A Conversation with Mary Louise Kelly on her book It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs
In this episode, we sit down with Mary Louise Kelly, who recently authored "It. Goes. So. Fast.: The Year of No Do-Overs" where she comes to grips with the realities and joys every parent faces. She is well known as a veteran journalist and co-host of NPR's "All Things Considered." She discusses the vulnerable and honest choices that she and every parent faces. We learn about Mary Louise's perception of the challenges of journalism today, including the impact of social media and the rise of misinformation, and how journalists can navigate these challenges while still upholding the core values of their profession.
More on Mary Louise Kelly:
Website: npr.org/people/2780701/mary-louise-kelly
Books: marylouisekellybooks.com
Twitter: twitter.com/NPRKelly
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Quotes:
“In your day job, I often think, gosh, I could make this interview better if I had another two hours to prep. But I don't. I don't even have two minutes. It's go right now. Say what you know and how you know. It’s a pretty good way to get you through.”
Mary Louise Kelly
“You know, when you have a two-year-old, that if all goes to plan, they're going to be 18 at some point. But it's so hard to wrap your arms around that. And the years do just race by.”
Mary Louise Kelly
“There's a subtle but significant difference between an interview and a conversation… A conversation is… where you have to make yourself a little bit vulnerable and you're not going to be able to draw somebody out unless you're really, really listening and showing a little bit of leg yourself.”
Mary Louise Kelly
Show Notes:
MARY LOUISE KELLY: [00:14:24] Sometimes you're doing a straight interview. I need to get the facts. I got four minutes to do it. You know, you're at this wildfire. Tell me where you are, what you are doing, What's you know what? What's going on today? Right. But a conversation is a slightly different thing where you have to make yourself a little bit vulnerable and you know, you're not going to be able to draw somebody out.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: [00:17:21] Journalism and my day job as opposed to a book where really, if you've had years to work on something like you should have thoughtfully figured out what it is you're trying to say that may or may not be true. But you know, that's the goal. But in your day job, I often think I could make this interview better if I had another two hours to prep. But I don't I don't even have two minutes. It's go right now. Say what you know and how you know. It is a pretty good.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: [00:21:12] Obviously, a teenager is less demanding on many levels than a newborn or a toddler. They don't, you know, need me to bathe them or, you know, they can make their own toast in the morning. But the trade-offs and the deals I was cutting.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: [00:21:52] You know, days, weeks, months of your life disappear checking off the to-do list. And you haven't just kind of sat there and thought, what am I doing? Is this what I should be doing with this time? And I wanted to do that.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: [00:24:40] I had this particular child whose entire junior year of high school was wiped out and was virtual schooling. And so we hadn't done any of the college visit stuff that normally we would hope to do. So he was going to visit really his first college visit was October of his senior year of high school, and we are wandering around the University of Chicago campus and the student tour guide is Pepoli telling us all the great things about the college and how fun and how awesome it is. Then something about yeah, the statistic about what percentage of students who had wanted. To apply to law school had gotten in and it was really high and my son was like, okay, locking in. Should we go see the law school? I'm like, Should we go see the law school? Like we're we haven't.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: [00:37:50] These are ten women who I was close to in college have become closer to since most of us randomly assigned freshman or sophomore year to be roommates. So very different. We live all over the country and have very different lives and different interests, but have stayed incredibly close, which when I thought about how have we managed to so close all these years, I think we finished college in 1993 when we graduated, Nobody had a laptop, nobody had email, no cell phones, long.
MARY LOUISE KELLY: [00:40:00] There's the history of their relationship going back to like getting bitten by bugs and canoeing around a lake when they were 11 together. But I think they feel the history that predates them before. Their mom and I have been friends since. Well before they were born, when we were teenagers ourselves and have grown up together. And so to watch your kids grow up together and feel a level of comfort with someone who just gets them gets the family gets the whole deal, that is also a real gift.