Speaker 1: This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome to the Doctor Wendy Wall
Speaker 1: Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app. If you're new to my show, I'm a
Speaker 1: psychology professor at cal State Channel Islands. Can you believe
Speaker 1: we don't have school tomorrow. We just started. We just
Speaker 1: had one day of classes and now we have a
Speaker 1: holiday Labor Day weekend. So students you're listening, you have
Speaker 1: two weeks of homework to do. Okay, get those chapters read.
Speaker 1: But I am a little bit obsessed with the science
Speaker 1: of relationships. My dissertation was on attachment theory. And in
Speaker 1: the news this week is the fact that Olympian Simone
Speaker 1: Bile's birth mother, Shannon, is now talking to the media
Speaker 1: and saying that she wants to have a relationship with
Speaker 1: her daughter. She was not at the Paris Olympics. Shannon
Speaker 1: was four thousand miles away. She basically is living, as
Speaker 1: she calls it, in a world of hurt, feeling like
Speaker 1: she's been rejected by her daughter. If you don't know
Speaker 1: the backstory. Simone or Shannon. The mother lost custody of
Speaker 1: Simone and her sister into foster care when Simone was
Speaker 1: just three years old, and then she and her sister
Speaker 1: were eventually adopted by their grandfather, Shannon's dad. But Force
Speaker 1: hold the fort here. There's also two other kids that
Speaker 1: were adopted by their aunt, so that would be Shannon
Speaker 1: the mom's sister. But in total, but Shannon the mother,
Speaker 1: who struggled with addiction for years, actually has a total
Speaker 1: of eight children, so it's not clear who raised some
Speaker 1: of them or botht of them, but we know that
Speaker 1: four of them at least were raised by her father
Speaker 1: and her sister, one of those being Simone Biles. They
Speaker 1: have not talked, they have not seen each other. The
Speaker 1: Apparently the birth mom gets news of Simone over the
Speaker 1: years through her dad, but her dad says it wasn't
Speaker 1: healthy for her to be in touch. So Simone biles mother,
Speaker 1: instead of calling her daughter or writing a letter, calls
Speaker 1: the Daily Mail and this is what she told them.
Speaker 1: I want to let her know that I love her.
Speaker 1: I'm very proud of her, you know, but I'm just
Speaker 1: still waiting, you know.
Speaker 2: I would like to sit down and talk to you,
Speaker 2: answer any questions you may have.
Speaker 1: Now, I want to be clear about something. When someone
Speaker 1: struggles with addiction, especially for decades as this woman did,
Speaker 1: the brain can change. There could be all kinds of
Speaker 1: reasons why she's for her daughter to reach out. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: this interview went viral online and one of Simone's other
Speaker 1: sisters also spoke out on TikTok defending her mother. Listen
Speaker 1: to this.
Speaker 2: I want to come to this internet and defend my
Speaker 2: mom because she might not be everything that we expect
Speaker 2: it for her to be, but at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, she's still a work in progress.
Speaker 1: And we give her that. So yes, the big question
Speaker 1: is if one is estranged from their parent, or their
Speaker 1: child or another family member, is it a good idea
Speaker 1: to search for reconciliation. I should tell you that this
Speaker 1: is a fairly common situation. One nationally representative study showed
Speaker 1: that twenty seven percent of Americans are actively estranged from
Speaker 1: at least one family member. That's almost one in three Americans.
Speaker 1: So this is very very common. Now, let's talk about
Speaker 1: who is more likely to be estranged from a family member.
Speaker 1: One study found that six percent of respondents reported estrangement
Speaker 1: from their mother, while twenty six percent reported estrangement from
Speaker 1: their father. So more often people are rejecting a father. Also,
Speaker 1: white adult sons, they're the ones more likely to be
Speaker 1: given the cold shoulder and not talking to mom. Black
Speaker 1: sons and daughters in this particular study were both more
Speaker 1: likely to be estranged from their fathers and less likely
Speaker 1: to be estranged from their mothers. Now Also, members of
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ plus community were more likely to be estranged
Speaker 1: from their fathers than their heterosexual appears. Fully, thirty two
Speaker 1: percent of gay or lesbian adult children thirty six percent
Speaker 1: of bisexual adult children have reported estrangement from their fathers. Okay,
Speaker 1: so why what does the research say? What are the
Speaker 1: most common reasons that people are just saying that's it,
Speaker 1: you're not allowed in my life. The most common reasons
Speaker 1: cited in the research have to do with abuse, and
Speaker 1: that abuse could be emotional, physical, or sexual. In the
Speaker 1: case of LGBTQ plus children, it is about coming out
Speaker 1: to their religious parents.
Speaker 2: So it is.
Speaker 1: Religiary religiosity that creates the final straw. So what does
Speaker 1: the research say about getting back together? Can people reconcile well,
Speaker 1: the good news is yes, one in three, almost one
Speaker 1: in three Americans aren't talking to some family member at
Speaker 1: this point. But the research suggests that very few of
Speaker 1: these estrangements are permanent. In fact, there are many studies
Speaker 1: that show that there are periods of estrangement are often
Speaker 1: followed by periods of reconciliation. So how do you reconcile? Well,
Speaker 1: according to therapists, it's all about helping the parent take responsibility.
Speaker 1: Some therapists work with parents to help them write a
Speaker 1: letter to the child that they have wronged. They want
Speaker 1: the parent to be able to say things like, it's
Speaker 1: clear I have some significant blind spots as a person
Speaker 1: and a parent, and I don't have a better understanding
Speaker 1: of what caused this, or maybe the parent can simply
Speaker 1: say I'm sorry I let you down. Simone Bile's mother,
Speaker 1: I don't know if she's ready to say this, if
Speaker 1: she's written a letter, if she's done anything to try
Speaker 1: to contact Simone. But if you look at just her interview,
Speaker 1: it implies that she's just waiting for the phone call
Speaker 1: from her daughter, and I think it should come the
Speaker 1: other way around. I do want to say that not
Speaker 1: every relationship needs to be reconciled. You know, friends are
Speaker 1: the family you choose, and working with a licensed therapist
Speaker 1: who's empathetic can help you get reparented, get the love
Speaker 1: and the warmth and acceptance that you might have missed
Speaker 1: out on in childhood. I'm very sorry if any of
Speaker 1: you are going through this, Kayla. We should try to
Speaker 1: get Simone Bile's mother, Shannon on the show because she
Speaker 1: seems to be wanting to do media, because I'm really
Speaker 1: curious to know if she's reached out to her. Yes,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely going to be working on that. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: all right, when we come back, guess what are teenagers?
Speaker 1: Their mental health are finally starting to get better. I'm
Speaker 1: noticing it in the college classroom. By the way, let
Speaker 1: me explain when we get back. You are listening to
Speaker 1: the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on k I AM six
Speaker 1: meters already live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. So,
Speaker 1: if you're a parent, you probably worry like I did
Speaker 1: and do about the impact of what happened during COVID
Speaker 1: to our kids. Now, most of the stuff you're hearing
Speaker 1: about is this delay in learning, right, because let's be honest,
Speaker 1: ume learning is not the same, especially for the younger kids.
Speaker 1: We were so worried. But I remember during COVID. When
Speaker 1: I say COVID, I mean when we were on lockdown
Speaker 1: and we were doing our radio shows from our kitchen table.
Speaker 1: I had a psychiatrist on the show and she predicted
Speaker 1: something very interesting. She predicted that the younger kids not
Speaker 1: only would be least impacted by going on zoom and
Speaker 1: being stuck at home, but that they might benefit from it.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, like, what do you mean? Now? What
Speaker 1: you should know is there's a huge range of developmental
Speaker 1: milestones intellectually with kids. It's not that one is smarter
Speaker 1: than the other when they're five or six years old.
Speaker 1: Some of them just aren't ready yet. In fact, there
Speaker 1: is a whole school of thought amongst the homeschool moms
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't even begin to teach a kid how
Speaker 1: to read until age seven or eight. So if there
Speaker 1: is a kid who's younger and who's reading they could
Speaker 1: easily be doing that and the other ones by the
Speaker 1: time they get back in the classroom. They're now all
Speaker 1: being taught together at the same time and everybody's ready.
Speaker 1: So you could say that for many kids, that the
Speaker 1: younger ones I'm talking about kindergarten, first, second, third grade,
Speaker 1: I think third grade, second and third of the big
Speaker 1: reading years, right, that it might not be so much
Speaker 1: of a problem. But the other thing the psychiatrist said
Speaker 1: which really hit home for me, is that younger children
Speaker 1: need more than anything their parents. They need to have
Speaker 1: a secure attachment, they need to have consistent caregivers. They
Speaker 1: need to have people around them at home, a tribe
Speaker 1: not shuttled around to day carees and schools and after
Speaker 1: school programs and just moved around while parents worked. And
Speaker 1: this psychiatrist, I think it was doctor Eva Ritfoe from Miami,
Speaker 1: said that many of these young children would hugely benefit.
Speaker 1: So we also know that teenagers probably wouldn't do well.
Speaker 1: You know what I say to Mike, I have been saying,
Speaker 1: We've been back in the classroom for what two years
Speaker 1: now or something two and a half years. I can't
Speaker 1: keep track. It's like Rip Van Winkle Town with this
Speaker 1: COVID time, but I always ask them every year, can
Speaker 1: you remind me what years were you on zoom? Like,
Speaker 1: what school years did you miss out on? And at
Speaker 1: the beginning, of course, they would say eleventh and twelfth.
Speaker 1: Then they started to say tenth and eleventh, and then
Speaker 1: they started to say ninth and tenth, right, And I
Speaker 1: could see that those students had lost a lot socially.
Speaker 1: My joke, it's just a joke, folks, but it makes
Speaker 1: the students laugh that I say every year, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you were supposed to be out kissing boys and smoking weed.
Speaker 1: What were you doing sitting in your room scrolling through
Speaker 1: social media? That's not good for your mental health, right,
Speaker 1: And they all laugh. I noticed that those students soon
Speaker 1: after COVID had social issues. They were extremely shy, They
Speaker 1: had a lot of social anxiety. I would put them
Speaker 1: into discussion groups. I'd step out to go to the
Speaker 1: bathroom and come back and the whole group would just
Speaker 1: be staring at their phones. It was silence in a
Speaker 1: discussion group. Right. Well, I'm really excited to tell you
Speaker 1: that I taught last week two different classes of freshmen,
Speaker 1: and again I said, what year were you guys on zoom,
Speaker 1: and they all said eighth grade. And I'm like eighth grade.
Speaker 1: And these kids didn't seem to be as mentally impacted
Speaker 1: as the other ones. So maybe doctor Eva Ritvau was right.
Speaker 1: The younger the better because they're home, or they're still
Speaker 1: their primary attachment figures, are still their family of origin. Right. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was a delight to teach all you guys, if
Speaker 1: you're listening. We broke into discussion groups. I had to
Speaker 1: calm everybody down. The room got so loud. Isn't that great?
Speaker 1: They were all talking to each other. This is, you know,
Speaker 1: my little non endorsed analytical study. It's just me. Okay,
Speaker 1: nothing official about that study, but I feel I'm feeling
Speaker 1: it all right, So let me tell you this. The
Speaker 1: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released to report this
Speaker 1: week that says that young people are faring better in
Speaker 1: their mental health in the past few years after a
Speaker 1: period of increased sadness and hopelessness. This is what I
Speaker 1: have been witnessing. The data released last week showed a
Speaker 1: two percent decrease from twenty one to twenty three in
Speaker 1: high school students reporting they felt sad or hopeless. That
Speaker 1: meant it dropped from oh I'm sorry forty two percent
Speaker 1: to forty percent. I'm sorry, teenagers, forty percent of you
Speaker 1: are still feeling sad and hopeless. I want to say something.
Speaker 1: Can we normalize sadness amongst teenagers? I remember locking myself
Speaker 1: in the bathroom with those rushes of hormones when I
Speaker 1: was fifteen years old and just crying for no reason
Speaker 1: and being so confused about it. I think depression is
Speaker 1: a normal part of I don't know, maybe not. Anyway,
Speaker 1: this study showed that the most meaningful improvements were among
Speaker 1: marginalized groups. Now, you got to remember it wasn't so
Speaker 1: long long ago that the US Surgeon General issued a
Speaker 1: health advisory that highlighted the impact of social media and
Speaker 1: isolation on young people as well. But I think we
Speaker 1: are seeing an increase in mental health partly because of
Speaker 1: the return to in class learning and also the return
Speaker 1: to all those extracurricular activities, all the sports and clubs
Speaker 1: and everything. This is what improves mental health. I want
Speaker 1: to remind you across the board the number one thing.
Speaker 1: It's not what you eat, it's not how you exercise,
Speaker 1: it's not how you sleep. All that's important, but The
Speaker 1: number one thing above all of those that improves our
Speaker 1: mental health are healthy social relationships. It's people, and it's
Speaker 1: about being around people that is good for our health.
Speaker 1: And I think the kids are finally out there. I
Speaker 1: do want to say that looking at some of the
Speaker 1: other research that's come out, kids with an above average
Speaker 1: household income said the pandemic had a positive impact on
Speaker 1: family relationships. However, that was about sixty four percent. Only
Speaker 1: thirty four percent of kids with a below average household
Speaker 1: income experienced a positive impact of family relationships. Duh, because
Speaker 1: the parents were still working. We're talking about essential workers
Speaker 1: who were still out there working by the hour and
Speaker 1: coming home stressed because they were in masks and gloves
Speaker 1: and face shields and dealing with cantankerous, anxiety ridden customers.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Of course, the high income households had kids who improved
Speaker 1: because their mom and dad could work on zoom and
Speaker 1: be at home with them. Kids need their parents. Hey,
Speaker 1: when we come back, how about some news on how
Speaker 1: we can all learn to strengthen our happiness muscle. All
Speaker 1: from a new book written by a UCLA psychiatry professor.
Speaker 1: I want to be Happy.
Speaker 3: You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. Did
Speaker 1: you know that happiness or optimism versus pessimism is partly genetic?
Speaker 1: They say that about fifty percent of whether we're generally
Speaker 1: a happy person or a curmudgeon has to do with
Speaker 1: our genes, and then about ten percent has to do
Speaker 1: with our economic situation. The research shows that people who
Speaker 1: are below the poverty liner in living in poverty and
Speaker 1: then move into the middle class get the biggest boost
Speaker 1: in happiness related to economics. However, people who move from
Speaker 1: the middle class to the upper middle class or the
Speaker 1: upper middle class into the healthy don't get a new
Speaker 1: boost of happiness. Think about it. Now, they have to
Speaker 1: keep up with the Joneses. Now, it's very competitive. They
Speaker 1: have to worry about their image right, and they have
Speaker 1: to worry about paying for all those bills. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's research to show that it is the upper middle
Speaker 1: class who are most unhappy when it comes to social
Speaker 1: class consciousness because they're pretending they're rich and they have
Speaker 1: a lot of big bills to keep up that thing anyway.
Speaker 1: Bigger point here is that forty percent of happiness is
Speaker 1: all about us, what we do and what we think.
Speaker 1: A new book out by doctor Jenny Taits at UCLA
Speaker 1: is called Stress Resets, How to Sue Your Body and
Speaker 1: Mind in Minutes, and she has a prescription for how
Speaker 1: all of us can learn to strengthen our happiness muscle,
Speaker 1: and some of it has some very interesting exercises in it.
Speaker 1: So one of the things she suggests is simply to
Speaker 1: plan a happy activity every day and don't put it off.
Speaker 1: Make it a priority on your schedule. Right. So it
Speaker 1: might be something like, you know, treating yourself to a
Speaker 1: favorite snack, taking a break to read a few pages
Speaker 1: of a juicy novel you've wanted to read, facetiming a friend.
Speaker 1: For me, it's often like if I'm working at my
Speaker 1: computer at home and I'm feeling like I'm not getting
Speaker 1: enough bright sunlight, my happy thing is always to just
Speaker 1: go outside for a brisk walk in the bright sunlight,
Speaker 1: and that's my treat and I do it when I
Speaker 1: hit on things like hit numbers on my to do list, right,
Speaker 1: I always make sure there's a reward in it for me.
Speaker 1: The other thing is we have to learn to become
Speaker 1: more aware of the good things that happen and take
Speaker 1: time to focus on them. Great example, as you know,
Speaker 1: and I'll keep talking about it for an entire year,
Speaker 1: right right, Kayla, I can talk about it for a
Speaker 1: whole year. That's what I say. Okay, I got married
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago. And there is a tendency things
Speaker 1: happened with weddings. Right. A friend of mine warned me
Speaker 1: about this. She goes there will be people who will
Speaker 1: say yes, yess, I'm coming at the last minute, don't come,
Speaker 1: and there could be very legitimate reasons why they don't come,
Speaker 1: and you can feel very disappointed. There can be people
Speaker 1: who leave early. They can be all kinds of things
Speaker 1: that happen, and it's really easy to focus on the letdowns.
Speaker 1: But every time Julio says something like oh I wish
Speaker 1: my friend so and so could have made it and
Speaker 1: they were working or something, I always say, don't spend
Speaker 1: one second talking about what wasn't at our wedding or
Speaker 1: who wasn't at our wedding. Only focus on who was
Speaker 1: at our wedding, like producer Kayla for instance, who was
Speaker 1: there like the whole time. In fact, she was there
Speaker 1: an extra day and night because her plane got canceled,
Speaker 1: so we had a treat of getting to have her
Speaker 1: at our house for I had to treat that farm
Speaker 1: is to die for. It was amazing that we got
Speaker 1: to keep you for an extra day and spend that
Speaker 1: time together. One of the other things that doctor Tates,
Speaker 1: I hope I pronounced it way right. It's t ai
Speaker 1: t z sure sounds like Tates to me. Doctor Tates
Speaker 1: suggests is that we work hard to expand our joy vocabulary.
Speaker 1: Many of us struggle to give names to good feelings.
Speaker 1: We'll say fine, or that's good or that's great. But
Speaker 1: how about that you learn to use greater emotional language
Speaker 1: when it comes to positivity, like oh my god, I
Speaker 1: went on this walk it felt so serene. Or I
Speaker 1: was listening to music in my earphones and it just
Speaker 1: I felt so elated. It was exhilarating when I hit
Speaker 1: that cold water and went for a swim. Oh, I
Speaker 1: was so delighted when he called. You know, whenever I
Speaker 1: talked to you, it inspires me so much. You hear
Speaker 1: those words serene, exhilarated, delighted, inspired, Those are really cool
Speaker 1: positivity words, and we need to practice them and insert them,
Speaker 1: insert them into our vocabulary more often. But here's the
Speaker 1: other thing. You know what people say to you, how's
Speaker 1: it going, How's your day going? Right, even if it's
Speaker 1: the cashier at Trader Joe's. I fully am convinced by
Speaker 1: the way that they give all their employees before hiring
Speaker 1: a Meyers Briggs personality test, and they only hire extroverts.
Speaker 1: Have you ever met a cashier at Trader's Joe's who
Speaker 1: does not chit chat chit chat chit chat And they'll
Speaker 1: see something in your bag and go, you know what
Speaker 1: I do with that? I like to mix it with
Speaker 1: this other sauce and put it over pasta. You have
Speaker 1: you tried our little and they're upselling you while they're
Speaker 1: standing there. But it's fun because you're having this great conversation.
Speaker 1: So the next time somebody, it may be the Trader
Speaker 1: Joe's cashier or maybe somebody else, says how's your day going?
Speaker 1: Instead of saying good things are all right, how about
Speaker 1: spread the cheer and say, actually, the coolest thing happened today.
Speaker 1: Do you know how you're going to be able to
Speaker 1: respond quickly with the coolest thing happened today, You're going
Speaker 1: to record them in your head as they happened. That
Speaker 1: means becoming more aware of the good in life. So
Speaker 1: much of life is just where we put our attention,
Speaker 1: what we're focusing on. Here's my favorite example of this.
Speaker 1: Let's say you've decided you're going to buy a new car.
Speaker 1: You've decided to make modeling color. You just haven't had
Speaker 1: a chance to go in and get the financing and
Speaker 1: go to the dealer, but you know you're going to
Speaker 1: get this car. Do you notice, once you've decided on
Speaker 1: this happy little car that you're going to get, every
Speaker 1: time you pull up to a red light, there it
Speaker 1: is there, it is someone's driving it. It's right there.
Speaker 1: But you see it everywhere because you've brought your attention
Speaker 1: to that idea. So if you spend your day catching
Speaker 1: others being good, catching yourself feeling good, looking at the
Speaker 1: world around you, and going that is so neat. I'm
Speaker 1: so lucky to be here to see this right, And
Speaker 1: I promise you those little moments are in your day,
Speaker 1: all day long. That is how you strengthen your happiness muscle. Hey,
Speaker 1: when we come back, can we talk about the Bachelor?
Speaker 1: And there's a specific Bachelor. Did you know, producer Kayla
Speaker 1: that the Bachelor is in thirty seven countries. I did
Speaker 1: not know that it's very popular. Uh huh. Well, there's
Speaker 1: a bachelor in the Ukraine that crashed the whole Bachelor
Speaker 1: website because so many women tried to sign up to
Speaker 1: meet him.
Speaker 3: He must be hot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is hot. Let's talk about him when we
Speaker 1: come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendywall Show
Speaker 1: on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: So you should know that that Bachelor franchise that you
Speaker 1: keep hearing about that we're all addicted to, which Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to say it's not my favorite representation
Speaker 1: of love and dating because intimacy is supposed to grow
Speaker 1: in private. I don't mean physical intimacy, I even mean
Speaker 1: emotional intimacy. And when you've got cameras around you and
Speaker 1: a makeup team, it's not really real if you don't
Speaker 1: know what The Bachelor is. Of course, it's a relationship
Speaker 1: reality TV show where you get one dude and a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of bachelorettes and vying for him to choose
Speaker 1: one of them. This also defies basic human nature because
Speaker 1: the Bachelorette is far more realistic, where there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of men vying to impress one woman who eventually
Speaker 1: might share her bloodstream and her eggs and her heart
Speaker 1: and her love, maybe some of her saliva. No, that
Speaker 1: happens during the show. That's wild. Okay, So there have
Speaker 1: been so many spin offs from this show I mentioned
Speaker 1: the Bachelorette. There's also something called the Bachelor Pad, Bachelor
Speaker 1: in Paradise, Bachelor in Paradise After Paradise. Oh, that sounds
Speaker 1: more realistic. The Bachelor, Winter Games, The Bachelor Presents, Listen
Speaker 1: to Your Heart, The Bachelor, Greatest Seasons Ever, The Golden Bachelor,
Speaker 1: The Golden Bachelorette. By the way, I was right, Kayla.
Speaker 1: Remember the one Joan who looked the youngest out of
Speaker 1: all the women on The Golden Bachelor. Yeah, you said
Speaker 1: she was gonna win, right. She got the sympathy vote
Speaker 1: because she left the show to go take care of
Speaker 1: her daughter who had just given birth. Right, And I
Speaker 1: said in Ano, there's something in a contract. Something's going on, right,
Speaker 1: Remember at the talent contest she didn't really have a
Speaker 1: good talent and didn't like doing that or whatever. She's
Speaker 1: the new bachelorette really, oh wow, So they knew, like,
Speaker 1: let's just put her on the sideline so she won't
Speaker 1: make any mistakes and they'll all love her and she'll
Speaker 1: get the compassion vote. Because I almost feel they did
Speaker 1: this to Kamala Harris. They said they gave her no
Speaker 1: prassa as a vice president so she wouldn't make any mistakes.
Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, oh oh, it's a
Speaker 1: new Bachelorette. I will say you you called it. You
Speaker 1: called it with the BA with the Bulger Bachelor for sure, Okay,
Speaker 1: and now she's a new bachelorette anyway, but I digress.
Speaker 1: The Bachelor franchise is in thirty seven countries and about
Speaker 1: to launch. Well it's been in the Ukraine for a while. Wow,
Speaker 1: a new episode starring a bachelor named, let's see if
Speaker 1: I can say it correctly, Alexander Budko. He's twenty six
Speaker 1: years old. He was working as a barista at a
Speaker 1: restaurant in Kiev. He's a student of graphic designs. His
Speaker 1: dreams were pretty down to earth. He just wanted to travel,
Speaker 1: discover the world, and grow professionally. He also hoped someday
Speaker 1: to start a family. And yes, he's darn good looking. Well,
Speaker 1: when they announced that he was going to be the Bachelor,
Speaker 1: let me say his name again, don't forget it. Alexander Buko. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's like Alexander but with an Oh. Alexander Budko twenty
Speaker 1: six years old. When the producers announced that he was
Speaker 1: going to be the next bachelor on the Ukrainian version
Speaker 1: of The Bachelor, literally millions of women went to their
Speaker 1: computers to apply to be one of the women vying
Speaker 1: to win the hand of the bachelor, and it crashed
Speaker 1: the entire computer system. Okay, before I tell you one
Speaker 1: of the many reasons why I know a guy who
Speaker 1: makes coffee for a living a barista, Right, was he
Speaker 1: that gorgeous? I mean, he's good looking. I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote some other research. So there's been research done on
Speaker 1: what men could or should put in their dating profiles
Speaker 1: that get the most swipes. And this particular study was
Speaker 1: done in the UK, and in the UK they found
Speaker 1: they made up a whole bunch of fake profiles. Sorry, ladies,
Speaker 1: just the researchers did just to see if they were
Speaker 1: getting hits or not, and they tried them different ways,
Speaker 1: like I'll put this same picture, but I'll say this
Speaker 1: about myself, same picture, but I'll say this about the guy.
Speaker 1: And they found that the number one thing that was
Speaker 1: causing swipe rights that means I like you, I want
Speaker 1: to get together with you was military service. Now here's
Speaker 1: the craziest thing. Even somebody in the military who had
Speaker 1: a desk job as an accountant and never saw a warzone,
Speaker 1: he got more swipes than the dude who worked in
Speaker 1: advertising or whatever. Now, evolutionary psychologists like to analyze this.
Speaker 1: They like to figure out why is it that women
Speaker 1: are so into military service. And I've actually seen dating
Speaker 1: profiles with guys full on in fatigues holding machine guns.
Speaker 1: It terrifies the heck out of me. I would not
Speaker 1: click on that at all, maybe because I know that, Okay,
Speaker 1: they can be our protectors, and that's what I think
Speaker 1: women are going for. They could be nice protectors, tough guys,
Speaker 1: high testosterone isn't that great. But they can also be
Speaker 1: a murderer. I'm sorry. If a woman dies, she's more
Speaker 1: likely to be offed by hermantic partner. So it goes
Speaker 1: both ways, all right, So as you can guess. In
Speaker 1: the Ukraine, Alexandra Bhutko in twenty twenty two, when the
Speaker 1: Russian forces began to invade, he was one of the
Speaker 1: first ones to volunteer to join the military. His unit
Speaker 1: was also one of the first ones to be attacked.
Speaker 1: Two years ago, Alexander's life was turned upside down. He
Speaker 1: was stationed near I'm gonna say all the names wrong
Speaker 1: i Islium isiam izi yu am Isium, an occupied city
Speaker 1: on the front lines of the Russian advance. It was
Speaker 1: invaded in the early days of the war and used
Speaker 1: by Russia as a key military hub. So he was
Speaker 1: seriously injured while he was defending a Ukrainian position. His
Speaker 1: quote says, I felt the earth shift onto me. I
Speaker 1: felt a terrible pain my legs, and I realized that
Speaker 1: it would mean the amputation of both my legs. I
Speaker 1: screamed from horrific pain and shouted for people to hear me.
Speaker 1: They found him amongst the ruins at the time they
Speaker 1: found him among four hundred bodies around him. He survived,
Speaker 1: and yes, he had his legs amputated. He has now
Speaker 1: become a proponent, a spokesman for amputees. For the disabled.
Speaker 1: He moved from a wheelchair to having prosthetics. He learned
Speaker 1: that Kiev and many other cities in Ukraine are not
Speaker 1: accessible for people with disabilities. So he's fighting to, you know,
Speaker 1: find ways to have ramps and less cobblestones and all
Speaker 1: those things. You know. I was visiting my daughter in
Speaker 1: Paris in January and all I kept thinking is we're
Speaker 1: going up all all those stairs in the Metros. Is
Speaker 1: how do people with disabilities get around Paris? And She's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like, honestly, I don't know. So anyway,
Speaker 1: he has also been named the Bachelor and millions of
Speaker 1: women are vying to get his proposal. Isn't that exciting? Caleb?
Speaker 1: He's good looking. You shall love that story, Alexandra Boutco. Okay,
Speaker 1: when we come back, I am going to be going
Speaker 1: to social media and taking your relationship questions. You are
Speaker 1: listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty with live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've
Speaker 1: been listening to Doctor Wendy Waals. You can always hear
Speaker 1: us live on KFI Am six forty from seven to
Speaker 1: nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app