BSFC #28: Welcome Back, Stacey!

October 1989 was a month of political, physical, and personal shakeups: Regimes fell in Central Europe, San Francisco quaked on live TV, and copaganda's stranglehold on the box office was ended by two Scientologists and a talking baby. It was all quite tumultuous -- as was Stacey McGill's home life.

Brooke and Kaykay discuss Welcome Back, Stacey!'s insightful portrayal of the stress of decision making and the impact of institutions on personal relationships, with digressions to spread the gospel of Young MC and lament the misery of CCD.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Brooke: Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead, you talk about the battles fought and the lessons learned in the Baby-sitters Club series of books by Ann M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel, an editor who's revisiting these books after 30 years.

[00:00:24] Kaykay: And I'm Kaykay Brady. I'm a therapist and I'm new to the books.

[00:00:28] Brooke: And this week, we are taking you back to October 1989, starting off with a little geopolitical update from our last episode. So last episode, we talked about how there was a lot going on, with people standing up and demanding more democracy, more rights, et cetera, from their government. There were more Monday demonstrations in East Germany that we had talked about, that had started September 4th. This is a nice little lesson for all of us from recent history, because in Leipzig, in East Germany, on October 16th, 120,000 people showed up for a peaceful demonstration.

[00:01:04] Kaykay: Ooh! 

[00:01:05] Brooke: Two days later, the head of state resigned. Okay, so that's six weeks. Six weeks of weekly demonstrations got the head of an oppressive government to step down. 

[00:01:15] Kaykay: Fierce. 

[00:01:16] Brooke: They didn't stop there, though. 320,000 people showed up the next week. So what happened? Spoiler alert, the Berlin Wall falls November 9th. 

[00:01:27] Kaykay: Aww! 

[00:01:27] Brooke: So in two months of everyone just going out and peacefully demanding what they needed from their government for society to function in the way that benefits its citizens, you get results. So the lesson is, show the fuck up and stay there, people. 

[00:01:43] Kaykay: Show up. It matters. 

[00:01:45] Brooke: Gotta show up. Take a lesson from Leipzig, y'all. And then... 

[00:01:49] Kaykay: A lesson from Leipzig! 

[00:01:51] Brooke: And then, same update from our last episode when we were talking about what happened in September, almost exactly one month after Desmond Tutu, may he rest in peace, really shouldn't have mentioned Desmond Tutu and Betty White in our last episode. Sorry about that. 

[00:02:04] Kaykay: Seriously, I was thinking about that. 

[00:02:06] Brooke: No more mensches. We're not going to get rid of mensches in this episode, we're going to get rid of the anti-mensches. But almost exactly one month after Desmond Tutu, our recently departed mensch, led a march of 30,000 against apartheid on September 13th, on October 15th, the South African apartheid government released eight political prisoners who were a part of the African National Congress, which was Nelson Mandela's party. And so again, if you get out there and if you make your demands known and you keep on pushing, things can happen, people. 

[00:02:38] Kaykay: I think it's a really good message right now, because we're all very stuck in our phones and we're all literally in isolation to some degree. And so I think it's a really timely and important reminder that physical bodies matter, showing up with your physical bodies matter and it doesn't have to be violence, but just showing up. 

[00:02:58] Brooke: Right. Being non-violent doesn't mean being passive. 

[00:03:01] Kaykay: Yeah. 

[00:03:02] Brooke: And these are good examples of that and how change can happen and how the status quo doesn't have to be inevitable. 

[00:03:09] Kaykay: And also, I really wanna say, "He's a mensch." I don't know. I just really felt that had to come out. 

[00:03:16] Brooke: Yeah. 

[00:03:16] Kaykay: He’s a mensch. 

[00:03:18] Brooke: He's a mensch. She's a mensch, Ms. Betty White, a real mensch. 

[00:03:22] Kaykay: We lost some mensches. 

[00:03:23] Brooke: We lost some mensches, and another, I mean, I wouldn't put her in the mensch category. I would put her in a category of somebody who might have more mensch qualities than we knew at the time and perhaps acknowledge today, we talked about Zsa Zsa Gabor in the last episode- 

[00:03:40] Kaykay: Ah, a sneaker mensch. 

[00:03:42] Brooke: Yeah, a sneaker mensch. 

[00:03:43] Kaykay: She's a sneaker mensch. 

[00:03:44] Brooke: Right. Not a pure mensch. Has a lot of problematic traits, but you know, not all mensches are mensches all of the time. Hungary, where Zsa Zsa is from, declared itself a republic on October 23rd. So this was what Zsa Zsa was discussing with her fan in the audience when she made her appearance on Donahue just four days after this happened.

[00:04:06] Kaykay: When she was not having the authoritarian bullshit. 

[00:04:08] Brooke: She's not having it. Zsa Zsa knows the lesson that we just said, which is, you show the fuck up and you stay there. And then, you know, I'm sure a lot of us that were kids in October 1989 don't remember all of these geopolitical events. One thing that we likely do remember is the Loma Prieta earthquake that hit the Bay Area on October 17th, 1989.

[00:04:29] Kaykay: Didn't the fucking Bay Bridge fall down? 

[00:04:32] Brooke: A part of the Bay Bridge. I think a lot of people think that the Bay Bridge is where so many people died in their cars, but that was actually in Oakland on what is now 880. 

[00:04:43] Kaykay: Ah.

[00:04:43] Brooke: So it was the stacked freeway in Oakland that collapsed and that's where a lot of people died. And there was footage of what was happening. People were coming out that were helping free people from that, were people who lived in this neighborhood. And of course because it's along a freeway, and because the freeway was intentionally built through a predominantly black neighborhood, the history of urban planning in America was, Let's destroy established communities to put highways and freeways there. It was the people in that neighborhood that had seen their community demolished by this freeway that got out and with no training or no expertise just went out to help people. To help free people from the wreckage, to provide support, encouragement, you know, do whatever they can to help people. So that was a really good example of people banding together across, know, in a crisis. 

[00:05:39] Kaykay: Yeah, and more showing up. Showing up with your body and having an impact. 

[00:05:43] Brooke: Exactly. So the reason why so many people, I mean, obviously a 6.9 earthquake happening in a well-known region, that destroys landmarks that people are aware of, is going to get attention, but it got so much direct, immediate attention because it hit four minutes into ABC's pregame coverage of game three of the World Series.

[00:06:09] Kaykay: Oh, right. I remember this now. 

[00:06:11] Brooke: This was the World Series between two Bay Area teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's, who play directly across the bay from each other. Those of you who are listening who are not in the Bay Area may not be aware, I certainly wasn't, how Oakland and San Francisco are literally just separated by a, what is it, eight-mile strait of water. There was so much national media in the Bay Area to cover the World Series, since all of the games were in the Bay Area. There was a huge national media base that was here and they had the Goodyear blimp flying overhead. They had all of these media resources that were already on site to get footage that would have been inaccessible on the ground. So live footage was just all over TV. 

[00:06:59] Kaykay: Wow. 

[00:07:00] Brooke: This was actually a major TV event, along with being obviously a major national disaster and humanitarian crisis.

[00:07:10] Kaykay: Yeah. And this was back in the time where people didn't have cell phone cameras, so you weren't seeing every crisis that occurred, pictures flooding your Facebook feed or Instagram videos, right? Unless there was news media, you didn't see it. And so when there was news media, like OJ, for example, they caught that chase in LA on film, so everybody was just obsessed. 

[00:07:36] Brooke: This was really an example of how access to direct information happening in real time that you can see with your own eyes, how that intensifies your response to that information, because you've seen it. It's not something that you've had relayed secondhand to you, and so it really stuck.

[00:07:56] Kaykay: It speaks to what's happening for all of us with seeing tragedy, injustice that has always happened, you know, seeing it, it's sort of like your brain can't take it all in. It's just like, it's almost too much for your mind to handle. 

[00:08:12] Brooke: Right, because you thought that the world was one way, simply because you can only make inferences about the world based on the information that you have directly accessible to you. 

[00:08:23] Kaykay: Yeah, and it's a bias, it's like a known psychological bias that you believe that the world is as you see it and as you experience it. So we have a very hard time imagining that people other than us have different experiences or are living different realities. And so the video is like, constantly bumping up against that psychological bias and it's very difficult for us. It creates of cognitive dissonance and strain. 

[00:08:50] Brooke: And how can people resolve that cognitive dissonance? How capable are they of reflecting upon what that means and changing their worldview when they get access to new information? Man, we're seeing that play out in real time. That's a skill to hone, y'all. We are trying to hone that ourselves, I think, in this podcast.

[00:09:08] Kaykay: Yeah, and even if, you know, in an ideal world, it does broaden and deepen your views on the world, things become less black and white, they become more gray, you get more empathy and understanding for what other people are experiencing. And it's still hard. Even opening your heart and your mind, it's like how to hold all of this, and also have a happy life yourself or any semblance of a functional life. That's also a real struggle, even if you're able to broaden your mind on it. Because it's like so much pain and suffering to hold. So, you know, that's something that therapists are working with people constantly on. It's like, how do you not bury your head in the sand? How do you hold the world's pain and suffering and also continue a life and continue contributing to this world in ways that you think are of value, but it's really challenging because the human mind is not designed to like take in all this trauma. 

[00:10:08] Brooke: Right, and our modern access to information has increased so exponentially that our skills have not had the time to develop as needed in order to process that information. 

[00:10:21] Kaykay: Yeah, and our brains, this is like old hardware. 

[00:10:24] Brooke: Yeah. 

[00:10:24] Kaykay: This hardware is not developed for this. 

[00:10:25] Brooke: We need an upgrade. We need an upgrade, y'all. Seriously, we are long overdue. our brains are like, word processor at best at this point. And we haven't even gotten to the pop culture part yet, um, so there was a lot going on. 

[00:10:40] Kaykay: What a time of change.

[00:10:43] Brooke: Seriously, major change. There was a shit ton of change happening globally, at structural levels and at social levels, and obviously a ton of change happening technologically, but we hadn't quite gotten to where we are today with that. 

[00:10:59] Kaykay: Yeah, we're just over here watching fucking Meatballs. 

[00:11:02] Brooke: Exactly. We had no idea what was to come, blindsided. But I think in the US, we were shielded, especially as children who were too young to really understand the ramifications of what was going on geopolitically and who obviously lacked both the historical context and the critical thinking skills, the developmental skills, you know, to process that information.

[00:11:25] Kaykay: Yeah, and even just the access to the information was limited. I wasn't watching the news. You tell me to go watch the news, I'll tell you to go shit in your hat. No, I'm going out to play baseball, sorry. 

[00:11:34] Brooke: Go watch the news and get your makeup done. Both of those are hat-shitting penalties for that. Seriously. So much hat shitting.

[00:11:44] Kaykay: No, I got another one. "It's time for CCD." 

[00:11:47] Brooke: Ugh. 

[00:11:48] Kaykay: The ultimate go shit in your hat. Oh, God, CCD. You know, people not from the east coast, people not from the United States- people who grow up- it was like Hebrew school for Catholics. Ah! 

[00:12:00] Brooke: And was yours always on a Wednesday night?

[00:12:02] Kaykay: No, we went all day on Saturday, once a month. 

[00:12:06] Brooke: What the fuck? 

[00:12:07] Kaykay: it was fucking torture. 

[00:12:10] Brooke: Here's what CCD is, and here's why it didn't work for me. One of the many reasons why it didn't work for me. 

[00:12:15] Kaykay: Yeah. One of reasons, I'm not surprised at all. 

[00:12:19] Brooke: And I don't even know what CCD stands for, but I know- 

[00:12:22] Kaykay: It's like catechism- 

[00:12:24] Brooke: It's catechism, what's the D?

[00:12:26] Kaykay: Catholic Catechism...I don't know. 

[00:12:28] Brooke: Catholic Catechism Demands on a young child to shut off their brain. 

[00:12:34] Kaykay: We should text all of our friends that we know went to CCD, what does that shit stand for? 

[00:12:39] Brooke: I guarantee you, none of them know what it stands for. Do why? Here's why I can guarantee that, because the whole point of CCD is to be sat in a room and told, "You aren't supposed to ask questions. You aren't supposed to ask individual questions. We are going to give you the questions that you are allowed to ask, and we are going to immediately provide you with the correct answers to those questions." CCD is fucking indoctrination and it sucks.

[00:13:05] Kaykay: Oh, a hundred percent. Who was the character in the Bible that God tested him by having him kill his wife? Was it Job? And then God like comes right at the last minute and is like, "psych"? So the fucking nun is trying to tell me in class how this is a sign of what a good follower of God this guy is to kill his wife. And I was like, what I said is, I said, "I don't want to follow a God that would ask me to kill my most beloved family member." They sent me home. They sent me home!

[00:13:37] Brooke: Oh dude. I was out of CCD every fucking week. I was sent out in the hall every week. I could go on.

[00:13:47] Kaykay: This is where we would have met. We need to write a movie about we're in different classrooms. I get kicked out. You get kicked out. We meet in the hallway. We take over the world. 

[00:13:57] Brooke: Seriously. Anyhoo, CCD. Don't send your kids to it.

[00:14:00] Kaykay: How did we get on this shit? 

[00:14:03] Brooke: I don't fucking know, dude.

[00:14:04] Kaykay: Oh, I know how we got on this shit. We got shit with uh, Kaykay's shit in your hat. What is shit in your hat-able, and CCD rose to the number one spot, not deposed probably for a long time. 

[00:14:18] Brooke: Right. The whole point of CCD is to get you to shut off your critical thinking skills. And I am here to say, go shit in your fucking hat. Anyways...

[00:14:30] Kaykay: T-shirt, "CCD, go shit in your hat."

[00:14:35] Brooke: CCD stands for "go shit in your hat." Um, so Loma Prieta earthquake on TV, also on TV, it's October, so there wasn't shit really starting on TV, but American Bandstand ended. That shit began in 1952 and it ended in 1989. Did you watch American Bandstand?

[00:14:55] Kaykay: It a long time. Once or twice. I mean, I was more into Soul Train. 

[00:15:00] Brooke: Good call. A couple of songs that were likely on Soul Train, and I'm sure were on American Bandstand, in October, it was the month of Janet Jackson's "Miss You Much." This was probably where I choreographed what I realize now was my first drag routine, to this song. I was obsessed with the song and making up dances that were very performative and like if I was Janet Jackson on the stage, uh, which as white eight old, I was definitely not. Also big this month, Young MC's "Bust a Move" hit number seven. I fucking love that song so much. 

[00:15:33] Kaykay: Oh yeah. 

[00:15:34] Brooke: This was the song that we used to kick off our wedding reception, which was 100% ‘90s hip hop, start to finish. 

[00:15:42] Kaykay: It was a dream come true. 

[00:15:44] Brooke: I love this song so fucking much. I know every word. It's the best. It is absolutely on our playlist. Holy shit. You are going to want to listen to the playlist for this month. 

[00:15:54] Kaykay: I mean, is it possible that there's anyone listening to this podcast that has not heard "Bust a Move"? 

[00:15:59] Brooke: If you haven't, please correct that. It's quite possible. And I, if I have introduced anyone to "Bust a Move," then my time on this earth has been meaningful. 

[00:16:12] Kaykay: It's almost the CCD hours were worth it. 

[00:16:16] Brooke: I don't know about that, but...

[00:16:19] Kaykay: Okay. I just wanted to put it in perspective. 

[00:16:22] Brooke: My practice of challenging authority that I honed in CCD class, my weekly practice has been worth it. Yes, definitely. And then at the movies, Look Who's Talking was number one for multiple weeks, smash hit. Kaykay, do you remember this? This is Kirstie Alley and John Travolta. So this oh, this is a Scientology special.

[00:16:50] Kaykay: This is a Scientology joint. 

[00:16:53] Brooke: This is Scientology CCD. Kirstie Alley has a baby out of wedlock. Scandalous! And said baby has the voice of Bruce Willis.

[00:17:06] Kaykay: Oh, that is where Bruce Willis comes in. Okay, thank you. 

[00:17:09] Brooke: Yes, he's commenting on everything at all times. Look Who's Talking Too, the sequel that came out Bruce Willis was back as the baby and then the other baby was Roseanne Barr. 

[00:17:20] Kaykay: Oh shit. I remember this. 

[00:17:22] Brooke: And so Look Who's Talking Too comes about because Look Who's Talking, which ostensibly, if you look at the plot is about the lack of American social support for working and mothers, and then sort of the perils of an overworked working class who doesn't have the daily life support that they need. So you would think, great. This could be a radicalizing movie.

[00:17:45] Kaykay: No, it's like a stupid rompy comedy. 

[00:17:48] Brooke: Right, because the solution to all of these problems is simply for John Travolta and Kirstie Alley to get married and have more babies. So all it does is reinforce the existing heteronormative capitalist structures that created these very conditions. To which I say, fuck that. 

[00:18:05] Kaykay: Go shit in your hat.

[00:18:06] Brooke: Go shit in your hat. And speaking of hetero-normative capitalist structures that create untenable social conditions, we're going to talk about the 28th Baby-sitters Club book.

[00:18:16] Kaykay: I was gonna say, what an entree into this book. Oh my God. For some reason, I'm Suze Orman again this week. 

[00:18:24] Brooke: I'm wearing my blazer on the beach as God intended herself. 

[00:18:28] Kaykay: That's right. 

[00:18:29] Brooke: So, this book, which is about the pain of when heteronormative capitalist structures fail to work for the individual, Welcome Back, Stacey, came out in October of 1989. 

[00:18:42] Kaykay: I would almost say they cause a lot of the dissolution and pain. 

[00:18:47] Brooke: I would agree with you. And I'm very excited to get into that as we discuss. So it's time for some back cover copy, and I quote, " Stacey's parents have been fighting a lot lately. Even so, she's still not prepared for the terrible news. Her parents are getting divorced. Not only is Stacey sad and angry, but now she has a big decision to make. Stacey must either stay in New York with her father or move out with her mother to Stoneybrook. Could Stacey really leave the city, her father, her best friend Laine, and all that great shopping?" Ladies gotta shop, you know what I'm saying? "But then again, how could Stacey pass up going back to her old school, all the kids in Stoneybrook, and the members of the Baby-sitters Club?" End quote. 

[00:19:33] Kaykay: Damn. I mean, where to begin? Where to begin? 

[00:19:35] Brooke: I have to ask you real quick. So the last book, neither of us had much on our pages, on your spreadsheet or on my respective notebook page. Did that change with this book? Did you resonate with this more?

[00:19:47] Kaykay: Yes. There is a lot more on this page. I wanna see yours. 

[00:19:50] Brooke: Here's my notebook. So you can see-

[00:19:52] Kaykay: There’s different colors! 

[00:19:53] Brooke: Oh yeah. There is a color coding. 

[00:19:55] Kaykay: I like it. I can get behind all of that color coding. Yeah, I had much more on my spreadsheet, a lot more thoughts. There was a lot more, back to that kind of emotional resonance, a lot of showing rather than telling, and what a topic to have all of that emotional resonance, to sort of see these characters struggling. It almost reminded me a little bit of the book where Mimi dies, you know, where there's just like a lot of rawness and a lot of pain, and also a lot of pretty good knowledge of how someone that age might process that and not process that, and the struggles. So yeah, I thought it was a great book. I thought it was a hard topic. And I also thought, I mean, I think there's probably not a single book where divorce or the impact of divorce isn't in the plot somewhere. So I thought, you know, it makes a lot of sense that we had a book that specifically addressed divorce. 

[00:20:52] Brooke: Yeah. Cause we've had books that have addressed the fallout of divorce or the impact that it makes on people after the fact. But this is the first book where we have seen divorce in action. You know, it seems like in this book, her parents have already sort of decided to divorce before we get into the book.

[00:21:11] Kaykay: Let's talk about the fucking counselor soon. Can we? Please, God! 

[00:21:16] Brooke: Yes. Because we find out that they've been going to a counselor for three months. And in that three months, the counselor said, "I think you should get divorced" and helped them arrange a divorce. Kaykay, is that best practices? Who knows what it was like in the eighties, still a little strange to me.

[00:21:33] Kaykay: That's exactly where I was going to go. Yeah. That's exactly where I was going to go. I would not be surprised if that was best practice in the eighties or allowed in the eighties. Everything in the eighties was pure psychodynamic analysts, and analysts are much more active in like, telling you what you need in your life. But today, no, no, no, no, no. It does not fly. I mean, when you do see couples, often you'll get this question. It's very, very common for a couple to say, "Please, referee, tell us, should we get divorced?" And it is imperative that you do not inject your opinion into this conversation because your opinion has nothing to do with it. The question is, is this something they are choosing to continue with? And each person has to make that decision in the relationship. You know, there's no such thing as, this relationship is too broken and this relationship is not broken at all. it's more of a choice and a commitment and a decision. And so today the best practice is to help the couple come to that decision in a very non-judgmental way. Because part of what you might have to do as a counselor is to start to unpack some of the bias they might have against divorce, or like other societal voices that are kind of knocking on the door and adding additional pressures to the decision-making process they need to go through. So yeah, it's horrifying as a therapist to read that, but you know what the hilarious thing is, is I was reading this book in the same day I was cooking and I was listening to Esther Perel, who has a therapy podcast for couples 

[00:23:07] Brooke: What is it? Where Should We Begin or something? 

[00:23:09] Kaykay: Yeah, and it was a couples counseling session, which it almost always is, and one of them said, "Oh, yeah, my parents got divorced in the eighties and their therapist suggested it." So in the same day I got confirmation.

[00:23:24] Brooke: Oh dude, it was a scam! So you had these therapists in league with divorce lawyers, in league with real estate brokers, all fucking three of them working together. It was the divorce industrial complex and it infiltrated the mental health profession.

[00:23:42] Kaykay: Yeah. I mean, and then to have the counselor suggest divorce for Stacey's parents who are basically wrangling with the same issues that I would say most heteronormative couples were wrangling with, especially in the 80s. Like, there's no substance abuse. There's no, that we know of, affairs. There's basically just tensions about how money is being spent, you know, jobs, spending time at the family, like this is the bread and butter of heteronormative conflict. 

[00:24:14] Brooke: What is seen, shown, accepted as widespread, stereotypical, right? They're fighting because Stacey's mom thinks that her dad is working too much. And it's like, sometimes he gets home at like 7:30 at night. That was shocking in the 80s. Think about where it is today. 

[00:24:32] Kaykay: Yeah. 

[00:24:32] Brooke: Expectations of overwork. And then he's saying that he feels like he has to work that much because her mom is shopping so much and spending so much. And she's saying, well, she has to go spend $2,000 on jewelry because she's bored. Again, it's like the, Oh, men gotta work and women gotta shop and that's how relationships work, you know? So...

[00:24:53] Kaykay: And women are completely depressed because they're not doing much with their lives. 

[00:24:58] Brooke: Right. So that's, what's presented as the cause of the tension that they have in their relationship. You know, and Stacey's like, "Oh, and sometimes they'll fight about me and how I'm being cared for, like with my diabetes," et cetera. But what we see explicitly, those are the two things that we see them fight about is money and time spent at the office.

[00:25:23] Kaykay: Which is probably in any relationship, possibly the number one, and number two topics that are going to come up. 

[00:25:29] Brooke: Right. And like the solution is Stacey's mom is like, "Okay, well, I think I need to go back to work," since Stacey doesn't need her as much anymore. Instead of just getting a job in New York City, she decides that she's going to move to Stoneybrook to get a job, where there's really no support for her. We don't see Stacey's mom, in previous books when they were living in Stoneybrook, doing anything in Stoneybrook. It was the same thing, back then, Stacey's mom was always just kind of like sitting around the house and going shopping sometimes and shit. So that was very confusing. Cause it's like, or you could just get a job. You know, I get that it's all set up this way for narrative purposes as a means of moving the plot along. 

[00:26:12] Kaykay: She almost says that in her letter to the reader in the end. 

[00:26:15] Brooke: But from a rational perspective, it just doesn't make sense. And yeah, tell me a little bit more about your take on the letter at the end and how that might play into what we're seeing in the plot of this book.

[00:26:26] Kaykay: Ann M. says, you know, I realized Stacey was a really big part of this series and I needed to figure out a way to bring her back in. And I'd gotten letters from kids that are experiencing divorce and talked about how important it was to have the topic addressed in the book series. And they'd actually like to see a book on divorce. So I kind of brought those two together and boom, here you have "Welcome Back, Stacey." 

[00:26:51] Brooke: Yeah. And what did you think about the whole, "Stacey's an important part. We need to bring Stacey back to Stoneybrook." How did you feel about that from Ann M.? 

[00:27:00] Kaykay: I mean, it kind of passed by me. I didn't take any significance in it. What did you think?

[00:27:05] Brooke: I think Stacey has to go back to Stoneybrook because otherwise they don't know what to do with Claudia. Because Claudia doesn't have any other close relationships in Stoneybrook, now that Mimi has died.

[00:27:19] Kaykay: Ah, I see. Yeah, there was sort of a, a big emotional piece that died along with Mimi. 

[00:27:27] Brooke: Yeah. 

[00:27:28] Kaykay: Interesting. 

[00:27:28] Brooke: And explicitly for Claudia, what do you do with her? Because we see, she's so different from the other Baby-sitters Club members. You could theoretically say, well, you could see her becoming better friends with Dawn, but Dawn has sort of already been tethered to Mary Anne, and you don't see Claudia and Mary Anne becoming closer. You know, they've got that history, but they're going into very different directions. And so I think they need a narrative, and when I say foil, I don't mean foil in the sense of an enemy, but like foil in the sense of someone to bounce things off of, stories off of, the emotional resonance off of, with Claudia. And so Stacey is the natural choice for that, especially because again, Ann M. is ceding future books to ghost writers. I think it's pretty obvious she wrote this book. I mean, this has Ann M.'s stamp all over it. And to me, it almost felt like she was working through her feelings about sort of like a divorce from the book series. Or at least stepping away and, you know, seeing the book series on weekends, much in the way that Stacey is going to come back to New York City to visit her friends and such, but like, you know, a departure. And we know that Stacey loves New York. New York is the place that Stacey actually wants to be. It's very much like Dawn in that way, where she does a pro and con list, and you're looking at the list and you hear throughout, Stacey says explicitly, New York City is home. When she goes to visit Stoneybrook, she says, "I couldn't wait to get back. It was great to see my friends, but I couldn't wait to get back to New York City because New York City is home." And then when you're looking through the list, the only thing that you can take away the list, if anybody has the book, is on page 104 and 105, about the advantages of New York versus the advantages of Connecticut. And you see things where she says, like, "I know what I'm getting into when I move to Stoneybrook. My dad's going to move to the east side. I don't know what the east side is going to be like. I know what Stoneybrook will be like." She says the kids are very sophisticated in New York and she says there's no peer pressure with her friends in Stoneybrook. Ultimately it seems like the thing that pushes her over to Stoneybrook is she says that she feels like she can never be the queen of cool in New York. She's in the circles of cool, but Laine is the queen of cool. And she's never going to be able to like unseat Laine from her throne and Stacey wants status. And she gets the status of New York City, like New York City bestows her with this status. But when she's in New York City, she's just another- 

[00:30:21] Kaykay: Yeah, she's a little fish. 

[00:30:22] Brooke: She's a little fish.

[00:30:23] Kaykay: In a big pond.

[00:30:23] Brooke: And she's still in that pond, and she's still in those circles, but I think she feels precarious in those circles. Whereas in Stoneybrook, everyone is like, "You are the most sophisticated, you are the coolest," and so that's what she gets out of it. And it's funny that Laine reads that list and is like, "I know where you'll go," because Laine's like, "I know that you want to be queen shit, and you're never going to be queen shit here in New York City, Stacey. That's me."

[00:30:50] Kaykay: Ah, Laine is kind of a mean girl. I'm thinking of Mean Girls. 

[00:30:54] Brooke: Oh, very much. 

[00:30:54] Kaykay: She is a little bit like, uh, what is the name of the head, Regina? 

[00:30:58] Brooke: Regina. 

[00:30:58] Kaykay: She's a little Regina George. 

[00:30:59] Brooke: Yeah. 

[00:31:00] Kaykay: Oh shit, that makes Stacey what's her name, whose dad- 

[00:31:02] Brooke: Gretchen Wieners. Stacey is Gretchen Wieners. Yeah, for sure. 

[00:31:11] Kaykay: Her dad invented Toaster Strudels. 

[00:31:13] Brooke: Uh huh. That's very Stacey. Yeah, like, she has this super toxic friendship with Laine and it says right at the beginning, like page 7 is a whole thing, talking about the kind of fights they have where it's like, they basically will just hurt each other and they don't know why. She says, and then they'll apologize and make up, and like, "Sometimes I felt the fights had been worth it because making up was so nice."

[00:31:35] Kaykay: They need couples counseling. 

[00:31:37] Brooke: They really do. It's a super toxic friendship and it's not something that I hope none of the kids are reading this and being like, that's something that I needed to emulate, but it's something that's very real. I certainly had friendships like that, where somebody who was like, quote unquote, my best friend was also the meanest person to me. And it makes it so much more confusing because it's like they can also be the nicest person to me. And so what do you do with that? Like, we don't talk enough about abusive friendships in childhood. We talk about abusive relationships from a romantic or like a familial sense, but I think we need to talk more about abusive friend relationships, because those are very real and very painful.

[00:32:14] Kaykay: It is super common. I would almost say it seems more common than not for female identified people to have experienced that, you know, at one point or another in their childhood. I don't know why. Maybe it's they're like, recreating the oppression of being female identified in a patriarchal culture on other in these like really fucked up ways. You know, it's sort of like you love and hate your fellow oppressed person in equal measure because you love and hate yourself, because, you know, the world teaches you to hate yourself. But yeah, I think it's really real.

[00:32:47] Brooke: It's almost like, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. You know what I mean? Like it's kind of like that dynamic that plays out and I think it might have something to do with, to your point, when you are put in a lower caste of society by the very nature of something that you are born with, and that society tells you, you need to form your closest relationships, you need to form your bonds with other members of that caste, and you live in a society that has the myth of meritocracy pervaded throughout everything. So it's like, "If you are the exceptional one, if you are the best of these, we'll give you proximity to our power. You'll have some protection." And so it gets you fighting.

[00:33:28] Kaykay: Yeah. And also, when you only have scraps of power, it now becomes a zero-sum game. Whereas for the people that actually have the power, it's not a zero-sum game. They welcome their buddies up. 

[00:33:41] Brooke: Yep. And that's how they maintain their power, right? 

[00:33:43] Kaykay: Right. 

[00:33:44] Brooke: They surround themselves with those who won't threaten that power, as a means of securing that caste from any sort of upward mobility from lower castes. And I know as I'm saying that, it might sound very highfalutin and academic and theoretical. there have been a lot of people who have researched this, like Isabel Wilkerson's Caste, there's so much that you can learn about the way that society functions. And it's not just a means of understanding society. It's very helpful to understanding the way that interpersonal relationships play out, because society is a collection of interpersonal relationships.

[00:34:18] Kaykay: Yeah. 

[00:34:19] Brooke: That's what a society is, at its core.

[00:34:21] Kaykay: This also is part of new wave ways of understanding therapy, is horizontal oppression. Therapy now welcomes the idea that there are oppressive structures which are putting pressure on all of the relationships in your life. Yes, it's research based and theoretical as well, but it's also a very emotionally oriented field of study, to like, see interpersonally how these themes really play out in people's relationships. It's so fitting you're bringing this up with Laine, because you're also seeing pressures and structures putting pressure on her parents' relationship. 

[00:35:00] Brooke: Right. And so, much in the same way that her parents have found their interpersonal relationship to be untenable, it seems like Stacey ultimately decides that her interpersonal relationships with Laine and the other people in that circle in New York has become untenable in comparison to the sort of interpersonal relationships that she has in Stoneybrook. And so even though the New York City environment as a whole is what speaks to her and what she identifies as home, the environment in Stoneybrook is an acceptable alternative, as a means of extricating herself from damaging interpersonal relationships. 

[00:35:47] Kaykay: I hadn't thought about the way that the choice about New York City or Stoneybrook is really a referendum on her relationship with Laine. And I think hundred percent right. This is a book about relationships, and it really is the relationships that make Stoneybrook good enough. 

[00:36:02] Brooke: Yeah. And to that point, too, in terms of how this is a book that is driven by decisions made in response to the status of interpersonal relationships and how you want to relate to others, to me, my read on why Stacey's mom is going back to Stoneybrook, because it makes absolutely no sense otherwise, it seems like she's doing it as a means of hurting her dad, Stacey's dad. So they're giving Stacey the choice of where to live. And Stacey seems to feel more comfortable with her dad than with her mom. She says that she's very close to her mom in her list, but you never see that in these books. Like, Stacey's mom is pretty cold. 

[00:36:47] Kaykay: Yeah, except for like one scene with a creepy manipulative thing where the mom basically says, "Oh, you don't want to live with me?" Like, really kind of communicates to Stacey that there's not really a choice, because if she does go with her dad, the mom's going to be hurt and possibly hold it against her. 

[00:37:03] Brooke: Right, especially because it's like, you're getting divorced as an unemployed mother in the eighties, and your child is opting not to live with you. That would equal immediate questioning of your worth as an individual at the time. Like, if "mother" is your role, that's the role that you play in society, and your child is deciding not to live with you, that means you're a bad mother. And you're a bad mother, what is your purpose for existing? So it's like, to sort of lock it down, that's her one up that she has on Stacey's dad is she can go back to where she knows Stacey has friends and sort of like woo her into choosing to live with her. Because Stacey seems to be excited. Her dad says that he got a place on the east side and that it's got two bedrooms, you know, made sure he got a place that she would like. And she's like, "Oh, I've never lived on the east side before," and her mom kind of flips out. 

[00:38:07] Kaykay: It's right by Bloomingdale's! 

[00:38:08] Brooke: Right, and is like, "Well, I'm going to go look at houses in Stoneybrook, want to come with me?" And then just takes her immediately and shows up and is like, "Go tell Claudia, have Claudia come looking with us." So again, it's like, "We're going to lay the peer pressure on you so that you do what I want you to do. And you think that it's your choice, so you can't be mad at me for that." Like it's some serious aggressive bullshit. Yeah. 

[00:38:33] Kaykay: It's very manipulative. You know, it kind of echoes her relationship with Laine with the sort of brutalness of the manipulation and the power struggles. And probably the same dynamics we're discussing with her and Laine, given their lower caste as women, the mom is facing similar pressures. 

[00:38:50] Brooke: Yeah, absolutely. And it works, right? We see Stacey decide at the end, she's going to go live in Stoneybrook, even though, much like with Dawn, we know that her heart is in New York City. Just like Dawn's heart is in California, and that's where she feels most at home. I mean, we see Stacey, I thought this was a really good point that Ann M. decided to have Stacey just kind of find ways to wander the streets of New York.

[00:39:18] Kaykay: Oh, the Catcher in the Rye moment. That's what I called it. wanted a whole book of Catcher in the Rye moments. 

[00:39:24] Brooke: Yeah. You know, she needs to think about what she wants to do and she finds ways to be like, "Oh, I'm going to the library," or whatever. And instead of going to the library, she just wanders. I loved that because that's something that I've had experience doing, when everything just feels like too much, just get out and walk. And you can tell, like, she feels the freedom to be able to do that in New York City. Everything is there, so like, whatever kind of environment she needs to be in, in order to process what she needs to process, she can find it. As opposed to Stoneybrook, that's not going to be the case. And so it's almost like she's soaking that in as much as she can, while she can. Did you ever have your own wandering in New York City just to process moments? 

[00:40:10] Kaykay: I've had hard times in New York City where I walked from Wall Street to the Bronx, just in one day. Just fucking put on some sneakers and some really good headphones, and you just walk all the way up to the Bronx and then take the train back down. It's wonderful. I mean, it's like one of the most wonderful things about living in New York, the walking is so somehow healing. I why, you know, it's actually pretty stressful. You've got to walk fast or people get mad at you. People are constantly in and out, cursing at each other, and yet, it's beautiful. Especially if you have some music going. 

[00:40:44] Brooke: I wonder if it's because even though it can be stressful, the act of walking, you're just doing one thing, right? You're just doing one thing. And as you're just doing one thing, your conditions change. Your environment changes, everything changes. And all you're doing is walking. It's almost like meditation, where if you just keep on, it makes you see that everything is impermanent. 

[00:41:09] Kaykay: Yeah. It's sort of like those clouds passing. Yeah. That's exactly true because you're walking and it's like, here's a restaurant trying to put their trash out, now it's gone. Here's a dog running across the street, now it's gone. Here's cars honking at each other, now they're gone. It does have that quality. And also, I think it's something about, your body's engaged and your mind is very engaged too, because there's so much to look at. It's like so much to process and make sense of, versus when you're out walking in the woods in Connecticut, there's not so much process. It's just like, oh, trees, grass. 

[00:41:42] Brooke: It's the same thing. 

[00:41:44] Kaykay: Yeah. And it's also just not a lot of interpersonal things to unpack out there. 

[00:41:48] Brooke: That's one of the things that I miss the most about traveling. And one of the things that I feel like I'm missing in this age of, you know, we're not in quarantine, but we are more isolated than we used to be, at least physically isolated than we used to be. Like, even if we go out and encounter things, we still have that awareness about how things have changed, and various risks that we never would've noticed before. That's one of the things that I feel like I'm sort of mourning the most in this time, is the ability to just be like, I'm just going to go into the city and just walk, just go wherever I want to go and see where the day takes me. You can't really do that anymore. And I think that I didn't realize how hard that has been for me until talking through this right now.

[00:42:36] Kaykay: Yeah, it's a real loss, and I think there are so many things happening in pandemic times where it's those little losses you can't even clock, you know? Or like, if you clock them, you're like, well, that's not a big deal, that shouldn't affect me, but like it does, you know, it really does. Like, missing those, you know, those things that just open up your world a little bit, or maybe feel like a touchstone, I relate to that. I mean, I haven't been traveling back home to the east coast and I know a lot of people have not been doing that kind of thing. And that's a real loss too.

[00:43:08] Brooke: Yeah. It's almost like we've all left New York City for Stoneybrook, in a way. We're alive and it's not like our life is, you know, terrible. Not for everyone. I'm saying those of us that are fortunate enough to be able to navigate this world and still be safe, even though it's different, and still like have a roof over our heads and food in our belly and have the people that matter most to us still in our lives, even if it's more video calls than physical contact. It's like we have left our homes of New York City, where everything is possible, to retire to Stoneybrook, where there are a lot of things that aren't possible, but it's good enough. Right? You're still alive... 

[00:43:56] Kaykay: That should have been on Stoneybrook's sign. "Stoneybrook: It's good enough.”

[00:44:00] Brooke: “Welcome to Stoneybrook, it’s good enough." I mean, it's good enough if you're white, I don't know if it's good enough if you are not. I think Jessi needs to get the fuck out of Stoneybrook the moment that she's able to, if that's what she wants. But, yeah, I mean, ultimately to me, what it felt like the battle that was being fought in this book is fighting change. We get that a lot, and sort of fear of change due to like fear of the unknown, right? Stacey says what she knows when she's trying to make a decision about where to live, and that's another thing, is I think they're fighting the pressure of having to make major life decisions. Kids normally don't have the ability to make any major life decisions. And because her parents are getting divorced, Stacey has to make a decision, and she doesn't know what to do. And so there's a lot where she talks about, like, she doesn't want to talk to anybody. She tries to talk to her parents. She asked them, "Tell me why you're getting divorced." And they are just like, "Irreconcilable differences." They don't give her the information, so she shuts them out. She says she goes in a room. She locks doors. She says she likes to be in rooms that are locked, where she can be isolated and no one can come in, because I think she's just trying to process this and she feels overwhelmed. 

[00:45:12] Kaykay: And I think she's rightfully wary that everyone has an agenda. You know, even her friends have an agenda, and she's a little worried about that agenda all over the place. And she feels very alone because there's nobody to talk to whose agenda is really hers. 

[00:45:28] Brooke: Right. Except for Dawn.

[00:45:31] Kaykay: Judy? 

[00:45:31] Brooke: Judy. Judy speaks the truth in this book. is the truth teller.

[00:45:38] Kaykay: Yeah, Judy is a bit chorus in this book, isn't she? 

[00:45:40] Brooke: She is, absolutely. So Judy, the unhoused person that we have met in previous episodes, I think it was Stacey's Mistake, when they lose the kids in the, uh, lose the kids in a museum. So Judy makes an appearance, and she is telling some hardcore facts to young Stacey McGill. On page 62, I love this so much, I tabbed these because I was like, goddamn, go Judy. I disagree when she says, "This is what's wrong with the world today, too much divorce." I dunno if that's true. 

[00:46:12] Kaykay: Yeah. And that's actually a voice of shame, which is very harmful to Stacey in that moment. 

[00:46:18] Brooke: Right. But then she says, "Too much thieving and pillaging too. End of civilization." Judy knows what the fuck is up. And then on page 111, she's going on again, and she's screaming about, "The heads of corporations are liars. Do you hear me? They're corrupting our country with their plastic," have you seen the plastic island in the ocean? She's right. She knew what was up, "and their Campbell soup," and I mean, you could talk about like processed foods and what that does to people, but anyways, Judy knows what's going on and I'm so grateful for Judy in this book.

[00:46:50] Kaykay: The words of the prophets are written on subway walls. 

[00:46:53] Brooke: That's so true. Or screamed out, screamed out as she's walking down the street. Sometimes the truth just hits you in the face. 

[00:47:01] Kaykay: It's curious to me that Ann M. puts these words into Judy's mouth. I have a lot of curiosity around, so does that mean to Ann M.? Like, is Ann M. now dismissing this as like, "Oh, well it's like someone struggling with mental illness. Of course they're going to be ranting about governments," or not. I don't know. I don't have a read on it either way.

[00:47:17] Brooke: I mean, I could see the read in 1989 being like, "Judy, you're crazy!" But now we're like, Judy knew. Why were we not listening to Judy? 

[00:47:27] Kaykay: Well, and yeah, I mean, the discourse has certainly moved towards that. And I will say though that the whole, you know, “This is what's wrong with society” does make me think Ann M. is sort of leaning into like, "This is someone who's a little unhinged," because I don't believe Ann M. agrees with that at all. I think there's quite a bit about this book series which is about deconstructing the shame of divorce and challenging it. So that kind of makes me think maybe Ann M. is seeing it more of just, "Oh, well this is just sort of extreme rantings of society." Like, "Here's societal extreme rantings that get into your mind and fuck you up." Because certainly that divorce shame, it's peppered throughout this book in terms of, I think, how it's blocking Stacey processing her feelings about it. 

[00:48:16] Brooke: Right. Well, because she says, and this is where I think it gets to that fear of change and the being like, "Goddamn it, I just don't want to have to make such a major life decision. I'm not prepared to make this major life decision," is on page 79. She says, "I wouldn't have any problems at all if my parents were not getting a divorce." And we know that that's not true, because her parents are fighting and she doesn't want to go home. She's like tiptoeing down the hallway just to even get to her door, because she knows her parents are going to be fighting and she doesn't want to be there for it. And she talks about how there are like three other kids at her school whose parents have recently got divorced, and the kids were saying how they were glad that they didn't have to be surrounded by the fighting anymore. And so we know it's not true that she wouldn't have any problems if her parents weren't getting divorced. She would have problems. She just wouldn't have to make a decision, that's all.

[00:49:10] Kaykay: Yeah, and that's a statement that you listen for as a therapist. "Never." "Always." Because rigid thoughts are almost never true. Just the nature of that kind of "never, always," it's like a red flag to be like, "Hmm." 

[00:49:23] Brooke: Right. Considering that at least half of the social discourse that we encounter today is binary thinking... 

[00:49:31] Kaykay: Yeah. 

[00:49:32] Brooke: Red flag. Red flag, everyone. 

[00:49:34] Kaykay: Yeah, it's really, it's a really interesting time to be a therapist. You know, we don't think in "never" and "always." We think in a lot of grays and, it's like, what people are consuming is black and white and rigid at all times. And it's harmful to them and harmful to others. 

[00:49:51] Brooke: Right, because if it's black and white at all times, and reality is not, that means that people's perception of reality is increasingly distorted.

[00:50:02] Kaykay: Yeah. And it's also very disempowering, because black and white is very, can never be changed. There's something very fundamentally disempowering about that, which is very crushing to the human spirit. You know, maybe that's what we're seeing in Stacey in that moment, right? That's an expression of her feeling of complete powerlessness. "I would have no problems if this wasn't happening."

[00:50:22] Brooke: Right.

[00:50:23] Kaykay: That's a powerless statement. 

[00:50:25] Brooke: And, you know, I think that she kind of gets there, at the end, in her move to Stoneybrook where she's back and they're asking, you know, how do you feel to be back here? And she said ultimately she's glad she's back. It takes some time, but you can see that she doesn't quite feel like this necessarily has to be permanent. You know, she's leaving, and she says to Laine, "I'm not sure I made the right decision." And she goes, and I think that ultimately she sort of rests in that uncertainty and the fact that, on page 133, she says the same thing to Claudia when she gets there, she says, "I'm not sure I made the right decision." And Claudia says, "About what?" She's helping her unpack. And Stacey goes, "I floundered. I didn't want Claud to think I wasn't glad to be with her again, but... but I wasn't. Not entirely. 'About which of my parents I should live with,' I said, finally." So, you know, she's ambivalent.

[00:51:28] Kaykay: Yeah. 

[00:51:28] Brooke: She's ambivalent throughout. She's ambivalent in what she should do, and then she makes a decision and she's still ambivalent. And then Claudia says, "I just want you to know that I understand if you aren't completely happy to be back. I love Stoneybrook, but I grew up here. You grew up in great, big, glamorous New York City, and you had to leave your dad behind." This is Stacey's thought, "I didn't know what to say. I guess I should have given Claudia more credit. I mean, for understanding. That's what best friends are for, and Claudia is my Connecticut best friend. Finally, I just said, 'Thank you,' which didn't quite follow Claud's statement, but I knew she knew what I meant." So she's really just going to where she feels she can be heard and not judged. And with that's with the Baby-sitters Club.

[00:52:11] Kaykay: I loved this end. I loved this ending. I felt that, okay, so she says, "I'm worried I didn't make the right decision." And it's interesting to me, because a lot of life has change and making decisions, and people very often fixate on what's the right decision. But the fact of the matter is, there's usually never a right decision. There's just decisions and consequences. But focusing on this idea of right or wrong is like a way to focus on something you control versus acknowledging the pain of the terrible situation you've been put into. Right? It's like a beautiful showing of that concept. I mean, I have goosebumps with you reading it over again, because you even see Stacey, s he's like, "A right decision about what?" And Stacey flounders for a minute, right? So like, in that moment, it's like the veil is pulled back a little bit and she's like, "Wow, there's something bigger going on for me," right? Like, Claudia just makes the space for some of her pain to step forward. Some of the ambivalence to step forward. Some of the non-black and white thinking, the gray thinking to step forward, and just like holds that pain with her. And in the end, Stacey just says, "Thank you." She doesn't even know what she's thinking her for. We can look at it now and think, she's really thanking her for that beautiful holding, just that beautiful holding that a good friend can sometimes do for you. And she sort of has an instinct about the depth of what's just happened, but she can't bring words to it. So not only is that such a beautiful showing of that concept that I'm talking about, about being fixated in a right decision, again, black and white thinking, it also just creates this sort of general sense of ambivalence and continued struggle and pain, which is exactly how life is, right? Like there's no book where it gets wrapped up and all of a sudden, she's processed her parents’ divorce, and her pain is over. This is going be a continued struggle. It's going to change. It's going to morph. And you know, it's never going to leave her. And that is a beautiful thing for an author to be able to represent. So I was blown away by this ending and loved it. 

[00:54:27] Brooke: And it’s not just this one thing, like, the trauma of her parents’ divorce and the trauma of being put into a position where she has to make a decision that she doesn’t feel prepared to make. I mean, that’s clocked right at the beginning. I was so excited. Did you notice? Page 4. Page 4! This is 1989. This is not when we were talking openly about trauma. She says straight up, "I didn't love all the trauma and trouble of moving twice in just a little over a year." 

[00:54:55] Kaykay: Yeah. Clocked at the jump. 

[00:54:57] Brooke: That's not something that you heard much about because it was very much like, "Oh, that's nothing. Chin up!" 

[00:55:02] Kaykay: I mean, that wasn't even in the lexicon. 

[00:55:04] Brooke: No! 

[00:55:05] Kaykay: The common parlance lexicon. 

[00:55:07] Brooke: And this is still a huge thing in America. It's almost like if you aren't undergoing immense physical pain, nothing is traumatic. It's like, that's the only thing that trauma is, so many people think. Which basically means that you're expected to tolerate any sort of treatment, so long as it's not physical, frankly, life-threatening to your physical body, treatment. That's the only thing that can be classified as trauma, where we know now that that is so untrue, and believing that is so damaging and makes it so difficult for you to actually actualize yourself and to get to any sort of understanding. Like going right back to the conversation we were talking about between Stacey and Claudia at the end, Claudia says, "Well, you had to choose one of them," meaning which parent to live with. And Stacey says, "I know, but then the other one was hurt and it's my fault." Claudia says, "No, it isn't. You didn't ask for this divorce. They wanted it. Parents can do things their kids don't have any control over at all." And so she's able to reframe it by being like, so you're judging yourself right now, basically. You are acting like you had agency and control over a situation that you did not. You were put in a position that you didn't ask for, and you were forced to make a decision on how to continue based on the conditions that you were put in. You cannot judge yourself for that. You are doing the best that you can. And I think if everybody gave themselves that grace with all decisions, not just the ones that they feel society will accept as traumatic. "I can give myself grace in the decisions that society represents as traumatic," but like, realizing that everything that impacts you has the ability to be traumatic. And that as long as you are making the decision that feels like the best of all possible decisions at that time, given the limitations that are put upon you, you have to just keep going, you know, and Claudia is the one that helps her see it. And I think ultimately that's why she goes there, because she's entering puberty. She says she knows there's going to be a lot of changes, and that basically she feels like Stoneybrook is the safest place for her to go through those changes. Now, I think she is going to NYU the minute that she graduates from high school and she's never moving back- 

[00:57:34] Kaykay: I hope so. 

[00:57:34] Brooke: Really. Again, please take Jessi with you. It's almost like she wants to go to a place where she can feel like she can just be a kid and she can fuck up. And fucking up will have less of an impact on her daily existence if that happens in Stoneybrook than it will in New York City, where the stakes feel higher.

[00:57:55] Kaykay: Yeah. And I feel at this point that I just have to call out the elephant in the room, which is what you've done a little bit, it's so fucked up to be in that position. It is so fucked up to put the child in the position of deciding who to live with. And let's also say, the parents have support going through this process. The parents have a counselor. The kid doesn't have a counselor or anything! It's so terrible. And like, of course, Stacey just glosses that over. Of course you would at that age. But you know, as adults, we can look at that and say, wow, what a fundamentally fucked situation a child, and of course this child is going to struggle and take way more responsibility for this decision than is her due, because the adults are giving it to her! That, like, in fact, the parents, I personally am having feelings towards the parents of like, the parents don't have to make the decision to get divorced. The counselor makes that decision. And the parents don't have to make the decision about where the child lives. 

[00:58:58] Brooke: Just abdicating all responsibility.

[00:59:00] Kaykay: The parents have abdicated everything, and you know, and that's why it's so important that Claudia comes in and, to Ann's credit, in such a soft manner, kind of unpacks this for us. Not in a judgy way, not in a, like, "Your parents are fucked," right? In a kind way, like a really kind way of saying, "Give yourself fucking break. You are in an impossible situation and there is no right choice." It was beautiful. 

[00:59:25] Brooke: Yeah. And I think that's a good lesson for all of us to take because I do think that again, growing up in America, you are told that there is always a right choice and a wrong choice. We are sort of indoctrinated into thinking that we live in a world of binaries, and we don't. We just don't. Nothing is a binary. It's not real. Again, I find this book series to be so fucking subversive, because if she was more explicit in the messages that she was delivering, this would not have gotten the attention, it wouldn't have gotten the acceptance 

[01:00:01] Kaykay: Yeah, I don't think it would have even gotten through 

[01:00:03] Brooke: It's like the fucking Golden Girls, right? The Golden Girls was like one of the most progressive, risqué...

[01:00:11] Kaykay: Subversive... 

[01:00:12] Brooke: Yeah, so subversive thing on television. And how do you get that? You camouflage it, you mask it, you put it where it's least expected, so the people that are against it can't even see it because again, the people that think in the world of binaries are like, "Oh, little old ladies are sweet and non-threatening," and so they just look right past it. And it's the same thing. It's like, "Oh, it's a bunch of girls who are babysitting. They're very sweet and non-threatening." And it's like, I'm glad that is your perception because it blinds you, person who wouldn't want me to have access to this kind of information and this perspective, it blinds you to what I'm getting. So I'm glad for your ignorance.

[01:00:56] Kaykay: And it's so beautifully subversive because it's taking the dominant culture's biases sort of sneaking it in, right, or like throwing it in their faces. 

[01:01:05] Brooke: Constantly telling dominant culture to go shit in its hat, without explicitly saying the words, "Go shit in your hat." Yeah. What did you have for eighties moments? 

[01:01:16] Kaykay: I had a few. My first was a buyer’s market in real estate. "Hahahaha." That's literally what I wrote. 

[01:01:24] Brooke: Yeah, Stacey's mom doesn't have much money, you know... 

[01:01:27] Kaykay: But she can still buy a house in Connecticut. 

[01:01:29] Brooke: She can still buy a four-bedroom house in Connecticut with a little bit of money. 

[01:01:34] Kaykay: Yeah. So I had that, also printed pictures, I think we've talked about this before, and then lastly, a cordless phone. 

[01:01:43] Brooke: Yeah, they have to fight over who gets the cordless phone. 

[01:01:44] Kaykay: They make a big deal over the cordless phone, who gets the cordless phone. And I do remember those days when the cordless phones came out and they were a wonder. 

[01:01:52] Brooke: Yeah. Speaking of that, one of the things that I had was fighting over whether or not you're going to tie up the phone line if you get a call, and paid long distance. That's what we see, like Laine can't provide Stacey with emotional support. Stacey goes to Laine and Laine's like, "My parents never fight. They love each other. I can't help you. You should call Claudia." And it's like, what she can do is she can provide the financial support of paying for the long-distance phone call that Stacey needs in order to get some solace from a friend.

[01:02:22] Kaykay: There's a metaphor here that's not too hard to unpack. 

[01:02:24] Brooke: It's really not, no. So yeah, everything phone related in the eighties was definitely different than it is now. Laine's outfit, there's some really good eighties outfits in here, but like Laine's outfit on page 17 where she is wearing a leopard print leotard as part of her daily attire. Leotards that you wore, like you'd have to like unsnap them. So like, you're going to the bathroom and then you've gotta like unsnap the leotard- 

[01:02:48] Kaykay: They had snaps? 

[01:02:49] Brooke: Oh fuck yeah, they had snaps. And then she's wearing twenty silver bangles on a single wrist.

[01:02:55] Kaykay: I mean, that'll like throw your posture off. Jesus Christ. 

[01:02:58] Brooke: But when you're doing the wave, you know?

[01:03:00] Kaykay: Yeah. When you're breakdancing, it doesn't matter. 

[01:03:03] Brooke: Right, it looks super cool, adds a nice wind chime effect. And then I also had the, quote, "The divorce rate is 50%" statistic gets brought in this, which was such an 80s stat, you heard that all the time in the eighties, and it's not true. Like, just give five minutes of thought to statistics design and research methodologies to know that there is literally no way of tracking what percentage of people who get married ultimately get divorced. What that statistic comes from is a study where they looked at the number of marriages in a given year and the number of divorces in a given year, and seeing that it was like two to one marriages versus divorces happening. And being like, "Oh my God, 50% of marriages," but no, no, no, no. That would be if everyone got divorced that year got married that year, and also not taking into account, the fact that people were just finally able to get divorced, that that was from a social standpoint, getting more acceptable, a religious standpoint, a civil standpoint, a financial standpoint. That this is something that became available, and so you get a rush on people who fucking hated each other for decades who are now able to get divorced. And you also have people understanding that you don't have to get married do certain things. You know, back in the seventies, before I think it was like 1973 or something that, women could not get a credit card or a bank account unless they were married and their husband signed up for it for them. So like, just to be a functioning member of society, people had to get married. Not because they wanted to, but because they wanted to be able to do things that marriages gave them the key to do, if you're a woman. So that statistic is bullshit and wrong. And if anybody doesn't know that that statistic is wrong, please know it's wrong, and that there's a lot of literature out there. But it did come up and it took me back and it's one of the things that drives me crazy about how statistics get manipulated. So, good example of that. 

[01:05:02] Kaykay: I was just going to say it is such a pet peeve of mine, how statistics are jumped on, especially by the media, like, oh, it drives me crazy. And especially because it always gets jumped on in a way to put fault on a group of people. To have some sort of easy story about how people are failing themselves in the world, and like that's what all of our problems are. All of our problems are like your own personal responsibility and how it's lacking, right? This is how they always use numbers because it gets clicks. It gets reads and like it supports the agenda, and it drives me fucking crazy. 

[01:05:36] Brooke: Yeah. 

[01:05:37] Kaykay: And by the way, interesting tidbit too, the whole idea that kids are actually gonna be better off after parents get divorced was this one psychologist who was discredited later, who had no evidence to support this. Now I'm not saying one way or the other what the truth is of that, but this idea that entered popular culture that kids are actually going to be better off was based on absolutely nothing. 

[01:05:59] Brooke: Divorce in and of itself isn't going to cause or solve a problem in here. It's just a change in condition. And how that change in condition impacts the child is going to depend on how conditions continue to unfold. 

[01:06:12] Kaykay: And it's yet, again, this like black and white versus gray thinking, right? Like, having some sort of black and white statement or statistics somehow feels like we get a better handle on the answer. But the answer is inherently much more complex once you peel it back, always. 

[01:06:29] Brooke: Yeah. Like, if a kid is in an environment that is threatening, like we see Stacey feels threatened, you know, she doesn't want to go into her home because her parents are fighting. The removal of that threat is going to likely have a positive impact, but there are other things going on at the same time. And then if the parent that the child lives with gets into another relationship where they are creating a threatening environment for the child. Then the divorce in and of itself didn't remove the threat, it just brought in a new threat. So it's really all about how conditions, again, like if we could all understand that, it's always about how do you respond to the conditions that you're in and how do conditions unfold. It's not like you make decision and everything changes forever. It's not how it works. 

[01:07:13] Kaykay: Yeah, and also I think we could take a page out of Claudia's book, which is, you know, I think conditions can change and get really challenging. And as long as the person is provided a sort of safe space where they can process it and also like begin to understand all of the pieces of it, humans can persevere many, many difficult circumstances, but it's when there's no space to kind of work that out, that it gets really hard for people because they get these really hard boiled ideas about themselves in the world that probably are not true, but become very rigid and become this new sort of biased filter through which they take in all information about things that is probably not true. 

[01:07:59] Brooke: Yeah. We should really change our metric of success to be the ability to adapt to changing conditions, because that seems like that's what is, and it seems like that's what thriving is. Not just living, not just existing, but thriving comes from not having conditions not change, which I think so many people want, right? And I get that.

[01:08:21] Kaykay: They believe that's what happiness is.

[01:08:22] Brooke: Because you've sort of, you've figured out where you are right now. You feel like, okay, the ground isn't shifting at this very moment. And so you don't want things to change, but the very nature of life is that everything changes, nothing stays the same. And so how capable are you of rolling with those changes and adapting and somehow finding peace and comfort within those changes? That's a successful life. That's thriving. where happiness is found.

[01:08:49] Kaykay: The Buddhists have been on this fucking trip for thousands of years.

[01:08:53] Brooke: Yeah.

[01:08:54] Kaykay: Thousands of years. This is like the basic tenet of Buddhism. 

[01:08:58] Brooke: Right. And then the Catholics came in and threw down some CCD and fucked everything up, man. 

[01:09:04] Kaykay: Before we leave this podcast, I just have to say a personal pet peeve. Here's how I know Laine is trash. She brings that girl lox for breakfast instead of a fucking bacon, egg, and cheese? Come on, Laine! 

[01:09:18] Brooke: It's cause she's bougie. That's get on the Upper Side instead of Bronx.

[01:09:23] Kaykay: I don't how bougie you are, dude. You gotta bring your friend a bacon, egg, and cheese from a street meat seller. If you care about your friend, you gotta bring her a bacon, egg, and cheese. 

[01:09:37] Brooke: Friendship lessons from Kaykay Brady.

[01:09:40] Kaykay: It's like a Homer Simpson, "You don't win friends with salad," you remember that?

[01:09:44] Brooke: Right. So I guess I know what I gotta bring you next time you're in crisis. All right, bacon, egg, and cheese, duly noted.

[01:09:50] Kaykay: Definitely. 

[01:09:54] Brooke: Oh man. Well, hopefully Stacey's able to get a bacon, egg, and cheese in Stoneybrook. We heard that the bagels in Stoneybrook are lacking. That is addressed directly in this book, which is a little wink and a nod the residents of the tri-state area, I'm sure. But the next book seems to be centered around Stacey's new home.

[01:10:16] Kaykay: Does she have a ghost and a child living in the walls? 

[01:10:19] Brooke: Well, that's what Mallory is going to investigate. So like, Stacey is kind of becoming a new Dawn. Her parents just got divorced. She's moving with her mom to like an old farmhouse that is apparently the house of the French people that lived behind the Pikes that they thought were spies. They moved out, and they were like, "Oh, the people that lived there were weird." No, they were just French. Like, I don't know. Ann M. has something about the French, it'd be interesting to investigate. Um, so she's living in the house of the French pseudo spies and Mallory finds a diary that is apparently about previous residents of said house. So the next book is Mallory and the Mystery Diary, which has shades of The Ghost at Dawn's House. So I am looking forward to talking to you about that book next time, Kaykay. 

[01:11:14] Kaykay: Me too! 

[01:11:15] Brooke: But until then... 

[01:11:17] Kaykay: Just keep sittin'.