TRANSCRIPT
*Transcripts are auto-generated and reviewed for accuracy, but there may be some errors in punctuation or words. Listen to the podcast at https://rabbidaniellapin.libsyn.com/ for clarification
The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Sorry, Honey—But You're Not My Best Friend
Date: 08/22/25 Length: 00:42:30
Daniel Lapin 0:02
Welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, excepting in this case, it's the Rabbi Daniel Lapin and Susan Lapin show, where we reveal how the world really
Daniel Lapin 0:21
works well.
Susan Lapin 0:23
Last time I was on the show, we discussed male friendships, so I thought it was only fair to come back to discuss female friendships.
Daniel Lapin 0:30
And since men and women are counterpoints, opposites of one another, and since a widespread problem is that men, for the most part today, do not have the friends that they need. Men are low on friends. I'm going to assume that women overdo it on friends.
Susan Lapin 0:56
Oh, that's an interesting thought. I haven't thought of it like that. I
Daniel Lapin 1:00
was gonna interested to see what you what you'd make of that? Well, I don't know, to the detriment of family and
Susan Lapin 1:09
faith. Okay, so that's an interesting I'm not sure I would put it like that, but I do think there is an encouragement of quote, unquote sisterhood that now there always were, you know, I growing up at our synagogue. And in many synagogues, the synagogue my parents belonged to many synagogues, there was something called the Ladies Auxiliary, very old, very old fashioned term. And it was called The Sisterhood ran the Ladies Auxiliary. And it was, it was something people of my you know, we younger people, that was like for old people, was for old
Daniel Lapin 1:47
ladies. And what did they do? Susan, oh, they did lots
Susan Lapin 1:50
of things, but they raised money for the synagogue. And they did, they run the gift shop. We didn't have a gift shop, but if there was, they did run it. Yes, places that did have gift jobs. They
Daniel Lapin 2:00
ran it. Did they cater like if it was gonna be my tea and day initial coffee? And
Susan Lapin 2:05
they might have, I don't even know, because my mother, quite frankly, was not one of those people, yeah, but it was something I knew. We didn't but I didn't want. I knew this was not something I was planning. Oh, and I get up
Daniel Lapin 2:19
in California, we didn't even dream of having such a thing.
Susan Lapin 2:22
But we did have women's classes. We did have a lot of opportunities for women's to get together and to bond. Yeah, usually around learning. We had what, you know, we had mommy and me, where, when, when all of us had little kids, we would get together once a week, because, since, for a variety of reasons. We were not able to get out to synagogue on the Shabbat on Saturday, and so we would get together during the week and do some learning together, and then we'd have babies. Yes, we'd have babies crawling us all over. And so important was that in forming friendships that I now once a month, actually participate in a zoom the women who I was part of that group with when we had babies, now grandmothers, we now get together once a month just to keep up the friendship. So we do still get together. We're all over the world now, so we get together on Zoom. But those were very formative. All of
Daniel Lapin 3:14
this conversation flows from the basic theme of last week, which was, your wife. Is your wife, not your best friend. But
Susan Lapin 3:22
I was gonna say the word sisterhood has become a, what I would call a toxic word. Oh, the idea of sisterhood is it used to be a chance for women to get together. Now the sisterhood is an anti male. When you hear people saying, I'm part of the sisterhood, it's sort of an anti male thing. I think Australian, yes, I think the phraseology has changed. You know, years ago, years ago, there was, I remember an article. It was, it was a period when there was, there was a lot of excitement, because there were six or seven female senators, and this was a new big deal. So a big deal, and one of them was a Republican. I think the rest were all Democrats. And there was an article about, let's say it was six. I don't remember. It could have been eight. It could have been five, but there was an article about these women, and the Republican senator made a comment that, yes, she feels an obligation and a responsibility to support her sister's senators bills. And I thought, well, then you don't deserve to be elected because you were not elected on a platform of, I will vote for anything that women support the women in the Senate support. You were elected on a platform of, I follow certain principles, and they're identifiable conservative principles. So I remember thinking, Well, I don't, I don't think she was from our she was not from a state that I could vote for her, but this was like, certainly someone I was never going to support, yeah, really? Because that's ridiculous, and it's, it's a huge problem when that becomes the identity. Thing like anything else, color, religion, I'm going to vote for a person because they look or belong to a certain group instead of because of their ideas. Was a bad time for America when people started voting in that way. Yeah, I don't have to know what you think. I just have to know what you look like or where you worship or where you don't worship.
Daniel Lapin 5:20
It was like one of the it was either Kamala Harris or Hillary Clinton, both you, you have to vote for them if you're a woman, both, both of
Susan Lapin 5:30
them had said things like that, horribly, which is very insulting the same way, quite frankly, when Joe Lieberman was running for vice president, horrible. We were terribly insulted at the idea of, well, obviously you're going to vote for him because he's Jewish. No, we'll invite him for a Shabbat meal because he's Jewish, but we're not going to vote we
Daniel Lapin 5:50
invite people to not Jewish. We certainly did not and would not have voted for Joe, but
Susan Lapin 5:55
we weren't going to vote for him because we didn't agree with the ideas he had for America. And that's the same thing. I think there is, in this way, the sisterhood today is a far cry from the sisterhood of temples and churches, because they are, they are anti having other relationships then with other women. So, so that's a very interesting point you make. I'm basically
Daniel Lapin 6:19
asking are we finding women prioritizing their friends over their families?
Susan Lapin 6:27
Well, I will respond with something called girlfriend getaways that get advertised. Now, obviously places are advertising because places want you to come and spend money. They want you to come stay at their hotel, or they want to, you know, eat at their restaurant. But clearly they're tapping into something. And in general, when I have seen those girlfriend getaways advertised, it's almost come and complain about your man. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's got a negative again, it has a negative tinge to it. And so yes, I would say that there is a negativity. And if i You don't want to get controversial in this show, right? Paul, right. So the pause, maybe you should cover your ears. And
Daniel Lapin 7:16
My ways are the ways of I think you made me shy away from controversy like a startled
Susan Lapin 7:22
horse. I think you made me tear up your ears, because I'm going to be, I think, controversial here. The whole idea of lesbianism, the growth of lesbianism, I think, is, in many ways, a I don't believe that, and I do think there's a difference, first of all, between homosexuality and lesbianism, and that's not discussion for now. So I'm specifically talking about lesbianism that in, I think a lot of lesbianism as a result of women feeling negative about men, but needing someone to love and to be super close to and to have that affection with and so I think that is a great deal of lesbianism is an anti not that the and even people may not say, I hate men. They may be fine, they may have friends. They may have, you know, fathers and brothers, and be fine. But the inability to have a relationship with a man, where it's a natural thing to have a relationship with a girlfriend, a strong, emotional, warm, loving relationship with another woman. Easy. Can I hear again that part? You could hear yes, I'm saying it's very easy for women to have a strong, warm, loving relationship with another woman, that that's very it's very easy. I have, I have, I have women I feel very, very close to.
Daniel Lapin 8:40
Would you say easier than it is for men to feel close to another? Say
Susan Lapin 8:43
yes, yes. And an emotional, psychological self, and little girls, very naturally, will walk around with their arms around each other, yes, that's right, or hand in hand. Stage will but a certain stage, it becomes very in well, don't feel it
Daniel Lapin 9:02
on some level. They feel it's gay. They don't want to do
Susan Lapin 9:06
it there. It's just not natural anymore. And others that you know, you they'll push each other, they'll shove each other. That's a physical relationship where girls will still happily link an arm through each other. If I'm walking with a friend, we might link arms. You know, it's just, it's a very natural thing.
Daniel Lapin 9:25
Well, one of the reasons that I'm really very happy to see the pressure that the government now 2025 is bringing American universities under, because I am so philosophically hostile to what universities have done to American culture over the last 40 years, 50 years.
Susan Lapin 9:51
And you know that was, I think it's 6040 now in university, 60% female.
Daniel Lapin 9:55
Yeah, 40% so again, again. That's problematic because. Yeah, anecdotally, we could probably list, if we put our heads together, we could probably, in the next 60 seconds, we could list easily, 20 women who've taken up places in prestigious universities for professional careers.
Susan Lapin 10:19
I'm going to say medical school, law school, dental school, more than university, not just a BA,
Daniel Lapin 10:24
yeah, that's right. And practiced for a year or two or none, and gave it up and vanished. So, so we're not, we're we do not see the expansion of women's presence in universities as a big positive at all, but something else that the university has done is it's it a party school is a name that universities have acquired and never without the active collaboration of the administrations of many, many colleges are delighted to be called party places. Just
Susan Lapin 11:08
not sure what this is having to do with female friendships. Are you there? Where you're heading? I'm not sure where you're heading. I
Daniel Lapin 11:13
am heading there. Okay, I'm on a sure. It's like a train on rails. That's how directly I'm heading right now, let's see where was I go? No, it's, it's like this, that one of the things that universities have done for American men is postpone adolescence,
Susan Lapin 11:32
prolonged, prolonged, prolonged, I'm sorry, not postponed a prolonged, correction, prolonged.
Susan Lapin 11:38
The train went a little off the path there, but not for Joe.
Daniel Lapin 11:42
Thank you. And so what it led to is really horrible treatment of men towards women on campus. And that's something that led to a phenomenon that it was so prevalent that it had a name. They used to call them lugs. Do you remember that lesbians, until graduation, women were so badly treated by men? What I mean by that men the hookup culture, men used women convinced themselves that this was an equal deal, good for both sides, and then never called in the morning or never called a day or a week later. And the thing that that universities distorted so dramatically and so destructively was the basic idea that when a man and a woman sleep together, regardless of their status, that is, in essence, a lifetime bond. Now, men don't intuitively
Susan Lapin 12:52
feel that. I'm not sure you said that the way you thought you were saying it, or what I didn't hear what I think you meant to say. Go ahead. You weren't saying that the university distorted. And you were saying that they didn't, that they gave the message that this wasn't it they, I know, and I have to say, Well, you were saying the men treated the women badly. It was with the full Act. There was a before, heading back to, I don't know, maybe the 60s, or 50s or 60s. There was, you know, there were, there was, uh, there were certain, first of all, there were, there were even dorms with a dorm like a man wasn't allowed above the first floor now, now you have co Ed dorms. I mean, it's a
Daniel Lapin 13:30
world apartment universities.
Susan Lapin 13:33
Yes, it aggravated it, but it was with the full compliance, compliance of the women. It wasn't, it wasn't done by the men.
Daniel Lapin 13:41
Tom Wolf wrote what I thought was a really important novel
Susan Lapin 13:46
called education of Charlotte Simmons,
Daniel Lapin 13:49
yes, and where he spoke about a girl from a normal background, who came from a small town. She excelled in school, she got to university, and her life was destroyed by men without con
Susan Lapin 14:04
I think she's the exception the girls who came from the big cities and were the ones they equally betrayed her as did the men
Daniel Lapin 14:11
may well be. Yeah. So all I was saying was that the reality which I think women feel more intuitively than men, is that physical intimacy brings about a bonding which is almost impossible to completely eradicate, and and so women feel particularly hurt and aggrieved and even angry when a man treats it
Susan Lapin 14:40
like Okay, so I'm gonna suggest that you're right, but I think that. But I think the women's movement convinced women they shouldn't think like that. So when you say women intuitively feel it, I don't. I think they've worked very hard not to feel it, and so they acquiesce with. Full consent, and then they're shocked. We'll dig a
Daniel Lapin 15:03
little deeper on this in the bonus podcast for We Happy Warrior members. We
Susan Lapin 15:07
just mentioned that we should once we're at it, that this podcast, along with much of the work that we do, which is hopefully at least, is a way to have conversations, to get a little intellectual ammunition, to tie the United States and other parts of the world, world back to the Bible in a healthy way. It's all funded by the American Alliance of Jews and Christians, which is an organization where we say, You know what, we do not share theology with our Christian friends, but we do share a vision for the way communities and families United States of America should be
Daniel Lapin 15:44
Bible based Judeo Christian values and by now, it should be evident to even the most vociferous critic that Bible based Judeo Christian values are vital for A society's endurance.
Susan Lapin 16:01
And so we would like to invite you to support our work. If you find it valuable, we invite you to support it by going to the American Alliance of Jews and Christians and making
Daniel Lapin 16:13
it is aajc.org, not.com.org aajc.org,
Susan Lapin 16:19
okay, so we're going to go into more in the bonus. We're going to go more, a
Daniel Lapin 16:23
little bit more in, into that idea. But what we're trying to get a handle on here is that when you look at the five, and I'm not going to call them silos, because the meaning of the word silo is a standalone, standalone columns, whereas these five Fs are powerfully cross linked to one another. But what I will say is that if you look at them, imagining a bar graph for many men, the F of finance in terms of effort and time and energy expended is high, the effort friendship is low. And then you know, family, fitness and faith are where they are. But last week, we looked at the idea that men are low on the friendship level, and we are now looking at the possibility. I raised it as a possibility, and Susan has not yet shot it down. That for women, the F of friendship for many women might be very high. I
Susan Lapin 17:38
think it's become more important, because there has been a feeling generated that you can't trust men, you can't count on them, and so your female friends are the ones who are the core of your life, including, you know, marrying another woman and making that your family. So I think you are, I think I do agree with you, but there, but I where I would say is that healthy female friendships, and that's, I think that it's what is a healthy female friendship? Because I think that is absolutely vital. We spoke last week that we were laughing at the idea of women complaining about man, keeping this new term where a woman says, I'm so tired because I have to be responsible for my husband's social life. You can listen to last week if you're if you're interested in it, all in, all at all in that. And I think I wrote amusing about it. But yes, female friendships, there's, there are healthy and there are unhealthy. And so I do think you are onto something, that there's a lot of unhealthy female friendships that are being encouraged because they are replacing, in some ways, family and faith and but that a that female friendships are extremely important because your husband, just like a wife, we spoke last week that a wife can't be a husband's best friend, and we do. We really like each other. I mean, we have a lot of fun together. We like going on vacation together. So it's not, though, I'm not. This is not a negative, not at all. But then a husband really can't be a wife's best friend either. She you need someone else. You know that, yeah, you need another person, and you need another female who can be part of your life, and it's not on the same level as a spouse. A spouse is on a completely different level. Next Thursday,
Daniel Lapin 19:28
we're going to get in the car and drive for a couple of hours to see a friend of yours that has been a friend of yours since sixth grade,
Susan Lapin 19:38
second, second grade. Yeah, maybe first but I don't remember her in first grade, but from second on, we were together through high school, through college. Anyway, we were then neighbors. Our kids were born relatively within a few months of each other, over and over and over again. So we've stayed we've been friends for longer than I probably want to contemplate, and I've been friends with her husband, her husband. What she came out for our wedding, and her husband was a student of yours, a Bible student of yours at that point, and she's when she came out for a wedding, she pretty much stayed married. So you became, he is one of your closer friends, yes, student, but he became a very close friend as well. But, yeah, that's a very valuable and important friendship. And there are things that I can share with her, that it would be probably irritating to share with you.
Daniel Lapin 20:27
You would feel
Susan Lapin 20:28
both, because you would probably
Daniel Lapin 20:30
do anything about it,
Susan Lapin 20:32
like, can we stop talking, but you've said it once, like, Do we really have to discuss it for an hour? Really? 30 seconds was plenty.
Daniel Lapin 20:40
So when you talk to her, for instance, might it happen that you would repeat something three or four times during the course of a well,
Susan Lapin 20:47
probably, we'll probably know, I don't think it's necessarily repeating, but we'll probably speak about something from 14 different angles. So we can talk about it for 25 minutes or a half hour or 45 minutes, yeah, and we're both very happy to do that, but it is a healthy friendship. Yes, we don't sit and complain about our husbands. I mean, if it was a serious goal, if it was a serious issue, then we might share it in the hope of getting a solution. But we don't sit and put you down. We don't sit in gossip exactly where it's a healthy relationship, and that's looking for those. I just wrote a sub stack. I started writing on sub stack a few months ago, and within the last week or two, I wrote a sub stack about somebody who came to our synagogue, and I don't remember her name, and I'm very grateful I don't remember her name because I'm not writing nicely about her, but I hope you don't remember who they are either. But it was this couple who came to our community, and I write that they were relatively new, and she called one day and asked to speak to you, and I said to you, something's really wrong. Said, You better please answer this quickly. Something's wrong and nothing was wrong. And we eventually both realized this woman talked, she whined, she just talked, and everything was a complaint, and she talked in a complaining in her tone of voice. If she was saying I had eggs for breakfast, it would come out as a complaint. And they didn't stay long in this in our synagogue, in our community, and I her husband was maybe needed to relocate for work, or maybe they really felt they didn't belong, and they didn't, because in the community was a bunch of people. When the women got together, it was always a positive growth experience. And she was like, oh, bringing everyone. You know, she was just a whiner, and it's so you have to be really careful, and it's very easy, I think, for women to get into the and it's promoted by society to get into we'll get together and complain.
Daniel Lapin 22:52
Let me ask you where women and their therapists fit into this conversation. Do women bond with their they do bond with their therapists. Do they bond with their therapists? And I'm very anti therapist, 90% of the time. Do they bond with their therapist as a friend? Or is this a sort of separate category? I
Susan Lapin 23:15
can't I don't really know. You don't know. I don't really know. And I would probably say I'm, I'm against the therapist, maybe 80% of the time. But I think that the idea of wanting to sit and talk to somebody, I mean, a professional therapist, a proper professional therapist, will be very careful not to make it look like a friendship. I believe, from women I friends I have who are therapists, that's a very important thing, that you are not their friend. But I think women, the idea of having somebody who'll listen to you for an hour is very appealing, and that could be maybe you don't have friends who can do that properly.
Daniel Lapin 23:50
A lot of women don't have friends from sixth grade or second grade, and sometimes it's because of geographic mobility, sometimes it's for other reasons. But what I've noticed that we, we relocated from the
Susan Lapin 24:06
West Coast. I'm questioning that as you're saying it, because I think, if I think through my friends, I think most of them do have friends from going years back, years back, that women retain friendships,
Daniel Lapin 24:18
but you have actually made new friends much more easily than I have. And so in the last decade or so, you've made friends that you have only known for a few years. Me less successfully. Let's not probe my failures, but let's look at your successes.
Susan Lapin 24:43
Well, I do think you know one of the ways we moved to a new city 10 years ago now in the middle of that fortunately, and I do thank God that we moved 10 years ago would have been we moved five years before covid, correct? Because I feel very. Sorry for people who moved in 2027 that's really hard. You missed that opportunity to meet new people for years, and then people were more suspicious, and people lost a lot of the ability of friendships. But when I moved and I started going to women's Bible studies, invariably I would sit next to somebody, and you don't just sit there quietly. And we didn't just sit there, each on our own phone. We would say hi, and if, if it's somebody who'd been around for a long time, they knew I was new, and they'd say, Oh, I don't recognize you. Are you new? And invariably, I would say, five out of 10 times, at least 50% of the time, I walked out of that class, or maybe I if I sat next to her two more weeks in a row, I walked out with an invitation for both of us for a Shabbat meal. And now that's the idea. Is you sit next to somebody, you start chatting. Yes, and it's not hard to start chatting. If you're women, I think it is. Men might introduce themselves, hello, um. And then what do you say after that? Well,
Daniel Lapin 25:58
as you You, know, you always used to all you stop now, but you used to ask me, I go to morning services. You know, it's, it might start at 630 might start at seven. Might start at 730 depending on which one I choose. And it runs for about half an hour, roughly. And then we, we leave to go to work. That's what, that's what people do. So you're always puzzled as to why I never made any friends. The
Susan Lapin 26:23
women would leave to go to many of the women were carving out the classes that took place in the morning. They were caught. For many women, they were they carved this out as an important thing, and they were running to get to work or to to be with children or whatever. In all fairness, I think you caused part of your own trouble because you didn't pick one time and one place to go to regularly. Your drift, and when you drift, then you're not going to make relationships. So
Daniel Lapin 26:52
dwell on my failures. Let's rather.
Susan Lapin 26:55
I think the idea is correct, but I think a man, if you wanted to, would have to work harder than a woman, it's much more natural. Yes, I think that's the that is true, that that I will give you that much easier. I saw a
Daniel Lapin 27:08
book that claimed, and just because something appears in a book doesn't make it factual. But I saw a book that claimed that you needed to convert an acquaintance into a friend. You needed to get together a minimum of 11 times for an average of three hours a time. Wow. To me, that sounds excessive,
Susan Lapin 27:26
awfully long. I mean, who has three hours to spend with somebody who you know you've just met? Yeah, I so I It doesn't sound it just sounds too hard for me again. I think the line of sliding along, it's not like you're an acquaintance, and then there's a all of a sudden, you turn into a friend, a quiet friendship moves into and one of the things, and this, I think this does help, for example, among the friends that I have made, and I when I say, Look, you have my friend who we're seeing next week, and we've been friends since we're six years old. Is a level of friendship that's a deep friendship. And I have a level like that. Not everyone is at that level, but if, even among my new they're on the sliding scale of acquaintance to friends, but they're people that I now see on a regular basis, for whatever reason, if one of them I hear has or they the flu, or they hear that I have the flu, or when our Rena was very ill, I think it's very again, natural for a woman to bring over a meal or a pot of chicken soup, or something that says flowers to something that's that says I'm thinking of you. And obviously that grows a relationship. When a man, you talk sometimes, very often, about if you want to make a relationship with somebody do something for them, or have them something do, do something for you. I think on a male term, I know you gave an example once that you, if you meet someone and you think, Oh, this could be somebody I would really like to get to know for business. And they mentioned that their son is a big baseball fan. And then your office happens to give out free tickets to baseball tickets, but you're not a baseball guy. Well, instead of just saying, okay, take a pair and you sent it to this person, that's a big deal. Yes, ringing, you know, I brought over a few weeks ago, there's a woman. She's not a friend, but I knew that she was having a rough time with a new baby, and I knew that she her mother passed away a number of years ago. So it's not a mother to help her. I brought over a lunch. I brought her I brought her lunch. She's not I wouldn't call her a friend, but at that point, I moved her a little bit from the acquaintance somewhere along the and it wasn't That's right, I wasn't manipulating her. She had, she was a friend of our daughter, Rena. So I knew Rena would have done that. I felt well we if Rena was alive, Rena would have done that for her. And so, but it moves it a little bit more into some relationship. Yeah, that's beyond, yeah, it's on that scale of acquaintanceship to friendship to someone caring, and that's an easy thing for women to do. Easier is for women to bring something that's a little more personal, and it's not going to be, it'll be weird. I first of all, you're not making chicken so when's the last time you make chicken soup? Never, yeah, but even if you were, I mean, we do have sons in law who are great cooks. I don't know that they're bringing something over to another man. Would be no it would be like, What do you want? So I think it's easier for women to make deeper relationships
Daniel Lapin 30:38
somebody recently, wasn't it? Was it a guy who recently gave me some meat, some so they'd smoked
Susan Lapin 30:45
some? Okay, that, see, that's but that's a big deal, right? Yeah,
Daniel Lapin 30:50
somebody gave me, right?
Susan Lapin 30:52
I don't remember, but somebody, well, you should have remembered, because this is now supposed to be someone that you need to
Daniel Lapin 30:58
Yes, absolutely. The relationship when we finished, I will check into that exactly. But
Susan Lapin 31:05
you know, again, there's a woman who is again someone I started sitting next to in a in classes a few times, and then I was in a class with her. And every single week, since Reena passed away, which is now over a year, she sends me on Friday, just a little text saying, have a good Shabbos. Have a Shabbat. Good Shabbat. Yeah, these are we've had her to our house. We have had she and her husband to our house for a Shabbat meal. But it's an I don't like she doesn't sit there. I don't sit there and go. Why she's saying that? Why is she doing that to me? Why she said it's just nice. Where I think with men, there would be a little bit more of them. Why are you doing this?
Daniel Lapin 31:42
I have a small number, as you know, of clients that I coach personally, and half of them, both men, half of them are deficient. On the friendship level, which has had negative ramifications on business and marriage, family and finance. Let
Susan Lapin 32:13
me ask you a question on this, because you have mothers who are full time mothers, and then you have mothers who are working. And I think either way, it's pretty much pushed in the society that whether the man is work, you know, the man is working, I'm assuming, I'm assuming a marriage where the husband is working and either the wife is also working or she's at home. There's a feeling, though, that the children are I think there still is a feeling more of her responsibility and a push in the culture to tell men, you need to give her a break. You need to say, You know what, you take some time and go off. I don't hear if both. I don't hear the opposite from women saying, make sure that your husband has time when he can go off and be with other guys, or go do a project, or go work in the wood shop with other guys, or whatever it is, go for a jog with other guys. It may be he needs time to go to the gym, but it doesn't get tied into friendship, where I think with women, it is, you know, make sure she has time to go out with her friends.
Daniel Lapin 33:20
So we should make sure that that we inform the women in our orbit how important it is that their husbands have male friends and opportunities to see them.
Susan Lapin 33:34
Yes, and again, just like with female friendships, there are unhealthy male friendships and unhealthy female friendships, and there are healthy ones. So you do want to each person has to take the responsibility to say, am I forming a friendship with someone who's going to help me be a better talking about a better parent, separate
Daniel Lapin 33:53
responsibilities and things, I was struck, and I think you might have been on that call as well. I don't I'm not 100% sure where a young man was, was talking to a few of us, and somebody said, You're looking very tired. And he said, Well, yeah, our first born baby is five months old, and last night, we just didn't get more than about two hours of sleep. And I didn't want to bring this up. It wasn't the topic of conversation, but I'm telling you that I was very struck by his use of the word we now he had work in the morning. I remember very clearly, no, she's a stay at home wife,
Susan Lapin 34:42
okay. Are there other children? No. First job, okay, first job, all right,
Daniel Lapin 34:46
I remember very clearly. And tell me I've got this memorized, wrong, if you think, but I remember clearly that when, especially in the early phases, where now first baby or two or three. I was small, and there was nighttime feeding and disturbance during that night. I don't remember how, but I distinctly remember you not having me wake up. I remember, you know, I wake up, be aware of your hair, but I was not
Susan Lapin 35:15
part of that process. This is a different topic.
Daniel Lapin 35:19
Well, it jumps off the fact you were saying about women making sure that talking about their husbands having time with friends, different topic. But I just want to check my memory on
Susan Lapin 35:29
that. Okay, so I will tell you I actually, I find it very weird to tell you the truth that if you especially if I do, I'm a I'm in favor of breastfeeding. Now, not everyone can. Sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes it's not successful. For me, that doesn't mean you can, and this is such an important thing, because I think it was zuba, he said, we've become a nation of the exceptional, right? So that the exceptional, so most people have sight. There are blind people. And you will remember, there was a newspaper in Los Angeles that would not run an ad that said, lovely view from an apartment for apartments to rent, because they felt it discriminated against the blind. That's a nation that has gone into the like everybody exceptional. Oh, one in 500 people might do
Daniel Lapin 36:21
this. Well, you have transgender craze. Okay, so, so
Susan Lapin 36:25
I, I think it's okay to say that. I think that the best thing for a baby is to be nursed by their mother, and then when it doesn't mean that you're a bad person, if you have trouble or for whatever reasons or you don't want to, doesn't make you a bad person. But that's the best thing for to wait for a baby to be fed. Well, if I am nursing a baby, then I'm needed. That's my job. At that point, you're not and I actually, because I know one of our children felt she had that her husband had to be with her. And again, she was not working. And she was the first child she was not working. He's getting up in the morning to go to synagogue and to work. And I thought this is so ridiculous that the that and you, when the baby goes to nap, you will go in and take a nap at 10am or 2pm or wherever it is. But this is absurd, this whole line, but it is. We're very much into the bond, right? The Father has to bond, or women will pumped so that their husband can give a bottle, which is double the amount of work it's I have trouble with it. I think that is silly. So no, yes, that was my and when we had other children, to the extent that I then needed help, because I could not go in and just take a nap in the day or but again, I worked my schedule. We worked it around. But the idea that this is a has to be a dual activity. I still don't understand that. I still don't get it. Maybe we'll get some angry responses or explanatory, not angry responses. But I don't get it. I think I love nursing and nursing i Night, as you know, I like my sleep, but nursing in the middle of the night was not, look, it's not fun when you know, when you're totally sleep deprived, life is difficult. But there was a aspect of nursing in the middle of the night when it was quiet and it was just the newborn in me, especially when we had older kids, once we had older kids, that was so precious, and I loved it.
Daniel Lapin 38:18
Well, I appreciate you not sharing it with me.
Susan Lapin 38:22
You couldn't share it because it was between me and the baby Exactly.
Daniel Lapin 38:27
It was
Susan Lapin 38:29
that you were not part of Absolutely. So
Daniel Lapin 38:32
why wake me? You know? Yeah, why do that? Yeah, we equal. We're egalitarian.
Susan Lapin 38:37
It may be that at six in the morning, if the baby got up and I was just wiped out that you took the baby, fine, you took that. But that's not
Daniel Lapin 38:45
Yeah, and I enjoyed some of those times too. Yeah. All right, well, that's it. And I see
Susan Lapin 38:50
city, I think we went. I do think we went, whoo, a little bit off topic, a lot.
Daniel Lapin 38:54
Yes, absolutely. Here's another journey. Off topic. This is just arrived for my Shabbat reading.
Susan Lapin 39:00
Who just, oh, it was recommended to us by a friend who is a financial, also a financial, oh, a financial acquaintance and a friend. It started as a financial and became a friend someone, but they he recommended this book. And so we ordered it, and it's, he said, it's, it's big, and it is
Daniel Lapin 39:17
from Third World to First the Singapore Story 1965 to 2000 and it's by the great Singaporean Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew. So you may be hearing more from us on this topic, but it really is a remarkable story, and it really it matches the extraordinary story of Israel as well you know, going from a shattered remnant of a nation that had been torn apart in World War 219, 48 declaring statehood, followed up by a declaration of war by the four contiguous acts. Arab nations surrounding and somehow or another, here we are, and there is a highly successful nation of Israel whose gross domestic product is equal, even though it's five to 10 million people equal to the GDP aggregated of the four contiguous countries, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, even though there are 100 million people and Singapore again, 1965 Malaysia throws Singapore out of their Confederation, I think because they weren't Muslim enough, I believe, but I'll know more and by, well, actually by 2000 the book goes to 2025, and
Speaker 1 40:47
2005 No, 2000 Oh, it's
Daniel Lapin 40:51
up to 2000 Oh, okay, good. Up to two and Absolutely. Anyone who's actually been in or through Singapore knows and would find it hard to believe what that place looked like as recently as 1965
Susan Lapin 41:04
you're asking if they didn't have a Judeo Christian basis. So how do they we're very curious. Now this is going to be a marriage difficulty for us. This is going to be something we're going to have to navigate, because look at the size of this book. No one's going to read this very quickly. So we'll have to book box, and we're going to have to leave it somewhere we can both access thanks.
Daniel Lapin 41:22
Bookmark for me and a blue bookmark. It's gonna have
Susan Lapin 41:25
to be someone we could both access it, because either we have to read it out loud, which is probably going to take a few years, or we're going to have
Daniel Lapin 41:31
to read it, no, and I've got a feeling it's not a book you want to take six months to read. I think we want to get
Susan Lapin 41:35
that so we're going to have to figure this out. So who gets it first? From Third
Daniel Lapin 41:39
World to First by Lee Kuan Yew, and I've really been looking forward to, by the way, look at the quality. We bought it as a secondhand book for really just a handful of dollars.
Susan Lapin 41:50
It was a the second look. As authors, we're not so thrilled. As consumers, we really love it, so it's one of those things. All right. Thank you for joining us once again, we do hope you will support the aajc.org American Alliance of Jews and Christians, which does make this podcast possible and so much else of the work that we do.
Daniel Lapin 42:11
So until next week, we wish you as always, a journey onwards and upwards with your family, your faith, your finances, your friendships and your physical fitness. God bless you.
