Expert. I'm Dan Shepard and I'm joined by Lily Padman.

[B]

Hi.

[A]

Hello. Today we have Claudia Rowe. 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 intertwinement.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

With a killer.

[C]

It's that one. Oof, oof, oof.

[A]

But that is not why we invited her. She has written a book called Wards of the Stage 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.

[C]

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.

[A]

There needs to be like a cultural reckoning around this.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Situation that we're in and you'll learn all the reasons why. So please enjoy Claudia Rowe.

[B]

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[A]

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[C]

He's an upchurch.

[A]

Are you in from Washington?

[B]

Yes, I came in last night.

[A]

Okay. And where do you live in Washington?

[B]

Seattle.

[A]

In Seattle.

[C]

Do you like it? There's.

[B]

I do love Seattle. I am New York native, born and raised and everything, but I've been in Seattle about 22 years.

[A]

What brought you there?

[B]

Needed to change my life. Needed to leave the East.

[C]

That's great.

[B]

Under penalty of law, desperation of had to get away. We could talk about that. Sure.

[C]

Yeah. We're rolling.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. So you're from New York originally.

[B]

Are we actually rolling?

[C]

Yeah, we always roll.

[A]

Does that scare you?

[B]

That's fine.

[A]

Where in New York are you from?

[B]

Upper west side.

[A]

What did mom and dad do?

[B]

Mom was a literature professor. Dad was a executive at NBC. Oh, no kidding.

[C]

Wow.

[A]

And you didn't want to go into show business?

[B]

I'm a writer. I've always been.

[A]

Okay. And does that mean you're more like mom than Dad?

[B]

I think I'm a blend. In truth, more like her. But he was NBC News promotion. So he's news guy, politics guy. She's literature writer person.

[A]

And yeah, that's a marriage of both. What you've gone into news and literature? This feels like a dreamy parent situation. Yeah, like both are smart, clearly industrious, accomplished.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Okay. So where did you go to school? Did you go to New York?

[B]

I went to Trinity High School.

[A]

And what about college?

[B]

Bennington College.

[A]

Where's that?

[B]

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.

[C]

Oh, really teeny?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Liberal arts.

[A]

Why that school?

[B]

Bennington was probably still is, but Certainly was kind of create your own major. No grades. We didn't have grades.

[A]

Pass fail.

[B]

Pass fail. No SATs required, though. I 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. Most people there were art people. I had gone to Trinity. Very traditional, as you might guess.

[A]

No, I don't. Is that a private school? That is of repute, yeah, it's sort of.

[B]

In that New York City private school.

[A]

Did you have crazy classmates that went on to rule the world?

[B]

I had a classmate and best friend who did become pretty successful out here. I don't know about ruling the world, but she's a successful writer.

[A]

Okay, so she's en route to ruling the world.

[B]

Are there others?

[A]

No. Like George Clooney or anything?

[B]

Not like that, no.

[A]

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.

[B]

That was my parents.

[A]

They pushed for that.

[B]

My mom, she knew Trinity was fine, academically at least. But I think she recognized I needed something different and I was a more freeform kind of kid.

[A]

Yeah, 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?

[B]

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. Yes, it was all that.

[A]

Yeah. Wall Street.

[C]

Do you fit into that?

[A]

No. How much cocaine were you doing?

[B]

I did not fit into that, which is why I went to a little teeny college in Verm.

[A]

And did you get a journalism degree from there?

[B]

They did not have a journalism program. Anything. It sounds like she got degree, literature major, creative writing.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

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. Long form magazine writing. Back when magazines were like a vampire, Esquire, Harper's, Back in the heyday of magazine journalism. And then I think I recognized that print journalism was gonna teach me these skills, these disciplines like structure, pacing, deadlines, turn shit in that I didn't get at my flaky freeform, be anything you want college. I knew that I needed some tools and I. 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.

[A]

Well, you end up so busy there. Right.

[B]

And there's sort of an addictive. You perform this trick, this thing, and then they go, good.

[A]

Yeah. And it comes out, which is rewarding, very gratifying.

[B]

And people respond. I love the reader response. And that became kind of hard to break out of.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

When I finally had a story that I really felt I needed to tell in a book, which was not this book, but the previous.

[A]

This is about a murder.

[B]

You got that right.

[A]

So how do we get from this bonkers liberal arts school in Vermont to Washington to sitting down and spending a lot of time with a murderer and then ultimately, what lands you in a courtroom in Seattle witnessing the murder trial of a 16 year old, now 18?

[B]

This is a long answer. Is that okay?

[C]

Oh, we love long answers.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

This is going to be six hours. I don't know if you were orange. The reason I ask is I love your writing.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

And I love your writing. Not just because the wordsmithery, 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 someone 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.

[B]

Thank you. Look, I think all of the journalism that I do is powered by confusion, edging into fear. People who are scary. My way of confronting that is not to run from it, but 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.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

They become then demystified. Brought down a little bit to we're all humans, we all have a logic for what we do, even if it's not obvious to others.

[A]

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. That's what's more interesting.

[B]

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 then. That was really frustrating. Like, monster that gives me nothing.

[A]

Yes. How does one become a monster? What do we do with a monster?

[C]

So it's a made up, fake thing, right?

[B]

It's a made up thing. He's not magic. Yeah, exactly. He's not some mythic figure, 19ft. He's a dude. So monster really bothered me, this idea. And I found it incredibly opaque. Not illuminating in any way. In fact, almost determinedly not illuminating.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

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 Poughkeepsie Journal. I had left that paper and was kind of unsure what I was gonna 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 the Hudson Valley who are New York Times readers. And New York Times recognize, 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 Poughkeepsie 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.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So my editor at the Times, you know what's going on up there this week?

[A]

What boring thing is happening?

[B]

Poughkeepsie was kind of known for weird news, freaky news.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

Yeah, There was a lot of weird. Like the Tawana Brawley story. You are too young. You. I'm old as hell. Okay? You're still younger than me.

[A]

I'm 50.

[B]

I don't know.

[A]

I'm 50.

[B]

You're younger than I. Oh, wow.

[A]

You look incredible. Congratulations.

[B]

Okay, so the Tawana Brawley story was. You can look it up, Fact check it.

[C]

Yeah, we will.

[B]

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. Get on that 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.

[C]

Uh huh.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They all were supporting drug habits, mostly crack. By walking Main street in Poughkeepsie.

[A]

Got it.

[B]

So they were street walkers supporting drug habits. And this is why maybe nobody was much looking at them. Dutchess 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 Poughkeepsie, which is kind of not that nice.

[A]

A little grittier, a lot. That's a euphemism. A lot.

[B]

Grittier, Lovely euphemism. I'm talking to these women's families. A guy turns 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.

[A]

Go.

[B]

And it's Dude's house. Where they have now found the bodies of eight women who have been in the home.

[A]

I hate to say you're lucky, but you've already done all the interviews with the family. The timing of this is insane.

[B]

Yes. I get in 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.

[C]

Oh, my God.

[A]

Was he living in there?

[B]

Yeah, with his mom and dad and teenage sister. No.

[A]

No.

[B]

So all this stuff comes out. So they're hoarders, like the whole ecosystem. The whole ecosystem of the house. Dead bodies kind of just blend into the general. What? Whoa.

[A]

Claudia.

[C]

Are they exposed or are they like.

[B]

No, there are five in the attic, three in the basement. Anyway. Wow. 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 amassing. 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?

[A]

He became kind of infatuated with finding out.

[B]

Not infatuated, that's the wrong word. That is the wrong word.

[A]

Okay. Cause that implies some kind of attraction, Right. I don't mean that.

[B]

I did get fixated on how does this happen? What makes this person.

[A]

This had to be answered.

[B]

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, pled guilty. He was initially at Dutchess 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. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what makes this person, Right. Like, who is this monster? Right? 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?

[C]

Yes.

[B]

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.

[A]

What's the name of it?

[B]

The Spider and the Fly.

[A]

The Spider and the Fly.

[B]

Who's the spider?

[C]

I just got chilled.

[A]

Yeah, that sounds wonderful.

[C]

Is there a movie?

[B]

It did get optioned.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Yeah, I was gonna say, but that expired her. Okay, okay.

[B]

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.

[A]

Can I ask quickly, is it pleasurable?

[B]

Utterly horrifying and terrifying to me. He was meant to. He was not charming serial killer like of the movies.

[A]

He was no Ted Bundy.

[B]

He was an asshole. Can I. Oh, God. Okay.

[A]

You can use all the words.

[B]

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.

[A]

Whatever you can say, 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.

[B]

Totes.

[A]

And he knew you were his entertainment.

[C]

While this is Silence of the Lambs, Right?

[B]

You're not the first person to make that observation.

[C]

We just had Anthony Hopkins on, right? He did, yeah.

[B]

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. 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.

[C]

This is so fascinating.

[B]

Well, it was also not that healthy.

[C]

Yeah, it sounds slippery. Very slippery.

[B]

Thus, I had to abscond to the Pacific Northwest. Yeah.

[A]

By the way, I love that story. You're like the trope in the cop movie where he's in too deep.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. Just like you lose yourself in this.

[B]

Story because it has something to do with what is the thing. Right. 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, yes, come and 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 state said, why don't you come here? So I was like, oh, Washington likes me. Okay, all right, love.

[A]

Who loves you back?

[B]

Went back to New York, put all my stuff in storage, got in the car. Don't know a soul in Washington. I'm driven out there, and I'm just gonna 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 Intelligencer, thinking, maybe I'll get some freelance work while I'm out here, while I'm wrestling with this monstrosity. Manuscript. Not person. And the Seattle PI Says, why don't you just come and be a staff reporter here full time? And I said, thank goodness, because I can't deal with this book. And I'm just gonna do that. And it was an interesting experience, and I'll just put it away and that's unfinished business. And that's that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So I'm a reporter at the PI 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.

[C]

Oh, boy.

[B]

And the paper folded. Husband was also at the paper. So now we're double unemployed with a baby on the way and his daughter. Well, what are we gonna 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 gonna finish it. And I did finish it and sold the book. And that was that. So that's the spider and the fly. And that came out in 2017.

[C]

Okay, I 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?

[B]

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 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.

[A]

Yeah. You left him.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

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 other distractions. The one nice thing about being an addict is you have a single mission in the day, which is like, stay high. You're not worried about all the other stuff. You get sober and you're like, oh, fuck. There's just all this other stuff I didn't have to think about. Cause I was only thinking about this one thing.

[C]

It's part of what the drug is doing is masking all the other stuff.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

You don't really want to think about.

[A]

Priority, which is in some weird way comforting.

[B]

I don't want to give away the end of the book, but there is a sort of. I circle back as an older person. Hey you. Hey me. And that becomes kind of the end of the book.

[C]

Oh my God, I can't wait to read this.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

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 interests. What is this? So I've done this book. I'm back in the newsroom now. I'm at the Seattle Times. Cause I'm in a different newsroom. I'm an education reporter. Kind of frustrated that the news thing is taking up all my headspace. I can't get any ideas. I'm exasperated. I wanna 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.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

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 gonna 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 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 had kind of come across my radar.

[A]

I was going to say, you must have heard about it when it had happened two years prior.

[B]

I knew when it had happened, but I was a good, dutiful 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.

[A]

And she's pled guilty to shooting a man in his car when she was 16 years old. He was 21 years old.

[B]

Correct. And she shot him in the head.

[A]

In his car, took his phone and.

[B]

His wallet, and on a cold winter's 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 her crying.

[A]

Can I add one detail? I think it's relevant. The judge was previously a real estate attorney who specializes 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've purposely delayed her trial so she'll be an adult.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

This is a lot on this dude's plate.

[B]

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.

[A]

I was gonna use the word rabid.

[B]

But continue somewhat I think she intimidated the judge who didn't wanna mess up, didn't wanna do anything wrong, didn't wanna do anything questionable. And so this teenage girl got a 19 year sentence. By the way, that's the new book, Wards 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 realized 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.

[A]

As they, quote, age out.

[B]

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.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

And even more shocking was that it seemed like nobody thought this was a thing. Nobody made a big deal of it. Yeah, there were some reports and yeah, some reporters wrote some stories, but it wasn't some, like, national issue.

[A]

And can I read a couple of those stats?

[B]

So sure, please.

[A]

Yeah. This is the foster care to prison pipeline. 25% of all inmates were in foster care.

[B]

20 to 25% of state prison inmates are believed to be alumni.

[A]

This wasn't in your book, but I learned this in a previous episode and I relooked it up. But 50% of homeless people spent time in foster care.

[B]

In my book, I'm a little more conservative. 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, say, in their mid-20s are alumni.

[A]

Which is which, if you drive around LA, the vast majority are below 30, I would say.

[B]

So they are very likely to be former foster youth.

[A]

Yes. And I wrote this down. This is a direct quote, so I know I'm gonna get this one right. A study of nearly 1,000 foster youth in the Midwest found that half left the system with criminal records records. And more than 30% were in prison for violent crime within a year of leaving statecare. Their post traumatic stress is nearly twice the rate of Iraq war veterans.

[B]

Wow.

[C]

I mean, yeah, I'm not surprised.

[A]

Stay tuned for more armchair Expert if you dare. We are supported by all states checking Allstate first could save you hundreds on car insurance. That's smart. Not checking the pockets of your jeans before doing laundry. Classic oversight. That mystery clunking 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 Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Potential savings vary, subject to terms, conditions and availability. Allstate North America Insurance Co and affiliates, Northbrook, Illinois. We are supported by HubSpot. Did you know that most businesses, Monica, only use 20% of their data?

[C]

That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out.

[A]

Yeah, or paying for a coffee that's 1/5 full.

[C]

Yuck.

[A]

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 hadn't really considered is, and this is a quote too, 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.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So just all these numbers right out of the gates.

[C]

Fuck.

[A]

I mean, if ever there's a smoking gun to a problem, let's even say it was 10% of the prison population or 5.

[B]

This is a system supposed to save kids, and these are the results.

[C]

Couldn't be worse.

[B]

So one reason the criminal record number is so high is that a lot of kids are in juvie, 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.

[A]

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.

[B]

Right. So you run. So this was Marianne, this first girl you run not necessarily because of abuse in your foster home. More often or 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 their tribe. They're looking for connection, right? 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 shoplift because you're hungry. And so you get picked up by the cops and you go to juvie. 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 juvie, 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.

[A]

Yeah. How do we end up shooting somebody? There has to be a lot of reasons.

[B]

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 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 nomenclature. 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 Kidd, who shot two guys, again, desperate, on the street, hungry.

[A]

But again, here's what I love about your book is, like, it would be very easy for you to just become a champion of Marianne and just explain how nothing's her fault, 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's got a bloody nose. When they arrive, the dad beats her. They've called Child Protective Services up. Teen Times.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

She's clearly in a bad, dangerous situation. She enters, she goes first with a friend of the dad. She's there with her, and then she's a lot to deal with. She's very clingy, I guess, which is so heartbreaking, right? And she gets returned.

[B]

Not returned to her dad, returned to the father. 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 Marianne 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 Marianne, kid doesn't know that. Kids don't know. But then they pretty quickly pick up because Marianne has moved to this friend of the dad's.

[A]

And even though, yeah, the friend of the dad's, when she finds out she's no longer living there, she gets picked up at school. The woman never says goodbye to her or, hey, I can't handle this. It's just, I'm here. I'm gonna take you to another stranger's place.

[B]

And she gets picked up at school. Social worker goes, hey, your stuff's in the car. Get in the car. This is really typical. The main thing about Marianne is the first thing I needed to find out is, is she some kind of aberration, some kind of extreme case or what?

[A]

Or she standard?

[B]

Not at all. I mean, not everyone is gonna 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 dads, can't deal. Then they take Maryanne 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 Marianne. 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.

[A]

It's like puppies in the.

[B]

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.

[A]

Annie.

[C]

Yeah, it's literally Annie. Literally.

[B]

And so by this point, Marianne 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 in 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 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.

[C]

They're her parents.

[B]

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, lease to own, right? Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

But here's where you don't gloss over how impossible it is to raise Marianne.

[B]

At this point, who has no idea, has never in her entire life been part of, like, a conventional family. Doesn't know about family. Dinner.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And she wants to eat in a room. Of course, they want to watch movies together as a family.

[B]

Weird about it.

[C]

Do they get training?

[B]

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.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

I also 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 mandatory as part of all this is like, she should have had to go a few times a week.

[B]

So she did have a lot of.

[A]

Counseling, but she did okay.

[B]

She hated all her therapists. 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 and lawyers change and foster parents change.

[C]

Why would they trust the therapist? They can't trust anything.

[A]

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 gonna work out and then you get jerked out without any warning. It's like eventually you'd be like, I know how this works.

[C]

I mean, the kids need therapy, but the parents should have mandatory therapy too.

[B]

Yes. And a social worker observed that because they pretty quickly, after about two years, even sooner than that, they're like, no, we gotta sever this adoption. We got to break this apart. She scared them.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

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 talked to me. I attempted many times to interview them. Not interested.

[A]

They're probably a bit ashamed that it.

[B]

I'm sure they didn't talk to the defense or the prosecution either. They basically hired a lawyer. Here are our files. We're done.

[A]

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.

[B]

Also a man.

[A]

Yeah. So both addicts, one physically abusive. Those are also her genetics.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

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.

[C]

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.

[A]

Love will heal all.

[B]

Yeah, it is like that. It's like it's all love.

[C]

It's a little bit of a savior complex.

[A]

I'm reading the book and I'm just feeling 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. It's like heartbreaking. And then you get into 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.

[C]

It's super duper.

[A]

You're very well intentioned.

[B]

Yes, 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 a legal adult. Goodbye. Or 21.

[A]

You have zero skills, right?

[B]

You have 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 gonna 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.

[A]

Also, these tiny things, like when they got her, one of the things that one of the concerned people called Marianne Protective Services 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 Marianne is like she loses her virginity at 13. Pretty soon thereafter she's sex trafficked.

[B]

So her adoptive 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 Maryann is just on her own on the street. Her adoptive 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, this is like a chronic fight or 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. Marianne is sort of glommed onto her. They do all this stuff together out on the street, they do all the stuff. And then there she is in the car with the dude on a cold winter's night.

[A]

She's 16 and living with her boyfriend.

[B]

Sort of, yeah, and sort of on the run intermittently back at the foster parents home. But when you go, when you take off from your placement, the stake goes, okay, we need that bed for someone else. So if you wanna come back, you can't come back.

[A]

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.

[B]

Though she barely knows the guy, she's with him like one time and they drive around, he seems nice and cool.

[A]

He lets her hold his gun. She posts a picture of herself on Facebook holding the gun and mugging for the camera, which becomes part of the trial. As if this is some kind of pattern of hers.

[B]

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.

[A]

That's the prosecution's theory? No.

[B]

Well, the defense has a couple of stories. And that was part of the reason that this sentencing hearing kept getting continued. Cause 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.

[A]

What do you think?

[B]

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 to this 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 other stuff. And she doesn't want it to be happening anymore.

[A]

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 coital, he's a fucking asshole. He got what he wanted.

[B]

Or in the middle of it, or whatever.

[A]

Yeah, whatever.

[C]

Anyway, once he's getting what he wants.

[B]

Yes, whatever happened, eventually it's over. There is a condom, like on the street.

[A]

A red condom?

[B]

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?

[C]

Right.

[B]

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. Not 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.

[C]

Oh, wow.

[A]

She's also in the middle of nowhere. Sixteen 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 picture a 16 year old girl dealing with what just happened in that car. She got fucked by Duchee Nwanu and then she shot him in the head and now she's wandering the street.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, fuck.

[C]

This is also someone who was abused by their father too. So the trauma.

[B]

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 she has had sex with dudes and I don't think she wanted to. Prostitution, 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?

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

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.

[A]

Yeah, life is valueless. Who gives a fuck when that's your life? It's a dystopian it's like life doesn't have a ton of value. You're not experiencing the great side of people and having these lovely, wonderful, loving connections. It's not even the same value that I would have.

[B]

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 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, a goal and how to get there step by step is really foreign.

[C]

No, it's minute to minute survival.

[A]

Claudia I did this show where we drove around and 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, 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.

[B]

A little and say, look, this book has some pretty hard. 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 Marianne. Arthur Longworth too.

[A]

Arthur's interesting, right?

[B]

Arthur is true.

[A]

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.

[B]

She's not at all capable of that.

[A]

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 the experience.

[B]

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 a 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.

[A]

And he even kind of started a little group of other foster kids in.

[B]

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?

[A]

I find myself back.

[B]

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 manipulator? Is he a sociopath? No, I don't think so.

[C]

What was he in prison for?

[B]

First degree murder.

[C]

Okay.

[B]

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 was really, really cold.

[C]

Wow.

[B]

So, Art. Yes. 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 this 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.

[A]

We haven't even gotten into addiction numbers, but they have to be astronomical.

[B]

They're astronomical. And poverty across the Board people will hear this podcast and be like, you're not being fair. And broad brush and too dark of a picture. Okay. There might be better outcomes for some people when they are taken into the system much younger as babies 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 you're 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 Marianne 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 to despite that. I'm gonna 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.

[A]

That doesn't mean you need to leap into conspiracy theory that, like, there's all some big cabal.

[B]

Oh, not at all.

[A]

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.

[B]

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, you know, 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 a lawyer, you're a foster parent, you're social worker, your therapist, everyone's different.

[A]

Your CASA advocate, your mom is casa.

[B]

Oh, good job.

[A]

How'd you know that?

[B]

Reporter 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 healthy brain development. So that is the thing, like an inherent problem built into it. So people go, claudia, what should happen here? I'm not a policymaker, I'm not an advocate, just a writer. But I do have a thought or two.

[C]

Yeah, please tell me.

[A]

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.

[B]

There are people saying that. There are people saying the opposite.

[A]

I know when my mom was a CASA person, she said the priority is to get the kids with their family.

[B]

Regardless of what's up with the family.

[A]

Sometimes in my mom saw all these. I mean, like, there couldn't be a harder situation. Society. I mean, you're talking about leaving a kid in a house where they're going to get molested or beaten or maybe killed.

[B]

F 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.

[A]

Kid'S admission form, Right?

[B]

So neglect can look a lot like poverty. Kid shows up at school in the same dirty clothes for two weeks or never has food at lunchtime and a teacher is gonna make a phone call or kid Is left at daycare. Parents never show up. Somebody's going to make a phone call to cps. What's up with this kid's family?

[A]

If you visit the house and there's three little kids and no parents around.

[B]

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, basic 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.

[A]

Really quick, I don't say the number because no one would know it off the top of their head, but there's 400,000 kids in foster right now, which.

[B]

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 for 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. All these people that they don't connect with because they can't connect because they're gonna 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. It needs to be a rehabilitative system and not like psychotropic drug cocktails, which is what we do. So Marianne and most of the kids in the book have been drugged since they were little kids with this combination of antipsychotics and antidepressants and drugs to sleep. Sleep and anti anxiety. And these drugs were never designed for use on children. And children are taking four or five a cocktail and that's the healing. Okay, so no.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

And then they go and they sell drugs and people are like, oh, put them in jail. It's like what they've been.

[B]

Also, then you're 18 and you're cut off and you don't have your meds anymore, maybe.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

You need it.

[A]

Yeah, 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 what homelessness in 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 Hogboard. 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 fortune doing it. And that is going to save us money downriver. This would 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?

[B]

It's not flawed. And so one thing that has 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 has 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 Marianne, who got this chance. I don't wanna 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.

[A]

Falls in love with an inmate immediately. Eleven years older than her, two doors.

[B]

Down in prison, she gets this reprieve. 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 wanna say then what happened, cause that is a spoiler. But I will pivot to another person in the book.

[C]

Who?

[B]

His name is Jay. He's 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. This is a 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 gonna 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, that's it.

[A]

Get them off our Desk.

[B]

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. 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 could go this way. That's it. It's not a 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. This is a kid no one thought would graduate high school. He's now a professor on a tenure track.

[A]

He was already violent.

[B]

He had been.

[C]

And he was able to course.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

You're saying it's a possibility.

[B]

It could happen. It can happen. Will it happen with every single kid?

[C]

What are you going to do? Say no to everyone? Because it's not going to work for every single. I hate that.

[B]

Right, right. If it doesn't pencil out, don't bother.

[A]

If it worked for 10% of the kids.

[B]

Right. I'll take it.

[A]

It's like, hey, he's only 32% successful. But relative to what?

[B]

Right.

[A]

Zero percent is successful. So it's pretty fucking good.

[C]

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.

[B]

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. Like, do you want that exactly there?

[A]

Exactly.

[C]

No.

[A]

Yeah, because I'll add, and this is again, the thing I appreciated is like, you're not trying to paint a rosy picture of Marianne. She had wreckage. She gets into jail, first thing she does is clog her toilet and flood the place with piss. And she beat some girl up that was pregnant violently. I mean, she's a handful. It's not like this is easy.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

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, just 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 on the floor.

[B]

She's a handful, but people can change.

[A]

I know. Yeah.

[C]

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.

[B]

Yes. Now look, I'm not a psychiatric professional. I guess that some people maybe have inborn psychopathy.

[A]

Right, of course.

[B]

But this is a minuscule percentage.

[A]

Yes. Almost not worth talking about.

[B]

What's your setup? What's your genetics? Okay. But I saw her change. Something's happened that maybe that change is in flux. But I saw her change. I definitely know that Jade changed. People can change.

[C]

Yeah. Oh, man.

[A]

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.

[B]

Incredible.

[A]

Unbelievable.

[B]

He was crying when they said, yes, you're a doctor.

[C]

Oh my.

[B]

I was crying.

[C]

It was amazing. Oh, how beautiful.

[B]

It was beautiful.

[A]

Well, okay, I'm co signing on your. 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 gotta reward them with like a lottery ticket. It's just so unfair. They deserve then the complete opposite to right size.

[B]

The ship and the drug thing is pretty weird. Basically we're managing them by drugging them.

[A]

It's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

[B]

It's pretty creepy.

[C]

But then being mad that they're drug.

[A]

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 think anyone's evil. You're in a bunch of terrible situations. You're picking between lesser of terrible options. And maybe the medication is the best of the lesser options.

[B]

That is what this book is saying. There's not some villain.

[A]

No.

[B]

It is merely the structure of a system that is not aligned to what we know. Humans need to be healthy.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

We had a systems expert on once and he said the simplest oh, cami razor thing is like whatever results you're seeing of the system, that is what the system Produces.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

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.

[B]

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 step. 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.

[C]

3.

[B]

59% versus 3%. These are the outcomes.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

This is what the system produces. Oh, man.

[B]

Back to the beginning. Like, this is not a secret. People know these numbers and everyone's like, nobody's that worked up about it. I guess I got worked up.

[C]

But yeah, but we have all these psychologists writing all these books on mental. Mental development. We know all this information. They're out there talking about it, and yet we're applying it where?

[A]

Well, if you're rich.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

You get all that help and spending.

[B]

$31 billion every year for these outcomes.

[A]

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 collar. Addiction's addiction. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. All these things. They have no respect for a 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 situations? They are, other than the neglect.

[B]

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.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

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's 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.

[A]

In the first place, and 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.

[B]

Right. So this is what I mean. Like, is it a, a perfect solution? Not necessarily. It is surely better than moving the kid among strangers for years.

[A]

Yes, this is. We already talked about it. But yes, this notion that we're gonna wait for a perfect solution is not it. We gotta be happy with some improvements and we have to have an appetite for the downside we discover.

[C]

And for saying, this worked, this didn't work. I think we get. So we need some experience. Oh, we did it and now it's too late. It's like, you can change it if we see that doesn't work.

[A]

Well, you have kids and I have kids. And 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's. You don't make out the window. You get brought from home, 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. 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 and generosity, well, guess what, you don't show it back. You're like, no, no, I get it. I gotta 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.

[B]

He would absolutely say yes.

[A]

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.

[B]

So 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.

[A]

Yeah, it's not as innate as we'd like to believe.

[B]

He always says empathy is learned. And I wonder. I look at my own kids and I felt like I saw empathy very, very, very early.

[A]

Yes, I do think any social animal has empathy. You have to coexist in a organization.

[B]

And he did for his sister.

[A]

I think you can lose it.

[C]

I think it's practice.

[A]

Yes. Because, again, the whole reason it has it is for group cohesion. And if there is no group cohesion in your life, there's nothing for you to protect.

[B]

Somehow he kind of got it back.

[A]

Well, I think the group in the prison with the other foster kids, though.

[B]

They'Re no longer kids by this point.

[A]

I think that's what happens in an AA meeting. You're, like, looking around at all these people that you have a lot in common with, and you start going, huh, this is so interesting. Why do we have this in common? What's the overlap? There's a ton.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

Well, Claudia, I love the book. It's gritty. It's an unflinching look at the reality of all the things that were happening.

[B]

Thank you.

[A]

Yeah, it's great. I love it.

[C]

Awesome.

[A]

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, damn. So we gotta do something, you know? Yeah.

[B]

Thanks for reading.

[A]

Yeah. I loved it. I love it.

[C]

Coming on.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Great.

[A]

I can't wait for you to come back with your next book.

[B]

I have some ideas.

[A]

Okay, 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.

[B]

Why?

[A]

I just got my new lenses that have my FAR prescription up top. Top transitions, they call it.

[C]

Oh, sure. Yes.

[A]

And then my nearsightedness down here. I've never had the top. I feel like I'm Looking at through binoculars, I can see every pore on your face.

[C]

Great. My favorite thing. So happy to hear that.

[A]

I'm totally teasing. I cannot see your pores. That's just a. An example one would give if they could see perfectly.

[C]

Okay, I just want to apologize to everyone because we did an armchair 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. It's 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.

[A]

Didn'T happen, even though physics would say anything's possible. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

My friend Sally, she voice memo'd me the other day and she said, sally from Argent. Sally, who owns the amazing suit company Argent.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Very successful. Very smart woman.

[A]

Smart woman. A successful woman. So get in line, folks.

[C]

That's right. Well, don't. She is married and has children.

[A]

Oh, okay.

[C]

But get in line to buy her stuff. She left 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. Puts that on there with some honey and vanilla or something. And then. I know. And she layers that up. Yeah, she. She sometimes makes this for the kid, she says. And 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.

[A]

Okay. Well, you know, I have been laughing about it thus far. I know it stayed with you. Really? It was really strong. It's. It's a big one for you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I had made a water in the gym.

[C]

Oh, boy.

[A]

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. I went and I had another sip of it.

[B]

No.

[A]

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.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

Yes. And I was like, how could I even entertain this? Like, it was up so high on a rack. There's no way a mouse could have got up there.

[C]

Of course they can.

[A]

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 now, the minute I taste something funky in water, I now do things. Think, oh, there's a mouse inside. There's a mouse in this house.

[C]

I hate to tell you. A mouse went in there, swam around for a while and then came out, just took a nice lid, he opened the lid.

[A]

Conscientious.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, we are as a. As a group. Mice are conscientious and hard working and good at covering our tracks. So I feel like that mouse opened that lid, went in there, did a.

[A]

Swim, took a bath.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Bathed.

[C]

Yeah. Well, yeah.

[A]

And then clean mice. They're clean. They're cleaner than you think.

[C]

Heard you coming. I was like, oh, my God, Texas ran up and closed it and. And you drank it.

[A]

And now I have bubonic plague. Should we make water bottles with fake. Right.

[B]

Mice in them? Oh, wow.

[A]

No, I like a mice mouse ice cube thing.

[C]

Oh, that's cute, actually.

[A]

Or just a toy one that floats in there.

[C]

I think we might get sued choking wise. I guess it could be huge.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Can't fit out the hole.

[A]

You'd be surprised what you can show.

[C]

Oh, what you can sue.

[A]

Yeah, I just heard a story about someone. I'm afraid to tell him.

[C]

Oh, what?

[A]

Well, just someone sat on the hot bar at. At a Whole Foods and they burnt themselves and then they sued Whole Foods and now they're the reason there's a sign. And I said to my kids, that's. I said, what's to say? You pick up the tongs and slam them into your eyeball. Well, we gotta have signs on the tongs. Don't slam these into your eyeball.

[B]

Wait, I don't like this story.

[C]

On the hot bar.

[A]

Yes. And got burned.

[C]

Why did they ew.

[A]

Also that it was a childish old enough child that I, you know, I.

[C]

Have to say something that is so disgusting that someone's butt was on the hot bar.

[A]

I think they were clothed.

[C]

I don't care. But farted in their pants and put their pants on the hot bar.

[A]

I know. Yeah, maybe. Hopefully she sued them.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

Yeah. It might have been Gelson's. I'm not sure. So don't sue me if you're either of those stores. But apparently this happened.

[C]

It could have been Lazy Acres.

[A]

My kids were thrilled by this. This story. And I was like, this is not a good story. This people shouldn't be suing companies for sitting on top of a hot bar.

[C]

Did the kids think like, yeah, stick it to the man, I guess.

[A]

Oh, I don't know. They just probably excited someone they knew had a story that involved changing a policy at a grocery store.

[C]

Was it one of their friends who sat on the hot bar?

[A]

It was, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or one of their friends, sisters or something. I don't know.

[C]

Oh, my God, don't. Please don't sit on the hot bar.

[A]

Yeah, that's.

[C]

I feel bad because I'd like a buffet. In theory. I used to like them a lot. We know you love a buffet.

[A]

Love.

[C]

And it's getting the older I get, the more I resist open food situation.

[A]

Because of. You're afraid of.

[C]

I'm just like, ew, like too many people breathing on it. Like, I just don't trust people.

[A]

Sure.

[C]

Anymore.

[A]

That's why these salad bars often they have such a restrictive plexiglas 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.

[C]

You want that?

[A]

Yeah, I want to. I want it wide open so I can operate.

[C]

Oh, no.

[A]

But you know me, I'm a risk taker. I'm an adrenaline junkie.

[C]

You also have Jeremy's stuff. You have weird stuff. Weird stuff. Not very much. I guess you just don't like fish.

[A]

Yeah, I think you're confusing fish and germs. 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.

[C]

Okay, well, I disagree. I don't think you have to get listeria.

[B]

And.

[C]

And you actually. You don't. You do not.

[A]

Listeria wouldn't be born from the people coughing on them. No, that's. That's coming from the field. Yes.

[C]

So that's.

[A]

I don't want listeria.

[C]

Right. But we're trusting that whoever put that huge vat of lettuce cleaned the lettuce.

[A]

Yes, but. Okay, this will be a very unpopular opinion and people be mad about it, but it's like when we have friends that are like, they were gonna 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 gonna get it today or we're gonna get it in four days. We live in la, our kids go to a schools. I'm gonna get everything. So all I'm doing is picking what, what time I think is most convenient for me to get a cold.

[C]

Yes, I totally disagree with you. Yes. Yeah. I often avoid many sicknesses by just not seeing the person that's sick.

[A]

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 gonna get because they're gonna be at school with other kids that have it. So 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.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

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 kids school, or it certainly will be by Tuesday and then they're gonna bring it home to me. It's like, it's just all we're talking about is timeline.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But sometimes timeline makes a difference. Like if you have a huge thing at work or you have something big and you don't, you're like, I'm not. I don't want that.

[A]

Right.

[C]

For that.

[A]

I want it on the weekend.

[C]

I'd rather. If I have to get it, I got to get a different time.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

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. They're such a mind. Because the best possible things are happening there and the worst possible things.

[A]

Sure. Life is coming into the world and.

[C]

Life is leaving simultaneously.

[A]

Circle of life is in that city in one building. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

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 what? And it was like at night and I was 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 it was kind of a new realization. And maybe it's newer the older I get and where I know, like, oh, death is upon us.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

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.

[B]

That.

[C]

I don't know if that was like a lie to myself, but I was happy.

[A]

Do you find that you lie in your journal a lot?

[C]

No.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Well, I don't know.

[A]

Sure.

[C]

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, I'm doing. But I.

[A]

But are you writing down takeaways that you wish were your takeaways versus what they really were?

[C]

No. Like, yesterday I wrote, am I depressed or do I have an infection? That was in my notes section.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

No, I think I'm pretty honest in there.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Anyway, so I 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.

[A]

They're truly a special breed. They're the best we've got.

[C]

They really are. And, and, and we're so lucky, like, to have them.

[B]

It's true.

[C]

And like the NICU nurses and stuff.

[A]

Because at least the doctors, you're like, oh, the doctors are rich.

[C]

Exactly.

[A]

But the nurses aren't rich.

[B]

And.

[A]

And you're like, God bless.

[C]

The nurses are doing the dirty work.

[A]

95 of everything.

[C]

Yeah, they're doing most of the work and all the dirty work.

[A]

Oh, yeah, yeah. And the thankless.

[C]

The thankless work. And they're. They're so smiley in that the patients.

[A]

Are often quite cranky. They're in their worst mood. They're likely to be in their whole life.

[C]

I know. So I was so.

[A]

They're amazing. I mean, truly, I'm not pandering to anyone. They're fucking mind blowing.

[C]

And they're, you know, one of the night nurses my friend was talking to, and I was like, why. Why do you do the night shift? You know, they were 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?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And she was like, well, I nap when my kid. Basically, I nap on my kidnaps. 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.

[A]

I wish my dad 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 things where it's like, I showed up, and he was at war with the entire nurse staff.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

Because, 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 his diaper. Like, I think that's. That's what happened. But it is, like, delirium.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

It was this crazy event that happened.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

But used to that, because, like, a lot of patients with dementia, like, my grandfather, too, like, you know.

[A]

Well, after that, I start. Every time I came, I brought flowers for the nurses, and I would say to them, thank you for your patience with my dad. I was afraid he was gonna get kicked out. I'm like, he needs to be like. Like, bud, you bet. If you get kicked out of here, what the they're not back to the hospital thing? This is a brag. I do think my superpower as a person. I just isolated this recently because I was going to see a friend that's very ill, and Kristen was like. As I was leaving, she's like, in some way, like, you know, oh, this will be hard. You know, good luck kind of thing. And I said, oh, I'm gonna 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 gonna have a blast here. And I've been in the hospital quite a bit in 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 Lincoln and Kristen went to a funeral in Toledo. And 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 funerals 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 this funeral. Yeah. Halfway through, they bounced and went 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 they can turn into a party.

[C]

Right.

[A]

I do not sell you on this.

[C]

I think that's right. That you. I think you do do that. I think you can do that and you do do that.

[A]

And it's like my one skill. I can't fix anything that's going on with these things, 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. 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.

[C]

Sure, yeah, that's true. I mean, for the person that's like sick, that's a huge gift.

[A]

Unless they're like, hey, why are you so goddamn happy, man? I'm fucking dying. I guess it could go that way. Well, it's not time for jokes, my friend.

[C]

Depends on who it is. Everyone's different. I think if you're sick, you want lightness. Probably. Mostly. So that's probably good to have you around.

[B]

I think.

[C]

The flip of that coin. Cause all superpowers have a dark side. Have a dark side.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Double edged sword in some ways. I think that there's a compartmentalization that you have to do to do that.

[B]

Right.

[C]

You have to be like. Like, that part's not here.

[A]

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.

[B]

Right.

[A]

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, 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, 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 then maybe even feeling inclined to have to comfort all these people. And so, yeah, I wanna, I wanna, I want to be like, we have limited time to party, let's do it.

[C]

No, no, I don't mean for the person. I mean for like, for me.

[A]

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. Host everything.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

You know. Yeah. With Barton, it Wasn't till I got on an airplane to fly to Detroit, where I was like, oh, my God, 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.

[C]

Yeah, I, I, I don't mean. Yeah, I, 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.

[A]

Can't spell funeral without fawn nephew and.

[C]

Sure, that part.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

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.

[A]

Oh, sure, yeah. I don't, I don't, I, I don't think most people are like me in that way for sure.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, this is borderline a saccharine 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 howitzer, 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. 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 gonna do this whole thing, right? And now it's getting really intense. Like, it's also that the air is incredible. Like, it was 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, they're playing the bagpipe.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And I'm like, wow, this is crazy real. Like, how am I standing here?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

And then after the, where 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 in, they go, okay, guys, you are up. Go, go into 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. I mean, this is. These guys are, like, 30 minutes out from being ambushed.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

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. 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's quite up. And without missing a beat, Tom Arnold stepped up. He's like, hey, buddy, where you from?

[B]

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[A]

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 up a little bit.

[C]

That's nice.

[A]

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.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

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.

[C]

Yeah. That's amazing.

[A]

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, 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.

[C]

That's huge.

[A]

It was incredible.

[C]

Yeah, that's incredible. I think that's great. If you can give someone that.

[A]

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.

[C]

Oh, yeah?

[A]

Yeah. I showed Lincoln your favorite movie. I know you just heard that in a previous interview.

[C]

Yes. Top five. Ocean's 11.

[A]

Ocean's 11.

[C]

So good. What'd she think?

[A]

So she loved it. It's so clever.

[C]

It is.

[A]

It's so clever. What a screenplay.

[C]

It's so fun and smart, like you are trying to fit, like, you. The way it all comes together in the end.

[A]

Danny Ocean's very clever.

[C]

Very clever.

[A]

It was fun for her, too, because I think she's only been seeing Brad Pitt at his current age.

[C]

Yes.

[A]

And for her, not me. He's a very old man.

[C]

That's Wild.

[A]

You know, when you're 12, a 62 year old man is quite old.

[B]

Old. Yeah.

[A]

So seeing him at whatever he was in that movie, I think it was 2001, he was probably, I don't know, 40 or something, but he looked probably 35.

[C]

Yeah, he looks youthful looking.

[A]

And she was like, she was getting it. She's like, oh my God, he's so cute.

[C]

Cast. Oh my God.

[A]

I know everyone.

[C]

I heard they're doing another one with the original cast. I don't know if that's a rumor.

[A]

But I hope they bring them all. But everyone is so good in it. Casey is so funny in that movie. Cheadle's incredible, Damon's. They're all fucking phenomenal.

[C]

I know. What a movie.

[A]

And no women.

[C]

One woman. One woman. Julia Roberts.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Biggest movie star of all time.

[A]

Yeah. And she has a few scenes.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But it's just funny because as this already came up in this interview we just did. 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 that were.

[C]

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 do specifically daughters, to be able to like see the injustices for women.

[A]

But you just said we knew. But do you think that's true? Because like, like Kristen will be the first. Like when you were watching Ocean's Eleven, were you thinking there's no women or were you just enjoying the movie?

[C]

No, I was enjoying.

[A]

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 noticed because it's all that existed.

[C]

Well, no, you know, like. No, you enjoy 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.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

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, this is limited. Or there's two tropes only.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Like when you were 14 and watching that. Or like Beverly Hills Cop.

[C]

Yeah. But I didn't see that.

[A]

Yeah. Just zero much of these movies that were huge.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

I Didn't notice.

[C]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Because that's just what a movie was.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Written by men, geared toward men.

[A]

Yeah. It's men writing stories that interest them which are going to be adventury. Conquer, you know?

[C]

Yeah. But I also think men, now that things have changed to an extent and are changing, it. I. Men still enjoy those.

[B]

It's changed. Just.

[C]

You know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I think we've all. Yeah. Now you're like, duh.

[C]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

I'm having the. That fun dissonance of like, having grown up without ever thinking of anything. And then, you know, and this is just this. This goes for a bunch of things.

[C]

Totally. Yeah. It's pretty weird.

[A]

You know, you watch movies with. From the 80s with your kids and it's just like. 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, Revenge of the Nerds. It's like they. They rape a girl. It was a huge hit movie.

[C]

I know.

[A]

And you're like, oh, but they're nerds. You feel bad for them. Like, it's insane.

[C]

I know.

[A]

You watch it now, it's just like, wow. I just don't understand how that wasn't obvious to me back then.

[B]

It is.

[C]

It is so. It is crazy how time moves.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And society moves and 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 it and be like, oh, my God, they were saying that they were doing that. They.

[A]

Yeah, that's inevitable.

[C]

Evolved, you know, And I think they'll always be a great group. That's like, what. We should be allowed to do that. We should. But it's like, we gotta keep evolving.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[C]

It's interesting.

[A]

Tis.

[C]

T is okay. Oh, I also wrote, dude, do you think Asians have a resistance to water? Could they. How much water does.

[A]

You know me, I like to. I know Asians have a resistance to lactose.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

It says there's no biological resistance or genetic inability for Asian. And. Oh, this is confusing. To swim or float in water. That's not what I'm asking.

[A]

Yeah, there's no. Nobody's allergic to water.

[C]

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.

[A]

No, there are some nobodies. There are some nobodies. There's no human that's allergic to oxygen.

[C]

Well, there probably is. And then they die.

[A]

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. Okay. I mean, there are some things, you know, humans will die if they're left in a room. It's 200 degrees. We have some limits that. That doesn't. No one is excused from. So, yeah, we need water. All.

[B]

All.

[C]

We need water.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And nobody's allergic to water. Water.

[C]

I didn't. Okay, but do you. Do. Don't you think some bodies could process things differently and you might not know?

[A]

So, yes, people have different salinity counts, baseline salinity counts, like how well they process and. Or hold on 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 population's differing. So that's salinity count.

[C]

Ding. Because then certain populations have a high salinity count. They might not need as much water, and then they might be, like, full off of water.

[A]

Well, no. So we. I agree with you. All I don't agree with you. Is that anyone would not need water.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Well, not. Not need at all.

[A]

Just different levels.

[C]

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.

[A]

Mostly white people love water.

[C]

Is that it's not all white people.

[A]

It's not all whites.

[C]

It's not all whites.

[A]

I think it's socioeconomic to some degree. I would love to see a graph of socioeconomics and water intake.

[C]

Why that's interesting because I think rich.

[A]

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 a. An obsession with water.

[C]

Drinking water. Oh, yeah, that's probably true. I just mean the way my body feels. Like 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, you know, and then I'll start, and then I'm halfway through the cup and I'm. I'M full of water. Like, it is not. I'm not. I'm. It's not an exaggeration. It's not like I'm like, I'm full.

[A]

Sure. Yeah. You're a maximum water.

[C]

I don't want my. My cup in my body.

[A]

My cup is full.

[B]

Is full.

[C]

And it will runneth over. It will runneth over. And it's uncomfortable for me because, you know, at night I drink a ton of water because my vitamins. Vitamins. So I'm just, like, drinking as much water and I'm uncomfortable for at least 20 to 30 minutes.

[A]

Wow.

[C]

So I could be a medical marvel.

[A]

The only thing I would offer as a counterpoint to all this is that I do think you should be peeing more often.

[C]

Yeah. But then since I've been drinking more water because of my planner, I've been peeing more.

[A]

Yeah. And you're gonna be less likely to get a uti.

[C]

Well, that's why I was doing it, because I was like, I think I'm getting an infection, so I need to.

[A]

I think there is a baseline of what we would say is healthy amount of urination.

[C]

How many peas?

[A]

And when you check into a. A hospital, they do ask, when's the last time you peed? Like, peeing is a big marker of.

[C]

I pee at least once a day.

[A]

Oh, boy. I peed three times that in just the night.

[C]

Well, now I sleeping. I know. Well, now I have. You know, you get it in your head. And then now I wake up at the night, I'm like, I got to pee. And then I don't. But I make myself. Okay. How many peas a day is normal?

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Six to eight times for adults.

[B]

Yeah, that's.

[A]

You're way under that.

[C]

Okay, but it says. But four to 10 times can be considered healthy.

[A]

Is it one in there at all?

[C]

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.

[A]

Three times. Can you find three on that chart?

[C]

But I. I probably pee four times a day. Let's see. Today I just peed.

[A]

Congrats.

[B]

But.

[A]

But by the way, this is new. You and I have worked together for almost eight years now, and there seven and a half of those years, you did not pee at all during the day. Yeah, well, true.

[C]

Maybe I only peed once on set when I was on set that day.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And I was there 13 hours.

[A]

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.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

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.

[C]

That's why you broke the seal. I never break the seal.

[A]

Yeah. You like it?

[C]

I think I like it. Minus the occasional infection.

[A]

Sure, sure, sure. Now, when I'm driving, I can alter that a bit. When I'm driving. Driving.

[C]

See, I think.

[A]

But I also pee in cups while I drive, as you know.

[C]

Right. But not ever. You don't pee, like, eight times in a cup?

[A]

When I'm driving for 16 hours straight.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Which I do often. I will make it the first, like, seven hours without peeing and. But by the time I pee, I'm in. 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.

[C]

Right. You broke the seal.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So I. Now, my theory is peeing is mental. I feel like. Like mental. A mental game. We probably only need to pee three to four times.

[A]

Well, I think you just read the six times.

[C]

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 brain. Coward. Like, what is it?

[A]

Mind over man?

[C]

Ye. Mind over matter.

[A]

Mind over bladder and.

[C]

Yeah. Yeah, it's mind over bladder. And I.

[A]

A lot of physicians will warn about holding pee. It can get.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

I'm gonna get in trouble for this because it is. It's like, you know, it's not great.

[A]

Advice to drink less water and pee less.

[C]

My mom's always. She's so worried about my pee.

[A]

Yeah. Because she thinks about it all the time.

[C]

She does.

[A]

I bet a few times a day. She thinks about your pee.

[C]

Yeah. Because it's weird to think it's. God, I feel bad for her. You know, when we were in India when I was 4, I had this, like, horrible bladder infection.

[A]

She didn't want to use any of the bathrooms.

[C]

I don't know why.

[A]

You told me.

[C]

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.

[A]

You look like everyone. You could get mixed up. I Still didn't stand out.

[C]

Kidnapping. Yeah. And I already had a fear of that, as we know know. So then, you know, they were like, force making me drink coconut water from the coconut. Oh, cool.

[A]

Nature's hydrating.

[C]

Sounds cool now. It wasn't cool then.

[A]

I just think it's cool that nature was provided. Provided.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Me too.

[B]

Also.

[C]

It is cool now. I would love to drink.

[A]

Yeah. They say it's very hydrating. Coconut oil.

[C]

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. And my poor mom is just, like, trying to cure my infection. I feel bad. I'm not going to tell her.

[A]

You're not going to apologize?

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

I hope this gets back to her. Moms have that tough.

[A]

I call my mom probably once every eight months to apologize and apologize for something that I'm now dealing with with my own kids.

[C]

Yeah, well, your mom was.

[A]

I mean, that spring break was the. That was the biggest wakeup call of my life.

[C]

Was like, oh, when you took them on your own.

[A]

Yeah. Is like they were fighting the whole time. I was like, God, man. She had a third one in the mix that was fighting. And she couldn't afford the vacation we were on. I don't know how she handled the stress. And my brother and I fist fought. Like, the fights were, you know, they were scary, probably. Yeah. I mean, we'd be in the back seat. Like, there's two lions in the back seat going at it, you know, seat belts off, wrestling around, and she's trying to, like, read a match map.

[C]

Oh, paper map. Exactly. And doesn't have any gas in the car.

[A]

Running on fumes.

[C]

Running on fumes. Oh, yeah. That's hard.

[A]

God bless moms, nurses and moms. This fact check was dedicated to.

[C]

Brought to you by nurses and moms. Okay, let's do some facts.

[A]

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.

[C]

Yeah. I say Claudia.

[A]

Yeah. I think Claudia would prefer you.

[C]

I agree, because I think that's how you say it.

[A]

And you probably say row, but I say Rowee. Oh, I say Claudia. ROWI Yeah, but it's really Claudia. Row.

[C]

It is.

[B]

Yeah, it is.

[A]

First fact.

[C]

I loved this episode.

[A]

Yeah. I've been repeating for me the most salient point that was made in the entire thing is that poverty looks a lot like neglect.

[C]

Exactly. 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.

[A]

They're hungry sometimes.

[C]

Exactly. Or they're not good parents or what. What are. And like, doesn't matter.

[A]

The other option is worse.

[C]

The other option is worse.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And it's. Yeah. That really, 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.

[A]

I even observed something this morning, weirdly that made me think of it as I was walking Delta into school and then there was a kid dressed in their pajamas. And they do have pajama days some days, right?

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

But no one else was in pajamas. And then this teacher was asking the students, student. And then I just had again this thought, like maybe she didn't have someone that got her, got her, helped her get dressed or. And I don't know that that's the scenario. Maybe she thought it was pajama dating.

[C]

Maybe she just wanted to wear.

[A]

The teacher was concerned.

[C]

Right.

[A]

And then I was a little bit like, that's how this, this ball gets rolling. I know. And it's well intentioned, but also.

[C]

But bad.

[A]

It's not necessarily the alcohol. Home is not better.

[C]

It's really, it's very hard to like, to accept.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Because I understand the impulse, like, well, we gotta 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.

[A]

Right. You gotta go like, oh, they're, they clearly haven't bathed in a long time and they're in the same clothes six days 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.

[C]

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. Ruined it.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

And you started this cycle and now that kid is traumatized and probably, probably will do something that confirms that you think this system is bad.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And it's like, don't do that and.

[A]

Then look, there's gonna be some percentage that are getting sexually abused and physically abused and they can't be there.

[C]

Of course.

[A]

And then in that case, it's like we need a great place for those kids to go.

[C]

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 Hogwarts.

[A]

I mean I can't afford to build the Hogwarts, but I. I could probably. Yes. Help get a Hogwarts built.

[C]

I'll teach there. I'll teach.

[A]

What classes are you gonna.

[C]

Dark art.

[B]

Dark.

[C]

Yeah. And then I'll side Like, I'll. It'll probably be hard at first to get good teacher. So I can do multiple subjects.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

So I'll do dark arts. And then I will do transfiguration. Okay, that's exciting. O not interested in teaching herbology. So don't ask me to do that.

[A]

I won't.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I'm gonna teach mischief.

[C]

Yeah, sure, sure.

[A]

Right. Dosage of mischief that everyone should have in their life.

[C]

I understand. Anywho. Okay, let's see. So. Oh, 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. So very Trinity High School where she went and she was like alluding to the fact that it's fancy.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Which wasn't for her. I looked up prestigious schools in New York City, but top contenders consistently mentioned for academic rigor, history and elite college placement Ivy League plus include Horace Mann School, Brearley School, which is girls. Trinity School.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

Dalton School, Collegiate School, boys.

[A]

They sound fancy.

[C]

They really do.

[A]

Yeah, they delete, deliver.

[C]

Spence School girls and Chap. And I'm probably saying that wrong because I didn't go to any of these.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

School girls.

[A]

That's the first test to admit you to the school.

[C]

How do you pronounce this? Anywho. So tuition for trinity school hit me. 70,000.

[A]

70 thou. Hello. What grades does it go from? Do we know? Is it just high school or is.

[C]

It's a good question.

[A]

Six through 12. I want to do some fast math with figures.

[C]

Trinity School.

[A]

Do you remember in Christmas Story, the movie with Ralphie?

[B]

K through 12.

[A]

K through 12. So 13 times 70 would be 2 10, $910,000 to get through there.

[C]

Maybe kindergarten stuff's cheaper.

[A]

I doubt it. I don't know.

[C]

What were you saying about Christmas?

[A]

Christmas story. Ralphie's father, he's always fighting the furnace Downstairs, he's Fracker Fracker shruggers. And my dad stringed together or he meld together a string of swear words, whatever, you know.

[C]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

That is me in this door.

[C]

Oh, what's happening?

[A]

My front door. I think I already told you that. I took it apart. I was gliding on a cloud for two days, right. Cause I had packed this hole that I thought was to. And it worked for two days. And then today I noticed it wasn't working again.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And I was like, you back scratching dirty. Oh, you became bit rat soup beaten.

[C]

Oh.

[A]

And I got the Dremel out today.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

And I cut pieces of the hardware out.

[C]

Oh boy. Okay.

[A]

And it's working incredibly now.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

But my ongoing battle with this door.

[C]

Now, are you biblical?

[A]

Biblical?

[C]

A little bit. Like, I kind of want to just prep you. Like David Fagenbaum who we had on, you know, and he cured his own disease.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[C]

But you know, he kept thinking he cured the disease and celebrate and then the disease came back.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. Well, that's what, that's what stage I was at this morning.

[C]

But I'm worried.

[A]

But today I cured it.

[C]

You sure?

[A]

Yeah. Because I removed the offensive piece that was getting bound up and I really studied it for a long time. Like, if I'm. If that's out of there, is it not going to function? And I, I did a lot of different little tests. I'm like, I think will work just fine without that piece. And then I cut it out and it fucking works right now.

[C]

Okay. I'm happy for you. That's good. That feels good. Oh, okay. So she mentioned, she said the Tijuana 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 7, was just recently new to this world at age 15 when it was alleged 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 feasts.

[A]

Oh, dude.

[C]

The feces came from a collie owned by a resident of the building where Brawley was found. Brawley accused four men of having raped her.

[A]

I do think I've seen a doc about this. Now this. That trash bag part feels familiar. Oh, God, yes. The savagery that humans are capable of at times Is really.

[C]

Isn't it shocking?

[A]

Unimaginable. Yeah, it's jarring.

[C]

Yeah, it is jarring. Like when we. Elizabeth smart on. It was interesting talking to her because I think I. And I think this is to. To for me to feel better about living in this world. I chalk everything up to just like mental health issues. I'm just like that person's sick.

[A]

Yeah. Right.

[C]

And I can live in a world where people are sick and do horrible things. Things. But I. It's like very strict. Yeah. Like it makes it hard for me to like breathe thinking that that's not the case. That they just are doing it normal people. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Well, yeah. I mean, you look at historically how many times mass amounts of people have participated in some pretty vile stuff and you get into the. The. The power of your tribe, you know?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

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. Okay. Oh, what states have adopted kinship care care? All U. S. States have adopted kinship care to some degree, with many actively expanding programs, especially since the family first act encouraged prioritizing relatives for children in foster care. With specific states like Michigan. Ding, ding, ding. We like that. Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee and Washington. Implementation setting distinct licensing standards for kin caregivers to access federal funds. I'm not seeing California on there, which I don't like.

[A]

Okay, get newsome on the horn.

[C]

Exactly.

[B]

That's.

[C]

Oh, I thought I had more.

[A]

That was it.

[C]

That was it. She, Claudia Rowie came with the flat flax.

[A]

Yeah. The whole thing is, you know, it's the. I get so frustrated when we treat symptoms and not.

[C]

I know.

[A]

Diseases. And we don't do anything upriver.

[C]

I know. And we all know, but we know. So why?

[A]

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. Like it's so expensive.

[C]

I know.

[A]

And they think it could not cost more than Hogwarts.

[C]

Hogwarts in every city charge a fair amount of money as a teacher. Oh, jeez.

[A]

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not allowed to.

[C]

It's just like a skill I had.

[A]

No, no, no. I don't think any of those teachers were getting paid at Hogwarts.

[C]

Yes, they were. They were in great row.

[A]

Yeah. They'll supply all kinds of great, great stuff because you're supposed to be living a very fun. You're eating great food. You've seen the meals at Hogwarts.

[C]

Floating turkeys, they repeat. They just fill up automatically. Oh, I can't wait. Okay, fine. I'll only charge like 75%. I'm just kidding. I'll obviously do it for free.

[A]

Pro bono.

[C]

Yes, I'm doing that pro bono. Dark arts. Ooh. That could get a little dicey though, if I'm doing it for free, because then I, like, I might get really dark and I'll try myself.

[A]

When you're a wizard, you don't need money.

[C]

I know. I don't really understand money because some art more poorer than others, so I don't really get that.

[A]

I don't either just make money. Like, obviously they. All these skills turn lead into gold.

[C]

And they have the. But they have the bank. They have.

[A]

Yeah, they get their own currency. Right.

[C]

Yeah. Green gods.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

I want to live there so bad.

[A]

I wish that for you.

[C]

I know.

[A]

I want a time machine. And you want Hogwarts.

[C]

I do.

[A]

I, God, would I zip around in my time machine.

[C]

You think I'd be a good wizard? I want to know what you think.

[A]

That's like asking to you. This is, do you like this dress? Is question that can't be answered right.

[C]

I want honesty.

[A]

I, I, I don't want to answer.

[C]

Why don't you think I'd be a good wizard?

[A]

I didn't say you wouldn't be a good wizard. But this, this is, it's just ripe for.

[C]

Listen, we know if you thought I'd be a good wizard, you'd say, I've.

[A]

Never even thought about it.

[C]

I know I'm asking, but I immediately.

[A]

Thought if my answer was bad witch, then that's not going to work out.

[C]

Bad witch.

[A]

Whatever you're asking, like if my answer were dark arts or whatever. You're asking. Asking.

[C]

Oh, no, I'm.

[A]

What did you just ask?

[C]

Oh, oh, oh, I, okay, you took it as, would I be a good wizard or a bad wizard.

[A]

That's right.

[C]

Like morally. Yes, but I was asking, do you think I would make a good wizard?

[A]

Oh, yes, great. Absolutely. But now, no, I don't even want to.

[C]

Oh, no. You think I'd be an evil one.

[A]

Oh my God. No, I, What I immediately thought is, as I was evaluating, I was, 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.

[C]

I know, but I just. It's. We like to talk here about fun stuff and thought experiments.

[A]

Well, fun stuff. Stuff where people's feelings don't get hurt.

[C]

I'm not going to get my feelings hurt. I just want to know why I'd be a bad wizard.

[A]

I don't think you would be a bad wizard, wizard.

[C]

But you think I'd have some things that were bad.

[A]

I'm not thinking at all about your wiz. No, I'm not going to.

[C]

Okay, well now you have hurt my feelings. So you won't answer.

[A]

This is a no win. Even in a. Not participating. It was a loss.

[B]

Well, like. Yeah.

[C]

You didn't. Yeah. Sand, I. It's okay if you think I'm naughty. I just want to know why I.

[A]

Don'T think anything about what kind of wizard you are. Would be. I don't even understand what makes a good or bad wizard. Some of the characters are likable. That were bad. Right?

[C]

Well, they turn out. Some turn out to be good, but they weren't. They weren't nice.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

But they did the right thing at the end.

[A]

But like Slytherin, on the surface I'm like, oh yeah. To say someone would be in Slytherin is an insult. But that's not true. Right? To be SL is fine.

[C]

Well, there's. Okay. Some people think that. That there's good and bad in all of the houses. Okay.

[A]

And it sounds consistent with what we know about humans.

[C]

Right. But there are traits and tropes, you know, and, and look, there's a lot of people who are diagnosed Slytherin.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And they like, mostly they all love that.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Like they're like. They're taking Charlie. Exactly. Erica too, too.

[A]

Yeah. Great.

[C]

She says she's a Slytherin. She's really proud of it.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And I don't like that.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Cuz I'm like, guys, it's like so eye rolly to like, like being bad.

[A]

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.

[C]

I'm letting. I'm telling you now, it won't. I'm letting you.

[B]

I'm.

[C]

I'm giving you permission to be a free self. I'M giving you permission. Do you think I'm a Hufflepuff? It's okay if you do.

[A]

What do you want to be?

[C]

No. Not doing.

[A]

You're a Grisendor.

[C]

No, we're not doing that.

[A]

Griswold. Okay. I love you.

[C]

I love you. This is probably why I'm a Muggle. It's like, somebody didn't want to make the decision, so they just.

[A]

Let's just make her a Muggle and even, like, Muggle. I don't even. That means a lot to you?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Because I said non magic girl.

[A]

Okay.