Matthew Winner, a podcast producer, host, and school librarian, reminds us that we all need a space where we feel safe and feel welcomed just as we are.
Jelani talks with Matthew Winner, a podcast producer, host, and school librarian.
Matthew is the former host of The Children’s Book Podcast. He's kind of a veteran in the kid's podcast space. In fact, he produces all of the shows on our A Kids Co. podcast network. He also spent 15 plus years as an educator and librarian.
Matthew believes kids have an extraordinary potential and don't quite get enough credit for it, for how absolutely brilliant they are. One of his superpowers is creating safety for kids. We touch on the needs of kids and grownups, and what the rest of us parents can learn from just listening to our kids.
Matthew is a friend, colleague, and simply an all-around amazing human being. And we’re pleased to get to share this conversation with you.
Learn more about Matthew at his site, matthewcwinner.com.
Contact us by emailing us at listen@akidsco.com.
Explore our collection of over 80 books made to empower, by visiting akidsco.com.
Better Grownups
S1E07, Making Safe Spaces with Matthew Winner
[INTRODUCTION]
Jelani: Hey. Welcome to Better Grownups.
I'm Jelani Memory, founder of A Kids Co. And this is a parenting podcast all about how to be a better grownup.
This week, I'm chatting with Matthew Winner, former host of The Children's Book Podcast. He's kind of a veteran in the kid's podcast space. In fact, he produces all of the shows on this very network. He also spent 15 plus years as an educator and librarian.
Matthew believes kids have an extraordinary potential and don't quite get enough credit for it, for how absolutely brilliant they are. One of his superpowers is creating safety for kids. We touch on the needs of kids and grownups, and what the rest of us parents can learn from just listening to our kids.
Matthew is a friend, colleague, and simply an all-around amazing human being. And I'm pleased to get to share this conversation with you.
Without further ado, I give you Matthew Winner.
[INTERVIEW]
Jelani: Matthew, welcome to the show.
Matthew: Hi Jelani, thanks for having me.
Jelani: That soothing voice. Do, do you podcast? Are you in podcaster, Matthew?
Matthew: I do a couple. I do a few. Yeah.
Jelani: Um, well, look, you are a prolific podcaster. You've produced, uh, over a dozen shows. Um, uh, you're a, a dad to two, um, and you spent 15 years as, as an educator, as a librarian.
And, and that's really where I wanna start. Tell me, what did you learn about kids about yourself in that, in that illustrious career, as a librarian?
Matthew: Jelani, I had a, I had a funny walk into education. I don't, I didn't set out to be an educator. I set out to be an English major and found myself working at summer camps and before and after school care.
Um, and then felt like I, I really ought to spend more time in education, cuz I like being with kids. They're fun. Especially elementary age. And when I began my internship at a school, I was in fourth grade, uh, a fourth grade placement. I met the librarian there and started collaborating with her and then just thought, oh, this is the place to be.
So us educators, we have to start our work on our master's right away. And so I did, I went straight into the library and for me, it's where I discovered that kids are brilliant. And that sort of seems silly to say, but, but I mean it, and I'll, I'll sort of fight anybody that disagrees. I find myself in these places of, oh, you're not treating children the way they deserve to be treated.
I don't, I don't, I don't like you as much now. I find myself being really judgey in protection of children. And that might come from the way I was raised or the the way I've navigated trauma or, or I don't know what, but I, I know that I'm on their side. And so being in the library and getting to see them come in as pre-K kids and, and leave as fifth graders.
And in that time become readers, identify as readers was a really special time and something that I, I never took lightly every day that I was in front of them was, was really a day that I had to make it. And I think I did.
Jelani: I love that. You know, I had a, I had an interesting relationship with the library as a kid.
I, because I didn't read, like, literally didn't read, but I, but I, but I loved. I love pictures and books. I love comic books. Um, and, and for some reason, even as a kid, I remember in elementary school, the library was a really safe place for me. And I, I can't quite describe it. Maybe it was playing Oregon trail on the computers or, or just, you know, checking out a book and that feeling of the spine and the pages and the smell or the quietness, um, I think for me in my tumultuous childhood, I saw safe places.
And the library always was that. I wonder from the other side, you, as the curator of that space, were you doing something, do libraries, librarians do something to create that for kids?
Matthew: I think so. I think that like a good teacher, I would hope to, we, we try to save that space for every child. This is in most children's lives the first, or maybe only time in childhood that they get to read whatever they want.
And so to know that I'm helping to provide access to everything that you could possibly ask about or wonder about or see yourself in. Not only drives me to, to build a really strong collection and be proud of what's there, but then approach each new class with the excitement of this is an opportunity for me to connect you with this special thing that I think might change your world, but you might, you might find something else.
And, and I'm just going to delight in privilege of sharing that space with you and going, oh, this was the thing that you liked the most. I'm so glad. And I mean, this earnestly, I'm so glad that with this one group of girls I had at, at one of my elementary schools, that they wanted nothing more than to check out any book with any gross topic about barf and vomit and scabs.
And I would order books for them just because they delighted in learning about that. And reacting to the books they were reading. And I, I have to think Jelani that, that wasn't unlike my childhood. I also, I don't know that we've ever shared this together. Uh, I also did not read. As soon as I could read independently, I didn't have a model for reading. My family would read picture books with me. Then as soon as I was on my own, I just didn't choose to read and didn't have someone holding me accountable to it or modeling me, uh, to do that. So it's, I guess, sort of funny that I ended up in the library, but maybe not because I, I always loved stories and I, I didn't realize until I was an adult that all those articles I was reading in Nintendo Power or all of those, uh, gaming guides, that, that, that was all reading too.
Mm-hmm I didn't have a model to help me understand that, that I was reading. I just wasn't reading what the other kids were reading or what maybe the, the teacher would expect me to be reading. Mm. So maybe it's that, Jelani maybe also the way we make kids feel welcome, safe, uh, not judged in that space is just going.
All I want you to do is come the way you are. I'm not, I'm not asking you to be a great reader. I'm not asking you to be outgoing. I'm not asking you to have the same interest that I have. I'm asking you to come into this space and feel safe and feel welcomed. And that's all that we need.
[BREAK]
Jelani: We're back. You're listening to Better Grownups and my conversation with Matthew Winner.
Jelani: I think if, if I were to poll anybody who knew you, they would describe you as thoughtful as, as empathetic, as considerate and, and as a safe person. Um, you know, you were just talking about your childhood, um, you know, you didn't have a typical childhood when it came to, to growing up and the habits and the patterns. Talk us through what your experiences were like, what it was like to grow up.
Um, walk us through your mom's illness, if you feel comfortable and, and, and how that informed who you are today.
Matthew: Yeah. I'd be happy to. Thanks for asking about that. I think that we're all just covered in the fingerprints of our childhood, but we don't often get a chance to share or reflect or talk about, talk about how it, it, it, it made us who we are today.
And I think my mom and my dad did the very best they could, and I know they loved me, but I think that, I was different from my younger siblings. I think that I have different needs or have a, I think, I, I think I am much more sensitive than my siblings and maybe much more, uh, emotional or have a stronger emotional strength.
I'm not sure, but that manifested as really always needing to feel seen and loved and valued for who, who I was and how I was walking through the world. Uh, and instead, what I got was a lot of taking us places, offering us these opportunities. Let's go camping. Let's go, um, traveling to these different places and seeing family and doing these things, but not, not a lot of let's talk about how you feel about it.
Let's reflect on where you feel drawn into this space or what you seem good at? I must have been in my room playing video games all the time. Cuz I play some of those games now and I'm like, oh, these games take a long time to beat. I must have been. I thought I was outside a lot, but I must have been in front of my, my, my Nintendo a lot.
Uh, but in elementary school, my mom, uh, contracted a, a disorder called R S D reflex sympathetic dystrophy. She slipped down some stairs at my grandmother's house and just thought she twisted her ankle, from my memory, she just thought that it was just a, a sprain or something, but the pain didn't go away and didn't go away and didn't go away and started to spread.
And RSD happens to be this fickle kind of syndrome or diagnosis in that it's hard to diagnose pain. How do you know what pain someone is in other than them telling you? And so that reflecting now as an adult must have made it really hard for my mom to be seeing we were in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. I grew up in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, home of the little league world series. We would bike across the market street bridge and sit on the grassy hill, watch the little league world series. Uh, but we would drive to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, which was four hours away, uh, for my mom to see these specialists, uh, to have undergone nerve blocks or to have a stimulator installed over years and years and years in order to try to stop pain from spreading through her nervous system.
Um, and there were a number of doctors that didn't believe she had anything. They believed it was in her head. That psychosomatic, I believe. Right. Mm-hmm um, and that I remember was a, a pain spot for her, but also the actual pain she was feeling that chronic pain. All the time pain led to a lot of depression and ended up leading through a number of suicide attempts and ultimately all of this, all of this, uh, had my mom in the hospital from I'm gonna guess fifth grade to eighth or ninth grade. I don't exactly remember, but she was in the hospital more than she was out.
I definitely remember that. And the way that my mom and dad chose to protect us kids. I have two younger siblings. The way they chose to protect us was by, by normalizing being in the hospital by not sharing details that might cause us to worry. It's taken a truthfully, a lot of therapy to, to understand that they were acting out of love.
Because to me it felt like as an adult, what I was left with was someone who doesn't understand the levity of a person having cancer or being in the hospital, cuz to me, my mom was in the hospital all the time. It was just a thing that, that you did. And sometimes they went to different hospitals. I didn't realize when she was in some of these hospitals that she was there because people thought she was imagining things or she was there because people thought she was a threat to herself.
I didn't know that. I just saw that she was in different hospitals. Um, and it went so deep as as even later in childhood, after my mom had sort of been moving through all this, she wrote a book, self-published a book, but she wrote a book about her experience. And I was probably starting high school around the time that she did that.
And she gave a copy to each of us kids. And I have not been able to read it ever since I was, I don't know, maybe 15. I haven't been able to read it. I've started the first couple pages a couple times. Um, and I've recently been able to tell my mom, I, I can't read your book because I, I I've needed to hear it from you.
And I, I can't read it as a, as an onlooker because I'm a, because I experienced it and I mm-hmm , I, I need to understand all of that. Um, all of that made for some interesting wiring in my head growing up and
I, and it's taken me a long time to realize, my parents must have been doing the, the best they could. Mm. But sad for childhood me because it, it, it, wasn't what I needed. And what resulted was, I didn't feel loved as a kid unless I did stuff unless I turned in straight A's on my report card, unless I accomplished things and so you better believe that I set out accomplishing things. I built that work ethic that I didn't relent from, and I still have that work ethic today.
Jelani: Hmm. You know, I, I see a direct connection between, I think in a lot of ways, lack of safety that you felt by feeling, um, under communicated to right. Um, not considered and the overabundance of safety that I see you create with your family, with your job, with your career as a librarian, um, you know, uh, as, as a child of divorce and being abandoned by my dad and, um, a, a lot of what I do today is a result of the, the negative impacts from my childhood. And it's tough to untangle those things, right? Like, it's tough to. So to go, gosh, I wish I had it better.
I, I wish I wish my, my parental units did a better job. Sure, they did the best they could, but I, like, I got hosed for it .To untangle that from like, and, and, and that meant be the reason why I'm so good at being the version of me today is because I know the cost. I know the downsides, the effects of that.
And that's, I know more good parents because of those things than I, I, I know bad ones, right?
Matthew: Well, it, it sure speaks, but she never wish that doesn't on anyone. Yeah, no, of course not. But to think any kid is ignoring anything, that's just hard. And to know where you came from and know, I was able somehow to turn that into strength.
I think just speaks to what I do see in those kids. I know that they're going through hard things, but I also know that there were good people in my life that believed in me. And I was probably working hard just to hear those teachers or those people from my church or whomever say, I have an aunt, my aunt, Liz, who still is, is one to drop into my Facebook DMS or something, and just say, I'm just so proud of what you're doing.
I can't believe what you're doing. And I just feel, I, I, I feel almost naked in that amount of vulnerability of, of kindness, of outpouring. I feel like I don't deserve that. Like I wanna deflect it. I don't want to hear, although I know I desperately need to hear that. Somebody's proud of the work that I'm doing.
Yeah. It's it's confusing, but it's
Jelani: Yeah, you see it there. They don't, you know, I try and tell my kids all the time, things they don't tell you until you become a grownup or you realize is. That kid part of you never really quite goes away where you still want people to tell you good job and pat you on the back and believe in you and say, wow, I'm really proud of you that still counts.
Maybe even counts for more. If you, if you lived at a deficit for so long, because look being a grownup's hard being a parent's hard. And when you have those folks around you who offer you that it's like pouring, you know, a glass of water on dry land, like it's, it's sort of everything.
[BREAK]
Jelani: Alright, we’re back. Let’s get back into it with Matthew Winner.
Jelani: So I'm curious, there's this concept called the platinum rule.
Have you ever heard of the platinum rule, Matthew?
Matthew: I've not heard of the platinum rule.
Jelani: Yeah. You've heard of the golden rule, right?
Matthew: Oh, the golden. Sure okay. Is the golden rule adjacent to that?
Jelani: Right. It's it's adjacent to that. So the golden rule is right. Do stuff to others as you want done to you. Okay. Golden rule, right? We learn this like early childhood. um, I was meeting with a therapist one time and he goes, the platinum rules garbage. He goes, we should be follow. He goes the golden rules garbage, we should be following the platinum rule. He goes do to others, what they want done to them. Because why, why are you doing to them what you want done to you? What's their language? What's the way that they feel loved? What's the way that they feel safe?
Do those things to them, because that might not be the same version for you. And it, it unlocked this part of my brain. And, and, and my childhood and my present and my marriage and with my kids to go, oh, just cuz I want that just cuz I need that doesn't mean this other person does and I can grind and grind and grind and be super dad and give my kids what I think they need and totally miss what they're asking for, which is what they need, which is what they want.
Matthew: Yeah. I think that, you know, you had brought up about being there for kids in my library. And I think that, that it, it was exactly that that platinum rule applied. That it was, let me make the safest place for you, the most welcoming place. Let me care for you in ways that I see you're seeking or asking, you need me to be really energetic and outgoing and you need me to be quiet and focused and close, and I can do both of those things in this same amount of time. And let me show all 25 of you, how I can see you as individuals in this class and be reliable week after week that you'll want to come back and see me because that that's what I need. I need to matter.
I know that I need to matter. , but I also know that it's important that I communicate to others, that they matter to me in, in the language that, that they need me to say it in.
Jelani: Hmm. I love that. And I think speaks to the balance of, you know, this life as as a caregiver as a parents, uh, as, as, as a grown up with, with any kid in their life anywhere, I don't care if you're an auntie uncle grandparent teacher therapist.
Um, but it's so crucial that that we are not just trying to change the kids or give to the kids or affect the kids, but that we are changing and growing ourselves. Um, because we are the thing that ends up impacting the kids more than anything else. And when, you know, not to, to, to be cliche, but when we become better, we give our kids a shot at being better when we grow up, when we become our whole true selves and, and have our needs met and, and are fed and clothed and taken care of in that way.
Matthew: Yeah, I'll go one step further and say we also need, or at least these kids, the hundreds of kids I've thought over these schools have taught me that, that we need to be open to how those kids will change us. And know that I, I have plenty of room to keep changing and to keep growing and that they're gonna show me, they're gonna show me how.
Jelani: Mm. I love that. Well, I wanna move on to your, your life as a podcaster. Uh, if folks can't tell that that buttery smooth voice of yours.
Matthew: Oh yeah. It just 10 years and over a thousand podcasts recorded.
Jelani: Yeah, which is incredible. And, um,
Matthew: That's one thousand episodes. Yeah.
Jelani: Yeah. Now you, you full-time make shows designed for kids to empower them, to challenge them, to encourage them, to educate them.
Um, uh, what have you learned along that journey of creating shows for kids? What, what have you learned about yourself? What have kids taught you? Uh, and, and what have you learned about kids' needs?
Matthew: When I started the Children's Book Podcast, ages ago, it was because I thought, you know, we're inviting these strangers into our schools.
They've published a book, but we're inviting strangers into our schools to speak to our children. We oughta get to know them somehow first. And by getting to know them, it might actually endear us even further to their books. So it started off trying to get to know the person behind the book we love. In order to find that deeper connection.
It, it turned over years into me feeling like I was seeing my students in these books. I would love to talk to this author. So that I can draw a faster through line from that book, from that author to that child and connect them back to that author. So we had kids listening to that podcast, but it was, it wasn't until I came to a kid's co that I was explicitly making content for children.
And that was a really interesting space to be in, to go, what does it look like to record directly for them, but also what does it look like to work with others, to work with other hosts on how to talk to children? What does it mean to find those people that I'm drawn to? Because they have something to say, but also because the way they say it to children is a way that the, that I find profound in the way that I would want my kids spoken to or, uh, the way that I would've wanted to be spoken to. It just honors that space.
Working on content for kids, i, I think maybe for all kids content, but for me, especially means working on content for my childhood self. How would I have wanted somebody to talk to me? How can you protect children but also tell them things? My mom and dad were trying to protect me, but in doing that, they left a lot of things out.
And that led me to make a lot of incorrect conclusions about things and approach the world in ways that I think were, in some ways, painful or damaging for me as an adult. So how can I make things for kids or work with people to make things for kids that, that pushes, but does it in a way that, that also, uh, affirms trust along the way?
I think that's what I'm most proud of, of, of the shows that, that we've brought into the world, Jelani, is that every one of them, no matter what we're talking about, if it's how to start our morning routine or, or get ready for bed or talking about big emotions and trauma or talking about what big words like anxiety and, and depression and sexual abuse mean, it's constantly just been an exercise of trust.
I've built or I'm continuing to build your trust. What steps do I need to do to further solidify that trust? In some way, the content doesn't really matter. This is all a big exercise in trust building. I don't know that that's the way other people make shows for kids, but because of all the fingerprints that I have all over me from, from growing up and from working with these children, that can't help but be expressed in the, the things that I work on at A Kid's Co.
Jelani: That really interests me. Uh, cuz I was thinking in the back of my head, what you're describing does not sound like any other kid's podcast that I'm aware of. Um, and, and not to have you rag on anybody else's podcast.
Matthew: But I can speak internally from my need, which is to say, I don't know.
I do know what you're going to say because you and I have had these conversations because we work together and I love having these conversations. But by and large, a lot of shows, a lot of kids media, cuz I saw it in books and I see it in television as well is seeking to entertain children first. And that's okay.
Kids need to be entertained and delighted and feel connected. And that's, that's, that's wonderful. There's a place for that. But I think that there hasn't been saved enough space to talk to children about the things that they're actually asking. I think that often that's seen as cute when we have shows like kids say the darndest things.
But what we're really saying is like, oh, look how precocious this kid is. Isn't that funny to see that. I've always taken so much offense to that show from, from when it was first hosted to iterations now, because I feel like kids are always saying that brilliant stuff. We ought to rename the show, adults are finally listening to the brilliant things kids are saying. Let's laugh at ourselves instead of at the children.
Um, but I think that there's a fear that if we stray too far from what's already been done and proven to be popular, that, that, that thing that we make won't be successful instead of saying, what if the thing that kids really want isn't being made yet, and that they've been asking for it, but we haven't been listening the right way.
There's space to do what's already there, but there's also space to go off the, off the, uh, tracks a little bit and, and go into a, a new area that maybe even grownups are afraid to go in because they, because it's not been done before because it's unfamiliar because what if we fail? And the answer goes back to what I said earlier, that kids are resilient.
They're watching for you to fail, but they're watching for what you do after you fail. Failing is part of learning. It's important that we fail and more important that we fail forward. And I can model that in the shows that we make by saying, well, we said this thing last week and we got it wrong. Or we did this season of this show this way, but I think there's actually a better way for us to deliver this.
And so we're gonna make tweaks and, and keep going, but we know that those kids are listening and they're watching, and it's more important that I take a bold step in the right direction and maybe trip maybe misstep than not taking that step at all. Kids are only growing. We're losing our opportunities to talk to them about things it's important in, in the library.
It's important in all of kids' media that we act now. We don't have time to waste with kids.
Jelani: Mm. Alright sort of not quite push back, but to, to double click on that. That sounds like a lot of work. That sounds like, that sounds sort of like, oh gosh, like I just kind of wanna watch like some Amazon prime, you know, like the new Chris Pratt show came out and I kinda like talked to my kid and like, if they, like, they listen to this podcast is on something like substantive, like gender or race. Like I might have to like talk with them afterwards and we might, we might like have quality time, but like, I just kind of wanna, like, I just wanna break. I just wanna break as a parent. What do you, what do you say to that parent?
Matthew: I would say, what are you gonna do during that break? Because ideally the things we're making are actually things that you wanna listen to during that break. Jelani, you know that I am no, I am not, I am not shy about expressing how much I love the show Bluey on Disney plus. I love watching it with my seven year old and I love talking to her about why we love each episode. I love having conversations. I think that often grownups look for content that they can give to their kids to entertain them.
Because then that's a moment that we don't, we don't need to engage our kids. And there's, there's a place for that for kids to go and build their own bonds with their siblings or off by themselves. That, that that's that's important. But there are also there's, there's also media being made in podcasts and in television and, and all over the place, especially in books.
That can be things that we both delight in, but it doesn't need to feel like it's just made for kids. That author is thinking about the grownup who's gonna read it for kids. I am thinking about the grownup who's going to play our podcast for kids. I want you to listen. I want them to know that I made it for them first, but I want you to lean in too and delight in the fact that, that this is something that not only won't you mind listening to, but you might actually wanna listen to it, even when your kid's not in the car. That's, that's the work I'm trying to do to which I would say, let me do the hard work, then I'll make good stuff for you and you can just enjoy it with your [00:31:00] kid. Let me give you the gift of being able to enjoy this together. That's what I would say.
Jelani: Mm. I love that. And, and look, Bluey is this incredible thing that almost on its face doesn't make sense? Like it is, it is a cartoon, like a thousand other cartoons, and yet it is totally unique and beloved by grownups all over the place. Like I'd sit and watch Bluey by myself. I don't need to be with my toddler to watch it.
What's at the center of that show that we as grownups can, can learn from? To seek and feel like that for our kids and or, um, to embrace that, that, that, that connection between the grown up kidness of, of what a moment or piece of media can represent?
Matthew: So I would say first off let's acknowledge that, that the, the people that put their fingerprints all over my childhood from a media perspective were Fred Rogers with Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, LeVar Burton with Reading Rainbow or Sesame Street and all of those characters. And those individuals made sure that we watchers, listeners knew that sometimes there's hard stuff. Sometimes there's stuff we don't wanna do and sometimes there's a lot of joy and delight in being together.
It wasn't all for the sake of entertainment. And that's what Bluey does. For those that haven't seen Bluey, it's it's a preschool show or a, a young, uh, early education show about a family of dogs, uh, in a world of dogs. Um, and every episode is just about engaging in imaginative, an imaginative play. But what really works about it is that the parents and the kids feel really real.
Dad protests about not wanting to do this game again. Or one of the family members says that someone's not playing the game fairly, or that we're playing it by these different rules. It's so much more about how we engage with one another and truly how we hold space for one another and not bulldoze over other people in the things that we play or the things we wanna care about or the way that we're exerting our, our own selves on other people.
What that show gets right, is being able to acknowledge, without winking at the audience. Sometimes, I'm tired after work and I don't wanna play, uh, or sometimes the play that we do, doesn't turn out the way that I expected or sometimes me allowing myself to, to not resist, but just play, um, can actually be just the escape I needed and didn't realize.
So I think that's what makes that show so different. Is that it feels like it's being written by people that just really get what's going on in childhood. And we could swap out the, the dogs for humans if such a family exists to show we can do amazing play and we can also be forgiving of each other.
Then we have Instagram and we're suddenly comparing ourselves and it won't work. We need it to be an abstraction. We need it to be dogs. We need it to be in Australia. We need it to be these beautiful colors so that it's not quite us, but it, it kind of could be, it kind of looks like us if we squint. That's why, that's why it works.
Jelani: Yeah. Well that brings me in some ways full circle. In this, in this very safe environment that you created in the library, that very safe environment that I felt as eight year old Jelani um, that there was something, there was a sense of feeling known or put it, you know, that, that Bluey, he just gets right who we are and our experiences both as grownups and kids, um, the maybe to some extent, that's all, we're always craving all the time is people, things, stories that just get us that make us go, I'm not alone. I'm not the only one or, yeah, that is funny and that happened to me the other day. And, and that sense of connection that creates with other individuals, other human beings out there on planet earth to make us feel a part of something bigger.
Matthew: To feel seen Dr. Roudine Sims Bishop wrote, um, a literary scholar, wrote about the importance of children having windows and mirrors. And sliding glass doors and the things that they read, they need opportunities to have windows to see what other people's lives are like. But it's very important that they also have mirrors to see other families like them to see other kids going through what they're going through or having families like they have or navigating problems in ways that they will navigate so that they have a sense of how to do this.
And they also need sliding glass doors, things that we can see and try, on our own, this is something I can act, oh, this character did this. I can try this out as well. I think, I think the human experience Jelani, is that we all just wanna be seen and loved, and the shows that really work most for us and the podcasts that make work most for us and the friendships and, and all of the possible relationships we have to things that are made and things that are human and things that are animal.
All of those connections are that they, they make us feel more whole, more like us. That time that after this call, I'm gonna go and just sit in the sun and feel warm will make me feel whole, cuz I'm going to feel like that sun is replenishing something in me that I didn't know I was missing. And, and, and those connections that wholeness that we experienced is what drives, why we feel close to anybody or anything because they're helping to make us whole.
Jelani: Mm, well, that's so well put and I think a great time to depart. Matthew, thank you for sharing yourself, your life, your story, and this conversation with me.
Matthew: Thank you, Jelani.
[CLOSING]
Jelani: Thanks again to Matthew and to you for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, consider it a personal thank you to Matthew by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. Matthew is the show's producer, so he can totally take credit. You can find Matthew at @MatthewWinner on Twitter and listen to his podcast, Worth Noting anywhere you can find podcasts.
Keep up with me at @JelaniMemory on the Twitters.
I really would love to hear about what you think of the show questions you want answered and guests you'd love to hear from, just email us at listen@akidsco.com.
Better Grownups is written and hosted by me, Jelani Memory. Matthew Winner, the one and only, was the producer on this episode, with additional production support from Chad Michael Snavely and the team at Sound On Studios.
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