DOD3: How Do We Protect Our Kids From Bullies? Do We Still Need To?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:27 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that always clicks the barbecue tongs twice before it uses them. I'm joined by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick, and I'm Tom Curry. Gentlemen, good afternoon.

0:00:39 Thomas: Hi. What's up, dads? I think we could all, we could do a dad thing where it's like the dad noises as you try to get up from the sofa, like that's how we... Hey, hey, Tom, how's it going? Yeah.

0:00:43 Tom: Right.

0:00:49 Eli: I'm coming.

0:00:51 Tom: Okay. As I think The the only person over 40 on this podcast, fuck you, okay, that's a legit response to any kind of physical movement that's

0:00:58 Thomas: I know. I was saying the other day, it's it's a symmetrical sound. When you go down, you give the like, ah, yeah, you know, and then when you go up, you got to give like the reverse of that. You're like, you're like to try to get up.

0:01:06 Eli: Yeah.

0:01:05 Tom: That's true I I have, I have reached that age where there is no ability to move without some sort of exhalation like it just it, I don't even understand how I ever did it, I have no idea, I wake up and the whole thing hurts and doctors don't want to fix it anymore more. That's kind of where I'm at.

0:01:19 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:01:18 Eli: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I made a note of this the other day that I'm past the like, like time where something is hard and I go, Oh, I should like get that in shape. And now I'm just like, I guess I should take some Tylenol. Cause that's going to hurt later. My, my mom was visiting this past weekend, which means my son sleeps in our attic. We have like a finished attic where we put him when mom visits and which means like climbing upstairs and walking downstairs with him. And I was just like, Oh man. Oh man, I really wish you knew how to navigate stairs without without hurting yourself. Come on, kid.

0:01:37 Thomas: Yeah.

0:01:55 Tom: Now, be careful if you end up having a second kid. You don't want children in the attic. It's whole thing. You just don't even be flowers up there. It is a problem. It Is a problem. Hey, so this weekend, I was hanging out with a friend of mine who I hadn't seen in a long time. He's a stay-at-home dad. I was actually telling him about this show, and I asked him to give kind of a listen to it in its early stages. We were talking about a bunch of dad stuff and then, you know, we kind of got very briefly on the subject of bullying, um, and that's a hot topic issue. I thought I'd bring it up to you guys, and I'm curious, just experientially, were you guys bullied, or were you bullies, or do you have any experience in that sort of bullying realm?

0:02:03 Eli: Yeah, exactly. It's the whole thing.

0:02:03 Thomas: Well, I, you know, I need a minute before we get into the emotional, uh, session that we'll be talking about getting bullied ourselves, but, but I, I also think that when it comes to our kids and bullies, this is an area where I genuinely don't know, like, That's that's what's so interesting about to it to me because as someone who experienced some amount of bullying, uh, you folks are so lucky, I tell you. You Did either of you... have No, I know Eli didn't. Tom, mom, did you? You had a similar ish upbringing, but you're not from a small town. You didn't have to go to a fucking shit kicker school full of conservative truck, Jeep Wrangler, fucking whatever, Brett Favre, you know, like, I don't know, just the gene commercials.

0:02:46 Eli: Yeah.

0:03:00 Tom: Know Brett barf just we're just saying the names of things now fucking

0:03:13 Eli: I want the rest of this episode for just to be Thomas naming conservative things.

0:03:17 Tom: All their just all their fucking grandma's drink tab fucking shitty okay, now you're just okay

0:03:22 Eli: Boiled peanuts. Peanuts.

0:03:23 Thomas: God, pretty much any stereotype you could, you say about, and again, I'm from California. So it's not like I was in Alaska or some shit in the D you know? But like, it's a shit kicker town I'm from. And so, and as a result, schools were very small. So there's just such a low rate of success in terms of like cool people you could find, you know. You're stuck with like the handful of dick.

0:03:45 Tom: How small was your school like, what was your graduating high school class, how many people

0:03:48 Thomas: Graduating high school class was like 200. Hey, it might have been 250 yeah

0:03:52 Eli: Oh, wow.

0:03:49 Tom: Yeah a thousand there was a a thousand in my graduating class

0:03:57 Eli: Yeah.

0:03:56 Thomas: Yeah okay, we comparing sizes now, yeah, okay and

0:03:59 Tom: Yeah, just

0:03:59 Eli: Yeah, it was around that with mine as well. It was like 1,000 or 1,500 something.

0:04:04 Tom: For context yeah no that's

0:04:04 Thomas: Good high school was like the good ending to the story, that was like, oh my god, finally there's some people here for me, like, but in middle school, in uh, junior high, I, I often don't know what to call it, because as another result of being a small town person, we just had a K through eight school, and like, that was elementary school for me, was K through 8, and people had, like, I, I learned you fancy city folk had, like, well, there's kindergarten, then there's pre-kindergarten, elementary, then there's pretty, they have like seven different schools to get through to that. Is that what you guys did?

0:04:06 Tom: Oh shit uh well, that's what I ended up doing, but I will say that I went to a bunch of different schools, so I went to school in New Jersey and Florida, Chicago, and then the Chicago suburbs before eighth grade, and so in Chicago public schools, it was K through eight.

0:04:46 Thomas: Right. Oh, okay. So that's not like a crazy thing that just my town had.

0:04:52 Tom: No, and I did Chicago public school. I did that from first grade through fourth grade, and then transferred to the suburbs in fifth grade because the high schools were dangerous where we were going to have to go. So my dad moved out to the suburb to get out of the, so before we could get to the high school, because the school we were gonna go to was a dangerous school. I lived near Midway Airport, which if you know the area, it's it's

0:05:04 Thomas: Wow.

0:05:14 Thomas: So a lot of planes crash into the high school. Is that the, yeah.

0:05:16 Tom: A lot of planes, it's a plane problem, yeah, it's just terrible takeoff and landing situation that you wouldn't think they would point them downward as frequently, that's but yeah, the neighborhood around airports is not generally desirable real estate as you might imagine, are

0:05:26 Eli: But they were there. Yeah.

0:05:20 Thomas: And the planes have guns too. The planes actually shoot guns. Well, say, yeah, good point. All this is to say, having had some bad experiences, as much as, you know, like I'm in on progressive parenting in so far as the science supports it, which it seems to, you know, we've talked about a lot of stuff before. I'm all in on that. I want to do better for my kids than, you know, past generations have. When it comes to bullying, that's the one area where I'm like, I don't know, man. I think if my kid gets bullied, I'm going to tell my kid to punch the bully in the face. I think that's honestly like and this is not out of some desire for blood and Vengeance. I genuinely think that is the only way it gets fixed

0:05:59 Tom: We not supposed to do that

0:06:05 Eli: Oh, see, now I am crazy. This is great, because I also don't know, but I'm crazy in a different direction. I'm worried about my crazy in a different direc- I'm going to hit that kid's dad with my car. Because look, I- I am not a violent person, but I am no longer a part of culture. Like, whatever part of, like, social contract existed pre-2016 was shattered out the back of my skull when Trump was elected. So now I wear pug sweaters everywhere. And, like... I'm never gonna tell my son, Hey, you should punch the bully. But I might punch the pulley. And I, like genuinely do not have a metric for how my brain is going to

0:06:12 Thomas: That to that to yeah,

0:06:16 Tom: So

0:06:47 Thomas: I too

0:06:47 Eli: React in that scenario. There you go.

0:06:47 Thomas: Am very worried about that actually. Yeah, geez

0:06:48 Tom: I actually almost did that. So my son was being bullied by a kid across the street. So there's this kid who's couple of years older than my kid. My kid was maybe, god, four through six, so he was pretty small, he was a little guy. And there was a kid cross the street was maybe eight or nine, which is a substantial difference in size. And in boys, this kid was just, he was bullying the shit out of my kid. And my kid would go over and like he'd be like, "Yeah, come over and play," and they would judge, he and another kid would just bully the shit out of him.

So my kid had come home and he'd all upset about it, and so so I just walked across the street and knocked on the door and his dad answered. And I was like, "All right, here's what happens. This stops, or I'm going to take you outside. And every time my kid tells me that your kid bullied him, I'm gonna kick the shit out of you every" single time. So I will take you out. I'll drag you out of your fucking house. And this was

0:07:30 Eli: Yes.

0:07:36 Tom: Not the right response. This was a terrible response.

0:07:35 Thomas: That doesn't sound great Tom. No, sound great. Great. Yeah, Tom, that doesn't sound great. I don't know about that.

0:07:41 Tom: Yeah, so this was a horrible response.

0:07:42 Eli: It sounds great to me. That's exactly what I picture myself doing.

0:07:46 Tom: But I lost my, my fucking mind. Like, as soon as I found out it was happening, I was like, "That little son of a bitch." And I just walked. I, I, it's a, it's a stupid fucking thing to do. And it's not like zero out of 10, do not recommend. Absolutely do not recommend. So ruined that relationship with the neighbor, ruin that, like, potential relationship between my kid and that kid. Created more tension than it, than it was bad. It was a bad thing to do, it was a dumb, bad thing. I do worry about my kids getting bullied, but I used to worry too, like, about my kids becoming bullies, because there is, for every kid that gets bullied, there's someone doing it. And you never know who your kid's gonna turn into. You, no,

0:08:24 Eli: Yeah.

0:08:20 Thomas: Yeah. And things are complicated, like often bullied kids are also bullies to other kids. You know, like it's not a clean like my kids, the good kid that does whatever. And that's another thing I worry about is when you're about to go commit a felony, as Tom was about to do. Yes, I trust my kid. But do you trust your kid enough to commit a felony on their word? Like, maybe there's other stuff going on. I don't know.

0:08:33 Tom: Right,

0:08:49 Eli: Yeah, that would have been the worst if it turned out it was your kid's fault. You're just on top of some guy in his driveway. And your kid is like, actually, I'm the one who stole the Nintendo. And you're like, well, now I feel silly.

0:09:02 Thomas: You're holding up his dead body. Like, he's fine, though, right? Yes, I'm fine.

0:09:05 Eli: Hey, you're trying to prop him back in his chair, look at you, you're doing great.

0:09:09 Tom: What?

0:09:11 Eli: Let's let's put on some Dallas, huh? You like Dallas, so, I mean, I've talked about this on my shows and on Thomas's show, but later on in school, late middle school, high school, I was a bully. Uh, not a physical bully, but like an emotional bully, which meant that I just was like shitty to everybody, but I was funny, so I got away with it. Um, you know, and I was also like, my, my high school had a drama department. Oh, god, in the ever,

0:09:06 Thomas: Yeah. Water under the bridge.

0:09:15 Tom: Oh,

0:09:43 Thomas: Dead

0:09:43 Eli: If this show has a theme, it's "God, Eli is unlikable." My school had a drama department, and I was in a lot of the musicals, so I had a lot, lot of friends. Yeah, all,

0:09:54 Thomas: Drama in high school. We actually had a decent drama. Quick, funny story. We had a really good theater facility and it's for the, I mean, kind of the funniest reason it's because in about 1990 fucking eight or something, uh, some asshole burned down the school burned down. Yeah. And it's actually kind of sad because they burned down that the like old portion, there was like a really old timey building that we had. Uh, and I barely remember cause I was pretty small back in, this might've been actually early mid nineties. I can't remember. But I remember being in it a couple of times. It was like the old timey school buildings and some kid burned it down. And so with the insurance money, the school actually built a really nice theater. And so that's the one thing that I did have. And it got me into theater. And I guess I'm thankful for that because I do love doing doing theater. So there you go.

0:10:14 Eli: Right, yeah, no, we had an amazing drama program, but

0:10:50 Thomas: And it wasn't because a redneck burned down your school that you had it. You just you just had one.

0:10:50 Eli: Like no, it was not. Uh, but we had like a fine arts school within my high school, which had an IB program, which was really, really wonderful, but what it meant is that the usual, like, cool kids are the football players and not cool kids are the drama kids thing, sort of split into the drama kids had their own cool kids, their own section, because we kind of had our own school. And that facilitated what was a lot of me lashing out in, um, pain. And look, I mean, the truth of the matter is, I joke about this on my other shows because joking about it is a better and easier way to talk about it.

The truth of the matter is, I had undiagnosed mental illness and was good at talking, right? Like, like, some people do different things when they feel, and I was just in a tremendous amount of psychic pain and wasn't old enough yet to be like, "Oh, this psychic pain is because my brain doesn't make these chemicals, so I don't need to lash out at the people around me." Also, like, there wasn't, like, a fucking performance venue for a young roast kid, right? Like, that is the joke. That's always been the jokes that I do.

I can tell you guys my roast origin story later, which is actually very nice and has to do with bullying, so it might be apropos to the episode. But like, that's always been my sense of humor with my friends and obviously has facilitated a lot of cool, cool stuff, a lot of charity stuff. But like, if no one's playing and no one said go yet, it's just bullying. And that's sort of where I ended up in high school.

0:10:59 Tom: My god, right,

0:11:20 Thomas: Hmm. Hmm.

0:12:21 Tom: I've been on both sides of that equation, and Thomas, I think you made the point, and think it's an, it's a, it's a good point, is that it's not always clear cut. Like, you can be bullied and then be a bully at the same time. That's there, there's nothing mutually exclusive. Like, you're just at the low end of the totem pole, or you're juste at the high end of this sort of bullying totem poles. I've, I've been, I've been in all spectrums. I had a hard time, in like junior high and high school. We're not, they were not good years for me at all. Um, and my dad was extremely, extremely, extremely strict. So my dad, we'll talk about this, I'm sure, in other parts of the show, my dad's rules were very, very strict. And so in many ways I was a very isolated kid, so I didn't have a lot of social experiences, and so I found myself like really fucking socially awkward a lot, like deeply socially awkward, and I was also very heavyset. So a heavy dude.

0:13:10 Tom: And so in the 90s, when I graduated high school in 96, so that was not a good time to be a heavyset, socially awkward kid for sure. So I Was Bullied pretty good for a while in junior high. And then really my first two years of high school was a lot of bullying. Some of it was, was very physical. I got beat up a lot. Um, I got in fights. I didn't really shy away from that confrontation either. So, um, for a while I tried the whole turn the other cheek and ignore the kid and it'll go away. They'll get bored. And that does not work. That's nonsense.

0:13:42 Thomas: Nah, it doesn't work.

0:13:43 Eli: No.

0:13:43 Tom: What they do is they escalate it and then they bring their friends over and then their friends escalate it. And then they kick the shit out of you for sport in front of everybody else because you've demonstrated that you're an easy target and

0:13:46 Thomas: Yep. It's absolutely correct. If there's one thing I wanted to emphasize is that the bullshit picture you get from some of the fucking, I don't know, media cartoons, whatever of the, well, if you just befriend the bully and find out what's going on with them, that's nothing.

0:13:55 Tom: Oh get the fuck out of here right

0:14:05 Eli: Right. Every time a group of improv adults came to your school and told you how to deal with bullies, they were lying.

0:14:12 Tom: Nope.

0:14:12 Thomas: They were absolutely wrong. That is, again, as progressive Aggressive as I am on so many things, that is a lie. It's not true. You can't just befriend your way out of bullying. It doesn't work like that.

0:14:14 Tom: No.

0:14:24 Tom: Absolutely not. Then and like my life kind of did like a weird, I mean, like, like Karate Kid montage thing because I, I was heavy set and I got tired of it and I got tired of being bullied. And so I started running and I started lifting weights and I lost a ton of weight and I got in very, very good shape.

0:14:41 Tom: It was an eye of the tiger thing. It was a whole thing. Yeah.

0:14:41 Thomas: Oh, I thought we should get the, yeah. You're

0:14:42 Eli: Yeah.

0:14:44 Tom: And then all of a sudden, never going to let you down. And then, know, I was you still mad, though. I was an angry dude. And so then I went out looking for fights.

0:14:44 Thomas: The best. Sorry, the end? Hmm.

0:14:56 Tom: I went out trying to fuck with people because I thought it was funny to fuck with people and I had friends that would enable that and so we did a lot of really mean, ill-advised, stupid stuff and, absolutely.

0:15:08 Eli: That was also the behavior that had been modeled to you what power was, right? Like, no adult had stepped in and been like, true power is to lead others, young Tom. Right? You would just, you would learn to the hard way what power is.

0:15:18 Thomas: It's found in a book yeah no

0:15:21 Tom: I never told anybody anything, I would never tell my dad, if I got beat up, if I got whatever I would lie about it I'd make up a story I never once mentioned it to any adult I don't know how you guys grew up but like at least for me in the in the 90s as a parent a child of a single parent like like that's not the role that we had it's not the relationship we had you didn't go to an adult to help you fix a problem you went to other kids

0:15:23 Eli: Right.

0:15:40 Thomas: Not at all. I think I think we'll find that Eli went to his parents about every single thing that happened every day, is what I'll guess, but no, Tom, I'm, I'm with you, there was, there was no, because they just didn't fucking get it, too, I mean my parents, as we've discussed, were a little bit older than your typical parents, so they're, even for my age, they're even more out of touch, uh, and it just felt like they had no fucking information for me, like it, It just, just nothing, you know, like there's no, there's, I wasn't going to go and be like, "Hey, what do I do about this product?" It's like, it would be some fucking nonsense answer that wouldn't do anything.

0:15:46 Tom: Right yeah I right

0:15:46 Eli: Yeah.

0:16:14 Tom: I was always convinced I'd be in trouble so like if I came to my dad with a problem like not my, my dad's natural solution would be to figure out like how I was in trouble as a result of this problem that I, so my, my dad my dad's my no my, like I was in trouble a lot, you know, I was grounded for a year AND A HALF so yeah, didn't, I did not go to my problems

0:16:16 Thomas: Hmm.

0:16:25 Thomas: One more point toward the secret Hitler theory. Yeah, no, same. Absolutely. Same. So, And this is another component of my dad being shitty was if I came to him about anything or, or in any discussion, it was always about what's the way that you were wrong. In it, you know, there was no, there was, I used to laugh at the idea, like I couldn't even believe it, that other kids would have parents that would like come in and defend them, you like Eli apparently would, or like, you get like we Would, I, it Was it Was

0:16:56 Tom: No yeah my dad was the same as yours there

0:16:58 Thomas: Yeah Absolutely A foreign concept to me, there's a lot of stuff that I'm sure will come up where I would see it in movies growing up and be like, well, that's not how real parents do anything, right? Right, you, they don't like love, love their kids and do nice, right? That's not real, fake. Hollywood.

0:16:59 Tom: Yeah

0:17:14 Eli: What's A birthday? Day, these movies, these Movies Are weird, meanwhile, Tom's like in the, in the back, fighting a Chair and he's like, yeah, this movie's fucking stupid, that's why I'm taking this chair down a bank. So it's funny, I went to my, I did go to my parents about everything and they were incredibly proactive in helping me about stuff. The, the problem came because with my bullying, right, and I Had a, I had, had a couple of incidents where, like, I was not in the wrong and my parents stepped in and they handled it incredibly well, um, but like with my bullying, the issue was often that, like, someone would say something mean, I would say Something Mean back, do a tight five, they would cry, and then I was in trouble

0:17:18 Thomas: There's a lot of that.

0:17:23 Tom: Right

0:17:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:18:00 Eli: Right, and then what, what happened is like I just stopped waiting for people to start, I would Just go into my type five on everybody, because it became the, the Eli is funny zeitgeist around my school, became my thing, like, oh, Eli roasts everybody, and I, again, I roasted the popular kids, I roasted the unpopular kids, I didn't particularly have any friends, right, I had a couple of kids that I was like relatively

0:18:06 Tom: You still do that you roast your friends all the time you roast yeah right this is just how like you don't think you have any other way to interact with people other than to roast them.

0:18:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:27 Eli: Right Exactly No I Don't I Don't know how to interact with, with normal humans, um, it sounds hard, um, and boring, and so, like, that, that was hard for them to intervene in, because a lot of the time someone else would start it, and then when I was starting it, I was like, I was just joking around, and my parents were like, don't joke, don't make jokes Stop, you know, and the other thing was like, often, you know, the extent of it wouldn't get, I wouldn't get told on, right, because the Again, just My generation, the bullying that got like discouraged was physical bullying, so the chubby Jew with the glasses, you know, did a tight five on me as I went to lunch today, was hard to report, right And it, um, and you know, not, not to weigh in on another vote for punching the bully in the face, but like one of the ways I learned to watch what I was saying is when I got absolutely obliterated by the nicest kid in my school,

0:19:05 Thomas: Right. There

0:19:19 Tom: Right.

0:19:33 Thomas: You go. There you go. I've heard you tell the story four times and I want to hear it again. Like, it's good every time.

0:19:38 Tom: Yeah.

0:19:36 Eli: Okay So This is, and I tell, this is a funny story, and people often are like, oh, you think that's funny? I'm like, no, tell it as a funny stories. So So I Have No Other way, comedy is my way. So, uh, there was this kid in my school named DJ, who I will not announce his last name, I've told this story like six times, I've accidentally just doxxed this human Who's still very like We're friends On Facebook

0:19:47 Thomas: Once again. Yeah. You have no other way of doing it.

0:20:00 Thomas: Wow. So you're, you're it's an ongoing bullying situation to this day. You're still just, does

0:20:02 Eli: Yeah To This day, um, when we went to high school, his father passed away, and I would just rip on him for it mercilessly, constantly, and like about halfway through ninth grade, um, he took me aside, and I, I always, when I tell this story, I always reflect on, like, like, what an incredibly, like, amazing thing this was for a child to do.

0:20:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:20:24 Eli: He took me aside and he was like, Hey Eli, I know you're like a jokes guy, but I'm in a ton of pain and you have to stop making these jokes. You have to stop. It really hurts me. And like, God, Oh, what an amazing thing. And I was like okay man, sorry. I'm really sorry. And they came in the next day. Um, and I was, like, hey DJ, I thought about what you said. Um, I want you to have this. And I gave him a card and he opened it and it was a father's day card.

0:20:35 Thomas: Yeah, you

0:20:45 Tom: Oh, fuck.

0:20:47 Eli: But then here's the thing, he lost his mind and beat the ever-loving shit out of me. Now, I have to be clear, this was not a bully, this was not an athletic kid. He was one of those kids who just passed through the hallways of the high school being nice to everybody, doing fine. I think he's an accountant in my hometown now. He never got in a fight before or after, and he just destroyed, like, gorilla luggage test me. He was just like.

0:21:13 Eli: His hair turned blonde and he floated off, and there was fire all around his body, and he just destroyed me. Cracked, um, if you ever look at a picture of me, there's a chip in my front tooth, that's from DJ. DJ chipped that front tooth.

0:21:13 Thomas: Know, you can fix that by now. I'm just saying that's okay.

0:21:28 Eli: And I. Know. I could have fixed it, but I, I, like. It. To remember him. By. And.

0:21:31 Thomas: You leave it as It. Yeah, exactly. A scar that reminds.

0:21:34 Eli: Broke.

0:21:35 Thomas: You of your origins.

0:21:35 Eli: My. Nose. And my blood was just everywhere. I, of course, am laughing, I've been beat up a few times at this point, so getting beat up isn't like a scary, horrible process anymore, I'm just like, oh, I did it again, here we are once again. So I'm laughing because. The Dalai Lama is kicking the shit out of me, right.

0:21:35 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:54 Eli: The sweetest.

0:21:54 Thomas: I. Feel.

0:21:55 Eli: Kid is kicking a kid who, up until that point, was only known for his mom makes the best cookies at the bake sale, was. Just throwing.

0:21:50 Tom: Oh, my God.

0:22:02 Eli: Me against the wall and fitting me into an air conditioner vent. So the gym teachers pull him off me, right, he has my blood all over him, they drag us down to the principal's office. Um, he is crying, I'm still hysterically laughing, so they think I'm crying. My father is a teacher at the middle school down the street, so they call him in. Finally, when he gets there, I calm down enough to explain the story, and everybody, the principal, my father, the teachers, the monitor are like, Eli deserved this. DJ, here is a free sweatshirt from the school store because your shirt is covered in Eli's blood. Eli, you are suspended for two days, you should probably go to the hospital. And.

0:22:47 Thomas: Like that. Isn't entirely everything is good in that story, like the. Way it ended up.

0:22:47 Eli: Yeah.

0:22:51 Tom: I know.

0:22:52 Thomas: To me. That's all I mean, you know, I obviously, hopefully it wouldn't hurt you too bad or anything, but like otherwise every reaction and everything ended up in that story in my mind. Yeah, that's how it should go.

0:22:52 Eli: Yeah.

0:23:03 Eli: And the best part about this is that DJ, for the rest, because eventually, you know, they got us together, and I was like, hey, this is not your fault at all. And he was like, I know. And I was like, great. Good talk, can we go back to class now. But for the rest of high school, whenever I would see DJ, he would make this little fist gesture because he knew how funny it was. I ran into, it's, it's like six years ago now, I ran him at the grocery store, six years ago, and I was like, DJ, DJ, how you doing man, and he did the little fist jester, and I wasn't, like, yeah, I was introducing him to my wife, I was like, this is DJ, she was like, the guy who fucked you, I was, this is the guy that fucked me up. Yeah, but again, I like, I.

0:23:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:42 Tom: Yes.

0:23:42 Eli: I don't want to defend physical violence as a thing, but that was, it wasn't necessarily that I got beat up, it was a moment of everyone being like, you are the bad guy. Um, and the part of the story that I don't tell is that on the drive to the hospital, as they were resetting my nose for the fifth or sixth time, um, it was genuinely one of the only times my father, mother, expressed, like, deep disappointment in who I was as a person. We had a genuine moment, and I don't remember exactly what he said, but he said something along the lines of, like, this is not the man I am bringing you up to be, right. This is not who you will be, right. I don't care what we have to do to you to stop you from being this kind of person in the world. But like, this is over now. Um, and it's true. It was a big thing. Um.

0:24:27 Eli: And, shortly thereafter, I had my first, like, I don't know if this is related, shortly thereafter I had my first major depressive episode, so I lost the ability to do anything but cry, but that helped with the bullying.

0:24:39 Eli: They'd be like, here comes Mr. Jokes, and I'd be like, I can't breathe because of my pain, and they were like, that's a weird one. It was one of those Adult Swim jokes we haven't heard of yet. Yeah.

0:24:53 Thomas: But. I love that story, and thanks for sharing the unedited version of it, too, because I do think it really bears a lot on this topic, because, like, yeah, I can imagine, if I were in the place of your dad in some similar situation, if I were, you know, for my kids, like, yeah, that, that's incredibly disappointing, like there. And I do think the upside, of the limited upside of my shitty upbringing, maybe Tom's as well, is I, I do, do you think you should obviously be in your kid's corner, but not pathologically in your kid's quarter? Like not, you know, like, not like no matter what you were in the right, that's bad, that's awful. Being able to kind of be, uh, not, not entirely unbiased, but a somewhat unbiassed source of saying, like, hey, uh, no, you fucked up here. That is not, son, this is.

0:25:36 Tom: Yep.

0:25:36 Thomas: Not, this is not it. And I think it has a, and it clearly had a of profound effect on you, Eli. And I think it's probably because of, of the credibility involved, know, in, you in your dad. And, I and think That's the way to be. I think it's a good, a good outcome there, even if it was a tough, tough road.

0:25:51 Tom: You had this like very like road to Damascus kind of experience that was like brought upon by this, event that that switched you over. Did you, because I clearly, you still roast people, but did you figure out how to take that down a notch, like, I mean, how do you, how do you watch that now, because there's plenty of fucking adult bullies.

0:26:09 Eli: I. Mean, what I deal with now, and the truth is, I've just sort of modeled myself after my dad, which is that my dad was a mentor and a collector of people, that is what I do. And it's weird to talk about this on a podcast because in, in our world and with you guys, that's not at all what I am. Mentor would be like third from the bottom in lists of things that people say about me as my podcast persona.

But most of my life is mentorship. Like, most of my day to day is mentoring young magicians, mentoring my students over at NYU. Like, that is, that is what I spend a tremendous amount of my time doing when I'm not doing this job. And, and that is where I found a deeper, more real connection to people, people, um, and what I recognized is, like, there's always room for. Jokes if the, oh god this is gonna sound so corny, but like there's always room for jokes if the love comes first, right? Like if you've demonstrated to someone that you care about them extraordinarily, those, those jokes are no longer ways to hurt people, they're ways to make people feel included, ways to make people, um, know, feel happy. A great example of this is like one of my closest friends, uh, and my worst friend, right. Right.

Everyone's got like one terrible friend who you're like, why are you friends with that person? It's it's my friend Jason. And we call Jason Scrappy, which is a TV trope that means like the character on a TV show that nobody likes. But like when we gave Jason that nickname and when Jason joined the group of magicians that I run in New York, he was all of sudden welcome into a community of magiciens. And underneath that nickname was, hey, we're here to teach you like you've got a group of friends now, you know.

0:27:45 Eli: And yes, we are roasty. Yes, we all experience this when we hang out together. Yes, we are roasty, but there's a tremendous amount of affection there because we enjoy interacting on that level.

0:27:56 Tom: Thomas, did you, were you, were, you bullied, were you ever a bully, how did that go. For you.

0:28:00 Thomas: I I would never say I was a bully, but I would, I w I would imagine there would be other people who may have know maybe maybe describe me as that but it's hard to separate that from like you your standard friends joking around uh so it's it's a complicated thing. I was not at all a bully physically ever, um, was always, here's a weird thing too, I don't know, Tom, once again I'm curious how our, how our dads line up on this. But one massive disservice I was done by my dad, I think, was that my dad was so not physical at all that it just gave me no sense of any sort of physicality, any sort of like healthy physicality with anybody. And I think that's important for young dudes, especially in our society. I don't know, I can't speak to what it's like to be a girl growing up, but like, you need a little bit, you know, you get a little of horseplay, you need to a little, the whatever.

0:28:48 Thomas: And I had no sense of that. And also no sense of how to be physical in, in any sort of like fighting way at a young age. Um, and that, that changed in high school. But, when I was in seventh grade was like my worst year. It was absolutely terrible. Seven to the eighth grade are among the worst experience. I don't think it'll ever get worse in my life than those years, honestly. Like, because Because it just was so, there's nowhere to go. That's the worst thing about this. Know, guess I'll call it bullying. But like, when you're in a situation where you're, you're a small school, and I was always stuck doing some shit I didn't want to do.

I had to, you know, my parents made me do a sport every single season, which oddly, I did like that. Like, I didn't mind doing the sport. The problem was the kids part. You know? Like,I wanted to be playing sports. I love sports. I was athletic, but I could not navigate my way around the interpersonal stuff because I wasn't mean. Sounds weird to say, but in a group of small kids, if it's a certain kind of group, you either have to be just unbelievably likable. Like I think of some of the, some of the guys who were just like the cool kid, because they were just so fucking cool. You

0:29:21 Tom: Yeah.

0:29:30 Eli: Right. Mm-hmm.

0:29:55 Thomas: Know, like the good looking kid who was good on the basketball team. He didn't need to like fucking be mean to anybody. He was just like, nicest could be a lover. Even I love that guy. He's great. And he didn't bully me either. Like he was just a nice guy. Like that guy got to just be a nice guide, be good at basketball, be cool, whatever. But it's, it's kind of everybody else. You know, who's like, they got to figure out where they are.

And I had not an ounce of cruelty in me, other than unintentional. Think I I think I was unintentionally mean, from time to time, but but not anounce of intentional cruelty in me.

And as a result, I got stuck in a tough dynamic where I think some people realize that, like, as, as you, I think, Tom, you referenced at one point, like they, at a certain point, that was kind of picked up on that I didn't, I didn't have that in me, and so I started getting, you know, not physically bullied at first, but but like, you know, just constant verbal bullying, and I couldn't, I was honestly, it's, it breaks my heart now, it's almost talking like another person, like it's about another person, because I was just such a, like, fundamentally wanted to get along and kind of make jokes and have fun kind of kid, that I just couldn't, I could not deal with it. I was not equipped to deal with it in any way whatsoever, whatsoever.

And then some weird shit happened, some really bizarre, stupid situation, kid shit, involving like girls and stuff, and I got my ass kicked for that reason, and even, it's the only time I've gotten my ass kick, actually, and it was in seventh grade, and it had a fundamental, profound effect on me. And I wouldn't really call that bullying per se, but there was bullying after that, after you get your ass kicked, then the fucking, the bullying

0:31:24 Thomas: Comes, as you referenced. And it, it was funny because even to this day, as I was, was, as I was in this shitty, stupid, fucking bathroom where this fight was going to happen, I never at one moment was prepared to do any of that. I didn't think a fight was happening. I didn't know if I was like, I was so clueless, I was still like out of it. And then that's the funny thing about getting your ass kicked, that I'm sure Eli can testify to, you and Tommy, you did already, it really isn't that bad, like, like, assuming nobody, assuming nobody like you uses weapons or something, but like, just getting my face punched in, I barely noticed, because you kind of go out of body a little bit, and then all of a sudden my face was punched in, and I never felt any pain, never. Fat You know, and I, obviously, you know, your mileage may vary, but it is interesting, like, it's nothing. And the only point

0:31:24 Tom: That's

0:32:10 Thomas: I make is, it's almost zero percent the physical, physical pain that is, was that a problem for me anyway. I was big for myself. It's everything that comes with it. You know, it's the embarrassment.

0:32:18 Tom: Humiliating to get beat up

0:32:19 Thomas: Yeah. It'S, It's all that. And that was, I didn't get out of that until high school. Unfortunately, high school wasn't great or anything, but comparatively, just getting to access to a bigger group of people and being able to kind of find my niche, you, um, and the only point I'll make about it is, to this day, what, what needed to to happen was, if I had any physical wherewithal, I needed to fight back, and I needed to kick this kid's ass, or at least make a show of it, or at least kick another kid's, who bullied me after the fact because they thought I was an easy target, I needed to do that. That would have been the only way to put a stop to it. Honestly, there was no conversation that can do anything.

0:32:19 Tom: Yeah.

0:32:51 Eli: Or, right, or you needed an adult to empower you in a different way, which wasn't happening, right? Because of the time and place that we grew up.

0:33:03 Thomas: Well, as the parenting question now, when we're talking about how to raise our kids, what do you mean, Eli? What do you think would have would have helped? What do you mean?

0:33:06 Eli: So, I want to say for us, I don't think anything would have helped because this language and um, dynamic didn't exist, but if I think about it seriously, I think that parents are able to talk to each other and teachers now in ways that our parents probably, certainly your parents, weren't willing to slash able to.

0:33:31 Thomas: Tom. Sorry.

0:33:31 Tom: Yeah, so- so is bullying, I will say, because I've got kids all the way up through the middle of high school at this point. And bullying is just, it's taken so much more seriously by everybody involved. And I think, I think what I think would really change that is the recognition, not that being bullied sucks for the person being bullied, because you might get beat up, because you might get made fun of, but I think that people associate bullying with suicide and school shootings and we have, in turn, we- I have- think we culturally gotten the message now that just letting the fucking Lord of the Flies-esque wild west bullshit happen in the middle of the hallways and let people sort of rise to the occasion of their fucking social abuse is not- not actually a good way to, you create and foster healthy human beings.

0:33:41 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, but

0:33:58 Eli: They

0:34:23 Thomas: Also what can you do about it? Because I genuinely don't believe the adults involved can do anything about it.

0:34:25 Tom: There's a zero tolerance. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I will say like there's very little bullying in the schools now. The schools have a zero tolerance bullying program or policy.

0:34:34 Thomas: Well, that's a big claim. I mean,

0:34:36 Tom: So, well, it seems to work.

0:34:37 Eli: Just get expelled Yeah.

0:34:38 Tom: I mean, I talk to my kids about it all the time, and I will tell you, I'm, again, four kids at four different levels. We've talked about it through the middle of high school. Bullying is not what it used to, kids aren't getting bullied verbally because they have people they can go to, and then they call people in, they call guidance counselors in, and they've suspend people, and they, I mean, they take action and they, they check to see who the instigators are.

0:35:01 Eli: The, the bullying I didn't deserve, the one, the one incident of bullying I did not deserve was just a kid, because, like, I had a big high school, I was Googling while, while we were talking about it, I right

0:35:04 Thomas: This is like Putin talking about the reason that Ukraine Actually, there might

0:35:12 Tom: Yeah.

0:35:13 Eli: Exactly, I, I was like, I had like 1300 kids in my school and some of them were, different, you, you ages and living different lives, and one kid just, like, didn't like the look of me once, was in a bad mood, and just started punching me for no reason. And, like, my school understood that and expelled him, like, it was just like, "Hey, man, you're, you're fucking expelled," and he was gone. The problem was solved. I think there's a lot more of that these days, and I think that there's a lot more square because the truth is, when we were young, and, and again, this is not to blame you, Thomas, at all, but I think when we were young, there was never an option of your kids going to get expelled, right? It was like, you know, two days, right. But you had to like, yeah, to burn down the old building.

0:35:37 Tom: Right. Yeah.

0:35:52 Thomas: Have been but we have to be very serious yeah Yeah, no, that guy graduated with

0:35:58 Eli: You're right. You had get us a new theater department, but like, nowadays it's like, "Hey, if you make this building an unsafe place, you are gone." And I know this from college, the stuff that my college students, right, we, we hear the story. I, it hasn't happened to any of my students because I teach a very small and specific class, but I, I have been in the university when university students have been expelled for texting each other or emailing each other bitchy stuff. Like, they it is, it is a different, and I hope better,

0:35:58 Thomas: Honors. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, Wow.

0:36:29 Eli: World now.

0:36:30 Thomas: I don't know, is it, I mean, that, strikes, that me as overly punitive the other way. You say the problem solved, what does that kid do? What the fuck is the expelled kid doing now?

0:36:31 Tom: I, well,

0:36:38 Thomas: They just don't get an education

0:36:38 Tom: Expelled kids usually go to a behavioral school, so what, you know, what happens, at least out, out here, because I, the kid who bullied me the most aggressively my freshman year, he did get expelled, an incident where he kicked the shit out of me in locker room for the too manyth time. But he got expelled, but it doesn't mean he doesn't go to school. They still have to provide an education for him. So kids like that go to a school that's segregated for people with behavioral disorders or behavioral problems, problems, they, they do get moved to a school with like a way higher student, or lower student to teacher ratio, people who are more adept at handling like the issues that usually come with and create bullying, you know, because bullying doesn't usually arise exclusively inorganically from, like, good situations, you know what I mean, a lot of times it, it arises from people who

0:36:40 Thomas: Yeah so what you're saying is if we get to know, know the bully, find out what's going on at home.

0:37:26 Eli: Yeah.

0:37:24 Tom: Have No, you can't kick them the fuck out and make the adults deal with them. You know, and, and create consequences, they also have, they've also created with the, in the schools, um, the students aren't tolerant of bullies either anymore. And

0:37:29 Eli: Yeah.

0:37:38 Thomas: That would be the big difference. That would be what would actually matter.

0:37:40 Eli: Yeah.

0:37:40 Tom: And and that is a big deal, and that's because, from, from the very beginning, there there is a lot of anti-bullying advocacy that the schools have, have recognized and have done. And so, like, if you're a bully, like, that makes you the pariah, that makes you the outcast. Now that makes you the shithead.

0:37:55 Eli: It's

0:37:56 Thomas: I that's amazing that that cultural shift happened because we had some of the same shit, you know, we'd have the stuff where the adults or the, you know, the shitty video from the eighties that tells you don't bully. And then, but nobody cares. Like, the kids are just like, "Oh, yeah, that's the idiot adults telling us," you know, that doesn't have any impact, yeah, yeah

0:37:59 Tom: Yeah yeah

0:38:17 Eli: It's better and more pervasive of now, I think, because for us it was just like two 40 year olds being like, "Hey, Emerson, I'm gonna kick your butt at the flagpole after school," and then the health teacher was asleep, so you changed it to fucking the Spice Channel, and now it's like it's a much more comprehensive and real thing, a buddy buddy of mine is a guidance counselor at a last chance high school, which means if, in Brooklyn, New York, if you've been kicked out of two other high schools, you go to her high school. And it's exactly the situation that Tom was saying, and she said that it is fascinating to watch these kids who were bad, if not the worst kid, in two other schools, make incredible transformations once the adults around them are aware of what's going on and what they need, what services they need, um, and she's just got some, you incredibly heartwarming stories about where her kids have, have come from and where they ended up.

0:38:32 Tom: It

0:38:35 Thomas: Well that's this is an enormous surprise because, like, honestly, the, a teacher just made things worse back in, back in our day, and I, I'm I'm still a little skeptical that this is like fixed, but it would be good if it is Hitler.

0:39:18 Eli: Yeah absolutely

0:39:18 Tom: Totally did I totally agree with you, yeah, I think it's much, much better than it was, and, and again, I mean, it's funny because, remember, I remember the moment when I decided, like, I should make some adjustments here and I'm going to turn out to be a fucking legitimately, legitimately terrible person. I, I was, I was about 17. I had, and I'm curious what you guys feel about this too, because there's an enormous impact that your social circle has on sort of tolerance for being bullied and bullying. And so I had a super toxic friendship with a guy in high school and sort of, we sort of like fed off each other. Like, he and I had some real, we had like a real fucked up, very aggressive frenemies kind of dynamic. And we had this sort of slow motion falling out over the course of a summer.

0:40:10 Tom: And then I found myself my senior year of high school without any social circle of any kind at all. And again, my dad kept me very isolated. So I had be home, but I had a 6 p.m. curfew every day. I wasn't allowed to be in any kind of sports or extracurricular activities. So I was a very socially isolated kid. And that's part of what made me so angry. So it's part why I lashed out as much as I did. But I remember that moment where I was like, I got to not be friends with these people anymore.

0:40:27 Thomas: Dad, I hear you well,

0:40:42 Tom: I got, find different people in my life. I'm at a place where... And I stopped trying to have any kind of social interaction through my last year of high school. I didn't interact with anybody really after school or before school, a little bit of friendly stuff during the day, but nothing substantial. And I just realized I had get my fucking life in order, or I was going to end up a fucking bully for the rest of my life. There's a path for bullies where you're selling insurance at some, and you're just a fucking shithead. So I remember that. And remember how important realizing that social element was.

0:40:32 Eli: Yeah. Yeah yeah

0:41:18 Thomas: Or, by the way, the bullies go on to have great lives and it doesn't affect them in any way negatively, and they're actually fine, because they're like, that also happens because we live in an unjust world.

0:41:27 Tom: That does. I know. But I don't know, man. There's got to be a moment where you change out of that. Because if you solve your problems by intimidating people, I don't see that at the very highest levels of success. The highest levels of success, people don't do that.

0:41:38 Thomas: Yeah. Bullies get to do the thing where they're, like, yeah, no, I was kind of shitty, but, you know, grew out of it. And then, like some of the people they bully don't get to move on in that way, you you know, often.

0:41:53 Tom: Yeah, very true.

0:41:55 Thomas: And that's what I mean by that.

0:41:56 Eli: And you know, the the sort of second part of my transformation away from being a bully, or at least interacting with people in only that way, because I had some people who just like always liked it, they were like, "Ah, you got jokes," um, but like the the second half of that was that someone from my high school told me how badly I had affected them, um, when I was actually in college, um, I like reached out to them, like, "Hey, how's college going?" And they were like, "Hey, just so you know, you were this incredible force for bad in my life," and that, that was incredibly transformative, because I was not aware that I was hurting people unless they, you know, punched me or cried or you did know, signaled to me that I'd gone too far. And so knowing that I caused that pain for people was very transformative.

0:42:45 Eli: It also meant, and I still struggle with this a lot, is that a big issue that I still have is trusting people to be adults with me. A lot of the people in my life that I take care of or mentor will sort of forever be my babies, right, and I'm sure you guys have heard me refer to the Magic group that I run, my babies, or my students as my babies, um, and so one of one of the harder things that I, again, that I still struggle with today is like of people as my equal, especially if I have had to take care of them for a big part of our friendship, relationship, relying on people, trusting other people to carry their weight, as opposed to just like I'll do it all, um, in a lot of ways I think a lot of, you know, not to get too meta and certainly not to defend bullies or myself, I think a lot bullies transform pushing other people away with hostility into pushing people away way in different ways, and that's that's something I, again, I still deal with.

0:43:48 Tom: So to bring it kind of all the way back, because I actually have thought about this topic a lot. And actually, it's one of my blog topics that I intend to write about. So it's on my list. List. So as dads, I'm curious if you have thought about how to create a situation where your kid does not end up being bullied, or if they do, how you'll interact better with it than threatening the neighbor dad?

0:44:11 Tom: Or how do you make sure that they're not going to turn into a bully? Because I've thought about this, and I kind of have a plan. I'm curios what your guys' thoughts are. Like, how do you parent through this now, like?

0:44:11 Eli: I'm

0:44:23 Thomas: Yeah, that's exactly what I was left wondering after this, because I really, I don't know. I mean, I Don't know what to think. I guess I'll have to try to like whatever school my kids are at, I'll have to Try to gauge what's going on there. Know If if what you guys say is true. I I didn't feel like you could possibly manage this in as rosy a way as you guys are painting it out to be. So now I'm genuinely Genuinely confused. I don't know what to do. So what do you think? How are you worried about like Eli? Because you still have a child even younger than mine. Know, like, what are you doing? Are you hoping your kid is going to be able to defend himself? Or are you more worried about Max being the bully? You

0:44:58 Eli: Not really worried about Max being the bully, he's a, he's very sensitive and very very very quiet kid right now, right now, very quiet, um. So you know, you got to speak before you can bully anybody, so, you know, first things first, um, but yeah, one, I of the things that he has, and not that I didn't have this, but his mother is so gentle and so kind and so sweet and so loving and has demonstrated empathy, demonstrates empathy so well. He is surrounded by people who demonstrate empathy so well that I think that'll be very useful for him when it comes to not being a bully. One of the things that I think is really important is an attitude towards school of like, "Hey, this is one option," right, my wife is unschooled, so my wife is entirely self-educated, all the way up till college, she, a she never sat in a classroom until her senior year of high school, when she took her GED.

0:45:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:45:50 Thomas: What? We're going to need to do 10 episodes on that.

0:45:53 Eli: Yeah. No, she's unschool, she educated herself at the library, her parents taught her to read and write, I think, but then after that she literally would just like go to the library and learn what she wanted to learn until it was time for her to get a GED so she could go to high school, and like studied, took an SAT book, studied that, got great scores on SAT, ended up going, so like one of the things that I bring to my son that was definitely not an option is like, "Hey, if school's not working out for him, you don't have to fucking do it," right.

0:46:23 Thomas: Wow. Wow.

0:46:24 Eli: Like, if, one of those genuine solutions I have, if Max is ever bullied, is like, "Yeah, we're not doing that," right, like, if the school fixes it, great, but if they don't, I'm just gonna be like, "Tight, you know who loves you, me and mom, let's fuck it, we'll do it here, we'll do it at home," and I know a couple of friends who have actually been through that experience, who had a kid who was getting bullied in school and they were just like, "Nah, this is not the social relationship we want this kid to have," and they made friends through their activities, you know, they do music or whatever at the school, sports or whatever at the high, but they are unschooled, homeschooled for that very reason, so that's definitely something I bring, which is that I have, I have no major commitments to any education system for any amount of time, right? Like, I'm psyched for it. I hope he has a good time in school, but if he doesn't, great, we don't have to do that.

0:47:12 Tom: Yeah, never I would never consider pulling my kids out of the, I mean, I guess I would, I would transfer them, I'd buy a house in a different district, I would move them to a private school, but I can't imagine trying to take on the task of educating one or all of the kids, that just for me that's just like, I just, I shudder to think of my inability to do that and do that well, I just, don't like bully for you, I just, like, on my mind I'm like, fuck that, I, I don't, I am not qualified, and I went to school to teach, and I, I'm, I recognize like I am I am NOT qualified whatsoever to do that.

0:47:13 Thomas: Yeah. I yeah, that's interesting.

0:47:48 Tom: No.

0:47:48 Thomas: Yeah, because it's also so opposed to what I imagine is also Tom's upbringing, which which was the world is there and it's my job to fucking figure it out. You know, there was no very much no in any way, no sense that my parents were going to change the reality of the situation in anyway.

0:48:08 Tom: Yeah. No.

0:48:09 Thomas: You Know, like, my, you know, from a young age, you know, my parents said, like, "If you go to college, you can still live here, if not, you, you are out of the house," like, you don't, it wouldn't have mattered if I was like homeless, they would've, I wouldn't have been allowed in the house one minute after graduating high school or college.

0:48:09 Tom: No.

0:48:27 Tom: I'll tell you a funny story, my, my dad always used to say, now I, I think of the way it played out, I think my dad was, was saying this sort of in a, uh a warning sense, like, don't get, get in trouble, my dad always used to say, "If you ever get arrested, don't call me," I think he was saying that to mean don't fucking get arrested, stupid, but My brother, when my brother was like 20 something, my brother got arrested, my brother, I don't want to tell his whole story because it's his and not mine, so my brother was up in Wisconsin, we live in Illinois, he was up in Wisconsin. He was at a party and he got arrested on a felony.

0:48:48 Thomas: Yeah. Oh.

0:49:05 Tom: And it was kind of a misunderstanding, kind of not. It should have been something he got help with to get a better resolution than what he got. But my brother, all our lives had internalized, if you ever get arrested, don't call me. So my brother sat in jail and didn't call anyone rather than reach out and ask for help. And my dad, I thought was going to have a third heart attack trying to find my brother and eventually tracked him down sitting in this jail almost a month later, you know, up in the middle of rural Wisconsin. And he said, "Why the hell didn't you call me and tell me where you were? We were worried sick."

0:49:05 Thomas: Wow, this

0:49:40 Tom: And My brother said, well, you Always said, "If you ever get arrested, don't call me." And so like, I think about that, and it actually dovetails back to this, this point nicely, because like I think about that all the time, that, and I tell the kids like, "If you're in trouble, fucking call me."

0:49:40 Thomas: Is A good Lesson. Yeah.

0:49:55 Eli: That Yep.

0:49:55 Tom: Like If you're in trouble.

0:49:56 Eli: Yeah.

0:49:57 Thomas: Man.

0:49:57 Tom: Call me, the same is true for the bullying, because I've thought about, like, I'm worried about my kids in general being bullied. I don't worry about them becoming bullies because of how they happened to turn out, but I, I did worry about that. And I think that to avoid somebody turning into a bully, you've got to resolve conflict in front of your kids in ways that do not top the other person. You've got to show them that conflict can be resolved without somebody being a winner and somebody else being a loser. Conflict resolution that is not hierarchical but that is solutions based and based in love and empathy, and and you've got to show them that conflict and resolve that, like, openly. And Share that, I

0:50:45 Thomas: This is Whoa. This is a rose colored world, I agree, but

0:50:48 Tom: Think, but how else do You propose to teach your kid not to be a bully?

0:50:50 Thomas: Well Yeah, that's a setting that aside, because I, I do, agree with that, like, because your kid has control over that for the most part, um,

0:50:59 Tom: So there's two, two Problems to solve and I'm trying to Make them discrete problems, yeah

0:51:00 Thomas: Yeah Well I guess, and I don't know what your guys's experience is, and again, because Eli was raised with a silver spoon, I don't know if, have Eli ever had to be in a place where this would have been a problem? But, like, there are multiple times in my life where I've had to be in situations as a kid. And even sometimes as an adult, they're not often, maybe more as, like, a young adult, where those rules don't apply. You, I had to work in construction for a year. Those don't, rules don't apply. Why, you some dude in your shit town, you're working construction with, is being an asshole to you. You don't, there's no way to tell, there's

0:51:36 Tom: No, that's true, I guess, I Was thinking of it in terms of, like, kids in school, but

0:51:40 Thomas: Okay. And also For me, and maybe this has been, this is why it's so crucially important. Uh, and I'm, I'm genuinely confused as, if, uh, if we live in a better world now, that's great. But as a kid, sports, in where I wrestled in high school, and that wrestling room, there was no, no fucking where to go, you, you, you had to deal with it there, and you weren't using, you know, conflict resolution methods that, like, that I want my kid to still have, that's the thing, like, I, I fully agree with your philosophy there, Tom, of how to raise them, and I absolutely am going to do that, and that's what I plan to do, but my word, I guess my, my remaining worry is, will they be as completely unequipped to deal mit those situations as I was, where you just, you don't, it's Lord Of the Flies-esque, there isn't the thing where you get to, like, have a heart-to-heart with somebody and resolve a conflict.

0:51:41 Tom: Yeah.

0:52:18 Eli: I Really do think it is a better world, and I say this just based on my sister, right? I'm 15 years older than my sister, so I got to watch what my sister has gone through and what school has been like for her, and it's just, it's night and day, it Is genuinely a different a world old now for kids, um, and that those skills are more encouraged, um, mean, it's funny when I hear you talk about it, Thomas, um, you talk a lot bullying in a lot of the way that I talk about mental illness, which is, like, nobody's gonna be there for you and there's no meds that work, you just gotta fucking squeeze your butt cheeks together and to not be sad, and then someday, day they'll find a pill that works, and, like, one of the really hard realizations I've had to make is, like, it is a better world now than I grew up in, and a lot of the, like, golden rules that I took, a lot the lessons that I learned from my pain, don't need to be learned anymore because it's a better, fairer, kinder world. I

0:52:35 Tom: Yeah.

0:53:21 Tom: Echo that. I think that with, I've got, yeah, Thomas.

0:53:21 Thomas: Okay, I Don't Know Sure Man

0:53:24 Eli: Love That Thomas Is just like, yeah, whatever checker After Golf gesture

0:53:27 Tom: No, man.

0:53:27 Thomas: The Guy Who led this show off with, "I don't live in society anymore after 2016." We don't even have a fucking society anymore, it's a better world, sunshine, fucking rainbows, kids are amazing to each other. I just don't, I honestly I don't believe it, but Maybe You're right

0:53:28 Eli: Sure Victims

0:53:41 Tom: Yeah well, I don't 100% believe it. I think it's better. I don't think that it's gone. I do want to draw the distinction. So the conflict resolution stuff, I want to be really clear, I think has any relationship to avoid being bullied. I was talking about avoiding becoming the bully. So you got to solve for both problems. It has literally no relationship to avoiding being bullied, so I don't want to pretend that it does. I think to the extent that it's possible to create an open and supportive dialogue with your kids so that they can report back to you that they are being bullied and then then you can intervene. I think there are much better sort interventional strategies now that exist that are multidisciplinary and that involve many more of the partners in the school system. But outside the school system, and also just you're not going to have a kid necessarily who wants to tell you everything. I'll tell you what, I've got one of my four kids that she won't, don't tell me anything at all about her life, even the most mundane, consequence-less details of her existence.

0:53:42 Thomas: Yeah Yeah Yeah

0:54:50 Tom: She does not share. It's just who she is. I am certain that if something was going on in her life she would handle it herself and not share it. So no matter how open you are, some of that is just personality of the kids. Some kids are just like, I'm going solve this shit on my own. I'm not going to share. And I do think that you've got to open up a dialogue too. Too. And this is maybe this is regressive called, look, try to avoid conflict. But if you can't, you should be able to handle it as best you can. I don't think there's anything. And Thomas, I think this comes back to your point and my experience, too. Like, I don't my kids starting fights. I don't think my kids are well equipped to engage physically in fights, Just knowing who they are. But I don't want them to be. Hate to say it. I don't want them to just be like pushover victims of somebody's

0:55:39 Thomas: Exactly

0:55:39 Eli: Yeah You don't want Them to be victims Yeah

0:55:40 Tom: Bullshit.

0:55:40 Thomas: That's The point I'm exactly Driving at, like And and And maybe it's unnecessary, maybe years from now this will be, like, "Oh, fucking grandpa Thomas with his old timey," we Must have been in World War II or something You

0:55:42 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, no.

0:55:50 Eli: Yeah

0:55:52 Tom: I tell the kids you don't have to put up with any bullshit.

0:55:54 Thomas: Yeah, I intend to raise, especially, at, look, I don't know, know how to raise Phoebe to, like, I just don't know the dynamics of, of, like, I just think it's so different, and I, I don't know, other than just trying to model the kindness and the good virtues that I want someone to have, I don't what to do there. But for, for my boy, I want him to be competent if something's happening and he would need to, like, shut a bully up. Like, I want him to be physically, like, versed in the language of, of, all right, like, you need to shut the fuck up now, rather than completely inept as I was at that time.

0:56:28 Tom: Couldn't agree with that more. Became somewhat competent through a series of unpleasant experiences. It would have been better had I had some help with that, and it's so funny, though, because, Thomas, in my head, this is important to me because of how I grew up, but I will tell you that I've had these conversations with the kids, and they are 15 and 16 now, and they have absolutely, they look at me like I'm made out of fucking moon rocks when I try to tell them, like, hey, You know, if you ever want to go downstairs and, like, I can show you kind of how to, you know, something escalates, They're like, What The Fuck Are You talking about?

0:56:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's, maybe that's what will happen. Well, I'll tell you honestly though. And again, maybe this is because of the uniquely weird way I was raised. I don't mean I'm going to Mr. Miyagi, my kids from a young age and, and, you know, like do all that.

0:57:01 Tom: No,

0:57:14 Thomas: I just Mean, I'm gonna wrestle with the boy. I'm on a, and I already do anyway, cause it's so fucking fun, like, we just, like, topple all of each other all the time. It's the best. I had none of that, I had zero of that, and it's a huge regret of mine. It just doesn't, I don't, I think it's bad for you, I think it is bad to be raised very hands off. I really do, ahead, Eli, there

0:57:13 Tom: I Know, but Right,

0:57:31 Eli: My dad roughhoused with me all the Time And I roughhouse with my son, one of the things that I'm better at because it didn't exist when my dad was, was roughhousing with me, is, like, consent, so I will pause with My son, and I'll be like, is this okay, and he, he gets a couple steps from me and does the more gesture, which means he wants me To tickle him some more, and I tickle them some More, stop, right

0:57:33 Thomas: You Go Yep. Yep. Yeah. Totally. We Gotta do an episode on that, by the Way, on The

0:57:52 Eli: And Then He Stands up and walks away and then does the more I mean, my son will be tickled all afternoon, given The drug, he loves to roughhouse and wrestle around for me. It's very interesting, my father, and we talked about this in the lost section, um, so this hasn't actually appeared on the show. Know, my father was, naturally a very violent person and was very good at controlling it. Um, and very early in my life, he was like, do you want to learn how to do this? But watching, watching him do violence, I recognized really early that, like, I did not have that in me. And so the way that I didn't get bullied was I was just like, it's funny, I was just like, yeah, I mean, if I get beat up, I get beaten up, right? Like, I never was like, you know how to handle myself in a fight. I was always like, I have a nose that's been broken several

0:57:52 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. He Can't

0:58:41 Eli: Times. How much worse can it get? But was that really really interesting. And watching him, especially as I got older, watching him get better and better about that and learn, to control that angry part of himself, I think was a really important part of how I thought about violence. Cause, and again, this is a whole episode like talking about McKeesmo and are you really a man if you're not capable of violence? And like Like, my hero and my dad, who I adored, being so capable of violence tied that in for me so deeply that it was very, very hard for me to separate those things. I always knew I wasn't capable of it, but it was really hard hard to not to be ashamed of it until I was much, much older.

0:59:27 Eli: And again, credit to Dave Boz, he talked to me about it, right? I was like, hey, I feel like a big, you wuss because I never want to fight. Like I've, Right. I always feel like I'm a coward and, his guidance and on that, him being to be willing vulnerable and talk about that was huge in how I think about violence still.

0:59:45 Thomas: Wait to talk to my fucking kids and Tom, and as you say, who knows personality, they're wise, you never know. Like, I can, I can actually imagine Phoebe being somebody who, to share, but also she is so, so self-conscious in a way, from day one she's been the most self-conscious, um, a little bit neurotic, in that way that I could imagine. Imagine her just not wanting to tell us stuff because of, like, not wanting to be embarrassed or not wanting to feel judged.

It's amazing. But I can't wait to try to, at least, know, be the other end of that and not only talk to my kids, but make sure, one thing that that I absolutely trying consciously to not do, like my parents did, was don't find every opportunity to make them feel like a fucking idiot for whatever their struggle is, whatever, whatever they were going through, not to belittle what it was not to be like, yeah, I was just a kid who gives a shit, you know, like, like to, to a kid, that's their whole world. Like that's the only thing that matters. And hopefully by not doing any of those negative things, um, it will at least encourage that option to be there for them to like, tell you me about their day. Like I want to, I want To, you know, I

1:00:35 Eli: Yeah.

1:00:36 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:00:50 Thomas: Don't want to talk to them. I can't wait.

1:00:50 Tom: Well, How Successful You are is going to depend so much on those kids, I, I Really, you I think about the roughhousing thing you were talking about, and again, it's, it's funny, I've, because got four very discreet experiences, I will tell you. Like, the oldest boy in this house, my, my stepson, Donovan, I've been in his life now for five, almost six years, and I have never, and so he's 16, but he was 10, you know, and like, we roughhoused maybe once or twice, he's just not into it. The other kids will like all come attack me, like the other kids'll all swarm me, and it'll be like a whole, like, fucking, you know, Wrestlemania Royale thing occasionally. And, you know, I'm very careful with them, I'll pick them up and set them down, and pick the other one up, set him down, we roughhoused like once, um, which is funny actually, and when I've tried to roughhouse with him, what he does is he curls, he drops to the ground and curls into a ball, which Is The, he's

1:00:54 Thomas: Absolutely. Yeah, So he Does he does George Michael from Arrested Development, he does that.

1:01:44 Tom: Literally Just, he's just like, I'll like, I'd go to like, he'll like do like a little thing, and I'll go to very gently, because he's very small, so he's like, taller than I am. He's, like, 5'10", and weighs 100, maybe 105 pounds, right?

1:01:44 Thomas: Oh. Yeah. Kids Are so freaking skinny.

1:01:56 Tom: So he's so little. And so, like I'll very – I'm always very gentle, but I'll grab him, and then he'll just – he'll go completely limp and just fall to the ground.

1:01:57 Thomas: It's Funny. Yeah.

1:02:06 Tom: Small.

1:02:06 Eli: A cat that doesn't want to move.

1:02:08 Tom: Yeah, and my other boy, my Finnegan, he's a year younger, and he's just the polar opposite. So he's more like I was when I was his age. So he's a fairly heavy dude. He actually outweighs me by a bit and he's about my height. And just a few years ago, I remember like the two of them decided they were going to wrestle me. It was the only time I wrestled with Donovan Ruffhouse and Donovan ran after me and he jumped in the air and he is so little, I caught him and I tucked him behind my back And I just held him behind me, and with my one arm, and then I just wrestled my son with my, my other arm, and he just squirmed as he, like, was tucked back behind me. And I, it's funny, because their tolerance and their interest level, and even that kind of sort of horseplay, which I recognize that horseplay is, is developmentally, it's sort of preparing you for that physicality if necessary, but some kids, they just have such a different tolerance or interest In it.

1:02:08 Thomas: Yeah, Absolutely.

1:03:03 Thomas: Know it, you Would be interesting, like, if we somehow had the data from mirror universe, like, if, if you were raising him from zero, like, would it be different Or maybe, maybe not. Like maybe it would be exactly the same. Um, I, that's one thing that really has been interesting in having more than one kid, which is seeing like how fucking different they are from day one, like day one.

1:03:10 Tom: Right. Day

1:03:24 Thomas: It's unbelievable. It really puts some stuff into perspective. Um, and so I Totally, yeah, take that on board. Like, I'm very willing to go with how my kids are in these ways. I'll tell you, Arlo is such a natural wrestler, he's been from young age, he just, he naturally does, like, and mind you, I don't know if I mentioned it, but, like, things turned around for me physically because I took up wrestling in high school and actually got really good at it and was pretty, uh, competitive at it. And I'll tell you, from my experience, Arlo, if he wants to, I have no idea if he want to, he is built for wrestling, like, he could be a fucking champion wrestler, he has no legs, that's

1:03:22 Tom: One Man, Yep. Well, Really.

1:03:55 Tom: Really?

1:03:55 Thomas: That's step one, no legs, a very large like, wide, like broad back, he's exactly the dude that I hated to wrestle, because you can't, you can't get those, you can't take them down, because you're trying to get their legs, but they don't have any legs, all their weight is up top, it's a, he, I'm telling you, he could be a champion if he wants to, or he won't do anything like that, we'll see either way, it'll be fun to find out, but

1:04:17 Tom: It's funny. Very briefest, I told you my dad didn't let me do extracurriculars or sports. So my dad was very strict about that. And so there was no, he was strict about everything. I don't know why I even said that, but there was, like, there's no question about it. I wasn't allowed to do it. It wasn't going to happen.

1:04:30 Thomas: The Trains Ran On Time Yeah,

1:04:32 Tom: But So, I wanted to do these things. And So I joined, I Was allowed to stay after school until until the activity bus. So I was allowed to stay after school and work out in the weight room. But then the four o'clock activity bus, I had to be on that activity bus but I joined the wrestling team and I loved it. And I didn't tell my dad About it.

So I joined wrestling team my junior year, all sneaky, and I would go, and I would work out with the wrestlers, and I would like train with the wrestler, and I love it, and I got all the way up until the first meet, and the meet was in the evening, and I hadn't planned ahead because I was 16, and, and I Was like, I can't go to the meet, and the coach was like what are you talking about, and I'm like, well, I'm actually not allowed to be on the wrestling team and he looked At me like I was fucking crazy, and incidentally, he's the brother of Rudy from the movie Rudy, so my coach was Coach Ruettiger, which is Rudy Ruettiger, and he's like, what do you mean you're not allowed on this team, and I just wanted to work out with people

1:04:48 Thomas: Oh, Man, Oh, What A story Oh, My god. You Wow.

1:05:29 Tom: Like, I was just kind of, I'm just like, I'm Just lonely, and I Want something To do

1:05:31 Thomas: So What Happened I Got, must know I

1:05:34 Eli: He went home.

1:05:35 Tom: What's that? No.

1:05:35 Eli: What do you think happened?

1:05:36 Thomas: I, what, like, did you, was he like, let me, I'm going to call your Hitler dad or were, wow.

1:05:39 Tom: It Kicked Me off, These say, he said, if you're not allowed to be on the team, he's like, you can't work out with us anymore, and I was like I Just But because I was like, can I just work out, I just want, can I work out And I'll wrestle with you guys and do the training, and I just won't go to the meets, and he's like, that's not, he was really sweet about it actually, but he's like, he's, guy, it's not how teams work, and I can't Do something your dad wouldn't let me Do, you Know, like, he can't do that, like, like he Would get In, and shit, you know, it

1:05:42 Thomas: Oh man. That's so brutal. Oh, that's so sad.

1:05:56 Thomas: Yeah. Oh man, that sucks. Oh, totally. Yeah. But like that also, that sucked. That sucks.

1:06:04 Tom: Does. So then I was just like, I would like go to the weight room when they're in the weightroom and I'd be like, Hey guys, they'd be Like, you're not, you not part of the team.

1:06:06 Thomas: Oh, poor Tom. Face against the glass,

1:06:11 Tom: Like, what?

1:06:11 Thomas: You know, just like,

1:06:12 Eli: Just Gently running your tongue up and down. So I also joined the wrestling team because my dad was a wrestler, state champ when he was young. Uh, and I wanted to be my dad, so I joined the wrestling team, and I loved practice, and I loved rest, I love the technique of it and the physicality of it, and whenever we would go to a match, I would have what I now know is a panic attack

1:06:12 Thomas: Nice.

1:06:38 Thomas: Oh, me too.

1:06:38 Tom: Oh, no.

1:06:39 Thomas: We could talk about that.

1:06:40 Eli: And be absolutely unable to wrestle. Now I forbid my

1:06:40 Thomas: Yeah. Oh my God. God, I could talk for hours about this.

1:06:46 Eli: Father from watching me wrestle. I was like, Dad, you can't come, I'm gonna be too nervous. He was like, I'm proud of you no matter what. And I was, it's like, no, you won't. You have to not come. And so I, he didn't come to the first one, and I sat in the locker room, and then the wrestling match started, and they blew the whistle. And like, you know, a chair was set down next to me, and I fell down on my back, and I was like, thank God it's over.

1:07:08 Thomas: Yeah.

1:07:08 Eli: Oh, thanks. Sweet Lord. It's over as over. It over. And then he snuck into the second one. He Snuck it to the second one. And he was like, I won't comment. He's not going to the the second one and very obviously saw what was happening, and I was, you know, I was like hysterically weeping that my father had saw me lose, right, like now he was gonna, in my head he was gonna like rip off a shoulder patch that wasn't there and be like, the name Bosnick no longer applies to you. And of course he was like, hey, you don't have to fucking do this, man, you, you seem like you hate this. And I was like, I really hate this, can we please stop? And he was like, yeah, do you want to do the musical theater program this summer? And I was like, yes, please, they're doing Les Mis, and I really like Les Mis. I want to play Denardier. And that was it.

And I will tell you that one of the amazing things about my dad is he cheered for me without flinching in what I was excited for, forever, to the extent that when, when I did my first high school musical, famously in my family used to make fun of him for this all the time, when I finished the first number, my dad reacted like sports, because

1:07:15 Thomas: Oh. Yeah.

1:08:22 Eli: He'd never been to any. So my dad was like, yeah, boy, oh, in this theater of, in this musical theater theater of, like, Binghamton High School, where everyone else was like, yes, musicals, and we used to joke that like Dad would, was going to show up to my musicals with a foam finger, but like, there was, there was no one more supportive and he never you know, the people around him would be like, oh, Dave, you know, this one's not sporty, he never flinched. And one of the things that I'm so grateful for that I absolutely want to take forward into my son is even if he was ashamed of me, and I, I can't imagine that there wasn't at least a moment where he was like, Jesus, what, what half of that DNA got ruined, but like he never blinked. There was never a moment. Where he showed me he was anything but super duper proud of me. Even, even when I, I was trying, right. When I was kind and doing things that I cared about, there was no bigger cheerleader for

1:08:43 Thomas: Oh, man.

1:09:05 Tom: Oh,

1:09:22 Eli: Me.

1:09:22 Thomas: We have gone on too long. But someday I need to tell the polar opposite of that story. It be more apropos and more polar opposite, just FYI. But that is super sweet. Can't I wait to try to be that for my kids. I think, as usual, we've got the same kind of takeaways like, Tom's dad is Hitler. Eli, why aren't you a better person?

1:09:42 Thomas: And I'm a sad sack, I think. You guys can decide what my normal thing is. I like I think we pretty much stayed on brand.

1:09:40 Tom: God damn it. My dad was worried about my academics it's

1:09:50 Eli: This Twitter poll gets darker and darker every week, we're gonna release all five of these episodes simultaneously and people are gonna be like, we fucking hate you now. We're going to be like, okay, this podcast was a poor choice. All right, gentlemen, right before we go, important question: what do you call a fish with no eyes? A fish...

1:09:52 Tom: God damn it shit

1:10:17 Thomas: I'm only laughing. I hate dad jokes, but I'm only laughing at that one because that's actually what Phoebe called fish, somehow. Is a bit, it was weird, you would somehow not the pronounce I or just be fish, can I have some fish? And I thought it was the cutest thing. All right, that does it for episode three. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, I'm going to make three plugs for visiting patreon.com/dearolddads. The first one is you get this extended episode, every extended episode. And in today's extended episode, you, it's a Thomas story time. And it is one of the funniest things that has ever happened with Phoebe. It is hilarious. I love this story. Go check it out. It, flatulence and daycare. I'll just say that. It's very funny. Second appeal, you get the next episode a week ahead of everybody else. And in episode four, we're going to be talking about, do we not spoil our kids in today's world, and comparing it to our upbringing, some of which were uphill both ways in the snow, and compare and contrast.

1:10:17 Tom: Oh yeah oh yeah

1:10:28 Eli: Alright,

1:11:14 Thomas: So that's a lot of fun, and the final plug for patreon.com/dearolddads is that monthly bonus content, you've heard me mention it before, this month is newly wed Game with Cecil, with all our lives. It, it was stressful, arguments were had, but also triumphs were shared. Check it out, it was as fun and funny and entertaining as you're imagining right now, plus you get to hear our wives get to know the couples a little bit better. All right, those are the three plugs for Patreon, but that's okay if you can't become a patron, we still love you so much, and we look forward to hearing from you and continuing on with this show and where it goes, so we'll see you next week, everybody.

1:11:54 Clip: Wanna meet sexy dilfs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com, or better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Law'd Awful Movies and all the Puzzle and the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.