How Do You Know If You Should Have Kids?

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that will ask the questions around here. I'm Tom Curry, and I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:35 Eli: Boom!

0:00:39 Thomas: Hello! Having said that, I feel like, exactly you the opposite of that right now. That'll

0:00:43 Tom: Are answering the questions around here because

0:00:45 Thomas: We'll be answering the questions around here, everybody. Don't you try to answer at home.

0:00:48 Tom: We don't...

0:00:49 Eli: It'd be really bad content if we asked you to answer the questions, podcast listeners. Lot of silences.

0:00:49 Thomas: Um, uh,

0:00:52 Tom: Did you guys get a lot of because I said so's when you ask questions exclusively?

0:00:58 Eli: Never.

0:01:03 Tom: Like, what are we having for dinner? Because I said so. Where Where are you taking me? Why didn't you pick me up from school, dad? Because I said so.

0:00:58 Thomas: Yes, exclusively, exclusively. Yes. No, I, we've talked about this. All right. Smart ass. Oh, that would, that Would've been if I had asked my dad, like, Hey, why didn't you ever pick us up? He just, there'd be no response. There wouldn't.

0:01:15 Tom: No, he just wouldn't dignify it with a response, like,

0:01:21 Thomas: Oh yeah. No. There's, there's all kinds of stuff that my dad just wouldn't respond to. And then, like, oh, okay, yeah, right. Like, my dad was ever that enthusiastic. My dad being addicted to the one ring of power would have been an upgrade, you know? Then he at least would have cared about something, uh, well,

0:01:25 Eli: He had a precious that he was really focused on, so, you know.

0:01:29 Tom: Wait a minute, like, he wouldn't

0:01:37 Eli: He's just got, Gollum's got it under a bunch of DVDs and Blu-rays. Well, has the... a ring somewhere, I don't know, you'll find it, I was taking a nap.

0:01:49 Thomas: Thought we'd take the opportunity to, uh, answer some more questions over here, because, yeah, I was gonna say, I, we used all of them last time, though. There can't be any more left after we answered nearly two and a half questions last time.

0:01:53 Eli: Answer another question. Yep.

0:01:58 Tom: All Right. So this question comes from Matricide, Patricide, Catricide, Hatricide. "Factors should people consider when deciding whether to have kids, and what questions should they ask themselves?" I,

0:02:17 Thomas: I, now, this is the whole episode? Is this one question?

0:02:19 Eli: We found it, everybody?

0:02:20 Thomas: Yeah,

0:02:20 Tom: Is It's got, like, it's a huge question. Who,

0:02:23 Thomas: Who, you start.

0:02:20 Eli: Uh, are you sure, are you should take a second, are you sure? If you didn't go fuck yes, don't, don't do it. Yet, not now, not yet. They got science now, you can fucking boof a baby into a 95 year old, you'll figure it out eventually. Do Do not be rushed into this thing. Hey, how's the relationship going, right? You and your partner, have a lot of fights that will become magnified by a thousand times, because everything's a literal life or death situation, right? Like, any little thing in your relationship goes through, like, a child's Disney cartoon level of exaggeration once you get into rearing children together. So you better figure out how that works, right?

0:02:25 Thomas: Oh, yeah, Yeah.

0:03:11 Eli: If you've ever said, "We never fight," you better figure out how to fight, because you are going to fight. If you have your first fight over screaming baby, that's not ideal.

0:03:21 Thomas: I, say that Lydia and I never fought, uh, would have said we never fight, and I think I'd still say that, but it, that's okay as long as the reason for that is because you just talk things out right away. But if you're the, like, oh, we never fight, it's because both of you just don't say anything and get bitter and feel, that won't work, because that'll explode during the process of. Make sure you have good abilities to resolve conflicts quickly and amicably, that'd be a good place to to start, yeah.

0:03:50 Tom: Yeah.

0:03:50 Eli: Also. And I mean this super seriously, three months, absolutely nothing else in your life, absolutely nothing else in your life for the first three months. It sucks, it's sad, dad, you're gonna wanna squeeze a little you time in there, especially for dads, because we're dads talking to dads, and that's much easier for dads to squeeze you time. You can't do it first three months, you're just sitting there with the potato baby, and you just gotta be there while the potato baby turns into a person. All,

0:03:56 Thomas: We

0:04:20 Tom: I, this is a tough question for me. I, I did, I read this question like five times and since, since, since I saw this posted. So I'm going to say this. I don't think people should have kids anymore. Just, I just don't.

0:04:34 Thomas: Had the last ones, just

0:04:35 Tom: I just, I don'T think you should. Like, I think that I, and I, I mean it. I tell my kids with all seriousness that they should not have kids. If they turned 18 and they wanted to get sterilized, I would pay for it and tell them it was a great decision.

0:04:35 Eli: Right, interesting, a,

0:04:35 Thomas: Don't, everybody, and the doctor would tell them no,

0:04:51 Tom: Would tell him no, but I would take them out of the country if they were insistent to get it done. I would 100% support that. No, I would not black market, but yeah, I would absolutely take them out of the country to have them sterilized. I think, I think you should ask yourself a series of questions that are very real. I think in the most important one is, how optimistic are you that the future, that a child that's born in 2021 that lives 80 years and will live to the year, say, 2100, how optimistic argue that the year 2100 will be a good quality of life life to live in?

I, not optimistic that the world will be worth living in in 50 or 60 years from a resources, climate change, drought, war, famine standpoint, I'm just not. I just feel like all of the evidence that I have ever read and all is only pointing me in directions that lead me towards severe pessimism on that.

And so, if I had it to do over, the reason I say I wouldn't have have kids isn't because I don't love my kids, it's because I love my kids, but I I'm desperately, desperately worried that the world that they'll grow up in will not be worth growing up in, and I really do mean that.

So I have a bunch of, like, personal answers too, that I, like they're similar to yours, guys, but, like, I I do, do I do the math, and I'm like, yeah, like, I like my kids, like, my eight -year -old son will live until almost the year, probably the year 2100. and And, you know, all the science says that by the year 2100, the world's going to be in deep, deep, deep shit. And well before that, and most of those trend lines are accelerating, not steadily increasing. So I would encourage people not to have kids at all, actually.

0:04:56 Eli: Black market Taiwanese vasectomy, Yeah.

0:06:34 Eli: I actually saved that topic for a whole separate episode because Tom, you and I feel opposites on that. So I'm very excited to talk about that. Save But the longer conversation for maybe its own show. But yeah, I think it's I think is really interesting. I absolutely respect that viewpoint. And again, I feel the exact opposite.

0:06:38 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, me too. Yeah,

0:06:42 Tom: Yeah, I know. Yeah.

0:06:55 Tom: Right.

0:06:55 Eli: You know, it's it's, it requires.

0:06:56 Tom: You've got a very Steven Pinker kind of view of things.

0:06:58 Eli: Yeah, I have a Steven Pinker, but trans people exist view, which is that sort of like the arc that every generation has said, this is it, this is going to be the last beneficial generation, the end is coming, the end isn't, I right, like literally Jesus on the mount was like, oh no, it's coming, um, and for a variety of reasons I think that we will see human flourishing, I think we will seem, I think a hundred years from now, much like every hundred years, people in the year 2100 will look back and our lives, our day-to-day lives, what, what we consider to be normal and happy will be unbearable suffering to them.

0:06:59 Tom: Yeah.

0:07:35 Tom: I sincerely hope that you're right. I do. I hope that your right.

0:07:37 Thomas: Well, feel Should decide we're having this conversation or not, but but but I, yeah, like I'll just flag that I'm on the Eli side of this one's gonna be interesting. It's Eli and I is different grouping than normal, I think, and you're looking at the science of how shitty things are going to be, the truth is that almost all of that is not us. That's not, that's, it's going to be way worse off nations that happen to be you, and by worse off, I mean they're screwed by the fact that more we developed nations earlier on burned all these fossil fuels, and these, you, the nations that are more vulnerable that are like closer to the sea, or if you happen to live in Florida, I guess if you got some beachfront property in Florida. But think it might be even more to the world that we raise conscientious humans to go into that situation and have way more empathy for people suffering than we have historically had.

0:07:49 Tom: Yeah. What

0:07:49 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:08:32 Thomas: We each got to say a little piece on our like overall kids in the future question, let's, let's pause, there's hard, we all want to jump in, we'll pause there and, and we'll, we'll do that another time, but Tom, I want to ask you, forget that for a moment, what are your thoughts on just personally, like if you were, you know, if, if you, if you, yeah,

0:08:36 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:08:46 Eli: Right. In a, in a planet that's going to survive.

0:08:48 Tom: Yeah, assume. So yeah, like, so taking the question back and assuming that like you're going to have kids, right, and then what are the things you should consider when deciding about this right should

0:08:58 Thomas: Or, or I would, I also took this as like, maybe you're a happily married couple. That's kind of like, you know, you're 50, 50, like, oh, I think we want to get not entirely sure. Like, you Know, that, that's kind OF how I took it,

0:09:05 Tom: Yeah, yeah. I I think you should take a hard look at your personal and family health and what genetic factors are likely to pass down, which might result in, um, um, needless suffering, either physical or mental health, and decide whether or Not, that's something you're comfortable with I know but I think it's a real thing. I don't know, know how to answer this nicely. I, like, I really don't, like, you know, I, I think that's a big deal. I, and I have talked before, like, she's got very severe ADHD and it makes a big impact on her executive function. It's very severe, and, like, her kids have fairly severe ADHD as well, and she's like, yeah, you know, looking back, I probably wouldn't have had these kids, you, I probably would not have had these kids because their lives are going to be significantly harder and they may have have a harder time and probably would not have done that. So I think you should look

0:09:24 Thomas: Tried to brighten up the question. I tried to make it a little happy.

0:09:56 Thomas: Wow.

0:09:56 Tom: At your health and decide whether or not that's something you are comfortable passing down, um, the next generation. If you are, that's fine. Like I'm not judging that shit, but you've got to make, I think it's a real decision about whether or Not that's something that you say like, Hey, here's some suffering I endure. Is this suffering I'd like to continue to pass down? I think You got to look at your financial situation. It costs about about $300,000 to raise a kid. If you can't afford to do it, you shouldn't do it because the, the financial suffering, um, you will endure will create hardships on your personal relationships, limit your opportunities and, you in raising kids that have less opportunity as well. So you got to look at the money piece. I think that's a really big deal.

0:10:17 Eli: It's so expensive.

0:10:36 Eli: Yeah. Quick on the money piece, before, study you've ever read about parents, it's like, hey, read to your baby, play Mozart to your baby, formula, breast milk, doesn't of it. They literally cannot do an income inequality study in in addition to those things because none of it matters when it's money. If you surround your baby with stacks of cash, they will go to Harvard. So, like, be aware that there's a ton of expenses that you're not thinking of right now that are going to come up, that will be about making your life easier, that will be about make your child's life easier. I can only speak for myself. We are super-duper privileged in that we've had a lot of those expenses, but I've also had to say no for the first time financially to a lot stuff, and that has been really, really hard. If that's something you have trouble with, if you're a person who has money troubles like me, who had to like learn how to make

0:10:45 Tom: I rich kid shit, yeah.

0:11:00 Tom: I

0:11:33 Eli: A budget and right, well, but, like, see, I have literally

0:11:34 Thomas: So you didn't buy that boat. Damn. Okay.

0:11:37 Tom: Love that Eli's hardship is one time I didn't get something I wanted, just recently.

0:11:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:11:43 Eli: Oh I'm sorry, I forgot I was on the phone with Tom and Thomas. Mr. my dad tied me to a brick and threw me to the bottom of the pool and my dad didn't bother to rescue me when I was already there, but

0:11:56 Tom: I

0:11:51 Thomas: The that's a very real thing because I, I right away about was about to jump in with, I I'm just a lot different than not, I'm not sure what the word is, but I I'm a very bottom line person. Person. And for me, I knew I wanted kids more than any, like, I just knew I, I 100% wanted kids. And if for me. Know, I am already pretty iffy on life. No kids. I've done no interest in it. Like it's the one thing keeping me in more than anything. And so I start start from the position that this is something I 100% want. And then it's just, I will figure out everything else. You know, there are plenty of people you guess part of of of what I'm reacting to from your guys' answers is I don't think it's good to look at it as unless I can provide this perfect, easy, not hard, afford everything situation for children, then don't do it. I Like, think if you truly want to have kids, you you will find a way if you really, you

0:12:21 Eli: That's

0:12:53 Tom: Yeah.

0:12:53 Thomas: Know, like you will find a to make it work.

0:12:54 Tom: I Oh. Yeah.

0:12:54 Eli: That's an excellent clarification, because the point that I am making is certainly not you have to be rich to have kids or you have to be able to afford everything to be have kids, but you have to be financially prepared for how much your life is going to change. All,

0:13:06 Thomas: Yeah, that's true. I would say, make sure you know that these days, that depending on where you are, daycare costs the amount of a fucking income, like seriously. So either, either you have to have a relative who, like, can help you, you have to be able to, or be able to afford daycare, or be able to just have one person work, because that, like, that's that is true, that you should know that, like, going into it, you should know that you are either going to have to spend, especially if you're in fucking California, you're going to have to spent an amount of money on daycare that doesn't seem real, or have to have somebody be able to like be a full-time parent right.

0:13:42 Eli: That most of the programs that are meant to assist parents are meant to help people in absolute poverty, so the chances that you, a person listening to this podcast who is doing okay in the middle or middle lower class, right now, you are almost certainly not eligible for a bunch of the programs that would make your life much easier.

0:13:55 Thomas: Yeah, because we love to means test shit so we don't actually help anyone. Yeah.

0:14:01 Eli: Right? Exactly, but that's, that's super important, right? Because when you talk to people about this, they're like, oh, you know, Wick is amazing, but you, you can't, I, I don't know nationally and I don't want to make up numbers, but the numbers are staggeringly low to be available for Wick in the state of New Jersey.

0:14:19 Thomas: What

0:14:19 Tom: I I, I got to push on the whole idea of, like, I'm such a jackass, I'm, I am, and I know it, I'm sorry, but, like, I actually don't think you should have kids because you want kids. I think that's a bad, I think it's a genuinely bad reason to have kids. I think you're wanting something as a bad reason to create another person, that's just like, that's, it's just not how I think that should work. I you feel like you have something specific to offer to another person to turn them into an adult that you think is going to be worth having in The world, and You think That they'll Have a Good life.

0:14:42 Thomas: Is the reason that's better than That Yeah.

0:14:53 Eli: I feel attacked by Tom's answer.

0:14:54 Thomas: That Is not so Unless We Produce This Is, I

0:14:55 Eli: I also

0:14:55 Tom: I don't, I don't think I know I, I really don't, I think, I don't think that, yeah.

0:14:59 Thomas: Hope, A line Doesn't Form behind Tom,

0:15:01 Tom: I know

0:15:01 Thomas: Because There's going to be a genocide. Oh, Dang, call forward. Damn. That's Not gonna

0:15:02 Tom: I know, I'm sorry, I I, and I know, like, I feel like a dick saying it, because, like, it's like, like, I want to have kids, yeah, but, like, this is a whole separate fucking human being that you're creating just because, like, you want it, it's not a fucking, like, thing in any other way.

0:15:04 Thomas: No.

0:15:17 Thomas: You Should create Kids because you don't want to, and someone's making you. That's the only thing You should consider.

0:15:17 Tom: Yeah, no, I, I, I think there should be a lot less, I genuinely believe, I think there should be many, many, many less people having kids than have kids. Many, many less. Yeah.

0:15:23 Thomas: Yeah. But I think that a lot of that is unwanted children. When I say I'm not saying have kids because it's this vent like thing that's going going to be your favorite thing. I'm saying that because with that desire, with that actual, you to have kids comes a bunch of other stuff, like the desire to parent them well and the desire for them to have children.

0:15:52 Thomas: And I think that's a really good point. Well, but look, people are asking, the question is, you know what, what should people think about if they're going to havekids? I'm not, I'mnot saying that guarantees you good kids or something. I'm just saying if you're asking me if a couple's asking me, you know, what what should we think about? Like we're thinking about it. We're not sure. I would say, well, like how much do you really want it? Like if you if partner are just like, yeah, I just am not sure, just don't do it. Like, absolutely.

0:15:51 Tom: But not always I think that's, I think that's like, I think that's a big generalization. Right?

0:16:04 Tom: Yeah, but I, I think if you're like, yeah, but I really, even if I, I really do like, I think if you really want kids, but you don't, like, the criteria to be able to provide, like, like, look, I really, really want to have kids, but there's a 50% chance those kids are going to have, you know, cystic fibrosis because of my genetic testing.

0:16:33 Thomas: Well, that's a different story.

0:16:33 Tom: I, but I, yeah, but wanting is like, that's the only thing I'm pushing back on, is that language. Like, Like, wanting is actually a pretty bad reason, like, it's wanting weighed against a lot of means testing. A lot of mean testing.

0:16:34 Thomas: Yeah. No, it's a great reason. No, that'S a great REASON. I strongly disagree on

0:16:47 Tom: I know you do.

0:16:44 Eli: Think I think

0:16:47 Thomas: This. I think the biggest problem is not too many kids, it's too many unwanted kids or too many kids that we haven't provided the social safety net for. I don't think it's that a bunch of people are just having kids and not giving a shit because they wanted it, but then it's like a dog that they didn't know. You know, like, I don'T think that's the issue. Like, I see the same problems you're talking about, Tom, but I guess I'd slightly disagree on the source of those problems.

0:17:13 Tom: Yeah, I hear you.

0:17:14 Eli: Because I I do think that there's definitely like the having kids because you want to have had kids as an issue, right?

0:17:23 Thomas: Hmm, interesting.

0:17:23 Tom: Yeah.

0:17:24 Eli: Like, that that is a thing I wanted for my life, and then the kid comes into the picture and it's like, yeah, I'm sorry, I was was picturing you when you were 17 winning the big game, like, I wasn't picturing poop blowouts at four in the morning in your third month, and I think that's at least partly what Tom is saying now.

0:17:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:33 Tom: Right. Yeah.

0:17:38 Thomas: Yeah. That's a good point.

0:17:42 Tom: There's a lot of next step-ism that goes into why people have kids because it's the next step. Because they feel...

0:17:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, that's a bad reason to do it.

0:17:49 Eli: Right, this is where the relationship needs to go. Yeah.

0:17:50 Tom: And I don't think that... Yeah, I don't think they don't think they want those kids. Think they think they want those children. I think that genuinely think you've got to look and say, look, I want kids really bad, but you know what? I'm in a place where I have absolutely no support and I'm dead ass broke. Well, I don'T think no matter how much you want kids, if you're asking Tom, I would say I would advise you not to have those kids, I think your quality of life will suffer.

0:18:07 Eli: And

0:18:14 Thomas: Yeah Yeah but let me ask you this, Tom. Don't you think, I will tell you this with certainty, if I were like in the, you Pixar spirit realm ready to be born to a family or whatever, you don't know, whatever that movie, Jazz or something, whatever, that movie was.

0:18:20 Tom: Yeah.

0:18:28 Eli: Mormonism. Yeah. Yeah.

0:18:33 Thomas: If they were like, I'll give you the option, you can be born into a family that has the ability to provide everything you need, but they're like, eh, not sure if we wanna have kids or someone who's not very well off but just wants to have kids so badly, I would absolutely take the second choice every single time.

0:18:50 Tom: Yeah.

0:18:50 Thomas: Someone who wants you to be there is gonna find a way to provide for you and even if they fall short, the fact that they want you so badly does so much psychologically that babies need, I think.

0:18:54 Tom: Hmm.

0:19:04 Tom: Yeah. I don'T agree with that though.

0:19:04 Eli: And in too, that when we say provide for, at least when I say provide for, I can't speak for Tom. I mean, in all the ways, right? I don't want people to think that my message is like, well, make sure you make at least $22,000 a year because that's the kid cut off. I means emotionally, I mean where you are psychologically.

0:19:17 Tom: Yeah, same. Right.

0:19:22 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:19:23 Eli: So as someone who suffers with mental illness, and Thomas, you can speak to this a little bit as well, there have been times in my life when I was not prepared to provide for anybody. Right. I could have been a billionaire and I would, would have been like daddy's crying on the couch because of Avengers Endgame.

0:19:35 Tom: Yeah! Right. That, that's what I mean though by I just want to make sure I'm clear before I get like a ton of hate mail. Like, Oh, well I'll still get plenty and that's fine. But like I, what I meant by means testing is not purely financial. It's, it's the whole host of things.

0:19:51 Eli: Yes. Exactly. That's what I wanted to

0:19:53 Tom: Right?

0:19:53 Eli: Clarify. Yeah.

0:19:53 Tom: Yeah. I totally agree. The, the Like other part of having kids is that I hear what you're saying, Thomas, that like, you really, really want the kids that you're going to find a way. And I think that a lot of people do. AndI also think that some people don't. Andi also think that in the process of doing that, some people break their marriages. They break their wellbeing, their personal wellbeing. They lose things about themselves in terms of opportunities and psychological health that were important to them. There's a price to to pay for that extraordinary effort weighed against that desire to have kids. And I think you can mitigate some of that by just being real and saying, look, I really want this, but wanting is nowhere near enough. Wanting is the first and smallest step.

0:19:51 Thomas: Yeah, sure. Sure. Oh, yeah, oh,

0:19:53 Eli: Yeah.

0:20:39 Thomas: No, I think it's the first and most important stuff, but I hear you there. Are other things, but also I want to say this, this might just be like a semantics thing, but like when I get these questions, I'm not assuming that I get to do a full psychological eval of the person, like I like there's

0:20:42 Tom: Yeah, right. No, I'm not. We're just talking in general terms.

0:20:56 Thomas: I'm just, yeah, like, if I was, if the question is like, "Thomas, nobody gets to know about it, but you get to decide which couples have kids or not," like, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm going to, I'm going to get into some details, but if somebody, you know, in these situations, it's usually like, yeah, obviously I hope that they are the kind of people who are going to be selfless and going to be good parents and all those things. But in my experience, you can't ask people, like people don't have that self-awareness, you. So in my experience, the kind, the very people who might answer like, "Well, I'm not sure if I can," blah, blah, blah, are the people who were already conscientious enough that they probably should have kids.

Yeah. It's like the philosopher king thing, like anybody or whatever it is, like, like anybody who wants to be president shouldn't be. And it's the people who are like, "Nah, I don't want to do it." So like, I'm kind of going off of that basis. Like I, it's, I think if you're enough of an asshole that you're going to have not all any ability to produce good kids or care for them in any way, you know, like if you are just truly selfish and not capable, I do not think you are also capable of the introspection necessary to like realize that about yourself.

0:20:56 Tom: Yeah, right. Right. Yeah.

0:21:54 Thomas: So I do know.

0:21:54 Eli: I'm pretty sure if they asked Thomas's dad if he was ready for kids, he would have to be like, yeah, I don't know. Whatever. Sure.

0:21:57 Thomas: Oh, he would have said a hundred percent, a hundred. No, he, he always wanted kids, that's all that's all he wanted to do.

0:22:02 Eli: You go. He was like, yep.

0:22:00 Tom: Yeah. I feel like that bolsters my commentary a little bit.

0:22:05 Eli: A plus for me. I'm ready to go. Rules is rattled to have kids. Um, no, but let me, I want to end this on a slightly positive note, slightly optimistic note. And I didn't talk about this. Uh, we did an episode where we talked a little about like, um, postpartum depression and that kind of stuff and the doubts that happened early on. AndI sort of touched on this gently, but I, I wanna, to slam my foot on this a little bit. Having a kid fucking rules now. It rules.

And the reason why I want to slammy foot on that super hard is society has done a really good pendulum swing, right? Because a lot of people got super gross pressure from their families to have kids, especially female identifying people. It was like, you're a mom or you're nothing. And so with feminism and modern, you know, women's lib, there comes this, you don't have to be a mother to be a person. You can have a full life without having kids. And that is wonderful and amazing. And I support it 10,000%. However, that pendulum has swung a little bit into the like, "Oh, I'd have kids, but I like money and doing what I want." And it's like 99% of the time we understand that those are jokes. 99% OF THE TIME WE UNDERSTAND THAT FAMILIES ARE GRATIFYING.

But there is a little bit of society that I feel like is not getting just how fucking much kids rule right now. Again, I'm going to speak only for my own experience, because I know this sounds very similar to a lot of people who have been pressured to have kids, and you should do whatever you want with your life.

But here's what I will tell you, the love that I experience, and I adore my wife, my wife is the love of my life, if there were such a thing as soulmates, I would genuinely believe she, she was my soulmate, right? The love that I have for Anna is a room in a mansion compared to the love that I had for my son,

0:22:10 Thomas: Yeah. Totally.

0:23:53 Eli: Right.

0:23:53 Thomas: I that way about Anna as well, it's, it's the love that I have for Anna is but a small trifle of what I feel for my kids. No, a hundred percent, it is the best, I hope, I think I harp on that too much, but I think now's a good time, having kids fucking rule every day of my life. For me, is is joy because of these kids. Like I seriously, it's, I love it so much. I could not imagine having to go through this life without these wonderful little things around. It is just the best.

And feel this way after a day of tantrums and fighting where I had to do whatever, you know, like that sucks. And I get a lot of responses when I talk about this, that people are like, "Oh no, it is, I don't know what you mean." Like it is, their fight, they are doing this, they are yelling, they're screaming. I mean, yeah, no, but all that doesn't like matter.

I don't know how to phrase it, but like I could have a day that's like the worst kid day ever. And it's still a hundred times better than any day without kids for me. Cause

0:23:56 Tom: I don't feel like that, yeah,

0:24:02 Eli: Right. Yeah,

0:24:52 Thomas: Like, I'm sure during that day, they said something super funny or they did the cutest thing in the world or they didn't do anything. They did something that showed their little like understanding they're building about the world. I love it. It's the best.

0:24:52 Eli: Yeah.

0:25:05 Eli: I would compare it to, because a lot more of our listeners who are childless will understand this comparison, I would compare it to the difference of your high school relationships or your middle school relationships. And when you met the love of your life, right? Like when I Think of what my relationships were like in college, where I was like, but babe, you know, why aren't we done right? Right. Like I was very sure that was love. And then I met Anna and you know as the poet says like finding a ballroom in your house, right. This is a brand new, very big ballroom. And it is, it's not to be discounted in postmodern ironic, but the diapers though conversation, right? So funny. I was talking to a friend about this the other day.

He's a, he's a Broadway actor and like super duper successful dude who is considering having kids. And I went way too hard in this direction. He was like, so kids worth it. And it's the meaning of the universe literally. And he was like oh, oh, so you went crazy since I last saw you and I had to scale it back to the thing but

0:25:20 Thomas: Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:25:21 Tom: Wow.

0:26:06 Eli: Like I I mean it because a lot of times when people ask this I feel like they don't have a moment where a parent gets to square with them and say but it's all a but it all worth it it is all Worth For me For me I Can't I can only speak to me absolutely

0:26:07 Thomas: No.

0:26:17 Tom: Yeah. Oh god. Yeah. But I know but I I gotta offer the counterpoint to you guys because there's no no guarantee you're going to feel that way. And I hate giving, I hate to try to like broaden a personal experience in that way because I don't feel that way. I love my kids very much. I love my wife much more than I love my kids. That's it's not even close. I love them very much I hope they don't listen to this part of the episode. It's not because I don't love them. I loved them. But like I'm going to spend the rest of my life I am going to raise my kids.

They'll move out and then they will go be people that find their own spouses and have their own kids or have their own careers. And then we'll talk once a week on the phone. And that's how that's going to work. Or, you know, that is how that is likely to work. I don't feel those big romantic feelings about parenting.

I have intermittently felt them, but I think that you've got to also like like acknowledge that there's no guarantee you're going to have that big giant romantic head over heels feeling that like you guys are expressing.

0:26:27 Thomas: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

0:27:24 Tom: And there's a lot of people I know that don't like, I do talk to parents. Like, don't know if you do, but I do talked to parents that are just like, fuck, it's just kind of exhausting.

0:27:24 Eli: Yeah.

0:27:24 Thomas: Oh.

0:27:34 Thomas: Yeah no I think that's I I think maybe we got misunderstood because I I what what I took Eli to be saying is you know like we wanted to put our experience out there to counterbalance the fact that it's all just like oh the pain in the ass and the because I think if I'm being honest I think the majority of parents aren't like Eli and I from from my perspective.

0:27:54 Eli: Yeah.

0:27:54 Thomas: And maybe it's just like people play up the kind of, and there's a bit of that, like, you know, when you're in conversation, you play up to like, oh, you know, the kid did that, you Know, and you play it up. But like, I been a little bit shocked as to how fucking much this is the best thing in the world. And I don't hear other parents talk the same way I feel. I've been shocked by that.

0:27:54 Eli: I Also

0:27:59 Tom: Yeah. There's, there's a lot of internetting about it yeah a

0:28:15 Eli: Think I also I think it's largely a generational thing right when When you talk about the in difference relationships over time, right? Even in the micro generations, like the difference between Gen X, which Tom is, and millennials, which Thomas and I are, right, that is people who got raised in a very different world with a very different understanding of family, right. Like our grandparents probably didn't like each other super much, right Like it's really important to keep in mind that like your parent, your grandparents,

0:28:38 Thomas: Yeah. Famously, my dad's Dad might have have him as a second family like a secret I Still Gotta get to The bottom Of that I Think That's True I got it I should ask my mom I forget

0:28:47 Tom: Secret. Family. I love That you Get

0:28:44 Eli: Right. Right. But You Know while You're getting The diaries damn it but Like Yes I

0:28:53 Thomas: Uh

0:28:55 Tom: The Diaries Maybe there's clues in The goddamn diaries Jesus

0:28:56 Thomas: Could Be It's

0:28:56 Eli: Bet That's in there I basically fucking with the gold in the cave and you're sitting at home like I don't Want To exactly

0:29:01 Thomas: Behind The Declaration of independence if we just uh You

0:29:05 Tom: Christ, Scooby-Doo. Like get out the fucking mystery Machine and let's get this mystery Solved. Yeah.

0:29:07 Eli: Do A Do A heist uh yeah I I think it's I think its also largely a generational thing right like you really do have to grapple with the fact that your great grandparents probably Probably got married because they lived in the same town, village. They were financially comprehensible and their dads got along.

0:29:25 Thomas: Know At The risk of psychoanalyzing us too much Eli I actually am wondering right now I because I don't know if it's generational I think some of it is I Also wonder, here's want to get too real for people, but I experience very little personal joy. I can't, that's the part I have. I don't have the like, you acute, I think Eli, that you've experienced. I don't have the super acute, like death kind of depression, like go to the hospital depression. I just have the long standing sort of like, ah, everything's dull and it's hard, you know, like it's, I have that kind of oppression. And so um actually I wonder if there's a common thread here between us because seeing a kid who is just pure joy like they just do stuff because they just enjoyed and want to do it and every experience is this new amazing thing talking about small kids of course and that is so much better than anything I can experience in my life it's it's the secondhand joy is kind of, that's the lot of it for me. Like that's where I get most of my joy, honestly.

0:29:34 Tom: That's Interesting yeah Eli Do you think do Do you feel that way?

0:30:27 Eli: No, no, I definitely don't get most of my joy from my kids. And also Max's joy isn't a thing. It's, it's funny because my love for my son mirrors my depression, right? Cause I have Keats depression, right? I sit at a window and I'm like, Like, for my heart is broke of the world and I must be squeezed. Right. And when I look at my son, the internal, very little to do with him. I adore you, boy. I'm so sorry. Very little to deal with him, but in my head, I'm like, there is my boy. The sun, the center, the light and the joy of the word. How I love him. It burns like a flame that would burn. Meanwhile, my son is like, you know, having a poop explosion and knocking over the blocks.

0:31:12 Tom: Yeah.

0:31:13 Eli: And I'm like, yes, but...

0:31:13 Thomas: That's so interesting because I've gotten the exact, because Eli, a lot of our stuff we do is you go to great lengths to set up fun situations for other people to have. And I'm actually kind of surprised by this because I thought was kind of the same thing I was having. Like there's... there's a reason why I've been dying to have my wife come on these trips because I like her enjoying stuff better. Like, I don't, you know, like I've got, yeah, like

0:31:25 Eli: Oh, no, I definitely have that. I definitely love to watch other people happy.

0:31:41 Thomas: You're the vegan that like sets us all up with the, well, now I'm a vegetarian, but like, yeah. At the meat restaurants full of bags of meat, you know, it's like, I'm surprised. I thought that was that same impulse.

0:31:44 Eli: At the steakhouse. Yeah, not it comes... I don't know, when it come to Max, I guess my vision... And look, there's moments of parenting that are incredibly joyful, obviously. And I love seeing his joy. But for me, I think that there's a more grandiose, I would almost compare it to the way that I hear Tom talk about his love for Haley sometimes. That sort of poetic, grand kind of love.

0:32:14 Thomas: Yeah. No, I have that too, though. I definitely have that.

0:32:16 Eli: Yeah. It's there. But yeah, no, to be clear, I want to acknowledge what Tom is saying is that not everyone has that experience, but that I don't hear enough people talking about the good, right? And partially it's because like, God, is there anything more boring than like, I love my little squuggums. But also part of it, again, I think is generational. I think that our dads, I mean, look, nobody talked about their, yes, that's what I was going to say.

0:32:19 Thomas: Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the gender expectations don't You think like moms could do that moms could do my mom okay, sorry, go ahead.

0:32:51 Eli: You know, that's exactly what I was gonna say is that like, our, no dad ever spoke about his son the way my dad spoke about me, certainly not publicly, right? This is, this is gonna be like a little bit gross, is that right, is that my dad was so affectionate with me that we got confused as a couple a lot when I got older, right, because my dad, my dad would hug me because

0:33:01 Thomas: Because That'll soften them. Oh,

0:33:09 Tom: What? What? What is this? What is happening with this story right now? What? What?

0:33:16 Thomas: It's a whole new direction. Oh,

0:33:18 Tom: What? That is not at all how I thought this conversation was going to go today. What?

0:33:18 Eli: My father would yeah, my dad

0:33:23 Tom: What?

0:33:19 Thomas: That's

0:33:23 Eli: Was very affectionate with me, right? And you know, we would be in places where lots of, you know, we would, in the village, we'd be in Provincetown and they'd be like, this one likes them young, and my dad would be like, oh, Jesus,

0:33:30 Tom: And it'd be, he's blowing me in a rest area, and everybody thinks we're together. Like, what?

0:33:37 Eli: Oh, you guys never blew your day? See, this is why your dads didn't like you, because you didn't blow them. I'm so sorry, Mom. My poor mom adores this show. Oh. Oh, it's rare that I feel bad for any of my jokes, but

0:33:42 Tom: What the fuck

0:33:50 Thomas: And now I'm back. It's back to the usual alignment of Tom and me. Ah, good to be back, Tom. It's nice over here.

0:33:57 Tom: Oh, hey, buddy. High five.

0:33:53 Eli: Tom and Thomas, Tom and Thomas stand outside the yuck closet. All right. Let's get another question. And we're going to do two this time.

0:34:01 Thomas: Oh, we're doing questions.

0:34:07 Eli: I believe in us.

0:34:08 Thomas: Wait,

0:34:07 Tom: We're just peacing out, oh,

0:34:08 Thomas: What, what what, the hell are you talking about, what are questions? Oh. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. Interesting.

0:34:13 Tom: Yeah. Oh, God. Uh, comes from Keely with a C. Tips for moms who have to be dads too. Teaching my son to shave his face was very, very different than teaching my daughter to shave her legs. Is interesting.

0:34:28 Thomas: Will tell you one thing that I feel, um, feel inadequate as a dad because I can't do Phoebe's hair at all. And I feel like in times past, I'd be like, yeah, you fucking, the mom does the hair. You're the dad go chop down a tree or whatever. But like I, and I did, I chopped down all the trees in our backyard. It's very, people people are very confused.

0:34:45 Tom: Yeah. Haul it with a fucking wheelbarrow uphill at a 30 degree angle by the rattlesnake pit.

0:34:49 Thomas: Yeah. We don't have any shade Out there. Yeah, I don't know what it would, but it's fine. I chopped him down because this is what I got. No, and part of me is like, wait, I got to just go, I gotta just get on YouTube and just watch videos of how to do my daughter's hair. And I haven't figured it, I haven't done it yet. I still, because she's not sure what she wants with her hair and she often like doesn't know herself.

And so I keep, I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet, but I will say that I very much, while that's, that's just a microcosm of what this questioner is talking about but I, I very much get that like that emotion of like oh crap like I don't know this because like the the amount of stuff that you stereotypically anyway like his that girls do with their hair and their stuff that like as a dude growing up I had no idea and I still don't of all this different stuff like a ponytail you try to to put oh Eli has a son but like you try no I guess Tom have you ever tried to do your your your stepdaughter's hair of any kind

0:35:47 Thomas: You haven't had to, huh, it's impossible You've

0:35:47 Tom: I know. I tried once for about like three minutes and Haley was like, what, what, what are you doing? What are you, what are You doing? You're, You can't just tie it in a series of thousands of interlocking knots. This is what, now you're, what is happening? Now you've got a lighter out and you're burning.

0:35:56 Thomas: Tied it in a granny knot yes it's yeah and you're like, but it can support her wait, you pull this, it's not going anywhere. Yeah.

0:36:07 Tom: No, it just, yeah.

0:36:10 Eli: That's a good, that's a sale. Tyler's not right there. Can I say that that vision is even more terrifying as someone who knows that Tom regularly breaks things by pulling, pushing, or squeezing them too hard? Like, if you spend enough time around Tom, you will watch him smash a glass by accident like a crazy giant in a children's movie, right?

0:36:12 Tom: That's, uh, that is true.

0:36:12 Thomas: Exactly in

0:36:26 Tom: I've done this a lot. I do break a lot of things accidentally. They're not even wrong. I've like, it's every, oh yeah.

0:36:33 Eli: You destroyed the door to your studio. You destroyed it.

0:36:36 Tom: I've broken a lot doors. Yeah.

0:36:37 Thomas: Fairness, I've done that, I'm nowhere near as big as Tom, but I've, I've done that too. You get as an adult man who, you, it's sort of like, Eli, I think you said this on a previous episode, where you're like, do I use dad strength on my kid? I've been, I've, I'm, I, I don't know, I haven't, I mean, I think I've used dad strength, I've seen that with doors sometimes where I'm like, I, without thinking, cause go into like, oh, this is a thing I need to fucking lift or whatever. And I just, you know, and then I forget like, oh no, it was probably, you know, locked or some shit.

0:37:01 Thomas: I've Just broken off, yeah, broken off a door handle because my brain was sleeping and thought like, oh, this is a thing I need to like just do until it works, you know.

0:37:00 Tom: Not anymore. Haley and I were in model home the handful of months ago, we're in a model home. It's a very quick aside.

0:37:13 Eli: Burst through the wall like the Kool -Aid man, didn't you?

0:37:16 Thomas: You better check there's not a you break it you buy it sign in there, yeah, oh nice

0:37:17 Tom: And there's a door here now. But like, well, we bought a new construction home. So you sit in a room after you pick some things and then you make a series of escalatingly expensive decisions. That's the process. So they're like, okay, so the house costs $86 trillion. Trillion, that's the base model that you thought you were buying. And then if you want, you know, like, uh, hinges on your doors that's gonna be right

0:37:38 Eli: Sinks.

0:37:29 Thomas: Yeah yeah right now it's all walls, there's no way to enter

0:37:42 Eli: Yeah.

0:37:42 Tom: Yeah it's just that it, all these decisions that just, and all of a sudden you're like, I have to take out a mortgage on my mortgage. How would that work? But

0:37:48 Thomas: Currently there's no oxygen in the house, it actually doesn't come were you planning on breathing in the house

0:37:52 Tom: Extra yeah

0:37:54 Eli: Did you want air pumps?

0:37:54 Thomas: Yeah

0:37:54 Tom: We're gonna write that down, you're a little picky picky picky customer

0:37:55 Thomas: No yeah

0:37:56 Eli: And also do that noise, right? When you're like, oh, no, I did want toilets. They go, oh. And you're, like, I know you were expecting me to want toilets, Linda.

0:38:03 Thomas: Yep yep

0:37:57 Tom: All right yeah well I mean, we will pipe in a hole to shit into, is that not good enough for you in this neighborhood? So, but anyway, so we're in this room and we're making all these, you know, choices about colors and whatever, and the guy that's walking us through this design studio, it's in one of these model houses and they like convert the garage into this design studio. Well, unbeknownst to me, when Hayley and I came in, he locked the door behind us. And it's like, and, and so we make all these choices and I'm in my head, right? So I'm like, I'm thinking like, and I'm, so I'm not paying attention to the world outside of me very much. So I am on autopilot and this is how I break stuff.

0:38:40 Thomas: That's where that's where it happened yep the autopilot, yep, yes

0:38:43 Tom: Autopilot is how everything gets broken. So I reach out and I grab the door handle and I go to push the door handle and in my mind, the door candle stuck a little bit, right.

0:38:54 Tom: And so, 'cause, like, the door handled in my shitty rental house sometimes time sticks, and what do you do, you just apply a little extra juice right so I break the door handle, yeah thank you so I, I just, I reach out, I grab the door handle, I twist the door handle and there's this horrible crunch, this horrible crunchy sound, and like Hayley looks at me like, fucking again, and I look back at the guy and I was like, and I just go to move handle, handle's just hanging there limp

0:38:54 Thomas: It's of course why would it be locked you just walked in there this is not your fault, I've tried, free Tom, hashtag free Tom everybody buddy okay

0:39:25 Eli: Yep.

0:39:25 Tom: And I was like, we'll go out the uh the front I guess and we just had to because the door was broken, like we couldn't unlock it

0:39:30 Eli: Okay. Okay, but Tom, Thomas, let me comfort both of you now as breaker of things. As the man on the opposite end of the spectrum, here's what happens to me all the time. I go to put my dainty duke's hand on a doorknob. It doesn't instantly open and swing open. And I'm like, this door has been barricaded from the other side. And so, on a regular basis, I would say once a month, a full-grown adult will make hard eye contact with me and open the door that I have not been opening by using even a little bit of force. And I've been like, sorry, I thought that maybe it had been sealed by magic. Away I go!

0:40:15 Eli: You broke the wizard's curse, good sir! Mwah! A kiss for you! My kerchief as a souvenir, right

0:40:25 Thomas: Okay, we gotta get back to the actual question, so I I asked you because I tried to do Phoebe's hair and first off, god, there's so much of it trying to brush her hair it can't be done there's here here's the other thing is kids, small children have no concept, as we've talked about, of, hey, this is gonna hurt slightly but it's fine because you gotta do it, about anything and so, so we try to brush her hair. It gets so tangled after showers and stuff. We brush her hair and it's tangled. And she's just like, you know, and she's, we're killing her. And it's, it's so hard to communicate. Like, Hey, um, you just have to do, I don't know what to say. Like you just half to do this. I'll try to brush it like softer, but you have tangles in your, like, there's going to be a little bit, they can't

0:40:27 Tom: Okay yeah it can't be done man hands can't do it, can't be done right right right yep no

0:41:11 Thomas: Put it into context of like, Oh, I will allow, you two on the pain scale right now to get.

0:41:13 Tom: Well plus they fucking move constantly like you're like, okay I just need you to sit still because I literally don't know what I'm doing, I do not want to snap your fucking head right off, and I'm concentrating like I've never done, and they're just like, just hold still, it's like, yeah, I'm gonna hold still by whipping my head violently to and fro like a crazy person on a roller coaster

0:41:17 Eli: And

0:41:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, they really.

0:41:33 Thomas: Yep. Yep. They'll somehow be upside down. All of a sudden you're like, how did you get, I was brushing your hair. How you upside down? I don't even understand.

0:41:36 Tom: Right yes the

0:41:41 Eli: And let's not forget that pain is the only warning signal that you're harming your child, so when they're like about it, you're like, no, no, no, I need that, in case I begin to remove one of your ears, child you don't understand stand

0:41:52 Thomas: Yeah yeah. Yeah I

0:41:52 Tom: I I did such a bad job, Thomas, that Haley, so Haley has been sick, so, like, I've been getting up with the kids in the morning, getting them off to school, so that's the reason I was going to do Aislinn's hair, is, like, Haley's like, okay, I'll show you how to do, like, a quick whatever style, like, it's like split down the center or something and maybe two, who, I don't know, I don't even remember. There's probably a name for it, like, like I don't really know.

0:42:14 Thomas: Have so much sympathy for you right now. I don' yeah.

0:42:17 Tom: I don't even know. And like, also, Hayley used to do hair professionally. So for her, it's, it' s, yeah, I'm, I' m fucked like, yeah.

0:42:20 Thomas: Oh you're not gonna. You're so, you're so fucked. You're so set up for failure.

0:42:21 Eli: Yeah.

0:42:25 Tom: It, it's like if, if like Gordon Ramsay's like, okay, let me just teach you to make a quick coq au vin.

0:42:26 Thomas: You're gonna come to school with my science fair project for hair, yep.

0:42:33 Tom: Right. So I'm like, I'm kind of like sweating already and the, you know, fuck, I gotta do this in front of somebody that's good at it and I fucking, I know I'm not good, I'm just not gonna be good at this. Like I could tie my shoes through fucking sheer force of luck, you know, and so I'm like trying to do what she's saying, she's, and I'm doing it such a bad, three minutes in, Hayley's like, you know what, I'm just gonna teach Aislinn to do her own hair and just taught her to do our own hair, it, and she did better, she did, I will hands down, I was just like, that's probably the right call, that is probably the correct call, yeah.

0:42:39 Thomas: Oh, man you're

0:43:01 Eli: Uh, but to answer the question for moms who have to be dads too, um, you heard your first I

0:43:06 Thomas: Already a better dad you're you already like what dads, what we need in society, and I'm soy boy beta cuck over here, we need more empathetic dads, we need, you know, like you're probably, on I don't know you, but you're possibly already doing a better job, like

0:43:17 Tom: I

0:43:22 Eli: Want to use a Thomas point here though, that I think roughhousing and physicality is super important and that might not be something he feels super comfortable doing with with mom, right? Feeling physical, right, and playing in physical ways, I think that's a really important way to feel in his body. I also think that it's really important that he have a safe space to talk about sex stuff that he won't be comfortable talking to you about, right, when it comes to like sex and masturbation and stuff, like just young boys, pre -teen teen boys, they're just not going to talk about jerking off with their mom, no matter how chill you are, they're not going

0:43:26 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Unless

0:44:00 Eli: To talk to you about it, so

0:44:00 Thomas: You're Heath. No, I'm just kidding.

0:44:01 Eli: Right are

0:44:01 Tom: I I would, I would, I'm laughing because I'm just like, I have never talked about those things with my dad or my kids like my kids it's my but I

0:44:06 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Nobody. Yeah. I would.

0:44:07 Eli: You kidding, your dad would have left the country and never come back, no, that's inappropriate, boy, we

0:44:11 Tom: I can't oh god, did, okay, it's funny because I read this question and I, and I thought like experientially I had, I had the exact opposite where my dad had to be mom, you know, how to do mom stuff, so struggled with this question like that, yeah, there's so little, to your point, Thomas, there's så little that moms don't already do, there might be some conversations that, that, like Eli's point, there might be a handful of conversations, but really like moms do most of the heavy lifting anyway.

0:44:22 Thomas: Right.

0:44:41 Tom: You're probably, you are better at this already than you think. The reason we're struggling with tips on how to do this is because like left, like most moms are just like most mom's fucking straight crush it. And most dads, like we've joked about this before. The standard is so low. The state, Like the standard for, for dadding, is at such a low level that you could do that accidentally and not notice it in most cases socially.

0:44:40 Eli: Don't

0:44:48 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, well, and this person presumably, I guess, is a single parent. I guess it doesn't say, yeah, if they're a single parent, first off, that's already impossible. And anything you're doing is amazing. Like that, that doesn't, yeah.

0:45:08 Tom: That's how I read it too, yeah. Yeah.

0:45:13 Eli: Believe you exist. You're faking

0:45:14 Thomas: You don't, I actually think You don't exist. That's amazing. But I also think, perhaps this is just me putting a thought out there. Don't, don't take this as a definitive anything, but like, I wonder if maybe you don' want or need to try to be both traditional, quote unquote, parents or whatever. Ever.

Like maybe, you know, I think it'll depend a lot on what your kid wants to emulate, because some kids, and I don't know what is the chicken, what's the egg on this, but some kids in my experience and growing up and all that really just did need to emulate their dad. They wanted to do the dad stuff, be the exact, like the dad. And I don't know if that comes from the dad or for whatever. And some, it doesn't fucking matter.

Like they could have been, they could have either emulate their mom, or they just don't care. And it doesn't matter so much. And so I, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, I wonder if like your son, Keeley with a C, for some reason, I don't know why, like feels the desire to really be like a manly man and mirror a man by example. I don't know.

Maybe there's another male figure that will provide that, some of those examples in his life, and you don't have to feel like you have to somehow do all of it, I guess.

0:45:14 Eli: It.

0:45:15 Tom: I

0:46:21 Eli: All

0:46:21 Tom: I would add that I think having a father figure, if you can provide a stable father figure, like a, a good masculine role model, I think that's something that is really beneficial. As somebody who grew up, I think the only one is like on this show having grown up in a single parent household, I will say that I constantly was looking for someone to be a surrogate mom to me. Like I would make friends, I'd always have like my best friend, and then I would always try to make friends with my friend's mom and like try to like hang out with fucking Debbie Peterson and see if like she would like maybe want to be my mom a little bit. Please. And like they never did, like there were never any takers because who the fuck wants an extra kid. So like I, people naturally will seek that out. And if you can provide some, you know, guidance there by providing a masculine or father figure for them to kind of go to, then they're not going to go sort of hunting on their own for what might end up being substandard

0:46:46 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Jordan Peterson.

0:46:56 Eli: Right.

0:47:22 Tom: Father figures. Yeah. For real. For real.

0:47:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:47:23 Eli: Exactly. Which is, and it's Also important to keep in mind that, like, may not be intentional, but a lot of single parent households then end up accidentally, accidentally defining the other gender by their absence, right? So, if they're, if, even if you don't have strong male presence in your life, talking about positive male presence and what it would be like, right? The men you admire from history, right, go history, go fiction, whatever, you gotta, you know, talk about Harry Potter if you have to. But I have a lot of friends who grew up in single mother households where men became defined by their absence, right? And so that was a cycle, that, but they continued later on into life. I also want to touch on the sex thing a little bit more. So when it comes to like masturbation and sex and stuff, there are some great books out there. Books are absolutely your friend. They are things that kids are going to feel safe reading and learning about in books.

0:47:35 Thomas: Oh yeah yeah true yeah yeah yeah

0:47:58 Tom: That's interesting that's A good point. I

0:48:15 Eli: It's also really important, and I see this as a huge problem with moms in general, got to talk to your son about consent, right? Boys need a conversation, and I'm not doing a boys will be boys conversation. Conversation, I am saying that every young man, and I think women too, but every young man growing up in our current society needs a very difficult, very clear conversation about what consent is and how important it is. And as a mom it can be really hard to think of your beautiful, amazing, incredible little boy as someone who would ever want something that someone else doesn't want. But you do have to square up with them.

You know, one of the things that I am most grateful for when it comes to my dad is that my dad squared up with me probably a little too hard when it comes to consent. And that was a deeply, deeply important thing, um, my developing sexual experience, right. That a lot of my classmates didn't have, um, and that I know a lot of them regret, right?

That I, I think a lot of men of our generation, and I can't, can't speak to, you know, everybody here, but I say a lotOf men in our generation did not have super chill relationships with women early on because we didn't have the education and the knowledge about consent that we have today. Um, I think a lot of the reticence about consent comes from the fact that we didn't have that.

So, like, wait, if this is the right thing, then maybe I did something wrong when I was younger, yada yada. So like, get getting that consent in early and often, talking about that, you know, even in non -sexual ways, right, is super duper important.

0:48:22 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:49:48 Eli: That he understands I

0:49:49 Thomas: I I think a separate episode I'm flagging separate episode we've been wanting to do that anyway and I also don't do you see that as a gender thing well okay so I also want to leave open the possibility that this person could be in a same -sex relationship and have adopted kids maybe that's another that would be an interesting component of this too I don't know but like I don'T know that um consent thing do you think that is you THINK THAT'S IN AS PART OF THE QUESTION IS LIKE FULFILLING A FATHER A DAD ROLE OR RIGHT

0:49:52 Tom: Yeah. Okay.

0:49:54 Eli: Think

0:50:18 Tom: I, I don't, I

0:50:18 Eli: That it's something young men will be very resident reticent to talk to their moms about, and I think it's something that moms will naturally be disinclined to talk to their sons about because it's not a shared cultural experience.

0:50:19 Tom: Really,

0:50:31 Thomas: I WAS ASSUMING THEY'D BE MORE UH YEAH OH GO AHEAD TONY

0:50:34 Tom: I, same. I funny, cause like we're at that place with our kids where they, they, are like actively having relationships with, with, and stuff, you know, the kids are 16. And so those conversations are not, not theoretical. And I think those conversations actually are best received from mom to son, I really do, I because because I think that, as, as a son, the woman you have the first, deepest, and most loving relationship with, in many cases, is your mom. And so having a woman tell you why this is so important, and I'm assuming, I understand that I'm consuming a hetero relationship right now, so, so like, I get that, so that's the experience that I have.

So I think that, like, that ability to empathize from mom to son, it's like, yeah, to that, me, makes all the sense in the world, like it just does. I, I actually don't think it's a good idea to wait for, and I know you're not suggesting this, to wait for the kids to come to you with their questions about sex, cause like there's, most, many, many, I don't say most, but many, many kids, myself included, I think my kids included, who will never actually

0:50:52 Thomas: THAT'S INTERESTING no never

0:51:39 Tom: Approach me with a question.

0:51:39 Thomas: Yeah

0:51:39 Eli: Yes you got it, you got to go first, interesting.

0:51:42 Tom: You've got To talk to them once. You got to maybe put some shit in writing, if you're me, so they can refer back to it privately. You have to check in with them on things, like, got to like create that uncomfortable dialogue. But I do think that when it comes to consent, that conversation from, from father to son is important, but I think actually it's probably more important, in my opinion, from mother to son, because it'll be the first time that they hear from this woman that is the most important woman in their life how important that is, from that viewpoint.

0:51:42 Thomas: Well

0:52:17 Eli: Interesting.

0:52:18 Thomas: Uh out of time already is

0:52:20 Eli: We go two questions, just as promised.

0:52:23 Tom: Nailed it.

0:52:23 Thomas: There yeah is there a lightning round question

0:52:27 Eli: Lightning round question.

0:52:28 Tom: I like that it's two question. We came up with at least two other episodes.

0:52:32 Thomas: Yeah yeah no yeah that's an episode I would definitely want we've been wanting to do the like a birds and the bees type episode you know quote unquote episode um lightning

0:52:33 Eli: You're right, exactly. Oh,

0:52:34 Tom: Yeah. Yeah,

0:52:41 Eli: I got a lightning round question we can finish it up with, ready?

0:52:42 Thomas: Round question.

0:52:43 Eli: How do you feel about circumcision?

0:52:42 Tom: Lightning round question.

0:52:45 Thomas: You just get a law back grenade, huh?

0:52:46 Tom: I

0:52:46 Eli: Yeah. Don't mutilate your baby's penis, there you go. Lightning round. How's that sound?

0:52:51 Tom: Didn't

0:52:51 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I actually, you, you did or what did you say?

0:52:52 Tom: Circumcise my two boys. Did not. Did

0:52:56 Thomas: Oh, oh, nice. All right.

0:52:53 Eli: Don't do that of Course,

0:52:57 Tom: Not. No.

0:52:58 Thomas: We're all three. This was this. Actually talked about this kind of publicly because I had had, you know, I did some episodes of my podcast podcast on and my mind was changed on this, you know, because I think lot of times you are really drawn to what you're familiar with. And, being you circumcised myself, it was something I was, you know, familiar with and it was like, I don't know, you know, but I really came around and I'm so glad I knew because I just, I really, this you're Throwing in here is going to probably be the

0:52:58 Tom: No, yeah, no.

0:52:58 Eli: Not, I'm

0:53:20 Tom: Right. Yeah.

0:53:30 Thomas: Most controversial thing we've ever said

0:53:30 Tom: That's not a lightning round question at all. Because I have like more to say about this.

0:53:31 Thomas: No

0:53:32 Eli: Not controversy means That I brook dissent and I brooke no dissent on Oh, well, Eli, what you don't understand, blocked, banned, blocked. Banned.

0:53:33 Tom: Yeah. Oh.

0:53:36 Thomas: Yeah it is wrong it is wrong to do I firmly agree it's hard

0:53:44 Tom: I don't want to, I don't want to condemn anybody that makes the decision to circumcise their kid. I don't feel that way personally, like I didn't do it. I know from what I've read, I don't think it's necessary or valuable, but I don't want to condemn everybody that makes that choice. I think we live in a culture that creates an intense amount of pressure to do it in a lot of different ways and I I don't I don't?t I want to make sure that I don't make people listening who have circumcised their kids feel like I think that's something like I'm wagging my finger at, like I've not, I'm not like, if you circumcise your kid like fine, that's, do it, but if you did it, like, okay.

0:54:04 Thomas: Yeah I mean if you already did it I'm not yeah well I just think it's more about like if you are somebody who will be making if you're listening and you're going to be making this decision in the future I would strongly recommend to not do it or and if you disagree you the conversation open because I I came around, and I'm really glad I did because I think it's wrong to do.

0:54:36 Eli: A perfect ending because we have the full spectrum. If you circumcised your kid, Tom doesn't judge you. If your about to circumcise your kid Thomas would love for you to consider it. And if you circumcized your kid I'm telling you, you mutilated your baby's penis. I'm sorry, you did So you got the full gamut of reactions to circumcision I'm sorry you mutilated your baby's penis lighter grab

0:54:49 Tom: Lightning

0:54:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:54:59 Thomas: Lightning round.

0:55:00 Tom: Round. That's awkward, that was great, I loved it, yeah.

0:55:02 Thomas: Thank you so much for the questions, patrons. We will get to at least two more in a future episode.

0:55:08 Eli: Alright

0:55:13 Clip: Want to 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 Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in 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.