EVERY SPOKEN WORD
30 min read · 6,456 words- 0:00 – 2:42
Why “friction” matters: the seduction and risk of AI companions in parenting
- DSDana Suskind
The way we learn to be human, the way we learn to connect, is exactly through the friction-filled human interaction that you get with good-enough parenting. I was one of those [laughs] good-enough parents that had lots of missteps and ruptures, but that is exactly how we teach children how to survive and navigate a human world. [upbeat music]
- AGAdam Grant
There's been a lot of discussion about, like, AI companions romantically. I've heard less conversation about how AI might interfere with our parenting or might substitute for our parenting. But I have to tell you, as I, as I started reading your book and I started thinking about what are all the ways that, like, AI-raised kids could be disadvantaged or deprived, it did cross my mind that there are some upsides. I think a, a good AI chatbot would never be an abusive parent. You could get unconditional love. You could have a parental figure who's always available, always responsive, no matter what time of day it is, what, what the issue is. Then I think about the evidence that people feel more cared about and empathized with and seen when they interact with a chatbot than a human, at least by text. And I think maybe this isn't so bad. Tell me why I'm wrong.
- DSDana Suskind
What you just described is exactly the seduction of these AI companions, the frictionless openness, sycophantic, you're always right, you're always seen, and, and there's obvious seduction of that. So yes, you can imagine why people are flocking to AI companions, but it is exactly how we will sort of de-skill ourselves from being able to connect to other humans. The stance that I take is that there is so much that we don't understand about how children learn those important soft skills, empathizing, critical thinking, curiosity, all those skills that we want them to have, and we may provide what we think is the perfect coach. But there's a lot that we don't know, and sort of in the similar ways that social media at some level makes a whole lot of sense, right? You're being connected to all these people around the world. Why wouldn't you feel more connected? But it's because there's so much that we don't understand about that connection, that the active ingredients might not be there, and you end up being left not developing those skills. So I think science needs to be part of it. I mean, certainly AI is an incredible technology, but we need to be very thoughtful in how we go forward.
- AGAdam Grant
So talk to me about what it looks like to be human-raised in an age of AI.
- 2:42 – 3:12
Defining “human-raised”: raising kids for cognition and soft skills in an AI era
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah. So what does it mean to be human-raised? Human-raised isn't a rejection or an embrace of tech. It's really understanding what do children need to develop fully as humans, fully from a cognitive standpoint, all those things that we've been optimizing forever, but also those important soft skills. How do we raise children so they can have critical thinking, be empathetic, connect, all of those skills that you're gonna need to, uh, have, you know, in the age of AI? And
- 3:12 – 3:57
How early interaction builds the brain: why the first years are different
- DSDana Suskind
really it's through human presence and human connection. You see, when you're born, human babies are born incredibly underdeveloped. They're like little helpless blobs, and that's why parenting is so incredibly hard. But that helplessness is actually the origins of our brilliance because our babies are born too early. So in those early years, the brain is built, 85% of the physical brain is built, and it is literally built by human interaction, talking, nurturing, joint attention, physical touch. That is building that brain. And based on that, those early years, that predicts not just how people do in the workforce, how they do intellectually, how they relate to others. Those early years are critical for that.
- 3:57 – 5:10
From cochlear implants to “30 Million Words”: what disparities revealed
- AGAdam Grant
Dana, I'm curious about how this interfaces with your, your day job as a surgeon. Why is this such a salient issue for you?
- DSDana Suskind
I'll tell you, it is exactly because I'm a pediatric cochlear implant surgeon that I'm so enmeshed in this world of the importance of human connection in the early years. So to contextualize how I got into this area, it was actually my experience in implanting children with hearing loss with a cochlear implant and then seeing huge disparities in outcomes of those patients who looked like they should both be thriving after implantation, really learning on par with their hearing peers, and others same time out barely being able to communicate. And it was that experience in seeing that that really took me on this journey of the importance of the early years, the importance of human connection, talk and interaction for building a child's brain. Because for my own patients, it wasn't the difference in the surgery or the technology, it was diff- the differences in how much interaction they were getting. And understanding that has become my life's work, really the power of human connection for not just building cognitive skills, but building those human skills.
- 5:10 – 7:43
The science behind “30 Million Words”: correlation, causality, and neuroscience
- AGAdam Grant
Hearing you say that, it's really easy to connect the dots from your work as a pediatric surgeon to the important work you did popularizing 30 Million Words to, you know, now this, this work on being human-raised. I've always been curious. I, I remember when I first heard about the, the finding [laughs] that kids who, who go on to basically better lives in many ways are exposed to more words from an early age than kids who struggle. And I've always been so curious about whether that's a causal effect or whether- Like, those are also kids who happen to have more educated parents who might have, you know, parents with genetic advantages intellectually. It's a selection effect as opposed to something that's actually shaping them.
- DSDana Suskind
Got it.
- AGAdam Grant
What do we know at this stage? Has anyone randomly assigned kids to be exposed to millions more words at a very early age?
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
What does that do to their development? Like, wa- walk me through the science there.
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah. No, so, so you're talking about the Hart and Risley study that basically followed a relatively small number, about 42 children, up until the age of three, and what their research purportedly showed was that by the end of the age of three, uh, children, especially children born into poverty, will have heard, quote, "30 million fewer words than their more affluent peers." And this predicted not just test score and IQ, but really their academic trajectories. I- in truth, there are many issues with that specific study, but I view that as really just a first sentence in a robust literature showing the power of interaction in the early years for building a child's brain. I, I sort of look at the way milk feeds the body, talk and interaction feeds the brain, and y- really understanding the neuroscience, I think gives a clearer view into it. See, when babies are born, they're born with brains just a third the size of adult brains. That's unlike any other species. They're born with, like, I think 100 billion neurons, you know, as many stars in the Milky Way, and really, those early years are the time when your early experiences, that talk and interaction, wires up the brain. It's the instruction guide for the brain, and that is why early interaction is so critical for not just building language and literacy skills and those hard skills, but building that s- those socio-emotional skills that allow us to connect, um, as humans. And I could go into attachment theory and the like, but that's really how I view it.
- 7:43 – 9:14
Why AI can’t replicate early relationships: attachment, synchrony, and “artificial attachment”
- AGAdam Grant
That makes sense. I guess the, you know, the follow-on from attachment research is if it's helpful for, for early developing brains to have more interaction, if it's helpful for, you know, for infants and, and very young children to have more communication, what's the difference between having that interaction with, uh, a generative AI chatbot versus with a real person?
- DSDana Suskind
I would sum it up in one word: friction. The messy human interaction that is imperfect, that has ruptures and repairs. That experience, initially through good enough parenting, is how humans learn that the world is not just about them, but about sharing the space with other humans. We talk about attachment theory and Ruth Feldman's work showing how babies literally have neural synchrony with their adults in their lives, where their brains sync up, and children with s- more secure attachment have brains that have stronger tracks in the, the social part of the brain, if you will, although the whole brain is social. And insecure attachment has less integrated tracks. I then bring up this idea of artificial attachment. How, how does that change human development when you have, as you say, an AI chatbot that is perfectly responsive, always there, never missteps, never looks away? And that, that is the concern.
- 9:14 – 10:52
AI is already in kids’ lives: screen time, “AI slop,” and LLM-embedded toys
- AGAdam Grant
What are the things that you're most worried about are gonna get lost in the early years? 'Cause, you know, I don't, [laughs] I, I don't think it's gonna be in the near future that two-year-olds are interfacing with ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini. I think I can imagine a farther future where, you know, there are AI-enabled robots that, you know, the kids might interact with instead of parents. But if you think about the, the coming decade, what, what might AI take away from us when it comes to human connection while the brain is still developing?
- DSDana Suskind
Actually, AI is much more in children's lives than, than you might imagine, so-
- AGAdam Grant
Uh-oh.
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah. Well, [laughs] I mean, it, it, it looks much more like screen time. 40% of two-year-olds have iPads, and on those iPads, that sort of AI slop that has proliferated, I call it AI misinformation, children are being exposed to it in a significant way. So it's not quite the generative AI that you're talking about, but slowly that's going to be embedded into these, you know, these screen times. But even beyond that, I mean, you go to Walmart or Target, and on the shelves are these plush animals that are embedded with LLMs. They're embedded with those chatbots that, that we're talking about. They look more like teddy bears than, you know, actual AI agents. So they are slipping in, but to your point, my concern is that, you know, it will, we'll sort of sleepwalk into it. It won't be like, oh, all of a sudden children are being raised by robots. It will be, you know, a slow sort of march to having some of that pr- human presence being taken over by technology.
- 10:52 – 12:11
Better than passive TV? Using AI to create more presence, not more substitution
- AGAdam Grant
Again, taking a, just a skeptic's lens, at some level, isn't that better than the status quo, though? Wouldn't you rather have generative AI interacting actively with a toddler than them, you know, zoning out passively on another episode of Teletubbies?
- DSDana Suskind
The way I view it is this: AI is this miraculous technology. We need to be thinking creatively how AI can allow more human presence, to allow more human connection. So you're exactly right. I mean, parenting is hard, and you can imagine, you know, a overly stretched parent turning over an iPad. I mean, certainly, you know, my kids did watch some Baby Einstein, I must admit. But the truth is, is that if we're going to really leverage this incredible technology, why don't we leverage it in ways that take off the burden, you know, the administrative burdens or the invisible labor of parenting? Why don't we leverage it to allow more human presence rather than saying, "Oh, well, you know, isn't a generative AI-"... my interactive robot better than an iPad, which is how it's been sold at sometimes. Like, "Isn't this better than screen time?" But this sounds sort of provocative, but it's sort of like saying, "Oh, well, if you take some cigarettes, you'll eat less," you know? It's like we don't need to [laughs] replace one, one not positive child-centered thing with another.
- 12:11 – 14:41
AI as a parenting co-pilot: feedback, education tools, and the “village” risk
- AGAdam Grant
That's very well put. Uh, so I guess, you know, one, one place where I would love to, to see value added is I think almost everything we wanna get better at, we get feedback as an essential part of that process. I think about sports and music and work. Every skill you try to develop, you have other people who are more knowledgeable than you observing you and then trying to coach you. Parents get almost no feedback whatsoever. I've started to wonder whether this might be one of the more constructive use cases of AI, is imagine that you got daily or weekly input on you offered your daughter solutions and she was just looking for support again, or you missed when your, your son started complaining that he was actually asking to play. Like, I would love those kinds of notes as a parent and, you know, often I pick up on them too late, or Allison and I are both too busy parenting to notice things that, you know, that each other could do better. Do you have any good news on this front? Do you have any hope on this front, or is it gonna end up creating all kinds of problems and unintended consequences?
- DSDana Suskind
The, the truism with tech is there are always unintended consequences. We need, and that's what we need to be wary of. But at the same time, I'm a big believer in innovation, and I'm a cochlear implant surgeon, so I believe in the promise of tech to allow human flourishing. But your example of, like, how can AI be sort of a co-pilot or a, a backup support, consider that a constructive potential use case of it. And so actually, even in our lab at the, at the University of Chicago, we, we've built a computer adaptive tool that measures what parents and teachers know about child development, because the science is al- ever-evolving. It's not about substituting them, you know, as parents, but really supporting them as parents, and I think that's a really important way to think about this technology. How can it make us better at the things that we wanna be better on? How, how can it support us rather than replacing us?
- AGAdam Grant
So you're not, you're not freaked out by a future in which we would get AI-supported feedback on parenting?
- DSDana Suskind
I think that that can be a positive use. With that being said, [laughs] you know, talking about unintended consequences, you wanna make sure that it doesn't crowd out the village that we want families to have, the connections to other humans. So, you know, everything has potential upsides and downsides, so. But at 3:00 in the morning, some of my friends probably wouldn't want me calling them to ask for advice, so, you know, wake up that LLM.
- AGAdam Grant
[laughs]
- 14:41 – 21:10
The “parental GPS”: trusting instincts, handling mismatches, and “riding the tide”
- AGAdam Grant
Fair. So we all have decisions to make about what technology to give our kids access to. You say we have a parental GPS. What's that about? And, and how do I upgrade mine?
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah. [laughs] Listen, we all have a parental GPS, you know, embedded in our DNA through millennia. We h- we are able to understand our child better than any LLM can. LLMs can understand the, the world at large and has all the knowledge of the world, but they, only you can really understand your child. And so as parents, we have a parental GPS, and I really want parents to not just rely on it, but to believe in themselves. So, you know, using experts to give us advice, absolutely. Gaining knowledge, absolutely. But your understanding of your child supersedes anything.
- AGAdam Grant
It's especially true as a parent when your child is wired like you are. I've found it so much easier to make parenting decisions when, you know, I'm looking at, like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm an introvert, I'm shy, like, so are two of my kids. With our extroverted child-
- DSDana Suskind
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... much more challenging for me, because it's just harder to put yourself in those shoes when you haven't lived that experience. And I think that it's almost like, okay, you know, I've, I, like, I've got a parental GPS, but unfortunately, the map it came with is for Moldova instead of America.
- DSDana Suskind
[laughs] Yes.
- AGAdam Grant
And so I don't, I don't know exactly, like, where I'm supposed to turn. What do you advise doing when you discover that your, your GPS is not equipped with directions for the particular constellation of traits that your child has, or even just the situation that your child is in that you might handle differently?
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah, I mean, that is exactly where turning to your village, uh, and gaining advice from them, and also sometimes riding the tide. I have three children who have commonalities, but oh boy, they are so different. You know, what do you do when you have a, a child that you don't totally understand? I think probably the best advice I got was from my mother. You ride the tide. You don't always have all the answers, but sometimes just listening, your children will tell you exactly what they need.
- AGAdam Grant
I think that's great advice, and you know, it makes me think a little bit that sometimes when I've remembered to do that, I feel like George Costanza in Seinfeld. If, [laughs] if you remember the Opposite Day episode, where it suddenly dawns on him that every instinct he's had in his life was wrong, and so if he just does the opposite of his instincts, maybe it'll be right. And I, I do think that, you know, in certain situations, if, you know, if you have a kid who's, who's a polar opposite to you, asking, "Okay, what's the reverse of my instinct?" is at least a different place to start. And if you make a mistake, at least you're making a new mistake, as opposed to repeating the same old patterns of the past that you were supposed to have rethought and unlearned. What, what do you think of that as a strategy?
- DSDana Suskind
I love that. A- although, I'll tell you, one of the most liberating parts of writing this book was around this idea of good-enough parenting and realizing that my mess-ups, which were so many, uh, were really my opportunity to teach my children that the world isn't perfect, that parents can love you and still not be perfect. So I love Opposite Day, but I also love I'm just trying to figure you out and I'm gonna love you the best that I can and support you the best that I can, but I'm a human.
- AGAdam Grant
So let, let's talk about HOPE, 'cause I, I think it's, as an acronym, I think it's a, a really memorable way of, of capturing what we need to think about as parents, but also from a policy perspective. You know, when I, when I shudder at the thought of anyone in Congress legislating [laughs] around AI and how to make sure that we don't make mi- some of the same mistakes with AI that we have made with social media consistently, like this is the kind of framework that should start the conversation. So walk me through HOPE.
- DSDana Suskind
Absolutely. So I'm a surgeon. I love frameworks. And so what is HOPE? HOPE is an evergreen framework that we can all use for understanding how to go forward as we navigate this age of AI. And H is human connection is irreplaceable. It is not just a nice-to-have. It is a biologic necessity. O is owning your imperfections. You know, it's going back to that good enough parenting, that we learn through our imperfections, and the productive struggle is exactly how we both learn and learn to be human. P is really protecting the early years. I think we need to be thinking really intentionally about AI throughout the life course, but as I mentioned, the early years are, are different. It's when we're building the hard drive of the brain, and we've got to be really thoughtful about how we allow AI into those early years. And then E is enhance, not replace. I am not at all anti-tech. I am a cochlear implant surgeon. I know technology can make our lives better, but if we're gonna use it, let it enhance us. Let it enhance the human experience, enhance our connections, not replace us.
- AGAdam Grant
I love the framework. I wanna talk about each of the elements a little bit more. We've touched on some of them already. I think we, we covered human connection being irreplaceable.
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
To build on that a little bit, there are a lot of so-called rules that new parents are given. I kn- I know we got them when, when we first had kids. Like, "You need a certain amount of skin-to-skin time with your newborn," and like, "Make sure that you have X hours per day of, you know, face-to-face interaction." I think anybody who understands human development knows that those kinds of fixed rules are not realistic, but it is helpful to have guidelines. How do I know if I'm getting enough of that organic face-to-face time with an infant, with a toddler, with a [laughs] an adolescent? Like how do you think about that?
- DSDana Suskind
To your point, there's no absolute number, and we don't even know, right, scientifically. That's, that's why you can't create AI to replace us, 'cause we don't know. But as parents, we just instinctively know, being present, being connected. Despite being a surgeon, I, I really go with the good enough parenting. Go with what feels right, and knowing that your presence is what's most important. You know, I'm a working mom. I was-- I'm a surgeon. I had, you know, a whole community, a whole village helping raise my children. They did great. Other parents, some parents stay at home. There is not one way to parent. There's only one way to build that child's brain. It is loving your kids and being present, but there's no rigid rule.
- 21:10 – 23:56
Owning imperfection and productive struggle: friendship, learning, and creativity without AI
- AGAdam Grant
Okay, owning the imperfections. Give me some examples of what that might look like, and feel free to draw on your own parenting-
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
... experiences if you want.
- DSDana Suskind
Oh, you know, there are two sides of the equation, right? There's the imperfections of the input, the good enough parenting where we misstep, and then there's the other side, the productive struggle, the learning. So I'm gonna sort of address both sides of, of the equation. I'm, I'm gonna-- Actually, I've talked enough about parenting. I'm gonna talk about friendship formation. And John, I think you pronounce Gottman, the researcher who does a lot around marriage, he actually had early research that looked at how kids become friends and who becomes the strongest of friends. And you would think, you know, at some level, it's like people who just have strong affinities that just get along. But actually, the tightest friendships were made through that sort of friction, misstep with rupture, repair, and sort of that, that beautiful cycle, that deep friendships aren't made on, with perfection. They're made through imperfection and finding our connection. So on the friction, you know, the imperfection side of learning, we all know the MIT studies that show that people who write essays with LLMs, you know, they remember less because there's no friction in the writing and the effort. It's the effort that builds the muscle. And I tell the story of John, who's my partner. He's a behavioral economist. And when he was little, um, and this was in the, the 1970s when there was free play and unstructured free play, and before there were video games, or maybe in the beginning of video games. He had an older brother who didn't always wanna play with him, so he would play football by himself in the backyard, and he would don himself in full Packer gear, and he would apparently play both sides of the team. On one side, he was John Brockington, who was a Packer, and the other side, he was the Bears. And this, um, imaginary play, if you will, the, the, the struggle of trying to figure out how to actually play this game by yourself, uh, I, I show as an example of how curiosity and creativity aren't built by AI plush toys saying, "Oh, let's imagine X, Y, and Z," where they feed you the information, they feed you creativity. But really, it's an internal experience where you have to, you know, in John's case, play both sides of the team. Of course, you know, the Packers always won. But the fact that, you know, in these experiences, it's having to deal with boredom, create your own games, that you really learn, and you become the, the full human that we want all, all of our children to become.
- 23:56 – 25:08
Protecting the early years: evaluating kid AI products like processed foods
- AGAdam Grant
That's actually a great segue to protecting the early years, because there are a lot of parents looking at plush toys right now, trying to figure out which ones are good for my kids, which ones are safe, which ones might be problematic. Do you have advice on how to evaluate AI products that are- ... made for kids to love and marketed to, to them on TV, on YouTube ads. What should we look at?
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah. I, I wanna sort of start off, you know, take a step back and sort of say when I think about AI products, I think of them as sort of the spectrum of processed foods. So, you know, on one side of the processed foods, you have wholewheat bread, which, you know, is healthy. You, you wanna- you don't wanna go grind your own wheat. On the other side, you've got the ultra-processed foods, which are sort of like the Doritos and Twinkies. And I see AI in the same way. Those AI plush toys are for nothing more than, you know, entertainment. I s- view on sort of the ultra-processed food side of things. On the other hand, there are AI examples, both for supporting parents in their parenting, or even what Maja Mataric calls socially assistive robots, what, that are developed for specific reasons,
- 25:08 – 26:20
The HOPE framework: Human connection, Owning imperfection, Protect early years, Enhance not replace
- DSDana Suskind
not just for entertainment, but for helping children with autism learn social cues, or helping children learn to read. When you have tools that are used for specific developmental reasons, that's, that's a totally different game. Just for fun, you know, with all the things that we talked about, the impacts on attachment and, and learning how to socialize, I would, for now, steer clear of those.
- AGAdam Grant
That's probably wise advice. And then, let's see, on the E front... Well, actually, I'm gonna read you to you.
- DSDana Suskind
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
I, I thought this, this was, this was profound: "AI should assist the caregiver, not give the care."
- DSDana Suskind
Yes. That would be sort of the, the bottom line of what I view most of AI. So much of AI that's being produced is about replacement. Replacement in the workforce, replacement in the schools. We don't wanna be replaced at all, uh, but s- the most important place that we don't wanna be replaced is in parenting. We want technology that can support us, make it easier, 1,000%, but not... No replacement. That's a gamble. [laughs]
- 26:20 – 36:02
Lightning round and big-picture concerns: ambient AI, privacy, investing in other kids, and fear of erasure
- AGAdam Grant
I would not roll the dice on that one at all. Okay, let's go to a lightning round. What is the worst parenting advice that you see given regularly?
- DSDana Suskind
That you have to be a perfect parent, and the stakes are high with every single action that you give.
- AGAdam Grant
And your best advice for parents?
- DSDana Suskind
The advice that I got from my mom, that no action is that big of a deal, and sometimes you just have to ride the tide. It'll be okay.
- AGAdam Grant
You're putting together a dream dinner party of people whose parenting you would love to observe and learn from throughout history. Who would you invite? Or whose parents would you invite? [laughs] It's a different way to frame it.
- DSDana Suskind
Who's... Yeah. Yeah, I was, I was thinking whose parents that I would wanna invite. I would like to meet Geoffrey Hinton's parents. I would like to meet Ada Lovelace's parents. I would love to meet Martin Luther King's parents. I would love to meet Adam Grant's parents.
- AGAdam Grant
That one can be arranged.
- DSDana Suskind
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
What is something you've changed your mind about recently?
- DSDana Suskind
As a surgeon or as a physician?
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, either is fair game, actually.
- DSDana Suskind
Okay. The fact that AI can actually allow for greater human presence, I think I first saw in the clinic. I, I don't know if you know much about ambient AI, but ambient AI in, used in the clinic, has g- allowed, given back physicians presence with their patients. So in the old days, we'd go into the clinic, and we would be so focused on our computers, filling out the electronic medical records, and now with ambient AI, it does it all in the background, so I can be completely connected with my patients. So that is a really constructive, powerful example of the use of AI.
- AGAdam Grant
So you're saying you don't have to take notes because you have an AI tool listening and capturing?
- DSDana Suskind
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- AGAdam Grant
Does that raise privacy concerns? Do I wanna be recorded when I'm meeting with a physician?
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah, I mean, that's a really, that's a really important question, and I, you know, going back to the idea of unintended consequences, I did... I was talking to someone who brought up the point of patients and if they're undocumented and being afraid of that, and that completely makes sense. So that's something to be considered. With that being said, you know, it has changed the game and allowed much more human presence by physicians, so.
- AGAdam Grant
Sounds right. Okay, I'll take it. Yeah, I think it, it's probably in most situations a net positive.
- DSDana Suskind
Yes.
- AGAdam Grant
Okay, office hours time. What is a question you have for me?
- DSDana Suskind
Ah, this is... I've been waiting for this. Um, so even though early childhood is incredibly important, you know, we have consistently failed to sort of invest in other people's children, and I, I think part of it is sort of may be biological, how we're wired to invest in our own children and tribe. Uh, and you've spent your career trying to understand what moves people, how we shift motivation. So my question is, can we actually help people widen this circle, love all children as your own? Is that even a potential, or should I stop trying this approach and maybe design a system that, you know, works around their evolutionary defaults?
- AGAdam Grant
Oh, it's such a, it's such an important and complicated question.
- DSDana Suskind
I know. [laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
My first reaction, Dana, is that it's noble and also unrealistic, and maybe not even desirable, because if everybody loved everyone's children equally, everyone would neglect their own children. [laughs]
- DSDana Suskind
[laughs]
- AGAdam Grant
We'd, we'd be, we'd all, we'd all be busy c- carrying just, carrying a little bit for every child and not enough for any of them.
- DSDana Suskind
Yeah.
- AGAdam Grant
I don't think children were meant to be fully raised by villages, right? I think it's, it's good to have a village supporting. But I think primary caregivers [laughs] are really important. So we, we actually do need some selectivity, I guess, is what I'm saying, right? You, you want differential care and attachment.
- DSDana Suskind
That's a good point. But how do we get them to... So we invest a little bit more in others, or
- AGAdam Grant
Yeah. No, I think, I think that's where we wanna go. I think most people have trouble with the kind of scale you're describing, and so I think we need to bound it-
- DSDana Suskind
Okay
Episode duration: 36:14
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