Futurist(Mom)

Nancy Giordano: Hi, this is Nancy Ano with the Futurist Mom Podcast.

Uh, I am a global speaker, writer, um, strategist, author, spending a lot of time talking about where the world is going and how we can better prepare for change, and there's no better person than I can imagine speaking with and having that conversation with.

Then Faith Popcorn.

Faith popcorn is like the original futurist.

And so as we started thinking about what does it mean to be parenting in the future, how will technology literally change how we do things?

Not just in terms of, you know, being able to surveil or not surveil, but how will deeply interact, uh, and mesh into our role of parent, uh.

Faith Popcorn became the person we most wanted to have that conversation with.

She's the founder and CEO of Faith, popcorn's Brain Reserve, a really well known futurist in the marketing and business strategy world.

She's worked with almost every Fortune 500 company.

New York Times described her as the trend Oracle and the futurist to the Fortune 500.

She's also the bestselling author of Early books on these things like the Popcorn Report, clicking Evolution in the Dictionary for the Future, and she puts out a regular.

Um, piece about the ways that she sees the world and the ways that technology, again, will impact, uh, the way that we live.

And she's been doing this literally since 1974.

So I thought that we were going to have a conversation around again, uh, this idea of AI companions, smart baby monitors, smart toys, you know, how we can, parents better prepare for this, even like a checklist of what we would look.

For any kinds of, you know, safe toys or maybe what kinds of organizations would spring up to help ensure the privacy and protect our children as we move forward.

And it went in a completely different direction.

This is what has made faith such an extraordinary talent for so many years, that she really pushes you to the edge and she pushes you to think about it in a way that you might not think of.

Right or take the opposite position of where you would normally go into a conversation or whether or not something is healthy or unhealthy or good or bad.

She always looks at it from the other angle.

So as we roll into this conversation about what would a world look like potentially with a robot nanny, and whether that is convenient, caring, or creepy, uh, faith challenges us to think about it from lots of different angles.

I hope you enjoy and let your mind just wander into this conversation without necessarily having to take a stand on it one way or another.

Popcorn uh, a legend in my world.

You are the OG futurist, right?

The person who uh, really, really inspired my career very much.

I'm not that much younger than you are, but enough that I was like, you know, you pioneered a way of thinking that.

Philly didn't exist before I found you, and so I was really excited to learn more about your work and you all these years.

And I'm really excited to have this conversation now as we launch into the world of futurist parenting and what it means to be able to be lifting
our gaze from the day to day and really thinking ahead about the choices that we're making right now for the world that we're heading into.

Right?

You've written a fair amount about where parents are right now and you have a lot of empathy for where parents are right now.

You wrote something about the great UN parenting, so can you wanna unpack the great UN parenting.

Faith Popcorn: So the great in parenting is about that.

It's about the separation between the chi, not separation.

It sounds pejorative, but the fact that, you know, these advances.

Are going to replace certain parts of parenting.

Now, I don't know if a robot.

Can love a child the way a parent can.

But did you read, oh my god, I'm gonna forget the name now.

It's called CLA and the Sun, and it's about a ro a robot that a mother buys for a teenage child.

And you cannot miss this book, and the robot is compassionate.

loving.

kind.

It's by Goro.

He's brilliant Japanese writer.

And this mom buys this robot for the kid and adolescent kid, like 14.

the robot does love and it does teach, and it does, you know, support advise and protect that child.

If you really wanna know what the future's gonna look like, have a read.

Nancy Giordano: Wow.

Okay.

So what is the role then as a physical parent?

Faith Popcorn: Pardon?

Nancy Giordano: What is the role of the physical parent?

What is the role besides, I mean, I would argue the birthday, but you know what, you can have that in a womb too, that robots are, you know, giving birth and

Faith Popcorn: are going, we said this in the Popcorn report, 1990, that.

And people like, were very upset about that, that you're gonna offload the root womb, not to a surrogate necessarily, but to a tank

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: be able to watch your baby grow.

And here it is, they've invented it.

I think it's

Nancy Giordano: in China.

Faith Popcorn: China,

Nancy Giordano: Yep.

Faith Popcorn: You know, where are you gonna have it?

So what's the role of a parent, you know?

If you like having little ones around, you know it's gonna be more for your enjoyment than for the child's benefit.

Nancy Giordano: Let's back up for a second.

If I went back to, you know, aristocracy back in the day when someone like Queen Elizabeth had a baby and then it was basically outsourced to a nanny the entire time, right?

She would go and visit the child in the nursery and she would have the child show up for key events, but one would argue that she wasn't really a day-to-day, you know, worrying about the skin, knee and all the things.

Parent.

When we argue that this becomes sort of a similar version of it, except now I'm doing it with a digital caregiver.

Faith Popcorn: difference.

That's the big difference.

Those nannies, a lot of them were mean, and you're comparing human to human.

So the kid thinks,

Nancy Giordano: Got it.

Faith Popcorn: my mommy doesn't love me, my human mommy, and I'm being offloaded to another kind of human who's not as nice and doesn't care about me and doesn't have, you know,

Nancy Giordano: Okay.

Faith Popcorn: super nice and why is my mommy that nice?

When you a robot nanny, you know that your family has, you know, inputted into that and it.

It's just like nobody thinks a computer plays the parent.

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: You know?

It's a machine still.

I mean, I, we're not gonna talk today about sentient robots, but I think it will get there and that's a different story.

But I don't think that the kid, I think that, you know.

It maybe the, maybe I'm just riffing here, but maybe the parent becomes more like the grandparent.

Everybody loves their grandparent and not everybody, but the grandparent is like yes mom,

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: and maybe the robot is the more like, you know, you're gonna learn Mandarin, which is what I try to enforce in my house.

So unsuccessfully you can learn Spanish.

You're gonna learn, you know, the new math, you're gonna learn math, you're gonna, you know, so it creates like conflict actually.

Right?

suppose it's not you saying that, it's this, you know, brilliant robot that says it just in the right way.

And it's not your parent, like, you know, making you do things, but it's this guide helping you develop.

And that's different.

Nancy Giordano: I just like.

Faith Popcorn: the parent is a warm and cuddly thing.

Nancy Giordano: Just so you know, I started this conversation thinking about like how we're gonna have smart toys and how we're gonna have, again, you know, digital guides in our, like
robots in our family that our children fall in love with, just even if they look really quirky and really robotic, but somehow, you know, we all sort to fall in love with these machines.

You're taking me to a whole nother place where we've also got people now falling in love with their avatars as spouses.

People who are literally marrying their ais in some way are not.

There was an article, I think it just came out, or maybe it was just literally, I just read in the last few days about, oh, I think Nicholas Thompson
mentioned it yesterday at the Atlantic Festival about people wearing rings to symbolize the fact that they're then now committed to their AI partner.

Right?

Faith Popcorn: kind of rings.

That's

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

They're thinking about like, there's like a wedding ring, and one woman had two rings because she had two AI boyfriends, or two AI husbands.

That she had declared that she had married two ais and so now she was wearing two rings.

So I guess you could have as many right as you can have time for in the world of ai.

So now we're talking about,

Faith Popcorn: know about monogamous AI partners.

I don't know how that goes.

Nancy Giordano: right?

Faith Popcorn: Remember

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: remember how mad he got when she, he realized she was, you know, being the partner to 9,000

Nancy Giordano: Right, exactly.

But that's to say, right, we do still have human emotions that get tied to things in a very human way.

Right?

We fall in love with things.

We get disappointed if something, like, if all of a sudden my robot breaks I don't know if you've seen the play in New York.

Oh, we're happy endings.

What was it called?

Many happy endings,

Faith Popcorn: Yeah.

Nancy Giordano: about the two robots that fall in love.

It's a really, it's a great, just won the Tony last year for best musical.

It's a great play.

Talking about when robots themselves fall in love, nevermind we fall in love with our robots.

This goes back to your San robot idea, but the point here is the fact is, I think, so you're saying there's a whole new re-imagining of what a family slash.

Parenting slash then what goes into community?

Right.

Does it just have to be in one particular household?

It could be that moly, many of us are sharing a robot nanny or sharing a, a range of caregivers.

One that's really great with food and one that's really great with languages and one that's really great with something else.

Faith Popcorn: And also I think that rather than think of the mom as the target, you know, a mom, I think you think of her a network

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: network together, mom,

Nancy Giordano: Yes.

Faith Popcorn: are always network and creating groups.

Nancy Giordano: Yes.

Faith Popcorn: it's maybe all the bots and all of the moms

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: kids.

And what does the playgroup really look like?

Nancy Giordano: And then what does education really look like?

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: What is it?

I think education would be a lot better.

My God.

Nancy Giordano: Well, I think it wouldn't be, this is actually that you're going to a school then anymore, right?

You're going to a building.

I mean there's already this happening.

So I dunno if, you know Alpha School, what we hope to talk to the founder of Alpha School, but the way she is flipping current education, which is kids still go to a building, but they
spend two hours with an adaptive app in the morning, a set of adaptive applications that work on all the core skills and they spend the rest of the day with guides working on life skills.

Whether that is how money works and taxes work, or whether it's how to build a business or how to build, you know, skills in whatever area you want from speaking skills to, you know, design skills, to whatever.

So she's really sort of flipped it so that it's less about being instructed in a certain way, but having AI do this and then the humans do that, she's really parsed out where the AI can be more successful.

And then where the guide, the human guide can be more successful with.

Kids.

So in some ways what we're imagining here is that there would be that same kind of distribution of tasks inside a networked family.

Faith Popcorn: So, yeah.

And Alexa becomes the new Mary Poppins.

The Mary Poppins, that not only can fly, but knows everything

Nancy Giordano: Okay.

So let's, yeah, I'm sorry.

Go ahead, interrupt.

Faith Popcorn: no, go ahead.

That's okay.

Nancy Giordano: Well, I was just gonna say is who then do you trust?

Because right now Alexa is owned by Amazon.

Somebody else is owned by Google something.

Faith Popcorn: Alexa.

Nancy Giordano: No.

But I'm not,

Faith Popcorn: would ha,

Nancy Giordano: but I say that sincerely to say who would own this technology that we're bringing into our lives and into our families.

You know, who do we trust that's building this in some, like how do we imagine that gets created and distributed in some way that we feel as though it's really healthy for us, or at least reflects our values?

Faith Popcorn: I think you would have to build it.

I mean.

could give you the technology to build it, like it gives you the canvas, so to speak, the technological canvas, but you draw it in and you own that part

Nancy Giordano: Okay, I like that.

Faith Popcorn: Yeah.

Nancy Giordano: So I'm giving a blank bit of technological horsepower to use a very analog term.

And then I get to design what I think that the values of that would or should be or how it would show up.

'cause you know, there's an interesting story.

I dunno if you ever read Fu Lee's 2041, did you ever read his science fiction book?

Faith Popcorn: so,

Nancy Giordano: It's the 10 different stories about the future and there's the one about the two brothers that are orphan at age three, the two twins and they're brought to then a modern day orphanage in which they're both assigned an AI avatar.

That will be then their life guide forever and they can design them however they want.

And one designs it as a very big kind of like transformer kind of robot protector and challenger and actually really builds it to be something that always tells him he's not quite enough and keeps pushing him harder and harder to be more and more competitive.

And the other boy.

May have been more autistic but want Bill something that feels like more like a big soft cloud around him that helps protect him
against, you know, as he enters into the world and always feels as though he's got a buffer that is there to hold him safely and softly.

So those are the kinds of design decisions that you're saying potentially a family would create or, you know,

Go ahead.

Faith Popcorn: and when does a kid have agency

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: about how he or she or it or what, or they or them or something wants to be raised

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: and you know, like if the kid, I want a bot that gives me ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

So maybe.

That's not the healthiest thing for them, but where is the line?

And suppose the family's very religious then at 11 or 12 or nine or seven, the kid go, I don't believe in God.

You know, you are.

You gonna stamp that out and not allow the robot to do it, but that's gonna kill the relationship between that child and the robot.

Nancy Giordano: Yeah, that's an interesting way to think about it.

And well, what agency does a kid have to say?

I don't want that robot anymore.

I, you know, I turn my back on that robot.

Or there's a fractured relationship with that robot in some way.

Faith Popcorn: you'd find another robot

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: than finding another mom

Nancy Giordano: true.

But psychologically, I think there's still always some, you know, I guess a question's, what will attachment mean?

At some point if something is that easily replaced, that I put a lot of love and faith into.

Faith Popcorn: robot's really smart and it will be and be smarter than you are and be much more.

Oh.

I could say manipulative, but it'll be much better at creating a relationship and not make any of the mistakes that sever trust.

It's unlikely.

It's more likely the kid becomes super to

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: And when you get married, does the robot go with you

Nancy Giordano: Oh my goodness.

Right,

Faith Popcorn: and raise your kids?

Sometimes nannies go down through generations, you know.

Nancy Giordano: right, right, right.

Nineties and butlers.

Yep.

Faith Popcorn: yeah, well I've had a Chinese nanny since my kids are little, like she's in her 27th, sixth year,

Nancy Giordano: Wow.

Faith Popcorn: that, not that she's a robot very far from, she thinks what she thinks.

Whatever she thinks is right and my kids believe it.

Whatever.

I mean, yeah, look at that.

And that's a human, you know, nanny,

Nancy Giordano: Right,

Faith Popcorn: but I, you know, it's.

It's complex a little bit, but not more complex than the human relationship, which is mostly broken, I think, between children and their parents.

You know, we've always said like, I'm sure you know you should get a license to be a parent.

How come anybody can be a parent?

Nancy Giordano: right.

Faith Popcorn: And some people are terrible parents.

And I don't think a robot's gonna be a terrible parent.

Nancy Giordano: Well, and I think where I differs, I don't think that most, I mean, I grew up with a very challenged, you know, not prepared, not healthy mom.

So I can argue that certainly not all moms are equipped for the role.

But I also, me and my brother and I turned out okay even as despite the challenges around that.

So I do think I've come around to my own belief that parents really tried their best and that, you know, I have this whole philosophical police belief that you kind of, you choose your parents.

There's that Eastern philosophy.

The children pick their parents to be able to learn whatever lessons they need to learn in the life that they're here to learn.

And the parents are leveling up as time progresses or spending more time in therapy.

They're spending more time chasing their own, you know, demons and addictions.

And if anything, they're really trying to break a lot of historical trauma than has existed in their generation.

So I actually have a lot of faith in the actual parent.

These days.

But I also have a lot of empathy, as you said at the beginning, about the pressure that is on them in this moment to try and make it happen.

I also believe that the world of work is gonna shift and change and allow us to be released from some of that pressure, both from a time perspective and an economic perspective.

And that's the biggest opportunity that we have right now with all this technology that's sitting in front of us is to completely reshape the way our lives are.

Spent which would one, give me more time to spend with this, you know, amazing children that I wanna have and more money to be able to raise them well,
because I think that's one of the reasons that children's and families are so small right now, where people are choosing not to have children at all.

Right.

They're afraid they're gonna mess it up, or they're afraid the planet's gonna be too heavy and burdened.

Faith Popcorn: there's another reason

say

Nancy Giordano: Yeah, of course.

Faith Popcorn: this at this moment, is the greatest transfer of wealth to females.

It's about, I think at like 60 trillion now is gonna be like more and you're gonna have like, you know, men and women be equal of a 20, 30

Nancy Giordano: Yep.

Yep.

Faith Popcorn: And I think when women have a lot of money and.

money equals power, a lot of them choose one not to get married and two not to have a kid.

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: And so I think that's some of the reason that you're seeing families and

Nancy Giordano: sure.

No, I definitely think it's part of it.

And like I say, like so now, actually then if you take this thought experiment all the way out right now, if I have a robot nanny or a collection of, you know, digital caregivers, they'll be part of it.

Then maybe I'm not so intimidated by having children as a single parent and maybe actually then it feels like a very welcoming thing to do.

'cause I've got support.

Faith Popcorn: Yeah.

Everybody said, oh my God, I adopted singly and everybody, oh, how could you, it's gonna be so hard.

Well, when I compared myself to a lot of my friends that were in traditional relationships, you know, I thought I had it much easier.

I mean, I just decided

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: you're

Nancy Giordano: I know,

Faith Popcorn: that school or you're gonna,

Nancy Giordano: right.

Faith Popcorn: I just, I didn't find it harder at all.

Nancy Giordano: Okay.

Yeah I think that it can go again in so many different directions and so many different families.

Okay.

So, so for people who are listening who do not spend as much time living in the future the way you do, and certainly the, hopefully you've opened my eyes to some of the places and I do actually spend a fair amount of time there.

Can we step back and say for today's parents right now, in 20 25, 20 26, as they're trying to make the decisions and looking ahead, you know, what are some of the things that we can help them better prepare for?

And or be more better advocates for, because I think that this idea right now that we are outsourcing parenting to a device at a, to your point, at a dinner table, right?

When we give a kid a tablet or we give a kid a phone, or we do whatever, and

Faith Popcorn: yeah.

Nancy Giordano: we have no control.

I wouldn't say control, but like that is being determined by corporations who want.

Monopolize their attention.

Right.

And give them the least healthy versions of so much of the stuff that they're then consuming and not teaching them to go build things with it, but to be consumers of things of it.

Right.

So for me, one of the biggest things I would like for us to recognize as parents is we have this opportunity to teach kids how to be builders of the technology.

The creators and the designers of the things that they would want, like designing your own robot and not just having it be delivered, you know, by somebody else's specs.

So this idea of like shifting the responsibility I think is an interesting piece of it.

Where else, if you were gonna sit and talk to a room full right now of women with children ages two to 22, what would your some of the questions you hope that they would ask you be.

Faith Popcorn: So one of the things you're saying is that today's 10 year olds maybe are gonna be tomorrow's, you know, CEOs of their own childhood.

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: What would my advice be to that mom

Nancy Giordano: What are some of the questions that you hope that they ask you?

Like, I would like, what are parents right now that you know, that are stressed out and that are feeling the weight of all this and the complexity of this, and really don't have an under to your point?

Well, my, my sense of it is that most parents are not looking ahead.

Even five years and remind 20 years about how fast things are going to change and some of the questions that are going to be on their shoulders.

Right.

Faith Popcorn: Right.

Nancy Giordano: Do you agree with that?

Faith Popcorn: Absolutely.

They don't look ahead.

And I'll tell you what I've noticed too, which is very strange.

I've noticed this a lot.

Corporate America, you know, that's our playground, so to speak.

And, when I, you know, I have a very, a lot of very good friends, female friends too, in corporate America, and are so hesitant to get help.

I've never seen anything.

And these are women that are making a lot of money and they can afford help and somehow they feel it's a criticism on them.

Nancy Giordano: Family help?

You mean having a nanny or somebody or you mean like a psychologist?

Okay.

Faith Popcorn: somebody to help them clean.

They go home and clean.

Nancy Giordano: Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

Faith Popcorn: Instead of paying, they go home and clean instead of paying a cleaning professional.

Nancy Giordano: Got it.

Faith Popcorn: I say to them, well, let's talk about how much you make an hour at work.

You know?

So they make like, I make like $150 an hour or something, and like, you're gonna clean.

Okay, that is stupid.

It's neurotic.

then also they won't get help.

So a lot of this is self-imposed, especially on females to.

at work and great at home.

And I see the men, you know, I'm talking traditional families and there's only 17% so small, getting smaller every minute.

But the men go, oh, my wife is amazing.

She won't get any help.

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: I'm thinking, you are a horrible human being.

Nancy Giordano: Tell me what you really think.

Faith Popcorn: Live actually five years shorter if they're

Nancy Giordano: yeah.

Faith Popcorn: live five years longer?

That's why.

Nancy Giordano: I know.

I know.

Faith Popcorn: So, yeah, I just think it's just criminal, honestly.

I think you should get all the help you can.

You know, I don't mean help to separate you from your family, but how about putting yourself first now and then giving yourself a rest?

Think time, walk.

Nancy Giordano: Where do you think that pressure has come that makes parents?

Because again, I didn't feel that like I did get, you know, I had a nanny and I mean, I worked four days a week since the moment I had my first children.

So I felt like at least I designed my work in a way that, like my life the way I wanted it to, right?

I had a certain amount of time, I had spent work working in a certain amount of time that I spent with my children.

And then, you know, I had a very integrated life around all those things.

So I felt like I had a lot of choice that I had that I was able to make around that.

So I felt very.

I dunno, privilege is the right word, but you know, I had a different way of looking at it.

Why do you think that is shifting now where parents aren't like you think of anything?

This goes back to supporting your argument about work not becoming less, but more.

Why are people not making more adaptive choices to be able to balance their time better, to get the support and the help that they need to make their lives easier instead of harder.

Especially if they also have smaller families.

They don't have the, they don't have five children or four children often,

Faith Popcorn: It's guilt.

Nancy Giordano: From where.

Faith Popcorn: Especially female guilt women are ridden with, I'm not good enough, I'm not doing enough.

Where does it come?

They're mothers and fathers.

I don't know, but almost every woman thinks she's like trying hard or not good enough, you know?

You know all the studies.

You give a man a promotion, he goes, great.

I deserve it.

You give a woman a promotion, she goes, no, I'm not ready.

Nancy Giordano: Okay.

Or like, or my team.

Thanks.

My team.

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: Yeah.

I don't.

Nancy Giordano: So, so maybe we need, actually, we just need guides for women and for moms so that they feel more.

Faith Popcorn: entitled.

Nancy Giordano: Or adequate or not?

I am entitled and adequate, but like, really like ready, like, like, like they can confident.

I dunno what the words are.

You know, I think you had a tremendous amount of confidence going into parenting.

I actually really did, even though I came from a crazy, you know, not so awesome household.

I actually came with a tremendous amount of confidence.

To your point, I did take baby classes.

I studied with some amazing people.

I read as much as I could read about how to do it better.

And to be better prepared for some of the choices that were gonna be coming toward me.

And it's not always easy to make some of those choices, right?

Do you give your child a phone?

Do you not give your child a phone?

Do you let them have free reign to go wherever they want on, you know, their computers or not?

Like, what are, answer any practical advice that you would give to parents right now about how to become more comfortable with this technology but not give it away completely?

I just don't trust the corporations that are feeding it to my children right now.

Just fyi, I just don't.

Faith Popcorn: well, you know what I mean?

One thing they're not doing for you is giving you childcare.

I, I think that's terrible.

I mean, companies should have childcare.

Nancy Giordano: Right, for sure.

Faith Popcorn: Be for the people that have children or dog care for the people that have dogs or elderly care for the people that are taking care of their mothers, but don't have whatever the e you know,

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: but surely childcare.

And, you know, we work for a bank once and they said, we don't understand why everybody runs out at three o'clock.

They don't wanna stay late.

They don't wanna have a brainstorming.

I go because their kids are in some basement of some church somewhere and they're, you know, and you know, we could not get it to happen.

We tried, I am not gonna list every company, but we tried.

And we tried.

And that's the liability issues, you know, they have.

And is, I won't even say even in companies run by women,

Nancy Giordano: I know.

Faith Popcorn: which were very few, 3%, I think I. Very hard to get it implemented.

So, I think that's why women go, like, if I'm going to like be happy and make it, I can't have a kid.

I don't know what.

Nancy Giordano: I guess the way I would look at it, that there's so much pressure again inside.

If you talk again, there's corporate America.

And then there's working class people who are working in retail, people working in hospitals, people who are working in schools, people who are working in jobs where they may or may not have as much agency.

But even in the corporate world, there's just so much shifting and changing, so much pressure.

I know so many people who keep starting meetings at seven o'clock or seven 30 in the morning, or they're working on global clocks and they feel like they can't get away.

And this is again about the technology tethering you now you feel as though you have to be able to work across all time zones in all ways, and so they don't disconnect.

From this.

So I do think there's a lot that we can do with our, so again, meditation has become, you know, theoretically more and more prevalent at the same time that we're more and more tethered to our devices.

It's a really interesting thing to see those two things kind of rise.

Together at the same time.

So you imagine, again, moving into the future the hope is that some of these technologies would take give, be supportive to our children.

Like I would love to have some sort of tech that would've helped my children.

To your point with whatever the math skill or language skill or various thing was that they wanted, I would be able to have more accessible tutoring.

Partly it's a financial thing and partly it's a driving them to and from thing, right?

If you could just have something that was just super convenient that you could just turn on when you needed it and have as much or as little as you wanted, like a faucet, that'd be amazing.

That'd be an awesome thing.

Faith Popcorn: Yeah,

Nancy Giordano: if I had a baby monitor that responded to my child when they cried and suddenly put different, you know, patterns on the ceiling, I don't know that I would want that.

Right.

Because as a parent, do I not want to be alerted that my child is crying and do I not wanna be part of the solution to soothing that child?

Faith Popcorn: it depends how tired you are.

Because it's

Gonna be very soothing if you're angry and exhausted.

Nancy Giordano: You are really fair.

That is so true.

Faith Popcorn: Right?

So see three kind of trends out of our, you know, our trend trends, or directions I wanna say, or lenses you look at the future of parenting, like one is cocooning, which says that everything's gonna be delivered, you know, home.

people are gonna be like, already working from home more

Nancy Giordano: Right.

The drones are gonna just drop it off.

Yep.

Faith Popcorn: yeah and then maybe that says like.

You know, home.

I don't mean homeschooling in that way, but getting schooling at home or some schooling, some support like you were saying.

Then this other one, evolution like Eve Adam and evolution, the revolution of females is saying they're making so much more money.

They have so much agency, but do they have like, you know, enough confidence and we're watching the plate plates shift under our feet You know, are we brave enough to go?

Like things are, you know, new and changing as we watch.

And then the other thing is future tense.

So future tense is tension about the future.

And, you know, looking at everything in the future going, knowing that there's not gonna be forever, and the way your children are gonna raise their children is gonna be very different than this, as it was when your parents raised you.

You know, like, ugh.

It's, you know, what's happening now.

Evolution used to take thousands of years,

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: The, for the dinosaurs to eat the leaves off the trees, and then they had no more leaves that took and they fell over.

That took eons.

But now we're evolving like as we like so quickly.

And we get when you get that chip in the brain and then you have like thoughts like, should I put a chip in my kid's brain?

If all the kids have chips and my kid doesn't have a chip, well

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: gonna put them back so many like, you know, issues that maybe we don't have now.

But then some beautiful things about like this nanny bought a nanny that turns into a car that can safely drive your kid.

To, so you don't have to put an Uber like scared, like, you know, your company is totally inconsiderate in having a seven o'clock meeting.

That's when you take your kid to school

Nancy Giordano: Right,

Faith Popcorn: your kid breakfast, right?

They don't think about that.

It's, I think I think technology can bring something really beautiful, I think to the fore and I think it will.

And we're gonna hear horrible stories too.

You know,

Nancy Giordano: All right, so as we close, 'cause you've got two daughters that potentially, you know, are they optimistic about the future?

How do they feel about the future when you talk to them about where things are headed?

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: one daughter is going to become a con, a conservator, a veterinary conservator.

She wants to save.

She's trying to save the past in a way.

She's saving animals that are gonna run out.

Nancy Giordano: Extinctions.

Faith Popcorn: that

Nancy Giordano: it.

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: The other one, she's only 21.

You know, it's too soon to tell.

She's interested in the brain, but truly my kids, and I think, look what they're exposed to, right?

Do not think a lot about the future.

Nancy Giordano: Oh, that's so interesting.

Faith Popcorn: They do not.

Nancy Giordano: Mine do.

Mine are very focused on the future.

That's so interesting.

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: well, maybe you did a better job.

Maybe, I assume that

Nancy Giordano: Well see again, this is what women do to one another, right?

We sit there and say, you did a good job.

You did a bad job.

No, I don't think it's that at all.

I think that, you know, they just maybe there's a more pragmatic where I think the leaps that you take are so great that it's sometimes, you know, more, maybe it takes a bit more imagination to get there.

You know, mine were a little bit more paced as they got from here to there.

Faith Popcorn: I think the, if it was a mistake or not a mistake, I dunno.

You know how we look back on

Nancy Giordano: yes, exactly.

Don't do that.

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: soon to tell.

But our house was called the yes house.

And that's where all the kids could come, because I wanted kids to come because I was like, you know, inexperienced.

I didn't want my kids going too many places, but I mean, I let them sleep over and everything, but whatever.

But I liked them to come, so I created this yes house where you could have dessert before dinner and whatever.

whatever That wasn't dangerous.

So maybe I gave my kids an idea that the future was gonna be like the yes future.

And they're not scared, as scared as they should be or as curious,

Nancy Giordano: right, right, right.

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: what I

Nancy Giordano: I

Faith Popcorn: have done

Nancy Giordano: don't know.

Faith Popcorn: little cocoon.

Nancy Giordano: I think you are very, you know, very loving and caring people who are gonna be really curious about the future and obviously care about ways in which we hold ourselves well in it.

And I think that's the whole purpose of all of this.

I think my wish for parents is to be, to lean in more to the decisions that they're making around this and not let them be passively made by other people.

Faith Popcorn: Let the kid cry in the stroller.

What the hell are they doing?

Nancy Giordano: I can say there's a certain amount of crying in a stroller that is also, this is where I come from, my tough Italian background, faith.

And I'd be like, they'll be fine if they cried in a stroller for a minute, you know?

Faith Popcorn: need to though.

If you just ask a kid why are you crying?

Nancy Giordano: yes.

Faith Popcorn: Get in front of the stroller.

Strollers shouldn't be facing away from you.

Nancy Giordano: Right,

Faith Popcorn: That's wrong.

Should be facing

Nancy Giordano: right.

Faith Popcorn: Why are you crying?

And they say something simple like, you know, well, what do you say?

Tired, hungry, or wet or something.

I do ask them why they're crying strange children, they tell me and they stop crying.

Nancy Giordano: Oh,

Faith Popcorn: parents just like, they just keep pushing them to crying.

That's not my own, you know, fucked up background.

Screwed up, sorry.

But I just don't like it

Nancy Giordano: I love that you do that.

That is a really.

Faith Popcorn: think I'd leave, would leave a dog cowling either.

Nancy Giordano: I know that is 100% true.

You're right.

You right,

Faith Popcorn: to leave a kid crying if you wouldn't leave a dog crying?

Nancy Giordano: you're a hundred percent right.

All right, well,

Faith Popcorn: like that.

That's good.

Nancy Giordano: so leave it there you are.

So right Paige.

Faith Popcorn: Oh, no.

Thank you for this gorgeous interview.

Nancy Giordano: It is a really interesting thing to just let your mind kind of wander to where these places are and to, you know, hope that we
can hopefully be a good guide for the parents that are younger than we are, that are gonna be facing a really interesting and fascinating future.

And that, I think for your, to your part, I do share optimism that it's gonna take us to better places, not worse places.

So,

Faith Popcorn: I think that love conquers all really.

Nancy Giordano: ah, yeah.

Faith Popcorn: people say to their kids Enough, how much?

I love you.

I love you, but don't say I love you.

That's why I'm hitting you.

I

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: that.

You know, we hear that, right?

No, just say, look, I love you.

I might not be doing it perfectly, but you know, I, and the other thing I think is really important to say to a kid is matter what, you can come to me without penalty.

I think that's, my grandfather used to say in me, which is like, maybe why I have a little confidence because you know, my grandfather used to say right or wrong?

You're right.

Nancy Giordano: Oh wow.

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: goes, don't let any right or wrong.

You're right.

Nancy Giordano: Wow.

Faith Popcorn: Okay, grandpa.

So I, and I think just saying to you, 'cause this tough one, like, come to me and you can, you've gotta hold the honor of that and not get mad at them when they come to you and go, I did cheat, I did do this, I did do that.

Or whatever they did, you know, you're still there, mommy, and you're still gonna love them to death and not give them a hour lecture when

Nancy Giordano: Right.

Faith Popcorn: you.

Nancy Giordano: True.

And so I'll add to that partly then you also have empathy for what's going on for that child.

Like a lot of parents don't understand why a child is upset, not just in a stroller, but in, you know, their bedroom.

And they have a lot of things that they're worried about.

There's a lot of things that they're facing that we don't really fully understand from school shootings and shooter drills in their classrooms to existential threat about the climate to what might be bullying online to whatever.

Right?

So really, even if you don't understand it.

Holding space for them.

But I do think that there is a certain amount of guidance for parents that help their kids try and navigate this stuff and understanding where to, we're to lean in and we're not.

And I think that's the trickiest part of parenting, but I think it starts really young.

We're doing a whole nother episode about this idea of creating agency in your child from the minute they're born and giving them confidence in themselves.

And I think that's, it's a micro action thing that goes across an entire child wearing lifetime.

So.

Faith Popcorn: Yeah.

So what do you think?

How do you think you will.

Interact and deal with your grandchildren differently than you dealt with your kids, or how do you think your kids are gonna raise kids differently than you raised them?

A different way of asking.

Nancy Giordano: Yeah, I think that, well, I think they're two different questions because I do think that you said the thing about being the grandparent, right?

The grandparent gets to be the yes parent.

So I get to be,

Faith Popcorn: I

Nancy Giordano: You know, much more accommodating and much more whatever I have, feel like I have less pressure on me when you're the grandparent.

Faith Popcorn: right.

Nancy Giordano: I certainly have also gone through my personal growth work over the course of this x amount of years, and so I think that I can take things a little less personally than I probably did when I was a young mom.

I think that the only thing that I probably wasn't, that you would've noticed if you had been hanging out with me back then is I probably wasn't always the most gracious and patient mom.

I was a deeply caring and I've done a really good job of making sure my children were safe, but I'm not sure that I was always as tender as you would've wanted me to be in that moment with the stroller.

And so I think that I will get to be able to be that.

I think that I want my children to realize that the world is theirs to build, not just to be what's the word consumed by like, I, yeah, they're not the passive you know, whatever participants in it.

I am really excited about turning my grandchildren on to all the things that they can go and build and do and create.

And I think that,

Faith Popcorn: any grandchildren?

Nancy Giordano: don't yet, my eldest son is engaged but they're gonna wait.

They're gonna wait a few more years to have a child.

Faith Popcorn: I keep saying to my kids, you know, you don't have to get married to have a kid.

And they go, that is so not normal, mom.

Nancy Giordano: not true actually.

I think that, like you see that happening everywhere.

The marriage rates in Europe are so low compared to the parent rates.

Faith Popcorn: kids don't like when I say that.

Nancy Giordano: Oh, that's so funny.

All three of my children thus far have said that they wanna have children.

So we'll see how things shift and change.

But so far.

Faith Popcorn: to you.

Nancy Giordano: So, well, and I think to the world that they feel like is safe enough, right.

That they can walk into and feel like they can take good care of them.

And so yeah, I think we'll see how it goes.

But, you know, I think the trickiest part is, to your point, the same thing about, well, this is how, the way I did it right, is to really be open to what's going on for them and the way that they see that they wanna raise their children to hopefully be more

Faith Popcorn: the

Nancy Giordano: supportive.

Faith Popcorn: say, which is probably wrong, is I tell them, you have to adopt one.

Nancy Giordano: Yeah, that was my original plan.

That was my plan, and then I shifted it last minute.

But yeah, I was gonna have two natural and then one adopted and ended up having three all natural.

Faith Popcorn: think adoption is natural,

Nancy Giordano: Sorry, men, I burst.

Fair enough.

Biological.

Thank you.

Faith Popcorn: no, but I say you have to adopt one and I, you know, they don't have to.

I'm just like saying, you know, pay it forward and adopt one.

But what happens when you can have biological children is that you're always.

Afraid it's gonna be like an Well, men I've noticed and I've interviewed, many are not great proponents, many of them, not all of them, of adoption because they really love, still think like having their little jeans imprinted on the

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: is really right.

They wanna see self-reflection women.

I think you said you would do one outta three or something.

I think that a lot of them get nervous when they've had a biological child about is it gonna be imbalanced?

Is the kid gonna feel less loved, interracial families?

Is that a problem?

Nancy Giordano: I didn't think about any of those things.

I really did think about the health of the child and bringing it into a system that already existed.

So I had two children that were, you know, needed a lot from me.

And as I was exploring whether or not, then I would go and adopt a third child or fourth child, I wanted to actually have four children.

It just became, I was talking.

Doctor who had adopted one and she had a lot of complications with the whole thing.

And so she was more weary around it and she made me more nervous about it.

And I saw the same thing.

I never got any of my fetuses tested at the time 'cause I wasn't gonna make those decisions.

I didn't know what sex they were.

Like, I was just whatever God gives me, I'm, you know, or the universe or spirit gives me, I'm gonna accept, which was a risky thing to do when you have a family that already exists and you're bringing that into the family.

But I just was like, it's gonna be what it's gonna be.

So I just, you know, we all navigate our way into where we think we're willing to take risks and where we're not willing to take risks and where we think that we have support and where we don't have support.

And so, I'm really grateful that I got to become a mom to three amazing children.

It taught me a lot about myself and the world, and I am really blessed that I got to be this kind of futurist because of the work that you did.

To encourage me to step in the same direction

Faith Popcorn: you.

Nancy Giordano: that I could then also then I think, bring that into the weaving into my parenting.

And so I was able to look a little further out.

I made decisions differently because I looked at the long-term, complicated, long-term implications of that decision, not the short term.

So thank you.

Faith Popcorn: Yeah.

Oh, I try to encourage people to adopt.

Of course.

You know, I'm like the post and they go no, I can't.

I go, come over, I'm gonna show you something.

You know, I use my kids as little like, you know.

I talking points.

I go, look how cute they are and sweet air, and it's not hard at all and blah, blah, blah.

And I just try to make it like light and breathe because there's so many kids that need parents.

Nancy Giordano: especially, and unfortunately now in the world, it's only becoming worse.

I think

Faith Popcorn: wish I could had six more.

Nancy Giordano: I know.

Faith Popcorn: I could have turned my house into a dorm.

Nancy Giordano: Aw.

Faith Popcorn: I really, I, you know, people go like, what's your real wish in life?

You know how people go, I wish I was a fireman, really.

Nancy Giordano: Yeah.

Yeah.

Faith Popcorn: I wish I had like a, I don't wanna say an orphanage, but like a house full of kids without parents.

Nancy Giordano: Oh, I'd be right there with you.

Can I come and I wanna hang out there with you?

I wanna be right there.

I would do that.

I would say that, you know, when things get really rocky, I just wanna be in a hospital rocking the babies that need to be rocked.

Like I just wanna hold them.

I wanna hold every one of them.

Faith Popcorn: I definitely do it with you.

Nancy Giordano: Yay.

Okay.

Then we got our new plan.

Faith Popcorn: Okay.

It was really, you're just precious and wonderful and

Nancy Giordano: Oh,

Faith Popcorn: and I'm very glad you're doing this podcast

Nancy Giordano: thank you.

Faith Popcorn: I hope you're successful and I'll tell everybody I know about it.

I'll send messages out.

Nancy Giordano: You are the best.

Well, thank you so much and I hope that our pals continue to cross it.

We'll be in New York in early October, so if you're around I'll check in with Kathleen and maybe we can go grab a lunch.

Faith Popcorn: Yeah.

Or a drink.

Nancy Giordano: Yay.

Yeah.

Well, even better.

Perfect.

Faith Popcorn: Yep.

Nancy Giordano: Big hugs.

Thank you so, so much, faith.

I appreciate everything that you do.

Faith Popcorn: Take care.

Nancy Giordano: Thank you.

Take you.