The Awkward Files: Father-daughter coauthors Dr. Drew and Paulina Pinsky Bridge the Generation Gap

Meghan’s guests this week are father and daughter Dr. Drew Pinsky and Paulina Pinsky, who are coauthors of the new book, It Doesn’t Have To Be Awkward: Dealing With Relationships, Consent and Other Hard-To-Talk-About Stuff. In the book, they address issues around relationships, boundaries and sexual consent and seek to bridge the generation gap between baby boomers like Drew and millennials like Paulina 28. (Gen-Xers are once again excused from the table.) In this interview, Drew and Paulina talk about why this particular generation gap seems more pronounced than previous ones, especially with regard to young people wanting to leave the nest. They also talk about how the oft-cited concept of “boundaries” is much broader and more complex than we often assume, which Paulina learned when she started college and compulsively introduced herself to everyone she met. (Meghan did this, too, and was affectionately deemed by one friend “a conversational slut” —a totally okay thing to say back then!) As a longtime devotee of Loveline, the no-holds-barred syndicated radio call-in program that Drew co-hosted with Adam Carolla for three decades, Meghan is especially keen to parse generational differences as they apply to cultural sensitivities and comic sensibilities. As such, they revisit a classic Loveline clip from long ago featuring David Alan Grier riffing off the names of birth control pills as hypothetical names for his children. Paulina, who writes comedy herself, explains what she thinks of that bit while Drew talks about how much he misses those days. Guest Bios: Dr. Drew Pinsky is a practicing internist and addiction medicine specialist, a New York Times bestselling author and prolific television, radio and podcasting host. In addition to his thirty-plus years hosting the iconic radio show Loveline, he has hosted numerous award-winning television shows including Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew on VH1 and DrDrew on HLN. His digital platforms include The Dr. Drew Podcast, the Adam and Dr. Drew Show, and Dr. Drew After Dark, and his two streaming shows, #AskDrDrew and Dose of Dr. Drew. Paulina Pinsky teaches comedy writing to high schoolers at Columbia University and writes about female sexuality and feminism. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn, NY.