DOD47: Tom's Entire Family Has Plague

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's sick and tired and tired and sick. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick and my special guests, COVID and Norovirus. Please welcome COVID and norovirus into the podcast this week.

0:00:44 Eli: Oh, see, now I feel like we should be doing characters of COVID and Norovirus for the— Well, hello, Tim!

0:00:49 Thomas: Yeah, well I

0:00:53 Tom: What a fucking shit show it has been. We had a different show planned, guys, but we're going to do something a little different in that we're going to the same thing we always do, which is plan on a show and then talk entirely about something else instead.

0:01:05 Thomas: Wait, so we're not doing the one where I talk about how good my health is and I just feel fucking amazing and like it's, I have no, all right, fine.

0:01:12 Tom: What

0:01:06 Eli: Yeah, that's what I—I said—I have in my notes, breathing fresh air feels delicious.

0:01:17 Tom: I'm going to do first is get on an airplane. I'm gonna fly out to California and I'm gonna spit right in your mouth, Thomas Smith. Right in your mouth.

0:01:24 Thomas: No, my kids already handle that. Don't worry. I've got to know. Get in line.

0:01:26 Eli: Yeah.

0:01:27 Tom: I know. Isn't that like, what the fuck are kids? Look, I get the kids are nasty, filthy little petri dish machines, that's fine, like they, like they're like, stick their finger in their nose all the way to their goddamn brain and then like rub it on each other, but seriously, nothing, and though it's, it's like, how did any human being survive to adulthood pre -modern medicine given the unbelievable effectiveness of kids transmitting every conceivable disease, every disease they are are amazing at it.

0:01:56 Eli: Oh, that's an easy one, Tom. They did not.

0:02:01 Tom: Well, how are there Eli Bosnick? How are there any of us like that is a Christmas fucking miracle.

0:01:55 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:02:08 Eli: Now that's a great question. Yeah. It's weird to think that you are made of the strongest genes, historically speaking. Believe me.

0:02:15 Thomas: My

0:02:17 Tom: It is genuinely unbelievable when, if you've got kids of the preschool age, um, really that like that preschool to like early elementary school, but then COVID from everything I've read, COVID really set that whole train back a couple of of years, at least. So that's extended the the issue out another couple of years where, like, they just bring home everything. They're just like, "Oh, I got, uh, I got norovirus, head lice and typhus, and it's Wednesday, so fuck you, that's what they like show up with." Like, I got, and they'll come home with like rare fucking diseases you've never even heard of, like, shit like crazy medieval sounding shit.

0:02:33 Eli: Oh, yeah.

0:02:56 Tom: They're like, "I got," yes, yeah.

0:02:51 Thomas: Kid

0:02:56 Eli: Like, hand, foot, and mouth?

0:02:58 Thomas: That Can't be real. That's, know, Eli got that one. I still, still don't believe it's real, I think it's a prank. Hand, foot and mouth? Hoof? No way that's a current thing, yeah.

0:03:04 Eli: Yeah.

0:03:07 Tom: That's for horses, man, that's Like a squire gets that because they like, put the horseshoe on, upside down.

0:03:08 Thomas: Yeah. You, got hoof, mane and tail, yeah, oh, Yeah.

0:03:10 Eli: Yeah. Yeah, no, you really feel like a lot of this should have been taken care of another time. The other, and I know I've complained about this before, I know I've dedicated enough of our show space to this, but the other thing is, like, there's no medicine for kids, right? Like, when you and I, we get sick, we eat the big green bottle of booze with a teeny tiny bit of Tylenol in it and we drink half of it and we go to sleepies and we wake up and the cold has moved to a different part of our body. But if you have a sick kid, they're just like, yeah, man, you got a sick kid. If he starts to die, you know that that like three hour window before death come, come in and you can, you can watch him die in our waiting room.

0:03:50 Tom: Yeah.

0:03:50 Eli: I've, I found a, like care that does kids near me that doesn't have a huge, crazy weight. And I, it is when I told my wife about it, I said, I have life changing, miraculous news. That's how I introduced the information of, I found an agent. I found the doctor who will see us within an hour. I have life -changing, miraculous news.

0:04:05 Thomas: Hold

0:04:08 Tom: Well, Okay, so that's the other fucking thing, right, is that it used to be, and like I'm considerably older than you guys, but I, I want to tell you a story. You won't even believe I am 70. I seriously, sit back and hear ye a tale of times of your, like, it used to be the case, and I know you won't even believe this, that

0:04:22 Eli: Tom's 75, everybody.

0:04:33 Thomas: On you're gonna hijack the whole show to tell a story? God, Tom, fuck, I quit.

0:04:39 Tom: Used TO BE THAT YOU COULD DO THIS CRAZY THING WHERE IF if somebody in your house got sick, you could pick up the phone and you could call your doctor's office. And then here's the wild thing, somebody would answer the phone, not a answering service at a call center, not

0:04:57 Thomas: Okay, why did you drop your phone to begin with, I think the age difference goes further than you so old that you, your hand shook and you dropped your phone and then you got to pick up the phone and die. Okay, I got it.

0:05:01 Tom: It goes so much deeper. You have to hit the rotary, right? So you spin the dial around and then it, guys, just come back next number and it comes back, it's a whole, it takes about six minutes so

0:05:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:05:19 Eli: Well, you're talking to Alice first, right? You get Alice to connect you to Doc Hanson down at MacGyver's.

0:05:21 Thomas: And then the monkey on the switchboard Tom's mom's monkey on the switchboard does the little patch cables.

0:05:24 Tom: You Gotta ask everybody to get off the party line first, right? I need you guys, I need to clear the line, but for real, you used to be able to get like someone to answer, and now it's like you try to call your general practice, I don't know if this is the case for you guys, but here, exclusively and without any, I'm not exaggerating, with no exception, every doctor is part of a managed care group. You can't find any local non-managed care group providers out here at all.

0:05:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I

0:05:30 Eli: Obviously, I'm...

0:05:54 Tom: So you can't call their, Like, like honestly, like it, like unless you like buy the doctor, like unless you just purchase them wholesale at like Doctors are Us. It can't be fucking done. There are no like independent practices. Practices, so when you call them you can't call the actual office that rings at that location, you call a call center and then you get a receptionist who takes a message and they never give it to the doctor, they give itto the nurse eventually, and eventually it's like three to six years after you've called in

0:05:54 Eli: Not at our income bracket, you can't.

0:06:26 Eli: Right.

0:06:26 Tom: And been like, "Yeah, I think I'm really sick," and and they alwaystay the same shit, they're just like, "Well, if it's an emergency go, go to the emergency room," and you're like, "Okay, but what if it's serious but not an emergency, I need care," and and they're just like, they just like, will, we'll leave a message with the doctor who will not get back to you literally ever.

0:06:28 Thomas: Have a case of COVID -12.

0:06:41 Thomas: Yeah, that's

0:06:43 Eli: That's where you are. Like they they don't know they reside in the space between get better at home and emergency room. I'm aware of the emergency room, doctor is for the middle of those two things. That's what you're, that's what this is supposed to be.

0:06:52 Tom: Yes.

0:07:07 Thomas: Yeah!

0:07:04 Tom: Like What Like You're like, "I'd like to make an appointment, like, I like somebody in my house is actually like quite sick, if I go to the emergency room they're just probably gonna get sicker though because there's just like-" Like, the emergency room is just like a fucking even more evil preschool full of viruses and fucking disease, so you don't want to go there. Plus, you'll wait, seriously, like, without exaggerating out here, you're waiting 9 to 12 hours minimum for an emergency, to actually see a doctor in the ER. And then by the time you see them, they're fucking exhausted by like, sewing a fucking shattered limb back into place, that they don't care.

0:07:39 Eli: Right.

0:07:39 Tom: So like, you're like, well, when can I get in? Like, someone is like seriously sick and I don't know what to do and we're kind of scared, but and they're just like, "We can see you in," and I'm not like making exaggerations out here, it's like, "Well we can see you in three to six weeks." And You're like, "Three to six weeks, what the fuck?" Like, do you know how much misery you can experience in three To six Weeks, yeah.

0:07:51 Eli: Yeah. Yeah, the house sale after my funeral will be over in three to six weeks. It's not just death. They will have moved my possessions on to new people in three to six months. I think I talked about it on the show, but when I had the really terrible chest pain for three or four days last month or two months ago, yeah, and I called my doctor and I was like, here it is, chest pain, and they were like, ah, sucks to fucking suck, am I right?

0:08:05 Tom: Man.

0:08:16 Thomas: Yep. Yeah whatever happened with that? You just died or?

0:08:25 Tom: Hey. Thomas.

0:08:29 Eli: I have actually witnessed once, once in my whole life, I've witnessed a rich person doctor, doctor, um, used to give magic lessons to a very famous person whose name I probably shouldn't say on the show, um, he's a, he's the cast member of the Simpsons, um, I used to give magic lessons to his kid.

0:08:44 Tom: It Bart Yeah.

0:08:45 Eli: It was Bart Simpson, Bart Simson. Officially

0:08:47 Tom: That's what I figured, I figured Yeah.

0:08:48 Thomas: Tom.

0:08:47 Eli: Really cool. In real life, you know he has to don't

0:08:49 Thomas: You know that that they're not never mind, that's fine.

0:08:51 Tom: We don't Is this like wrestling? Is this like wrestling, god Damn it, you guys, wait

0:08:55 Eli: Work this for Tom? Yeah. Was over there once and uh, the, the, the doctor was there and they, they like went up to the bedroom and I was like, oh, the doctor had come to the house. Cause the mom had the flu.

0:09:06 Tom: The doctor was in the house I

0:09:10 Thomas: There also jars of milk on the door, like this is an old time so if you're rich then you get

0:09:14 Eli: If you're rich enough, someone will put a jar of milk on your door.

0:09:16 Thomas: Yeah

0:09:17 Tom: I assumed the doctors were like vampires, like they couldn't even enter houses, like a barrier system, god damn, all right, so a doctor was actually right

0:09:17 Eli: Absolutely. Yeah.

0:09:26 Thomas: Yeah it's their inverse vampires they actually can't enter if you do invite them, they can only come if you haven't invited them.

0:09:32 Eli: If you don't invite them. Yeah, but nope. The guy went upstairs and I was like, who's that? Is that like a friend of the, and he was like, oh no, that's the doctor. He come. He knew his name. He was like, that's Dr. He comes whenever we're sick, and I, I was like, here, let me show you a card trick, little asshole, well

0:09:49 Tom: Yeah, like I bet, I bet, too, like, I, but the standard of care is massively higher because the doctor, like, remembers who you are when you're paying them like Maserati money every hour, or whatever, instead go to like the regular doctor and they don't have any recollection of who you are, so every time you show up it's like, it's like a fucking first date all over again

0:10:09 Thomas: Oh, how the turntables have turned. I think Kaiser, little Kaiser medicine coming in pretty strong right about now. Sure, I can't get my ADD meds until I, yeah, but I sure as hell can get a doctor who knows, who has heard of me, who knows who I am. I'm actually usually impressed by how much they somehow remember about me. I mean, they have notes or whatever, but like still, I think they do a better job than I would do at remembering who the hell they're talking to.

0:10:21 Eli: Was gonna say how's that ADT medication

0:10:37 Thomas: Must be because of my...

0:10:32 Eli: Well to be fair they have their ADT meditation.

0:10:38 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:42 Tom: Yeah, their fucking moms wrote a note or whatever had to happen they did, they just slaughter the centaur, the fucking center of the labyrinth with

0:10:50 Thomas: Here's another thing about Kaiser. So do you guys not have a nurse line you can call?

0:10:55 Tom: What are you talking about, a nurse line? I

0:10:56 Thomas: Oh, this is great. This is the best.

0:10:57 Eli: I Tom it's not for us, I have one for Etna and it's, it's basically someone coaching you to kill yourself. Yeah.

0:11:03 Tom: Have Etna I have Etina no, I think I know what you're talking about, so you see, this is so much, much different. So Thomas, you manage your health care through your insurance

0:11:03 Thomas: No, no, no. Not for mental health. Welcome to Dear Old healthcare show, it's just a 100, the healthcare system now, what, who would the power of America's shitty healthcare to turn Dear Old Dads into just a like, hey, can you tell me about your PPO versus your EP, like, that's our show, do you

0:11:16 Eli: Yeah

0:11:28 Tom: Listeners, yeah, but the thing is, like, American listeners are wrapped with attention right now, now, Jesus,

0:11:32 Thomas: Have a high deductible low premium or a low deductible, high, high premium.

0:11:35 Eli: And our European listeners are like, you have invisible goblins who attack you every night. Yeah, no, it's rough, but you know, at least we have the freedom to choose the goblin. I'm sorry, did you say you choose your god? Yeah, no, I have, I have the one, might work, give me, I

0:11:53 Thomas: The nurse line, Tom, you, you, it's, no, it's not, okay. The mental health one. Yeah. That one sucks. Uh, Eli, it sounds like that, that one, I, you know, again, anything mental health, not a big Kaiser fan, but whenever we have some bullshit, which you have kids, there's always something. Hey, Arlo's, uh, his lips are like green or something. There'll always to be some random shit that you're like, this only happened to me and me alone.

There's no way you Google it and no one knows, there's no results because it'll be some fucking random shit that your kid did that no one's ever done before. So we call the Kaiser, has a nurse line. And I love it because nurses actually know everything. They just don't make as much money. So you talk to a nurse and they tell you like, you know, they give you some care.

It's not like they're not allowed to give you like intense care, I think, but, but if they can't answer the question then they're like, okay, we'll, we'll have a doctor who's, you know, among the big giant Kaiser system, they have some number of doctors on call, we'll have them call you, you, hour

0:12:51 Thomas: Yeah, now, okay, I can't really get a visit, getting a visit is harder, that, that, that is harder, but you can get, you can talk to a doctor pretty quickly, and I, I don't have my Adderall, but I sure do have some medical care.

0:12:51 Tom: See,

0:13:02 Eli: I don't, I don't need to talk to a doctor, I need them to to use their ability to prescribe medication, Tom? You think I wanted to chat?

0:13:09 Tom: Yeah,

0:13:09 Thomas: Oh, that they, they might, they can, they can prescribe, I think, uh, based on a voice phone call now, especially after COVID.

0:13:11 Tom: But That's the crazy thing, right? Like I do think, and like the kids really are a good, a good example, because like if you, if you need care at either end of the spectrum of urgency, our system works okay-ish enough, right, so like if you have something that can be like, just need to talk to somebody, and then they need to like call in because

0:13:35 Thomas: I thought you were going to say on one end of the spectrum, I don't actually need care. Our system is okay at that. Like it's, it's still not great at it, by the way.

0:13:40 Tom: Yeah This the system works great.

0:13:42 Eli: Can I say? Great.

0:13:45 Tom: If you don't need anything, like, yeah,

0:13:46 Thomas: You you might get shot on your way to not needing care that, you know, but other than that, our system's pretty good.

0:13:49 Tom: Yeah, but

0:13:51 Eli: No, because, hey, the other countries, and I did this because Marcia Nicola visited and they had never heard of NyQuil. They don't have that NyQuill shit. NyQuIL, when you describe NyQuil to other countries they're like, that's not humanly possible. You're like, no, what you do is you put all the drugs that might make you feel better if you're sick into a big bottle of poison. Yeah.

0:13:58 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:14:09 Thomas: To Europeans, it sounds like that stuff we used to spray everywhere that turned out to kill everybody. It's like that step to them. Yeah.

0:14:18 Eli: Exactly.

0:14:20 Tom: But there's also, Eli, there's like, there's a bunch of countries where you can just like go, like, and like major European countries, you can show up and be like, with no prescription, and get shit with, like, yeah, I got some Tylenol three, I basically got like some shit with codeine in it, like you get some actual painkillers that work instead of like the placebo bottles that we get out here where it's like, oh yeah, take uh two Tylenrol and then hit yourself repeatedly in the head with a hammer until you're unconscious, it'll work great, it works, it works perfectly fine. Like the health care system though works great if you have something easy that doesn't require any any specialists, right, like that requires like, oh yeah, I know what that is, and you're just, I'll just call you something into the fucking CVS, like the system works fine for that, and the system I think actually works okay ish if you're like, uh, so, uh, I ripped my knee off at the uh, bottom joint,

0:15:09 Eli: So, good, we're so good at that.

0:15:12 Tom: They're great.

0:15:11 Thomas: Why Did you use an example that doesn't involve shooting because that's actually what everybody's the best here.

0:15:15 Tom: Well, That's how the knee was removed. It was. Yeah. So, I was, I was

0:15:18 Thomas: Yeah, They literally like we're amazing. American doctors are literally like fucking world-class amazing at dealing with gunshots, it's sad.

0:15:21 Tom: Yeah, This is the best. This is the best country in the world to get shot in for a reason, right, but it's that entire middle space USA, USA.

0:15:32 Thomas: Like Yeah, we're number one. We're, yeah, I want to get shot in one of your commie countries.

0:15:44 Eli: Yeah, I

0:15:46 Tom: But that middle space is where we languish, like that middle space is like, it's like your thing with the Adderall, it's not actually a complex. And that's the thing, is that it's more complex for bureaucratic reasons than it should be. But it's also not just like, oh, we're just going to call you in a short-term prescription for a Z-Pak or some anti-inflammatories or some antinauseal meds.

Like that stuff that like super basic shit that like the stuff where you already kind of as the patient know what they're going to call in, and you're just going through the bureaucratic like rigmarole to be like, all right, you know, I got to call my doctor, like I got COVID, like I COVID last week, and I knew because I have cough variant asthma.

I knew that like, okay, I don't, if I get COVID I might get a cough and the cough could turn into a real problem for me. So was able to message my doctor and get Paxlovid, and the way that I got Pax of it is I asked them specifically because here in America there's fucking commercials for the patient to go to your doctor and ask by

0:15:49 Thomas: Yeah, yeah this Yeah,

0:16:47 Tom: Name. Hey, I would actually like this drug of choice because I saw it on a fucking commercial, that's not medical care.

0:16:48 Thomas: Oh God, that should not exist.

0:16:54 Tom: That's managing, gatekeeping. Yeah.

0:16:54 Thomas: I'm gonna say yeah, advertisements for medicine to consumers, I feel like that just shouldn't exist. I don't know what needs to happen, but like the doctor should know the medicine and then tell us which correct medicine to take. It's good. It should be

0:17:12 Tom: Man,

0:17:09 Eli: Guys know it's illegal in Europe, right? Yeah. When you when you try to explain it again, like, like the NyQuil, when you try to expose, but they're like, wait, for doctors? And you're like, no, just on TV. Like anytime you watch TV, I would say you see an ad like eight or nine times for a medicine you know nothing about.

0:17:26 Eli: And it's like, oh, does it give you education about a condition you might have? No, mostly it's just like a guy playing with his kid, and there's a golden retriever puppy, and they say the name a bunch of times and hope that you ask for it.

0:17:13 Thomas: Yeah Yeah, Yeah. Wait a minute. Do they not have boner pill ads in Europe? That's genuinely a quality of life difference. Like that's that's so big a part of just our media ecosystem that that's actually shocking. That's

0:17:51 Eli: No, that's because no one has erectile dysfunction in Europe. Thomas.

0:17:52 Thomas: Wow. All right. Now we're just make.

0:17:55 Eli: Obviously, they just they have a baguette. They, they bite it. They bite a fresh, crunchy apple, boom, erection every time. Sometimes I think that like the systems that have the most bureaucracy are just systems that have realized we're gonna kill and eat them, so they try to wear us down with boredom. Right? Like, at some point the healthcare industry was like, "All right, guys, we've clearly created this like monstrous system that kills people, and someone's gonna Google it, and then they're going to chop us up into pieces and make a house out of us. So what if we tell them that there's a dispute form on the website and they have to fill out one for each claim that hasn't been covered, and then the person they were talking to fell asleep and died

0:17:57 Thomas: What is Europe to you?

0:18:38 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:38 Eli: At the same time? Yeah, okay, this is the system.

0:18:40 Thomas: Bingo. Yeah, exactly.

0:18:41 Eli: We can keep this going for another generation and we'll be fine.

0:18:41 Thomas: What I wanted

0:18:47 Tom: So, I, I am actually, I debated whether or not I was going to do this, but I decided I am going to do this spur of the moment. So I do want to talk about an issue with respect to getting sick and kids and step parenting. So, and I want to talk about this. I'll be, I'm going to speak in kind of general terms. I'm not going to get super, super specific, but there's an issue that comes up that is really tough to manage when you are a step parent. And that is that if you're a step parent that has kids that go back and forth between houses. So in our situation, I've got, not full time, I've got my stepkids that live with me, and part time, every other weekend, I have my biological kids that stay with me. And so, like, when kids become sick, when they all just sort of live with you, when you don't have step parents, like, for Thomas or Eli, like, when your kids get sick, they're just sick and they're in your house and then you take care of your kids.

0:19:48 Tom: And if you get sick, if you if you gets sick as a result, like or someone else gets sick like that, it's like, all right, well, that's like just what's going to happen.

0:19:42 Thomas: And Then I'm sick. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:19:56 Tom: Right. Because everybody's living in the same home. But when you are a step parent and you've got kids traveling back and forth, there's a different responsibility, and it's a really complicated responsibility. Responsibility, right? Because on the one hand, when my biological kids get sick, the instinct for me is to take care of my sick kids, right, like, I don't want to be like, "Oh, I don't take care of my sick kids." But I also have a competing responsibility to my stepkids and to my wife not to bring germs into my house if I can avoid bringing those germs into my house, right? Right.

Especially in the middle of like a global pandemic. Right. Or especially, it's even more important, like when somebody in the house, like Haley, who's been struggling with, you know, some severe health issues over the last few years.

So it creates this real point of tension where you have to tell your biological kids like, "I'm sorry, you guys can't come over this weekend because you're sick." And it makes it, it's a really tough space for me, and I don't have a way to navigate it except for just say, there is no good thing to do, the right thing to doing is very clear, I think the right thing to is to not pass germs back

0:20:04 Thomas: Right.

0:21:18 Tom: And forth, that is just Well,

0:21:18 Thomas: I was gonna say, I mean, just as somebody who has absolutely no experience, just throwing it out there, should, it seems like the rule should be like wherever they become sick, they gotta hole up until they're no longer sick. Right, or right,

0:21:30 Tom: Yeah. But you know, the thing is that if they become sick, like let's say my biological kids come over on Friday and they get sick on Saturday, they're going home Sunday, like they always do but

0:21:41 Thomas: But So So It's just like, look, and this is, this is in no way any sort of criticism, this is me trying to understand, because I don't have experience with this, is it just because the rigid rules of, you know, custody, or like you can't really make exceptions on that, or oh well they're not going to school if they're sick, right, oh yeah yeah

0:21:43 Tom: Yeah. No. It's it, like no it, it's, it's because I, like, I live 20-25 minutes away from their school, I can't get them like well maybe one is and the other one isn't, you know, they might not both become sick, like, so it creates really a tough, and there are, there are custody rules too, like that is that is certainly part of, I'm not entitled to keep them, um

0:22:13 Thomas: Wow.

0:22:15 Eli: Was going to say, you can't apply that rule. I think a lot of parents would be like, "No, he's got his sniffles again," eyes keep these kids 100 % custody via sniffles also

0:22:23 Thomas: Two years running okay yeah

0:22:23 Tom: -huh right oh yeah he's because it fell, yeah, right, I would just be like, "Oh, so look at those sniffles, he'll not have the sniffles once he turns 18

0:22:32 Thomas: No, I mean, again, we're talking about COVID. We're talking about, like, a once in a hopefully lifetime pandemic, I feel like that's another thing.

0:22:33 Tom: No,

0:22:35 Eli: You're not in a 50-50 custody situation, which would make it, yeah.

0:22:40 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:22:41 Tom: Yeah, when most people aren't, like, most people, like, I have 50/50 legal custody, but I don't have 50/50 like day to day access to the kids, because realistically, unless you live on the same block or something, that's just not a practical way for anybody to live their life. Like kids need to have a place where they come home and do their homework and like have their friends over.

0:22:53 Eli: They need a home, yeah a home base, yeah.

0:23:01 Tom: Yeah, they have to have, they have to have their home base. Exactly. So creates this like really difficult set of competing responsibilities as a step parent where you have to say, like to some kids, like, you have to be like, "Hey, I'm sorry, you can't come over because you're sick," and we can't. And it's, it is COVID's part of it. But, you know, we got norovirus this weekend, or from, from the last weekend. And norovavirus, if you're not familiar, is a pretty serious stomach bug. It's the same one that, like, tears ass through cruise ships and daycare centers and nursing care centers. It's super crazy contagious. You can get infected again and again. So, like if somebody gets it, you have to disinfect your entire house. So, it's

0:23:45 Thomas: Oh, I'm sorry, I'm gonna get off this call. I don't want to catch it. Tom, I yeah

0:23:47 Eli: Yeah, of course

0:23:50 Tom: Pretty serious. And you don't know that you have norovirus until you have it. That's the thing. So like, like what happened to us is like last Friday, my little guy was sick. He was throwing up and, you know, my ex said, oh, you know, he's throwing up, but I still need you to take the kids. And I was like, well, I'm not taking them if he's actively thrown up because I don't want him to come here and get everybody sick. And normally I would, yeah, normally I would not take him, that kids away, which is an unnatural thing to do as a parent, that, on Saturday morning, because the kids were feeling better and he wasn't sick anymore on Friday night, and I was like, "You know what, maybe just ate something funny, maybe just had like a bad stomach," he's a little guy, I took the chance, I had him over, and I infected my fucking house with norovirus, and there's nothing to say, there's no, I don't have like advice on this for the audience, it's just one to acknowledge, because people ask us about step-parenting,

0:24:14 Thomas: It sounds reasonable yeah yeah

0:24:53 Tom: That it's one of those unique challenges that is really tough fucking to navigate, and it's even harder to navigate if you don't have a cooperative or healthy relationship with your co -parent, which I don't, because there's not that spirit of cooperation and goodwill that exists between us. And it just creates a lot of problems.

0:25:04 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:25:14 Eli: Is exactly what I was going to say, is that, like, when you are, are divorced, right, you, with kids in the mix, you're in this really precarious position of, hey, we now need to focus and cooperate on making these kids' lives as best as good as possible, uh, our personal shit can't get in the way, um, a lot of time it does, a lot of time that personal shit still gets in the way.

One of the things that I thought was really interesting is in the episode we did, um, like, talking about our ex-partner, we got a ton of listener, I, I was very interested because I thought the listeners were gonna be like, "Yep, Tom's a crazy person," because Tom, to be fair, you are, um, were actually quite a few people who chimed in were like, "No, I, like I agree with Tom because I went through a divorce and now my ex -spouse tries to poison my children against me all the time," or, "As a child, I had one parent constantly trying to poison me against the other parent," um, and so, yeah, again, it speaks to, to that, that, uh, and which I think is a huge part of being a dad, and why I'm so glad that you're on this show, it speaks to that huge, huge thing that parents face, um, and how we think that should be managed.

0:25:37 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:25:53 Tom: Yeah.

0:26:23 Tom: Thing, too, that I think is more often true than not, I'm not saying this is a universal truth, but this is as close as axiomatic as I think as possible in parenting world is that if you became divorced from somebody, it's because fundamentally you don't share some values any longer. And So beyond just like, hey, we're like taking out our personal grudges on each other. I don't know that that's necessarily always the case. I just think that a lot of times part of the reason that you become divorced is because you no longer share the same values. And then you have to now co-parent with somebody whose values you don't share.

Like Haley and I share the same values, you my know, ex and I don't share the same values, and so it's easy for Haley and I to get on the same page. We share the same values, that's why we're a good fit for each other. My ex and I do not share the same values, that's why we were not a good fit for each other. And as a result, like that project of co-parenting can be really difficult, can be really, really difficult.

I think, I think honestly like it works the best, best when one person just takes the lead from the other. That is oftentimes the case too, that you'll see where like one parent, um, in a co-parenting situation is just sort of peripherally engaged. They're sort of the every

0:26:40 Eli: Yeah right.

0:26:40 Thomas: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:27:45 Tom: Other weekend parent and they're just like, okay, well, I'll pick them up and take them to the zoo, but really you're in charge. You know what you say goes becomes much more challenging I think when two co -parents don't share the same values and and neither one is willing to take the lead from the other, like, in, without like giving away too much. But like in, in Haley's situation, her ex takes the lead from her. So it's sort of like she's got full time custody, he's got every other weekend. For the most part, she dictates all the meaningful events of their lives, and he trusts her to do that and just picks him up every other week. And and they like go out for pancakes and they'll go to the zoo, you know, like that kind

0:27:50 Eli: And it's

0:28:28 Tom: Of shit, it becomes much more challenging when you don't share values and nobody is willing to take the lead from the other person because there's a lack of, like, an inherent lack of trust between the two parties. And like, the situation where when kids get sick is really one of those moments where the rubber hits the road on these things, and like, it's, it's because it's been an issue many times in, in my co-parenting experience that, it's a fucking nightmare. And like, again, I, I realize what the answer is, and the answer has got to be, in my situation, hey, like nobody travels, nobody comes over if they're sick. Like, that's just how it's gotta be. I've got, it's a weird place, but you've got to look around and be like, okay, I have responsibilities that are my day-to-day responsibilities to keep my step kids safe, and those responsibilities have to be as important as my responsibilities to parent my biological kids, and that is a tension that is so hard emotionally to manage. Yeah.

0:29:33 Eli: So easy to be used against you, right? It's so easy to turn that into an attack on one parent or another. And it, and it's not just illness, right? I'm, I'm, I'm actually really glad this came up because it is, it is chronic illness. It is unemployment. It is a difference of income. It is different of life philosophies when it comes to religion or politics. Right. Those, those are all moments where drawing your own lines can make you seem like the villain. Right. Even when you're trying to draw healthy boundaries. One of the pieces of listener feedback we got after that episode about divorce and sort of co-parenting that a listener wrote about is that they are an atheist, they wanted to do Christmas, but their ex decided to tell their, like, very young children that because mom doesn't believe in God, mom wants to cancel Christmas, right?

0:30:25 Eli: Right. And like, it's it's really, really hard to deal with when one person is on the attack and you're trying not to be.

0:30:24 Thomas: Yeah I

0:30:25 Tom: That yeah It's, it's a fucking a wild ride to be a co-parent and to be in a position, and I'll tell you, like, to be in, and we'll talk in more detail some other time about step parenting, but I acknowledge too, it is an insane emotional position to, to be the full-time parent of your step kids and the part-time parents of your own biological kids.

0:30:56 Eli: Of course. Yeah.

0:30:58 Tom: That is a absolute, emotionally speaking, that is a place of constant cognitive emotional dissonance. Like It, it, it is a space that is just fraught with like endless personal tension that, that I, we will talk about at some point on a future show, 'cause I think it's actually really important. I know it's not a space you guys can identify with, because you guys, you guys don't come from divorce and you are not yourselves divorced, so you guys don't actually have any personal experience of divorce in your lives that's

0:31:08 Eli: I

0:31:29 Thomas: Don't. Yeah I don't have any. I mean, it's too bad like I would, you know, I'd be better off probably, but uh if

0:31:32 Tom: Funny, it's like yeah

0:31:34 Eli: Was going to say, I think in Thomas's case, a divorce would have been just the trick.

0:31:37 Thomas: I divorced Lydia god I mean, no, my parents. Yeah, my parents, no I'm just kidding

0:31:40 Tom: Is this the first time Lydia's hearing about this, Lydia. I'm so sorry, this is a rough, that's a rough way to hear the news

0:31:41 Thomas: Yeah because I keep wanting to say like, if I'm going, going through my head, and again, I, I don't, you know, because I have no experience, I'm just trying to think of like what, what really add, but what I keep thinking about in terms of like, okay, what would you need to do to make this work, you know, co-parenting among, uh, parents who have split up, whatever, every, and I don't want to say these are qualities of people because I don't want to be judgmental, but qualities of the way two people are relating, every single thing I think, think of is a thing that most likely would have been something that either kept the two people together.

And again, this is just the relationship between them. Like, like you said, sharing values or being able to, or be, or feeling like you want to, you know, be on the same team with them, prioritize, have the same priorities, those kinds of things. Not, yeah, those guys, like all of those qualities. I'm like, well, by definition, if you're dealing with a divorce, you're likely, likely, you know, not a hundred percent of the time, but you're likely dealing with people where that's broken down between them for whatever reason, like to not make any

0:31:46 Tom: Yeah right oh

0:32:28 Eli: Communication. Yeah,

0:32:43 Thomas: Judgments about, for whatever reasons, it's like, they don't want to communicate, they don't feel like they're on the same team. Like, those are all the things that when I think of my, and Lydia's like assets as parents, it's that like, I told her, like, literally one of, like, the not wedding vows per se, but like things I even told her when we talked about getting married, married.

And even before, before then, I said, like, this is the most important thing to me, just in a relationship, was that we're on the same team. And I probably mentioned it before, you know, on the show, but like, that's like literally the most importante thing in a relationship to me is being on the same team, and I don't know why it is, probably, well, probably because of my dad, but it's not just my dad.

It's also other relationships, like tons of relationships, relationships where the dynamic is, oh yeah, they'll just shit talk each other. Or like the husband will shit talk the wife, or the wife will shit talk the husband. Like that's the whole dynamic is like, yeah, my fucking husband, he's so lazy. I'm like, I'm not doing that.

Like, I would, I would rather not be in a relationship than be in an relationship where that, where that's the dynamic, where it's like you actually, I guess, hate each other, and maybe it's a bit, but maybe it's not,

0:33:52 Thomas: You know, like I, so being on the same team and that applies to so many things Like that applies to like, yeah, you're in conversation with other people, like, sure, you might, obviously you might talk about your relationship to friends or whatever, and you might have like complaints about your relationship. And I'm not saying that, you know, Lydia or I should never have that, but it's the way you talk about it, where it's like, this is a challenge we're having versus, uh, this other fucking person, you know, like so many people talk about their partner, their fucking wife or husband or whatever. I was like, ugh, that fucking person. And I'm like that.

0:33:52 Eli: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you, you,

0:34:22 Tom: It's Disgusting.

0:34:23 Thomas: Just leave. What are you doing? Like, how could you?

0:34:23 Tom: Yeah. But

0:34:25 Eli: Yeah, you hear this with men a lot of the time. It's like, we're going golfing, and only two rules. No wives, and no blah. And you're just, right, like, what? No, because I, you know, me and my friends, we do buddy trips all the time, and I, several times, I've been like, yeah. No, we all go together, and men have been like yeah, and you finally get away from the old ball and chain, and I'm like, hey man, that fucking sucks really hard. And, like, I can't imagine, I literally cannot imagine a circumstance where someone was like, we don't want Anna to come, where I wouldn't be like, oh, you should die. I hope you die now, right now. I'm

0:34:47 Thomas: And Exactly. It's so. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly,

0:35:04 Eli: Going to check if I have wishes. Nope, you're not dead. Okay.

0:35:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:04 Tom: Like, I, you know, Thomas, you hit on something that I want to return to, because I think it's, it's something I never thought of before until right in this moment. And I think it's like, I'm making some notes to maybe think more deeply about, maybe write about a little bit, because The can speak to this from experience, and I think maybe there's some universalism to it. There is a huge difference between parenting as a team versus parenting as a trade -off process. So what I mean by that, is with, with my ex, we parented by trading off. So you know, when we were together, I would be like, I would do, like, although the, like, weekend parenting and the after school parent, or after school after work parenting, right.

So like I would wake up in the morning for a long time, like I'd wake up in the morning, I'd get Finn dressed, I'd get him off to school, I drive him to preschool, drop him off, I'd go to work, depending on the situation, sometimes I'd pick him up from preschool, bring him back to my office, he'd play in the office, I'd bring him home, get him ready for bed, do that stuff. My ex would do some, some responsibilities, but we didn't teamwork it, we would trade off, it would be her turn, my turn kind of a thing. And

0:35:39 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, you mean even when you were together? Really? Huh.

0:36:22 Eli: Right.

0:36:23 Tom: That's how a lot of the decision making was also done, was I, these decisions when I had responsibility, you made these decisions when you had responsibility, it was not really, but like with Hayley and I, it feels, and it's hard to like properly articulate it in the moment without an opportunity to kind of think it through, but it feels less trade-off and more teamwork with Hayley, and I like the process of taking care of the kids feels like less like, less like my turn, your turn, and much more like we are both doing it together, and the teamwork process is healthier, right.

0:36:23 Thomas: That's so interesting.

0:36:47 Thomas: Gosh. Oh.

0:37:02 Thomas: Yeah. Well, why do you, where do you think that came from? I mean, some people it's like, again, a lot of some of this could be privileged to where it's like, yeah, we both, we have to work fucking different shifts of jobs to have two incomes to be able to afford the not healthcare that we get it where we can't talk. So some is absolutely could be a socioeconomic issue, or was this just like a marriage issue for you guys where that's kind of how you just felt?

0:37:11 Tom: Sure well I think that that's kind of what, what I'm hitting on, is that I think with my ex and I, we didn't share a lot of the same values, and we didn't share a lot of the same goals as far as like raising kids were concerned, and parenting was concerned, and like what kind of household we were trying to create. And so for me, one of the ways that I managed that was to take on more of that responsibility in order to better control the environment.

Do you know what I mean? So I would be like, okay, well, I'll just, I'll just, as much as is possible, I worked a lot. So I did not always get an opportunity to do it. But in all moments that I wasn't working, I would try to be like, OK, I'm 100 percent in charge, I'm a hundred percent going to take responsibility for the kid. Mostly we just had the one for most of of my failed marriage. So we just had the one.

We only had two for about a year and a half, for most of it, it was just Finn. And so because I knew what kind of household I was trying to create, and I knew that it was not the same kind of household that my ex would have preferred, the way that I managed that was to take on more of that responsibility as often as was possible, rather come to the common ground.

0:38:35 Tom: Does that make sense? And And I didn't realize that that's what was happening.

0:38:35 Thomas: Yeah, no, that sounds extremely unhealthy.

0:38:36 Eli: I don't think it's going to work out, Tom. I don' t know how to tell you this.

0:38:41 Tom: Right. Yeah. Until

0:38:42 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I will say that second kid may fix the marriage though. I think that second one, that Might fix the merge. You

0:38:49 Tom: Right. Right. Well, it's funny because I never really thought about what I was doing until now is, What it felt like in the moment was like, oh, I should, you whenever I'm available to take care of the kids because I work all the time when I'm not working, I should make sure I'm pulling my weight. So I should every moment that I'm home and, you know, available to I should make sure that like I take that responsibility. But, you know, what I what I realized looking looking back is a lot of that was like trying to control a situation that was very much out of control in my mind or in terms of like creating the household that I was hoping to create.

0:38:56 Thomas: Interesting, yeah.

0:39:25 Thomas: You were like the group project where it's like you Want to get a good grade But the group you're working with is like Not Gonna Do anything, it's A bunch of Eli's, so yeah.

0:39:30 Tom: Yeah. Right.

0:39:28 Eli: Right. Yeah. I, yeah, I I was going to say it was like, it's like when, uh, the worst cook right is cooking and you're just watching and you'RE like, okay, well you do want to Brown those. You want to brown, you want to, you know what? I'm going to do it. I'm gonna do it I'll just, you, you helped by turning on all the burners.

0:39:43 Tom: Yes. Yeah, yeah.

0:39:47 Eli: I appreciate that. I'M gonna.

0:39:43 Thomas: And You Well,

0:39:49 Tom: A thousand percent. And

0:39:49 Thomas: And Can I say this is a little different than Tom, like the values use question, but I cannot tell you how much I relate to the sentiment there. And it's really funny because, because of my dad's stuff, like just because of the way my family was, I cannot tell you how many times per day, I would say maybe, maybe at least once a day, if not multiple times, I have an interaction where I have my old my like, shitty intuitions that kick in.

But it's actually nice because I've gotten to the point where my shitty intuition, my muscle memory of just, you know, my parents teaching me through their example, and mostly my dad again, but also my mom too, just because she was overworked and so fucking busy taking care of everything, everything in our household was a transactional deal between my parents of who's gonna fucking do the thing.

And it was like an argument over, all right, but I just did that thing, so like you should take the kids to this, that, like, no, I don't want to take the, and of course my dad did, you know, fucking barely anything. So like my muscle memory, like for example, every Saturday we have gymnastics and dance for the kids. Like it's a little 45 minute class where Phoebe's doing a dance.

I kind of wish she was doing gymnastics because she, she wants to do both, but they're in the gender stereotype for some reason. Like Phoebe is doing the dance class with the pretty, you stuff. And then Arlo's doing gymnastics, and he gets to jump around on a trampoline and all that. They love it, it's fantastic, it's amazing, it's every Saturday, it's 45 minutes, and almost every time I this thing where I'm like, all right, who should I take them.

And my first thing is, oh, I need to volunteer to take them because I have to work against my shittiness at all times. Like I'm just like I have to work against my ingrained, like bred into my mind, like natural avoidance of doing things just from my dad. I have no concept of how much I still am guilty of that. Like it might be zero at this point, cause I worked so hard at it, but my first mental thing is, all right, I need to volunteer.

Oh, I'll do it. I should do it. And then we do a thing where I am expecting Lydia to be like, okay, yeah, cause you know, you're a piece of shit who doesn't do anything, so it'd probably be good if like you did this for once, cause that's just in my mind somehow.

0:41:57 Thomas: What I, like I think I'm my dad, even though I'm not, and then she'll almost every time, like the past at least three times in a row, unless unless something schedule -wise is happening, she's like, yeah, I'll go too. Like, oh, oh, yeah. Why don't we, why don't we both go?

0:41:57 Tom: Yeah man. That's that.

0:42:11 Thomas: And I'm, like, that sounds great. Like, actually, that's really fun. Let's both go and we'll both watch our kids because we like our kids and we like each other every time.

0:42:12 Tom: And that is yes. Yes, no. Yeah dude. Dude, yes, right. Yes. That. And

0:42:22 Eli: Right.

0:42:23 Thomas: It blows my mind every time, yeah, Yeah.

0:42:23 Tom: So dude, that's exactly it. That's

0:42:26 Thomas: I love it.

0:42:26 Tom: Exactly it. Like with, with Haley and I, you know, it's not that we never trade off. We certainly do trade off and like, certainly as she's been, you have to like, especially cause there's more kids than there are of us, but like, you know? And, and also like, she's a little, she has been unwell. So like that also changes the dynamic. And I want to recognize that too, but like very, very often it's like, Oh, well we'll just go do this thing. We We will just go do this thing, right? But in my prior marriage, that was never, almost never the case, right. It was like, okay, you're going to do it or I'm going to do it. And that's what I mean by the difference in trading off and teamwork.

0:42:32 Thomas: Yeah. You have to sometimes. Yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah yeah.

0:43:02 Thomas: What I love too about this whole situation of my fucking weird brain is as much as I'm surprised by her reaction, I'm also surprised by my reaction. Because sometimes I'll just be, she'll be like, all right, I'll take him, you know, I'll tak him to dance because you got too much work, which I always have too much work. And then my brain will be like, yeah, but I could just go. I'll go. I'll figure it out. I'm like, oh yeah, let's go.

0:43:23 Tom: Yeah.

0:43:23 Thomas: Let's all go. And it's funny. It's weird how much our upbringing, I think, just imprints onto our brains. It is so hard to work against what our example is. I will just speak for myself, I guess. But I think this is pretty common. The and the blueprint for marriage and family that your parents give you, Ithink, can just be so so strong, you know, where this first, my first intuition every time is still that, that I need to be like, all right, well, let me come up with a reason why I shouldn't have to do this thing. Cause I do all that. And then like, I'm just not living in that reality though. Like that's just a, that's a dinosaur fucking fossil in my brain still that does not apply to my situation, but it's actually a joy every time I realize it. Like every time I have that experience, I'm like, oh, that's nice. Yeah, I'm not doing a transactional fucking bullshit relationship. It's great.

0:44:04 Tom: Oh man.

0:44:15 Eli: Or, or, and the, and that your partner likes to be with your kids too. Like there's often a lot of built up guilt you'll be like, oh gosh, I'm so sorry, do you mind doing that, and they'll be like, yeah, no, I mean, you know, one of the things that I love is like getting to be amazed and surprised and overjoyed at what a wonderful parent my partner is, right, is sort of the opposite of what Tom went through where it was like, fuck, you're burning the potatoes, like, let me just, don't burn, you're earning the potatoes, if you know what I'm saying, and then, and the potatoes will do heroin, so let me take over the potatoes before you get them addicted to heroin.

0:44:42 Tom: Yeah.

0:44:21 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And not only the liking the kids, the, that's definitely it, but just as equally the amount that Lydia is like, oh yeah, you're, you are really overworked, let me just take them, like, you know, I'll, I'll take, like, last, this weekend she took them to a birthday party, which I was so grateful for, I felt, I felt horrible because every time I'm like, this is, I'm my dad, I'm not going to a fucking birthday party, she's doing, but like, I really needed to not go just for For personal reasons. And I was just like, yeah, I'm sad that I have to take you up on this. But yeah, I really need to not go. And she's just like, yeah, okay. It's not like I'm saving this in the bank ledger for next time that I need.

0:45:28 Eli: Mm -hmm.

0:45:29 Tom: Right.

0:45:29 Thomas: Because that's not the relationship we have. And I don't know why my stupid dinosaur brain. Can't get that into my head. I'm still surprised every time. It's the best.

0:45:30 Tom: All

0:45:44 Eli: All right, gentlemen, before we go, important question, health -related. What's green, fuzzy, has four legs, and will kill you the second it lands on you? A pool table.

0:46:02 Thomas: It's just a fact, just a health safety fact.

0:46:04 Tom: Yeah. Just watch for falling pool tables. Well

0:46:05 Thomas: Yeah. Sure.

0:46:06 Eli: Um,

0:46:13 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.

0:46:51 Eli: Gonna say hey tom I

0:46:53 Tom: I can't commit medical fraud on the air, hang on, so do a lot of medical fraud because the system is trash

0:46:56 Thomas: Is uh by the way the second time I've had to edit tom for positively legal reasons

0:47:02 Eli: Is weird because that's kind of my bit you

0:47:05 Thomas: Yeah