A lot of us end up spending a significant part of our adult lives unpacking our childhoods.
We obviously do a lot of that in therapy, for ourselves and the parents we work with. Some, like our guest, use their creative work as part of processing their past.
Today, we’re talking with Rob’s lifelong friend, author Jamie Beth Cohen. In our conversation, we revisit Jamie and Rob’s coming of age on the East Coast in the 80s and 90s, and do some speculating on what it’s like to be a kid these days. We also talk about the complicated work of conceptualizing parents who had both good and really harmful parts and how Jamie has infused her fiction and her essays with the difficult characters of her childhood.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
- How both Jamie and Rob experienced not realizing that elements of their childhoods were not normal
- How Jamie’s father’s spending and gambling shaped her relationship with money, work, and being an artist
- Why Jamie couldn’t cut ties with her father and how it impacted the behaviors she tolerated in other relationships
- How writing about her father has brought more understanding, but maybe not more peace
- The stark differences in Jamie’s experience of being a teenaged girl and her daughter’s
Learn more about Jamie Beth Cohen:
Learn more about Gillian Boudreau, PhD.:
Learn more about Rob Galligan, PhD.:
Resources:
What is I Hate You. What's For Dinner? ?
On I Hate You. What's For Dinner? we explore whether childhood explains everything. We'll ask our biggest questions about love and hate, rage and fear, and the awesome and mundane that all get smushed together when we're growing up.
Tune in to make better sense of childhood, parenthood, and life in general.