[laughs]

Uh, you know, money, I, I am...

I feel like my money personality is, um, if I'm gonna have anxiety about anything, it's most often gonna show up first around finances, and that's, you know, everything from, like, in the middle of the night going to sleep in Berkeley and thinking about, oh my gosh, if there's an earthquake in the middle of the night and our house falls down, like, how quickly would we have to declare personal bankruptcy? Like, that kind of worry.

Um, or, you know, oh my gosh, like, what is it gonna be like when I have to pay for childcare for two kids and not just one? Um, you know, that, that's, that's where I go.

And at the same time, even as I'm like, you know, that worry, the thing that, uh, like, helps soothe that, that anxiety is when I remind myself, like, Anna, you've, you've done some planning.

You- you've got savings.

You, and you know that it's gonna be expensive to have childcare, and then you're gonna have a kid in public school.

Mm

So can you paint a picture of what your life looked like when you got pregnant with your first child?

Looking back, I'm like, holy moly, Anna, you changed everything all at once alongside becoming a mother.

So when I got married in August of 2015 to my husband, Arthur, we knew we wanted to become parents and we knew we were like open to it happening quickly after marriage.

We got married because the process of us deciding to get married was one of like, we're doing this, we want to have a family.

And then I got pregnant the month after we got married.

We weren't intentionally trying, but I was not on birth control.

So it was sort of like, wow, I didn't know this was going to happen so soon.

How do you think that's affected your work, the way that you show up as the host of Death, Sex, and Money?

[audience applauding]

Hello.

Good evening.

Welcome to Selected Shorts.

I am your host this evening.

My name is Anna Sale.

[audience cheering] I'm so glad to be here.

Anna Sale is the host of the podcast Death, Sex, and Money.

Money.Article I, Section 9, Powers Denied Congress.

The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.

Note, this obsolete provision was designed to protect the slave trade from congressional restriction for a period of time.

Moving on.

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.

And if you like it, which I'm sure you will, then listen to the rest of Death, Sex & Money anywhere you get your podcasts.

How do you feel about the way you look? And how do you feel about whether you should do something to change it? [laughs] What a question.

For the last several months we have been asking you, our listeners, to tell us stories about your beauty interventions, what you've decided to invest time and money in, like plastic surgery, elaborate skincare routines, fillers, Botox, things to look younger or hotter or quote-unquote healthier.

Or maybe you're one of those listeners who is clear that big interventions are a bridge too far for you.

Plastic surgery, no, and also you've decided taking GLP-1s or using hair dye means participating in cultural ideals that you would rather reject.

But what do you feel about teeth straightening or even that nice thick face cream at the drugstore? When you're deciding to make an investment for your looks, which part is for you and which part is trying to control how the rest of us treat you? Conventionally attractive people make more money and are treated better by teachers and law enforcement, and we live in a time where social media's broad reach is narrowing what we consider beautiful.In our Slate Plus episode this week, we get into social media even more.

I talk to a researcher who's a dermatologist and a medical anthropologist who is studying the proliferation of skincare routine videos on TikTok made by and for kids, some as young as seven years old.

[upbeat music]

(cheers)

I'm a little skeptical about how he's gonna get everything done.

I think that's what a lot of people are.

Here's yours.

yours.Hello. I'm Anna Sale.

I'm an interviewer, the host of Death, Sex & Money.

And on our show, I'm often talking to people about things that they haven't talked about at length before with interviewers.

And I think of you, Isaac, as someone who is particularly gifted at getting public people, public figures to talk about things in ways maybe they didn't intend.

When, where, how?

But, well, here's, here's what I'm gonna say, like, where I feel seen, I feel their curiosity about how things are going at work.

I hear...

Like, I like the way they talk to my husband.

I like the way they talk about how we make financial choices together and how we, they equip us with a new shared vocabulary.

I feel...

It's, it's fun to feel someone paying very close attention to you and your values.

It's not.

like this this always puzzles me a little bit just because i mean i know child care is expensive but if you are a middle class full-time earner like you are earning more even after taxes than you are spending on child care

Yeah.

But at what cost? Right.

Like there's a certain point where you're like, how much money is going out the door for child care? And then like that adds a whole lot of logistical weight on everybody.

If you're trying to figure out how to arrange child care, you're trying to figure out.

And it also can make keeping a job that has a lot of obligations outside of the home difficult.

Right.

But like, are you, are you like moving towards that cliche point where you are living vicariously through your kids?

I feel like this, this always puzzles me a little bit, just because, I mean, I know childcare is expensive, but if you are a middle class full-time earner, like, you are earning more even after taxes than you are spending on childcare.

Yeah, but at what cost, right? Like, the- there's a certain point where you're like, "How much money is going out the door for childcare?" And then, uh, like, y- that adds a whole lot of logistical weight on everybody.

If you're trying to figure out how to arrange childcare, you're trying to figure out...

And it- and it also can make keeping a, a d- job that has a lot of obligations outside of the home difficult, right? Even when you have childcare, there's all sorts of things that you need flexibility around.

Um, and I, I'm not sure.

I think there are plenty of earners.

I mean, childcare where I live, to send my kid to preschool costs over $2,000 a month, $2,500 a month.

(laughs)

What do you do in a situation like that?

You can't force somebody to engage in a way that you want them to engage, and so then it's, the questions are if this person can't m- be with me in this way that I want them to be and expect them to be, and they're letting me down, can I still have a relationship with them? Or do I wanna be around them? You know, and certainly an employer-employee relationship is lower stakes to move on from than-...

somebody in your family of origin.

Like, can you figure out another way to be in a relationship with them but have things that you can't expect from each other, you know? If I feel like I need something from someone and they are not giving it to me, what do I do? That's a question about who you are, and you have to sit with all those different possibilities (laughs) that that could raise.

You know, I- I was married before, and in my first marriage, any relationship has conflicts, right? And they're really just, like, part of getting to know each other.

You discover the ways that you're different.

You discover the places where we kinda misalign and have to work at it.

For someone who's listening who's mustered up the courage to have that big, hard conversation, is there one final thought you would leave them with, or some form of encouragement, or some wisdom from all of your years doing this in your personal and professional life?