Alisa Volkman: So this is where our story begins -- the dramatic moments of the birth of our first son, Declan. Obviously a really profound moment, and it changed our lives in many ways. It also changed our lives in many unexpected ways, and those unexpected ways we later reflected on, that eventually spawned a business idea between the two of us, and a year later, we launched Babble, a website for parents.
這是我們故事的始點 就是那個生命誕生的經典時刻 我們第一個兒子Declan 這真是個很深刻的時刻 也在許多方面改變了我們的生命 在我們意想不到時,改變了我們的生命 這些出乎意料的部份後來也影響著我們 最後更促成了我們兩人做生意的點子 一年之後, 我們推出了Babble 一個給家長的網站
Rufus Griscom: Now I think of our story as starting a few years earlier. AV: That's true.
現在, 我們的故事 應該是在更早幾年前開始的 (是真的)
RG: You may remember, we fell head over heels in love.
RG:你們應該都記得,電光火石間墮入愛河
AV: We did.
AV: 我們是的
RG: We were at the time running a very different kind of website. It was a website called Nerve.com, the tagline of which was "literate smut." It was in theory, and hopefully in practice, a smart online magazine about sex and culture.
RG: 我們當時正經營另一種網站 這是網站名叫: Nerve.com 副標題是色情文學 這是理論上, 希望在實際上 是一個智能網上雜誌 是有關性和文化的
AV: That spawned a dating site. But you can understand the jokes that we get. Sex begets babies. You follow instructions on Nerve and you should end up on Babble, which we did. And we might launch a geriatric site as our third. We'll see.
AV: 接連促成了一個約會交友網站 你也會明白我們常說的笑話: 性會帶來寶寶 你跟隨Nerve網站的指示, 便會到達Babble 我們倆就是這樣 我們可能之後會推出個老人的網站作為第三步, 再看看
RG: But for us, the continuity between Nerve and Babble was not just the life stage thing, which is, of course, relevant, but it was really more about our desire to speak very honestly about subjects that people have difficulty speaking honestly about. It seems to us that when people start dissembling, people start lying about things, that's when it gets really interesting. That's a subject that we want to dive into. And we've been surprised to find, as young parents, that there are almost more taboos around parenting than there are around sex.
但對我們來說, Nerve和Babble之間的連繫 並不單只是不同人生階段的事 這個, 當然有關 或是更多是 我們想更坦白的說出 那些人們不敢坦白說出來的話題 這對我們來說 當有些人開始掩飾, 他們開始會為那些說謊 那就是讓我們很感興趣的東西 也是我們想深入發掘的議題 我們也很驚奇的發現, 作為年青的父母 管教這回事好像有著更多的禁忌 甚至比起性話題有著更多的禁忌
AV: It's true. So like we said, the early years were really wonderful, but they were also really difficult. And we feel like some of that difficulty was because of this false advertisement around parenting. (Laughter) We subscribed to a lot of magazines, did our homework, but really everywhere you look around, we were surrounded by images like this. And we went into parenting expecting our lives to look like this. The sun was always streaming in, and our children would never be crying. I would always be perfectly coiffed and well rested, and in fact, it was not like that at all.
這是真的, 所以我們會說 這個早期的階段, 的確是很奇妙 但同時, 也真的是很困難的 我們感到這些困難 有一部份是來自關於管教的錯誤宣傳 (笑聲) 我們訂了很多雜誌, 做功課 但真的, 不論到那裡, 我們都是給這些影像圍繞著的 當我們真的做了家長 我們會期望生活就該是如此 太陽永遠高照, 孩子也永不會吵鬧 我會永遠的端莊和平靜 但事實並不是如此的
RG: When we lowered the glossy parenting magazine that we were looking at, with these beautiful images, and looked at the scene in our actual living room, it looked a little bit more like this. These are our three sons. And of course, they're not always crying and screaming, but with three boys, there's a decent probability that at least one of them will not be comporting himself exactly as he should.
當我們放下那些光彩的育兒雜誌 放下裡面的漂亮影像 同時看到我們實際客廳內的場景 它多數的時候都會是這樣的 這是我們的三個兒子 當然, 他們不是經常吵鬧及哭叫 但有著三個男孩, 其中一個會不規矩 的機率是很大的 其實他是應該的
AV: Yes, you can see where the disconnect was happening for us. We really felt like what we went in expecting had nothing to do with what we were actually experiencing, and so we decided we really wanted to give it to parents straight. We really wanted to let them understand what the realities of parenting were in an honest way.
對了,我會看到我們怎樣跟那些雜誌的影像脫離 我們後來感到, 我們以為的 其實跟真實的經驗, 是沒有關的 所以我們決定真實的告訴家長 我們真的想誠實的讓別人明白 為人父母究竟是怎樣的一回事
RG: So today, what we would love to do is share with you four parenting taboos. And of course, there are many more than four things you can't say about parenting, but we would like to share with you today four that are particularly relevant for us personally. So the first, taboo number one: you can't say you didn't fall in love with your baby in the very first minute. I remember vividly, sitting there in the hospital. We were in the process of giving birth to our first child.
所以今天, 我們會想跟各位 分享四個有關做父母的禁忌 但當然, 其實除了四個之外, 還有更多 關於做父母的不能說 但我們想跟你分享的 這四個是特別跟我們個人有關的 所以第一, 禁忌一 你不能說你沒有在第一分鐘的時候 就愛上你的孩子 我很清晰的記得, 當我坐在醫院 我們第一個孩子的生產過程中
AV: We, or I?
AV: 我們, 或是我?
RG: I'm sorry. Misuse of the pronoun. Alisa was very generously in the process of giving birth to our first child -- (AV: Thank you.) -- and I was there with a catcher's mitt. And I was there with my arms open. The nurse was coming at me with this beautiful, beautiful child, and I remember, as she was approaching me, the voices of friends saying, "The moment they put the baby in your hands, you will feel a sense of love that will come over you that is [on] an order of magnitude more powerful than anything you've ever experienced in your entire life." So I was bracing myself for the moment. The baby was coming, and I was ready for this Mack truck of love to just knock me off my feet. And instead, when the baby was placed in my hands, it was an extraordinary moment. This picture is from literally a few seconds after the baby was placed in my hands and I brought him over. And you can see, our eyes were glistening. I was overwhelmed with love and affection for my wife, with deep, deep gratitude that we had what appeared to be a healthy child. And it was also, of course, surreal. I mean, I had to check the tags and make sure. I was incredulous, "Are you sure this is our child?" And this was all quite remarkable. But what I felt towards the child at that moment was deep affection, but nothing like what I feel for him now, five years later.
RG: 對不起 用錯了代名詞 Alisa 在這生第一個孩子的過程中實在非常慷慨 實在非常慷慨 AV: 謝謝 而我就站在一旁戴著捕手的手套 張開我的兩臂 護士帶著這個 很漂亮, 很漂亮的孩子, 走到我的跟前 我記得, 當她走過來的時候, 我想起朋友說的話 『當他們把孩子放在你手中的時候 你會感到愛的感應 是那種你一生之中 從來沒有經歷過的震撼的力量。』 於是,我為這個時刻而抖擻自己 那個嬰兒快要到來了 而我就準備那一卡車的愛 將我撞倒 反倒是, 當那個嬰兒放在我手中的時候, 這是一個很特別的時刻 這張照片就是當嬰兒放在我手中, 我抱著他 數秒之後拍下來的 你可以看到, 我們的眼睛閃閃發亮 我被自己對妻子的愛以及感激 沖昏了 因為這看來是一個健康的孩子 這好像是很不真實的 我一再檢查, 確定那個名牌 我有點懷疑: 『你肯定這是我們的孩子?』 這些都非常不可思議 但那刻, 我對這個孩子的強烈感情 卻不如五年之後我對他的感情之大
And so we've done something here that is heretical. We have charted our love for our child over time. (Laughter) This, as you know, is an act of heresy. You're not allowed to chart love. The reason you're not allowed to chart love is because we think of love as a binary thing. You're either in love, or you're not in love. You love, or you don't love. And I think the reality is that love is a process, and I think the problem with thinking of love as something that's binary is that it causes us to be unduly concerned that love is fraudulent, or inadequate, or what have you. And I think I'm speaking obviously here to the father's experience. But I think a lot of men do go through this sense in the early months, maybe their first year, that their emotional response is inadequate in some fashion.
我們做了一件 很詭異的事 我們記錄了 在不同時期對孩子的愛 (笑聲) 這個, 你可能會認為是, 有點離經叛道 你是不容許去計算愛的 你會認為不應去計算愛 是因為我們會認為愛是一種非黑即白的 你一是在愛中, 一是不在愛中 你愛, 你不愛 但我想, 現實是, 愛其實是一個過程 而我們想著愛如果是非黑即白的, 那才是問題的本身 這問題會令我們 太過關注 愛其實並不是很足夠, 或是需要自我欺騙 我所說的明顯的是一個爸爸的經驗 我想很多男士在早期, 或是孩子的第一年的時候 會有過這樣的感覺 就是, 他們的情感反應有時不足以應付
AV: Well, I'm glad Rufus is bringing this up, because you can notice where he dips in the first years where I think I was doing most of the work. But we like to joke, in the first few months of all of our children's lives, this is Uncle Rufus. (Laughter)
好了, 我很高興Rufus提到這點 你會發現孩子的第一年, 他的愛下降了 而我就做著大部份的工作 有時我們會開玩笑說 在孩子們開始的數個月裡, 告訴他們 這是Rufus叔淑 (笑聲)
RG: I'm a very affectionate uncle, very affectionate uncle.
我是一個很有情感的叔叔, 非常喜愛他們
AV: Yes, and I often joke with Rufus when he comes home that I'm not sure he would actually be able to find our child in a line-up amongst other babies. So I actually threw a pop quiz here onto Rufus.
是, 我常常跟Rufus開玩笑, 當他回家的時候 我實在不太確定, 他能夠在一群嬰兒之中 挑出自己的孩子 我現在就給Rufus一個挑戰
RG: Uh oh.
RG: 噢
AV: I don't want to embarrass him too much. But I am going to give him three seconds.
AV: 我不想令他感到尷尬, 所以我會給他三秒鐘
RG: That is not fair. This is a trick question. He's not up there, is he?
RG: 這樣不公平, 妳耍詐, 孩子不在這裡面, 是嗎?
AV: Our eight-week-old son is somewhere in here, and I want to see if Rufus can actually quickly identify him.
AV: 我們的八個星期的兒子是在這裡某處 我想知道Rufus能不能很快的找出他來
RG: The far left. AV: No!
RG: 最左邊 AV: 不!
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
RG: Cruel.
RG: 好殘忍
AV: Nothing more to be said.
AV: 我沒有什麼好說了
(Laughter)
笑聲
I'll move on to taboo number two. You can't talk about how lonely having a baby can be. I enjoyed being pregnant. I loved it. I felt incredibly connected to the community around me. I felt like everyone was participating in my pregnancy, all around me, tracking it down till the actual due-date. I felt like I was a vessel of the future of humanity. That continued into the the hospital. It was really exhilarating. I was shower with gifts and flowers and visitors. It was a really wonderful experience, but when I got home, I suddenly felt very disconnected and suddenly shut in and shut out, and I was really surprised by those feelings. I did expect it to be difficult, have sleepless nights, constant feedings, but I did not expect the feelings of isolation and loneliness that I experienced, and I was really surprised that no one had talked to me, that I was going to be feeling this way. And I called my sister whom I'm very close to -- and had three children -- and I asked her, "Why didn't you tell me I was going to be feeling this way, that I was going to have these -- feeling incredibly isolated?" And she said -- I'll never forget -- "It's just not something you want to say to a mother that's having a baby for the first time."
我轉到禁忌二 你不能說出, 究竟生個小孩是多寂寞的一回事 我喜歡懷孕, 我喜歡 我感到跟我周遭的人有很深厚的連繫 我感到每一個人都參與著我的懷孕, 在我周圍附近 一直陪伴直到生產的那一天 我覺得我好像是人類未來的脈管 連續到我在醫院的時候, 這真是令人振奮 我被禮物, 鮮花, 訪客圍著 這真是很好的經驗 但當我回到家的時候 我突然感到很孤單 和突然的被禁錮起來 我對這些感覺也感到很意外 我預計了這是過程很不容易 有許多無眠的晚上, 持續的餵哺 但我沒有預期到這些 孤單和寂寞的感覺 我更驚奇的是, 竟然沒有人跟我說過 我將會有這樣的感覺 於是, 我打電話給我姊姊 我們很親, 她有三個孩子 我問她, 你為什麼不告訴我 我會有這樣的感覺 就是莫名的被孤立的感覺 她說--我永遠不會忘記-- 這不是該跟那些第一次當媽媽的人 應該說的話
RG: And of course, we think it's precisely what you really should be saying to mothers who have kids for the first time. And that this, of course, one of the themes for us is that we think that candor and brutal honesty is critical to us collectively being great parents. And it's hard not to think that part of what leads to this sense of isolation is our modern world. So Alisa's experience is not isolated. So your 58 percent of mothers surveyed report feelings of loneliness. Of those, 67 percent are most lonely when their kids are zero to five -- probably really zero to two. In the process of preparing this, we looked at how some other cultures around the world deal with this period of time, because here in the Western world, less than 50 percent of us live near our family members, which I think is part of why this is such a tough period. So to take one example among many: in Southern India there's a practice known as jholabhari, in which the pregnant woman, when she's seven or eight months pregnant, moves in with her mother and goes through a series of rituals and ceremonies, give birth and returns home to her nuclear family several months after the child is born. And this is one of many ways that we think other cultures offset this kind of lonely period.
RG: 這當然是, 我們想 這正是應該對那些 第一次當媽媽的人說的話 所以, 當然的, 我們其中一個重要的主題 就是我們想 這些坦率而殘酷的事實 對我們變成一個偉大父母來說 都是非常重要的 很難想像 現代的社會會令人有種 孤立無援的感覺 所以Alisa的經驗並不是單一的 我們調查過, 有58%的媽媽 都表達有孤單的感覺 而當中, 67%更表示 在她們的孩子0-5歲, 或說0-2歲時最感到孤單 為了準備這個必經的過程 我們參考了世界上其他文化的經驗 怎樣去處理這段時期的問題 因為我們西方國家 有少過50%的人是住在家人附近 這也是我想為什麼這階段很艱難 在這許多的例子之中 看看印度南部 他們有一個習俗叫個 jholabihari 就是一個婦女, 懷孕7-8個月的時候 搬去與自己的母親同住 然後經過一系列的儀式和慶典 在她生下孩子的數個月之後 她才回到自己的核心家庭裡 這就是其他文化 怎樣減低這個孤單時期的其中一個方法
AV: So taboo number three: you can't talk about your miscarriage -- but today I'll talk about mine. So after we had Declan, we kind of recalibrated our expectations. We thought we actually could go through this again and thought we knew what we would be up against. And we were grateful that I was able to get pregnant, and I soon learned that we were having a boy, and then when I was five months, we learned that we had lost our child. This is actually the last little image we have of him. And it was obviously a very difficult time -- really painful. As I was working through that mourning process, I was amazed that I didn't want to see anybody. I really wanted to crawl into a hole, and I didn't really know how I was going to work my way back into my surrounding community. And I realize, I think, the way I was feeling that way, is on a really deep gut level, I was feeling a lot of shame and embarrassed, frankly, that, in some respects, I had failed at delivering what I'm genetically engineered to do. And of course, it made me question, if I wasn't able to have another child, what would that mean for my marriage, and just me as a woman. So it was a very difficult time. As I started working through it more, I started climbing out of that hole and talking with other people. I was really amazed by all the stories that started flooding in. People I interacted with daily, worked with, was friends with, family members that I had known a long time, had never shared with me their own stories. And I just remember feeling all these stories came out of the woodwork, and I felt like I happened upon this secret society of women that I now was a part of, which was reassuring and also really concerning. And I think, miscarriage is an invisible loss. There's not really a lot of community support around it. There's really no ceremony, rituals, or rites. And I think, with a death, you have a funeral, you celebrate the life, and there's a lot of community support, and it's something women don't have with miscarriage.
AV: 然後, 禁忌三 不能談論有關流產的經驗----但今天我會說說我自己的 在我生下Declan後 經過重整我們的期望之後 我們認為我們可以再試一次 並想著我們可以重新站起來 很感恩的, 我再一次懷孕 不久後知道懷的是男孩 大概是五個月的時候 我們發現失去了這個孩子 這就是他留下來最後的照片 這顯然是一段很困難的時間 實在很痛苦 就在我努力的應付這段哀傷的日子 我發現自己實在不想見到任何人 我只想躲在洞裡 我知道我在做些什麼 我想用我自己的方法, 回到我周遭的社區 我發現, 我心底裡 最真實的感覺 是我感到許多的羞恥 尷尬, 坦白說 在某一程度來說, 我失敗了 我無法用我天然的生殖能力來孕育孩子 這當然, 讓我感到疑惑 這是否代表我無法再生孩子 這對我的婚姻來說有些什麼意義 和自己身為女人的質疑 這實在是一段很艱難的日子 我開始努力的去處理這問題 我開始爬出我的洞外, 開始跟別人談論 我感到很驚奇 因為別人的故事開始湧進來了 那些我每天都見 或是一起工作的, 曾經親近的朋友 甚至是家人, 以及那些我認識了很久的人 從來沒有跟我訴說過他們的故事 我覺得這些故事都是從森林裡走出來的 而我感到自己剛好碰到 這些秘密的婦女世界, 而我是其中一份子 這讓我感到既放心又擔心 我覺得 流產是一種看不到的失去 這當中並沒有很多的支持和支援 也沒有真正的告別儀式 或是告別的場合 我想, 如果有人死了, 你會有一個葬禮, 去慶祝生存的日子 也有很多社區的支援 只當有流產經驗的女性, 卻沒有這些東西
RG: Which is too bad because, of course, it's a very common and very traumatic experience. Fifteen to 20 percent of all pregnancies result in miscarriage, and I find this astounding. In a survey, 74 percent of women said that miscarriage, they felt, was partly their fault, which is awful. And astoundingly, 22 percent said they would hide a miscarriage from their spouse.
RG: 這當然是很不好的事呢 這是一個很普遍卻又很傷痛的經驗 因為15%-20%的懷孕會以流產終結 我覺得這情況是驚人的 在調查之中, 74%的女性會說 她們覺得流產是她們的錯, 這是很糟的 更可怕的是, 22%的女性 甚至會對自己的配偶隱暪流產的事
So taboo number four: you can't say that your average happiness has declined since having a child. The party line is that every single aspect of my life has just gotten dramatically better ever since I participated in the miracle that is childbirth and family. I'll never forget, I remember vividly to this day, our first son, Declan, was nine months old, and I was sitting there on the couch, and I was reading Daniel Gilbert's wonderful book, "Stumbling on Happiness." And I got about two-thirds of the way through, and there was a chart on the right-hand side -- on the right-hand page -- that we've labeled here "The Most Terrifying Chart Imaginable for a New Parent." This chart is comprised of four completely independent studies. Basically, there's this precipitous drop of marital satisfaction, which is closely aligned, we all know, with broader happiness, that doesn't rise again until your first child goes to college. So I'm sitting here looking at the next two decades of my life, this chasm of happiness that we're driving our proverbial convertible straight into. We were despondent.
而禁忌四: 你不能說自己的快樂 在當有了孩子之後, 會一直下跌 老實說, 自從自己參與了 這個養育孩子的奇妙經驗 我生活的每一個部份 都會變得非常良好 我永不會忘記, 我清楚記得 我們第一個兒子Declan九個月的時候 我坐在沙發上 我正在看丹尼爾.吉伯特非常出色的書《快樂為什麼不幸福?》 大概在書中三分之二的部份 在右手邊有一個圖表 在右邊那頁 於是我們標籤了 "新手父母最不能想像的 驚人圖表" 這個圖表包含了四個獨立的研究 基本上, 對於婚姻的滿足感 是非常明顯的下滑 而跟廣義的快樂來比, 也是接近相似的模式 而又不會再次上升 直到第一個孩子上了大學之後 於是, 我坐著在想著自己未來二十年的人生 這個快樂的裂口 用我們最直接的形容詞來說 我們感到很是沮喪
AV: So you can imagine, I mean again, the first few months were difficult, but we'd come out of it, and were really shocked to see this study. So we really wanted to take a deeper look at it in hopes that we would find a silver lining.
AV: 於是, 你可以想像, 最初的日子是困難的 但我們都終能走過來 但我們看到這個研究, 實在是很震驚 我們真的想認真的探討這個 希望我們能找到曙光
RG: And that's when it's great to be running a website for parents, because we got this incredible reporter to go and interview all the scientists who conducted these four studies. We said, something is wrong here. There's something missing from these studies. It can't possibly be that bad. So Liz Mitchell did a wonderful job with this piece, and she interviewed four scientists, and she also interviewed Daniel Gilbert, and we did indeed find a silver lining. So this is our guess as to what this baseline of average happiness arguably looks like throughout life. Average happiness is, of course, inadequate, because it doesn't speak to the moment-by-moment experience, and so this is what we think it looks like when you layer in moment-to-moment experience. And so we all remember as children, the tiniest little thing -- and we see it on the faces of our children -- the teeniest little thing can just rocket them to these heights of just utter adulation, and then the next teeniest little thing can cause them just to plummet to the depths of despair. And it's just extraordinary to watch, and we remember it ourselves. And then, of course, as you get older, it's almost like age is a form of lithium.
所以我們決定開拓一個給家長的網站 因為我們有了不起的記者 可以去訪問許多科學家 尤其做那四個獨立研究的科學家 我們說: 研究當中有些錯誤 有些東西在這些研究之中遺留了 應該結果不會是如此的令人沮喪 於是Liz Mitchell很棒的 她訪問了四個科學家 她也訪問了丹尼爾.吉伯特 我們確實也找到了一線曙光 這個是我們 對於平均快樂基線的估計 可以說是這條線大概貫穿整個人生 平均快樂, 當然是, 不大足夠 因為它是不懂得 為每一個時刻的經驗而說話的 所以我們認為它應該是這個樣子 當你放置了 一個又一個時刻的經驗 好像我們都記得當我們是小孩的時候 那些最微小的事--我們都在小孩臉上看過的 那些小事 可以把快樂 吹噓到很高的水平 接著另一件很小的事 也可以帶動到最深刻的沮喪和困境 我們很少這樣去思考, 我們只是自己把經驗記得了 接著, 當你長大的時候 年齡就好像是鋰金屬一樣
As you get older, you become more stable. And part of what happens, I think, in your '20s and '30s, is you start to learn to hedge your happiness. You start to realize that "Hey, I could go to this live music event and have an utterly transforming experience that will cover my entire body with goosebumps, but it's more likely that I'll feel claustrophobic and I won't be able to get a beer. So I'm not going to go. I've got a good stereo at home. So, I'm not going to go." So your average happiness goes up, but you lose those transcendent moments.
當時間愈久, 你便愈穩定 當你還是二十或是三十的時候, 你開始懂得去對沖你的快樂 你也開始發現 "我想去這個現場音樂會 就會有一個徹底改造的經驗 我的全身都會起疙瘩 但可能我會感到幽閉恐懼 我沒辦法拿啤酒喝 我還是不要去了 我家中有很好的立體音響, 我還是不去好了" 於是, 你的平均快樂上昇 但這失去了那些美妙的時刻
AV: Yeah, and then you have your first child, and then you really resubmit yourself to these highs and lows -- the highs being the first steps, the first smile, your child reading to you for the first time -- the lows being, our house, any time from six to seven every night. But you realize you resubmit yourself to losing control in a really wonderful way, which we think provides a lot of meaning to our lives and is quite gratifying.
接著, 你有了第一個孩子 於是真的再次去評價自己 的喜和憂 喜好像是那些第一步, 第一個笑容 你孩子第一次讀故事給你聽 低潮是每晚的6-7點都要待在家裡 但當你再次給你自己的失控 打分數的時候 我們發現生命多了許多意義 同時也是很感恩的
RG: And so in effect, we trade average happiness. We trade the sort of security and safety of a certain level of contentment for these transcendent moments. So where does that leave the two of us as a family with our three little boys in the thick of all this? There's another factor in our case. We have violated yet another taboo in our own lives, and this is a bonus taboo.
最後的結果 我們犧牲了平均的快樂 但得到更具體的安全感覺 這層次中的滿足感之中 在那些美妙的時刻 最後, 經歷過這許多之後 我們這一家和三個小孩和兩口子. 我們得到了什麼 這是我們的另外體會 我們同時也犯了另一個禁忌 在我們的生命裡 這是一個額外的禁忌
AV: A quick bonus taboo for you, that we should not be working together, especially with three children -- and we are.
一個快速的禁忌分享給各位, 夫妻不該一起工作 特別有了三個小孩 但我們是一起工作的
RG: And we had reservations about this on the front end. Everybody knows, you should absolutely not work with your spouse. In fact, when we first went out to raise money to start Babble, the venture capitalists said, "We categorically don't invest in companies founded by husbands and wives, because there's an extra point of failure. It's a bad idea. Don't do it." And we obviously went forward. We did. We raised the money, and we're thrilled that we did, because in this phase of one's life, the incredibly scarce resource is time. And if you're really passionate about what you do every day -- which we are -- and you're also passionate about your relationship, this is the only way we know how to do it. And so the final question that we would ask is: can we collectively bend that happiness chart upwards? It's great that we have these transcendent moments of joy, but they're sometimes pretty quick. And so how about that average baseline of happiness? Can we move that up a little bit?
我們在開始的時候仍有保留 每個人都知道, 你絕對不應該跟你的配偶一起工作 事實是, 我們一起掙錢去建立Babble 我們的投資人說 "我們通常不會投資給 那些由丈夫和太太合辦的公司" 因為這註定會失敗 這不是好主意, 不要做" 我們顯然向前邁進了, 我們做了 我們掙錢, 對此感到很興奮 因為在人生的這個階段 極缺乏的資源就是時間 如果你對你每天所做的事都擁有熱情, 就像我們 也為伴侶關係感到熱情 這也是我們知道怎樣做的唯一方法 所以最後一個我們想發問的問題是 我們是否可以集體的把那個快樂的圖表往上推 我們都有一個特別的快樂時刻, 這是很好的 但這些時刻可能過得很快 所以, 我們應該怎樣可以把整個快樂的 基線都往上推一把
AV: And we kind of feel that the happiness gap, which we talked about, is really the result of walking into parenting -- and really any long-term partnership for that matter -- with the wrong expectations. And if you have the right expectations and expectation management, we feel like it's going to be a pretty gratifying experience.
我們所說的這種快樂 其實正是走進親職這角色的結果 而對一個帶著錯誤期望的長久伴侶來說 也許這真是一個問題 假如你有著正確的期望, 也懂得管理你的期望 我們覺得這會是很有滿足感的經驗
RG: And so this is what -- And we think that a lot of parents, when you get in there -- in our case anyway -- you pack your bags for a trip to Europe, and you're really excited to go. Get out of the airplane, it turns out you're trekking in Nepal. And trekking in Nepal is an extraordinary experience, particularly if you pack your bags properly and you know what you're getting in for and you're psyched. So the point of all this for us today is not just hopefully honesty for the sake of honesty, but a hope that by being more honest and candid about these experiences, that we can all collectively bend that happiness baseline up a little bit.
這也是 我們想許多的父母 當你在這裡, 就好像我們一樣 你收拾好行李準備到歐洲, 你也許很熱切期待 當你下飛機的時候 才發現原來自己正在尼泊爾遠足 但到尼泊爾遠足也是一個獨特的經驗 特別是如果你已經把你的行李收拾得好 也明白自己會遇到的情況, 對此很期待的話 這是我們今天想分享的重點 我們並不是為誠實而誠實 而是希望能更誠實和坦然的面對這些經驗 可以讓我們一起集體的 把快樂的基線往上推
RG + AV: Thank you.
謝謝
(Applause)
(掌聲)