I want to hear your story, your point of view.
Tell me what happened to you.
Hi, and welcome back to Tell Me What Happened to podcasted pictures folks from all walks of life,
telling us one true childhood story and how that event, that experience, has impacted who they are today.
I'm your host, Jay Reaak, and like you, I've had my share of childhood experiences.
Some of them painful, some of them quite pleasant, but I'd like to think that everything that's ever happened to me
is maybe who I am today, and I'd like to think it's made me a better person.
I may not be true, but that's what I'd like to think.
Anyway, Tell Me What Happened is sponsored by Sidelining Publishing, publishers of quality books, including Susan Salazar's classics,
I've Got Peace in My Fingers, and One Little Act of Kindness.
Alright, today I have as my guest Hope Reaak.
Hope is a Twitter comedian, an adjunct professor, and an aspiring screenwriter living out in LA.
Most importantly, she's also my daughter.
Welcome to the show, Hope Reaak.
Hi, I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Great to see you, Beatus. That's your nickname, I probably shouldn't have mentioned that.
You could say it. It's whatever you want. You can.
I don't know if I might edit that out. Anyway, are you ready to tell your story?
Yeah.
Alright, now listen, Hope, I'm going to mute myself. I'm not going to interrupt you.
At the end, I'm going to ask you just one question, and that one question is, how do you think whatever happened to you back in the day
has impacted who you are today? So take it away, Hope Reaak.
Sure. I think, yeah, it's nice to have this time to talk about it, but of course, because you're my dad,
I wanted to think about what sort of story I wanted to tell.
And this one, I wasn't sure if you remembered it. You were there, but I didn't.
I didn't. Something stick with children and they don't stick with the adults around them.
And I think it's kind of to set the stage. I was going to start actually with being in second grade, even though the story takes place in third grade.
But in second grade, actually, I'll go back even further. In first grade, my teacher, Miss Oaks, Mrs. Oaks, taught me how to read,
and I became a pretty voracious reader. And by second grade, I really loved reading so much that I would use recess to read.
And then I had Miss Waller in second grade, who's still a family friend who I loved very much, but she was concerned.
I remember her expressing concern that I spent recess reading and she had a really big library of books and I would be able to take them out to recess and read them.
And I had truly the best time. But I remember her saying to me and maybe to my parents that she was a little worried about me developmentally,
not making enough friends if I was spending recess reading, which I really do remember doing most recesses between first and third grade.
And it was really fun for me and I have no regrets about that time. And I think that I am completely well adjusted when it comes to friendships.
I think I have a lot of friends. But at that time, it wasn't a huge social need for me. But I do remember that in third grade.
The way that I remember it was I was trying to challenge myself to spend more time with my fellow third graders instead of just reading.
I think at the time I was reading maybe Sweet Valley books. I'm trying to remember developmentally what I was reading.
I know I read Matilda in third grade. I was very into Roald Dahl. So it's a little bit above grade level, not overly precocious, but definitely reading beyond what I thought my peers were reading, meaning that I couldn't talk about books with most of them.
So I had to figure out what we had in common. And so in third grade, I remember there was a new girl whose name I won't say, but she's very beautiful. I thought she was smart.
She seemed cool. And I remember we bonded on the sort of jungle gym and anyone who noticed me knows I'm extremely not athletic, not particularly active.
Don't remember having a lot of energy even as a child. There are very few pictures of me running or doing physical activities. There are some kids have energy, but I don't think that was really my bag.
But there were these bars at recess that were, I don't know how to describe them, but they were basically new shaped bars that were in the ground. Some of them were three feet up, some of them were about five feet up.
And you'd play on them. I don't think I don't see them on playgrounds anymore because I think kids dropped on their heads and stuff from them all the time. But this girl was really good.
We'll just call her M, but she was very good at those. And I remember her teaching me how to sort of climb from them and hang from them. And I sort of started thinking to myself, oh, this is kind of fun.
I'm going to sort of see what the other third graders are getting out of the playground, maybe instead of reading on the bench, I could perhaps play on the bars sometimes. And I remember thinking that and it's not like I didn't have any friends.
I always thought, and you know, it's weird to be telling the story to my dad because hopefully you had a similar idea that but I still have a lot of friends from my elementary school and still very close to about three or four people.
I think anyone would say I was fairly well liked. I was just a little bit of a loner for the first few years and made my like deepest friendships sort of in middle school. So in third grade, I knew that there were kids that I liked, but I just thought this girl, probably because she was new.
That was very exotic to me and I was reading a lot of books where you know the new girl needs to be like lesson of a lot of books for kids that ages befriend the new girl. So I thought I was kind of doing a mix.
And so I was really like, I didn't think that she wasn't like a pity case it wasn't something that I thought she was very normal in a lot of ways, but she was new. And we were having fun. And I remember that she told me about a camp that she went to every summer and got me really excited about it and
I went to it. And I remember bringing it home. And my mother being very upset, and I kind of couldn't understand what the issue was. And mom explained to me that it was this very, very Christian, I'm not even sure what flavor of fundamentalist Christian they are but they're a Chicago based church
and they were kind of creepy I always thought they were Mormon but maybe they're not woman. Anyway, I learned that they were sort of one of those people the aggressive Christian sex that they really genuinely believe that converting people as part of their mission and I learned that
because my mother who is Jewish was explaining that my new friend, and was trying to convert me to her religion through inviting me to her camp. And that really hurt my feelings and I remember, because I thought like she like, I thought that she like me for me.
I thought that she wanted to go to camp to hang out. But I remember mom explaining to me that that was just part of what she had been told to do by her church and so it felt it felt false to me, even if this girl, maybe she really did like me maybe it was a combination of things she
was also a so who knows what was going through her mind.
And so I started going back to school and telling her that there was no way I was going to go to her Christian camp because my mother was Jewish my dad's Catholic we at the time I was attending an interfaith sort of Sunday Sunday school that that integrated those two faith traditions,
neither of which are movie Bible Institute. See, I'm not going to name the girl but I am going to name the church because if you're in Chicago, stay away, but they are, they just are one of those aggressive, you know, they just they proselytize.
And so I remember telling her whatever eight, eight year old version of that where I was sort of trying to express I thought you just wanted to go to camp together and I thought we were friends and I didn't realize you'd been told by grown ups in your life to convince me to go to this camp.
And I remember her being really upset and saying she just really didn't want me to go to hell because she did like me. And it was really upsetting to her, the idea that because I wasn't the right kind of Christian that I wasn't going to, you know, go with her to heaven when we died.
And I remember, even at eight, thinking that that's just really messed up on both sides. I just think it's messed up what I had to go through but I also think I didn't stay friends with this girl I mean, I think we knew each other through when we graduated, maybe elementary
school and I always thought she was fine but we didn't our friendship did not recover and I always thought that was sort of unfair to her too, because I don't think there's any reason to tell a child that her friends aren't going to come with her to the gates of heaven.
If she doesn't convert them and a lot of these religions do thrive on that and of course it's not just Christianity but a lot of fundamentalist religions fundamentalist Islam fundamentalist Judaism.
I mean, I have a problem with all fundamentalism so that's that's sort of leading into the your next question but that's the end of my story.
I've been doing for a long time actually since the day you were born and you always had strong opinions I'll put it like that I am listening to you and I'm like oh she's using language that's so but that's who you are I know that so and I do know that you know you were very much influenced
by the fact that you did have a you do have a Jewish mother and a Catholic father, and I do remember when you were doing your stand up routine that you had a joke about it that sort of encapsulated from my point of view, your perspective and I was hoping maybe
really quickly, so people don't I don't leave hanging with that. Sure, if I can remember it, I don't tell it anymore but it went something like I grew up with a Jewish mother and a Catholic father and people always asks what that makes me and the answer is obviously an atheist.
But I don't tell that joke anymore because I don't, I think it's live. And I think it's funny, but it doesn't feel as true as it did when I used to tell it because with COVID and a couple of plain turbulence experiences I'm a little more, you know, there's no, there's no
there's no atheists on a one of plain going down or whatever they say I just flew to Mexico a couple weeks ago, there was extreme turbulence and I was like I'm not an atheist right now I swear.
Well that's good to know actually makes me happy but that's not really the story of the story or that's not really the question the real question is, how do you think that experience impacted who you are today.
Well, to your point about strong language if you keep that part in the podcast. I actually think it's really important to speak out about harmful religions because I do think that in this country, especially but in a lot of places it's it's one of the
very taboos and I understand why to a degree and I think I can be pretty tolerant of people's very bizarre spiritual beliefs up to a point. And I had to find a way to draw the line somewhere with me and it's not all beliefs I think fully a lot of religious beliefs really help
people and I, not only do they help people but in a lot of ways, they can help people be better. And I genuinely strongly believe that fundamentalist religion is when it crosses into making people worse, and fundamentals and can mean a lot of things but it's
basically to me it's the point at which your religion is no longer about following the tenets of the religion like Jesus saying love everybody, and more about how important it is for other people to think the way you do so I guess the dogmatic part is where it crosses
the line for me. And I do think it's important to speak out about that because I think we are in a situation culturally and politically where, because you're supposed to be respectful of everyone's religion you can't talk about the harmful sides of religion, because
it's not all blended but I think, you know, in a country with a, let's say a Christian majority, it is important to say there is sort of a dark side of it, and it's not all fun and games and it's not all love by neighbor it absolutely should be I really like the basics of Christianity
in a way, but as soon as Christianity becomes about a set laws, you know that harm people who don't believe the same thing I do, that's materially harmful to a lot of people and I think when you talk around it because you're being respectful of people's religion, you're basically
like that does to people and I also feel you know in our family, there's been, I won't get into it but there's been harm on the Jewish side to have, there's been some pain from some Orthodox people in my mother's family as you know like there has been pain, generational
pain for my great grandmother cut off her son because he married a woman who converted to Judaism, because that couldn't fit in with her orthodoxy so it's not just Christianity but I do think in this story in this country, because Christians are a majority they tend to have
a lot of political and social power, and it's important to speak up when that is harmful to anybody else, which I want to say I'm minoritized people but I don't feel like a minority particularly I do think that everyone has the right not to believe what someone
believes what the person next to them believes and I think when that starts to hurt friendships or relationships that's when it's crossed a line it's really that that's really as simple as that I mean I have friends who believe things that I think are completely crazy but it doesn't have to ruin our friendship if it doesn't
impact me, you know, I was fine if you know someone believes that if they're a fruit and area and they believe you know they shouldn't, they should only fruits and vegetables that fall naturally to the ground like it doesn't hurt me they're allowed to do whatever they want, but yeah
and he says I can't be friends with you because you're not gonna come to the kingdom of heaven with me it does impact me because then I lose that friend, and then that person has to live with that anxiety and I think it's important to talk about. Yeah, and when a grant when my great grandmother cuts off my grandfather
is something that causes him pain until he's on his deathbed I think that that needs to be talked about. Alright well well said I, as always as your father, I admire your courage to speak out.
And in terms of my own anxiety I'm always a little bit nervous that your forceful opinions will cause you some distress in the community but I know that you know that you're a grown woman and you know what you want to say and what you don't want to say.
This podcast will go out to millions of people, many of whom will agree with you, and a number of them won't, but I will say that I again I admire your ability to speak your truth, and I want to thank you for coming on the show means a lot to me it's meant a lot to me that you've been supportive
of tell me what happened. And I can't wait to see you when I get out that I know you're out in Los Angeles.
Thanks for having me. Alright well you have a great day because I'm going to sign off now I want to thank you for coming on the show. I want to thank our sponsors sidelining publishing.
Also like to thank our other sponsor.
And visit laugh saber dot com and record your laughter will keep it for you now and forever. It's free. And your family will appreciate it forever. So until next time. This is Jay Rehak asking you all to please stay safe out there and try not to hurt anybody.
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