I'm pregnant right now in my third trimester.

And when I first got pregnant, I wanted to understand all the information that was coming my way.

How much caffeine was okay?

Is Deli Neat really dangerous?

Should I get that invasive test?

I wanted data, not judgment or old wives' tales,

which is how I got to know Emily Oster's work.

Oster is an economist at Brown University, and she made her name with two books, expecting better

and crib sheet. They basically teach lay people who are expecting kids or have them how to think like economists to examine the underlying data and then make the best, most informed decisions for their own families.

And lately, Oster's been applying that same talent for interpreting data to COVID-19.

The pandemic in a weird way is not entirely unlike having a newborn.

It's scary, confusing, and there is so much information to sort through.

I think it's fair to draw a parallel.

I think an important difference is that when you are experiencing the chaos and fear of new parenting,

there are often people around who can be like, hey, I've done this before and it's going to be

okay and let me help you and like I got through it.

But with COVID, Emily points out, that doesn't exist.

We're all stumbling around and we don't know how long that's going to last.

I think part of what is so hard here for many of us is the realization of like, I don't see the other side. You know, I don't know what it is going to be like to have gotten through this. Whereas when you're a new parent and then you see the person with the four-year-old, you're like, okay, it's going to get there. and like the kid is going to walk and put on their own code and poop in the potty. Like, I'm getting there.

And here, we don't know where we're getting.

And I think that's the piece that is probably much scarier about this than the new parenting experience. So Emily's been writing a lot. She's got a parenting newsletter and a new website that breaks down what we do and don't know about COVID-19.

She's trying to give people as much data-driven information as she can.

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