Improving Mental Health Outcomes Through Government Funding with Congresswoman Becca Balint
00:00:00 Alyssa
You're listening to Voices of Your Village, and today I get to bring you such an incredible guest. I got to hang out with Congresswoman Becca Balint to chat about improving mental health outcomes through government funding. Representative Balint is a mom, a teacher, a progressive leader who comes to Washington ready to fight for working families. Becca's the first woman and openly LGBTQ plus person to represent her home state of Vermont. She's the daughter of a working class mother and immigrant father, and Becca is deeply committed to defending American democracy and protecting vulnerable communities. While the majority leader of the Vermont State Senate, Becca led the passage of the first gun safety laws in the state's history aimed at keeping Vermont children, communities, and survivors of abuse safe. Becca also worked tirelessly in the State Senate to secure the largest housing investment in Vermont in decades to rebuild housing stock and expand middle -income housing. She received her B .A. from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., graduating magna cum laude in Phi Beta Kappa. Becca earned her Master's in Education from Harvard University in 1995 and her Master's in History from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2001. She's married to noted attorney and opera singer Elizabeth Wohl. Together they have two children, Abe and Sarah, who are 16 and 13, and an adorable dog named Wheelie. They live in Brattleboro, Vermont, and it was such a pleasure to get to hang out with the Congresswoman. She just gets it, like it's so real, and she cares about mental health. And we got to have such a rad discussion about that and what it looks like for there to be funding, and what that would mean for us as a nation if we funded mental health supports. We talk about early childhood education and the role that that plays in supporting mental health long -term. I could have done this five-ever and am so grateful for those who dedicate their lives to trying to make our nation and our world for our tiny humans better. Thanks, Congresswoman. All right, folks, let's dive in.
00:02:27 Alyssa
Hey there. I'm Alyssa Blask Campbell. I'm a mom with a master's degree in early childhood education and co -creator of the Collaborative Emotion Processing Method. I'm here to walk alongside you through the messy, vulnerable parts of being humans raising other humans with deep thoughts and actionable tips. Let's dive in together.
00:02:49 Alyssa
Where are you from originally?
00:02:53 Becca
Well, I was born on an army base in Germany. My dad came here as an immigrant and ended up going to college via ROTC because he didn't have any money. And so I was born on the US army base or at the hospital in Heidelberg, Germany. So yeah, so we lived overseas and then mostly in Northeast, but have also lived for a spell in Michigan and California, but mostly in the Northeast.
00:03:22 Alyssa
Sure, sure. I have a bunch of my, my dad's side of the family, a lot of them were Navy. So a lot of two -year stints in different places. Yeah. Where's your mom from?
00:03:31 Becca
My mom is from, she's from Albany, New York.
00:03:36 Alyssa
Oh, I'm from upstate.
00:03:36 Becca
Oh, are you? Whereabouts?
00:03:38 Alyssa
Western New York. So south of Buffalo, kind of like rural farmland, Western New York.
00:03:43 Becca
You're reminding me, when I was a high schooler, I participated in a competition and ended up competing with a woman who was the Dairy Princess of Herkimer County.
00:03:53 Alyssa
Oh, yeah. I was born in Herkimer County.
00:03:55 Becca
Okay. I was wondering. Okay. Okay.
00:03:58 Alyssa
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. My dad's from the Utica area. And I lived there until I was five. And then we moved to where my mom's from, which is near Olean, St. Bonaventure, but south of Buffalo. Just real rural farmland. Yeah. And then my husband is from Burlington, which is what brought us to Vermont.
00:04:19 Becca
And so are you in Burlington now?
00:04:21 Alyssa
Yeah. We met in New York City and then we lived in Boston for five years. And then my mother -in -law and her wife are here in Burlington and we're really close with them and wanted to raise kids near them. So we came home to Burlington.
00:04:34 Becca
That's lovely. Yeah.
00:04:36 Alyssa
Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's been rad, and also like one of my favorite things about Vermont is how small it is and how change feels possible here with this size, you know?
00:04:53 Becca
I always say it's people -sized.
00:04:55 Alyssa
Yeah, I love that.
00:04:56 Becca
It's people -sized, and I definitely felt that way when I was in the legislature. We were able to make big changes because it is people -sized, and I think it's also one of the reasons why so many Vermonters still believe in the power of government to make positive change, because they also know their representatives, right? So it's not unusual for people to know, be on a first name basis with their senators, their congresswomen, or from their state, or their state senators or house members. I think it matters when people feel like they have a direct way to communicate with their elected officials.
00:05:36 Alyssa
Yeah, I think that's so true. And that they'll listen and that they'll take to heart what you're saying, etc. I recently joined the Let's Grow Kids board in hopes to be able to continue this push for what we need to see happen here in Vermont. We've made some really rad progress and, you know, there's more to go. But as I'm diving into the like board side now, it's really cool to see how much conversation happens and really how much people do reach out to their representatives.
00:06:09 Becca
Yeah. And I think we still have the ability to have substantive conversations across difference, which I know in many of my colleagues' districts is becoming more and more difficult. And it's not just unfortunate, it's actually having a corrosive effect on the democracy itself.
00:06:32 Alyssa
It's so detrimental. I'm curious what you're seeing with that down in D .C. and looking at like, I have such a strong bias in this conversation we're about to have where I recognize that I have a master's in early ed, my work has been spent in early ed, and so for me, funding early ed feels like such a no -brainer. The data's there, right? We know that there are huge positive outcomes in many different arenas, but seeing what we're looking at now, mental health -wise, both in adults and then working our way down, teens and younger, we know the impact that investment in early ed can have on that. And so I'm curious what the conversation sounds like down there, down there in D .C., with folks who don't see the investment as necessary.
00:07:25 Becca
Well, you have to understand, and everything that I will say will be in a post -January 6th world.
00:07:34 Alyssa
Yeah, sure.
00:07:34 Becca
Okay? Things changed. They really did. And that was really one of the reasons why I decided to leave my position as the President Pro Tem of the Senate in Vermont and run for Congress, because I saw what happened on January 6th. I saw that the democracy itself was at risk. And I mentioned that because we don't even get to talk about policy. My committees right now are not spent really digging into policy.
00:08:10 Alyssa
Frustrating.
00:08:11 Becca
Yes, it is frustrating. And it is, one of the hardest things for me is understanding that we don't agree on some basic facts around whether Biden is the rightful president, whether he actually won the election. And so when you don't agree on basic facts, it calls everything else in the question. Now, I serve on the Budget Committee and the Judiciary Committee. And when I'm on budget, I try to make the case with every conversation that we're having that, you talked about being from a rural part of New York. Rural is rural. Whether you are rural Kentucky, whether you are rural Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, you know, out in the Midwest. And so where I find I can have more substantive conversations is with other folks from rural districts. And so I am part of the bipartisan Rural Health Caucus. And so we talk about health outcomes and how disparate they are for people who live in rural areas. You don't have the same access to care. And there are other topics that also lend itself to talking about how difficult it is for rural America. If you're talking about dental care, if you're talking about childcare, if you're talking about transportation, right? So I really try to break down those barriers between Democrat and Republican and just talk about rural. Can we please talk about, you know, rural America is really struggling right now in health outcomes. We just take that, you know, you can't really argue with the data, you know, right? So let's focus on that and not spend our time having these culture war-- I won't even call them debates, they're just screaming matches. So as a gay woman, I have to sit in committee day in and day out and hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say horrible things about queer and trans people and their families, and we don't even get to talk about policy because they're so busy talking about, from my perspective, just really mean, cruel messaging bills that don't actually meet the needs of regular people. And so I'm a glass half -full kind of gal, so I always approach my working committee to see, like, how do we have substantive conversations? And I was excited a couple weeks ago when and I called out one of my colleagues in budget who was just, he was just name -calling. You know, we were talking about supports like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and what he wanted to do is call us, you know, communists and socialists, because we believed that there should be a safety net. And I, you know, I said to him, look, we can have policy disagreements, whether this is where we want to invest the money. The name -calling is insulting. It's not moving the conversation forward. And the next day, my chair from that committee, he is a Republican from Texas, he came to find me on the floor of the House. And he said, you know, Congresswoman, you and I don't agree on a lot of policy, but I agree with what you said yesterday in committee. And I'm really trying to bring my colleagues back to talking about policy. And so it's a long answer to your question, which is the amount of time that we spend on culture war issues as opposed to really talking about the needs of American families, you know, it's disgusting. We know that things like the child tax credit during the pandemic, we know it made a huge difference in the lives of families. We know that it lifted millions of children out of poverty. We know it worked.
00:11:53 Alyssa
Can you break down for folks in case they're unfamiliar of what the Child Tax Credit did. Can you break down what it was exactly and what it did and then when it went away?
00:12:03 Becca
Yes. So it was part of the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act. During the pandemic, when I was in the Senate, you had this Child Tax Credit, which was an allowance that you could make for the children that you have who are dependents that literally put money in the pockets of parents. We know when you put money in the pockets of parents, they spend it directly on children, right? And so this lifted millions of Americans out of poverty. We had an opportunity in the last bipartisan tax bill in February that we passed another version of that. It wasn't all that I wanted. It wasn't as generous as I wanted, but it will also lift about 15 ,000 children in Vermont out of poverty because it will give families directly that money into their pockets. And so, if we had gone back and invested fully, as we did during the pandemic, it would cut child poverty in half across the country.
00:13:03 Alyssa
Yeah, I want to touch on that. So I can, you know, I grew up in rural America, right? And so I have like these two parts I often hold. It's like, okay, but are we just like giving money to people comes up inside of me? And I'm like, what does that mean? Like, I empathize and have compassion for the perspective of I'm working hard over here to provide, et cetera. And now we're handing out money over here to folks who are in poverty. And then I hold a part that's like, yeah, any child in poverty, let's pull them out, right? Like this other side that just is like all tiny humans deserve food and shelter and all that. And so I'm curious if you can speak to that perspective of like that feeling of a handout.
00:13:49 Becca
Yeah. So here's what I want your listeners to think about. I was a history teacher, right? I studied history very seriously, have a master's in history. You have to look at all of these programs in the context of where we are in terms of the wealth gap in this country. So there's a reason why this is called the second gilded age. It's because the rich, the top, top, not even 1%, like half of 1 % are continuing to benefit from this economy and everybody else is suffering. So it is the tax policy itself is unfair and is giving rich people handouts. The tax policy is unfair. The fact that wages have been for decades flat, that housing costs have gone up, that education costs have gone up, that we haven't kept up with inflation. And so if you look in Vermont, who are the people who tend to be earning low -wage jobs? They tend to be women with dependents, overwhelmingly, right? We have this idea that somehow it's high school students who are bagging some groceries after, you know, that's not reality.
00:15:03 Alyssa
It's moms.
00:15:03 Becca
It's moms, it's moms. And so if you had a situation in Vermont where you had plenty of affordable housing, okay, that's one conversation. If you're talking about an economy where wages have kept pace, which they haven't, if you are talking about an economy that has a fair tax policy, that's another conversation. So this notion of a handout, I think, is really putting the blame on the wrong people. That if you work a full -time job at minimum wage in Vermont right now, you cannot afford rent and health care and making sure that you have food. You just can't. It doesn't pencil out. And so I know that we're New Englanders, and New Englanders are thrifty. We work hard. We're Yankees. We don't want a handout. And so I think that we are giving massive handouts and tax breaks to billionaires and corporations. We truly, truly are. And so I think when people say that, it is that fear that I'm working as hard as I can. I don't want somebody to get a benefit that I'm not getting. But what I would say to you is, do you need that benefit to make sure your children don't go hungry. That's what we're talking about in many of these instances. And so curious how you have those conversations, because of course we hear some version of this, right?
00:16:38 Alyssa
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think of it as like, wealthy people have no problem taking a handout.
00:16:46 Becca
Oh, absolutely. Mortgage deduction, the mortgage deduction.
00:16:50 Alyssa
Exactly. How can I work my way around this? Is this tax deductible, right? Those sorts of tax write -offs and things that I think wealthy people are often conditioned and trained to look for and to say, like, how can I have a handout in any capacity? And from where I'm from, it was looked, I feel like, as a shameful thing if you were taking a handout. It meant that you weren't doing enough. You weren't working hard enough to provide. And one thing that comes up for me here is, A. I'm just going to call bullshit on that, that we're looking at different jobs and I grew up in a household with a mom who was a stay -at -home parent and then went and got her degree and worked in education and a dad who worked a bunch of different jobs to put food on the table and they worked their butts off. And there are some jobs. I graduated with my undergrad and then my best friend and I both, we moved to New York City right after college, and she had a degree in business and she got a job right out the working for Goldman Sachs, making three times what I was making because I chose to be a preschool teacher. And I had to get a master's actually in order to, for the school that I worked in, to continue to move my way up, and she didn't. And I don't think that her work is more valuable or worthy. It's just that there happens to be money in finance, and no pun intended. And in early childhood there isn't. And what I am afraid of is that if we aren't looking at things like child care, tax credits, and ways to support folks, then we're going to see people stop going into jobs like working in early childhood because you can't afford to do it. We know that child care is a backbone of this economy. And if we want people to go to work, they need a village to help them raise these kids.
00:18:47 Becca
The other piece too I think that is very short -sighted is when folks don't want to fund something like the child tax credit or funding paid leave or whether it's funding childcare, we all pay the piper sometime. And so if you're not taking care of those families, if you're not taking care of those kids, as a society, we will pay later. And it will mean there will be more suffering involved, right? And so -
00:19:20 Alyssa
And we'll pay more usually.
00:19:22 Becca
Absolutely. Absolutely. And so my wife is an attorney and she's from Wyoming. And we lived out there for a while when she was clerking for a federal judge. And he used to say to her, I have learned that when I have a federal drug charge in front of me, almost always the pattern is that it was somebody who never graduated from high school. They weren't able to finish their education. They're hardly literate. And he said, you know, it's so clear to me that we have to do a better job early on in these kids' lives because as a society, certainly that individual will pay, but that the society will pay. And of course, incarcerating people is not the solution. And it's also--
00:20:13 Alyssa
Very expensive
00:20:13 Becca
Unbelievably expensive. Exactly.
00:20:16 Alyssa
So much more expensive than investing and going upstream. Yeah. I'm not a bandaid on a bullet hole gal. And so this is one where like it, it just, it's hard for me to make it make sense to not invest in. Again, I recognize my bias. But when we're looking at funding childcare and looking at investments in childcare. You know, we're looking at that here on the state level in Vermont now, and I am curious to see how things play out. But one thing that we know is that when we can, A. make it accessible for families to send their kids, but also when we can invest in teachers and the quality of program, that's where we see our ROI and our return on investment there that you, if we're going to look down the road, we have to make sure that the investment we're making in early ed also includes quality and not just access and affordability.
00:21:15 Becca
Absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I think too that we, I mean, I know that I can tell by this conversation that if I name a few things, I know that you're going to be right there with me, which is that we, we demonize people who are poor. We have a societal attitude that is kind of baked in that there must be something that they did wrong to be poor as opposed to structural inequities that contribute to, as I was talking about earlier, an economy that isn't working for everybody. And is it right for someone to be working 40 hours a week at a job that clearly is needed because it's part of the economy and not be able to afford housing and putting food on the table. I mean, how can you look at that and say there is something patently unfair about the economic system if someone is... And that's the notion, this notion that people aren't working hard. I know many Vermonters that work multiple jobs, right? And so that idea that people are trying to get a handout, I just don't see it. I just don't see it.
00:22:28 Alyssa
Yeah. Well, as an early childhood educator, I worked three jobs and still made a fraction of what my friend made going to Goldman. And I think part of this is just the long historical context of what we have deemed as valued labor. And I was on a Facebook thread the other day where someone was saying like, how can childcare cost us much? And how can we be saying we need to put more money into it, I'm paying an exorbitant amount. And they listed how much they pay, and I was like, totally. Like, that makes sense to me. If you're looking at this and you're saying, I'm paying $15 ,000 a year to send my kid to childcare, and now we're saying we need to invest more in it, like how? And to look at this and say, where is the outside investment to be able to relieve families of paying a teacher a salary, paying the building costs, paying what we know it costs. What does that look like? What are we working on here in the federal side of things as we're working on state stuff as well?
00:23:37 Becca
Right, and so going back to what we were saying earlier, there isn't a lot of traction right now in this Congress. I can't be overtly political in my office here, but I will say we need a change in leadership in the House of Representatives in order for us to really bring issues like child care to the floor. And we have a lot of members who are keenly interested in doing that as soon as we have the votes to do it. So one thing I think that I've learned.
00:24:07 Alyssa
Can I ask a quick question? Is it that it's tough to have this as a bipartisan issue or that you can't even get there because of the culture wars?
00:24:15 Becca
Oh, we can't bring it to the floor. So, a lot of people are under this misconception that any member of Congress can bring anything to the floor, and that's not the case. So right now, as a Democratic Congresswoman, my party doesn't control the floor. So the Speaker of the House is Republican. He decides what will come on the floor and when. So this is not a priority for him, so it's not going to come. And so that's what I mean, like as simple as you can't even bring it up for a debate.
00:24:51 Alyssa
Sure. And why do you think it's not a priority for him?
00:24:55 Becca
Oh, gosh. Well, do you know much about our Speaker of the House?
00:24:59 Alyssa
No totally, but I am just like...
00:25:01 Becca
No, no, no. No, but I mean, I meant that seriously, not like he's...
00:25:04 Alyssa
Not sarcastically?
00:25:06 Becca
No, no, no. He's a Christian nationalist. He believes women should be home. He believes women should be home. He believes that women should not work outside the home. So why would you support a system of childcare--
00:25:19 Alyssa
That allows women to work.
00:25:22 Becca
You got it. Absolutely. And it is this strange notion here too of the absurd idea that most families can survive on one income. Like it just,
00:25:37 Alyssa
That's what I mean is like the constituents, I just, at least what I'm exposed to and what I see both back home and here now in Vermont, we have so many two parent working households or that every parent in the household has to work in order to afford life. And so it's just hard again, for me to understand, like everybody wins when we do this, if you're treading water, trying to stay afloat, whether you're living in a Republican community or not, for me, it feels so bipartisan in terms of the, like, felt reality.
00:26:10 Becca
Yes. And we also have a terrible workforce crisis in this country right now. And in Vermont, thousands of jobs are going unfilled.
00:26:18 Alyssa
Yeah. Can't afford housing, can't find childcare, can't live here.
00:26:21 Becca
Exactly. Exactly. And that is true in most congressional districts as well. They're also having a workforce crisis. We can't seem to have a substantive conversation about immigration, which would also help around the workforce crisis. We can't have a substantive conversation about, oh, if you have a workforce crisis and somehow you had the ability to subsidize childcare, women or men who are stay -at -home dads who want to be back in the workforce but financially can't make it work, you know, again, it's a structural choice. And so one of the things that is so maddening for me is that we pass a military budget every budget year here that doesn't even go through an audit. And it's billions of dollars more than is needed that money could be put towards domestic programs that would directly impact working families. And so I think there's a fair amount of sexism controlling this. It's certainly, I think, tied into the reproductive rights and abortion fight that we're having right now. It is about women not controlling their own destinies, both with their bodies, but also economically.
00:27:35 Alyssa
Well, and for me, mental health, I'm a better mom when I get to work. And having the choice to do that, access to child care, allows me to show up as a more regulated parent, which then allows me to support the mental health of my children, right?
00:27:50 Becca
Yes, absolutely.
00:27:50 Alyssa
And that is huge too, that forcing women to be stay -at -home parents because they can't find child care or because it costs so much that it doesn't make sense for them to work is going to have negative mental health outcomes as well.
00:28:09 Becca
Yes, I really struggled. I had a hard time finding child care for my kids and my spouse and I made a decision that I was going to be the one that stayed home. It was really, really hard on my mental health.
00:28:25 Alyssa
Yeah.
00:28:26 Becca
Excruciatingly hard.
00:28:28 Alyssa
It's so lonely.
00:28:30 Becca
Yes. And I know some moms and some dads, parents are absolutely suited to doing that job and doing it well. I have met these people. I know they exist, right?
00:28:40 Alyssa
Yeah. My sister -in -law, she loves it, but she gets to choose it.
00:28:44 Becca
That's right. That's right. And, and so we, you know, we tried so hard to find childcare for our kids. And in the end, you know, we just gave up and I was home with the kids. So now they're just two years apart and was home with them until they started school and then was elected to the legislature. And then so was a part -time gig, which, you know, I I can tell you it was also incredibly difficult for my family doing that kind of Jenga. But I think about that a lot in terms of the mental health toll that it takes on parents who don't get a break, who, you know, and we all know, some kids are a little bit easier than others in terms of, you know, I remember talking to one of my best friends from college, and she had three little girls. And I was like, I don't know how you do it. She's like, oh, well, they'll just each grab a book and sit in the corner.
00:29:39 Alyssa
You're like, how do I get one of that? Where are those? Where are those kids?
00:29:43 Becca
She said the thing. She saw my kids, you know, just running around, these little adorable maniacs. And she said, oh, it's so interesting. She had this big New Jersey accent. So interesting. My children all have adventures, but from the neck up. We're having...
00:30:01 Alyssa
Like, I have a neck down over here.
00:30:03 Becca
You know, I just remember them like hanging off my legs and like, you know, and it is something that is important for me as I talk about my job too as a public official is that we have to continue to be more public about mental health struggles and normalizing that experience and not having it be a taboo. And that was the other thing. I would go to this playground sometimes in my neighborhood and there was one stay -at -home dad in particular. We would see each other and he was like, are you dying today? I was like, I'm dying today. He's like, come over. I'll make you a really fancy cup of coffee. That's all I can offer you.
00:30:46 Alyssa
Love it.
00:30:47 Becca
You know, but again, we also financially, each of us in our coupledom were able to figure that, but that's not, that is not the norm at all.
00:30:58 Alyssa
Totally. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And I am curious, is there data or what were the I guess what were the data that came from the child tax credit in terms of like when we put money in parents' pockets, what did we see in terms of outcomes? What was money being spent on or what do we see any shifts in outcomes that are worth noting? I think it's one of those things where until you try it on for size, I understand the fear of like, what's that going to go towards? What am I funding? Where's the money going to end up? What did we see from a data perspective?
00:31:32 Becca
Yeah, we saw that families that had more money in their pockets, more disposable income, were able to take better care of their children. They were able to buy more food. They were able to use that money to, you know, get regular doctor's appointments. They were able to do preventative dental care, like all of those things that when people are living on the margins they can't afford, you know, it's not as if they're going to the store and, you know, wasting the money on nonsense there. It's going towards basic needs for their children. And it goes back to what I was saying before about this shaming that we do of people living in poverty, that they can't be trusted with money to spend it well and know what it is that, you know, their families need. And so, you know, I'd be happy also to follow up with you after. Rosa DeLauro, who is a huge champion of this issue, she is a representative from Connecticut and she's also just an amazing badass woman. She's in her 80s and she has blue hair and rings on all her fingers and she doesn't take any guff from anybody. She can give to my staff some more of the details about that and then you can talk about it on a future show because I do think it's it's really important for people to understand that it works and we know it works.
00:32:49 Alyssa
Yeah, I think that is huge. You know, I grew up in a household where it was like choosing, do we pay this bill or that bill? Coupons clipped, you know, like making ends meet. And my mom can make a hundred dollars go real far, right? Like she can stretch that real far. She's a human that if I like buy her a new shirt, she's like, oh, I didn't, you didn't need to spend this, right? Like it was always secondhand because it It didn't have to be new to be functional. So my perspective of like lower income is that, is like, if I'm gonna give anyone money, it's gonna be folks who need it the most because they can stretch it the farthest. And it is gonna go towards needs. It's not gonna be, oh, I Door Dashed food in tonight because I had a couple extra bucks. Like my mom would rather drive a million miles than Door Dash something in and spend the money on Door Dash. And so that as a reality. And I think when you're not living in that, when you're not living in poverty or in a low -income scenario, what you would spend an extra hundred bucks on might be different. And so that might be the perspective you're bringing to, and that's the lens you have. It's hard to imagine, oh, if I had an extra hundred bucks, my kids would have diapers.
00:34:01 Becca
Right. Exactly. And I can tell you from being in the legislature for years, we were always trying to figure out, how do we get more diapers in the diaper bank? Because they're so expensive. How do we make sure that we can squirrel away some money in the state budget for those people who are living at the margins, who need diapers, and they're stretching diapers? And what happens when you stretch diapers? Then your kid gets a terrible diaper rash. And then what happens? Then you have to go to the doctor. And like, it just snowballs. I mean, we know this as parents, right?
00:34:34 Alyssa
If you even feel safe enough to go to the doctor and not know that your kid's gonna be taken from you.
00:34:38 Becca
Right, exactly.
00:34:40 Alyssa
Yeah, it's so connected. I was, when we were living in Boston, we were living in a town called Roslindale. That's out of Boston.
00:34:46 Becca
Yeah, I know Roslindale.
00:34:47 Alyssa
Okay, yeah.
00:34:48 Becca
Near Fresh Pond.
00:34:49 Alyssa
Yeah, exactly. And I was at our like, we had a local grocery store, a small grocery store in town, and I was in the checkout line and in front of me was a woman with two kids, one on a hip and one sitting in the front of the cart. and they had put groceries up and then came to pay and she didn't have enough money. So she was figuring out what do I take off of here so that I can afford this? And when I looked at what was there, it was all stuff to care for kids, right? And so I stepped in and I was like, I'm gonna cover this, right? And just like covered her bill. And she just like cried and she just like hugged me. We didn't speak the same language. We had no, there was a language barrier, but I just was like, this is gonna feed a kid and put clothes on a kid and whatever. I don't want her to take anything off of this conveyor belt. But those are the humans that are benefiting from a child tax credit. And I think when we can really understand that and see that data of what does this money end up going toward, we can see how it lifts that bottom line. Just, it's not enough, but just enough to keep them going a little bit longer. And we know that if you're in a state where you don't have enough food, or shelter, or clothes, or diapers, the effects that that has on mental health, not just now, but down the road.
00:36:12 Becca
Exactly, and increasing levels of anxiety. And it shouldn't come down to the kindness of strangers, right? It shouldn't come down to that.
00:36:19 Alyssa
Yeah. It should be a public good.
00:36:21 Becca
Absolutely. And so you were there that day, and you were able to do that. And of course, that's the, you know, it was the absolute human thing to do. But the fact that I think we've, probably many of your listeners have been in the same situation. I know that I have, you know, at my local price shopper, the person in front of you doesn't have enough, you step in and you cover it. And I have had that same experience of people just being so overcome with emotion. And I've walked away feeling like, of course, happy to do it and also should not come down to the kindness of strangers that they're choosing between diapers and formula and yeah.
00:36:55 Alyssa
Yeah, yeah, it's bonkers. It's bonkers. So before we wrap up today, I want to chat a little bit about a bill they've introduced on mental health and it's kind of like what the grants established by this bill would be used to do.
00:37:10 Becca
So one of the things that I've learned from traveling around to high schools in Vermont, so I was a teacher for many years, I taught middle school, and I always tell my my team in Vermont, whenever I'm home, if we can get into a school so I can listen to students, that is just a really important time for me. And it was clear from my meetings with teachers, with counselors, and with students themselves that students have been really struggling, adolescents have been struggling. It was getting worse before the pandemic, and then the pandemic made it even more acute. And so what we heard from students is that they were feeling overwhelmed with trying to help their friends navigate mental health struggles. And we have a shortage of providers in the state, which is a whole other topic that we could talk about sometimes. But we thought it would be really helpful if teachers, school personnel, students, parents, caregivers could get trained on recognizing the signs of mental health struggles and making sure that they understand how to refer them to, you know, the right support so that they aren't feeling alone in this and wanted students and teachers, caregivers to get better at identifying the signs of, you know, acute immediate mental health distress. And I think we all worry that if we don't recognize the signs and we wait too long, then somebody might harm themselves or somebody else. And so it's just one part of the puzzle. We're also looking at mental health supports for people coming out of disasters. We're looking at how do we make sure that we have enough providers in rural areas. But I have made this one of my signature issues. And I know also it goes hand in hand with child care, we talked about with the housing, right? Giving people safe, secure housing is also a mental health strategy, right? Because they also cannot get the services that they need if they are not safely housed. And what I found is the more that I talk about these issues, the more people want to talk about them with me. And which was really different from what I heard when I was first talking about it as an elected official. I had some people who are also in elected office saying, you know, TMI, too much information, don't talk about these things, it's not gonna be good for your career. And I said, well, actually, I think you're wrong. And secondly, everybody is struggling with this in one way or another, with somebody in their family, their spouse, their child, they themselves. And the more we pretend it's not happening, or we put ourselves in some other category, it makes it a taboo. And so I've been really delighted to see that the more I talk about it, the more people want to talk about it and I feel like it's moving us in a healthier place.
00:40:15 Alyssa
I love that and it's so bonkers because truthfully, just last week, two humans in my life, one who's a little older than I am and one who's about a decade younger than I am, we were having this conversation about our lived experience growing up and what did it look like in our peer groups and in early college days and a little after, et cetera, in terms of what was allowed to be talked about mental health -wise, what did we have access to, stuff like that. And we were talking about how we have this really rad generation of humans who are talking about emotions and they're talking about things like anxiety that so many folks in my generation just kept silent with, and now we're a bunch of moms living with anxiety, trying to figure out how to raise kids. And it was like in it and surrounded by it. And some of us drowning in it. And we have this really rad group of kids, young adults who are really allowing emotions language to exist and talking about it. But they don't necessarily have adults they can turn to when exactly that happens when and their friend is having a hard time and now they're carrying as their peers this here's the burden of how do I keep this kid alive? And that's too much for anyone to carry. And so it's so wildly timely in terms of conversations for my life that this is so needed for our tiny humans, but for our adolescents today to have somebody that they can turn to and say, "hey, so -and -so is having a hard time. This is what I've noticed. Can you please help?" Not, what do I do next? Not, what's my job as a friend? Because your job as their friend is to tell a safe adult.
00:42:00 Becca
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And one other thing, I had this really beautiful conversation some years ago with a friend of mine. He is an older man. He's in his 70s, and he was really struggling with depression and was of a generation where, they don't about it, and I think because he knew that I was somebody who was very open about it, he felt like he could share. And he said, you know, what I want people to understand is it's no joke. Depression is no joke. And I did need medication and I did need therapy. And there's a lot of my community members and friends I would never tell this to. And so I always try to mention that story when I'm talking about mental health issues with Vermonters because you have people in your community and in your extended family, maybe people on your select board, older Vermonters who didn't grow up at a time when you could talk about this, but they need our support and they need us to model that it's okay to talk about it because, you know, as he said, I needed help and I'm so glad that I got it. But he said, I feel like there are so many people who say it's a sign of weakness. And he's like, it's not a sign of weakness. I did everything that I could and I needed help.
00:43:27 Alyssa
Yeah, shame around feelings, right? So many of us grew up with it in some capacity. And yeah, I'm super stoked about the generations to come and the ones that we're raising now and how the language is shifting, but I think what you're proposing here is so key of they need safe adults to turn to because it's not their job.
00:43:49 Becca
It's not their job. That's exactly right. It's not their jobs.
00:43:52 Alyssa
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for being such a rad advocate for us as parents and teachers and caregivers and also ultimately for our tiny humans.
00:44:03 Becca
You're so welcome. It's the joy of my life to be doing this work.
00:44:07 Alyssa
I appreciate it. How can folks get involved in the conversation? If you could reach folks right now with one ask, what is the most powerful thing they could do?
00:44:18 Becca
The most powerful thing that they could do is understand that if they're not taking good care of themselves and their mental health, then they cannot be a good advocate for any issue that they're working on. That it is critically important for people to be tending to their mental health. I think it's one of the reasons why I see a lot of dysfunction in Congress because honestly I see people who don't tend to treating themselves with humanity and dignity and then therefore they don't treat others with humanity and dignity. And I'm trying to work really hard with my staff to change that dynamic. And I see that you have Atlas of the Heart, you know, you guys everybody should be reading Brené, man, watching Brené. And so I also think something that I've been thinking about a lot is Brené Brown talks about the, you know, the two by two piece of paper that you keep in your pocket. And on that two by two piece of paper, so two inches by two inches, you write down the names of people whose opinion you respect. And so when you're in your own head, judging yourself, beating yourself up, you pull that out and you think, well, is that person on this list? No. Why am I letting them live rent -free in my head? You know?
00:45:44 Alyssa
They're not in the arena.
00:45:46 Becca
Right? They're not in the arena. That's right. That's right.
00:45:49 Alyssa
Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Well, my research was in how to build emotional intelligence in kids, and when I look at a lot of the adults, I'm like, I wish I had you as a kid, but I'm hoping we can break some of those cycles.
00:46:08 Becca
I always say, being a middle school teacher is the perfect preparation for Congress, so I feel like I have a lot of tremendous insight into what I see in the behaviors here.
00:46:19 Alyssa
Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. Well, thank you so much.
00:46:22 Becca
Thank you for the invitation. I really enjoyed this conversation and, you know, we should, we should talk again.
00:46:28 Alyssa
Love it. Likewise.
00:46:30 Becca
Alright. Thanks for all you do.
00:46:31 Alyssa
Yeah. Thank you.
[Music]
00:46:37 Alyssa
Zach's going away for the, he leaves like Saturday morning, gets back late Sunday night. This was my Christmas gift to him that at Christmas time I didn't have to cash in on. So I was like, fine. But now that Mila's not sleeping, I'm like, okay, me and the kids for the weekend. He's going up to Montreal with his dad to, okay, he got into Formula 1 recently, all because of like Armchair Expert and Dax Shepard and...
00:47:08 Rachel
What's Formula 1?
00:47:09 Alyssa
It's like race car driving.
00:47:13 Rachel
Okay.
00:47:15 Alyssa
And there's a Netflix series called Drive to Survive that he heard about on Armchair and so then he watched it and he tried to get me to watch it. And I was like, I just can't. I don't think I'm ready to take on Formula 1. And so he did last year and got like really into it. And so for Christmas, they have an expo in, like a race in Montreal. We're only like an hour and a half from Montreal. So for Christmas, I got him this for his birthday.
00:47:43 Rachel
That was nice.
00:47:43 Alyssa
You know what? Thank you.
00:47:44 Rachel
Cody leaves this week for work, and he's going to a conference in Florida, and his hotel is on Clearwater Beach. So not only am I going to be solo parenting, but also...
00:47:59 Alyssa
He has a beach vacation.
00:48:01 Rachel
I'm the beach person.
00:48:02 Alyssa
I know.
00:48:03 Rachel
We went back and forth about the kids and I going, but yeah, for many reasons we chose not to. It felt like so much... Logistically, yeah. Just for a couple of days. Like if I was just going by myself with him and I could just like sit on the beach with a book while he was in training, it's like 1 ,000%. But -
00:48:21 Alyssa
So how do we just make that happen?
00:48:23 Rachel
I don't know. Good question.
00:48:26 Alyssa
It sounds lovely. It's right up your alley. You get to sit on a beach. Nobody's talking to you. You get to read a book. That's your dream, Rach.
00:48:33 Rachel
I know. Instead, I read at night and stay up too late reading and then I'm tired the next day.
00:48:41 Alyssa
Well, I'm in my fiction era and I just finished my fifth fiction book of the year.
00:48:46 Rachel
Wow. I'm super impressed.
00:48:48 Alyssa
Thank you. I've only read one other fiction book in the last like decade, so I really committed to this goal and I'm proud of myself.
00:48:57 Rachel
You should be. I won't tell you how many books I've read this year.
00:49:00 Alyssa
Yeah, but you're whatever, get out of here. You read 7 billion books a day and you're always carrying your Kindle. I feel like you're so good at it. And that's like your thing. That's your thing.
00:49:11 Rachel
Yeah, I mean, I love reading.
00:49:13 Alyssa
And you're the fastest reader on the planet.
00:49:16 Rachel
Yeah, I'm a fast reader.
00:49:17 Alyssa
Statistically, I think Guinness Book fastest reader.
00:49:23 Rachel
I don't know about that. But I yeah, I love reading.
00:49:26 Alyssa
In fact, like spoiler alert, back end information, when people want to be on the podcast, and they have a book that they're going to be publishing, and we want to see if it's an alignment, something that we think is, yeah, of value for our listeners. They want to send us a copy, an advanced copy to read. And they all get sent to Rach's house, and she vets them because she reads so much faster than I do. So thanks. Thanks for taking on that role.
00:49:55 Rachel
I mean, getting paid to read and write. It's kind of nice. Okay, so we have a packed episode.
00:50:03 Alyssa
Okay, let's go. Who we got?
00:50:04 Rachel
And I have, like, 20 minutes before I have to leave for pickup. Hashtag parenting. OK, this is Becca.
00:50:10 Alyssa
Oh, Becca Balint.
00:50:11 Rachel
OK, yes. And I had so many feelings about this episode.
00:50:15 Alyssa
I love her. She's one of our congresswomen.
00:50:18 Rachel
Yeah, and she's just like a rad human.
00:50:20 Alyssa
She's so rad.
00:50:22 Rachel
Like 15 or 20 minutes, and we're going to go get Sissy.
00:50:26 Abel
I want to watch it.
00:50:26 Rachel
I know, it's hard to wait. I'm going to be done as soon as I can, OK? Yeah, this was a packed episode, and I think something that really stuck out to me, what she talked about in the beginning, and then it was kind of like a continuing thread throughout the episode was that they can't even get these really important issues on the floor, because it's like this culture war back and forth. And that like the person who's controlling the house, is that correct? Like they decide what issues even make it to the floor, which like doesn't feel right to me.
00:51:01 Alyssa
No, it doesn't feel equitable.
00:51:03 Rachel
It doesn't feel like the way our government was designed to run.
00:51:08 Alyssa
Correct. I was, like, furious after this episode.
00:51:11 Alyssa
[giggling]
00:51:16 Rachel
For those who are listening and not watching the video right now, my five year old is homesick and he is just cracking open the door behind me and observing. Yeah, I also felt furious. There were so many things that came up for me. The lack of being able to get issues on the floor is a huge one.
00:51:37 Alyssa
Huge. It's like, how are we supposed to get anything done?
00:51:40 Rachel
Correct. And like, why does one human get to decide what issues come to the floor? And like, without even acknowledging like where I land politically, that just feels wrong. Like wherever you land, issues should be brought to the floor that need to be brought to the floor.
00:51:57 Alyssa
Also, sometimes I just pause and think about the work that we set out to do here at Seed, right, to raise emotionally intelligent humans. And the skill sets that we expect kids to have, that we expect them to notice their feelings, to calm and regulate them, to communicate kindly and respectfully to each other, to navigate problem solving and conflict resolution, to be able to navigate cognitive flexibility of like this was my plan and now I have to make a different plan, right? Like all of those skills.
00:52:35 Rachel
You can't be in here, buddy. I have to finish this. Yeah, all of these skills that we expect kids to have and often punish them if they don't have. And then we have people running our Congress who do not have those skills.
00:52:53 Alyssa
It's infuriating where I'm like, all right, like we can't have conversations respectfully, you can't regulate your emotions and communicate with each other and like truly listen to somebody else from like an empathy and compassion standpoint to, oh, I just had so many feelings about that and how often, and I don't think it's one side over the other. I think this is a problem across the board that we can't just like pause and really listen to the feelings that are behind somebody's sentiment to know that at the root of all behavior is a need, right? And like, what is that need? And I think so often we try to fight feelings with facts rather than like being able to just pause and engage in these skills that we're trying to teach kids.
00:53:43 Rachel
Yeah. I also, another like big thing that came up for me was this idea that like if we are using government funds for child care then we're just like giving people handouts and this stigma that comes with that. And this belief that parents can't be trusted with how to spend money for their children, which is really what that comes down to, right?
00:54:08 Alyssa
Correct.
00:54:09 Rachel
And we're primarily talking about moms and not trusting moms to make decisions about where that money goes.
00:54:20 Alyssa
Right.
00:54:21 Rachel
And so I love that she had some data to pull from and say like, yeah, we gave parents money and we paid attention to where they were spending it and they were spending it on dental exams or cleanings or nourishing foods or well visits at the doctor. I mean, come on.
00:54:43 Alyssa
Just basic needs.
00:54:44 Rachel
Just trying to live, just trying to keep their kids healthy.
00:54:49 Alyssa
Yeah. Yeah. And I, what's interesting here for me, obviously I have such a bias in this space. I want to acknowledge that. But when I look at this, I'm like, all right, if we want to talk about like, what is the true cost of care? And we have those numbers. We know what the true cost of care is. It's around, and I, I actually now want to like fact check this, but I think it's around like $30,000 a kid. If we look at the true cost of care from the facility that is used, the materials and equipment for that child, the adequate ratios, qualified teaching staff that's trained and educated and has access to healthcare and benefits as well. When we look at that, it's about $30 ,000 a kid a year. And so I think what people don't understand necessarily or what we have really not had enough conversation about is that what we have provided so far for childcare historically speaking, has been at this steep discount. And it is, the quality is affected. That we can't then have the ratios that kids deserve for high quality care. We can't have trained professionals who have backgrounds and training in this field, who have access to healthcare and benefits as a respected profession, right? But what ends up happening is we suffer the quality. And what we know is that you form 90 % of the brain by the time you're five. We're sending kids to kindergarten who have not had access to as high quality of care as we could be providing as a nation. And then we ended up spending money in K -12, kindergarten to 12th grade on special support services and behavior management strategies and so many things that if we actually funded and supported early childhood, that birth to five range when we're forming 90 % of the brain, we could send kids to kindergarten in a different place with different skill sets so that they could thrive and then spend less money there. In fact, we know we, in the end, you save money. It's truly an investment and there's a return on your investment, not just in the school school supports, but then like looking at incarceration rates, things like that down the road. It is an investment when we look at the finances, but what we know right now is that by having the system we have in place now where we don't spend, we aren't pouring into this, we aren't saying like, yeah, we're going to cap childcare at 10 % of your income or whatever, we're going to give these subsidies nationally, what ends up happening is it's pay what you can. And so the folks who, I had the privilege of teaching at a school where there were some folks paying $30 ,000 for their kid to go to preschool, or to be in the infant -toddler program. And it's people who can afford to pay $30 ,000 per kid that are getting access to-- every head teacher had a master's in early childhood, we had access to support services like occupational therapists, speech and language pathologists, we had incredible ratios, all of the staff had health care and benefits. We were treated like teachers and it was a really high quality school. And it was only accessible for folks who could pay $30 ,000 a year, right? Like then if you can't afford to pay $30 ,000 a year, which like, nope, can't over here, I already feel like I'm paying so much for childcare and I know it's not the true cost of care. So then what that means is the quality of care that we get is gonna be lower. We're gonna have teachers who don't have the qualifications level or the training or the ratio, so then they burn out and they leave the field. It becomes that you get what you pay for.
00:58:51 Rachel
Right, and it also, like our current system, as you're sort of laying this out, these are the types of systems that like generational wealth impacts and the wealthy are able to stay wealthy because they have this amazing investment at the beginning of their life, which then like the trajectory of that is success throughout the school system and beyond. And then we also have the situation where people who can't afford to pay for high quality care are having poorer outcomes. And the trajectory of that is also a long term. And so we're maintaining the system where wealthy people continue to be wealthy and poor people continue to not have access to the things that could help them not have to live in poverty, right?
00:59:41 Alyssa
Right. And I think what's interesting is that I've had conversations in real life with people about this, and a lot of the pushback I've gotten is from people who would benefit from this. People who are in lower income brackets, but they don't want their dollars to go into somebody else's pocket, right? To feel like, oh, my tax dollars are going to go pay for this other kid to go to school. And I think what we don't see so often is that your tax dollars are paying for these other humans. They're just paying for them in different ways right now. And they're paying more for them right now. You are paying through your education for K -12. You are paying for in incarceration. We are in healthcare and mental health supports down the road, and you could pay less if we did it up front.
01:00:35 Rachel
The incarceration, the money, the tax money that goes, I mean, it is not cheap to incarcerate people. In fact, it's really expensive.
01:00:43 Alyssa
It's way more than the cost, the true cost of care for one child for early childhood.
01:00:48 Rachel
Correct. There's all this social programming that, like, our culture blames people who are poor for being poor.
01:00:57 Alyssa
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
01:00:58 Rachel
When they're trapped in a system that doesn't allow them to make a livable wage, or like send their kids to high quality childcare. Aghh!
01:01:09 Alyssa
I also think it's one of those things where if you haven't been exposed to high quality care, you might not know what it looks like, right? So I...
01:01:16 Rachel
Or you might not know why it matters for your two -year -old.
01:01:20 Alyssa
100%.
01:01:20 Rachel
To be in a place where they're receiving high -quality care.
01:01:24 Alyssa
Correct. Yeah.
01:01:26 Rachel
Because I think for a lot of people, it's like, well, they're babies and toddlers.
01:01:30 Alyssa
Right. They don't need to spend $30 ,000 on them.
01:01:32 Rachel
Right. We know that so much brain development, 80 % of the brain is developed by age three, 90 by age five. So for us, we're like, yeah, it's a no brainer. We've got to put money into this. And I think for a lot of people, it's like, I just need somebody to keep my kid alive, right? Like I just-- feed them, nap them, and it's so much bigger than that.
01:01:54 Alyssa
So much bigger than that. It's so much bigger than that. Yeah, I think you're right. I think we don't see the value in it. And I'm just here to say that even if you don't see the value in it, even if you just want to look at it as a numbers game, the numbers are in our favor for investing in early ed.
01:02:09 Rachel
It still makes sense.
01:02:11 Alyssa
It still makes sense financially. Yeah. You're paying for them either way, pay less now or more later.
01:02:18 Rachel
Yeah.
01:02:19 Alyssa
I love Becca. I'm so grateful that I get to know-- somebody told me a long time ago, let someone else take care of the chickens. We were driving south, we were driving to North Carolina and I drove by one of those big chicken trucks where the chickens are in their little cages in the trucks.
01:02:40 Rachel
They're stacked.
01:02:41 Alyssa
And I was like, oh, right. And like, I love meat and I love to eat it. And I was like, oh, now I have to like, look at this and face some feelings and whatever. I'd still eat meat. But I had reached out to my friend, I was like, oh my God, like, I need to advocate for these chickens. And I went on this whole rampage about it. And she was like, totally, totally, totally. Actually, what we need you to do is continue doing the work you're doing because it's really important. And we got to let somebody else take on the chickens and know that like for somebody else, their like emotional intelligence fight is the chickens, like that's their thing. And I feel so grateful that I know like Becca Balint is in the state house fighting the chicken fight, right? Like she's taking care of the things that like, so that we can stay in our lane here and fight what we can fight here. And I think awareness of the systems at hand is so huge. That's what I got from this episode was like, regardless of where you fall politically, understanding what's happening within the systems right now and how it is leading to a landscape where we can't even have rational conversations with each other where we might all agree on something. We can't even get there, you know, we can't even have these conversations. And that was my takeaway with this, where I was like, gosh, how did we get here? And how do we move forward where we get-- encourage our, or like, I don't know, invite our representatives to move through the world with a little emotional intelligence, where they are gonna have to like be accountable for their own regulation. And where we're saying like, yeah, have you listened to somebody who has a different viewpoint from you to hear what their reservations are, what their fears are, so that we can all come together and ultimately serve the nation?
01:04:50 Rachel
Yeah, I think that's really sort of like the core of it is if they can't even get to the point where they're having a conversation, I think about, like, some of the more polarizing, like, parenting topics that I've had conversations with people about. And often at the beginning of the conversation, I'm like, okay, we do not see eye -to -eye and, like, we're definitely not going to. And then we start to move through the conversation and I'm listening to this other person's viewpoint and it doesn't always end that we're like, oh, we agree on everything, but it's more like, okay, I see where you're coming from. And like actually on part of this issue, I think we are seeing eye to eye and like some of the details we would, our ideal situation would be different, but I think you have to be able to get into that conversation and be in a place with your nervous system and regulation where you can actually listen to what the other person is saying and what their fears and concerns are, rather than like, you know how sometimes when you're in a conversation you're just like waiting for your turn to like convince the person that you're right?
01:05:51 Alyssa
Almost every time I'm in an argument with Zach, where he then just walks away and I'm like, that was the right move because I'm just over here forming my next complaint. My rebuttal.
01:06:03 Rachel
Right. If I talk to you enough about this, I'm going to prove to you that I'm right, right? And that's a dysregulated way of having a conversation. And part of me feels compassion for the people running our government because I know for myself, like, it's hard to show up with regulation. But then part of me is like, you need to get it together. Because like, you're in charge here. Like--
01:06:25 Alyssa
Also, this is your job.
01:06:27 Rachel
I was gonna say, could you do your job?
01:06:30 Alyssa
Yeah. And part of your job is being a regulated human. Like in order to have access to your prefrontal cortex to navigate problem solving and conflict resolution, you need to access regulation. Can we do like workshops for Congress?
01:06:44 Rachel
I mean, I think that you're right. I'm grateful for people like Becca doing this work so that we don't have to, so that we can focus on what we are doing. Yeah. Just grateful for her and, like, the BS that she has to deal with and her commitment to it.
01:07:02 Alyssa
Yeah.
01:07:03 Rachel
Because as she was sharing, I was just like, damn, I feel like for myself I would feel so discouraged and like, what's the point kind of a deal? And like she's staying with it.
01:07:16 Alyssa
Yeah, need folks to do that.
01:07:19 Rachel
Yeah.
01:07:19 Alyssa
Yeah, not a job I wanna sign up for.
01:07:22 Rachel
Definitely not.
01:07:24 Alyssa
So thanks, Becca. This is all to say thanks, Becca.
01:07:28 Rachel
We're grateful.
01:07:30 Alyssa
We're grateful. And hopefully we can raise a generation of emotionally intelligent humans who have these skills to navigate in their workplace and in their relationships. So we're not begging for adults to have them.
01:07:45 Rachel
Yeah. Our future, congressmen and women. The future is emotionally intelligent.
01:07:59 Alyssa
That's right. That's right. That's right.
01:08:05 Rachel
Get that into Congress if we could.
01:08:14 Alyssa
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