DOD41: Role Models

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: Dear Old Dads, the podcast learned everything it needs to know about life from WB teen dramas. I'm Tom Curry, I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:39 Eli: Oh, man. You just took me back to my nip -tuck days, Tom. I don't even know.

0:00:47 Thomas: I had some friends who would watch that show in college and I'd be at their dorm room and I'll be like, why, why are you watching this, what is how yeah what, yeah

0:00:47 Tom: Nip talk I

0:00:53 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. Can say it, Thomas?

0:00:55 Tom: Don't think I've ever seen Nip

0:00:56 Eli: Oh, God. It's a fucking hellscape. So it started out, here's what the show started out as, okay, two hot Hollywood plastic surgeons get up to all sorts of mischief with this sexy clientele by the end of it, two of the main characters were, the were a brother and sister that were fucking, and there was a serial kid yup and there was a serial killer

0:00:56 Tom: Tuck

0:01:12 Thomas: What was

0:01:19 Tom: Jesus what is happening right now, are you sure this isn't Game of Thrones you're talking about

0:01:25 Thomas: It Heath's favorite show

0:01:28 Eli: And there was a serial killer who plastic surgeoned himself up as other people and then when you would start to operate on you, he would murder you, it was so fucking that show went so far off the goddamn rails, man, so far

0:01:30 Thomas: Oh yeah oh

0:01:38 Tom: What, what

0:01:40 Thomas: Man yeah I just remember, I was, I never watched any, but I was, you know, like I said, I, I would see it kind of in the side. I'm like, how are you watching this? I just remember one, they did one episode where it was like, oh, it was the future and they were all old or something. And it was, you know, and I was just like, you're not able to do this. Yeah. I don't, not even Hollywood movies can barely pull that off where they're like, you know it's, it's Matt Damon, but he's all old and he's at the grave of the fucking whatever. And then that army movie, but like even like regular TV shows like that, it looks so fucking bad, they look like regional theater with the beards and the whatever and they're, they're all, have you ever seen, I love bad actors pretending to be old too, because they act so much shittier than like they act like being old means you're dying actively of the bubonic plague, but just in everyday life, like

0:02:02 Tom: Oh oh

0:02:20 Eli: Mm -hmm yep come

0:02:34 Tom: The end scenes of the last Harry Potter movie where they dress up all the kids in like ye olde garb or whatever, and they're just like, and now we have kids, and it's like, all right, you'd be like 35 and you have kids, and you're, instead they're, they're dressing you, and you're behaving exactly like you said. You wake up, and your osteoporosis bones exploded this morning.

0:02:38 Eli: Yeah mm -hm Oh

0:02:39 Thomas: Oh god

0:02:56 Eli: Hip-hop, I remember, the hip and the hop

0:03:00 Thomas: Well speaking of, actually maybe what they were thinking of is the fact that when you have kids, your son wakes you up every morning at 6:30 to wipe his ass and you just die because you turn into dust because every morning so I'm on kid duty of the other two kids, because of course, fair is fair, I'm trying to contribute as much as I can. Lydia is doing amazing with a little scombert, little, uh, little scumbag's growing, he's gaining the weight that, uh, that you gotta gain as a baby, I forgot about all that whole thing, like, because you get shamed as a mom if they haven't gained enough weight yeah I'm like I'm gonna feed him a cake or something they're like, no, it's just, just more milk, yeah melt

0:03:00 Eli: Yeah Absolutely. Yeah yeah

0:03:29 Tom: If the kid doesn't gain weight, yeah. Just protein shakes. Come on! Come on!! Get swole, bro! Like, just putting creatine on her nipples, you know, just to kind of bulk him up.

0:03:36 Eli: He's

0:03:39 Thomas: Melt some ice cream and put it in a bottle, yeah well we already do that but yeah, oh, for that reason, yeah, and I'm on the little kid duty, I'm sleeping in the kind of the guest room right next to the kid room, and every morning I, okay, I'm really proud of my little Arlo, man, because he finally broke one habit he had, he had a habit, he has a lot of habits and rituals, if I'm being honest it's kind of a thing I'm keeping an eye on, it's interesting, it does a lot of repetitive patterns, and one of them was every morning at fucking, you know, anywhere from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., he'd run in and he's like, daddy, I have to go to to the bathroom and wake me up. And I'd say, okay, then go to the bathroom, every single morning. Okay. Then go to the bathroom. Like he doesn't, he knows how to go by himself, but he would have to report to me. Like I need to give him permission to go tothe bathroom.

0:04:27 Thomas: Yep. And then he would be doing that long enough for an exhausted me to fall back asleep slightly. And then I'd hear, daddy, wipe me. And so, and I'm so proud of him because he finally stopped doing that first thing. He finally just skipped straight to like going to the bathroom, you know? And now he does this thing where he sits there and poor kid, he's probably trying to wake me up for God knows how long, but he's sitting there on the toilet and he does these little voices. So I'll wake up to him doing his like fifth different voice of daddy, wipe me, daddy, daddy, can you wipe

0:04:26 Eli: Taking attendance yeah yeah

0:04:38 Tom: Oh my god

0:05:04 Thomas: Me? Like he just, you don't want a kid's brain just can't settle. Like something, so he just goes through all these different

0:05:09 Eli: Exactly

0:05:12 Tom: You got to get him a little customer service bell that you can put on the counter that he can ding, you know when like his fucking fries are up

0:05:15 Eli: Yeah

0:05:13 Thomas: Yeah or oh I have the best idea, or he could wipe his own fucking ass, no, they

0:05:23 Tom: Okay but even after you teach them to wipe their own ass, there, there's a lot of people that do that, that period of time where they think they've wiped their ass but instead they've really just smeared shit around their ass cheeks, cheeks, pulled up their pants and ruined their clothes, walking around smelling like a fucking sewage factory.

0:05:27 Thomas: Yeah oh god oh it's so gross, that's why I was gonna ask you, Tom I literally was gonna tell the story to ask, um, your kids ever learn to like, are you still wiping your son's asses now, really finally you're just like all right you're gonna have a shit ass, all right, shit ass, yeah

0:05:40 Tom: It's the worst. Yeah. At 16, I finally gave up at 16. I was, I just hose them down outside. I hose them down outside just that's it. Like, it's got to go full bidet. You Just got to get a bidet in every shitter in the house. The Europeans have it right. Then and the Asian cut, they've got it right. Like, just grabbing a hunk of paper and smearing feces all over your ass cheeks is especially like, let's just say it, like, as a dude with a hairy ass, there's no world where I don't want a bidet.

0:05:55 Eli: Okay

0:06:03 Thomas: It's we yep yep, yep yeah it really makes no sense oh god now we're getting into it now we're getting

0:06:18 Tom: There's no word. It's not a good, this is not a Good Look. This is not good times. Like, a bidets is a hygienic requirement.

0:06:26 Eli: I, I know, because now I have an anti-bidet take because I'm brave I'm bold here's here's my anti -bedet take, are you ready, I have a bidet in my, my house, I will use it occasionally, every time I use it I go, this is a fucking sex thing, these perverts yeah these perverse have gotten a little blowjob machine attached to their booty hole and you give yourself a nice fresh

0:06:30 Tom: There is no anti -bidet take, water is a superior cleaning solution yeah what

0:06:47 Thomas: Into Ooh, blowjob machine. Yeah,

0:06:42 Tom: What what do you think a blow job is Eli it's not squirting water on your asshole

0:06:51 Thomas: I know. Same question. Same

0:06:51 Eli: Fresh. You give yourself a nice, fresh round of analingus from your fucking Robotron 3000. And then you're like, well, it's really the best way to stay clean. Yeah. And I wash my dick by hand six times a day. And it's important to moisturize.

0:06:53 Tom: Yeah

0:06:53 Thomas: Question All right.

0:07:10 Eli: All right. I know what you perverts are doing you

0:07:11 Thomas: Well, okay. Okay. You got us. You got it. But what's the downside? Well, is there something wrong with that in this country in 2023? We're not allowed to have a angling this machine on our yeah

0:07:21 Tom: I Just feel like this is a win-win. Also, like, you know, if analingus is in the cards, I feel like the bidet is like a little warm -up. If not, you're just, you gotta have a fucking bidet. Is all I'm saying. You wanna treat your ass Right. A bidet And

0:07:35 Thomas: Oh

0:07:29 Eli: Gotta eat ass like the pioneers did the pioneers ate ass on the range. You had a mouth full of red clay at the end of it. Tell

0:07:39 Thomas: God

0:07:44 Tom: They all died from fucking dysentery At the age of 12 or whatever. They're just

0:07:46 Thomas: Yeah what if that is what it was like they just really like to go at it but you know the sanitation that's why it wasn't actually the water like that's a that's affront that's a made-up thing. They're like, yeah, I know this water must be totally just not sanitary

0:07:58 Tom: God

0:07:56 Eli: That story Jill Lapore. Coward. Howard.

0:08:07 Thomas: But I'm, I'm with you. I, we got to a point, especially when we're just too fucking exhausted, both of us, before Scombert, we're like, I would be fine with him just fucking shitting his pants every morning. Like, shit your pants every morning, I'll clean it up at a reasonable hour. Like, I would rather, rather than wake up and wipe an ass at 5 a.m., I will wake up in the morning and clean a whole shit bed at a unreasonable time. That's a, that's a deal. I'll do it. But nope, they can't do it

0:08:32 Tom: God

0:08:33 Eli: Here's the other thing about potty training. That's so tough potty training. At least if you're a Freudian like me, it's a tough, you can't mess up even for a sec. Like literally one time of being like, Oh man, boom, pervert forever. Right? You've literally, you know, you've got to be a potty trainer. You can watch your kid log into a very special website behind their eyes. If you yell at them even once, so you've gotta be, you gotta nail it right there There are parts of parenting that you can kind of mess up. Oh, I'm sorry, kiddo. Daddy was a couple of minutes late to pick you up from school. You mess up one toilet training thing. Your kid is in a dungeon from the age of 18 forward.

0:08:48 Tom: Well

0:08:41 Thomas: Or

0:09:09 Eli: They cannot do it without.

0:09:09 Tom: How

0:09:10 Thomas: Getting analingus from a water machine on the toilet ever after that.

0:09:14 Eli: Exactly. Yeah, that's the point. You didn't wipe good enough. And your dads were like, you failed me at wiping. And you're like, I've got to get a whole streamy down there forever and always.

0:09:29 Thomas: It is weird. I

0:09:30 Tom: The fuck do we transition into the show from that? What, All

0:09:32 Thomas: Got a transition for you. I it's been coming to me here and there a couple of times. I don'T know a month where I just sit and I think like, man, I kind of miss my dad. It'S kind of weird. Like I've been having a, yeah, but, but here's what, no,

0:09:34 Tom: Right. Whoa.

0:09:44 Tom: Do you think it's because of this show?

0:09:48 Thomas: I it's definitely not because of the show. It''s definitely not because of all the diary reading I've been doing. No, it's, but Here's the thing. I miss him in a way. That's not a dad. You know, that's the the thing that I think maybe some people I've seen in like the Facebook group, I think they relate to this too. Like, it's not like I wanted my dad to leave this earth. I wasn't so mad at him that I wanted him to die or something. It's like, but he wasn't a dad to me, you she an interesting person. And I was just thinking like, so I had this thought, my first thought, I'll just have a feeling, a quick feeling of like, kind man, of miss my dad a little bit. You know,

0:09:50 Eli: It's definitely not that. No.

0:10:20 Tom: Which

0:10:21 Thomas: It does not get carried away. I sort of, you you know, I have like a twinge of 1 % missing. And then my brain goes to, wait, why do you miss your dad? Cause like, that's, you know like I started analyzing myself and I realized this

0:10:32 Tom: You can do with a bidet too, by the way.

0:10:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. What? What I miss is just that he fucking knew everything. Like I just, I'm like, well, what I miss is that like, he would just have some reference I've never heard of. Or if I bring anything up that happened from the years 1940 to, you know, his knowledge kind of stopped. Let's be honest, and everybody's does at a certain point, you just kind of stop paying attention to new things. But you know, anywhere from 1940 to 1995, my dad just knew everything. Like, he knew everything that happened. He knew everybody's names. He knew because he kind of just sat and absorbed stuff all day. And so I realized like, that's what I miss is just this, he's like Heath. You know, he was very Heath-esque in his brain. Like, he just kind of knew, you know, like Heath just, like, they're both incredible at crosswords. Like my

0:10:34 Tom: Sure. Sure. Uh, in

0:11:25 Thomas: Dad was so good at crossroads that he literally got bored of them and just stopped. Like, he just had a collection. I remember he did a billion of them, and he'd save them. Guess where I found a bunch of crosswords, by the way?

0:11:26 Eli: Uh, In the back of the hole in the Mine.

0:11:35 Tom: An old mining cave Yeah.

0:11:37 Eli: Yeah.

0:11:36 Thomas: So close. In the boat. One of the many boxes he had just just unloaded like a bunch of, weirdly he kept a bunch of finished ones that he had. This was before he died. And I think, I know what happened to him, but I found him one day when I was like looking through stuff and I was Like, wow, that's weird. He just has like a thousand crosswords that he finished. But anyway, incredible at crosswords. I don'T know. It's just like, I miss him in that sense. Like he was another mind in the world that was interesting in a way, you know what I mean? But I don't miss him and like, oh, my dad, the support, shoulder to cry on. No, none of that. There's none of that.

0:11:39 Tom: The in boat in the boot Yeah.

0:12:06 Eli: Sure. I,

0:12:08 Tom: But You know, at the, at the risk of being terribly wrong, I think, I think it's kind of interesting that rather than miss him as a role in your life, part of you misses him as person. Like, what you're describing is like, yeah, he did a bad job filling this role, role, but as a person, he's somebody that you found some appreciation for. And I actually think know, that's my goal with my kids. I want them to see me as a person.

0:12:22 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Sure. Oof. Yikes.

0:12:37 Eli: Really hope I'm misunderstanding that, Tom.

0:12:38 Thomas: Yeah.

0:12:40 Tom: No, no. The ultimate goal, as adults to adults, my dad's function as a role in my life life is smaller than his function as a person in my life. You know what I mean? I'm an adult now. I don't need him to fill a role in my life. He doesn't need to be my support person. He doesn't need to function in those sort of like father role ways for me. I don t need that. I'm good. Like, I've got, I've got that long since figured out. But what I love about my dad, and I was thinking about this because I know I brought this up on another show, I was think about the fishing trip my dad and I went on, um, went to, that we went on, that fishing trip up to Canada.

0:12:40 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah.

0:13:21 Tom: And I was actually, it inspired me to like reach out to my dad, and we bullshit a little bit back and forth about how great that trip was. And that trip wasn't just two guys out on a fishing trip.

0:13:31 Thomas: Yeah, but it's because he's your dad. Like, would you just go on a fishing trip with an 80 -year -old man? Just some random 80 -years -old man that's just a person?

0:13:38 Tom: No, but I would absolutely go on a fishing trip. I will tell you unequivocally, and I'll give you a great example in reverse, Cecil went on a hunting trip last year, a hundred percent uninterested in doing it because I wanted to do it. And I would a thousand percent go to a sports ball game with Cecil if he said, hey man, this is this, would be a really fun thing to do. Yeah, I would 1000% go do something I was uninterested as an activity, as a way to spend time with somebody I'm, I'm interested in and, and you know, intimately and emotionally familiar with. So yeah, like, like that fishing trip, do I give a shit about fishing? No. Is it a cherished memory? Absolutely. And I think this time has gone on, my dad's filling more and more, more and more of a role as a person and less and less as a function, as like this, you know, because father is like, there's something a little reductive, actually, I think, about relating to adults in that continued role -based way, as opposed to a fully human way.

0:14:00 Thomas: Sword fighting match. Yeah. I

0:14:43 Eli: I mean, I, I don't know how I feel about it in terms of, like, like swapping it out for daddom, but I do, I love it. Uh, a person who considers themselves a role model and definitely like resonates with a lot of what you were just talking about. I just don't, I don't know that I would ever want that relationship with my kids.

It's interesting because my kids aren't as old as yours, and maybe as they get older, as they become more like people, right, like fully functioning people, you do want that friendship to evolve, right? You don't want to, be they're like daddy forever, right? Now, all I can, again, this is just my perspective, all I can picture is like, I always want Max to run and hug me.

I don't really know how I'm going to feel about like the exchange of ideas or the things we do together. Uh, that said, like as a role model and as a person who mentors young people quite a bit, like I have gotten to see those relationships evolve and watch myself go from teacher and or mentor and or or boss to friend.

Um, and that's been incredibly satisfying, right, to watch people who were really babies, sort of with almost no clue as to how to do the job we do, sort of, I would say, outgrow me in many ways. You know, the two people that I'm thinking of are my friends, Rachel and Jason.

And like, I, you know, I joke all the time, it's so funny, I was listening to our show the other day and I was like, God, I haven't said a nice thing about my very, very good friend, Jason, on our podcast. I've mentioned him twice and I've been shitty both times. But like, Jason's a great example of someone who, like, when Jason started out and I was mentoring him, he knew relatively little magic.

And now not only has he surpassed me, but like, he has achieved in many ways the goals that I dreamed of when I first started in magic. They came true through him. Like, he He has gone on to do things that I, I genuinely believe I never would have done. And the, the pride I feel in that, but also, like, to to Tom's point, how honored I am to still be a participant in that as a friend. It's really, really cool. Um, so maybe, I don't know, maybe, maybe I will feel that way about my son as well. It's possible.

0:16:53 Thomas: I think there's a little bit of a false, false dichotomy. Like, I don't, I definitely don't think, now I know, we all know people who are still in sort of that same relation to their parents as they were as a kid, and that's fucking weird to me. I don't understand it.

0:17:06 Eli: So Weird, weird.

0:17:07 Thomas: I, but like, I don't know. I wasn' t sure if Eli was going to be that. I wasn' T sure if you were going to BE like, oh yeah, my dad, you know, I still, cause you, I mean, you still talk to your mom a lot and I don't understand that as a, as a human. I DON'T get it. Is that normal? Am I, I'm the abnormal one, right?

0:17:07 Eli: I,

0:17:08 Tom: Does

0:17:22 Eli: Know. I'm definitely not normal. I talk to my mom like multiple times a week, and I know that's not normal. I

0:17:28 Thomas: Oh, that's not so bad. Okay. I thought you were on the phone. I had a friend who said he talked to his mom, like just twice a day. And I was just like, I, that'S, that's too much, man. I don't know how you're doing that.

0:17:36 Tom: That What?

0:17:39 Eli: Yeah.

0:17:39 Thomas: Yeah, it was, it was a little bit after college. So he was, you know, not, we're not talking someone in his forties, but you know, early twenties. And I was just like, and he was like, yeah, I'm sad that you don't have that, I can't believe you're missing out. I'm like, not missing anything, man, I' m really, I really not missing anything. Anything. But like, I don't know, maybe I'm the asshole.

Like, I'm, I guarantee you, we will have listeners who are like, no, I'm still, that's still my relationship, and to me, that's a little weird keeping that dynamic. But here's, here's what I think is interesting. What I have with my mom is the inverse of what Tom was talking about.

So what I have with my mom is I love my mom because she was a fantastic mom in a lot of ways and did a lot of the things that, you know, my dad just didn't do, and provided all my happiest memories as a kid, like virtually all of them are her, take making so much effort with time she didn't have, you know, and and patience she didn't have, and you know, for four kids, to make stuff special. And I love that, I always love her for it, I was always be grateful for it, but as a person, we have fucking nothing. Like, we just have

0:18:38 Eli: Yeah.

0:18:38 Thomas: No commonality, like, again, I love her, I, I hope she never hears this or whatever, because I don't want her to be sad about it, I, because I do, I really love my mom, I'm grateful for so many things things, but we just have no, we can't have a conversation really, cause we're just on different planets, we're just so different as people, not bad, like, I'm not, you mad at her or anything, I'm not, you know, it's not like, it's just, oh, okay, it's like a, I don't know, it's like any relationship where you're like, ah, I'm trying to kind of connect with this person and it's just nothing, you know, I just don't, really, hmm.

0:18:41 Tom: Right.

0:19:05 Eli: No. I, I have a buddy who is exactly in that situation. He's the only non-normie in a family of normies, um, And it's really hard, and the expression he uses all the time is like, if I met my family at a party, I wouldn't follow up. That's what he always said. It's Like like he would talk to his family for exactly the length of that.

0:19:14 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Hmm.

0:19:20 Tom: That's a great line. And that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid. Like, like I Hear you completely. And when I talk about it, I'm saying like my goal, right? I don't know if I'll achieve it, but my goal is to eventually, and eventually means whenever the time is right. I'm not saying like 18 or 20 or even 25, but at some point in our lives, we're we're going to spend the bulk of our connected time with our family as two adult people, like fully adult, like mortgages and our own kids adult.

That's where we'll spend the majority of the overlap of our lives. And I want to build a relationship with my kids where the primary point of connection is not here's a bunch of shit that I did for you ages zero through 22, too. I want it to be, we're connected in a way that's genuine and organic and pleasant for both of us as people. And I think my dad and I have that now.

Think we actually have a much better relationship as adults and a much greater sense of mutual respect as adults than we did when we had this role-based relationship. When we had this relationship, it's not like we had a bad relationship, but there was there was tension there. There was a lot more push pull that

0:19:27 Eli: Yeah.

0:19:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:20:42 Thomas: Man.

0:20:42 Tom: Was a part of that relationship. And now all of that's gone. And I don't look at my dad as somebody who I have sort of like familial loyalty to. And that's kind of our primary point of connection. Instead, I look at my dad is like, yeah, we're talking about role models, look at my dad as as really somebody that I'm genuinely proud to know as a person, and makes a mean clock, that I I still have a lot to learn from, and that I and I look at my friends in the same way, like they're my friends, are my friends because I look at them and I think there's so much I still have to learn. For me, there's still much enjoyment I have just just from sitting and having breakfast with you or sitting and having a conversation with you. And I want that to be the ultimate relationship I have with my kids, is to surpass the limitations and sort of, I feel like, reductiveness of a role-based relationship and eventually transform into a relationship of peers. And,

0:21:05 Thomas: Makes a mean clock. Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:40 Thomas: There are definitely some men too, the other side, who can't do that. Like, I feel like there's a lot of dads in the world who, like, their whole fucking personality is that authority they get by being a dad and then when their kids are bigger, they can't step into a different role of being being at all fallible or, you know, anything like that. Yeah.

0:21:50 Eli: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah.

0:21:50 Tom: Right. Right. Right! Right. Yeah. And I think that's such a miss out. I think that's a huge fucking miss out, and I think that as time goes on that creates this sort of arm's length distance that I don't want to have forever with my kids. I don't want my kids to always look at me as somebody that they have to seek approval from or impress, or that I need to be some kind of role for them. I definitely am that some kind role now.

And I'm super conscious, as you guys know, about what that role is and what it means and how I impact it and all of that. At some point, I really want to settle into a relationship of peers. I do think there's the opposite side, too, where there's a lot of people who parent their kids trying to get to that point of friendship before it's appropriate, where they treat their kids like friends rather than maintain that role into adulthood, when it's okay to safely and gently and over a long period of time begin to release that responsibility of a role relationship. Relationship, and I see that opposite side too, where people are like, yeah, you know, I want my kid to be my buddy, and you're like, kid's not your fucking buddy, that's

0:22:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:47 Eli: Nope.

0:23:09 Tom: A bad call. Your kid's your fucking kid. You have a role, they have a roll. That's how that interaction is supposed to work. Don't fucking rush it, you know, so I I think about that a lot. Yes.

0:23:18 Eli: You're Right. Absolutely.

0:23:19 Thomas: Do You See a lot of stuff these days about, um, the kind of, it's almost a meme at this point of the, like, grandkids won't talk to me, it's usually like a Trumper kind of Fox News thing where it's like, you know, you become a shitty old racist whatever Trumpper, and so your kid, your grandkids or your kids don't talk to you. And I always think about that, and it's, it fits a certain pattern that I don't want to be in at all. Like I, I never want to be in that, because it's, it's a certain, it takes a certain entitlement to think that your kids have some duty as adults to like give you stuff or be in a, you know, or be in some relation to you that you haven't earned.

0:23:20 Tom: Yes.

0:23:58 Eli: Yeah, Dennis, Dennis Prager wrote an article over the holidays that was supposed to be this like violin moment, you know, there are many out there who, but for politics, would be in their grandchildren's arms this Christmas. I'm just like, cool. Fucking

0:24:10 Thomas: And the truth is that's not true. The truth is it's not just about the politics. 'Cause I actually made this joke later. Like, like I would say in, you know, so roughly how the timeline went is my dad was forced to come to my house once when there was fires and they had to evacuate in 2014 or so, that was like the last time I saw him before, you know, until it was like his deathbed or whatever. Whatever. And that was the last time.

And so in that, I don't know, intervening five years, it was a lot of thought of like, do I fucking, what am I going to try to make some effort or what's the point? It was that long process. And in that process, sometimes I would think like, you know, yeah, it sucks to go there. And you know, he has his Fox News spiel, and they obviously supported Trump and all that.

And then I would think again, I'd be like, you know, that's not really the issue though, because if you were a good person or a good dad or a good parent, and you had a good relationship with your kid, like if I had a parent who, I don't know, cared, or who, you know, like did, had that place in my life at all, like, yeah, I mean, I would be pissed about the politics, but it would be something where I would either be like, all right, for the sake of having this relationship, can we just not talk about it?

Or I would argue with them about it from a place of caring what they thought. But but what was even worse, the worst place you want to be, is I just didn't give a fuck what my dad thought about anything anymore, and

0:24:14 Eli: Yeah. Yep.

0:25:40 Thomas: It's sad because I used to really care about what he thought, and that's a, there's two factors, for one, once you're a brainwashed Fox News piece of shit, none of your thoughts are interesting. They're not, it's all one, oh, did you see the kids in this town or doing their fucking, no, that's nothing, you just, someone made up a thing to scare you, and that, that's your entire, that's all you're thinking about now.

0:25:49 Eli: Yeah.

0:25:50 Tom: Right.

0:25:59 Thomas: Someone made a thing. Yeah.

0:25:59 Tom: That's your personality now. That's

0:26:00 Eli: Yeah, yeah.

0:26:01 Thomas: And and that's one component. Another component is if you don't, if people don't care about you, if you haven't formed those bonds, no one's going to give a shit enough to even engage with your nonsense. So I don't really think it is all about the politics. I think that's definitely a factor, huge. But I also think the kinds of people who would be drawn to fascism are the kinds of people who would think they, they didn't need to do anything to earn their kids' attention whatsoever as adults. Yeah.

0:26:24 Eli: Right.

0:26:25 Tom: Think also it's the case that your politics are just a stand in for your values. And I think that there's a huge, like legitimate point of contention. Again, if we're if we'RE treating our parents and we're being treated by our parents, not as people who fulfill a sort of familial role or have a shared family history, but at some point as just people in the world that we are deciding how we feel about being connected to. If we look at them, we're like, well, we just don't share the same values. We just don'T like our politics are really just a a way to demonstrate or vote our values. So, like, if my dad had monstrous values, I would have it. I'd be like, oh, yeah, well, like we don't need to we don'T need to be around each other because I don't actually respect you.

0:26:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:15 Eli: Yeah.

0:27:15 Tom: I can't like I regardless of how great a dad you were ages zero through 22 or whatever, if it turns out like a fucking Nazi sympathizer, I actually am good with saying thanks for doing all that. I really genuinely appreciate it. I'll always have love for the past and the things that you gave me, but your values are abhorrent to me and I'm out. And your politics are just a way to sort don't know, codify that in some way. So I think that some of it is politics.

0:27:43 Eli: It also, it also poisons everything. I've talked about this other places, but I lost the best friend I had in the world to the alt-right. Like 2015, 2016, the person who got me into atheism, who was my partner in my businesses and a bunch of other stuff, got sucked into the alt-right. I know exactly the

0:28:05 Tom: I didn't know this about Noah. This is interesting. Thing fucking

0:28:07 Thomas: Yeah

0:28:09 Eli: But like I, I know exactly the conversation that started his, uh, around the toilet bowl into the alt-right. And by the end of it, like literally by the end of that friendship two or three years later, all of his friends and myself had sort of an intervention where we were like, hey man, you've become hellish to be around, the person we knew is gone, um. Like there are various members of the group that don't feel safe around you because they're sexual assault survivors and you're super into Pauly Lamb. And we're worried that if we leave you alone with them, you're going to argue to them that they deserve to be raped and they won't have, like, the facilities to have that argument with you.

And then he just moved away. He ended up like literally just packing up and moving away without a friend in the world. But it was this horrible sort of heartbreaking loss of a friend of mine. And believe me, we tried. We tried, we tried everything from like no talking about politics rules to like safe, I remember at one point our friendship had a fucking safe word for just, but the truth is, like, values with politics, values shifted so much. I forget who, who said it, but someone said that conservatism is all about reaching the conclusion that you've been cheated and you need someone to blame, and liberalism

0:28:47 Tom: Hell wouldn't

0:29:04 Thomas: Yep yeah

0:29:07 Tom: Work yeah

0:29:23 Eli: Is all about reaching the conclusion that you got lucky and you need to give back, right? Like that, that conservative poison that entered his mind fundamentally, even when we weren't talking about politics, fundamentally changed my friend till he was unrecognizable from the person who had mattered that much to me, right?

0:29:27 Thomas: Yeah but you made that effort, that's the thing, that's a point I'm trying to make, is you, yeah, I mean, politics can be bad enough if somebody's really that dedicated to bullshit ideology and bad values, yeah, like that's going to kill anything. But I'll note how much you tried, because the difference between that and you seeing someone, someone on the street who has a Trump shirt or "Dari, let's go Brandon" shirt is, well, fuck that person, you say silently and never want to see them again versus somebody you cared about or had any relation to and are like, man, maybe I can change their mind.

Maybe, you know, maybe they're misinformed. Maybe we can work on this. Maybe we can try to move them to the left a little, get them, you know, find some common ground. All those efforts are things that you would do if you had some base of relationship there. And like that's what really was missing. Like, I didn't care about changing my dad's mind, a, because he never was the most hard-headed stubborn person in the world, but b, because it's like, yeah, fucking whatever, he's, you know yeah and like when it comes to also kind of a narcissist, they're, they're just talking to talk, at, to be heard, they're not, you know, you

0:30:07 Eli: Yeah yeah yeah

0:30:39 Tom: It's not worth it yeah

0:30:46 Thomas: Don't really get to have conversations

0:30:47 Tom: They're never listening so what's What's the point, right?

0:30:48 Thomas: Yeah.

0:30:48 Eli: And and and the thing they'll say to hurt you so that they don't have to consider your points, complaints are, you know, I think about the fact there's a TikTok that's blown up recently, it's a girl who, I, I don't even know why, but she ended up recording the final conversation she had with her homophobic mother, uh, she's gay, and she came out as gay, and her mother cut her off, the sort of classic Salt Lake City, get out, you're dead to us conversation. And she, is she has put those last two conversations on TikTok. And to hear a parent say those things to their children is so unfathomable to me that if you were like, hey, what are the chances that you'll gnaw your own arm off at the elbow, I'd be like, I mean, low. And they'd be like, what about you saying you're dead to me because Max is gay? And I'd, like, oh, no, definitely the gnawing thing, because I might like get hungry in like a line and 127 hours

0:30:54 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You might be in that movie, you know, whatever that fucking 90 hours, 98 degrees. I don't know.

0:31:43 Eli: Like and that that's the other thing that comes up in these situations is it's like, how much love could you possibly have had for your kid if you can throw them away like that, right?

0:31:47 Tom: Oh,

0:31:56 Thomas: Exactly. They don't love their kids that much. They do. You know, I want to make this, and I'm so sorry, it's, it's a little bit jumping off, off, did you See? The Twitter, I saw something shared on Twitter that it was an obituary, it's, it's really dark, apologies for the, for what happened, but it was like a typical dude murders his family thing that is all too common. And the, that we've gotten so fucking broken as a culture that, like, the victim's family was talking about how, like, "Oh, I hope, hope we don't, you know, do anything about gun control because of this," like, they're already going to, like, that level of politics of like, "Yeah, yeah, if she would have had a gun to defend herself, then

0:31:59 Eli: I in there Jesus

0:32:32 Thomas: That would have been, and I, this was the first time, because you know me, I've, I even have that quote of like, you know, I really do try to approach things like everybody loves their kids the way I do, because I, but like I saw that and I was like, You don't love your kids. I'm sorry. You don'T. You DON'T love your kids as much. If your thought after your child has been murdered is that, Oh God, I hope, I hope no gun control comes as a fuck you fuck you don't you don'T love your kid you DON'T you never did love your KID as much as I think a parent ought to love their kid you didn't it's just there's no fucking way you

0:32:32 Eli: Yes absolutely absolutely yeah

0:32:32 Tom: My God.

0:32:57 Eli: This is a really good chance for me to score some points yeah and me take, as usual, Thomas's reasonable point and make it crazy, you're not, you're not a person, right, like, I think I Think that

0:33:19 Tom: Yeah,

0:33:18 Thomas: Are a an alien of some kind there's

0:33:21 Eli: I think like things like rights and civility are all fine, right, for people, people, but you, I'll tell you, I'll give you a great example.

0:33:28 Tom: It's good. It's provisionally okie -dokie.

0:33:34 Eli: I'll, I'm giving you a great example of this, right?

0:33:35 Thomas: NO WAY OF COMING BACK FROM THAT SENTENCE

0:33:38 Eli: No, this, that's because that's, there I am. I'm at the top of my mountain with my very strong, I have gone as high in that mountain as I can without advocating illegal things, which, you know, I am getting better and better at not doing every day, but I'll giving you great example. We have a listener.

0:33:40 Tom: I guess some small amount of civility. I love this show because we get to find out so much more about what Eli really thinks and it's fucking dark

0:33:56 Thomas: Yeah it's scary yeah it really is

0:33:59 Eli: Yeah, it's dark up here. Have listener who is is trans and who luckily has an incredibly supportive and wonderful family, but they got a transphobic shitty grandma. One person in the family is transphopic and shitty. And they wrote us an email and they were like, what do I do about this? And I was like, here's what you're going to do. You're going to call everyone else in the Family who is wonderful and supportive. And you're going explain to them that we don't talk to grandma until she changes her mind. Grandma's not coming to Christmas. Grandma doesn't get any phone calls. Grandma Grandma doesn't get any check -ins and that's what they did. And would you believe it?

Grandma changed her mind about trans, right? Because the minute there's consequences for these fucking zygotes, these amoebas, right, they change your tune right away. You know, Thomas and I, we talked about this over on SAO. We wasted approximately 2 ,000 years of life trying to change the minds of internet trolls. Bicycles and at the core of it. And the reason, at least I stopped, I don't know to Thomas, you're still, you're Still kind of trying God bless you to change minds and educate people. But the reason I stopped is because at the Core of it, every time was just a gargoyle baby going, but then when I wanted the cookie, there was no cookie for me. There

0:34:11 Thomas: Yeah exactly yeah

0:35:15 Eli: Was no cookie. And I just realized, like, oh my, this is just a broken bicycle, right? You just got to throw away the broken bicycle, sometimes stop trying to refurbish old houses, you know, it's just, oh, poison, your homophobic parents is what I'm saying. If you're still in the will. Oh, we lost Thomas. Okay, that makes me feel better. I Thought, thomas was just like this echoey sign, like, deeply offended, let's talk some shit about him while he's not here. This is the first time this has happened.

0:35:28 Tom: I have no idea where to even go from there. Okay, alright, there was this right off line fuck

0:35:47 Eli: Let's get a... to fuck him, fuck him, he's got no feet. He

0:35:47 Tom: Thomas Smith no, he would just like it, you know what, spray his ass with a bidet, see what, make him jump

0:35:51 Eli: Would like to, yeah, oh, no, then he would love it, because

0:35:55 Tom: Renny would love it. Who am I kidding?

0:35:56 Eli: He's a tushy pervert like you with your little, little from me and Tom's perspective, I'd like to describe what just happened. Thomas's... inner when internet went out, he immediately, immediately got in his car and drove 45 minutes from his house to a field where he was all alone.

0:36:00 Tom: You want

0:36:17 Eli: Right, just screaming the entire time the aliens are coming.

0:36:16 Tom: Waving his Wi-Fi antenna out the window

0:36:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, and were attacked by the russians I think so

0:36:24 Eli: Yeah. Got nuked. Anyways, their empathy sucks, and that's why I sort of stopped trying.

0:36:30 Thomas: That be a lesson to you all to stop trying yeah you know, we were talking about role models. Another thought I had with my, with dad, I don't know if, you know, we haven't gotten to do too much of the role model talk as much as, as, of the like roles with our kids talk that we've done, which is very, very interesting stuff as well. But in terms of my dad. My next thought when I was like, oh, I miss my dad because he's smart, good at crosswords. I miss him as a crossword. The next thought I had was how, yeah.

0:36:56 Tom: Is Just yelling into the void, I need a four -letter word for

0:37:00 Thomas: Well, and he was so fucking weird. I know that's the understatement of a lifetime, but because of his pathological problems, he could not, if he was good, like take crosswords as an example, killer crosswords, knew every single fucking clue of all time ever, but he, he was pathologically unable to show off, really weird.

I don't know if it came from fucking whatever, his dad or somebody, somebody along the line must've really not liked that or something, because he, if he was good at something like that, he wouldn't like, we'd ask him, it was almost like a fucking kid where you try to get them to do their trick and do their thing.

You know, like with Phoebe, when I try to get her to do anything in front of anyone, like if we were like, oh, crosswords, he would have to downplay it so hard that it, like, he couldn't even do it. It was, it's hard to even describe, like, he, he would, we would do a crossword around him, you know, and he'd, he'd help if we kind of asked him, but he wouldn't, he could not ever display something he was good at in any sort of intentional way.

It was a weird pathology, but in a, in a way, it's of that, I think, is a decent role model, like I've, there's part of it where it's like, I also can't try to show off in any sort of fake way in that way. Like, is that a good role model thing or not? I don't know. I'm not sure, but it was very weird. I was just trying to like, like this pathology. I still don't understand it,

0:38:24 Eli: You're talking to someone who learned literal magic tricks, Thomas. So, You know, I don't know if you know this, this but I have a little bit of a showing off tendency I show off at skills I don't have if you were if we were at dinner and you were like Eli can juggle I'll fucking throw everything in the air I donno until

0:38:27 Thomas: But Yeah. Yeah.

0:38:34 Tom: No, what Eli Eli

0:38:39 Thomas: That's absolutely true. That is absolutely true, yeah. We won't know if you're lying until like the second you start tossing that chainsaw, and you won't no either, I think. I don't know if you know. Do you know you're lieing or not? I'm not sure. That something we haven't...

0:38:47 Eli: The chainsaw has started yeah I don' t know it's not important I'm aware if someone rudely interrupts me and is like wait do you know how to juggle I'll come back to reality and be like no and that's part that part of why I loved my dad too is that my dad my dad never called bullshit never never I called my dad all the time

0:39:00 Tom: It's not important

0:39:16 Thomas: Oh, did we have the inverse dad? Like my dad was your dad with a mustache or something? Because my dad only would call bullshit all the time, even on stuff that wasn't bullshit. There's a nonstop feeling of like, everything's going to be bullshit all the time to the the, point where it's like my own feelings are bullshit. Anything I think is, but you know, that's, but that's the, the real toxicity of it. Oh no, it's terrible. That's what I'm saying.

0:39:20 Eli: Yes

0:39:35 Tom: Yeah that's not good yeah that is terrible yeah That Is Terrible

0:39:39 Eli: It's a bunch of my, um, so I have a bunch of saved voicemails for my dad because I would save his voicemail and I've now exported them as sound files and they're they're incredibly precious to to me, but a lot of the voicemails my dad would leave me were just stories, right? And I'm not talking about like, did I ever tell you about the time I was a SEAL trainer at the zoo?

He'd just be like, okay, so I'm at the grocery store, right, and this woman walks in dressed as a mime, but she's standing at the front door, and she's acting like she can't get in, she can't get in. So the cops show up right there telling her, ma'am, there's no wall there, there's no wall there. People are gathered around, we're chanting, there is no wall, there is no wall. Finally, I go up and touch it.

It turned out the glass had been relocated for, you know, it was just an amazing story. He would just fill your life with an amazing story, and it's funny, you were talking about the people who, yeah, he would just make them up. He'd just fucking make them up, and you were talking about the people who like called their parents all the time, right, and that was me and my dad, is I would call my dad two, three, like whenever I was walking somewhere or going somewhere, I would call my my dad just to bullshit and chit chat it's funny it's how I talk not nearly as frequently but it's how I talked to Tom now it's like I will call Tom just for no reason I'll just call Tom to be like Tom, Tom, I

0:40:27 Thomas: Do you just make those up? Like you just fucking, wow,

0:40:55 Eli: Have a funny thing to show you or I'll text Tom a TikTok to be like Tom, Tom, this is the end of civilization look at it being mad at this with me right but like that was how me and my I

0:40:55 Tom: Be mad about this too yeah

0:41:01 Thomas: Man, can you dial me into those? I wouldn't mind listening to that. That'd be like my little personal podcast, the Tom and Eli fucking bullshit about something podcast I would love that I

0:41:05 Eli: Damn right yeah

0:41:09 Tom: That's kind of what this podcast is actually

0:41:14 Eli: Um

0:41:15 Thomas: Love another of this podcast

0:41:18 Eli: But yeah, no, I I called him all the time and it's it's funny, you know what I always think about when it came to my dad, and this is going to get a little wooey, is in like mystic Judaism there's a bunch of different kinds of soulmates, right, there's the basher, which is like the person you love forever, and obviously I don't believe in soulmates because but one of the things that I liked is one of the forms of soulmates basically translates to brothers in arms, right? Is that there's a version of, like, a brothers -in -arms soulmate, and that's the way I always thought of my dad and me.

0:41:38 Thomas: Yeah yeah it's was that the one they reserved for like gay people to try to but to try to explain it sort of like how historians are like look at these roommates they were buried together in an ornate tomb.

0:41:53 Eli: Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha, exactly! All right, we need a soulmate for Moishi and his good friend Yako, with their brothers -at -arms, because of how often we find them hugging.

0:42:06 Thomas: Yeah. Well, famously you and your dad did date. So fits.

0:42:16 Eli: We're dating. Yeah, exactly.

0:42:18 Thomas: Yeah, but I just a little quick note because so many things I've mentioned in my parenting is, you know, my dad and then the opposite is a way to know what the good. So anytime, anytime my kids, kids, either of them wants to go, dad, let me show you something. Let me show, and they want to kind of take center stage, you know, in the way that kids do. And they want to like, oh, I want to show you this fucking nothing bullshit. That's a kid thing that sucks, but it's okay. I give them, I'm the fucking best audience. I'm like, ah, show me. I can't wait. Yes. I love it. Like I do these so far, the opposite of the extreme negative reaction we get. If we ever tried to gain, gain any attention from our fucking dad, I just wanted everybody to know I don't know how much I go the other way for my kids. I'm putting on a stage. I got lights that I set up. Turn on the lights. They got a curtain. Goes up and I'm like,

0:42:14 Tom: You

0:43:08 Eli: Oh,

0:43:08 Thomas: Show me your drawing that is just one color that you fucking scratched over whatever it was and it's nothing. I'm wrapped, audience.

0:43:16 Eli: You didn't call her within those lines, even at all, at any point in the drawing, this is going on the free. Yeah. They need that. They needs that positivity. You know, I, I often hear that sort of, that's not the real world ism around that kind of shit. And I'm like, like, well, first of all, it's the real world for my kid. So go fuck yourself. I don't know if you're aware, but this is not the matrix. It is in fact the real World. But also like that kind of radical positivity. Like, don't worry. Plenty of people are going to shit on your kid's dreams. I promise.

0:43:30 Tom: That Yeah.

0:43:45 Eli: I promise they will meet.

0:43:44 Thomas: Yeah, yeah,

0:43:45 Tom: Why do I have to be one of them He

0:43:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:47 Eli: Right. Exactly. You're the only what, you know, your your kids think you're like the coolest person in the world right now. And those little moments of positivity, productivity, they mean the world to, you know, I was thinking about this. I was driving the other day and I was thinking of an example of my dad being supportive. So, um, after college, I got a choice to either join a show or take this job with a magic company. And I took the short dollar. I took the job of the magic company and I was pretty ashamed of it. It was pretty ashamed of it, but I was a really good salesman. Um, I like broke records for the company. I was a really, really good toy salesman and my dad was so supportive that he showed up and filmed it like I'm a full-grown post-graduate Adult And He Had like the home camcorder and like filmed my little demonstration pitch because he was so proud of what a good salesman I was.

0:44:26 Tom: Filmed you Selling Stuff Oh,

0:44:36 Thomas: Oh, my God. I feel like that's going to be me, but it's also so, like, silly. But I...

0:44:40 Tom: Man, you Guys Are, I am, I feel like I'm like supportive of the kids, but I'm not getting out a fucking camcorder to watch them do their job. That's not, oh My God, that's A bit

0:44:52 Thomas: Yeah. I'm unsure of how this will develop as they're older for me. I actually genuinely don't know because like I is obviously a lot of me that's very realist. So I think there will reach an age where I'm like, all right, well, you got to do something that's actually impressive. You know, like you can't. Yeah. When you're two And three and four and five and up until whatever, I'm all impressed in the world. Thought I wanted to get out there real quick was along the lines of, you be plenty of people who will, you shut know, your kid down and all that. Can't agree more because I think a lot of people do that, probably including my dad, although his again is probably just fucking pathology. I don't don't know how much method to his madness there was, um, that respect there were in certain ways, but people think they're going to do this, like, oh, real world, I'll give you, I'll prepare them for the real world, I'll say their fucking thing sucks, and then when they get in the real world they'll be ready for that. No, you know what's going to

0:44:54 Tom: Yeah. Well,

0:45:08 Eli: I'm Right.

0:45:42 Thomas: Happen is they'll never fucking try it in the real world, they will be, yeah,

0:45:47 Tom: I'll Do is I'll break their hearts until They're numb inside and Then they'll

0:45:48 Thomas: They'll Be paralyzed From Trying anything from putting it out there, putting themselves out there. They'll never want to do that because they've had so many negative experiences. They'll be like, why would I ever fucking try? They'll sit in their goddamn room and watch Netflix all day because that's all, like you've ruined their enthusiasm. I, as a depressed person who has these problems, I look at my kids' enthusiasm as the most priceless fucking resource in the universe. I can't even explain how much this is true. Every time they're excited, excited, I see it as like the most precious thing and I don't want to lose it. Because I know one day they will, you know, one day they're going to turn into fucking people who will be like, gotta go to work, gotta go school. The little, the sweetest things about kids to me is the fact that they can get excited about the most mundane things. I love it. It is my fucking heroine. I just, they'll get excited About just seeing you. They'll be like little kids. That's why they're the best.

0:45:50 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right, right. Oh

0:46:44 Eli: Oh,

0:46:46 Thomas: They'll be the, you know, it's the, one of the funniest things that's thrilling to them is when like we're in two different cars or something. Like if we go in two Different cars and to drive somewhere and like they pull up.

0:46:47 Tom: Yeah.

0:46:56 Eli: And then they see you in the parking lot, absolute

0:46:57 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, they pulled next to me or they pull next to be at a stop sign because we're both driving. You know, Lydia's taking the car with the kids and I'm taking the one with the stuff or whatever it is. They that's the most thrilling fucking amazing thing for no reason. It's the best of

0:47:09 Tom: Okay. Real quick. I have to ask if you guys do the same thing when you and your wife are in opposite cars or like you're going to pick her up or you're in the car and like, she's you're, you're picking her up from a place. Do you make it a point to roll your window down and like cat call her? Like she's a stranger.

0:47:25 Thomas: Course.

0:47:25 Tom: I I'm so glad I'm not the only one

0:47:24 Eli: Every fucking time Absolutely of course

0:47:25 Thomas: Yeah hundred percent 100%. Wait, we're all talking about Eli's wife, right? Or our own wife.

0:47:31 Eli: Can't Blame You.

0:47:32 Thomas: No, I totally do that all the time.

0:47:27 Tom: Oh good All right, good, good, I

0:47:35 Thomas: 100%. Every

0:47:35 Tom: I do it every time. Like every time I go to pick up Hailey, I'm like, what's up baby, you got fries to go with that shake? And like the straight, like everyone's, it's in front of the fucking like DSW shoe place or whatever.

0:47:37 Thomas: Time.

0:47:46 Thomas: It's one of the world's simple pleasures. You know, like it just is. You're just acting like you don't know your wife and then hitting on her in the stupidest way possible.

0:47:49 Tom: It's uh, it's terrible. Right in the dumbest way. Like the most fucking ridiculous, bro.

0:47:56 Thomas: Yeah. It has to be really over

0:47:58 Tom: Way Right, yeah, I love I absolutely fucking love doing that. I

0:48:00 Eli: Of divorce.

0:47:58 Thomas: The top dumb. Yeah. Like, do you do the one, I like doing a little bit of a hint of like, oh, I'm talking about somebody else for a second. Like, just give her a little hint of a little bit of like a little of a like a, like I'm about to tell her, like, hey, look at that girl, but I'm really, I'm talking about a picture of her that I have on my phone or something. Do you ever do that? I like throwing that one in just for fun.

0:48:17 Tom: I've not done that. No.

0:48:17 Thomas: It's a little additional thrill, like, oh shit, look at this girl, she's fucking hot.

0:48:18 Tom: No, I

0:48:09 Eli: Oh. That's it or people she'll be like, what are you doing, you later? And you'll be like, oh, I got a hot date tonight with a very sexy lane and it's them, it's them and for

0:48:26 Tom: Wonder

0:48:23 Thomas: Yep. Yep, yep. Yeah. And then I ask Ask her on a date right there. Yeah, that's fun. I love that stuff. That's so fun.

0:48:30 Eli: Those uh for those single people out there, you're feeling left out, um, you're like, oh, I want to do a thing that I, I'll give you this, this is what I do to my friends and they love it. Let me tell you is, if you're ever in a, a car and your friend's not, you roll down your window and you scream, you killed my son, out the window at them. I I I do this to my friends all the time and they hate it so much. Hate it. I really recommend it because the way people look at them as you drive away is like they killed your son. So, so it's pretty good.

0:48:46 Thomas: Same thing.

0:48:53 Tom: Why I

0:49:02 Eli: Something for everybody.

0:49:02 Tom: To back to like Thomas, how, how you might feel about it as the kids get older with the, with respect to like praising all the things they do. You know, one, one piece of advice that I have read a long time ago, and it has a lot of, a lot to back it up and has really served me very well is that over time, and I mean over time being like fairly young in their life, start praising not what they do but the effort that goes into what they doing.

0:49:28 Eli: Yes.

0:49:28 Tom: Do not, like I never praise the kids for, and I'll give you some, some very concrete examples, for all the kids, like with my youngest, with my, with the Amen, he's eight years old, um, and like the other day we make these little sewing craft projects, he and I, so we make these little sewing craft, we buy these little sewing kits, you sew like these dogs, and like they've got pre -cut holes in them and you just kind of weave the thread.

He loves it because he gets a little like stuffed puppy when it's done. The whole project takes 45 minutes, so he can hold his attention during it, and it's good for his dexterity, right? He's not the most dexterous kid in the world, and so it's really good for his dexterity, and so we sew these things up together, he and I, we've made 12 or 13 of them, and like we hang out, we talk, and And we do this.

And the whole time, when that, when we're done with the project, all of that praise is, man, look, you kept your attention on that, that whole time, you did such a great job making all of the, all the holes. You praise the work itself, like the effort, I guess, not the actual product, not the end

0:49:26 Thomas: Yep, yep, yep. Yep. A hundred percent. Yep.

0:50:33 Eli: Absolutely.

0:50:33 Tom: Product, because sometimes the end project looks like shit. Sometimes It's insane. Sometimes the end products are just bonkers. And if you want, you want to build up for that kid, you want to build the idea that it's the work that matters, it's the effort that matters, because they're going to be times in their lives where they try as hard as they can and the product they produce isn't that good, the grade that they get isn't a good grade. And if all of the focus, and even for particularly precocious kids, and that's actually one way that it backfires, is if you've got kids that have always been naturally gifted, naturally very good at things, they've been praised their whole life on the success and the product that they turn out, when they hit a wall and all of a sudden they don't know how to like take pride in the work rather than the end result, it's incredibly demoralizing.

0:50:34 Eli: Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:50:34 Thomas: Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

0:51:25 Thomas: It's, this is absolutely, as you say, this is absolutely demonstrated from my understanding of, of the science. Like it's, it's especially hard, like you say with precocious children, you get used to it being effortless maybe, and then it's never going to be effortless forever. You're always going to reach a point of competition or whatever, the thing of skill where it's like, oh, I have to actually work hard. And if they haven't ever thought of it in those terms, then they're not going to be able to do it. It's totally true.

0:51:25 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Mm. -hmm. Yep.

0:51:25 Eli: Yeah.

0:51:53 Eli: Look, we all went to school the person who was like, I never study. And then you went to high school. And then that you went into high school and then you were like, you went through advanced classes and they were like. I need to study. And you were just like, oh man, that seems hard for you.

0:51:53 Tom: Yeah. Absolutely.

0:52:08 Thomas: I try this so hard, and I, you know, who knows with ages, I never know, like, what's an age where this should be kicking in a certain point. But I know Phoebe has some of these tendencies because she's so perfectionist that she has has a hard time with not doing well at anything, you know. And so, yeah.

0:52:22 Tom: Even more important with perfectionist kids. Even more importante

0:52:24 Eli: Yeah.

0:52:24 Thomas: Yeah. And I'm trying so hard. Like, uh, we have this little, you know, mini basketball hoop that, tying to get them to do it, but they're, you know, kids are so awkward, but they'll, she'll try, and I'm, I'm praising the effort. I'm like, oh, that's great. And she'll be like, I can't make it, I never make it. And I, and I, first of all, I'm like, look at me, I miss most of these things, mini basketball, it's really hard, it's not the right proportions. It's hard to make it. This is bullshit. You can't, I can't make any shots either. Fuck this. No. Uh, and then I'm also like, I'll tell her that

0:52:26 Tom: Yeah.

0:52:46 Eli: Hmm. Lydia comes in and finds you both sobbing.

0:52:52 Thomas: She just dunks on us. Like, I, but I, um, I tried to tell her the other day, I was like, look, I I'm slightly better at it maybe, but like the think how long I've been practicing. I always emphasize that. I'm like, yeah, you just, you do a lot of practicing and then, you know, you get better, that you have to to work hard at it. And I think I blew her little mind because I was like, think about how long, you know, how I'm, like, way bigger than you, like, I've spent all so much time working at stuff and like I still suck at it, so so, like, you really, it really is about the work. And she's just like, you know, when they get that look of like, oh, they're just like realizing something, like, I don't know if it it was entirely pleasant, but yeah.

0:52:52 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Thing I wanted to bring up with respect to role models, I was thinking about this in advance of the show today is that because was thinking like, how do we pick our role models? And like, and then I thought to myself, you know, as parents, whether we want to be or not, we are going to be our child's role models. And that's something I think about all the time is that I was think about this and all the wrong terms. And the first time we kind of of talked about it. I thought, well, like, how do we pick other role models for our kids? Who are my role models? But then I look and I think a hundred percent, whether we like it or not, whether we want to fill that role, whether We're qualified, whether WE're good parents or bad parents, even bad parents are role models.

0:54:09 Eli: Yep.

0:54:09 Tom: We are modeling. We Are constantly modeling all kinds of different behaviors for our Kids. And they are all looking to it. They're looking to us because we are their safe place. And if we provide them a place that is safe, then they will feel safe to explore other things. If we provide him a place, that's not safe. We're still role models for him, right?

0:54:09 Eli: Yep.

0:54:09 Thomas: Yeah.

0:54:27 Tom: We're still modeling that. And those behaviors will, that'll have an effect, a significant effect on how they, you know, build their views of the world. It's, it's this incredibly, to kind of go back to where we began, it's this incredibly important time period that that is really defined in our kids' lives where, regardless of whether we're good at this tasking of being a parent or not, doesn't actually matter to the impact that it has. Even if you leave, even if you just fucking peace out, you are still a kind of role model, just an absent role model. You know what I mean? It's, it's such an enormous responsibility to be a role model for young people. Um, and I think about it all the time, you know, and it's, it, this is one thing that I will mention, you know, it's pretty personal, like, it is something I thought about a lot when I decided to get divorced the first time, is that I wasn't in a relationship I wanted modeled, I

0:54:27 Eli: And so

0:55:29 Thomas: Yeah,

0:55:29 Tom: Was in a relationship that was poor to model, and it occurred to me that, like, well, this isn't a a loving relationship, and I shouldn't have my kids grow up modeling this relationship and seeing this example of what a romantic attachment looks like, because it's not the romantic attachment I want for them.

0:55:46 Thomas: 100%. 100%.

0:55:48 Tom: So all of those pieces are so important.

0:55:48 Thomas: Yeah.

0:55:50 Eli: So many people repeat the cycle of their parents' marriage, right, you know? I, I have friends who, like, they had bad dads who, you know, fucked around on their mom, and now they're in a cycle of trying not to fuck around on their their spouse. That shit runs really, really deep. And, like Tom said, your kids are going to pick up the lessons you teach, whether you like it or not. My dad was an amazing storyteller, and that is something I picked up from him. There were multiple times when my mom came into school and they were like, "Congratulations on the baby." And she was like, "God damn it, Eli." It was just, the gentlemen, before we go, important question: why do tall people have no role models? Because they've got nobody to look up to.

0:56:24 Thomas: All right.

0:56:38 Tom: Explains

0:56:39 Thomas: There's no one to look up to. Yeah yeah I got one.

0:56:43 Eli: Yep.

0:56:44 Tom: Heath. That very much explains Heath. Right now. That makes sense.

0:56:45 Eli: I almost said why doesn't he have any role models, but I figured

0:56:49 Tom: That's his thing he likes being known for, by the way.

0:56:54 Eli: Yeah.

0:56:55 Thomas: Be like, because his dad passed away. Zing. Oh, no.

0:56:57 Eli: Boom.

0:56:57 Thomas: That's not funny. Damn. That's just hurtful. Dang it. I wanted to get in here for a quick Patreon plug, been a while since I've done it. Patreon.com/ Dear Old Dads. Bonus episodes. There's so many extra episodes. If you're missing the dads, if you're missing the content, you need to get on patreon.com/ Dear Old Dads. You Patrons were two episodes ahead recently, until this little catch -up one. Two episodes. And not only that, the monthly bonus for January is a bonus Q &A. Not out quite yet, but will be very soon. I'm working hard.

But here's the thing, okay, I'll level with you. Some shows, their Q &As, you're like, "Eh, I don't know, Q &AS, it's not like," well, I'm not sure if I care about that episode because it's a Q &A. This show, let's be honest, every episode is kind of a Q & A. Like, it's just someone had a question and then we launch into a topic for an hour. So really, Q & As are just additional episodes, so with maybe a few more topics than normal.

So you definitely want to catch that Q &A. Go to patreon.com/ Dear Old Dads, all that good stuff. If you can't, we understand. I would just ask to please share the show with a friend. I have never seen such a depth of support in terms of how much the people who like this show appreciate the show. It's so cool. But it is so hard in this day and age to get ear balls on podcasts. There's just so many, like a billion of them.

So, you know, if you think about it, if a parent group, or if you have a friend or anybody, it doesn't even have to be parents really, I guess, anybody you think might like the show, please share the show with them. We'll love you forever and give you a firm handshake when we see you, if we do it or not, whatever.

And another thing I want to say is I hope you all are listening to the very end, because I, not 100% of the time, but most of the time, I include some not quite outtakes, but little bonus thingies at the end of this show. So if you're somebody who doesn't listen to all the way to the end to the file, make sure you do. There are often little goodies back there that I find really funny. So just wanted to give a heads up because I don't think I've said that before. All right. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next time.

0:56:57 Eli: All

0:59:09 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.

0:59:49 Eli: I am recording.

0:59:50 Thomas: Actually been recording for like five minutes, but none of you fuckers said anything funny, so it's not usable for the end for the ends of the show. Okay, sorry, I'll amend that. None of these anything, anything funny that can be distributed to a wider audience. Oh,

0:59:53 Tom: I'm on. That's

0:59:54 Eli: What are you talking about? I said so many funny things.

1:00:03 Tom: I actually think that's the ethos of our actual show, though, so I don't really see the difference. Welcome.

1:00:06 Thomas: Boy. Long did you talk when I was gone? Did, I is that it?

1:00:10 Tom: No.

1:00:10 Thomas: Okay.

1:00:11 Tom: No.

1:00:10 Eli: No, I said that, and then there was sort of a silence, and I was like,

1:00:11 Tom: No. That's that's it. Yeah. Yeah.

1:00:13 Thomas: I'm honored That you realized I was gone that quickly, what does that say about me? Because we don't realize Eli's gone for like a a half hour. It's because, you know, I talk too fucking much. But so if I'm silent for two seconds, you're like, yeah, it's something, Thomas died, he had a stroke, yeah.

1:00:13 Eli: Oh.

1:00:29 Thomas: Pack

1:00:28 Eli: Thomas

1:00:28 Tom: That's It, we're Done. It's

1:00:29 Eli: Takes a sip of water, and we just turn off Zencaster. We're like, Oh, God, there it is.

1:00:33 Thomas: It Up Call

1:00:33 Tom: Just I Just Throw My headphones across the room and walk away, that's It, I Gotta want To, yeah.

1:00:35 Thomas: Andrew Dissolve The Company, it's

1:00:37 Tom: Thomas

1:00:37 Thomas: Over, so