#80 Michaeleen Doucleff | Hunt, Gather, Parent - What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About Raising Children

Michaeleen Doucleff is a science journalist and the author of the bestselling book Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans. In her book, Doucleff explores parenting practices from indigenous cultures worldwide, offering insights into raising cooperative and independent children. Her work blends scientific research with personal experience and provides a fresh perspective on modern parenting techniques.

Doucleff wrote the book after traveling to three continents with her 3-year-old daughter, Rosy. Maya, Inuit, and Hadzabe families showed her how to tame tantrums, motivate kids to be helpful, and build children’s confidence and self-sufficiency. 

🗓️ Recorded July 29th, 2024. 📍 At The Attwoods, Hagener, Germany

▬ Relevant links ▬

• https://michaeleendoucleff.com
• https://x.com/foodiescience
• Find the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hunt-Gather-Parent-Ancient-Cultures/dp/1982149671 

Chapters

• 0:00 Rethinking Parenting Through Child's Perspective
• 12:59 Exploring Parenting Through Cultural Perspectives
• 21:07 New Perspectives on Parenting Roles
• 29:03 Parenting in a Global Society
• 41:08 The Art of Unschooling Parenting
• 53:10 Dopamine Kids: New book on the way

Transcript

00:00 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Today we are together with Maiklin Duglev. First of all, thank you for giving your time and being here together with us. 

00:06 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Thank you for having me. 

00:08 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, I got recommended your book, which and now I hope I take the words in the right order Hunt Gather Parent. 

00:18 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Yes. 

00:19 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yes, I succeeded, which I have enjoyed a lot. So the topic for today is parenting and our understanding of parenting, and Cecilia and I, before the podcast, talked about. One of the things that could be interesting to unwrap a little is how do we in western society look on children with the whole behave, versus how you describe it in your book. So can we start right there talking about the way we look at children? Do they misbehave, do they act out? 

01:01 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
oh yeah, also in the car when we talked about it was. You know this whole concept. You know they push my triggers or they yes me, or this kind of discourse that's happening and sometimes it even happens into the inside the more good and and mindful parenting yes I've heard parents say, oh, we have the children we need to have for our personal development, as if they were some kind of tool. 

01:30 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Wow. 

01:31 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Interesting, Interesting. So let's talk about. Why don't we talk about that? 

01:39 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's a, it's really important and if it kind of it's, I think it's really difficult for many parents in Western society to switch this perspective. What I found the book came out three years ago and I talked to so many parents and so many people and I feel like this is something that is so baked into our belief about children that even people read the book and even I talk to people and in this it's like it's just stuck in there and I want to say to them, like if you kind of dislodge this belief and replace it with something else, your life will be so much better and your relationship with your child will be so much better. Like it was one of those things that when I like really switched and I don't I'm not perfect at it, but like when I brought in this other idea about children, it really changed my relationship with my, my, my daughter. So I think we have this belief in Western society and I think it's been around a long time, like hundreds, hundreds of years, that children kind of are these, that they have kind of the same motivations socially as like devious adults right, that like when a child, especially a young child, when they misbehave like a baby, a toddler, when they're doing something, maybe they hit you, maybe they hide something from you, maybe they're not listening to you. 

03:05
There's this belief that they're like have these very antisocial motivations, right? That they're trying to manipulate you, that they're pushing your buttons, that they're testing these boundaries I'm not even sure what that means exactly Like they're trying to make you mad, is kind of this, this overlying belief. And and there's no data scientifically to back this up at all this is a myth. This is a myth in our society that we've made up to explain children's irrational behavior. Basically, right, why would this child hit me? I'm keeping it alive, right? Well, they must be these devious creatures. And in fact, the science actually backs a very different view of a child, right, the science actually backs a very pro-social view of a child, a child who wants to help, a child who wants to help people and their parents. And so what's going on? Like, why would a child act this way? 

04:05
And in many, many cultures, they don't see children as these antisocial, devious creatures. They just see them as irrational and illogical and kind of like these things. They don't know how to behave, don't know how to show appreciation for what's being done, don't know how to help, don't know how to contribute, and they want to, and it's your job to really show them. And so you take a very like antisocial view of behavior and motivation and you turn and you flip it and it's actually a very pro-social view. It's just a lack of ability versus a devious, nefarious motivation, and what ends up happening is like, when you make that switch in your mind, you treat your child, you respond and treat the child very differently, right? 

04:55
I mean, if you think that the person at work or a friend of yours has this horrible, manipulative, devious motivations, you come at them with a very defensive position. Right, and we do the same thing with our child. But if we give them kind of this oh, they're trying to help, they want to help, but they don't know how, they're clumsy, they're irrational, they're illogical. I need to show them how. Then then very, very quickly, a child will learn how to be kind and respectful and at least calm and less aggressive so when we talk about them being devious and we, they're trying to get me mad. 

05:37 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
They push my boundaries, they, they press my, my trigger points. You know, from my point of view, all I hear is excuses. It's like it's not about only about how we see the children, but also about how we don't see ourselves. Why do I get angry about this? What is my agenda here? What's going on that makes me so angry about whatever? It could be the laundry on the floor, or it could be teenagers not cleaning up after their breakfast. And you're like you're 17, could you do? 

06:18
it, you know and and sometimes I want to hear your opinion but I'm trying to like yeah, no, I want to hear your opinion, but I'm trying to like. 

06:25 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Yeah, no, I want to hear more. Yes. 

06:28 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Sometimes I just find it very interesting how, if we do look at ourselves, we can see that some things really flare this. You know I call it an ego energy. You know I have this eye and and and and all the. I need a word self-righteous like self-righteous kind of you know. 

06:54
This is not fair. How dare you exactly? And and what I'm thinking is this idea that the child is devious, and all these and this behavior idea. It's a great. I don't behave. That's not how I act in the world. Um, it also comes from from being blind to your own part of it. Yeah, why does the laundry trigger me, but not the dishes? I mean, who am I? What's my part in this? Yeah, this is like a painting of ideas. 

07:30 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Yeah, I think you're right, for sure. I think it's probably because, well, I know for myself in a lot of ways it's because I wasn't treated that way. I was treated like I remember as a young child, being like I'm trying, like older, right, so older, not like a toddler, but like five, six, seven, like I'm trying, I'm trying to please you parents, I'm trying my best. I don't know how Right, and and I what? What I got in return was this anger, this like how dare you? You know, I'm in charge. So so I think some of it is because we, we we've been treated that way, we had as children, right, and so then you know, we're just, we're just as parents, just kind of replicating, but I do think it's. 

08:20
I think it is a lot about not seeing our part in it Absolutely, and I think it is a lot about not seeing our part in it Absolutely and I think it's not seeing, not acknowledging and seeing and valuing our pro-social drives. 

08:37
You know, I mean it's like in Western society we have this thing called norm of self-interest where, like, everybody thinks that everyone else is working from this very like selfish position and that they're only acting in ways to help themselves, and so that's what everyone believes. But if you actually talk to people and get deeper, you find that actually people want to help each other and they want to cooperate in this way, but they don't act that way because they think everyone else is being selfish, and so there's. So you're kind of stuck in this horrible selfish, greedy system that starts I think what you're talking about at this age, where we just assume that the child has this very selfish drive but I think you're right Like why does the laundry I mean? Another thing that comes to mind is like we in Western society view the child as these, like impressions of us. Right, like a small child's behavior is somehow a reflection of my parenting. 

09:50 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yes, right. 

09:51 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
And I mean, of course it is to some extent. 

09:54
You know there's some environmental, but at two less so than at 16, maybe I don't know, but in many cultures and I think again, the science backs these other cultures is that you know, a child misbehaving, social, first of all, it's just a child misbehaving and, like all children, do it right, like it's just the norm, like a two-year-old having a tantrum, that's just norm. 

10:19
That has nothing to do with me as a person or a parent, and then too and so so that's not put on the parent as like there's something wrong with you. You know, a 16 year old doesn't clean up their room in many cultures has nothing to do with you, the parent, that's just a teenager, right, right. So I think that there is this kind of like. We think we have so much power and so much control and so much influence over them that then that becomes this burden of like if you don't behave, then that's that's I'm doing something wrong, versus like this is a full-blown child, there's a full creature with 100 agency and 100 like autonomy, and they're making decisions, especially at 16. And you know, I'm connected but I'm not like the primary driving force. 

11:10 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
And I actually want to put the focus a little on you, Okay sure. 

11:14
One of the things I liked about your book is that you dare to be vulnerable in it and you don't always, in the book, paint yourself in the best. Hey, hey, I'm a mom who just know everything, right, picture. No, you actually open and admitting oh I'm shitty at this, this, this and this, and then you go out and explore the world. So for the people who haven't read the book, I would like you to tell a little about how it ended up that you went on this quest on oh, what do they do in other cultures and what can I learn from them? Approach that you had to it. 

11:57 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Yeah, I mean I never set out to be a parenting, write a parenting book. I didn't want to. I got convinced. But I mean we struggled a lot as parents, like a lot, my husband and I, you know, we had a little girl in our early forties. We'd lived, we had been married a long time without children. You know, we were kind of set in our ways, but also we just didn't have the knowledge. You know, nobody had taught us how to raise a child, nobody, you know. They just handed us this baby. Then they said go home, you know, good luck, and um. 

12:25
So we struggled a lot when, as a baby, in the toddler years and at the same time I was working as a journalist at npr, national public radio, and I was traveling a lot for my job and I would go to places and I would notice that, like, the parents didn't seem to struggle with the same things that we struggle with in western culture and it was really profound it. It was really profound. If your eyes are open and you travel and you spend time with families in some community cultures and your eyes are really open, it's very obvious. It's like whoa. The dynamic is very different in the sense that there's not this constant struggle for power, it's a very cooperative relationship. There's a lot more relationship, there's a lot more respect, there's a lot more calmness. And so I really the idea for this book really came when I was in a little Maya village in the Yucatan in Mexico and I and I really could see, like this one mom Maria she has five kids and I could really see this relationship with them, which is really beautiful in many ways. I mean I, I people have accused me of romanticizing it, but in many ways not perfect and not their problems, but in many ways it was beautiful in the ways that our culture struggles. You know, the children were really helpful, they were really respectful, there was not this arguing, bickering, and so I really that kind of made me realize that, oh, maybe it's not me. Again, it kind of comes back to what we were just talking about. Maybe I'm not the problem, maybe, like, my society hasn't really taught me how to instill that in a child and how to develop that relationship with a child. 

13:56
And so I traveled some up in the Arctic too before, and so me and my daughter Rosie at three, three, we went back to the Yucatan and had Maria help me learn how to handle Rosie in many ways or treat her in a way that's, you know, conducive to building this cooperative relationship. 

14:15
And then we went up to the Arctic, where the parents there are really masters of teaching children executive function, being respectful, being calm, teaching children executive function, being respectful, being calm. And then we went over to Tanzania with the Hadzabe, who have this like incredible ability to to build confident, self-driven children, and we spent two weeks in each place and it was really. It was transformative for me and and in the end, rosie probably changed the least, know, in a sense, but I changed the most and um, in our relationship. And now Rosie is almost nine and she and I just have it's not perfect, like I say, but it we have this wonderful relationship. I mean, we're really close and, um, I just couldn't, I could never have done it without this, this experience and these families that are in the book. 

15:11 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I noticed that you say the Western culture. 

15:14 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Yeah. 

15:17 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
And, of course, it makes sense when you've been traveling to cultures extremely different from what we normally call the western culture. I don't know if you know it, but we are nomads, so we live new places very often, and we just spent a lot of time in mexico and the us after spending a very, very, very lot of time in Europe, where we come from. I was surprised how different the US is from Europe. 

15:46
I didn't know that so, after I spent a good chunk of time in the US, I stopped using the term the Western culture because I feel I felt so different in the US not in Mexico so much because I spend a lot of time in Spain and the Mexican culture and and the Spanish culture they're not. It's not strange to me what I didn't get like a cultural shock. I wasn't surprised by anything I saw. Of course there are cultural differences, but they were not, you know, striking or like surprising in any way, whereas when I came to the US, I must say I had a real cultural shock, like how you describe it in the book where were you in the US? 

16:33
uncomfortable and not understanding the codes, and I'm I'm a traveler, I've been to many places and I'm a well-educated person, I would say, and still this took me by surprise, that it was so much more different than I would have imagined. We were in California and we were in Kansas, we were in Iowa, chicago, what else? 

16:59 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
A little around St. 

16:59 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Louis, a little around, yeah, and I'm no expert on American culture at all, and it's just a country on four places. I'm just saying like dip the toe experiences there is so different from what's happening over here that I feel parallel, but I don't feel the same. Does that make sense? 

17:21 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
The book is not about American culture today or Western culture today. Right, these differences in the book are things. Does that make sense? The last 20 years changes. Some of the things have gotten more amplified and intense in the last 20, 30, 40 years. For sure. 

17:50
But how we see the child. That's not something that's in the last 20 years. You know, this power dynamic that I talk about in the first parts of the book, that's not, that's something that has happened and you can see it historically in Europe. I mean, these are deeply historical things that have spread out from Europe. Europe because you see it as the Catholic church spreads around the world and influences different cultures. Some of it is probably because of enlightenment and the rise of individualism, and I know that Europe has. 

18:24
You know, on the scale of individualism Europe is with the United States. You know it's not, probably not exactly the same and not as intense, but you know like I think of it, as to me it's like shades of gray. You know it's not going to be. Maybe some parts are not as black, but some part, you know, I mean it's. I mean, if you look at the data, psychological data, the Europeans sit with us on many of the, the things that we call weird, like Western culture is known as weird in psychological literature, which stands for Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic, and so in those studies, europeans, south africans, australians, americans, they all kind of sit together but, um, children, yeah, and I remember me being a young man, meeting my wonderful wife and getting thrown out into becoming a parent. 

19:22 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Our oldest daughter was five when we met. So I came from being a young party animal into suddenly have some kind of role as a dad that I grew into and got accepted as the dad after some time, which was wonderful, and I was really good at shouting and I was not a good dad in many, many ways where I've learned and grown through the time, and one of the most profound things that Cecilia said was so simple, which was would you ever talk to me like that? Yeah, and that helped start my development, because how can you feel righteous and like I am the parent so I can shout and talk down to you? There's something really wild in that and, and I really like that you, instead of taking the blame on yourself, uh like, oh, I'm a shitty dad, well, how can I do better? 

20:22
Do? You said, oh, wait a minute, it is not me, it's a construct. I'm a construct of what I've been told in society. Yeah, and I like that approach because it's it's kind of difficult. I don't have to feel so guilty and and I mean it's, there's truth to it. 

20:44 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
I mean, I, I it's funny because I'm writing another book and it would be interesting to hear your, your views on this in America versus other places, I, I would love to learn what your, what your differences are but, or the differences are but, but I think that there's a there's kind of, there's several key things in our lives where this, the same, the same rhetoric applies that, like my society, my culture did kind of didn't teach me right. 

21:15
You know, and I mean we, it's, it's, it's in some way, that's a little bit. It feels a little bit like relief, like oh, it's not me, which I think it's really true, I think. But in other ways it's a little bit trapping, because it's like how are you going to be this person that's living in a society that you know, like I had? It was very optimistic with the book book, like people read the book and then like, oh, they would see, their eyes would open and they would see, like, oh, I have this control. It is a control issue. 

21:46
I think you're angry, I think people are angry about the laundry, because you don't feel like you're in control of the child and I and I think that that, to be honest, is, is, is at the, and I talk, I say this in the beginning of the book I think that's the root of a lot of our problems is we want to control the child, we want to be in charge, we want them to do what we say, and this is a deeply rooted Western Europe idea and and I think that that is the root of a lot of our issues and I think letting go of that need would help people so much but it but it is so deeply rooted I, I, it's hard, it's hard for people to it's hard, it was hard for me and I still, I still feel it Like why didn't you do this I? Why haven't you done this? I've told you a hundred times, why haven't you done this? Right, you still feel that. But in many cultures it's like the child is its own agent and has its own agency, and I'm one influence containers. I would think that's like hey, if you cross this line, there will be consequences. 

22:58
But it's like so, so soft, like I say to my husband, it's like a soft, gentle, but constant pressure, right? Instead of like punching the child and moving them, like move, now, move. Because I say and move, now it's, I'm going to press on you just a tiny, tiny bit. Now it's. 

23:20 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I'm gonna press on you just a tiny tiny bit for a decade and get you to and shape you that way, push in the back and I'm never letting go, but that's also I mean, if we do support. It's a very interesting question. I find, personally and professionally, I'm probably a little bit strange because I grew up with hippies and you know I didn't grow up with this as much. I have four because of an early divorce, so they both remarried and stayed together and are still together. So I grew up with four parents and and most of them were, like you know, 70s North Scandinavian hippies so this is like a different culture and then became an unschooler. So I'm radical in my mindset around children and maybe I'm a very bad example when we talk about these things and I try to reflect on my and I'm a psychologist, so I talk to a lot of parents about their parenting experience. I just find that, yes, my all children are their own agents and and they are I find they have the right to their personal freedom and that they our job as adults around them is to take care of them, to be, to be the light in the darkness, to show the way, to support, to serve meals and do laundry and do cleaning and and just support the whole system until the child is old enough to support him or herself and maybe even it flips and they start supporting us. That's the job and you said earlier. 

25:02
You know their behavior. I don't like the word, but in lack of better I'll use it. Their behavior doesn't reflect back on us. It's not about me how they act in the world, but actually I kind of think it is. You know, because I see that there is a dynamic happening. So I can, I can look at children and I can see what context they were in and in a way I can do mother blaming like gentle. But you know, because the mother acted like that, now the child is like this and, yes, it does reflect back. It's not the only influence, it's not the only, and I'm not like being negative or dark or judging around it, it's just. This is the dynamic, this is what's happening. 

25:50 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
I think we agree 100%. I think that there's just this kind of it absolutely influences. But I think that in what I see in in in in many studies, I think that it shows that like there's this idea that you are like the one thing right and that you are to blame. And it's interesting the way you described what your role is as a parent, because it's very Western and in many places there's another way of viewing that role and I think that the book is about exploring that, exploring other ways of viewing what is your role, what is the purpose of the child? But role, what is the purpose of the child? But also what is the purpose of the parent? And so, for instance, like, yes, many places, okay, the, the parent's job is to take care of the child and feed them, but the parent's job is also to very quickly teach the child to be part of the group that's taking care of the children and feeding them. Like that would be, that would be very put at the top of, like the agenda. 

27:00
it's not just about me doing laundry and cooking, it's like very quickly. My job, my role in the family is to get the child into this group. That's doing not only taking care of them, but also going to take care of the next ones that come, and that's a very different view. 

27:18 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
One thing that comes to mind when you say that is but we are not living in groups so much anymore. We have these very small family units where we do not need to help guide, teach the children into understanding a group culture or community culture. We, when we travel, often co-live with other families. Now we have been doing it for a lot of years. 

27:47
Right now, we are living together with another family in Germany, visiting them to other families, yes, so our children constantly needs to understand the whole group dynamic and and that is one of the things I would like love to see change in our society is what happened when people thought we needed to live like small family units uh, on top of each other in buildings, not knowing your neighbors. 

28:15 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It's, there's something really weird and wrong with it but so much so that I just take it for granted. Our community mindset is very big and the participation is is taken for granted. What I find interesting is just discussing this. You know, I told my husband 20 years ago, would you ever talk to me like that? When he entered the scene and started to play, dad and I played dad as I had learned it, not very good um, but I said that and at the same time, the children are not other adults. 

28:47
We do have to have some sort of different relation to the children or different mindset around children that we have around adults, because that's another option to go wrong, I find in the radical parenting difference that I meet is that? Oh, the child is completely, you know, his own person and we have to respect them as any other person. 

29:13 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
The book is saying they're agents and they have agency, but they're irrational, illogical creatures that don't know how to behave. And your job is to teach them that, but not through this control. 

29:26 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
What kind of mindset should we have around the children, because we shouldn't just look at them as any other adult? No, no, absolutely not, and we shouldn't look at them as something to control, or this devious person or this you know button pusher. So what? What is the and? And do you also have an opinion on how and what stages does it change? 

29:48 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
because I mean I think it depends a lot on the child. If you go around and talk to parents around the world, like I don't know where you were in Mexico, but if you're in rural Mexico, you ask, ask a parent like when does this happen? They will tell you, well, it depends on the kid, you know. I mean it's like we, we one of the things in the West is we don't really understand our children really well because we don't watch them, we don't observe them. That's a big difference. I think what you brought up about living in groups is is massive and again it it supports this idea that the west is its own parenting entity. Um, because that is that has had massive repercussions on our lives. This like the, the creation and the rise and the, basically the domination of the nuclear family, right, that is just that is taken away, taken away so much of what really a parenting evolved for 200,000 years to look like and and it has these massive repercussions, like you say, you see it right in of children's learning At the same time, I do think a child in a very small group that if the parents goal is to teach them to be part of a group and work together as a group. 

30:55
They can do it and there are examples in the ethnographic record and in the anthropological record of this. But I think it's the way the parent sees their role. Is it my role to do this for you and then, kind of, on the side, teach you how to do it yourself? That's very Western Western Europe. It yourself, that's very Western Western Europe. Or is it my role to help you learn how to do this with me, me and your father, me and your siblings? Right, and that is what I'm trying to get at in the book. Is this, like it's not about me teaching you to be you In the West, the rise of individualism? Is this idea of like I'm going to figure out what you help you, or you're going to figure out what you want and then I'm going to support you. So you go, get what you want, and I mean that's how you create very successful people in the West, right, that's? 

31:52 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
kind of the definition One myth-sharing item. 

31:55 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Right, at some level I'm success in the sense of wealth, right, really success in this as well. 

32:00
I talked to somebody recently and they said, you know, individualism is like the most important invention for creating wealth, and I think it might be true. 

32:08
Ok, so, success in wealth, but, but a lot of parents around the world would say, actually that's not the whole picture. A lot of parents around the world would say, actually, that's not the whole picture, that's not. You know, actually what I want to do is I want to also teach you how to work together with other people, how to have relationships that are rewarding, how to learn that giving and helping is this incredible source of joy and reward in my life, in your life, right? And so there's this whole other element that I think has kind of just been pushed aside in Western culture, because we're so kind of focused on a child's successes as wealth, but what that leaves out is that, as a human being, we need to learn to interact with people in a way that is respectful, is helpful, is generous, is kind, because these are the things that really bring us long-term joy. And so a different type of wealth, a relational wealth, which is very much missing in many parts of Western society. 

33:09 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
We had the pleasure of talking with Dacia Naves. 

33:13 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yes, yes. 

33:13 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, a wonderful book, I would also recommend that. 

33:16
But when I've read her book and read your book, I'm like, yeah, and when I look at the way we live, which is very community-based, nomad traveling, I'm like maybe we are just outliers and maybe it's not possible, maybe the ship cannot turn. And sometimes I'm also thinking but the nuclear family is the new norm. So to the story. I've also worked as the interim CEO for an organization called Gaia Education, which is about creating ecovillage, supporting the ecovillage, supporting the ecovillage movement with education, and when I was there I was like but I don't believe everybody wants to go out and build their own tiny house and live in these old ecovillages. So I see a lot of people pointing in the direction of this is a good way to do it. And then I'm trying to figure out how do you put that into a nuclear family? Because I, yeah, so part of me is giving up. I will travel, have fun. 

34:26
Do the podcast hopefully inspire some people to take steps? Because the nuclear family structure in the West is really strong. So how can we incorporate elements? Because I don't think we can. Yeah, yeah, the ship is too big. 

34:44 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
And we me and you and us we can't do it. 

34:46
But what I've seen in like again, like it's been three years since I wrote this book and what I see and what I really believe is that you don't need to change your whole life, you don't need to, you don't need to. 

35:01
I mean, it'd be fantastic if you could and you, but people just can't. But just adding small amounts of the things that are in Hunt Gathered Parent, just small amounts, like an hour a day, an hour a week, really changes children, it really changes the relationship. It really, you know, giving two hours of autonomy real autonomy, because Western parents do not know what autonomy looks like and I didn't know what it looked like until we traveled, especially when we were with the Hadzabe. But there's one way I think about it and there's one way to test yourself if you're really giving it and that's like how much you're talking to the child, like how much you're saying to the child per hour, how many directions, comments, commands, praise, whatever. You can take your phone or whatever and record yourself with the child for an hour and count how many words and directives you give them Feedback. It's a real autonomy and this is not the only way, but this is. 

35:57
This has been studied um real autonomy is like for little children, little tiny ones two to five, it's like three an hour. For older children, it's like none. It is very rare. And so children, children need that. They need and I'm not talking about with a screen on right, I'm not talking to you because those count, all those words count. No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you and your child getting ready for bed, getting ready for school, cooking a meal, being outside right, two commands, two comments an hour. And if parents can go out and do that for an hour a week, I think kids need it every day. But start with an hour a week. The child will feel it will do so much good. Like I say in the book, the best thing you can do for your child is to give them autonomy, not on screens, autonomy in life. And that's again goes back to the control, the control issue. Right, you have to let go of that control. 

37:03 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
To do that, I'm sitting and considering how much do I try to direct my children without thinking about it? 

37:13 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
yeah. 

37:13 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Yeah, and it's an interesting challenge which I will take upon me. 

37:19 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
You know there's like in many cultures they don't say you know that learning is, this gets. I think you guys will like this, like they'll say things like he's teaching himself or he's like learning is a self-directed thing. And even in the Inuit culture they have two words for learning and teaching. One is the traditional Inuit, which means you know, you're, you're figuring, you're basically you're figuring out yourself, and the other one is the western somebody is telling you how to do it. So they're not even seen as the same thing. They're two different processes. 

38:00
We were in the Yucatan. Every night we got to see a dance class and we would go and we sat outside and they just did it outside and it was a traditional I think it's very Spanish influence but kind of an old way of dancing there and it was multi-age. So there were like two or three, three, three, four year olds and then like 16 year olds all in the same class and the instructor would come and they would all line up and he would dance and then he would dance again and then he would go around and kind of move their bodies a little bit and he would dance again and there were no words and it was, and then I would go. Then I went home to San Francisco and watched Rosie's dance class and it was like just constant words, right yeah. 

38:45
You know, but you're right, it's a very different process and children learn very different skill when they're figuring it out through observation and through just trying and through contributing. Barbara Rogoff calls it LOPI learning through observation and pitching in. That learning really occurs through trying yourself, watching, but also playing small parts and bigger and bigger parts. 

39:12 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
It's very interesting. Just take away the instruction and most of the feedback. Also, we learned from erica davis pitt. She's a star within the unschooling. She recommends that you always ask the child. You want my opinion or do you want my support? That's good, you know it's fair enough. 

39:33
I have it is but I don't have to tell. I mean, it's only if you want to hear about it, or do you just need me to support your project? You know, yeah, which is is really uh, it's a really really good one. You know, you should even make a t-shirt, um. 

39:47 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
I say that to my husband now, I figured that out, you know you're asking me for what here? 

39:54 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
It will be a long marriage. 

39:57 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
One of the things I it was actually at University of Copenhagen, funny enough that professor of developmental psychology. He wrote a book like a little tiny, nice one, just basics of children's development, and one of his I think it was five or six general recommendations for parents was leave the child alone. 

40:18 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
But not to see that that's not quite what I'm saying either. 

40:21 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
No, but it's a good piece of advice, because a lot of parents interfere very much, too much, and that's the thing that was exactly why I got so silent, because, also, I'm an unschooler, so I live with my three teenagers and now we have like a bonus teenager with us the entire summer, so I have four younger people under my wings this summer and I really live the fact that unschooling happens in conversation. The quality of the conversation is not about me instructing them or or giving them feedback or telling them what to do or not do or how it all works. It's us exploring together what all the things that come up which is a lot of different things with four teenagers traveling all over the place. 

41:06
There's a lot of talking, but you have to share with your opinions and instructions. 

41:13 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
This is how it's done, you, yeah it's in the book, I talk a lot about questions. In many cultures, learning is driven more through questions. Even with very small children, I, I think learning takes words. I think I'm talking talking more about like when children are exploring their world and being in their world and like not, you know, um, I, but I, I, yeah, I mean let them be. I think is is is right in the sense of like, and a lot of people interpret some of the things in the book that way. But that's that's um, not quite it either, because we again in west we tend to like swing these very extremes. 

41:51
You know, like, I'm gonna just continue skewing information on parenting no yes, so like we're not gonna, we're just going to let them be. 

41:57
But actually the motto in the book is a mix, it's a I'm going to be here. It's kind of like what you're talking about with support, right, mentor support versus opinions. I'm going to be here, I'm going to be watching you. There's a lot of watching. I asked Susan Gaskins. She's a anthropologist. You know what is one thing that Western parents could do, do to help their? The one thing, and they're like, be quiet and watch. You know, and I this is not about teenagers so much, this is more about, you know, the two to two to 10. But you know, I'm, I'm here, I'm watching you, I'm here if you need me and I'm here to step in when it's clear you need me. You know, and I think it's an art and I think a lot of the parents will say, the hardest part of parenting small children is knowing when to step in. You know, because you don't want to step in in that moment when they can figure it out, when they can get it. You know, we were in the Yucatan. 

43:01
There was a little girl she must have been three or four and she was riding this giant bicycle. They have these giant tricycles there. I mean, they're really big, like for me even, they're kind of big and she was. She was on it and she was like getting up on the seat and then rolling down this little hill, like in the most parts of the West you would never see a child allowed to do this Like it was. Like she was clearly to me going to hurt herself, Right, and I was just like no children do not do this. 

43:24
But you know, I'm a visitor, I just and um, and I watched, I watched what happened and she did it like maybe four times and she was clearly learning, she was teaching herself how to ride a bike, right. And then she got on it and she starts going really fast and kind of goes up on this hill and down into the road and I kid you, not three moms from different directions all ran out and grabbed her. And so those moms had been watching. They had been watching and waiting for the moment that, letting her do her thing, letting her learn, letting her grow, letting her experiment. But the moment they felt like she was in trouble because they were there watching and there and playing close attention. Three of them came out. 

44:08 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah. 

44:09 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
And that's the mindset to me. It's like I'm really involved, but the child doesn't really know I'm involved, you know. 

44:20 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
I just talked with a friend about an element of this. You know, the being available, being there and and being. You know I don't have to be part of your life experience, from you wake up to fall asleep, but you need me, I'm around. Yeah, this can be potentially a problem if you live in nuclear families and you might have multiple children. You might have work to do. You know, I just talked to my friend about how can we be available for our youngest. We have quite a few children, both of us and, and you know, we are available for the older ones, we're available for our husbands, we're available for our work. We also sometimes need to sleep and our youngest children, who needs our more like physical and mental presence, close by more than the older ones do? Yeah, how is it this, on a practical level, possible for one mom in one house? 

45:23
yes, I, I it's not agree with you, so I agree with you was why don't we move in together for, let's say, six months and we share it and we engage the older brothers because we have almost adult, or actually adult children, but still living with us. Like, how about we? We say we're not two parents per family because we also have the older children, so now we're not one mom who has to solve the problem, we're actually six adults. 

45:53 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Yes, and this is, this is what you see across the world is that's not you need and you that's what I said earlier. Like you're not just training the child to, you're not like I, like I mentioned earlier, you're not just doing the laundry or teaching the child to do the laundry. You teach the first child that you have to do the laundry with you, so that then that child teaches the second child to do the laundry with him, who then teaches the next child to do the laundry with you, so that then that child teaches the second child to do the laundry with him, who then teaches the next child to do the laundry. It's, it's it. I was talking helping a mom do this when she has four kids and and, and it's like each child is an alloparent. 

46:30
But psychologists and anthropologists call, like the parents that are not the nuclear parents, right, not the biological parents, so I mean that's part of the system that, like you're right in the sense that when you're living with a lot of people or a lot of other adults around you have adult allo, parents. But a big part of a parent's job in many societies like when you list off what is my job at the top of the list is to teach the children, to take care of the help, take care of the younger children, and that is a huge part of it, from day one, day one. 

47:04 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean, this starts really early, yeah, and it's so, so they don't want to they so much want to great part of parenting our children how they really want to take care of their siblings, you know from one, from the moment the next one is born, they all come together and they want to help and they want to participate mentally and physically present in many societies, that other children are there and mentally present in like taking. 

47:41 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
That, you know. And the thing is is we didn't talk about this but a big part of what children need and what is missing, I think, in our society today in a lot of ways is feeling purposeful, feeling like you're contributing you're a contributing member of this group and and teaching the child child, like you say to take care of the, help, take care of the younger ones, be part of that gives their lives this purpose. 

48:05 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
So it went no, I mean, this becomes even worse. I don't know how, if that's the same and and I feel like you might have probably have the data, I don't um, but with all the divorces, children tend to grow up on two locations, yeah, and the parents get a vacation, kind of. You know, now I, I don't have children for three, four, five, seven days, something right, and then I suddenly have children for a while. 

48:35
So I'll do all the laundry and all the shopping and all the bookkeeping and all the adult stuff while my kids are not with me, and then when they come we can watch the movies and we can go to the trampoline park and we can, you know? And then it becomes this parenting, entertaining kind of lifestyle where the children even less gets to be part of. I've just observed this. I have no data how widespread it is. I've just observed it in a lot of divorced families. And it makes sense, because you miss your children. 

49:13 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
You don't really want to do your emails while they are home. 

49:16 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
if they live part time somewhere else, I understand the dynamics of it, but I think the children grow up in an even more skewed reality, with less of a feeling of being part of real life and less of a feeling of being a necessary part of the community, which is actually quite fun. 

49:39 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
I don't have data on that, but I'm sure that's true at some level. So in Western culture we think that the quality time is the movie and the trampoline park. 

49:47 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
Oh yeah, not to me. No, no, no, I quoted it, yes, yes. 

49:52 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
But I mean, that is what we think, we think that's what enriches a child's life, that's what they want, that's what they need. But in many cultures the quality time is hanging the laundry on the line and talking, cooking together, you know, like taking care of the animals, yeah, and, like you know, hang out. I mean I I'm just amazed at what gets brought up and what gets transmitted during the hanging the laundry on the line, which is like something that you know many, most families don't do. And I I get some people tease me like about it, but I'm like, I'm like no, just start hanging your laundry on the line. You know, just go out and hang the laundry on a line with your kid and like that time, you know, that's when culture gets transmitted, that time, that's when you connect, that's when your relationship really grows are those moments of kind of busy pause. 

50:45 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So where are you now? You're working on a new book, you said. 

50:49 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Yes, I'm writing another book that's going to come out next year. It's like kind of the opposite. It's all about the neuroscience and kind of screens and ultra processed foods and what they do into our brains and then how we can use that to really make them the part of our lives that we want them to be a part of. When it comes out, you'll have to invite me back on, yeah we will. 

51:11 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
That's a whole nother 40, 50 minutes, so now it's time for you to tell where people can find you and the book. 

51:20 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
You can get the book you know anywhere Amazon, indie book, whatever you know, it's out there. I tend to not be on social media because I I'm writing a book about social media and after learning about how it works, I don't want to be on social media. But but I tell people they can email me from my website and I'm I'm redoing my, my, my website so people can go there and get everything there and if you email me, I will read it and I will respond eventually and um, but next year it's called dopamine kids and it's um I love that one very future oriented. 

51:55
And yeah, the research has changed me considerably. 

52:02 - Jesper Conrad (Host)
So that's cool. Thanks a lot for your time. It was super interesting to unfold parts of this together with you, and I look forward to talking about dopamine kits. 

52:14 - Michaeleen Doucleff (Guest)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. It was a lively and fun discussion. It was it you. Thank you for having me. It was a lively and fun discussion it was it was. 

52:20 - Cecilie Conrad (Host)
Thank you for your time.