Stephanie R. Yates-Anyabwile

Yeah, I've always cared way too much what people think.

I actually remember I was writing with my grandma back in 2019, and she always struck me as someone who just, she was the founder of a church, you know, small church, lots of opinions, especially once my grandfather passed away and she was like the head of the ministry.

And so I was like, Grandma, how do you deal with that?

The opinions of so many people.

And she was like, Stephanie, they're just people.

That made no sense to me.

That still makes no sense to me.

Because I was just like, I guess in a way, we kind of put people on this pedestal, which is so interesting because...

As a human being myself, my opinions are so flawed and they change, but I look at other people's views or opinions of me and give them so much weight and look at them as though they can't change or that they're correct.

And so sometimes I just reflect on that conversation to remind myself, like, these are just people.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but...

the opinion of people has always mattered a lot to me.

I think we're talking about birth order.

I'm the oldest.

And I think sometimes with the oldest parents, that's when they put their best foot forward.

Like, they want to raise the next, you know, top athlete or the next big politician, whatever.

So they put a lot more energy sometimes to that oldest child than they do with the subsequent children.

And so there's this pressure to...

And so I know for me, even as an adult, I still crave that I'm proud of you from my dad, you know, and he gives it to me, but I hear it more from other people than from him.

And I always every time somebody is like, oh, my gosh, your dad is so proud of you.