In this episode, I’m bringing back to the podcast the brilliant and talented author and speaker, Julie Lythcott-Haims. Julie last appeared on the podcast to talk about her game-changing book How to Raise an Adult, written in response to the over-parenting trends she witnessed as a dean at Stanford University. Now she’s back to talk about her brand new and equally amazing book Your Turn: How to Be an Adult. I had the opportunity to get an advance copy and I just have to say, this book feels like a generous gift to adult (and soon-to-be adult) humans. It is SO thorough. I got so much out of it, both for myself and as a parent.
I wanted to talk to Julie about this book, not just because I think it should be required reading for everyone, but also because of how powerfully inclusive it is. We talk about how important it was to Julie that this book should represent the whole spectrum of adult experiences, including neurodivergence—that it be both practical and normalizing—as well as some of the considerations that went into writing a how-to-adult book in a rapidly changing world. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
(And I encourage you all to read Julie’s other book Real American, which examines racism through her experience as a Black and biracial person. Just basically, don’t miss out on anything Julie writes or creates for the world.)
About Julie: Julie Lythcott-Haims believes in humans and is deeply interested in what gets in our way. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the anti-helicopter parenting manifesto How to Raise an Adult. Her TED Talk on the subject has more than 5 million views, and in 2020 she became a regular contributor with CBS This Morning on parenting. Her second book is the critically-acclaimed and award-winning prose poetry memoir Real American, which illustrates her experience as a Black and biracial person in white spaces. A third book, Your Turn: How to Be an Adult, will be out in April 2021.
Julie is a former corporate lawyer and Stanford dean, and she holds a BA from Stanford, a JD from Harvard, and an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. She serves on the board of Common Sense Media, and on the advisory board of LeanIn.Org, and she is a former board member at Foundation for a College Education, Global Citizen Year, The Writers Grotto, and Challenge Success. She volunteers with the hospital program No One Dies Alone.
She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner of over thirty years, their young adults, and her mother.
THINGS YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
- How Your Turn came to be
- Julie’s highest hope for this book
- Why inclusivity is so important to Julie and how she went about writing the book with that imperative
- Julie’s checklist for self-care
- How Julie approached the use of labels, identity, and language in her book
- How and why Julie chose to include the deep personal stories of others in this book
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
- Your Turn: How to Be an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Julie Lythcott-Haims on How Parents Can Help Their Kids Successfully Launch (Tilt podcast episode)
- How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success by Julie Lythcott-Haims
- Real American: A Memoir by Julie Lythcott-Haims
