DOD77: This Dads Is Not Yet Rated

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the only family podcast with jump scares. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Again, gentlemen.

0:00:37 Eli: Just like a jump scare, if you mute us, we become a lot less terrifying. Yeah, it's true.

0:00:43 Thomas: Boy. Do you guys... Okay. Do your guys' partners jump out of their minds at any jump scare? This... I don't know if it's a gender thing. Oh, I feel like Eli would be the one who would do that!

0:00:53 Tom: Want... Well, Eli jumps out of his fucking skin if you open Crescent Rolls in the same house as him. So yeah, that's... Hayley and I don't watch scary movies because we just don't like them but

0:00:53 Eli: Yeah. Correct. Correct?

0:00:57 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, us neither, but they're in everything there. Even something like Oppenheimer, I mean, they're an every movie. There's always some jump scare. And because I like, I always know, Oh, they'RE making it quiet. Now that means they're going to do the fucking like, it's time. And I'll even say like Lydia to her credit, she's like, okay, there's going to be a jump scare and still gets her. Like she's still like prepares for it, and she still just jumps out of the world.

0:01:20 Tom: I am a real-life jump scare for Hayley like Hayley is like I don't know I don't know if this happens to you because of your ADHD, Thomas but Hayley is like in her head all day all the time, right, so she's in her head she might be like singing a little song to herself in her mind, whatever's going on up there, I don't know, and like I am not by any stretch of the imagination a subtle and quiet man, like those are not words that have ever been attached to me in any way.

0:01:24 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

0:01:45 Eli: It is true.

0:01:47 Tom: And but she'll be just like in the bedroom and she'll be doing whatever, you know, like, and I'll just like come upstairs and like walk in and be like, Hey, hi. She jumps through the roof. Like, like, it's like, I got to wear a fucking bell or something around the house to avoid. I scare her one. And she gets so mad. She's like why do you do that? I'm like, I just walked in the room and said hello. Like I, I've got to get like jingle bells or tap shoes, maybe tap shoes to walk around

0:01:56 Thomas: Oh God, that's the worst, yeah.

0:02:07 Thomas: Oh that was me at my old job. You don't

0:02:12 Eli: Ooh, I would love that for you.

0:02:14 Tom: Uh

0:02:14 Thomas: Already wear those all the time, yeah. Oh,

0:02:15 Tom: Had carpet before, now we don't have carpet so it makes better sense now. I

0:02:18 Thomas: Short history, my old, old job, my first job out of college where I worked for a fucking, an ophthalmologist, I was, it was for some reason it was all women, so it was me and all that exact person, Tom, like that. Exact person and I, for no reason, like just existing, they, it would scare them all the time. I'm the only man, maybe they had the point, but like walking into any, any room, like a common room, common air, the break room, the whatever, oh, she scared me, I'm like, I didn't, I, I didn't do anything. I literally didn't do anything, I didn I just

0:02:29 Tom: Can see that I walk around clearing my throat all the time I

0:02:47 Thomas: Yeah okay to be frank, I for some reason am a more stealthy, while I don't know what it is, I just don't like noise, so I guess I do not make, but plus I was doing the, like, didn't, didn't know I shouldn't do that, on the tiptoes. Like doing the, what do you even call that?

0:03:02 Tom: Right. Like Pink Panther or whatever, yeah.

0:03:05 Thomas: Yeah, no, it does get really, like the first few times, like, oh yeah, sorry. And then like the 40th time that someone gets scared for you doing nothing, it's hard. I'm like, dude, I don't, I didn't do, I'm tired. I can't do it anymore. Every time there's a big reaction and I have to like fucking, you display of how sorry I am because I existed. It got really tiresome, but for some reason they decided like they were going to get revenge for me doing the nothing that I was doing just for fun, like a prank of it. And so I walk into my office and then I was, and I was carrying a hot mug of tea, like a bit, I just made a, a boiling hot mug a tea, had walked it back, I walk into the door and somebody from behind the door, one of the girls goes, yeah, and like tries to scare me, and I literally didn't move at all, like didn't flinch, and I, I was like, boy, I I'm

0:03:32 Tom: Her her getting back at you, wait a minute, you scared her unintentionally and the response, the logical response for her was, I'm going to burn him. I'm gonna get third degree, fucking third degree burn that man.

0:03:56 Thomas: Yeah in

0:04:03 Eli: I'mma get this motherfucker.

0:04:07 Thomas: Fairness, I don't know that she, she knew I had the T, like she was already hiding. Like, you know, I'm not sure she knew I had the tea, but it's so funny because I don't have any explanation for that. Like I don't, I didn't, I just don't, some people have that like nervous system that does that, I guess, and some people don't as much. I just don't, like I don't.

0:04:24 Eli: I have the nervous system of a World War One veteran, was shell shocked, I, I have the nervous system of a mustard gas victim.

0:04:33 Eli: If there's a, if you're ever walking on the street and there's a loud bang, right, traffic car, whatever the fuck that thing is that makes a car make a loud noise, I duck, I duck down. I want to be clear, right, before anyone has any sympathy for this, experience I have had, zero bad experience with loud noises, except for that.

0:04:45 Thomas: We do live in America. So yeah

0:04:53 Eli: I don't fucking like loud noises, was

0:04:54 Thomas: For me, it's all the context, like I'll jump if it's, if it's not in the realm of things.

0:05:02 Thomas: I sometimes, I'll jump, and actually one time I, I, I think I didn't know she was home, or I didn't expect her somewhere, and I really startled, what, I was like Hayley, was I was off in my own world and I just, my brain relaxed because it's like, okay, I think that she's somewhere else or whatever, and that really got me.

But for the most part, for some reason my brain is pretty good at being like, there's another human in the house, so at any time they could be there. And then I'm never scared by it, but we watched Oppenheimer recently and I was sitting next, we watched it in the full IMAX, and one of the few actual 70 millimeter good IMAXes we happen to have in Sacramento. It's nice. And so it was pretty cool.

Um, I was sitting on my left was like a guy who I was, it was Oppenheim or a guy who was there. He was that old. It was, it was cool. I was actually like, man, I want to be this guy here. He is in the, the fucking IMAX showing the best, amazing like, IMAX showing of this movie. He's a hundred years old. He got the popcorn. I was like, this guy's pretty cool. So there is the one jump scare. I won't give it away.

There's one significant, I mean, it's not jump scare, but you know. I don't know if you guys have seen it, but there's one startling thing. And I had done the math on it. I knew

0:06:09 Thomas: What

0:06:08 Eli: It how boring the movie is because I found that pretty startling. I was screaming most of the movie. Oh my god, I'm so bored, I'm still bored. I said, why would he think they weren't gonna use the bomb he's making? I'm so bored. Oh no, help me please. Put me back in the Barbie movie.

0:06:09 Thomas: Yes yeah yeah yeah uh yeah I, I have mixed feelings about the movie, and then it turned, no, I won't go down that road, uh, but there is one significant scare, I, I saw it coming, Lydia said she saw it going, didn't matter, and when it happened, but I'm sitting in the middle, a 90 year old man and my wife both jump out of their skins, it was the funniest thing, it was like, like they, they were just like, I saw them both literally rise in elevation off their seats. And then I checked if the old man died. He was okay. He didn't die. So we were good. It was all funny. Anyway, what's that about?

0:06:25 Eli: Oh

0:06:52 Tom: And what's worse than jump scares in Oppenheimer, Eli Bosnick, can you think of anything worse than a jump scare?

0:06:58 Eli: The only thing worse than a dump, I was like, what the fuck is he talking about, the only things worse than the dump scare, scare in Oppenheimer, is the plot of Oppenheim, but the only thing worse than the movie Oppenheimer is auto ads, yes, auto ads are the, honestly some of mine actually function as a jump scare because they're at a wildly different volume than the podcast I'm listening to is, yeah.

0:07:20 Thomas: Yeah.

0:07:20 Tom: Yes they are a crazy volume, volume.

0:07:23 Eli: So think of those as the jump scares of our podcast, but you, you can reduce the strain on your nervous system by signing up to be a patron over at patreon.com/dearolddads, all spelled out, you get a commercial-free version of every show, you get a monthly bonus, which is everything from us making fun of weird things to movies to fucking after episode motherfucking, I don't know why I turned into like bad late night radio DJ trying to sell you on a women's only bar night, there's gonna be motherfuckers there, anyways, it's um, you get a lot of good stuff with our bonus episode, but most of all you give Thomas Smith the ability to live and eat food, which is important, so sign up today over at patreon.com/dearolddads. Yeah.

0:07:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:13 Tom: So in our last episode, I think we left off with still plenty more to talk about. We wanted to pick that up. We were talking about media and the media we let our kids consume. I think we got off in the beginning of that last episode on a long YouTube hate and Ladybug and Mothman Or whatever that was, hate tangent. But I think there's plenty more to say, and we want to go kind of do a little two-parter here. Plenty more to say about really, like, the content of the the media and the rating system and kind of how we let our kids, how we decide what to let our kids watch.

Something I wanted to pick up on from that last episode is something that, that and Eli, Thomas, you and Eli kind of disagreed on, which is that you can, you can pop in and say, Hey, I don't want you to watch that stuff. And I want to, I want To jump in and see, I think that that is fine. When it comes to like garbage content and not like inappropriate appropriate content. I think that's fine when the kids are younger,

0:08:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah,

0:09:05 Tom: Right? When the kids are younger you can lead them down that path. You can say, hey, why don't you guys watch this? And they're much more like amenable and they're also much more like attuned and they should be much more attuned at a younger age.

0:09:05 Thomas: Exactly. It won't work forever. Yeah.

0:09:16 Thomas: Well, they only know what you've shown them. You know,

0:09:18 Tom: Yeah, like, you know, if you say like, hey I want you to watch this movie instead of this garbage TV that they've already had exposure to. When they're little it's easier to do. As they get older I think it's like less appropriate for me as a parent to sort of monitor everything that they watch. I will make suggestions, right? So, but with a 12 or a 13 year old kid, like Aislinn is upstairs and she's watching YouTube and I think the YouTube content is valueless garbage, right. And I do just, you know, obviously I do. It's valuelESS garbage. Like I might be like, Hey, why don't you watch this other thing? It's better, you Know, and sometimes she'll take us up on it, but maybe one out of a a hundred times. Like, I don't think that's an exit. It's maybe 1%, but I'm not at that point at the age of 12 or 13 going to walk in and be like, actually, you're going to watch something that's not this crap.

When the kids are younger, when they're six, seven, eight, maybe even nine, I will absolutely do that. Like if it's just aiming, watching stuff, I might be like hey dude, let's put on a movie. Let's watch something that has a story. Like let's watch somebody that actually has a long arc of narrative. I don't care if it's good, but let' s watch something Something that's not just like a tension span theater bullshit, right? Because I just think that that's, I don't have any data to this, but I just, it just can't be good. Like I

0:09:46 Thomas: Which it is. Yeah.

0:10:34 Thomas: Yeah,

0:10:34 Tom: Just refuse to accept the idea that just watching a series of disconnected jumble fucks nonsense is good. So I will jump in on that when the kids are younger.

0:10:35 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:42 Eli: Watching watching stuff to not be bored is a really, it's a thing that's very common for kids. Um, and it's also just like very, very bad, right? It is important to be bored, right. It's a important life experience. It's important for creativity. It's important for sort of how you learn to deal with your own thoughts, right? It's, it's also like why I, I, and again, this is just for me and I come from a bit. Okay, here, let me carte blanche this entire episode at first right now so that I don't have to say this again. I only have one kid. I have tremendous privilege in every single aspect of raising that kid. It has nothing to do with you. If your kid watches Saw two to go to sleep every night, that's great, you're doing your best. This isn't about you, it's a comedy podcast. I'm sorry.

0:10:59 Tom: Yes. Yeah.

0:11:31 Tom: You're not doing

0:11:31 Eli: Someone told you Everything, someone said a podcast was a personal insult towards you. I don't know who, who you heard that from.

0:11:31 Tom: Great. Right?

0:11:36 Thomas: But but here's the thing, Eli, is you only have one kid. Sorry, that's exactly what happened. Doesn't matter how much you say it, it'll still happen. We'll still get, yeah,

0:11:41 Tom: Eli, how yeah.

0:11:43 Eli: Yeah, exactly. I just get it out of the way at the first, but yeah, like, it's um, also why I don't do not and will not ever let Max, uh, fall asleep to TV. I have lots of friends who literally cannot sleep now without like TV in the background.

0:12:02 Thomas: that'S a no -go.

0:12:03 Eli: That's like such a distraught, like I can't fathom that mindset. I'm also a, yeah, I'm also a crazy good sleeper, so like that, sometimes like people will be like, oh Man, tossing and turning, right? And I'll be like, yes, I too am awake when horizontal much of the time, am awake, so yeah, like I I I

0:12:03 Tom: Oh, that's that's our, that's that's Aislinn for sure, she yeah,

0:12:13 Thomas: Yeah yeah, it's a different, you're a different breed. It's, yeah privilege. Check your sleep privilege.

0:12:27 Eli: Already did it, I already didn't, Thomas. I already, you can't I'm I'm

0:12:29 Thomas: You know, you checked your one kid didn't check your sleep privilege. As a person who has difficulty sleeping, I was offended when you brought up.

0:12:32 Eli: On safe. No, I I said I'm privileged in all the ways. Sleep impaired.

0:12:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, that's we don't do that. I don't like that either. I think obviously everyone's different. And some people, if you are kind of insomniac and you feel like it helps you, whatever. But yeah, for my kids, they don't have TVs. Actually, that is a good question to lead off. There are so many reasons why we felt like there was way more to this conversation. I want want to know, did you guys have a TV in your room? And I looked at that as a fucking luxury, like you were the Monopoly man, if you had the TV in Your Room. And yet, oh, you didn't?

0:12:40 Tom: Oh,

0:13:05 Eli: No, absolutely not.

0:13:04 Tom: Lord, no, well, wait, I should I should ask the question, like, at what age?

0:13:11 Thomas: Okay. Any age.

0:13:14 Eli: Ever.

0:13:14 Thomas: I never had a, yeah.

0:13:15 Eli: Ever at any age was I allowed to have a TV in my room.

0:13:17 Tom: Oh. By the time I got to where I was maybe 18 or so, like when I had that job at Circuit City, I had a home theater in my room.

0:13:24 Thomas: Yeah, sure. As a kid. We'll say as a kid, oh

0:13:26 Tom: Yeah, so yeah, but before that, no, I, we didn't have, we had one TV in the house, in the living room, that was their TV in the house. If you got sick, my dad sometimes, because it was a smaller TV, my dad would like carry the TV into your room if you got sick during the day, which is very nice of him, like, because he wouldn't be home, so if you got sick, my dad was a single dad, so he couldn't take the day off of work most of the time if you were homesick. So he would carry the TV into your room in the morning so that you could like lay in bed and watch TV and then bring it back out into the living room in the evening when he got home.

0:13:38 Thomas: Wow. Yeah.

0:13:55 Eli: Just triggered for, I had a memory. That was the only time I was ever allowed a TV in my rooms when I had spinal meningitis. My dad hooked up the TV in the room so I could play video games because I was literally bedridden with it. Oh man. But yeah, no, I

0:14:00 Tom: When you get sick. Oh yeah. Dude, I've had that. That's fun, isn't it? It's a good time.

0:14:11 Eli: Was also not allowed to watch a lot of TV as a kid. Like Tom, in the last episode, which is sort of what spurred this, you talked about like, we all were raised by TV. My parents were very aware that that was going on. And so limited my TV extremely. And it's funny now that I, I never connected these dots before, but like my rule about whatever Max watches, I am at least present for my parents' rule was whatever we watch, we watch together. So we watched a lot of like shows that they liked and movies that they like, but there wasn't a lot of like me alone in front of the TV time as a kid.

0:14:48 Tom: I, I, dad watched for sure. Like when I was growing up, but except for, I guess that's not true because I was alone a lot. So yeah, I take that back. I watched when when my dad was home, we watched what dad wanted to watch, you know, for sure. Cause like he's the grownup and we had one TV. So we watched with dad wanted a watch when he was home. But I, I was home alone all the time. Like the, like it was just home alone from 6:00 AM to when, when I had to leave for school. And then I was home alone from three, you know, two 30 or three until six. And then it was home alone during all the, you summer break and spring break and Christmas break.

And school is only 185 days out of the year. So you're home alone more than you're you're not home alone if you're like a latchkey kid or whatever with a single parent most of the time by the math there's no one around like you're just by yourself and I like like and I don't I was thinking about this while we're doing the last episode I don't want to sound like I think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was some like great cultural masterpiece right like that it edified me in any way or that watching all these fucking toy commercial television shows were edifying in any way but I still do think like I know this is boomer shit and like you can call me out on it's it's fine.

But like, I do think there's something to be said for a show that at least is 22 minutes long and was written by someone and has an arc of

0:14:59 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

0:16:01 Tom: Any kind. And, and I think that you contrast that with just no arc, no narrative, just screaming at stuff. I think there is a difference in value. Like, I think one has a value of two and the other has a volume of two. Zero. Like I don't think one is like highly valuable. Don't get me wrong, but I think that there is a gap there, you know? So like, that's kind of what I point to.

0:16:02 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:16:23 Eli: Also think the reason why we find a lack of value in certain content and I'll be interested. So not to ruin the illusion here, but we're actually recording the two episodes on the same day. So I'll be interested to see, I mean, I won't see it. So nevermind. This is a stupid sentence. Thomas, this is the edit point right here. Oh.

0:16:42 Thomas: So we got two kind of axes of thing here. We got is the thing shit, and so you don't want your kids to watch shit, and uh we didn't totally resolve that conversation, Eli, it was like, if, if perfectly you're perfectly comfortable watching the ABC song 400 times, you do you. A comment like, oh it's not about me, and it's like, yeah okay, but also your kid doesn't have to be, what it, the sentence struck me, like you thought this was mandatory that your kid must watch this exact bullshit, and there's plenty of bullshits in the sea. Like there's plenty of other songs, you know, like you could do different songs that are the same bullshit. I don't know.

0:17:12 Tom: Oh

0:17:11 Eli: It's just there's but the moment that I'm like hey stop watching the thing you like because I don't like it I'm taking his entertainment and I'm making it about me you know like the fact that he would be happy with another thing definitely true but like what a weird thing for a full-grown adult to do to be like hey three-year-old I'm not enjoying this program so I'm intervening it's like yeah you're not supposed to do that yeah

0:17:36 Thomas: Really? Oh, okay. Eli, this is Eli. Eli's Eli.

0:17:40 Tom: Yeah, but like for real, here's another way to maybe think about that. But I think at the age of two or three, it's maybe a different, but as the kids get older, it' like, let's find something we can both watch is an empathy point right rather than because you're a kid you just have like totalitarian control over this like let's find something we can both watch is something that's I think a good thing for everyone to learn because certainly we're not watching something I want to watch right we're watching something that we agree is minimally awful for me and maximally joyful for you

0:17:41 Eli: I

0:17:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, well, totally. Yeah, that's what I mean.

0:18:12 Tom: But like yeah

0:18:12 Thomas: Eli. If it's not awful for you, whatever, you can do whatever. But if like, what I'm saying is for my kids, a lot of this stuff, it's just the same garbage for them. They don't, yeah, they have a preference, but it's it's because it's the thing they're familiar with. And then the minute I show them another thing, they're like, okay, eventually they like that. Not always, but like they'll find another thing. And variety is the key for me. I just, I can't, the repetition is just so bad. It's bad for me, I also think it's bad för dem. And if you're fine with that, that's fine. But like, the I equation is, for them it's all the fucking same. And for me it's literal fucking tortures of, you Bay hearing the same bullshit over and over. There's no reason you can't be like okay but

0:18:48 Eli: It's not the same for them they want to watch the thing they want to watch no

0:18:52 Thomas: It's only what they want to watch because it's what's in front of them from okay if that's not if you think max has made he's read all the reviews and he's like okay I I've met a critic

0:19:00 Eli: It's just like they're they have prefer I feel crazy they have a preference friends you just don't like it so you're like hey you'll like something else and that's true right they will like the other thing that you put on but like the reason it's changing isn't because of like a commitment to variety or an idea that they'll have like a more enriching experience with something new it's that you don't like it you

0:19:01 Thomas: No yeah well kinda both I will not like stuff that sucks and that there is an overlap of like if you're doing the same the repetition I think is bad for them to be watching the same thing over and over not not, not, I'm not talking about your alphabet. I'm actually not talking about the alphabet song thing. I'm talking about when my kids are watching the repetitive show. Yeah, yeah. That, I don't really think that that's good for them. But also even if you're not talking if it was good for him, like, yeah, they have preferences, but like, I maybe all kids are different, but their preferences are not, I don'T, am I crazy?

0:19:40 Eli: Mine

0:19:52 Thomas: I feel like they're not really, yeah, yeah, they're not really like a considered, oh, I've made a decision for this and I really want, it's like, it's what's in front. The familiarity is the thing with kids. They want to watch the thing that's right in front of them. Go ahead, Tom.

0:19:51 Tom: They're not immutable laws right yeah but

0:19:52 Eli: Important oh

0:20:03 Tom: Here's here's where I think we might be might be missing thomas I just this because this occurred to me is that max only gets a small amount of screen time and they watch they commit to watching everything together so like for you and I like if I'll say I'll raise my hand like like if I'm gonna sit and watch a show with my my kids like so yeah like over the week I had I had all four kids this last week so for like I made time I carved out time almost every day to spend special time with amen because he's been so attention hungry lately for me so I'm like all right let's sit and watch a movie but like we agree together on the movie right it's going to be a movie he wants to watch but

0:20:11 Thomas: Oh yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. Fair point. Fair point, mm -hmm, mm,

0:20:43 Tom: It's gonna be one that like I can get through but that's because like he's got his whole day to watch other shit that we're not going to sit and watch together and I think that that's part of the difference it's like yeah when you're sitting and watching something with dad we compromise on something together we learn how to share and cooperate when youre when you re watching tv by yourself I just want to make sure it's not inappropriate you know and then your preference is reign supreme

0:20:51 Thomas: Right, right. Mm -hmm. Yeah. For sure. That, that is my rule. And that's what I said last time. It's like if we're going to be in the room, it just, some of this stuff is too fucking annoying and here's the thing Eli never realizes he only has one kid so like really easy for him to come over here and talk to me about yeah no the only reason I make the joke again is they already have the exercise of fighting with each other too so like they all have to Phoebe and Arlo I always do the thing where I'm like you have to agree on something it's kind of fun I've been trying to get them to develop this like compromising skill to work out their problems a little bit and the thing you can do as a dad and I'm not even being mean I'm like all right I will find you guys whatever you want to watch whatever you want as soon as you agree and if you don't agree then we'll we'll sit here it

0:21:19 Tom: With his prescriptive values that he's laying out right oh

0:21:24 Eli: God it's the perfect

0:21:51 Thomas: It is because they learn fucking some maturity and like to to like communicate with each other and not fight or there's no fucking Cat Noir and fucking garbage moth boy whatever piece of shit fucking fucking crap.

0:21:51 Eli: Trap it's the perfect trip it's

0:22:01 Tom: Oh, all of my kids have their own TVs in their rooms. All of mykids have theirown TVs and then we have a TV in the loft that the kids can share and hang. But again, they're older, so they're not, you know, like they're not little. So like theyre, youknow, like a six to 17 year old is not going to ever agree on the same thing as a nine year old and like to ask them to do that would be ridiculous.

0:22:08 Eli: It's another solution yeah it's

0:22:13 Thomas: Wow. Yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:22:27 Tom: So like, yeah, they all have TVs.

0:22:30 Eli: I have with Bluey, right, because I love that show, I think it's good in a lot of way, I don't love all of it, I've got my own meta issues about children's programming being used as entertainments for an adult to regress, but that's a whole different episode, but the one issue I have with Bluey is that there's never, except for Muffin, who is the fucking goat, Bluey characters, they'll like disagree mildly and then Bluey will be like, "Come on, Scranton," or Bandit will be like, "Come one kids, don't you know that it's good to share," and they'll be like, "Alright, Daddy," and they just all fucking share, and I just want one episode of Bluey where the fucking Bluey dog is just like, just the entire, for the entire seven minute episode, she's just hurling herself on the ground.

0:22:55 Thomas: The kids are cockneyed for some reason. Yeah, and then Yeah, and you just hear the rest of it is the other family sitting in a terrorized silence in the living room while you hear screeches of a banshee in the fucking Bluey's room because they would not ever accept anything that you, you tried to do.

0:23:21 Eli: Right. Screaming so hard. She tries to make herself throw up. You show me that episode. You Show Me Bandit standing outside fervently smoking a weed vape, just trying to make it through the day. Then we'll talk. Then then we'll talk bluey.

0:23:29 Thomas: Yeah, yep, yep. Yep. 100%.

0:23:32 Tom: I'm

0:23:39 Eli: But yeah, no, I mean, yeah, again, like he's three, he has a pretty severe speech delay. There's neurological stuff. Like again, this is by no means prescriptive. Um, you know, when he gets older, I don't know how I'm going to feel about watching stuff right now. I, it's so funny. I think this, this, is my only like hypothesis. So when Anna and I first got together, um, she was taking classical violin lessons, which meant playing scales all day, every day. She would play scales all day, every day, and she was working on tonality, which meant that she was like holding notes out for a really long time and like really working on getting the tones right. And of course she's an amazing violinist, it's wonderful, I adore her, but there was like a week where I was like, I'm not sure I like listening to violin scales all day, every day.

0:24:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:26 Thomas: Yeah. No one should ever have to listen to someone practicing an instrument. It's, it's the most monotonous thing ever.

0:24:27 Tom: Not sure I like it.

0:24:32 Eli: I went into into that cave in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker talked to himself, and the light version of me was like, don't you fucking blow this, you listen to scales all day, every day. And I was like, I think I actually fucking love scales. And to this day, if there is an annoying noise in a room, someone will have to point it out to me because I have no knowledge of it whatsoever.

0:24:42 Thomas: Cause Okay. Yeah. That's, that's important. This is important backdrop, you know, like, yeah, I actually, so this is something I can't remember if I brought it up, but this is one of my biggest, obviously flaws that I think is tough in a relationship that I work on. But like one of the hardest things in a friendship is if you're the person who's just annoyed by more stuff, stuff like it's literally, it sucks, like, because it's not fair to the other person, it's also, I mean it's not great for you, like, you, one can make themselves not be bothered, especially if it's one of those, you know, like actual noise problems people have, you know, where they have that sensitivity to certain Noises, yes.

0:25:29 Tom: Misophonia. Oh.

0:25:31 Thomas: That my, my brother has that, and it sucks because like it causes a lot of like stress and and stuff like that because the otherperson person has a hard time even like recognizing you, like, know, I don't understand why this is a problem for you, like, it's hard. You know what I mean, like, that, yeah.

0:25:44 Tom: Yeah. Hey. Hayley has severe misophony, not to jump in too much, but it's funny, like she has severe mesophonia to, like, bodily sounds. Of any kind, like bodily sounds of any kind, like coughing, clearing threat, so, like, when I get sick she's just super fucking annoyed by it, like, she's like, like there's no, like, and I don't blame her, but but like, I'm like, oh, I got COVID and like, right.

0:25:51 Eli: That's a fear of miso soups, everybody.

0:25:53 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:08 Thomas: But you're the one who should be getting the sympathy and now it's like the opposite.

0:26:12 Tom: Like I got COVID and I got that asthma cough and I had a cough for about three months after I got covered. I coughed from, from the end of February to the endof May. And I just, that's just how it is. So like ,I was like, fuck, this is going to suck. But mostly I was like fuck, she is goingto hate spending time around me for the next 90 days while my body figures out how to stop fucking coughing. And she was good about it, but I could see like, it just like was like a big be like, she's dying. She is dying. Trying not to say something. Cause I know it's like nails on a chalkboard for, you know, like it sucks. That does suck.

0:26:12 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:26:43 Thomas: And that I think that's the key, like, you're just, not you, for whatever reason you've developed the skill to not be annoyed by certain things. And I, I've really worked on it with a lot of stuff. And, amazing too, is witnessing Lydia, who is just never annoyed. Like she doesn't have like the quality of being annoyed, which is funny because my whole asshole idiot family, that was all we did.

Like it was just finding things to be annoyed at each other with was like the pastime of the family. And so I've come a really long way. Like that's like that, my first go-to, because it's how my dad was, was like, oh, what's the, I can complain about this thing I'm annoyed at, you know? And then I've really come a long way of like, nope, don't need to do that. Don't need to be annoyed by it. I can just make the choice not to do it. But when it comes to repetitive sounds or loud sounds or whatever, that's where I really can't, I draw the line. I with repetitive noise. And I just think, yeah, if you want to watch the same shit it with your kid. If you're okay, fine. But I don't think there's, I just want to say, I don'T think there'S ANYTHING WRONG with subbing out a different preference of your kids that they still will like because it spices up, gives a little variety for you as the adult having to fucking be tortured by these noises, the

0:27:27 Tom: Yeah.

0:27:55 Eli: Absolutely.

0:27:55 Thomas: Repetitive sounds.

0:27:57 Eli: About this from the Detroit live show. We were in Detroit and we went to this really lovely pizza place called Grandma Bob's Pizza. But it's like a cool place that played techno. And Noah, My partner, has really bad, bad misophonia, and I am sitting there happily munching my pizza, yum yum yum, pizza, pizza, pizza. You could have put a gun to my head. Eli, is there music playing? I don't know.

0:28:08 Thomas: Oh my God.

0:28:21 Eli: Bam. Right.

0:28:21 Thomas: That'S so weird.

0:28:22 Eli: No fucking idea. And Noah, Noah just out of nowhere is like, "Well, that has to stop." And I'm like, "What has to stop?" And everyone is like, "Are you not hearing it?" And the techno was literally like a hammer against a piece of iron. It was like, and they were like, how is this fucking... They literally went over to of the bar and they were like, "Can you change this?" And they were like, "Yeah, I'll turn it to a different channel." And I was just sitting there being like, pizza yummers, yummers, pizza.

0:28:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:28:37 Tom: Dude, I wouldn't have noticed either. Yeah, yeah.

0:28:50 Thomas: I think we've had that exact interaction, Eli, where I've been like, "Well, this is, I'm gonna die" and you're like, "What, what's happening?" That's

0:28:55 Eli: Yummers, What, what is it? What are you doing? Especially

0:28:57 Tom: I wouldn'T have noticed at all either.

0:28:57 Thomas: Amazing. Sure. I don't let my kids watch stuff that's rated B for fucking boring, shitty, uh, creative mess. But I want, we should talk more about the ratings thing, because that discussion I think there was a lot more to it, what on the table. My thing is like, I don't want them to watch violence at all. Um, I don't, I, well, I shouldn't say at all. I think I'm a little bit more flexible on that stuff based on what Eli is saying, like the cartoony, you know, pow kapow, punch, pop, like, whatever, that's not, I don't really care that much about it. But real, that's going to be my sensitivity, is once they start watching like kind of more real movies, any, don't want them watching the stuff of one human being being fucking horrible to another other human being. I just don't like, want them to watch that. I don't want to watch it. A thing where it's like, you think about this every day, because I think it might be a particular sensitivity of mine.

Like, I genuinely just fucking hate that shit. And, um, it bothers me a lot. And so part of me is like, oh, do I need to try to allow for like, what's the normal human being relationship with with horrible stuff like that, like, I don't know, is there one, like, is it okay for some people to like see that and be like, "Oh man, that sucked" but I don't really care?

0:29:02 Eli: For

0:29:19 Tom: I'm more flexible than that, yeah. Well,

0:30:02 Thomas: You know

0:30:02 Tom: Then also you're going to have to contend at some point too, Thomas, with, you will have, like there will come a time where the kids, unless you just withhold, you know, internet access, computers, laptops, phones, that kind of thing, is that they'll have, they'll be looking at stuff you're not seeing them see, right? So they're going to have, so they will have had exposure outside of the exposure you sort of of like are, are aware of to all. And, and I think like you have to one of the ways to contend with that is, or feel the same way, like, I don't want, we, we wanted her the content that the kids view, like, if we're going to see a movie together as a family, we'll look it up and see what it's rated and why it's, and not from the stupid MPAA, because that's trash, like

0:30:17 Thomas: Yeah yeah of course yeah from

0:30:27 Eli: Thomas, maybe no

0:30:42 Thomas: The faith

0:30:44 Eli: You gotta go on the Dove Channel, go on the Dove Channel, that's the best, dude, the Dove Channel will tell you, crazy, it'll be like, woman is sad for a minute about. Dove is the Christian movie rating website, and I cannot tell you. You should make an entire, I wanted to do a Citation Needed essay that was just descriptions of movies, and you guys try to guess what the fuck I'm talking about.

0:30:44 Thomas: Yeah you go on the faith -based one, yeah.

0:30:46 Tom: Well, no, there's is the dove channel? Oh, that

0:30:58 Thomas: So good oh oh that's such. That's a good idea. If you don't use that, that could be another bonus content for us.

0:31:08 Tom: Would be fun. Yeah.

0:31:06 Eli: Exactly. Yes, 100, but yeah, the stuff on there is like, man smokes a cigarette and woman feels sad, I

0:31:17 Thomas: Yeah. Woman hinted that might have ever had a female orgasm or something like yeah.

0:31:21 Tom: Mythology, like, but I don't know what, what the website is that Haley uses. It's not one of these crazy Christian ones, but it does give an outline of like, hey, here's, here's basically what, what you're going to see that maybe just generally like, and we, we do look at that stuff if we're going to go see a movie or we're going to let the kids watch a movie particularly that you know you can't like if it's a new Pixar movie it's like fine watch the new fucking Pixar movie I don't give a shit

0:31:30 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Real talk. Can you let me know what that is, Tom? Like, let me, I would love that recommendation. Cause I, so it gives you more like details kind of, of like what might.

0:31:50 Tom: Yeah I'll find out yeah I'll fine out yeah it gives you it gives it's not to the it's not to this like person smokes a cigarette level but yeah it's it's you know so it'll kind of give you some

0:32:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:02 Eli: Would have loved to have been warned ahead of time uh and Inside Out that I would weep like an Italian war widow for fucking bingo bango or whatever that motherfuckers

0:32:07 Thomas: Oh my God. We, we need our own one. I don't know. We could write it. We can actually write Eli. That's our thing. Depressed guy rating system. It's like it's the movies you don't understand. There's a random scene where someone mentions their child died and no one else will care, but me and maybe Eli will just be crying the rest of our lives.

0:32:12 Eli: Depression depressed yep a dog jumps into a man's arms and it's like a big red X and I'm like yep no smart smart yeah

0:32:32 Tom: Yeah this this is actually rated to three my girls uh so it's definitely a weeper it's yeah I we watch and the things that we look for in look for violence primarily and then if there's gonna be sexual content of any kind especially depends on how old the kids are but like I want to know is the violence going to be sexualized or is the is the sex sex going to to be violent in some way.

0:32:56 Tom: Right. Like, like, because I do worry particularly about sexualizing violence and having any like contact with that for the kids. Like I worry about that a lot I think that that's, that's a whole set of messages that I don't want the kids, even at 16 and 17, where I know that they have access to the whole internet. As soon as they they shut their door. I like absolutely still, I'm just like, all right, but fine. When I'm aware of it, I'll lock in some of this shit down. Right. When I'm aware, when I have some control recognizing, I don't have much anymore in their lives. I still want to lock some of these shit down because I want to make sure that like one of the messages, cause I do think it's real that one of messages they receive is look, we're all together as a family, this is what I think is appropriate. Appropriate

0:32:55 Thomas: Nice. I Violencealized. Yeah, good point.

0:32:55 Eli: Now violentalized so

0:33:42 Thomas: Hmm

0:33:42 Tom: That is another implicit message is that like I don't think this other shit is appropriate I know you have access to it but that's not shit I condone that's not shit that like flies in my house

0:33:46 Thomas: Me

0:33:50 Eli: Can I say and maybe I'm like again the pearl clutching grandma from last week I don't picture allowing and again one child all the privilege I don't picture allowing Max to have just free unfettered access to the internet net under the age of 18 right think he will have to be an adult and we will have to have you know when we reach those verge areas where he's like 17 16 and he like wants those things and can voice his thoughts on it I think we're gonna have

0:34:09 Thomas: Neither for max no

0:34:23 Tom: 1716 is wildly out of step with what I just want to say like I you maybe you will do that I just want to say that you will be yeah

0:34:32 Eli: 14 whatever age when when he's talking and is like I want to go on murder robots.com I just want us to I think for any in the way I picture it and again it's so funny like I feel myself being I see future me looking back and being like you stupid stupid fool right but like I picture it being like hey we'll have like these three websites unlocked there's plenty of entertainment on those websites there's funny of education and cool stuff to learn and like fun stuff to do on those websites

0:34:34 Tom: So

0:35:04 Thomas: Pbs .org yeah

0:35:05 Eli: And when you want other stuff we just gotta have like a 14 second conversation about it right

0:35:05 Thomas: Go fuck yourself I mean yeah yeah

0:35:11 Tom: Would you limit Google they wouldn't have access to Google so

0:35:14 Eli: Yeah I'll just put I'll just put a lock on every like there's a pretty simple Chrome parental controls where I'll just be like yeah no we're not doing Google we're not doing

0:35:18 Thomas: Yeah or you're like your router or whatever you can like probably do it through that well

0:35:22 Eli: Yeah exactly I'll just be not like

0:35:25 Tom: So they wouldn't have phones like in your like in your imagination they're not having not imagination that's not a rude like but you're in yeah

0:35:25 Eli: No you can put it on you put it on phones I'll

0:35:32 Tom: This

0:35:32 Thomas: They could yeah if they switch it to cellular or whatever yeah there's gonna be Eli will figure it out rest assured he will figure out but I've stopped mentioning this because I'm the crazy person every time I still don't want my kids to have that unfettered access I don't you know maybe they'll have phones somehow but I'm with I'm with you maybe I don't want them to have the computer phone tablet with unrestricted access at any time

0:35:37 Eli: Figure out how to control assuming I have actually

0:35:53 Tom: Is so funny this is so funny because of the three of us I am the hard anti-tech luddite of the three of us. I have the hardest ideological stance against this and I have the most open access policy for the kids compared to you too and I think that that's just a really interesting interesting and funny point of comparison that as adults, like I have, I certainly I'm well known for having the most cynical view of social media and the internet and internet culture. And I absolutely hold those views, but I also fully believe that that with relation to 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 year old kids is wildly out of line with reality and how all of their peers, all of them no exceptions interact with one another and that otherizing them in that way and putting them in this sort of like Amish luddite box would do more harm than good and that there's I I can't do that to them I just cannot do it to them

0:36:20 Thomas: Could yeah that's fair too

0:36:54 Eli: Let me can I help you because this this is how I picture it right I don't picture it as like I'm going to shut off all but pbs.org and then I'm going to keep them locked off I just want us to have a conversation before that thing gets opened right like there are specific yeah website by website like I I don't think it's too much to ask I think I can explain it to someone of any age fairly to say like you can look at and go go on the internet and see anything that follows your interest. If you and I can have a conversation about it, right? Like I have no problem with a seven, 18 year old having access to ethical pornography, right.

I actually think having access to ethical pornography made by full grown adults who use like consent stuff and, you sex sex in healthy ways. I think that's actually really good for them and could be really useful when Max reaches those ages. Um, so that that would be a conversation I would be willing to have.

But if it's something that he's not willing to talk to me about, I hope I'm the kind of parent that he'll be able to say, you know, I want to watch people play Rocket League or I want to watch Mortal Kombat playthroughs, right? Like I watch Mortal Combat playthroughs. I can't play Mortal Kombat. I enjoy the game Mortal Kombat, but I also want to have a say in like, yeah, you know what? You're 10. 10, 10 is not the time to be watching fatalities in slow motion, but I hear you and someday you can absolutely watch Mortal Kombat playthroughs.

0:37:08 Tom: Website by website though yeah know but that's so I hear you and I do and I think that's a good impulse I feel I feel you like at least for me that that would require like it limits their ability to just browse no well yes for sure but also like but even with one kid they don't have the ability to explore and browse they Don't have the ability to just wander, and I know that you're saying like, yeah, fucking of course that's what I don't want them to do, but also that's that's the inner, that's the library of their peers, that's like, hey, I'm gonna send you a link, kids are just trading links back and forth. Like, it would be so isolating to every time you want to look at some new anything or have a question and you just are curious and you want Google what it is and it takes you to a website, but you got to go ask dad before you open that website,

0:38:29 Thomas: Much work Yeah. Hmm.

0:38:32 Eli: One kid, baby.

0:39:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:05 Tom: Because you've never opened that one before. Like, it would just be so stifling.

0:39:07 Thomas: Even Even with one kid, you're never going to get any work done again in your life, Eli.

0:39:12 Tom: The kid's not going to have the ability to just sort of be curious online and like ask, hey, you know what? I went down a rabbit hole on Wikipedia, but every time, you know, I, I got curious about something.

0:39:23 Thomas: Every link.

0:39:23 Eli: Wikipedia's open. No, Wikipedia's wide open. Wikipedia's wild. Wide open.

0:39:26 Tom: Yeah. But then, but then maybe he clicks on a reference that takes them outside of the Wikipedia. Like it, like the, yeah,

0:39:31 Eli: Sucks to fucking suck. Tell me about that reference. Come downstairs for a second.

0:39:33 Thomas: I'd like to cite my sources in this online argument, and I need to ask you about every single link here, like a

0:39:40 Eli: Honestly, fucking for it.

0:39:35 Tom: I. I hear you. Yeah it's I think it would be so difficult for them to do their homework. I think be so Difficult for them socialize with one another the way the kids socialize.

0:39:47 Eli: They're not going to have homework. Just tell ChatGBT, hey, write me an essay on blah, blah, blah. Chat tv you kidding? With dad's API access, my son, if my son ever gets a B minus, I'm personally suing OpenAI, writing his own essays. Yuck.

0:39:53 Tom: I just, I can't, I, yeah, I can't imagine that that would work. I maybe it will, maybe you'll be the guy that pulls it off. I don't think that anyone else, like, literally nobody is doing that. Like they would, that would be so weirdly otherizing for them.

0:40:06 Thomas: Plebe. Yeah. Oh.

0:40:05 Eli: Yeah. Well, and anyone who is doing it is doing it for like crazy religious reasons, and their kid is our listener now. So, yeah, I mean, one, one of the reasons why I like talking about these things on the air is, one, our audience has like such an amazing sense of humor about it and is like really accepting and open to like possibly disagreeing with us about these ideas, that's the first reason. But the second reason is I often think it's funny to listen to myself on this show be like, well, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, and then just future me to be like, you poor, sad son of a bitch, you think that's what you're gonna do. I'll tells you what you're gonna do, you're gonna watch the goddamn alphabet song 75 times, that's what you're gonna do, you're going to go to Wobble World every Saturday precisely at 9 30 because it takes you 27 minutes to get there and three minutes to getting from the car.

0:40:18 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

0:41:01 Thomas: Well, Okay, assuming we do have some modicum of control, for whatever, I'm curious what the answer is going to be on this kind of these ratings, so is it the case then, Tom, that it's like you'll look at that website or whatever and it doesn't really matter what the MPAA bullshit rating is, like they could watch, like the question everyone asks is, oh, when can your kids watch rated R movies, maybe we should just for fun answer that kind of question, because for me it would be like I would rather know what it's rated R for, you know, and then I, I almost don't like, again, if it's just sexual content and assuming it's not, you know, rapey, like violent, something like, I don't even know that I care about them watching that much at all, like it doesn't matter, like either they're too young to get it and who cares or they're old enough to get it and whatever, it's like a normal thing of life that I think doing abstinence-only, don't say anything about it education actually sucks.

0:41:28 Tom: Yeah.

0:41:51 Eli: Here's my weird line, and again this is just me being a weirdo, I'm completely fine with nudity, right? So like my kids can watch Oppenheimer, I'm not okay with sex. I think exposing kids to sex early can really fuck them up, especially as sex, sex is portrayed in 99.99% of media, right? Be amazed if my kid happened to stumble on the one healthy portrayal of consensual sex that has ever taken place on the internet or anywhere else. But nudity, that's just bodies, right, and yes, those things are very closely associated and there are ways to sexualize nudity. But like, you know, if there's a guy, fine, if there's just a naked guy in a movie and he's not doing anything particularly sexual, and if it's not a particularly sexual portrayal, I'm fine with that, I don't feel the need to like hide

0:42:24 Thomas: Yeah, Well, that's the thing about Hollywood, though, and maybe it's changing now, maybe I'm just a boomer, but like honestly in Hollywood sex is often just, it's just female top nudity and kissing, that's like that's all that ever, it's what we're allowed to show in this country because anything else is like just abhorrent to Christians, like you can't show male nudity, can't, you a freaking penis or a vagina, you kidding me, so I don't, that's, I don't even consider that, like, What don't know, maybe some contextual stuff is weird, but, uh, for the most part in regular movies, like they don't do, am I missing, am I watching the wrong movies, they don't do anything, sure.

0:43:20 Tom: I mean, I, I that like kids should not be exposed to explicitly. And I'm not talking about like seeing the genitals, but I'm saying like explicitly sexualized conduct at a young age. I just think it's inappropriate. So

0:43:30 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah,

0:43:30 Eli: Yeah, it's no good, it's also not good for them, like it's, it's again, not to ever take a hard stance. Yeah, give your baby a full bottle of Tylenol and all that, but like if there is a lot of data that exposing kids to sex early before they can process that stuff is not good because they don't have a sense of self and twerking

0:43:32 Tom: Yeah. That's why I think it'S inappropriate. Yeah. That'S yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:43:37 Thomas: Right,

0:43:46 Tom: Right.

0:43:48 Thomas: But that's literal sex is all I'm saying, right? I mean, or what, what is that I mean we're not that show, hmm.

0:43:51 Tom: No, I'm talking about sexualized content. Like I'm So, like, if you see, like – yeah, engaging sort of, like movie – like just a regular rated R movie, two people are going to have sex. They're not showing their fucking genitals banging against each other, right? Like – but it is sexualized, right. Like – and I'm talking about, like not even two people having sex. Like I don't want my kids seeing women in particular because this is extraordinarily common being objectified in sexualized ways. Ways, like a matter of course, or as like a play for humor. Like, so yeah, like sexual content is for my kids. Like I would not want Aislinn to go see she's 12 going on 13. Like if there's a movie that's like got strong sexual content, we're not going to see it. I'm not going to say like, yeah, great. You're 12 going, I'm 13. Let's go watch a movie where, you are having sex and there's strong sexual contact. I think it's it's inappropriate for

0:43:54 Thomas: Yeah, Right, Hmm,

0:43:56 Eli: Soft core end of sentence yeah

0:44:41 Thomas: Interesting

0:44:41 Tom: Her age. Think anything good or positive comes out of that. And I don't think the media is responsible. I think that the media, yeah. And so because their portrayals are problematic, I'm not going to be like, yeah, let's go watch problematic portrayals of sexual content.

0:44:42 Thomas: Oh,

0:44:43 Eli: So

0:44:49 Thomas: No, Not at all, yeah, but I guess I guess where I'm coming from is like all of society is that, like TV is that, commercials are that, like that, that starts to get to a point where it's like you're gonna be, Eli, like, oh, actually you can't watch anything, literally nothing, you know I mean? Don't you think so much of our society is just that?

0:45:12 Eli: Can I give an example that I think is enlightening, because I, I feel similarly, when my sister was seven I brought her to the movie Bridesmaids, um, I was a teenager, I'm 15 years older than her, so I was 22, I saw it, um, was playing in a theater locally, and mom was like, is it okay for Lily, and in my head I was like, there's a poop joke, like, but that's it, right, that's fine, I forgot that the opening scene of that movie is a quote-unquote comedic sex scene, and then the scene right after that is two women talking about blowjobs, right, like that didn't strike me as sexual content because it was funny, so I had literally erased it from my brain until we were in the theater and my sister was like, what are they doing, and I was like, we are in the wrong theater, we're supposed to go, go see My Big Fat Greek Wedding Too, next door, is what we just did.

And that's, and that's what I'm talking about is that there's so much sex, language around sex, sexual, sexual talk, talk about sex, that's, that's not for kids, right? The kids shouldn't be hearing about,

0:45:14 Thomas: Sure. Yeah,

0:45:51 Tom: Right.

0:46:16 Eli: Uh, kind of explicit stuff, even when it's not meant to be arousing, right? It just isn't appropriate for their ages.

0:46:23 Tom: Yeah,

0:46:16 Thomas: Yeah. Right. I think it's important to talk about the ages that we're talking about. Maybe that's the issue. You know, because it's like maybe when you're talking about 12, 13. I mean, I don't know. Like, don't you remember what it was like to be that age? Like, we knew all that stuff, you know?

0:46:24 Tom: Yeah I was a sixth grader, you know, like you're at 12 or 13, you're a sixth or seventh grader, you again you might know it but there's a difference between knowing it and having your parents endorse it. I think like your parents at 12 or 13 still have like a really strong influence on telling you this is okay and this is normal because I watched it with my dad and so I am not gonna say, hey guys, let's gather around for family movie night and watch Bridesmaids or

0:46:47 Thomas: Right. Yeah, that's fair.

0:47:01 Thomas: Oh, no. No, I'm not talking about family movement. I was talking about like controlling what they're seeing at all. Like, wow.

0:47:05 Tom: Yeah, or I would say like, yeah, like, oh, you're not gonna watch, I would be be happy to be like, hey guys, you're not going to watch Bridesmaids. For example, an Eli's example, because, you know, yeah, a hundred percent you're 12 or 13. My, my problem isn't that kids don't get it. Kids get it at a really young age. Like the problem is that like them to that stuff at a place where they can't process it and where it seems condoned by the authority figures in their lives is a set of messages that I think are troubling.

0:47:13 Thomas: Wait,

0:47:15 Eli: Yeah. They, can't handle it.

0:47:34 Thomas: Been too long since I saw Bridesmaids. What? Was the, yeah,

0:47:34 Tom: Well, he's just talking about the scene, like he's using that as an example of a scene where they're explicitly talking about blowjobs, right? Yeah, right.

0:47:42 Eli: There's, so there's, there's a comedy sex scene, right? No, no nudity is shown, but like it's Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig, like simulating sex, right? And it's a scene, but it is those two adults, quote unquote, having sex. Those characters are having sex and then in the next scene, she's having brunch and she's talking about blowjobs and like why you give blowjoobs or not give blow jobs.

And again, like we quote unquote knew that that stuff, but I, I actually feel like I was pretty significantly harmed by the amount of exposure I had at, of our generation, and sort of like look at this porn in the woods level of exposure, like I really did not get the um filtering for a lot of sex stuff because of growing up in a small town and had really bad ideas around sex, really bad ideas around consent, which my dad kind of cut off at the past because he was very vehement about consent, but did not teach me about my own consent.

And so then when I was out of the house and I was in some not cash money situations where people were willing to have sex with me and I felt like I wasn't allowed to say no or not supposed to say no, there were were some not cash money situations that happened, and again, like no, that wasn't because I watched explicit pornography, it's because

0:48:59 Thomas: Right.

0:48:59 Eli: I watching a bunch of media where guys always want sex and bodacious babes are trying not to do it, right? You know, guys always wanna have sex, like so that get it quote unquote and like understand it and take it in in a healthy way are very different things for me, yeah,

0:49:17 Thomas: But that's a lot of issues combined. So like that, right there strikes me as, oh, you absorbed just the culture. I mean, if you go back 10, 15, 20 years, you was super super rapey and it was normalized, like so I, I don't even know that the ratings system or the whatever would even capture that, it's a lot of it's kind of ubiquitous in culture yeah well

0:49:37 Eli: No, I'm not I'm

0:49:37 Tom: Well, yeah, well let me let me but

0:49:39 Eli: Not talking about ratings at all, I'm talking about my personal thoughts on like sexually explicit material

0:49:42 Thomas: But but no no, but further, I don't think a scene like the one in Bridesmaids is what mattered there, right?

0:49:49 Tom: Me, let me put this to you a slightly different way, is that I think, and I think Eli would agree, and I think you agree probably, to, that a significant part of parenting, parenting, is shielding our kids from most of culture and then giving them glimpses, pieces at a time. And you give them glims, pieces at a time as they age into it appropriately. And that's like, for example, violence is part of our culture, right? But I'm not going to open up the Times every morning and read about a fucking mass shooting and then chit-chat about with my nine-year-old, right. I would chit-chat about that with my, you know, wife. Because, right, I am not opening my kid up to all parts of culture. I am shielding them from the parts of culture that they are not yet aged into from an emotional and psychological and intellectual maturity level.

0:50:23 Thomas: Yeah

0:50:40 Tom: So we do agree. Yes, I agree that the culture that we live in is awash in problematic sexuality. Totally agree. I'm right there. And a result of that, for me, is I want to put, I want to put the blinders on that as much as I can. And when I can't put blinders on that, I want to say, okay, these things aren't appropriate. And you should know that I have thoughts and feelings about those things being inappropriate so that they don't normalize things that I don't want them to feel should be normalized.

0:50:40 Thomas: Agreed

0:50:41 Eli: Absolutely absolutely no

0:51:11 Thomas: I, I think the, the problem I'm having is I'm, I think we have the same goal, but I'm not sure the kinds of stuff that you're referring to is the kinds of stuff causing the problem sometimes. Like, like people talking about a blowjob to me isn't, well, and in that example, your sister was like seven. So yeah, no, different story. But like, if we're talking about 12, 13, people talking about a blowing job to me, isn't the thing that's causing that bad view of consent or or whatever that, you know, like, you know what I mean? Especially a woman talking about a blowjob. Maybe I don't...

0:51:42 Tom: Yeah. Yeah,

0:51:40 Eli: But it's problematic in its own way, right but it's problematic in its own way

0:51:44 Tom: I don' t want, yeah, I don't' t want my 12 or 13 year old to go around making blowjob jokes because she will, right?

0:51:45 Eli: Right nobody

0:51:49 Thomas: Okay, so that's a different story than the, like consensual, don't want, you know? Like, okay.

0:51:54 Eli: Sorry, I was sort of pulling out the lens slightly to say, yeah, I was exposed to a lot of media that was bad culture. I, the specific example I would give when it comes to just like talking about blowjobs, and man, the movie Eighth Grade, if you haven't seen it, does such a fucking fabulous job of talking about this, um, specifically blowjoobs and like, um, oh God, it's Bo Burnham's movie that he made before uh Inside, and it's, it's about a girl living in eighth grade and it, it's, I, I cannot recommend it enough for absolutely everybody it is an incredible movie about yeah, about what it is like to be a kid, what it's like to grow up in the internet age, and and, And one of the things that happens is she sort of like sees a semi -educational video about blowjobs and then mentions that like she loves blowjoobs to her crush in eighth grade. And all of a sudden he's really interested in sort of the dynamic. And they're kids, right? They're

0:52:12 Thomas: I don't know it. Oh. Oh, wow. I've never even heard of that. Okay.

0:52:25 Tom: Loved it.

0:52:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:46 Eli: Eighth grade, they have no fucking idea what the hell's going on. And it's funny and tragic and heartbreaking in all the ways about that. So yeah, that's the point there. Not, um, I saw Bridesmaids therefore. It's that there were a...

0:52:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah... Hmm. Well, no. Yeah, yeah. But it's an example of the kind of thing. So, yeah, okay, I guess if those are two different points, then maybe we're on the same page.

0:53:00 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:53:02 Eli: Right. Right. Yeah, guess I would say I was introduced to ideas I was not ready to handle yet over and over and over again. And they created very toxic mindsets for me and put me in very unsafe positions, which when I look back at them as an adult, I'm like, oh, that was bad. Like that shouldn't happen to me.

0:53:22 Tom: And, I think that that those like normalizing of sex and sexuality at ages that are too young also open up doors for adults to conversations with kids about sex and sexuality that they feel are normal and normalized. And that's a troubling too. So like, yeah, I, I have a, I have a pretty strong, like, yeah, sexual content. Like I don't want my 12 or 13 year old to watch movies that that normalize behaviors that like at her age she should not be engaging with or thinking are normal for her to engage with. She is growing into a sexual person for sure, but like that process is slow and should be like really cared for and nurtured in a way that's like not exposed to the toxicity of multimedia in my view, all

0:53:37 Eli: Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:54:11 Thomas: Yeah, I I guess it's hard without specifics. Maybe, maybe you guys, I don't know. That sounds like kind of religious to me. I don'T know. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm misinterpreting, but yeah, that's, that'S interesting. I didn'T know that was going to be kind of the conclusion.

0:54:22 Eli: Well, we'll see whose kid gets molested first. First. All right. Gentlemen, Gentlemen, before we go, what's The Difference Between a Literalist and a Kleptomaniac? A literalist takes things literally. A kleptominiac takes things, literally.

0:54:45 Tom: Oh God.

0:54:47 Thomas: I like that one.

0:54:52 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.