Jessica Fein: Welcome. I'm Jessica Fein, and this is the “I Don't Know How You Do It” podcast, where we talk to people whose lives seem unimaginable from the outside and dive into how they're able to do things that look undoable. I'm so glad you're joining me on this journey and I hope you enjoy the conversation. 

Welcome back to, I Don't Know How You Do It. Today's guest is Nicola Kraus, best known as the co-author of the global phenomenon, which you probably read, The Nanny Diaries. It was an international number one bestseller, and of course, a movie starring none other than Scarlett Johansen.

But in this conversation, we are going well beyond the Upper East Side. Nicola's latest novel, The Best We Could Hope For, is a sweeping, multi-generational family saga that explores trauma, resilience, reinvention, and the radical idea that joy is not something that just arrives, but something you fight for.

We talk about caregiving and being cared for, what it means to show up as a parent and how Gen X might just be the first generation in history to be parenting consciously. Nicola also shares what it was like to go from overnight literary sensation to navigating the unpredictability of publishing. All while ghostwriting, lead parenting and caregiving for her mother over the course of 14 years.

Nicola is funny, brilliant, and utterly honest about the beauty and burden of doing hard things. It is my pleasure to introduce you to Nicola Kraus.

Welcome, Nicola. I am so excited to meet you.  

Nicola Kraus: I am so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me on. 

Jessica Fein: You know, it's such an exciting thing for me because I read this [00:02:00] most recent book, which we're gonna talk a lot about, The Best We Could Hope For. But of course I like, I think maybe like everybody else in the whole world had read another book by you and there's no shortage of books to choose from.

But so many of us read The Nanny Diaries. Then we all saw the movie, and so now fast forward all these years later, and here I am talking to the author at such a special treat. 

Nicola Kraus: Oh, thank you so much. I'm really happy to be talking about something other than nannying, even though I love that book so much.

Jessica Fein: Well, okay, well just I, one question about that 'cause people I'm sure wanna know. So first of all, what year was it that that book came out? 

Nicola Kraus: ‘02, it was a while ago. 

Jessica Fein: Wow. Okay. That is interesting. However, trying to like place myself, where would I have been then? When I was reading the book. 

Nicola Kraus: Probably also doing some job you hated.

Jessica Fein: Yes. I think that's exactly where I was. Yes. I have to ask about that. 'cause that was your first book, right? Yes. [00:03:00] So I'm a writer. We have a lot of writers who listen to the show. What was it like to have your first book be this Global Sensation? 

Nicola Kraus: It was bananas. We really wrote the book for each other. We went to Barnes and Noble on the day that it came out to look at it, and the guy said to us totally exasperated, yeah, look, we're out of them.

We're gonna get more. And we said, wait, wait, how many copies did you have? He said, 50. And we looked at each other. I'm like, well, I've got six friends and you've got, and we've got like, those have to be strangers. I mean, we really were tallying this up. We were blown away. Wow. 15 years later, we went to another Barnes and Noble and he was now the manager and he said, I was there that day.

You guys came in and could not believe you had sold 50 copies. 

Jessica Fein: Okay, so then were you like, this must be what it's like to be a writer and I guess, you know, all of our books will have this kind of sensation and will be this successful. 

Nicola Kraus: Of [00:04:00] course. That's how the human brain works, right? Whatever keeps happening is what will continue to happen, and we learn very quickly that the marketplace can be fickle and that if you're two women who are more interested in talking about workplace dramas than dating dramas or shopping.

That maybe your audience is a little smaller than you thought, which is fine. 

Jessica Fein: Yeah, because I mean, that was many, many countries and languages and Scarlett Johansson and the whole thing. 

Nicola Kraus: Yes. 32 languages plus the movie with the extraordinary incomparable Scarlett. We were so incredibly lucky to be associated with her for, for the rest of our lives.

It's amazing. 

Jessica Fein: Amazing. I wrote a book in my 20s that was not a global sensation, let's say that, but they sent me on a book tour and on my first stop, it was a TV show in Atlanta, and I was in the green room and there in the green room with me asking me if I had any eye eyedrops per chance, was Hugh Grant. And this was when Hugh Grant was a big [00:05:00] deal. 

Nicola Kraus: I mean, oh, he's still a big deal. 

Jessica Fein: Yeah. In a different way maybe now. But I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna go on this book tour and every place up gonna huge ran. And there's gonna probably be, you know, who knows who was a big deal then. 

But I just thought like, you know, this is such a huge deal. And that was by far the single most exciting and kind of only exciting thing that ever happened associated with that book. So I know when something happens right out of the gate, we're like, this is it. You know, this is it. Right? So then you and your writing partner publishvI don't know, like nine more books together. 

Nicola Kraus: Yes. And we always loved working together. Like that to us was the favorite part of the experience. If someone else could have taken over the promotion part of it, we would've been very happy clams. And gradually, by the time we turned 40, she had started in corporate America and she really wanted to get back to the stability and the health insurance.

And I could not fault her for that. And I really wanted to write this book. [00:06:00] And I told Emma the core of the story years before we separated, and she was passionate that I would get that opportunity. So it was a really loving separation. She wanted me to go off and do something that wasn't a part of our shared voice, and I wanted her to have a predictable income.

I. 

Jessica Fein: Well, that's great because this book is so engrossing that I think I didn't do anything else while I was reading it. I was just like, gotta figure out what happens. It was really, really captivating. So let's talk about the book. First of all, I know this is something that is so hard for all authors, butvI gotta ask you, give us like the overview, the elevator pitch. What's this book about? 

Nicola Kraus: Thank you. It is a multi-generational family saga that spans from 1943 to 2014 that asks the questions, why were boomers such terrible parents, and how have Gen X been able to salvage a sense of self and hope and optimism and love and connection out of the wreckage of many of their [00:07:00] childhoods?

Jessica Fein: Wow. Okay. You did a great job. You have been asked this question before. I'm guessing. 

Nicola Kraus: I had no answer six weeks ago. 

Jessica Fein: How did you do that? How did you get yourself into the world of all of these different time periods from the clothes that people were wearing to the way people interacted with each other, to the expectations of society?

I mean, there were so many things that felt so, of each one of these eras? How did you do that? 

Nicola Kraus: Well, I'm a little bit of a weirdo, so when I was a child in the 70s and 80s, most of my parents' friends didn't have kids. So my sister and I moved through a world of adults, and I was riveted. I was not playing in the corner.

I was listening to every inappropriate conversation and taking it all in. Also, my favorite thing on Saturdays was to have my grandmother take me to the Regency Cinema on Broadway and go see movies from the 1930s. So any opportunity to immerse myself in the decades prior I [00:08:00] took. And so this was a great chance finally to pour all of that into something.

And I was like, oh, this is why I've always been interested. I didn't know I was gonna write this book 50 years later, but I was. 

Jessica Fein: The book explores when we have this main character Bunny. And she abandons her three kids with her sister Jane. First of all, what made you want to explore these ideas of the abandonment and family responsibility and how this ripples across generations?

What made this be the story you wanted to tell? 

Nicola Kraus: Thank you. It, it was interesting in that I. I saw so many different permutations of what this could look like growing up. There was more than one family in my high school where the parents moved away because they were done and they just left their kid behind with pizza money and an intermittent husband.

Jessica Fein: Wait a minute, what? 

Nicola Kraus: Yes. They just left the kids. Yeah. One family moved to Florida, the other family moved to Connecticut and left their kids to finish high school, which I guess at the time felt like the most responsible thing. But let me tell you, [00:09:00] those stories did not end well. And so that's just one small illustration of how teenagers were moving through the corridors of the city with next to no oversight.

I have friends who were going to CBGBs on school nights, friends who were going to Rangers games, and then going home with the Rangers. It's incomprehensible now that no one would even notice. 

Jessica Fein: I think back to that too, when I was in high school, we, first of all, we did go out, especially senior year, every night.

And I walk into clubs and I don't understand even how that worked. 

Nicola Kraus: Nobody thought that maybe this was a bad idea. But in a way, I also felt like it was okay. Like we turned out all right. We did turn out all right. But I think because we have resourced ourselves subsequently, and we were very driven, we were very ambitious.

I think we wanted to turn out to be functional humans, but I think we are the first really therapized generation. I. And I'm not talking about like going to the Esalen Center and like, you [00:10:00] know, hugging trees. Like we've really done a lot of work to try to be functional and to try to break cycles, which is also very much what this book is about.

Jessica Fein: And I thought that it was so interesting as you explored what really defines a parent. So I'm an adoptive parent of three children, and I just thought it was so interesting when we're looking at, is it biology? Is it the person who shows up? Is it the person who feels responsible? What is it that defines really the true meaning of being a parent is a big theme in this book.

Did you come up with an answer? What do you think? 

Nicola Kraus: I think it, it's loving and paying attention. There was a recent study that came out that said, if you just have one attuned adult in your life, you'll be okay. And that might be a soccer coach, it might be someone with a religious affiliation, a good teacher.

Even if your home life is a mess. So I think if you are adopted by people who love you and really want you to thrive to be the best version of you, not [00:11:00] an idea that they had of a child, and then they pop you into that, because I think that also happened, I. There's a lot of adoption also in my husband's family, and Emma has, has adopted her amazing sons.

And I think the difference between the experience I'm seeing now of friends who are adopting children is that they're really open to whatever this incredible experience is going to be, as opposed to people who are adopted in my husband's generation or their parents where there was a preconception.

I'm doing you a favor. That was my father-in-law's experience who was adopted. His father. Never let him forget that they were doing him a favor. So what makes a parent? Love and attention and attunement. 

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Jessica Fein: Another thing that the book explores is how a seemingly stable home can be built despite trauma. And I thought this was really interesting, was this idea of we can have these really difficult circumstances and thrive nonetheless. 

I also know that you believe joy is an active process. So I was thinking about that belief as I was reading this and wondering if those two things are connected, that we can have this family that has a lot of trauma, and we can still succeed. And joy is an active process. How do those connect for you? 

Nicola Kraus: I think you have to make a decision at a certain [00:13:00] point that you are going to commit to the action of optimism, positivity, and I don't mean ignoring the realities of what's happening. It has to be grounded in actually processing the experiences and acknowledging them.

I think one of the big differences between the way that our generation was raised and the way that I'm seeing my friends parent, their children, is that there was total denial, right? And, and you see this a lot in the novel, right? It's like, this isn't happening, this didn't happen. We're not gonna talk about it.

Let's just keep moving. And that creates gaping wounds inside people's psyches. As opposed to saying, Hey, this really hard thing has happened and it's affected all of us, and I wanna hear from you. How is this affecting you? Do you need help? How can I help? If I can't help, can I get you someone who can help?

And then from that space, how can we move toward a shared space of joy? 

Jessica Fein: I really appreciate that. I also find it a little bit counterintuitive because it feels like that, gee, that takes a lot of [00:14:00] work. You know, I think we tend to think, well, joy should just be easy, right? And you say, no, no. Joy requires self-discipline.

How is it that that's not mutually exclusive though? Like if I'm self disciplining myself into joy, maybe that doesn't feel so joyous. 

Nicola Kraus: That's such a good question. I think if you look at the world right now, it's really easy not to feel joy. It's really easy to feel terrified, angry, sadness, and all those feelings are appropriate, right?

We should be feeling all of those feelings. But if we stay there, if you find that you have gotten stuck in a space where a negative emotion becomes your predominant emotion, then I would invite you into some sort of therapeutic process, and it might just be like bongo classes. But some sort of embodied process where you are allowing those feelings to move through.

Because on the other side of that, you can make space for joy, but I think unless you're a puppy, joy doesn't just arrive. 

Jessica Fein: It does work for puppies. Yeah, it does. 

Nicola Kraus: Puppies just, they just get all the joy and they give all the joy

Jessica Fein: And maybe [00:15:00] what we've been not doing that I should be introducing to my family is bongo classes.

Yes. Okay. Well, let's talk a little bit about you and how you got to this idea, first of all, of joy and self-discipline because you've dealt with quite a bit. While you were busy being so prolific, you were also caring for your mother during a very extended battle with cancer. One of the things you said is that carers need carers.

Many people who listen to this show are caring for people who are very, very ill, and they are full-time carers in addition to many other things that they do and that couldn't agree more that carers need carers. It's hard to say, but it's very yes. So first of all, I'm wondering, as somebody who's been so successful, I mean, here you are having this tremendous output and you're just a big success.

Do you think people tend not to realize, Hey, you need care too? Because not [00:16:00] only are you caring for your mother, but you're doing all these other things and you have a very strong front. Do you think that sometimes that means people don't understand that you too need care? 

Nicola Kraus: Certainly, and I think we tend to forget about the caregiver experience in general.

I'll give you one specific example. Nanny had been out for a few months, I think we were on the bestseller list at that point, but I was coming to all of our meetings from the hospital and at one point the CEO of the publishing company leaned over and she said, you don't seem very happy. I was like, well, I'm, I am.

I'm grateful for all the things that are happening, and it's been a rough morning. I think we always have to remember that the person across from you or behind you on the grocery line, they might have had a day. You know, you never know exactly what people are dealing with, but I've tried to make a point in the decade since my mother died to remember that when a friend of mine is diagnosed.

Or someone is going through a hard thing to also look around, look at the spouse, the partner, the family member who's going to be doing the bulk of that [00:17:00] caregiving. Because I think one of the best things you can do is give them a tagout. Because often that's the thing, you know, you make the meal train, you figure out how to swap them out for pick up and drop off, and if their pets need to be removed from the situation.

But I think people often forget that it's the person who's really, who's gonna be there at two in the morning, who sometimes. You know, might just need to go play a round of golf. And I think that we feel tremendous guilt as the carers because we know it's not happening to us, but something enormous is happening to us and it's really hard. 

Jessica Fein: For a lot of people, they can't leave because the care that they're providing is so specific. In those cases, what do you think are some of the things that are most helpful? 

Nicola Kraus: I think it's always good to ask, you know, what do you need? Is providing dinner one night a week? Helpful. Can you show me how to change some of the equipment?

How to like, clear out the esophageal drain? Like show me, I, I can [00:18:00] wash my hands, I can do it like go nap. You know, what are the things go nap. Like, would it be helpful if, if I got here at five in the morning, one day a week so that you can sleep in, I'll get the kids up and off to school. 

Jessica Fein: Okay. I just need to ask, did you have people in your life like that?

'cause that's sounding really good to me and I was in it for a long time and I'm thinking, I don't think anybody was showing up at my house at 5:00 AM. 

Nicola Kraus: I didn't, I mean, there were three of us. There was my dad and my sister and myself, and we all took turns tagging each other out primarily really for breaks.

At a certain point, when we realized that this was going to be a marathon, she was diagnosed with stage four cancer over and over. She was given four months to live every four months for 14 years. So people are like, oh, that's amazing. She must have been in remission at some point. Every Christmas was the last Christmas.

Every birthday was the last birthday. You know, we were constantly on hold, don't shower, don't change your clothes, don't do anything. And at a certain point, I realized if I wanted to get married and have children, which I desperately wanted to do, [00:19:00] I was going to have to find a way to not organize my life around her illness.

And that was really hard. Those were some really deep separation wounds that I had to manage, and I'm glad I did. And it lasted a really, really long time. 14 years. And if someone had said to us on day one, this is going to be the next 14 years, we would've managed it differently. It was that we were consistently told, just put everything on hold because this is just the next four months.

Jessica Fein: And along the way you're balancing so many different creative projects. And ultimately, you not only publish all of these books with your partner and now by yourself, but your ghost writing. You're dabbling in a million different genres of books. And then your husband goes back to school.

Now, this was just two years ago, but goes back to school full time. And so now you're a one income household. Which is, by the way, also a freelance income. And in that [00:20:00] time, you deliver three nonfiction books for clients. You're finishing up your own edits on this novel, you're lead parenting. It’s so much.

And of course you had the ability to organize and compartmentalize and all of that because you had had this extended caregiving experience. But you said, I'm someone who gets more done, the more I have to get done. And I was like, yes, you go sister. Because I feel exactly that way. I'm wondering though, practically, like how do you, when you have so much going on, how do you get so much done?

Nicola Kraus: I try to give the thing that's at the top of the pile, a hundred percent of my focus until it's done, and then move on to the next thing. I also make a lot of lists, which I'm going to show you, which the listener can't see, but I am a big fan of the self-reinforcing action of making lists on paper and then crossing things off.

It is so rewarding. And this fall I had what my husband referred to as my murder board. [00:21:00] Because I did have so many projects due, so I just created a wall of post-Its because each week there was, it seemed like an inhuman amount of things to deliver, but I did deliver them. So now my belief and my capacity to deliver has increased.

So that was the gift of that experience. I. And what I learned in the process about anxiety is that you only have anxiety about the things you don't believe you can do. Grocery shopping for most people doesn't give you anxiety. You know you can do it. So anytime I'm now starting to feel anxious about anything that's coming up, I stop and go.

Okay, so why don't I believe that I can get that done? Is there a real obstacle to executing it? Can I remove that obstacle? Or is this just some underlying belief that I could get conscious about and release? And that has helped tremendously because I was wasting a lot of energy, being worried about not being able to accomplish the things on my list.

Jessica Fein: That's so interesting. Do you ever have something you feel anxious about and you say, okay, I'm anxious about this because I don't believe I can get it [00:22:00] done. Maybe this isn't the right thing for me. Do you ever say, this is the red flag saying don't do this thing? 

Nicola Kraus: I have times where I do think maybe I shouldn't do this project.

I really try to pay attention to the energy that I feel around it when I'm in negotiations before I've agreed to sign on, and the game I always play with myself is, this goes away. How do you feel? And if the answer is relieved, I shouldn't do it. And if it's, oh, I'm really sad, then you know what? I'll figure it out.

I'll figure out how to get it done. But this is something I should do. 

Jessica Fein: I like that. I'm gonna try that. I had an experience like that recently where something went away and I was actually relieved. So I think doing that ahead of time can be useful. Not waiting for it to just go away on its own and then being like, oh, phew.

Nicola Kraus: Oh, thank God. 

Jessica Fein: Yeah. Alright, so what is next for you? What are you working on now? 

Nicola Kraus: Right now I'm working on the fifth volume of a weight loss program from a woman named Dr. Susan Pierce Thompson, who founded Bright Line Eating. She's extraordinary, and that first draft needs to go into Hay House by [00:23:00] June 1st.

I am touring, which I'm so excited about. So if you look at my website, you'll see all the dates for the places that I will be, and I've started a new book, which hopefully I will have some shape of a draft by a shape of a draft that sounds like Trump. I'll have a shape of a draft by September. 

Jessica Fein: Can you tell us anything about the new book?

Nicola Kraus: I'm really curious about this new movement of opening your marriage, but I wanna come at it in a way that it hasn't yet, and I want it to feel very similar to this novel in terms of having the same ingredients of looking at the ways that Gen X is doing things differently than have ever been done before, and how we can bring a process of consciousness to that.

Jessica Fein: Okay. I can't wait for that one. So that's what you're working on professionally and I think you also have something pretty big coming up personally, 

Nicola Kraus: yes. As soon as I finish touring on June 1st is my bat mitzvah.  

Jessica Fein: Oh my God. Your bat mitzvah. 

Nicola Kraus: My perimenopausal bat mitzvah. 

Jessica Fein: Okay. I was gonna say for people who are just listening, I think they've gathered that you are not in [00:24:00] fact, you know, 12 or 13.

That's amazing that you're doing that. What in the world made you decide to have a bat mitzvah now? 

Nicola Kraus: Thank you. I'm so excited about it. So I was raised, uh, Episcopalian by juice. Who didn't tell me about my family's Jewish heritage until I sort of figured it out in high school, at which point I started farming myself out for the high Holy days.

And then two years ago, a close friend of mine told me that the temple she belongs to and that I do now as well, was going to be offering adult Hebrew for the first time. And she said, do you wanna do it with me? And I thought, well, my husband's about to go back to school. I'm totally overwhelmed, but yes, let's do it.

We've been every Wednesday night going to the temple. We have the loveliest most patient teachers on God's green Earth and there are 14 of us who are going to have our ceremony together. I'm one of the youngest people in the class, and everyone is so kind, so supportive, and we will all be on the bema together on the first. 

Jessica Fein: I love that so much. So first of all, I have a couple questions. Is there anybody who's like a [00:25:00] senior who's doing it? 

Nicola Kraus: Oh, yes. 

Jessica Fein: I was just talking to my cousin this morning and we were reflecting on the fact that our parents who grew up in very religious households, none of them in that generation had bar and bat mitzvahs.

Nicola Kraus: Yes. And the women in the class, even the ones who were grew up in very religious households, their brothers had bar mitzvahs, but they did not have bar mitzvahs. So this is a chance for them to have that experience, which is so beautiful. 

Jessica Fein: Oh, that's so lovely. Are you gonna be having a Bat mitzvah party? 

Nicola Kraus: Oh yes.

We wanna do ice sculptures, hot flashes. 

Jessica Fein: Oh, that's perfect. People can just be dancing and then have their hot flash and then just go cozy up to the ice sculpture. Oh my gosh. Well, mazel to good luck. Thank you. And I'm sure it will be a blast. 

Thank you so much for coming on this show.

The Best We Could Hope For. Everybody needs to read it. We'll have the link in the show notes. It's been so much fun talking to you. 

Nicola Kraus: Oh, thank you. This has been a blast. [00:26:00] 

Jessica Fein: Here are my takeaways from the conversation with Nicola. Number one, don't assume early success means smooth sailing. Even after a global bestseller, Nicola had to adapt and pivot. So remember to stay flexible in your creative or professional path. 

Number two, if you're a caregiver, remember, you need care too. It's okay to ask for help and accept support. You don't have to do it all alone and you shouldn't. And the flip side of that is if you know somebody who's a caregiver, remember they need care too.

Number three, practice joy like a discipline. Joy might not just show up unless of course you have a puppy. Make space for it intentionally, even in the midst of the hard times. 

Number four, make lists and break things down. When overwhelm hits, use lists, post-its or whatever works to make big projects feel manageable.

Number five, notice your energy when deciding what to take on. Ask yourself, if this opportunity went away, would I be relieved or disappointed, and let that guide you. 

Number six, [00:27:00] do not deny the hard stuff. Talk about it. Name it. Denial creates wounds, but honest acknowledgement can begin the healing. 

And number seven, reclaim milestones at any age. It’s never too late to pursue something meaningful, whether it's bat mitzvah, like Nicola or something else you've always wanted to do. 

Thank you so much for listening, and before you go, quick reminder, if you appreciated this conversation about caregiving, resilience, and rewriting the stories we inherit, I think you'll really connect with my book Breath Taking: A Memoir of Family Dreams and Broken Genes.

It has now been out for a year, and I'm so grateful to everyone who's read it, shared it, passed it along to someone who needed it. If you haven't read it yet or if there's someone in your life who's walking through illness, grief, or caregiving, I hope you'll check it out. You can find Breath Taking wherever books are sold.

And of course, there's a link in the show notes. Have a great day. Talk to you next time.