Free Birds, Empty Nests & Sexy Sue

Summary

Podcast Summary: We Can Do Hard Things – "Free Birds, Empty Nests & Sexy Sue"

Date: July 14, 2026 | Hosts: Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, Amanda Doyle | Podcast by Treat Media

---

Episode Overview

In this heartfelt and humorous episode, the Pod Squad—Glennon, Abby, and Amanda—gathers in Glennon's beloved Connecticut summer spot to discuss major family transitions, particularly the looming empty nest. They tackle changes in identity, finding new joy as “free birds,” the emotional logistics of children leaving home, and how to navigate adult relationships and co-parenting. The episode is rich with listener questions, including "Sexy Sue’s" playful dilemma about modern dating etiquette, and closes with a listener story on micro-resistances to the patriarchy.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene & Family Check-in

• Location & Atmosphere: The episode opens with the group reminiscing about their retreat in Connecticut, which Glennon describes as her “favorite place” due to its simplicity and close family feel.
• Glennon: “It’s so simple...the key distinction between a revving engine of logistics all during the year...is absent because there’s nothing to do.” (02:00)
• Amanda expresses: A sense of sadness at never having visited, highlighting the separation of personal retreats and shared experiences.

2. Transitioning to an Empty Nest

• Emotional Preparedness: Abby reveals the imminent departure of all three children, sparking a deep discussion on the emotional reality of this transition.
• Abby, on dropping off their youngest at college: “It feels different because she’s the youngest, also because she’s just going to do something so hard...For the other two the things I worried about like making friends...that just feels like the least of Emma’s problems.” (05:19)
• Glennon describes: The close quarters in their summer house as physically and emotionally connecting, then contrasts this to the upcoming “puppy leaving time.”
• Amanda reframes: The transition optimistically: “I am choosing to look at it from the most positive, light-filled lens ever...there’s so much opportunity. We’re coming into a new era of ourselves.” (07:26)
• Humor Amidst Change: The group jokes about kitchen sinks, missing socks, and “triple SSS” (sink, socks, sunglasses) as markers of children’s presence, injecting levity into the bittersweet subject.

3. From ‘Empty Nester’ to ‘Free Bird’

• Abby notes: The current narrative shift: “Everyone says...we don’t call it empty nesting now, we call it being a free bird!” (09:00)
• Mahjong as a Coping Mechanism: They lampoon the cultural expectation that women, facing this phase, will simply “take up mahjong or pickleball,” tying this to a larger conversation about women often lacking self-focused hobbies.
  • Glennon: “We are facing the epidemic of an entire population of females who has never been taught to look inward and discover what really lights them up...so we hand them something like, ‘oh, you don’t know? We have an answer: mahjong.’” (09:43)

4. Redefining Parental and Partner Identities

• A New Relationship Era:
  • Amanda: “We identify so much as mother...that this moment means we’re no longer going to be parents or something...But there’s just going to be a geographical change.” (10:18)
• Refilling the Pantry as a Metaphor:
  • Abby shares: Struggles with adjusting to fewer people at home, turning the sight of empty pantry containers into a metaphor for emotional emptiness and change (11:54).
• Looking Forward Together:
  • Amanda: “You want to know what you can fill it with? What? Me. Jesus. We can fill it with each other!” (13:17)
  • Glennon: “Can you imagine the trepidation for people who are facing this...It’s very, very hard to keep a relationship about a relationship when you’re raising kids for twenty years.” (13:42)
  • Abby: “The empty container...what’s left is your relationship with your partner if you have one, your relationship with yourself if you have one...” (14:40)

5. Maintaining and Building Adult Friendships

• Abby recounts: Recent efforts to become more intentional with adult friendships, especially with other school moms—discovering that “maybe it’s not too late” to build friendships even after the school years have ended (15:13–16:49).
• Shoutout to Type-A ‘Louisas’: The pod humorously praises those organized parents who “do the work for the type B parents,” ensuring everyone’s in-the-know (17:16–18:12).

---

Listener Q&A Segments

6. Chelsea’s BMX Co-Parenting Conundrum (22:27–35:08)

• Listener Chelsea seeks advice on handling her competitive but amicable relationship with her wife’s ex-husband on the BMX track.

Highlights:

• Amanda relates: “I started playing soccer with Craig…for me, the real competition is not about the sport, it’s about all this other stuff underneath.” (25:06)
• Glennon reframes: “He’s trying to win, but he’s trying to pretend like he’s not trying to win, and that feels gross.” (28:34)
• Deeper Insight: They discuss how masking vulnerability and true desire—pretending you don’t care in order to avoid disappointment—shows up in all aspects of life, not just sports.

Notable Advice:

• Focus on communication, compartmentalizing competition from co-parenting, and recognizing that showing up for the child is what matters most.

7. Sexy Sue’s Modern Dating Dilemma (40:10–50:51)

• Listener “Sexy Sue,” 53, is enjoying two simultaneous dating relationships and wonders about disclosure etiquette.

Highlights:

• Glennon weighs in: “You tell people about the status of the relationship when they ask you…I don’t really understand why you feel the need [to volunteer] unless someone asks.” (43:52)
• Amanda counters: “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with dating multiple suitors…she just has to figure out with herself if there’s something that might not feel totally aligned for her.” (46:10)
• Abby: On self-honesty: “If this keeps bothering Sexy Sue…for her own self, to free her own self from the bother, [just say] ‘hey dude, just want to be clear’…” (49:14)

Takeaway:

• There’s no obligation to disclose unless asked or unless it feels ethically necessary for one’s own peace; and, as always, prioritize sexual health and self-alignment.

8. Pod Squatter of the Week – Micro-Resistance & Bathroom Battle

(50:51–56:21)

• Listener Liz recounts how, during a Pod Squad tour, women took over the men’s restroom when the women’s line was impossibly long, flipping the social script.
  • Liz: “We took that patriarchy that fucked down…they had to ask us if they could use a urinal…I just feel like that’s a sign of things to come.” (52:40)
• Glennon’s Reflection: She shares a personal story of similar resistance at a Broadway show, urging more “micro-resistance” to everyday gendered injustices.
  • Glennon: “Never obey in advance...all it’s going to take is walking over.” (55:17)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On empty nesting:
  Abby: “If a tree falls in the forest, if the children are not in the house, is anyone in the house?” (07:12)
• On women’s hobbies:
  Glennon: “Women don’t have hobbies...we hand them something, ‘oh you don’t know? We have an answer, it’s mahjong.’” (09:43)
• On vulnerability:
  Glennon: “Nothing is as vulnerable as caring, openly and publicly.” (30:05)
• On new eras:
  Amanda: “We’re coming into a new era of ourselves, and yeah, there’s going to be a lot of stuff that’s sad, but there’s so much opportunity.” (07:26)
• On dating and self-alignment:
  Abby: “If for some reason this is making Sexy Sue feel an ick...then why the hell not, for her own self, just to free her own self from the bother.” (49:14)
• On micro-actions:
  Abby: “I need things we can do now—micro resistance ideas...that mean we’re not obeying these ancient oppressive standards in advance.” (57:01)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:25 – Glennon sets the scene in Connecticut
• 04:08 – Abby and Glennon discuss the reality of all kids leaving: “puppy pile” to “puppy leaving time”
• 09:00 – Embracing the “free bird” concept, mahjong jokes
• 11:54 – Abby’s pantry metaphor for emptiness
• 13:17 – Amanda & Abby discuss refilling the “empty” with each other
• 15:13 – Abby talks about building new friendships after children leave home
• 22:27 – Listener Chelsea’s BMX co-parenting/competition problem
• 40:10 – “Sexy Sue’s" dating dilemma: When to tell partners about each other
• 50:51 – Pod Squatter Liz: Restroom micro-resistance story
• 55:17 – Glennon’s Broadway show micro-resistance and empowerment
• 57:19 – Call for micro-resistance stories from listeners

---

Closing Thoughts

This episode beautifully weaves together raw emotion, humor, and actionable insight about big life transitions, shifting identities, family ties, and the liberating small daily actions that create bigger social change. The Pod Squad, with their signature blend of wisdom and candor, offers reassurance and laughter for anyone braving the evolving phases of adulthood, parenting, and partnership.

---

For more laughter, honesty, and solidarity, check out new episodes every Tuesday or follow the Pod Squad’s journey on their community page.

---

[End of summary; all promotional, intro, and outro content omitted.]

Transcript

[Amanda]

foreign

[Abby]

welcome to we can do hard things i actually kind of sat down nervous and excited this it's been a while since we've sat down together yeah and talked because of that i would just like to check in first i want to ask amanda how are you set the scene okay we are in

[Glennon]

my favorite place we're in connecticut this is a place where john grew up coming in the summertime and we hunker down here for several weeks of the summer and his mom and his sister are often here and the kids are always reunite with their buddies here and it's really fun actually one of our listeners painted when i said that about favorite places one of the listeners painted this gorgeous painting of the connecticut coast and i have it hanging here and i love that yeah yeah it's the same person who did the thousand islands that's behind your set of welcome to the party abby you know i was

[Amanda]

thinking about this the other day amanda why haven't you ever invited us there

[Glennon]

first of all we have this place here that it's when we got it was like you've purchased a shed like it's literally like if you hang something on the wall of the exterior this is the outside wall and you like put a nail in the wall it goes through from the inside of your living room to the outside of the house it is that's a literal like piece of wood these are like old school sheds on the water which is why i love it because it's so simple like it's so simple obviously it's so weird to have a whole part of my life that y' all have never been to and obviously it's open season please but it's in the middle of nowhere so it would like require you to really my god i want

[Amanda]

to come i was thinking about this the other day that i feel sad that we've never been there it just

[Abby]

looks so sweet it's like the kids just leave on their little bikes and then they spend all day outside and they're smoking cigarettes cigarettes i'm joking they

[Glennon]

don't do that well i don't think they do that but yeah they're gone they'll be like like bobby comes home to use the restroom and he runs and he's like hi goes to bed and bye and he's gone again and it's just like i'll see you at

[Abby]

ten thirty so what do you do

[Glennon]

all day then i do my research for my podcast i sit on the porch and do that because people would be embarrassed about how much research i

[Abby]

do for my i think they know

[Glennon]

for my podcast and then i like to take seamus on walks and there's always like something going on like it'll be like you know the sand castle contest on the beach or like the crabbing contest at night you know these kind of like big events that that the community has to gather for so it's just a very simple little situation which i like it's slow slow nothing to plan i think this is why i love it i realize that i think the whole mental load of planning and logistics is absent because there's nothing to do and so that i think is the key distinction between a revving engine of logistics all during the year where it's like okay practice is at this time and then we're doing this and then we got to pick up from this and then we got to there's nothing to pick up from or to go to so it's so there isn't logistics so it is a nice renewing very lucky thing to have do

[Abby]

you feel closer to your family when

[Glennon]

you're there i mean i'm literally closer because if someone sneezes in any part of the shed you're like god bless you if someone's taking a shower in our one bathroom if you feel like it's raining on the house because and sometimes literally water coming through to the rest of the house but it's we're like on top of each other like a little puppy pile so that's yes i do that's beautiful how have you

[Abby]

been we are in an interesting time if you're in the puppy pile we are in the puppy leaving time over the next thirty days all three of our children will leave our home so in a few days we drop our youngest at college because she's going early because she is going to play soccer so we're a few days away from that the whole family that's happening next

[Glennon]

week like this coming week sunday sunday

[Abby]

yeah oh my god so including her siblings everyone's going to drop her that's

[Glennon]

in three days i know holy shit

[Abby]

so that is happening and it feels different than the other two i'm doing this thing right now where i'm trying to stay utterly frozen inside it's so interesting to feel like to try not to cry to like feel the likes

[Glennon]

trying to stay frozen you're trying to consciously stay frozen so that like you don't unravel at this in this particular

[Abby]

moment okay i'm just saying okay just right right now okay right now on

[Glennon]

this podcast recording when i said three days you're like i freeze freeze elsa

[Abby]

right okay yes it feels different because she's the youngest also because she's just going to do something so hard going to play d one soccer is like you know for the other two the things i worried about like making friends or finding your classes or all of that that just feels like the least of emma's problems like so i think it's going to be something that is challenging in a different way thank god she has abby to like know to just even understand i know but that's

[Glennon]

almost worse because you like know how hard it is no it might be like blissfully ignorant might be more helpful

[Amanda]

at this point yeah but it's not like she hasn't been training for this moment for her whole little life you know like she's prepared she's ready she's been working her butt off all her ass off all summer it's just an interesting time for sure for our family that we're coming into our empty nest stage and era yeah because two weeks

[Abby]

after she leaves then chase moves out he came home after he graduated lived with us for a year which was the biggest gift it was just incredible we just actually really got to know each other like if you're a parent out there you feel stressed out because you feel like maybe you don't know your kid as well as you should or something like there are some kids who just take so much longer to reveal themselves and this year is what that has happened and he was twenty two when that happened so it's been such a gift but he's moving out with friends two weeks after emma leaves and then two weeks after that tish goes back to berkeley three to zero over the next month and five to two what's oh five to two oh that's better yeah there were five people and now there's still two we're not

[Glennon]

going through to zero we will continue to exist if a tree falls in the forest if the children are not in the house is anyone in the

[Abby]

house exactly that's a good point babe i'm gonna think about that i mean

[Amanda]

i talked about it in my therapy session yesterday and i know that this probably annoys the hell out of you but i am choosing to look at it from like the most positive light filled lens ever that i'm like what are the things that i haven't been able to like focus my energy and attention on what are the things that i want to do that i haven't had the space or the time to be able to do like i'm so excited for tish and emma and chase and that excitement for me is allowing me to have also excitement for myself and for you there's so much opportunity we're coming into a new era of ourselves and yeah there's gonna be a lot of stuff that's like sad i'm gonna miss them but i'm looking at things that i'm not gonna miss you wanna know what i'm not gonna miss

[Glennon]

what kitchen sink the sink yeah i knew i knew it was gonna be

[Amanda]

the sink the sink the socks and the sunglasses triple sss yeah that's true

[Abby]

there'll be less people to steal your

[Glennon]

stuff yes and more obvious who to blame when they do exactly exactly yeah it's a bad situation for you glennon

[Amanda]

that is true also in this economy

[Glennon]

i mean they'll be back it's the good news and bad news about the state of affairs of this nation everyone will eventually be back in the house

[Amanda]

exactly if chase and they're all artists

[Abby]

so for sure they will and if

[Amanda]

chase is any indication he came back after graduating college and it was a wonderful experience to like get to know him as an adult not as a

[Abby]

child yeah you know no i hear all this i just you know every time i talk to someone about this they're like this is i swear to you that someone must have said this on a podcast somewhere because all anyone says to me now is like you know what i've heard is that we don't call it empty nesting now we call it being a free bird oh geez okay and i'm like okay sorry then it's better yes definitely wow that

[Glennon]

really transformed something in my heart right

[Abby]

and then the other thing they say is i swear to you maybe seven people have said this to me you could play mahjong

[Glennon]

i've been learning mahjong this summer but like why is that

[Abby]

everyone's answer to your kids leaving forever

[Glennon]

because women don't have hobbies and so when we are facing the epidemic of an entire population of females who has never been taught to look inward and discover what really lights them up and delights them we hand them something like oh you don't know we have an answer to that it's mahjong i think

[Abby]

that is the answer if my polling is correct everyone is saying that so i guess we'll try that and that's

[Glennon]

if you aren't sporty enough to pickleball

[Abby]

which i'm definitely not going to do not going to do that but here's

[Amanda]

the thing that i've been thinking a lot about too we identify so much as mother that we feel that this moment in transition in our life means that we're no longer going to be parents or something that is equivocally what we have not what we know about tish and chase we know that we have had to be very very involved in their lives since they went off to college there's no circumstance where we're not going to be involved and doing stuff there's just going to be a

[Abby]

geographical change yeah it's just like logistically interesting the only way i can describe it is i and then i'll stop after this but i was in the pantry the other day and i was looking at you know how during COVID like a bunch of people convinced some of us that if we bought like plastic containers for like our cereal and snacks that we would have some level of like control over the world or something i don't know i just got tricked into buying a lot of plastic containers organization that already had containers like

[Glennon]

cereal boxes let me take this out of this container if only the banana came with a container yeah and i

[Abby]

did that i thought yeah that sounds

[Amanda]

right but we didn't go as so as far to write to get the things that say live laugh love no

[Abby]

no oh god babe i did that before you were here i know every room in my house had directions eat live remember go to the bathroom here every room it was christian white lady aesthetic every wall was labeled with directions

[Amanda]

that's what i'm saying the plastic bins in the pantry are like the next

[Abby]

level level of the new level yeah how to contain yourself how to control the point is i was i keep these full because the children eat this so much like locusts and then they bring their friends and so they're always filled up with unhealthy food and et cetera and i went into the pantry the other day and they were at very low levels and my immediate thought was okay i have to like reorder the things and then i just stood in the pantry and realized i do not refill refill these containers abby and i are not going to eat seventeen pounds of doritos my point is i just stood there and stared at these containers that will now remain empty and of course my heart turned it into a metaphor of emptiness and like how everything is empty like what do i do i guess i just get rid of the containers so i don't stare at empty containers and then i just cried in the pantry for twenty straight minutes about not ordering doritos and like that is okay like empty free bird or whatever but still it's emotional and

[Amanda]

you want to know what you can fill it with what me jesus we can fill it with each other oh

[Abby]

my god it's too much as a

[Glennon]

resident heterosexual here come on i'm so

[Amanda]

excited like we get to like re get to know each other again i

[Abby]

know we're giggling but i actually really do think that that's true i know

[Glennon]

like i think i know you're lucky that you guys like each other i know can you imagine the trepidation for people who are facing this and it's like five to two and yikes you don't like those odds because in fairness to people it's very very hard to keep a relationship about a relationship when you're raising kids for twenty years so i think there's probably a lot of fear in a lot of folks that is like the emptiness plus the oh my gosh i'm gonna have to face this thing that i've been able to skillfully avoid for a long time because my focus was over here and so maybe i don't even know if this thing is going to work or maybe i know it's not yeah and you've

[Amanda]

been avoiding it for the last five to ten years because you just had something else in the way so i

[Glennon]

mean you're lucky in that respect yeah

[Abby]

i mean the empty container is like that what's left is your relationship with your partner if you have one your relationship with yourself if you have one

[Glennon]

and if not there's mahjong and if

[Abby]

not there's mahjong your relationship with friends if you've built them like i had this very cool experience over the last few weeks which is that building friendships over my lifetime has been a recurring theme like i know i've been talking about this forever am i doing it am i doing it right do i have friends do i know what i'm doing but i have felt like i wasn't the kind of parent who was like in it with other parents at school i just wasn't i had people that i liked and i know that i had people that liked me but i didn't do the thing where i was like at all the meetings and like creating bonds like that and i felt kind of sad about that during the graduation stuff like i felt like i could sense the kind of difference in like camaraderie that some of these women and of course the women had and who had been like showing up a lot and doing it together and as opposed to how i felt which was i don't know i just sensed the difference and then i thought oh it's too late like i didn't do it and it's too late and then this really cool thing happened which is that three of those women who i actually sensed that about at the ceremonies i was like oh i should have done more work to like bond with these people and they texted me a week after graduation and they said two of them were together and they said we just were talking and we've decided that now that we have the time we want to be intentional about creating a friendship with the four of us whoa and i just had this feeling of like oh my god it's not too late that is so exciting and maybe like that's another beautiful thing about being a fucking free bird or whatever we are like maybe it's not that i didn't do it when i should have but like now there's time so we like got together and had coffee and now we're on like one of those text chains that i think like

[Glennon]

that lovey's always talking about that lovey's

[Abby]

always talking about that people who like have some so many friends are on all the text chains and we're like texting each other and one of them's like you know how the type a school moms there's usually like a type b school mom that gloms on to them that like i never know what's going on at school so i have this one friend who i louisa who i just god i would die for her because she's great every day she's like you do understand that tomorrow you

[Glennon]

have to do this right that's very

[Abby]

sweet i know i asked her if she could go to emma's college orientation so that she could continue to tell me but her alas her kid is going to a different college so that was inappropriate but shout out to all those parents who do the work for the type b parents they really keep

[Glennon]

us tomorrow's a short day really god from whence do you gather this knowledge is there a separate text thread like i feel like the school systems might identify these people early and like you think it's like a old school phone tree where they're like the only the twelve of you can be trusted so you are responsible for disseminating this news because even if we send it to doyle she's not going to read it

[Abby]

it is a great mystery to me it is amazing to me it's a

[Glennon]

service it's a patriotic duty it is

[Abby]

and i'm really grateful to all the louisas out there god bless you and

[Glennon]

keep you we thank you for your

[Abby]

service

[Amanda]

recently i've been working on my skin but i've been doing it from the inside out okay stay with me you might have heard of the power of colostrum and there's no colostrum we love more than armor armor colostrum is nature's original superfood packed with over four hundred bioactive nutrients that support gut health strengthen immune health fuel performance and so much more whether you're training for a race working to balance your health or simply striving to feel your best armor helps you operate at your highest level because your body deserves the same level of optimization as the rest of your life i love how my skin is looking and i also love how my digestion has been feeling too good support from the inside out we've worked out a special offer for our audience receive thirty percent off your first subscription order go to armra dot com hardthings or enter hardthings to get thirty percent off your first subscription order that's a ring mra dot com hardthings we all know

[Abby]

judy blume author of are you there god it's me margaret you all remember we must we must we must increase our busts who could forget judy wrote many other stories that helped us all survive decades ago and now she's leading a class on writing on masterclass in this class judy blume teaches us how she has done that for decades there are more than two hundred classes across everything from relationships and creativity to business and wellness taught by people who are truly the best in the world at what they do i love that i can listen in audio mode when i'm walking or driving and i almost always come away with one idea i can put into practice masterclass keeps adding new classes so there's never been a better time to get in right now as a listener of this show you get at least fifteen percent off any annual membership at masterclass dot com hardthings that's fifteen percent off at masterclass dot com hardthings head to masterclass dot com hardthings to see the latest offer i love

[Glennon]

shopping online for furniture but sometimes it can feel very overwhelming because of all of the options and i have to tell you article is absolutely the solution to that problem with article it doesn't feel like an endless scroll but rather more of a perusal of a very well stocked very reasonably priced furniture store i just bought the linnae corner sectional in this gorgeous green i'm super super obsessed with it i have historically been a very frugal buyer and like still have kind of like that post college type of furniture and i wanted a real piece of furniture but i didn't want to pay these absurd prices article is offering our listeners fifty dollars off your first purchase of a hundred dollars or more to claim visit article dot com hardthings and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout that's article dot com hardthings for fifty dollars off your first purchase of one hundred dollars or

[Amanda]

more

[Abby]

that's where we are today thank you for that check in i think we're going to hear from our incredible pod squad now and what i'm really excited about you guys is that the idea for these q and a's was that we were going to just hear them and respond in real time and not prepare and just be our little selves and i have never done that not one time i always read them ahead of time so i can sound smart did you do it today no oh good for you this is the first time i have ever actually watched

[Glennon]

the free bird fly will she fly

[Abby]

will she fly we'll see she could

[Glennon]

crash and burn you'll hear it here

[Abby]

first that's right this is the real me unprepared okay let's hear from chelsea

[Amanda]

hi i'm chelsea she her and my question is for abby i am a nearly forty year old and my wife came out later in life and we now co parent our fourteen year old son who's a top ranked dmx racer in florida and my wife and i also started racing about six months ago the challenge is that i now raised her ex husband my stepson's father and we're very amicable but also very competitive and i haven't beat him yet though i'm quite close and he often says one thing and does another kind of downplaying his effort but clearly training hard and competing hard which feels somewhat manipulative and while i understand this may be a subconscious thing on his part and come from his own path and communication patterns my question is how can i handle racing him and communicating with him given this dynamic which is kind of weird sometimes thank you guys so much for all you do cheers oh i

[Abby]

love this okay babe let's hear first

[Glennon]

of all bmx is that just regular bicycles are these mountain bikes dirt bikes

[Amanda]

mountain bikes it's called a bmx bike so it's like it's not as big or tall as like a mountain bike or as like sleek and aerodynamic as a road bike it's almost looks like a kid's bike but they do all these tricks on them i know this

[Glennon]

is not essential to the answer but i just want to picture this guy pretending not to try but really trying and then okay so are they going up and down in dirt probably is there dirt involved like hills usually in

[Abby]

a bm no and are they running in are they going no so there's

[Amanda]

probably a bmx track where you know they're racing around and there's like lots of like twists and turns and ups and downs that you've got to like plan how to go over the bumps in the hills and whatever jesus but i think it's on concrete thank you

[Glennon]

i just need to picture chelsea in her element thank you for that yeah

[Abby]

well if mahjong doesn't work for us we could try dirt biking yeah i

[Glennon]

think this is a level okay this is the theme of this episode okay the you can you can play gin rummy that's for the that's for if you're really starting okay we do that then if you really want to level up because it's a level up and it's very hard mahjong if you have a body that will move and you don't need to play mahjong or jin rummy you can do pickleball if you're a complete bad ass like chelsea you don't play pickleball you be a max bike and if you have a real death wish you be a max bike your wife's ex husband that's right well

[Amanda]

i have so many things to say first of all amazing that at nearly forty years old you've picked up bmx racing first and foremost second of all i have a unique experience kind of similar to you in that early days i started playing on a team with craig a soccer team a soccer team our kid's dad so this is like a year and a half after i retired and i hadn't played soccer before and i was not fit and so i played a couple of games and realized like it wasn't going to be for me anymore because i wasn't as good as i used to be and i don't like that i also really like wanted to honor craig and his talent because here is the thing this may be very snarky of me i don't know i won out in the in the deal like i won glennon in a way there's always been a part of me that is like really wanted to give craig a little bit more in some of these other areas so consolation prize yeah so like maybe the bmx win for him like yeah his ego and i understand that communicate but like whether you win or not i just don't think that the the real competition is about the bmxing i think it's about all this other stuff that's like underneath it and i get it but i just wasn't gonna have the competitiveness with craig that is the thing that i was not gonna do because i didn't want that to challenge or compromise our co parenting relationship together and so i just like okay let him have the soccer great i mean also it's hard to say because i also like won the soccer when i

[Glennon]

played there wasn't like a real question of who was better at soccer yeah

[Amanda]

this is not an apples to orange and apples to apples conversation but also

[Abby]

craig is excellent at soccer he's so

[Amanda]

good at soccer so good and he

[Abby]

still plays and the kids go and he's so dedicated to it and it's his community and the kids go watch him and he's so just i'm just to say like it he is actually

[Amanda]

excellent he's a great soccer player but i wasn't going to play the competitive game with him about this because i wanted to prioritize our co parenting relationship in some ways i kind of bowed out and this is not to say that like you can't be a max race but like is there a way to not like be in competition with the stepfather chelsea you know well yeah

[Glennon]

but this is what this question is about right to me the question isn't really about competition the question is about this sticky weird thing that and it seems like we're just talking about bmx biking but i feel like there's something else here like the problem with his approach if they're just like we're coming we're competing we want to beat each other that would be one thing but he's coming in pretending like he doesn't give a shit about competing he's pretending like he's not caring while he is actually super training on the side and working hard but coming in like he's like yeah whatever it doesn't really matter to me and that's the part that's bothering her i think what i hear chelsea saying is if we both came to fight right and one of us won and we were like damn good run you beat me that would be one thing but he's kind of trying to have his cake and eat it too he's trying to win but he's trying not to pretend like he's trying to win and that feels gross so

[Abby]

he's like a competitive mullet he's like nonchalant in the front and chalant in the back he's he's he's like the stanford you know the idea of the stanford thing where what's so stressful about being at those high level schools is like you have to be a duck that looks like it's just floating on the top but underneath you have to you have to look like you're not trying yes but underneath you have to like kick like hell so what chelsea can't stand abby i see i see what chelsea can't stand is the fact that he's acting like he's not trying but clearly he's like training and competing okay but why do you think that's bothering her so much okay well here's

[Amanda]

a reframe of this i'm now understanding what i think is happening is he's scared yeah yeah and his insecurity and his lack of wanting to like quote unquote lose to you is really showing

[Abby]

itself but you know what's sweet is that i just noticed that what we can't forget is that the little one the fourteen year old son is a top ranked bmx biker so what all these parents are trying to do is identify the most with him like be like this is a thing that i gave you that i am connected with you for right is it like all about not just a competition between the parents but sort of an effort to be like of the thing their kid is good at yeah oh yeah now

[Glennon]

i'm just thinking of it as like just the dude being the dude right because i feel like we can be like oh my god this guy like he's trying and pretending like he's not trying but we all do this i know there's like seventeen thousand books available and podcasts and whatever in the world on vulnerability but really like to me vulnerability is just caring publicly and openly there is nothing as vulnerable as caring i really care you know and when you claim that it's so scary and when you don't claim it when you pretend like oh i don't care you can avoid all that vulnerability it's like why kids decide that they don't like a sport before they suck at the sport or why someone decides they just don't like a person before the other person reveals that they don't like them or why you'll go out with someone who would be lucky to have you but never go after the person you'd feel lucky to be with it's like all of this stuff is like i really care i really want this thing and it's just everywhere it's why we joke about like oh oh i didn't even take a shower oh i didn't because like to show that you really tried and you really care and you really want something to be a certain way is to just reveal like that you failed or like is there anything more icky than like you really did your best and worked hard at it and came up short it is the ultimate vulnerability so i think like it's just the layer of that is one thing but then the layer under it is like do we even know the thing we really want is it so scary to say it out loud and then it's so scary to tell ourselves like if you really admitted your like desire or your dream or what you wish your marriage would be that is the ultimate like exposure of this deep care i think it's a little thing in the bmx deal but if we're being honest we all do that totally

[Amanda]

and i'll just i'll i'll say one last thing like i had to compete against people that i really loved my whole life and it is not an easy thing to learn how to do to be in sincere competition for like my job making money paying my bills with people i actually was in community with that i loved and i cared about and being able to balance those two things are very very difficult and if you can just keep doing it and keep showing up like don't let him win that's not what i'm saying i'm what i'm saying is there's some things that you can't control you can't control what he's going to do whether he trains hard and plays it like he's not when he does beat you all you do is like train as hard as you can and also work on continuing to communicate with him and not let your competitive ego get in the way of being able to have those conversations off the bmx track like you can do both it's just compartmentalizing is a little bit about it and it's possible because i was able to do it i was able to compete taking people's positions and being the starter was not easy and because there were a lot of people that were fighting for my job but also then maintaining those relationships off the field like it is really hard but it is possible

[Abby]

there's something also that i am just going to note as relating to whoever chelsea's invisible partner is in this question which is that there's something and maybe this is problematic but that i've noticed that where the the one that comes in and the dad compete in traditionally masculine areas i'm just saying if there's something that needs to be like drilled or screwed or some job that is assigned heteronormatively to the male in the relationship like i don't know maybe a little bit like bmx biking there seems to be an underlying comparison competitiveness between the abby and the craig or the chelsea and the new person but what i do know just from this question is that chelsea's family is going to be okay that this kid this fourteen year old kid has three different parents who are so obsessed with him and

[Amanda]

his that they're all bmx racing because

[Abby]

he rides a bike they're like i

[Glennon]

wish he did cross country it would be so much easier all three of

[Abby]

them have learned how to ride bikes that's good and are showing up for this kid so much that they're becoming him and compete like this kid is loved and going to be okay and that's the most important thing i think

[Amanda]

about chelsea's question yeah chelsea play mahjong

[Glennon]

plus also can we just talk about i just the word amicable in that i know like amicable to me is the biggest tell of any word anytime someone insists that they're amicable our relationship is amicable it's a code word meaning we are desperately trying to be kind and respectful to one another and no one could say otherwise because if you don't say amicable you would be like we're buddies we're friends i like them yeah but when you say like it's an amicable divorce is it because amicable

[Amanda]

and glennon to your point yeah i

[Abby]

mean you're murderous amicable means it means you're murderous except for the law you

[Glennon]

are exerting such restraint it should be

[Amanda]

applauded but i think that there's probably a group of people listening to this whole one person left a marriage that they had children and then they started dating somebody of the same sex there is something very interesting around being the me the abby in this situation coming in with an ex husband to get into relationship with there's a very interesting dynamic there there's some sort of male competitiveness that i think is a really interesting dynamic they're all going like chelsea

[Abby]

and the guy and they're like who's your daddy and then they're just bmxing around in circles to answer chelsea your family's awesome that's what i want to end with your family's awesome

[Amanda]

i kid you not when i say i used to take about a dozen different supplements but honestly i got tired of the clutter and the guesswork imh's daily ultimate ultimate essentials it combines sixteen supplements and ninety ingredients into one daily drink i love that it simplifies my routine instead of a cabinet full of bottles i just mix one drink in the morning and my day is off to an amazing start im eight was co founded by david beckham and developed by leading doctors and researchers in a clinical trial conducted by the san francisco research institute ninety five percent of the participants reported having more energy after twelve weeks go to im eight health dot com hardthings right now or click on the link in the description and use code hard things for a free welcome kit five free travel sachets plus ten percent off your order that's code hardthings at im eight health dot com hardthings code hardthings at im eight health dot com hardthings these statements have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration this product is not intended to diagnose treat cure or prevent any disease i try to

[Glennon]

be intentional about the products that i buy for my family so when it comes to laundry i choose all free clear detergent you all know this about me i'm always thinking about the small everyday choices that add up to how we take care of ourselves and the people we love and in our house sensitive skin is just part of our reality so i'm always trying to make choices that help keep everyone comfortable that is why it matters to me that all free clear is the number one detergent brand recommended by dermatologists tests for sensitive skin and that it's one hundred percent free from dyes perfumes and parabens and the thing i appreciate is that it actually works it tackles tough stains and odors you know real life messy everyday stuff but it's still safe for sensitive skin so whether it's workout clothes kids clothes or just the constant rotation of laundry i don't have to overthink it pick up a bottle of all free clear detergent for your next laundry day this episode is brought to you with the support of our sponsor midi health as we all might know by now menopause isn't an overnight process it can take years and for some of these symptoms you might not even recognize them as menopause or perimenopause so you just go from doctor to doctor describing brain fog and fatigue and random anxiety never connecting the dots midi health exists specifically for this stage of life midi health is the only virtual care clinic for women navigating midlife hormonal changes from perimenopause through menopause it was created by women for women and midi clinicians are menopause experts and hormone trained specialists who actually listen and understand what's happening in your body they'll help build a treatment plan around your specific symptoms with safe effective fda approved hormonal and non hormonal options best of all the visits are covered by insurance book your first virtual visit today at joinmitty dot com that's joinmidi dot com

[Abby]

sexy sue oh hell yeah pod squad to hear from sexy

[Amanda]

sue here we go hey there i'm not going to give you my name you can just call me sexy sue my pronouns are she her this is for solicited advice glennon i am fifty three years old i was widowed thirteen years ago i have enjoyed being single i'm not trying to fix that however a year and a half ago i started relationship ish with a thirty one year old that is lovely and i enjoy that very much and then in the last month or so i have also acquired a suitor my age who is very kind and lovely i'm headed toward my sixth date with him right now my question is glennon when slash if do i have to tell them about each other all right have fun with that one glennon we love you

[Glennon]

bye bye sexy sue wow i will have just written down and we'll start using i'm not trying to fix that just anything that someone else would think was a problem that you're actually not seeing as a real problem it's good i have been enjoying being single i'm not trying to fix that i am curious what y' all say about this

[Abby]

oh i wanted to hear from you

[Glennon]

first okay i'll tell you what i

[Abby]

think i want to hear because i actually i'm okay yeah i just want

[Glennon]

to hear what you think okay so she's taken a lover which i would just like to i like to use that phrase as much as possible the

[Amanda]

lover you mean the thirty one year old or the one that's her age

[Glennon]

well you will note that she called this the one her age is suitor maybe that's a more suitable name for someone her age but it it sounds to me like the young buck is a lover so i think she said when slash if which is funny too when slash if do i need to tell them about each other this may be libertarian of me but i think that you tell people about the status of the relationship when they ask you i don't really understand like why is she feel the need just like she has gone out on six dates with this gentleman that gentleman has also gone out on six dates with her if that gentleman says i would like to to know if we are exclusive or i would like to know if you're seeing any other people then sexy sue should answer honestly but if that man doesn't ask that man might not want to know or might not want to answer the question himself so why should we be like patronizingly protecting people in advance of them even asking for our protection like i don't understand i mean if you're sexually active yes that was my only feels like a different thing especially if you're sexually active without protection then it becomes a matter of health right you are now now we're all in relationship together but like if people want to know things they ask and if you're scared to ask then you may not have the security in the relationship that you deserve because if you're like i don't want to be that annoying person that asks whether we're exclusive then you're probably not exclusive because you don't even feel enough standing in the relationship to ask for it but sexy sue's out there doing her thing and if her suitor who has been on the same number of dates with her as she has been on with him hasn't inquired then why does she need to volunteer that information yeah i guess

[Abby]

the i mean we used to in my day i don't know if they

[Glennon]

still which day was that twenty five years ago yeah kind of i think

[Abby]

it was like when jersey shore was

[Amanda]

on is what i'm thinking jim tan

[Abby]

these words gtl yeah with gtl gym tan laundry i feel like we also learned dtr that there was like a define the relationship people are still doing

[Glennon]

that by the way oh they are

[Abby]

gtr is still a thing okay okay

[Amanda]

yeah but that doesn't happen until much later now with the kids okay well

[Abby]

i think i understand what you're saying amanda and it makes sense that if there is to be a relationship defining conversation it needs to be initiated that's the first like yeah that conversation has to be initiated and the the reason that would be initiated is if one person had the desire to know or to be exclusive it doesn't sound to me like sexy sue is interested or

[Glennon]

has she's not trying to fix that

[Abby]

no no neither i suppose has the person she's the thirty one year old that she's been dating for a year and a half because if you've been dating for someone a year and a half and that other person has not instigated the dtr then there's a reason for that is exactly what you're saying so if if sexy sue doesn't want the dtr and nobody else she's dating has instigated the dtr then she can only assume that the others don't want the dtr either and she doesn't have to fix a problem that has not yet been presented who has presented the

[Glennon]

problem only her only her conscience that's

[Amanda]

what i'm saying she is what she is probably under this what i'm i'm doing capturing is that there's something about potentially dating two people that might not feel totally aligned for her okay and that is i think the the problem that we're probably dealing with it's like number one she has to ask herself is she the kind of person that is okay dating two people period and because there's this at the start of this that she's like i'm not trying to fix that being single there's absolutely nothing wrong with dating multiple suitors or lover boys or lovers like there's nothing wrong with that i think that this is a conversation she just has to figure out with herself that if she actually feels like that there's something wrong with it in her body because we can't tell her what's right or wrong like what you think and of course like if you're sexually active that's a whole different question and a different conversation but but it sounds like you don't you love being single sounds like you are actually having a good time and it sounds like unless somebody asks for it keep going and having the greatest

[Glennon]

time i mean i guess the thing is she must have an underlying unless it's just like the female guilt complex that exists and the whole like oh you must be a slut if you're having sex with one person much less two i guess it's like because i can also see from the other perspective like if this was someone writing in being like we dated for a year and a half and then i found out they're dating someone else would be like what a dick but at the same time i feel like it's like it's always assumed that the the woman is the one who's trying to do the dtr because she's she really wants an r you know like they're always trying to define the relationship because they're always trying to trick you into being in a relationship and so it's a weird thing it's a weird posture because she's the one trying to avoid the r and avoid the conversation and no one else is giving her any complications with that because they're not asking so i guess it would be the only thing that would maybe present sexy sue with a little bit of a kind of moral dilemma is if she found out that thirty one year old was hanging out with other people sleeping with other people had another person in his life would she feel like she had been duped if presented with that if she's like oh no i'm just assuming that he is then she has her answer there is some kind of tacit agreement there which is solidified by the fact that no one has ever had the conversation to say that their status quo is a okay and i assume if suitor on the sixth date is serious about trying to fix the problem that she doesn't have and trying to make her exclusive then he will make that ask and she will have to

[Abby]

decline it yeah and i guess the only other issue is assuming these are men right right the only other ooh interesting was there anything i think she

[Glennon]

said he's but i don't know i

[Abby]

could have just no oh no there's a him okay good okay i guess the only last thing that i think have a thought about is that i only care about sexy sue because i'm only thinking about sexy sue right now i'm not thinking about the other two because sexy sue wrote into us and sexy sue was our person she's our constituent yes the only thing that matters to me is if this keeps bothering sexy sue if it wasn't bothering sexy sue at all sexy sue would not have written this question truth if for some reason this is making sexy sue feel an ick when she falls asleep at night or a little nagging or a nudging or like a discomfort an inner conflict then that is when i would want sexy sue not because of what she should do not because of should but because of her actual self feeling uncomfortable and if she's really not trying to nail down one of these two if it still bothers her then why the hell not for her own self to free her own self from the bother be like hey dude you are just wanna be clear i'm seeing these other people i'm seeing these other people then that's why to do it to make herself released from whatever discomfort led her to even ask this question in the first place yeah great okay i hope that's all right sexy sue mostly we just think you're really cool i love it okay we are gonna go to our pod squatter of the week and this one came in a little while ago but it's so precious and wonderful and juicy that just here

[Amanda]

we go hi glennon abby amanda my name is liz she her i'm listening to the podcast and you mentioned the tour and i just recalled this memory from seeing you on tour that i wanted to share with you i thought you'd like it by the way that

[Abby]

tour if you don't know we went to a bunch of cities we met with sold out huge massive beautiful dancing crowds of you all over the country and then gave every penny that we made on that tour to immigration justice groups in each city and so the whole thing was just an incredibly beautiful love fest from our perspective that's what

[Amanda]

she's talking about so i took my husband to the tour it was like our first date night in years we have little kids and we went to the seattle one which was amazing and first time i was like literally mind blown in a positive way in so long but afterwards we went to go use the restroom downstairs in the theater and the women's line was like out the door super long so my husband thinking he was going to be quick goes to the men's room and then later when i saw him when we met back up he said that the women had overtaken the men's room and that he and another guy had to put poke their heads in and then they asked the women in the men's room if it was okay if they went and used the urinal so i just want to say that we're not worldwide yet but we as a group in that little theater that night we took that patriarchy that fucked down they had to ask us if they could use a urinal i just feel like that's a sign of things to come and that's a sign of the work you're doing and and the power in that room and yeah it was great so thanks for doing what you're doing and let's you know keep it up

[Abby]

we'll get there oh liz oh that's

[Glennon]

so good okay i love this because alice and i had a very similar experience for her christmas present we planned a trip to go see she had read ragtime the play and loved it and my friend from college lear debessenet who is this extraordinary woman she basically puts on half of the shows on broadway she's a brilliant brilliant amazing human and always has been she made ragtime directed it on broadway and so we were dying to see that and of course also we needed to see wicked because that was totally obsessed with that for like five years okay so we're in the wicked intermission it is like our huge trip of the year we have like invested a lot in this trip and this show and you get like a seven second is it called intermission in theater yes yeah i think intermission so we're going out and the women's restroom is literally like three hundred people long and the men's room is three people and all of us are waiting in this line we have paid cash money to be here and for the purposes of watching the show which is about they're blinking the lights about to go back on and all of these like officials from these theater are standing around like this is acceptable that all of these women for needing to use the bathroom are going to miss what they paid for while they're literally side by side it does it makes no sense i'm like this is an injustice this is my this is impact these things bother me even when it's not impacting my actual bottom line and my dollars and my trip that i have planned meticulously for my daughter for her entire christmas present and i was like guess what we're not going to do miss a second of that play and i looked around to the women that were in front and back of me and first i checked with alice i was like alice what we're going to do is we're going come to go over and use that bathroom and i'm going to invite some people to come with us because this is absolute horseshit like never obey in advance no one's even telling us not to do that we're just standing in this line obeying in advance for the awkwardness of someone looking askew at us and i dare someone to look askew at me in this moment and so i'm like do you want to come do you wanna work i'm bringing a contingent over there and if you would like to come you're more than welcome and so this little group of like twenty of us just moves out of line and runs into the thing and gets in line and just without like no words no whatever there's like an official standing at the door and i'm like i'm going in there and she's like okay and we just all go in the bathroom and then like half the line comes and joins half the bathroom but it was like this idea that like what are we afraid of what are we afraid is going to happen that someone's going to say no in which case we could be like why do they have a right to see a show that we don't have a right to see this is crazy it felt like a little jolt of like excitement and fun and we should just do things more rather than elect to do the thing that is expected that we don't like like i was like i don't like this moment and this should be different and wait why can't i make it different i literally can all it's going to take is walking over

[Abby]

there i want to hear just that you're saying that i just want to hear so many other ideas like that like i want to hear from if you're listening right now and you're you just heard that story and it made you think of another thing that you did in a regular situation outside in our regular culture in our regular society that we was like a micro action of equality that we might not think of but that we could do in our everyday lives would you just call it in and tell it to us i don't know if that's going to work but i just i'm listening to you thinking i need i need more

[Amanda]

of this more of those yeah yeah

[Abby]

yeah especially right now when like the big things are so corrupt like i need things that we can do now in our like grocery stores in our post offices in theaters that that mean we're not obeying these ancient oppressive standards in advance so if you have any

[Glennon]

other micro resistances yes we mean micro resistance ideas okay call us and tell us your micro resistant resistant ideas seven four seven two zero zero five three zero seven seven four seven two hundred five three zero seven or just your questions too because that was fun especially if you have a sexy one like

[Amanda]

sue

[Abby]

we love y' all thanks so much for doing life with us we'll see you next time bye bye we are proud to say that we can do hard things is an independent production brought to you by us treat media treat media makes art for humans who want to stay human and you can follow us at we can do hard things on instagram