Fun Freetime: You Must Know Everything

While sheltering at home, Missoula journalist Jeremy Smith (NPR, CNN, The TODAY Show, New York Times, The Atlantic, Discover) and his 9-year-old daughter Rasa began the podcast You Must Know Everything to share everything the other needed to know to get through life, and to learn more about each other in the process.

The podcast starts with either Rasa or Jeremy informing the other of an idea, concept or topic on their mind. Jeremy has been pleasantly surprised to learn just as much, if not more, from his daughter as she does from him.

In his favorite episode, Rasa shares a priceless life lesson about lollipops. Rasa tells her dad that her teacher gives out lollipops for perfect scores on tests, but that she doesn’t like lollipops, so she gives them to her friend. She explains that she sometimes feels like she’s supposed to like lollipops because everyone else in her class likes them and her teacher gives them out as a reward. Jeremy wondered to himself where this story might be going.

Rasa then proceeded to compare her lollipop conundrum with her father’s daily digest of the news, after which he’d always have the same look of disgust on his face – almost as if he were left with a bad taste in his mouth. “I was like, ‘Oh, my God, it’s my lollipop!’” Jeremy said of his news consumption upon the epiphany his daughter revealed.

Rasa and Jeremy always read and discuss a poem together and answer a vexing question, e.g. What makes shadows? Who invented pencils? Why do people get wrinkles? Or—one favorite—how many people fit a socially-distanced 6 feet apart in the state of Montana? (The answer is 113 billion, by the way.)

Rasa and Jeremy say that they will continue making episodes until either they both know everything or the end of the pandemic—whichever comes first. In the meantime, You Must Know Everything is banishing boredom and fostering empathy and curiosity in kids and parents alike.

I had a chance to interview them to learn more.

Why did you decide to start this podcast?
JEREMY: We decided to start "You Must Know Everything" when sheltering in place this spring. After Rasa was born, I began taking notes on all the big and little things I thought she needed to know to get through life. Now I realized that this was my moment to share—and, even better, for her to teach me, too.

What is your favorite thing about working on this podcast?
RASA: My favorite thing about the podcast is getting to learn these things about my dad that I never knew before, and therefore getting to be closer to him.

How do you keep your topics fresh?
JEREMY: Trading off who leads the show keeps us both on our toes. I never know what Rasa is going to share and vice-versa, so one episode may be me explaining why I think it’s good to have a disaster on your first date and the next might be her leading me in making slime.
RASA: As many episodes as we’ve done, we still have to keep going forward in order to know everything!

TV clip: https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/missoula-father-daughter-team-flips-learning-with-podcast

About Jeremy & Rasa
Jeremy is a freelance journalist (New York Times, The Atlantic, Discover, etc.) and the author of three narrative non-fiction books about local food, global health, and hacking. He and his work have been featured by CNN, NPR, The Today Show, and Wired. He speaks frequently before diverse national audiences, including Apple, Google, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Rasa is a rising fifth grader and avid reader, writer, artist, crafter, athlete, and explorer.