Engineers at Ford are working hard toward a breakthrough: A car that runs on tears! Okay, maybe not, but they really should be. Why? Because people cry in cars, a lot! Whether it's a sad song playing on the radio, passing a cemetary where a loved one is buried, or simply releasing the stress of a long, hard day, the car is one of the few places that offer the privacy and intimacy necessary for a good cry.
And it's not just crying that happens in cars. Awkward, sometimes difficult conversations of all manner happen in cars every day. From bad first dates, to couples breaking up, to parents talking birds and bees with their kids, cars seem somehow perfectly designed to be emotional spaces.
So what is it about cars that allow us to be so vulnerable? How, while surrounded by windows on all sides, do we manage to shroud ourselves in the illusion of privacy? On today's show we talk with psychologists and self professed car-cryers to explore this very phenomenon.
GUESTS:
- Cara McDonough - Writer for HuffPost, Salon, The Boston Globe, McSweeney's, the New Haven Independent and others, blogger at Caramcduna.com, and author of "Why Cars Are A Popular Place For A Good Cry" appearing recently in Washington Post
- Pendarvis Harshaw - Host of Rightnowish on KQED-FM, a columnist at KQED Arts, and the author of OG Told Me, a memoir about growing up in Oakland
- Dr. Fred Peipman - Licensed Psychologist practicing in San Francisco, CA and author of Parenting Across The Gap: Raising Teens In The 21st Century
- Dr. Seth Meyers - Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Psychology Today blogger and author of the recent article "Why We Cry on Airplanes, According to a Psychologist"
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Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to the show.
