CDC Survey on Teen Mental Health with Dr. Kathleen Ethier
TOPICS DISCUSSED
CDC Survey Results on Teen Mental Health with Dr. Kathleen Ethier
Outside of Politics: The Holland Trip to Charlotte
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EPISODE RESOURCES
East Tennessee State University Festival of Ideas: Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Sarah and Beth live at the Abbey in Orlando for The Politics of the Most Magical Place on Earth: Wednesday, April 5, 2023, at 7 pm
U.S. Teen Girls Experiencing Increased Sadness and Violence (CDC)
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.
Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.
[00:00:25] Welcome to Pantsuit Politics. Sadly, Beth is still under the weather, so you're stuck with me today y'all. But I have brought in some very special guests. First, we're going to continue our conversation about teen mental health with Dr. Kathleen Ethier from the CDC. And then my beloved husband, Nicholas, is going to join us for Outside Politics as we share our trip to Charlotte, North Carolina. Now, we were originally hoping to share a conversation with Marie Yovanovitch to mark the one-year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine, which is today; however, she ended up on a last-minute trip to Ukraine. So, we'll be bringing you that conversation sometime next month. We hope that her recent time in the country will make it an even richer conversation to share with all of you. Before we get started, a friendly reminder that there are lots of exciting opportunities to see us in person over the next several months. We will be at Eastern Tennessee State University on Tuesday at the Festival of Ideas, which is free and open to the public. Also coming in the next few weeks are our trips to Texas and Orlando. We're going to be at Abilene Christian University on March 22nd and East Dallas Christian Church on March 23rd. Then we'll be in Orlando, Florida, for a live show on April 5th. You can find more information about attending any of those events in the show notes or on our website. Now, onto my conversation with Dr. Ethier. She is the director of the CDC Division of Adolescent and School Health and has been at the CDC for over 20 years. Before joining there, she spent six years on the research faculty at Yale University and she brought an enormous amount of expertise that I can't wait for you all to hear. Now, this is a difficult topic that we are committed to revisiting here at Pantsuit Politics. But as always, high level conversations about something as big and hard as teen mental health will not be able to capture the complexities and heartbreak of all of our individual situations. So, we're going to talk about what we can or should do as parents and teachers. But please, please hear me when I say this: that is never meant as a judgment on anything that's happened in your life. We feel only care and love for those of you struggling with this right now. We're only trying to find some hope and empowerment for all of us moving forward. So, with that, here is my conversation with Dr. Ethier about the Teen mental Health Survey that recently came out from the CDC. Dr. Ethier, thank you so much for coming on Pantsuit Politics.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:02:51] Thank you so much for having me.
Sarah [00:02:53] Now, the new data from the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey has really been everywhere, all over the news. Can you tell us first, before we dive into the results, how you take the survey?
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:03:06] It's a survey that we've been doing every other year for more than 30 years. It is a nationally representative sample of U.S. high school students. And so, students in ninth through 12th grade complete the survey in their classrooms. We ask schools all across the country that are selected to be representative of the high school students in the country if they would be willing to participate, and then young people are asked to consent. We use whatever the local parental consent policies and laws are. We follow those and it's anonymous. That allows us to, I think, really get a sense of what young people are experiencing and ways in which they're behaving. And they tell us things. Clearly from this data, they tell us things. So, it gives us a really wonderful view in this case more than 17,000 young people in 2021. It gives us a real view into what they're experiencing.
Sarah [00:04:13] Wow. So, this was in what part of 2021?
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:04:16] This data was collected in the fall of 2021. So normally the data is collected in the odd number of years. Normally we would have done it in the spring, in the fall of 2021, but because of the pandemic and we collect the data in classrooms, we knew that there were still many young people in the spring of 2021 who were not full time back in their classrooms. So, we did a different survey called the Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey, which was online. We recruited schools in the same way, but young people could fill the survey out online. And you can take a look at that data as well. I think it gives a good snapshot of what young people were experiencing during the pandemic. Then we moved this data collection into the fall of 2021.
Sarah [00:05:02] We were still really in the pandemic. It's not like we were fully out of it yet.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:05:07] No, we were still, I think, experiencing the effects of the pandemic. And I think you have to take that into consideration when you think about this data. But pretty universally, young people were back in their classrooms. I think what that means is we're not missing kids. This is a representative sample of the young people in the country not impacted by who was in school or who was not in school.
Sarah [00:05:31] So even at the CDC for 20 years-- and I'm assuming that you've looked at many, many rounds of this data. And before we get in the coverage, because there has been a lot of focus on the results from teen girls and LGBT teens, I just wonder when you first saw it before the coverage was sort of crafted what stood out to you. When you sat down with this data for the first time and you thought, "Oh, my goodness," what stopped you in your tracks? Or did nothing stop you in your tracks?
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:05:59] No, you're right. I have been looking at this data for a very, very long time. My background is in adolescent health. And so, [Inaudible] and really the standard way that those of us who work in this area understand what's happening with young people in the country. I've been responsible for the division that collects the data for just over six years, and so I've been taking this deeper dive into the data every year for those six years. I was really overwhelmed when I saw this data. Mental health has been moving in the wrong direction for all young people for the last 10 years. The last several rounds of this data that we've looked at, we've seen prior to the pandemic that mental health was already moving in the wrong direction. When we looked at our ABC data last year, we saw that that trend was increasing and we knew that young people their mental health was impacted by the pandemic as well. I think what was so hard to take in about this data was both the breadth and the depth of the crisis that young people are experiencing. And then, unfortunately, we've seen these same issues for LGBTQ+ young people for many years. And I never want to be not surprised by kind of the level of violence--
Sarah [00:07:32] Or not affected.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:07:33] Or not affected by the level of violence and mental health impact on our LGBTQ+ young people. It continues to be so difficult to see. We had not seen prior to this year just the kind of consistent difference between girls and boys in our data that we saw in this data. So, across every measure of substance use-- which has been improving, we've been seeing improvements over the years in in use of substance. But at the same time, despite those improvements, girls are more likely significantly to use substances than boys across every measure of substances that we measured. And that was surprising. Except for being threatened or injured with a weapon at school, every other measure of violence we saw this consistent difference between girls and boys. Girls were more likely to say that they didn't go to school because they were concerned about their safety. They were more likely to experience both kinds of bullying. And then the levels of sexual violence are so disturbing for girls. Then so understandably, when we see this difference in not just expressions of feelings-- so not just in terms of expression of depressive symptoms or saying that their mental health was poor in the last 30 days-- but then when that translates into suicidal behavior more girls made a suicide plan, more girls attempted suicide. We know that girls, I think, are more likely to experience mental health problems differently than boys. But behaviorally, to see it come out in substance use and to see it come out in suicidal thoughts and behaviors, I think was really overwhelming.
Sarah [00:09:37] Yeah. This survey really put some hard numbers on the struggle of teen girls in particular, and that's where a lot of the conversation has been focused. You see a 20% increase in girls experience sexual violence from 2017. You see one in 10 teen girls reported that they have been forced to have sex up 27% from 2019. And then, of course, seriously considering attempting suicide in 2021, up nearly 60% from 10 years ago. When I talked to the mental health professionals in my life who work with teenagers, lis there any of this that you think is just an increased likelihood to report on the survey or because this has been an anonymous survey for so long, are you less likely to look at that likelihood?
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:10:28] I think it's an 'and' and not an 'either or'. I do think that on the positive side, we're doing a better job giving young people the language that they need to understand and express both the state of their mental health. I think we are doing a better job helping young people and perhaps girls in particular understand when they have been sexually assaulted, when they've experienced sexual violence. But, particularly around the experience of rape, I don't know that that is enough to explain such a significant increase between 2019 and 2021. The level of experience of forced sex has been at around between 10 and 12% for years. That is astounding to me that for the last 10 years, one out of every 10 teenage girls has been raped. We've known that and talked about it and tried to draw attention to that. The fact that we're beyond that and that we went beyond that in two years-- so we went from something like 11% to 14%. So not only is it the case that of every 10 teenage girls that one of them has been raped, probably more than one of them has been raped. And to see that kind of increase, it can't just be a change in either recognition or ability to say that to be able to articulate that that's been an experience that you've had as a as a teenager. It's my sense that there's something else going on. Again, because we're asking questions about experiences of violence, we're not asking questions about perpetration of violence. And I think that's where our understanding of what's happening for young people that we have to direct our attention.
Sarah [00:12:34] Well, and I just wonder when you're talking about two-year period and you're talking about a two-year period during a major societal upheaval, well, what do we know? We know that during major societal upheavals, vulnerable populations suffer first and suffer most. And teenage girls are a vulnerable population, either at home during quarantine or out and about whatever they could do during those two years. They're just a vulnerable population, and so I think that there's some of this that we can wrap some understanding around. But I think what's hard is feeling like this population of teenagers gets a lot of focus. It's so interesting to me this survey came out as I'm reading Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves, this book about the crisis among American men and teenage boys, and talking about how girls they're succeeding under all these markers in school. And what this survey tells us is it's not helping. We think that these outward markers mean one population is thriving and one population isn't. But I think what this survey shows is that even if teenage girls are increasing their proportion in STEM or going to college in greater numbers, that those markers of success do not prevent mental health challenges.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:13:55] Yeah, I think that that's definitely the case. What I want to make sure that we don't do from this data is to point toward girls or LGBTQ+ youth and say, what's wrong with them? What's wrong with girls? What's wrong with LGBTQ? Because I think that layers stigma and pressure especially when we're talking about sexual violence, I think that then leads to some idea that it is their fault. And we have to be really careful not to just stigmatize on top of stigma. I think we don't have evidence in this data. And I also want to be careful that we're not piling on to boys here. But I think what you're suggesting and certainly what others are writing about, is that this really also kind of points to a crisis for boys in this country, for teenage boys in this country, and potentially for young men in this country. And that there is something happening that we have to gain a better understanding of, that some of our findings are maybe canary in the coal mine. So, all of the violence measures that we include in this survey and that we include in this report are measures of perpetration. So, trying to understand why our environments, (whether that is community environments, school environments, home environments) appear to be increasingly aggressive, violent, traumatizing for, as you say, vulnerable populations of young people. We know from the work that we do in schools when we make school environments less toxic, when we make them safer and when we make concerted efforts to make them safer for those most vulnerable youth, everybody improves. So, some of the research that we've done has shown that schools that put LGBTQ inclusivity, policies and practices in place-- and so that means things like having anti-harassment policies that are enforced, identifying safe places and safe people for LGBTQ youth, having clubs in place that help LGBTQ youth feel supported-- not only do we see improvements in mental health and reductions in suicidal thoughts and behaviors for LGBTQ youth, we see them for heterosexual youth as well. So, something about making school environments less toxic for those very vulnerable youth make schools less toxic and more supportive for everyone. And so, we know that trying to address those issues affects the whole population.
Sarah [00:17:15] Let's take a quick break and turn to some of the survey results about LGBTQ youth. In this status survey, we see some really alarming statistics about LGBTQ+ students, either because they're not going to school because of safety concerns, they're experiencing sexual violence, they're experiencing bullying. Almost half of LGBTQ students seriously considered attempting suicide, nearly one in four attempted suicide. And you see these numbers. And I think what's so hard is I don't disagree with anything you just said. I hope all schools do that. But as somebody who was in school in 1999, where there was none of that, and I think it's hard to argue anything but that we have become more accepting over the 20 years in school environments and social environments and cultural environments, and these numbers aren't budging and sometimes they're getting worse. That's the frustrating part about this data. When you come out and you say particularly girls and LGBTQ youth are suffering and you're like, man, we're pouring so many resources into this population. We identified them as vulnerable. We identified weaknesses. We identified that toxicity. We tried to open conversations about sexual assault and accepting of sexual identity, all these things. And it's getting worse. It just feels hopeless sometimes.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:18:48] Yeah. First let me just say one thing, and that is that in these data we did not include a question on gender identity. So, when we say in this data LGBTQ+ youth, it's because there are obviously young people in the survey who are transgender but we don't identify them specifically. So, that's why you'll see when we're talking about this data we have added a question on gender identity for the 2023 survey which is in the field now. Moving forward, we will be able to address issues for those young people. I think what I would differentiate is between what an individual school does and when a school does all of the things that I talked about we see improvements, versus kind of a broader conversation, which in some ways seems to have moved in the right direction over time. Let's also remember that we just added the questions about sexual identity and sex of same sex partners in 2015. Having these data for this population is more recent. We don't know what it looked like 20 years ago. And we don't know if 20 years ago young people would have felt comfortable enough even in an anonymous survey identifying as LGBTQ+. So, we have to kind of put it in context. I would also say that over the last number of years, there have been improvements and then there have also been conversations that what we hear from young people can be quite harmful. So, for instance, some of our research showed that we saw -- this was a number of years ago before marriage equality became accepted across the country or legal across the country-- differences between states where marriage equality had already been accepted versus those states where it had not been accepted in suicidal thoughts and behaviors among LGBTQ young people.
Sarah [00:20:57] Oh, yeah, I remember that statistic. Yeah.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:21:00] And so, I think what that suggests is that there are still these very clear state and probably local differences in the conversations around LGBTQ inclusivity that are impacting young people. I think it would be really naive to think that these very difficult and heated conversations that we are currently having about what schools can do or say to young people about who they are, is not affecting them or affecting their mental health. I absolutely agree that there is greater acceptance in many kind of areas, but it's not universal and it is currently continuing to affect young people's mental health. I will also say that we saw data in our ABES Survey, which was collected in the spring of 2020, that showed that young people who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or questioning were much more likely than their heterosexual peers to experience abuse in the home, both emotional abuse and physical abuse. And so, we can't assume that despite whatever improvements we've seen, that is that is not still affecting young people.
Sarah [00:22:28] Yeah, no, I definitely agree with you that wide variance. I do wonder, though, if we don't talk about this holistically enough with that sort of multi-decade perspective, we get so focused in on the challenges in front of us that we don't articulate to young people I think all the time about the It Gets Better campaign. I think all teenagers of all identities need to hear that it gets better. Like, it gets better. Let us give you a broader perspective so that you're not consumed in a way that your brain is already predisposed to be consumed with the present pressure or future anxieties when you're young. I do feel like there's this important historical past perspective to say, hey, we've come a long way. Let's not get consumed with the challenges which are absolutely in front of us and will be in front of us forever. We're never going to reach a paradise where we've solved all the anxieties for teenagers, right? But I do worry sometimes that we don't give them enough of that perspective.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:23:32] I do think that that is really important and I think creating spaces that support and affirm their identities and make them safe goes such a long way toward helping them feel hopeful. Again, not to suggest that all LGBTQ+ young people are making a suicide plan. I mean, that is not the case. I think the fact that we have an It Gets Better Campaign is the opportunity for LGBTQ adults to say to young people, yeah, it does get better. But I think when you look at the level of violence that LGBTQ+ young people are experiencing on a daily basis-- so when they are more likely to not go to school because they're worried about their safety, when they are more likely to experience bullying, we know that experience of violence is traumatizing. We know that it has an impact on mental health rate in that time period. And so, it's hard to balance out the ability to provide those kinds of sources of hope in the context of also what those young people are experiencing in their schools, online, in their homes. So, yes, I absolutely agree that we don't want to either present to LGBTQ young people that their lives are kind of hopeless or that that's what that's how they should see this, but also have to realistically look at the environments where they spend most of their time which are school and home. I don't know that we have a ton of ways to impact their home environments, but we do have very clear things that we know we can do to change their school environments that will support them. And when we do that, everyone in a school feels better and does better.
Sarah [00:25:42] So I would do want to talk about what schools can do, but before we get to that, we have a lot of parents listening. So, what are those signs you're looking for as a parent? How do you walk that line of affirming the experience without feeding the anxiety? I think that is so hard to do as a parent.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:26:02] Yeah. Honestly, if I was a parent-- I'm not-- and I looked at this data, I would be really alarmed, be trying to figure out what I should be doing. I would say there absolutely are things that parents of teenagers can do. I would also suggest that there are some things that parents of younger children can do to set the stage for when their children move into adolescence. And so, the first thing I would say, is from a very early age talking to your children about their feelings, their emotions, their well-being, sets the stage for being able to talk about this thing when they're teenagers positively and negatively. Having kids who can identify, I'm sad, I'm happy, I'm frustrated, I'm angry. Being able to identify emotions and then helping children negotiate through those emotions, affirming those emotions. Yes, I can see that you're happy. Yes, I can see that you're sad. What should we do about that? Those conversations, making emotions and mental health and well-being part of the things that you talk to your children about, means that when they become teenagers and those emotions become more complex, you've already set the stage, you've already helped them, you've already given them the language and you've already made it part of your conversation. So, I said I think that it helps take the stigma away of a teenager needing to tell an adult that something's not right here and makes it more likely that the parents are going to be the ones they're going to talk to about it. So, I think that's one really important thing. I think there are often-- not always, but there are often kind of signs to look for. Changes in behavior, changes in eating patterns, sleeping patterns. Attending to those things are important ways to see if something is just kind of not right with whether that's a middle schooler or a high schooler.
[00:28:29] Those are the things that you're going to start to see as being indicators that something's going on and making sure that you have those conversations, that you address those things when you see them. Staying engaged in your young person's school is a really good way of knowing what's happening so that you're not out of the blue getting a phone call that says, like, this thing happened in school. Staying kind of engaged on a regular basis. We have a large body of science that tells us that parent involvement-- something we call parental monitoring, which is knowing where your kids are, who they're with, what they're doing and what we call family connectedness, which is kind of this sense of closeness that young people feel to their family-- those are really powerful protective factors. And so, teenagers who feel more connected to their families, whose parents or guardians are more engaged and more involved with them, who know where they are, what they're doing and who they're with, those young people tend to do better both during adolescence and then years into adulthood. It changes the trajectory of where they go. Parents have a lot to offer in this situation and shouldn't feel powerless to really be able to engage in their young people's needs.
Sarah [00:29:59] Yeah. I think that the through line from what you're saying about schools and parents is what I call a sturdy presence. The only thing I would disagree with you is I wouldn't look at a kid and say, "What do you think we should do about it?" I would say, "Here's what we're going to do about it," because I'm an adult and you're a kid and you're a teenager, and I want you to understand that I have confidence that we can handle this situation. Because that's what I see is lacking. I just think that teenagers often and young kids, there's this sense of like, well, tell us what to do. Well, they don't know what to do. That's why they're freaking out.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:30:35] I would say, let's call it an 'and'.
Sarah [00:30:37] Yeah.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:30:38] Because I think it is about engagement. It is about we are in this together.
Sarah [00:30:45] Right. It's that affirming, but not leaning into their anxiety. It's hard. Listen, it's so hard to do. I went to a school where there was a school shooting and I look back with such grace on our parents because I think now, like, oh my God, they just wanted to fix it for us so badly. They wanted to fix it. And it was a sense of, like, you're okay, move on. Which was its own sort of damage. Whereas, now I feel like we sort of overcorrected and we lean in to every anxiety and say, absolutely. And it's like it's that 'both/and'. It's that balance of affirming. I hear you. Your feelings are real and I'm not going to try to fix it for you because I can't fix it for you. I can't just walk in with a magic wand. I don't have all the solutions. And some of the solutions I might have could be wrong because we're all human beings here, even as adults. But that instinct to sort of either "Hush everything's okay," or "Oh my God, you're right. Everything is awful," it is hard to find a balance, to find that 'both/and' between those two things.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:31:51] And I think what you're describing is really what I would call active engagement and involvement. And that starts really early developing that relationship. Most of what we're talking about in terms of even when we talk about parental monitoring-- so knowing where your kids are and who they're with and what they're doing well-- accurately, knowing that requires that you're asking the right questions and that your kids tell you. And that a lot of that is based on a relationship building that starts much earlier. I would also say that the same kind of connectedness that is really important in a family is also really important at schools. I know that that's hard to think about when schools are so large and can feel really enormous.
Sarah [00:32:52] We're asking so much of them already.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:32:55] Yes. I would also say, though, that a lot of the stuff that we're talking about with schools relieves burden from them instead of adding here's one more thing to do. There is a place and there is an important place for needing more mental health services in schools and layering those things in. But we're not going to mental health professional away out of where we are. And I think what we have to do is help schools with the tools that they need to deal with the crisis that they're already seeing so that we're relieving burden instead of adding burden to that. That means things like really helping teachers navigate through the mental and behavioral health issues that they're seeing in their classrooms. And we hear that from them all the time. Getting the programs into schools that really engage and connect young people, give them that sense of purpose, give them that sense that there are adults who care about them and who support them. And then policies and practices that keep those vulnerable youth safe. Those are things that are really within the wheelhouse of schools. They're doing anyway or know that they need to do anyway. The other thing I will say is that everyone has that teacher that they remember, right? Everybody has the place-- whether it was the club that you were in. I was a theater kid in high school and so that was an affirming place for me where I felt like other people cared about me and cared about my well-being. That is the making sure that across the board that young people have that person, that place, that environment to connect to is the thing that-- much like family connectedness, school connectedness-- has that same kind of long-term protective aspect. I think helping schools figure out how to make sure that they are safe for vulnerable students, and that young people have a sense of connectedness, and within a big often anonymous environment that they can find the people who will support them and make them feel like they're cared for.
Sarah [00:35:20] Well, and I think it just takes so little. I think about my 13-year-old in eighth grade and a teacher just lets them have a D&D club in her classroom after school. It's just positive feedback. It's just a positive experience inside the building, in the presence of a teacher with some of his fellow students. And it's made a world of difference. That is such a small thing. And I think you're right. I think it's creating those positive experiences so they start to associate the building, the people there-- because they spend so much of their time there-- with an affirming experience, I think can go a long way.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:36:00] We ask a single question in our survey about do you feel close to other people at school? We use that as a surrogate for this sense of connectedness, and we see a strong association between that item, that sense of connectedness or closeness and mental health.
Sarah [00:36:20] Wow.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:36:21] Pretty much everything. So, the kids who say that they feel close to other people at school do better across the board. Interestingly, white students, male students and heterosexual students are more likely to say that they feel close to people at school.
Sarah [00:36:37] Interesting.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:36:40] What that suggests to us is that creating those connections, which, as you said, doesn't take a lot, but we need to make some concerted efforts to reach out and connect with young people who are feeling least connected. For schools to find those ways to do that, I think we could see some great improvements if we did those things.
Sarah [00:37:05] I think that's a very hopeful note to end on. In summary, teenagers are just humans like the rest of us need connection in the places they spend the majority of their time, and so why I think the results of this data can be disheartening. I think ending on that fundamental thing we all really do understand is really helpful. Thank you so much for coming on Pantsuit Politics. We really appreciate it.
Dr. Kathleen Ethier [00:37:25] Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it so much.
Sarah [00:37:39] We've a special segment today. Outside Politics with Nicholas Maxwell Holland. Welcome, Nicholas Maxwell Holland.
Nicholas Holland [00:37:44] Hi, guys.
Sarah [00:37:46] I like saying your name like that.
Nicholas Holland [00:37:47] Why?
Sarah [00:37:47] I don't know. Nicholas is joining us today because Beth is still very sick. So, you came here to talk with me about our trip to Charlotte?
Nicholas Holland [00:37:57] Yes, I did.
Sarah [00:37:59] We decided to fly to Charlotte because Paducah just got a new carrier out of our airport. We only have one airline at a time, guys. We can only have one.
Nicholas Holland [00:38:05] It's a small airport.
Sarah [00:38:05] It's very tiny.
Nicholas Holland [00:38:06] It's like a--
Sarah [00:38:07] Somebody on Instagram was, like, "I know you didn't, but it looks like you just got off a private jet."
Nicholas Holland [00:38:13] Well, the reason it's there is because we have an Essential Air Service airport, which is a federal program. And basically, it's just subsidized air carrier.
Sarah [00:38:23] Thanks, guys. We appreciate it.
Nicholas Holland [00:38:25] And we only have one carrier at a time because--
Sarah [00:38:27] Used to be united.
Nicholas Holland [00:38:28] Right. It used to be united through Chicago.
Sarah [00:38:32] And now it's Contour through Charlotte.
Nicholas Holland [00:38:35] Right. And Contour is affiliated I guess with American Airlines.
Sarah [00:38:39] So we chose to go to Charlotte because that's where we could go from Paducah. It's a short break. We call it resort break.
Nicholas Holland [00:38:45] Kids have Thursday, Friday, and Monday off. Monday was the federal holiday.
Sarah [00:38:47] Yeah. So we were, like, where could we go? We really waited till the last minute till we can make up our minds. We were like let's go to Charlotte because we can go to Congaree National Park, which is only about an hour and a half south of Charlotte.
Nicholas Holland [00:39:00] An hour and a half-ish. Yeah.
Sarah [00:39:01] As you all know; we like to check off the national parks around here in the Holland household.
Nicholas Holland [00:39:06] Check them off surely, but slowly.
Sarah [00:39:07] We're almost halfway. How short are we.
Nicholas Holland [00:39:09] I think [Inaudible] and we're at 27 and there's 64, I think now.
Sarah [00:39:13] Sixty four? Because our poster says 62.
Nicholas Holland [00:39:16] Maybe it's 63 now, maybe with the addition of...
Sarah [00:39:22] Indiana Dunes.
Nicholas Holland [00:39:22] No.
Sarah [00:39:23] No, It was West Virginia that we just went to.
Nicholas Holland [00:39:24] Right. And New River Gorge.
Sarah [00:39:26] We've been taking these, like, easy one offs to get to. We went to Indiana Dunes and we went to New River Gorge and we went to Congaree. It was rainy that day. It was not super exciting. It was still interesting. We have another area of southern Illinois that's very much like Congaree, this sort of like cedar trees under the water with the-- what do you call the roots that come out?
Nicholas Holland [00:39:44] Cypress trees.
Sarah [00:39:45] Cypress trees.
Nicholas Holland [00:39:46] Like, they're legs or whatever.
Sarah [00:39:46] Legs. Yeah.
Nicholas Holland [00:39:48] Yeah. It's like a lowland. And it was definitely interesting. It's probably better explored by a boat or and kayak, but we didn't do that that day. It was kind of cold, but we're trying to visit them all. And sometimes we visit them in off seasons and try to visit them all.
Sarah [00:40:04] Hey, offseason means less mosquitoes, which are a real deal at Congaree.
Nicholas Holland [00:40:09] Yes.
Sarah [00:40:09] So I feel okay about that.
Nicholas Holland [00:40:11] Apparently, they also have simultaneous flashing.
Sarah [00:40:14] I do want to see that. Felix said he wants to see that. He's going to comeback for that.
Nicholas Holland [00:40:17] Fireflies or whatever kids call them these days. What did you call them growing up? Fireflies or Lightning bugs?
Sarah [00:40:21] Lightning bugs?
Nicholas Holland [00:40:21] Lightning buds. Yeah, that's the right one.
Sarah [00:40:23] That's right.
Nicholas Holland [00:40:23] I think-- I feel like.
Sarah [00:40:25] Then we worked our way back up to Charlotte, and we stopped at Winthrop where two of your brothers went to college.
Nicholas Holland [00:40:31] Right. Older brother, younger brother.
Sarah [00:40:32] And stumbled into, like, for a real college tour.
Nicholas Holland [00:40:35] We did. [Crosstalk].
Sarah [00:40:36] Which I was the only one that was interested in. All the rest of you were like, what are we doing here?
Nicholas Holland [00:40:40] No, that's not true. I just feel like all of our three children, none of whom is going to college in the next four years, needed to do this entire college tour.
Sarah [00:40:48] This is when you get them, this is when you get the vision in their head. Felix was like, "I'm not going to college." And by the time we left he was like, "I'm coming here for college."
Nicholas Holland [00:40:56] Right 100%. I think it's good.
Sarah [00:40:57] He took a real journey emotionally.
Nicholas Holland [00:40:59] I had two older brothers. I was present for a mini college tour. I was bored through all of them, but they definitely shaped what I thought I would want in a college when I decided to choose a college.
Sarah [00:41:08] Winthrop was lovely, I liked it a lot.
Nicholas Holland [00:41:10] It's a very good school. It's a state school.
Sarah [00:41:13] Is it a state school?
Nicholas Holland [00:41:14] Yeah.
Sarah [00:41:14] I missed that part.
Nicholas Holland [00:41:17] My older brother and my younger brother both went there. They were the same fraternity.
Sarah [00:41:22] Y'all went to liberal arts schools.
Nicholas Holland [00:41:24] Yes.
Sarah [00:41:24] I like that.
Nicholas Holland [00:41:28] [Inaudible] Winthrop. Tulane.
Sarah [00:41:29] Yeah, I like that journey. And nobody paid for school.
Nicholas Holland [00:41:32] Yeah, I think that. No one could afford.
Sarah [00:41:34] The Hollands are ridiculous, you guys. I could give you more facts. Like the fact that they're all Eagle Scouts. [Inaudible]. Well, your mother graduated from college at 19, so you can't buy it honestly.
Nicholas Holland [00:41:44] We tried.
Sarah [00:41:46] Okay, so then we went up to Charlotte. I got all the wrecks and the people really came through for us. I talked Felix into, on his birthday, going to SupperLand, even though he wanted sushi for his birthday. And that was the best call of the trip in my personal opinion.
Nicholas Holland [00:41:58] One hundred percent. SupperLand lived up to all the hype.
Sarah [00:42:01] You guys, I would fly from Paducah to Charlotte just eat at SupperLand and then turn around, fly back and not even feel bad about it.
Nicholas Holland [00:42:07] You liked it more than I did.
Sarah [00:42:09] You did really?
Nicholas Holland [00:42:10] I mean, it wasn't life changing.
Sarah [00:42:12] I thought it was fantastic.
Nicholas Holland [00:42:14] It was very good.
Sarah [00:42:14] It was fresh. Everything was well seasoned. It was inventive, but not overly so. I just thought it was really good.
Nicholas Holland [00:42:22] It hit all the points for you.
Sarah [00:42:23] Loved it, loved it, loved it. Then we went to the Met Museum, which has a permanent fashion exhibit which I enjoyed so much. You could see Chanel from the twenties, you could see Oscar de la Renta dresses. They had some from the 1700s. It was very cool.
Nicholas Holland [00:42:41] I chased Felix most of the time, too.
Beth [00:42:43] That's good for you.
Nicholas Holland [00:42:45] Felix has a very interesting way of visiting an art museum, which is he just goes full speed through an exhibit, and sometimes he'll turn to go back and look at a few other pieces that he thought.
Sarah [00:42:56] Just to get the lay of the land first.
Nicholas Holland [00:42:58] He very much just kind of want to see it. He's seen it. He's gone. He's going to go and he's out.
Sarah [00:43:03] And then we went to the NASCAR Museum.
Nicholas Holland [00:43:06] Yes, NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Sarah [00:43:07] Where we discovered that I'm, in fact, a NASCAR prodigy. I was third in the simulation, which I thought was very strong because everybody else had done it before but me.
Nicholas Holland [00:43:16] How did you even know that?
Sarah [00:43:16] Because he asked everybody to raise their hands if they'd done it before. And I got third. I was very good at it. I should have been a NASCAR driver. Is it too late?
Nicholas Holland [00:43:25] It's interesting to me that people would want to go to that again. It's not inexpensive. It's kind of an expensive ticket.
Sarah [00:43:30] It's not, babe. It's like 10 bucks.
Nicholas Holland [00:43:32] For the simulator. Actually, to get inside it's like [Inaudible] or something.
Sarah [00:43:35] Yeah. No, it wasn't that bad. It was fun, though. I did not expect to have that much fun driving NASCAR, but I would go back into the simulator again just to see if I could get my score up a little bit because, again, I got third in case you missed that the first time.
Nicholas Holland [00:43:47] Yeah. I mean, congratulations. Well done.
Sarah [00:43:49] Thank you. It was hard.
Nicholas Holland [00:43:51] I mean, one of the people driving was our son.
Sarah [00:43:54] And he reset it like six times. He was so frustrated. He was like, "People just kept hitting me."
Nicholas Holland [00:43:58] Yes. He was in the back. He started off not great and it kind of got worse.
Sarah [00:44:04] I thought the NASCAR museum was interesting. I don't feel like they spent enough time on the people, like, the danger of the sport or the people who have died tragically.
Nicholas Holland [00:44:14] We talked about that, I guess, and I feel the same way a little bit. There's a lot of assumption that what happened, for example, to Dale Earnhardt. I mean, it's hinted at, it's discussed, his untimely demise.
Sarah [00:44:26] And especially Kyle Petty. That one's really sad. He was 19 years old.
Nicholas Holland [00:44:32] Yes, he was very young.
Sarah [00:44:33] So sad. You can walk in his Hall of Fame and kind of pick up these phones and listen to all the guys stories. And I did enjoy that. I thought was really interesting.
Nicholas Holland [00:44:41] It is.
Sarah [00:44:42] And guys, they're all guys.
Nicholas Holland [00:44:43] It's a who They're all old white guys.
Sarah [00:44:45] They're all old white guys.
Nicholas Holland [00:44:47] Yeah. But they're kind of a who especially if you're from the south, you'll recognize each and every one of them. I did get to watch the full video about Bill Elliott, who was my favorite NASCAR driver of all time because he's from Dalton, Georgia. And had this family car thing, awesome Bill from Dawsonville growing up.
Sarah [00:45:06] Oh my God.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:06] I read about him all the time. Although I didn't really watch NASCAR as a kid. I watched NASCAR like ages [Inaudible].
Sarah [00:45:11] You watched NASCAR a lot when we were first married.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:13] Yeah, but I got into it in the nineties and early 2000s
Sarah [00:45:17] And then Felix left that museum as a full NASCAR fan, 100%. And we went there on the day of Daytona 500.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:24] He wanted to watch the Daytona 500 while we went to the hockey game.
Sarah [00:45:27] At the Chalky Checkers game, and then he became a hockey fan. Felix is a evangelical, like he just is fully--
Nicholas Holland [00:45:35] He's very into whatever [Inaudible].
Sarah [00:45:35] Converted to whatever it is.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:37] I just appreciated that.
Sarah [00:45:39] He's got a lot of enthusiasm.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:40] He's like, these things are cool. NASCAR is cool. Hockey is cool.
Sarah [00:45:41] I can imagine where he gets that from.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:43] Hockey's cool. NASCAR is cool. He thinks they're cool. [Crosstalk]
Sarah [00:45:46] Hockey was fun. I had a really good time with the hockey game.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:48] Big time.
Sarah [00:45:48] Beth had me very afraid that I was going to be cold the whole time, but I really wasn't.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:52] It's a lot of bodies.
Sarah [00:45:53] Yeah, we were higher up.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:55] We were higher up.
Sarah [00:45:56] And the hockey players were cute.
Nicholas Holland [00:45:58] People dig them.
Sarah [00:46:00] And then I got 1 million Instagram messages that was, like, until they're missing teeth.
Nicholas Holland [00:46:05] I don't know if they're all missing teeth anymore though. At least they have good dentists.
Sarah [00:46:08] I hope so.
Nicholas Holland [00:46:09] They wear these mouth guards and they do their thing and they protect their teeth.
Sarah [00:46:14] And we ate at King's Kitchen, which is a nonprofit restaurant, which is very, very cool. We went to the famous Amelie's Bakery that Charlotte is very into and proud of.
Nicholas Holland [00:46:24] And was very busy.
Sarah [00:46:25] Was very busy. People wanted to be there, but overall, I just had a delightful time in Charlotte.
Nicholas Holland [00:46:30] Charlotte treated us right.
Sarah [00:46:31] They did.
Nicholas Holland [00:46:32] I haven't been to Charlotte in probably 25 years and we had a good time there.
Sarah [00:46:35] And I like it because it's like 15 minutes everywhere. Not a lot of traffic. That's my jam. I like these midrange cities Oklahoma City, Austin, Charlotte, where you can get everywhere in like 10, 15 minutes. Nashville, you have lost that. You need to get back to work because it's not fun to get around Nashville any more. Fun or easy is a problem.
Nicholas Holland [00:46:53] It's not fun to get around Nashville anymore. And maybe we just got hit at Charlotte on a good weekend, but we really did not get caught up in much gridlock or anything like that.
Sarah [00:47:02] And y'all's recommendations were on point. We appreciate it. You're the best. I guess I traveled before I had this just crowdsourcing.
Nicholas Holland [00:47:10] Tried to do this without crowdsourcing it's so hard.
Sarah [00:47:11] I need more of this amazing crowdsource.
Nicholas Holland [00:47:12] [Crosstalk] we ended up in these terrible places.
Sarah [00:47:13] Oh, Lord, yeah. No, I don't know what I did before I could just crowdsource everything from all of you guys on Instagram.
Nicholas Holland [00:47:18] Yeah, we did a lot of Google searching, and sometimes we hit some duds.
Sarah [00:47:23] When we went to Paris in 2007, I basically just talk to all my friends who had lived and travelled in Paris and got their wrecks. I don't remember doing any Internet research about that.
Nicholas Holland [00:47:35] Yeah, no, I agree. I think a lot of restaurants [crosstalk].
Sarah [00:47:37] I had a spreadsheet, straight up spreadsheet.
Nicholas Holland [00:47:40] There's something to be said for that, though. To like, [Inaudible].
Sarah [00:47:42] I hate that.
Nicholas Holland [00:47:43] A restaurant and not having that [Crosstalk]. I know you like to maximize.
Sarah [00:47:48] Beth does it. She wants to spontaneously just walk around and find something and it makes me nauseous.
Nicholas Holland [00:47:52] I'm not saying spontaneously, but I'm saying not everything has to be perfect or the best or what everybody thinks is the best because sometimes you can happen upon little gems. I say this and I hate a lot of spontaneity in our travel.
Sarah [00:48:07] This is why we are good travelers.
Nicholas Holland [00:48:08] I try not to avoid that.
Sarah [00:48:10] But except when you start to judge my travel decisions when you didn't have any part in planning.
Nicholas Holland [00:48:15] Here it comes again. Y'all you want to hear our marital spat.
Sarah [00:48:17] That's right. That's right.
Nicholas Holland [00:48:19] It's what this is about.
Sarah [00:48:21] I've worked up to it. I found my moment and I told him on the Spicy Nightly Nuance that he did with me yesterday that we were going to comprehensively go through our marital disagreements and let Patreon weigh in on why I was right. Although, I don't know if we ended up saying that because we did so many takes because of the diabetes alarms.
Nicholas Holland [00:48:37] Seven takes of the Spicy Nightly Nuance.
Sarah [00:48:39] It's fine. We got through it.
Nicholas Holland [00:48:40] Hope that you all enjoy it-- all your patrons. Because to me it's just 12 minutes of nonsense. [crosstalk].
Sarah [00:48:48] That is what the spicy more to say is about. It's where we exercise our nonsense.
Nicholas Holland [00:48:53] About where we're getting to here [Crosstalk].
Sarah [00:48:54] Yeah, well, we wrap it up. Well, thank you so much for joining us for the Outside Politics Nicholas Holland.
Nicholas Holland [00:49:02] Of course, any time. Beth, feel better.
Sarah [00:49:04] Please feel better. We miss you so much. Thank you for joining us. We will be back in your ears on Tuesday. And until then, keep it nuanced y'all.
Beth [00:49:28] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.
Sarah [00:49:33] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.
Beth [00:49:39] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.
Executive Producers Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh.
Beth Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.