DOD104: Stranger Danger

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 you can trust because it's not trying to share its candy. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen. Oh, holy holy shit. You can't have chocolate chocolate.

0:00:47 Thomas: That's That's Actually The best Stuff. Wait, You can have chocolate? Oh, not like milk chocolate, though. Oh, wait, now, I need to know which candies are vegan because, like, that can't have any, like, Reese's. I never thought about that.

0:00:53 Tom: Wow. Wow. Oh, yeah. No, Rough. Rough. No. No milk chocolate of any kind, obviously, and

0:01:05 Thomas: Wow. Okay. Was... was gonna say they do make the dark chocolate cups. Those are good. Yeah, try to... try to help poor unfortunate souls like you. Yep.

0:01:16 Eli: It's a tough existence out there, but gentlemen, gentlemen, you know the only thing worse than your candy selection when you have chosen veganism as a lifestyle. Why? It's the auto ads, the dry, bitter, vegan baked goods of your ears. My goodness, isn't the auto adds a vegan scone to your listening experience of our podcast? But listener, podcast listener, you can put an end to all that today by heading over to... at Patreon, patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads, for as little as a dollar you get a commercial free extended version of every single episode, except for the one where Tom couldn't be bothered, and a monthly bonus episode, and again you get all of that for as little as a dollar over at patreon.com/dearolddads. All so, uh, I wanted to, first of all, are you both there? Okay?

0:01:40 Tom: Yeah. Oh, yeah,

0:02:10 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:02:11 Eli: Yeah. No, there was a slight pause and I had a terrifying moment where I was going to introduce the whole episode and you guys were going to be like, "Oh, no, you went off the air," all...

0:02:11 Thomas: Oh, oh, You mean like how that happens to me almost every time I say anything? Yeah, I've I've adopted a feeling of like, yeah, if they're gone, they're done, I'll just podcast either

0:02:21 Eli: Right. Gone, they're going, I'm gonna finally or

0:02:26 Tom: Just keep just plow through. Just head

0:02:27 Thomas: What I said was not... not interesting in any way, or they died, and either way I'll just keep pretending

0:02:28 Tom: Down either

0:02:32 Eli: And now it's Thomas' show.

0:02:34 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:34 Tom: Way. It's just, that's just my feelings, it's all right.

0:02:36 Eli: Exactly. I brought a subject today that was actually brought to me by my friend, my buddy Barack, who listens to this show as well. We were talking about Stranger Danger the other day, and I'm interested...

0:02:44 Thomas: Okay. I

0:02:47 Tom: I wouldn't think the Obamas would still be worried about this, but this is impressive.

0:02:50 Eli: Yeah, my good friend Barack.

0:02:49 Thomas: Was gonna say I was talking to my buddy Bill Bill and Hillary, and they thought that they told me that the super criminal, no, what was super

0:02:51 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:53 Eli: Yes, exactly. The big old man.

0:02:58 Tom: Oh, fuck. Super predator.

0:02:59 Eli: The super predators. Yeah,

0:03:00 Thomas: Yeah. We're gonna talk about super predators. Somebody only

0:03:01 Eli: Exactly, So I wanted to talk about stranger danger. Uh, you have older kids, so did you have stranger danger conversations with them? I want to talk a little about what we were told, which I think we can all agree is bananas in pajamas level crazy. Like, I would love to know the shit your parents did. Did you ever have a password, for example? I had a password with my family. Oh,

0:03:25 Tom: Password. Password, what do you mean, a password? We had a

0:03:27 Eli: God, neither of your parents cared if you lived or died, okay. So let, let me explain what was happening over in the Loved Children's.

0:03:29 Thomas: Yeah Yeah.

0:03:31 Tom: Password. I'm just, when did you use it for what?

0:03:34 Thomas: It's not exactly true, but it's also, when you have so many kids, like you, now I've learned, my, my mom had four kids to deal with, I think she was like, I'm, you, like, oh my god, could if exactly, if one was got taken, she'd like, well, you know, that's why I had four.

0:03:42 Eli: It. When you have four kids, you Have a Spare. What are you going to do?

0:03:47 Thomas: Yeah. No.

0:03:48 Eli: Two more, and then I'm really going to buckle down.

0:03:50 Thomas: My mom would have been devastated. My mom loved us, a she still didn't care if we'd lived or died. We didn't have a password. Do what's the note I actually want to know, too.

0:03:56 Tom: All right, yeah, we got to go to this, password, because I

0:03:57 Eli: Okay.

0:03:58 Thomas: What's the password thing.

0:03:58 Tom: Think, yeah, I want to know what's the password. Like, what, when was it used? Did you, did you live in a speakeasy? Well,

0:04:05 Eli: Yeah, the sitch, right? The late 80s, early 90s, they started to catch on. So late 70s, early 80s is the real beginning of Stranger Danger, and it's because there are a series of, it turns out made up kidnappings, right, were real ones, but they were family members, and those family members were lying about who had done it, right, which is

0:04:17 Thomas: Pats well there's also real ones, but, yeah, well I think the the Eaton -Patz one, they just solved recently.

0:04:27 Eli: Sure

0:04:27 Tom: There are stranger kidnappings, that's not something that never happens, yeah,

0:04:29 Thomas: Yeah, not so much that it's made up. It'S that people can't understand statistics. So like one kid got taken in like New York because a stranger, that's the Eatin -Patts one, right? Cause I think that's, be, if I remember right, the first milk carton kid or whatever. Is that, does that ring a bell? So it's around that time. And then, you, that people can see on the TV or on, on the milk carton, oh, this one kid got taken, everyone is like, well, that is definitely happening to my kid now, because we can't, if we see something we're like, that's now, that is us now, even though it's one out of a billion, yeah.

0:04:44 Eli: Yeah, right, it's everywhere, yeah, so so Absolutely, so late 70s, early 80s, it was that, and it was just like, don't get lured into a van by kids, right, and that was mostly like educational films being like, look, we all know it's fun to take a ride with a stranger in a brand new automobile, but there are times and places, what by the time I was a kid, because, again, I was born in '87, so late 80s, early 90s, they were vaguely aware but not really talking about the fact that like family members are the ones that kidnap you, right, and you do not want, like, you can't get into that too much because we're definitely not having that full conversation, conversation, but what they understood is like, people who know you kidnap you.

So even if someone you know shows up to the school and says like, hey, your mom or dad can't be here, they told me to pick you up, they encouraged families to come up with a password, right, so that your parents, who needed you to come get picked up by a person you're not normally picked up bei, would tell that person the password, mine was The Simpsons, um, and then you

0:05:12 Thomas: Oh wow

0:05:15 Tom: Okay, so

0:05:58 Eli: As the, the kid would know that your parents had actually sent that person.

0:06:03 Tom: My dad had something, something similar, so dad was a single dad obviously, so, and he was away at work, we came home from school, we were supposed to go straight home from the school, do not pass go, do not collect 200, and then he would call at the same time every single day, so like, if we were, if the bus dropped us off at 3:05, he'd call us at like 3:11 or whatever it was, and, but he would, we were not allowed to answer the phone, just, it's own, so you'd call and hang up, so it would ring once, and then, then you'd call back. So you waited for the first ring and that's how you knew it was dad, is, cause we're like, we're little kids and he like, the same thing.

0:06:15 Thomas: To the tiling fucking factory, yeah, he doesn't want to miss an

0:06:40 Tom: And the no, it's because you don't want to pick up the phone as a little kid. They were teaching you the stranger dangerous stuff that you don'T want to pick up. You pick up your phone and it's a stranger and they find out you're a little kid home alone.

0:06:40 Thomas: Important phone call, like by you answering the wrong call. Oh, really, oh my god, that is so insane, that's hilarious. See

0:06:54 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. So, in order for us, the only time we could answer the phone, if the phone rang,

0:06:59 Thomas: Here's what I do, I'm a criminal, I call random numbers all the time all day, I just call random members I yeah if a kid answers and I go, hey, uh, hey little buddy, right,

0:07:04 Eli: Wait until I find a kid who's on Malone.

0:07:10 Tom: But I think the way that it was like conceived of is remember, this is a world of phone books with addresses and names and everything. So like the, conceit back in the day was like, somebody would like watch your house. Right. And then they would know like, like, oh, maybe the kid's home alone, you know, like, right.

0:07:16 Eli: Sure.

0:07:20 Thomas: No, I yeah, yeah, I know, but but it goes to Eli's point that, like, this was before, they're like, oh wait, it's just a family member almost every time, so idea was, no, no, you don't understand, there's these bad guys out there and their whole day job actually is just casing joints and, like, looking through phone books trying to call to see but like, in, in that world where they're so vigilant, wouldn't they already just like, oh, I see that the kid went home and no one answered the phone, so that must mean that whatever, okay, so that's still funny though, yeah,

0:07:31 Tom: Right, know

0:07:41 Eli: Turn it on the sinks. Yeah.

0:07:55 Tom: Is, know, it's funny because I'm, I, I googled it out of curiosity, just while we were talking, so it means I did literally no research except for just googling how many kids are abducted by strangers, and what is kind of interesting is a a fry, no, right, but a first glance of the returned results is that number is fucking all over the place, there is like no agreement on that number.

0:08:04 Eli: You're on a list now.

0:08:06 Thomas: Yeah, they Yeah. Well, it's like the whole, I know you've listened to a lot of the same shows where if they look into the human trafficking thing, and it's like literally police just make up numbers. So like they'll, they'll quote like, oh, did you know five million children are taken every morning from the windowsill? And then they're like, where did that come from?

0:08:32 Eli: Like a hot pie.

0:08:33 Thomas: They'll be like, yeah, that's smell of a kid. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

0:08:31 Tom: Like a pie, yeah.

0:08:35 Eli: Pedophiles are led over by their delicious, delicious scent. Yeah.

0:08:41 Thomas: That's why I don't put the baby on the windowsill anymore. It's, you know, it's one of life's pleasures taken away by.

0:08:43 Eli: Yeah.

0:08:46 Tom: Of these, like, it's like as few as 33 children, and then others is as many as 20,000 children. And dann there's every single number in between

0:08:52 Thomas: Yeah, the 20 ,000 is fake. It's

0:08:53 Eli: It's definitely not that one. It's certainly not that way.

0:08:55 Thomas: Not that one.

0:08:55 Eli: It's not that. I look.

0:08:55 Tom: Right that's what I mean but it's it's like, it's fucking insane.

0:08:56 Thomas: 33 is a believable number. Yeah, well, but that's the thing. If you think about how fucking vigilant basically everyone is with their kids and how, you know, that's a crazy event for a random person to just snatch a kid. Now, it happens because it's a big world. It's a Big Awful World. World. But like, when you, the thing that people can't do is compare, well, what's our denominator and our numerator here, like, how, how rare, and also if you looked at those cases, it would probably be insane stuff that it's not like, oh, what happened, that kid accidentally answered the phone one time one time.

0:08:59 Tom: Yeah. Right.

0:09:27 Tom: I know.

0:09:28 Eli: Yeah.

0:09:28 Thomas: No, it'd be like, well, the parents were both on drugs and left them out in an amusement park for four days and then someone, you know, it'll be some shit like that

0:09:28 Tom: Right? Oh

0:09:35 Eli: Eventually, they were scavenging for cotton candy. The problem, look, and I want to speak on behalf of the abductors here, because I feel like this perspective doesn't get represented enough. Let me throw this out there. The problem with being a kid snatcher of strangers is it must occur to you that like everyone in the world is 100% without any doubt or hesitation willing to kill me if I get caught, which is not true of other crimes, right? If I see someone breaking into a car, I'm like, that's that fucking car business. I hope that person has insurance. But

0:09:36 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's some

0:09:43 Tom: My God. What is happening?

0:10:08 Eli: Like nuns

0:10:09 Thomas: People who might kill you but Yeah. Not yeah.

0:10:10 Eli: And little old ladies will be like, I'll beat you the fuck to death, motherfucker. It's time to go. This is why I was put on this earth was to kill you in this moment. I'm so happy. I found my purpose. I'm just saying, it's probably hard to be a kid snatcher.

0:10:10 Thomas: Exactly. Yeah. No.

0:10:23 Thomas: Exactly. Yeah. So it's like it's not it's a not a low risk occupation, you know, it's

0:10:25 Tom: Yeah.

0:10:28 Eli: It's why I always wondered in Home Alone. Because I remember home alone which again was another insane stranger danger mythos that like you wouldn't break into a house and then be like oh there's a kid here and be like well I guess we just gotta beat that kid up right do

0:10:28 Tom: Yeah,

0:10:32 Thomas: It's so insane saying yeah we got to defeat the kid Yeah, once I start a break-in,

0:10:45 Eli: We have no choice but to fight that child

0:10:46 Thomas: Yeah. Finished what I started. Yeah, yeah.

0:10:48 Eli: Yep

0:10:51 Tom: That's so funny. How I never thought about how home alone is like so much plays into into that fucking trope that we get. Cause like that home alone was made for like, as a kid's movie, it was like made for my age when I'm having kids, like from when that came out. Right. So like it plays into that trope. Cause I, I a hundred percent believed like, oh man, there's going to be people like around every corner. And when I grew up, I thought there was going to be quick sand down power lines and people with vans full of puppies. And like, I did find a Reuters article that says that in the years 2010 to 2019, it's only 350 kids abducted by strangers in that 10-year period, like it's a vanishingly rare occurrence like it just a vanishingly rare occurrence I don't know.

0:10:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. Yep, yeah.

0:11:17 Eli: No

0:11:28 Thomas: That sounds right, yeah. Well, if you take, yeah, if you take two seconds, it's

0:11:34 Tom: Nationally.

0:11:35 Thomas: Not gonna be a crime of opportunity that like, like we always, the the places, this is what I love. I love where we, the things we fear, and Eli will, will never accept this. Like the McDonald's lady, like it's actually safe to leave your kids in a locked car if it's not hot, you know, like, from, in most cases, it's more safe to do that than to walk them across a 10 lane fucking street to get to the post office. And then, you know what I mean? Like if you actually do the numbers, it is way safer to leave them in a lock car. That's cool. No, it totally true.

0:12:01 Eli: Absolutely not I just refuse I'm

0:12:03 Thomas: But like the idea is no, no, You don't understand, what will happen is, here's what will happen. A passerby who's just like an accountant or something will see your kid in the car and be like, oh, you know, I was thinking I might kidnap and murder a kid someday and I'm not doing anything right now, there's those kids Well,

0:12:03 Eli: Distancing myself from you officially I

0:12:18 Tom: Right.

0:12:20 Eli: Thought it's because they boil in there I thought that I

0:12:22 Thomas: No, No, So That's, yeah, the crucial ingredient is it can't be a summer day in fucking California, but that's a very easy variable, like, you, that's Well,

0:12:31 Eli: don'T TRUST ANY SINGLE PARENT I've met a lot of parents there's not one I trust to be like it's not too hot today not one parent I know is like it'S NOT TOO HOT TODAY I 'LL LEAVE MY KID EVERY PARENT I KNOW WOULD BE LIKE IT'S 98 DEGREES IT'S NOT EVEN 100 DEGrees AND I REALLY DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO BRING THEM DON'T

0:12:41 Thomas: Okay. Okay. No, that's death. Do not. That's actually very. Yeah. No. That's very real. Do not fucking ever leave your kid in when there's no AC when it's when it is. Yeah, if it's anything like sunny in a way that seems warm at all, don't do it.

0:12:53 Eli: LEAVE YOUR KID ANYWHERE EVER AND AT ANY TIME EVER ANYWHERES YES IF THERE'S A SUN IN THE SKY DON'TLEAVE YOUR CHILD IN A CAR I agree

0:13:00 Thomas: Yeah yeah. No, if it is winter, it's not going to happen, like, there is no, you know, it's, it's, but Anyway, also, every car that we own has a, we can just hit a button and it keeps the climate at a perfectly controlled amount for the entire time that we're away. So it's literally not a concern. But anyway, the point is that there aren't just a bunch.

0:13:06 Eli: Braggy

0:13:18 Tom: Yeah,

0:13:17 Eli: My car has two settings boil the baby and freezing yeah

0:13:22 Thomas: That's fair. But the point is there's not just people walking by who are like, if I see a kid, you know, like if I seek it, take a kid. There's like a dish.

0:13:29 Tom: Right. Yeah.

0:13:32 Eli: It's like those those guys who take all the pennies from the penny dishes yeah he's like oh

0:13:34 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:34 Tom: Oh, God damn it. They left a kid. God, they left on Jesus.

0:13:37 Eli: Yeah

0:13:36 Thomas: Take a kid leave a kid kid. Hey, I'm short by one to two kids, do you have can I take that? No, not unless not unless you buy something. You can only take a kid if you buy something, sir. Okay, fuck.

0:13:48 Tom: Didn't look this up. I, do you think that it was a higher rate? Pardon me is still invested in this narrative. Cause I grew up with this narrative, so like, I I'm calling myself out on it right, right now. But like, do you Think that like some of right,

0:13:54 Thomas: Yeah. Oh.

0:13:55 Eli: I mean everything bad everything bad was worse before we can safely say that one

0:14:01 Thomas: For sure, and and now take Take what Eli said, which is, which is a great point, legitimately, like, you know, that you are doing a crime for which likely the penalty is death if anyone catches you, you know, like. Like, and combine that with, now everyone's got a cell phone. Eli's baby, I say baby, Eli's kid Max is actually his bloodstream is those iPhone tags. Those, yeah, is a geo tag that, so like to combine that with today's technology. So yeah, Tom, totally. It was more back then, but that'll mean like, you know, 51 people, kids a year versus 32 kids a week. Like, it's not, it'S not like it was 10 ,000 and now it's 30.

0:14:23 Eli: Out of three cells yeah is a key tag yep the

0:14:40 Tom: Well, that, yeah. Of, And that's kind of where I was, was headed where is like, I wonder how much more of an issue it was. Cause in the eighties, like we joke, but like in the eighties it was like, we had jarts, man. Like nobody cared. Like it was like you had a station wagon without seatbelts. You had jards. Like part of me is like yeah, you know, lawn darts, lawn darts jarts.

0:14:56 Eli: Lawn dart things yeah I

0:14:54 Thomas: What's charts? I literally don't know. Oh, lawn darts. Okay. I didn't know they were called jarts. Oh, is that a brand or is that?

0:15:00 Tom: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah Yeah. Was the brand Yeah, That was

0:15:04 Thomas: Okay.

0:15:03 Eli: Was picturing um darts made out of jean for a second there so I'm glad we I was pretty sure I knew but

0:15:06 Thomas: Yeah, I was going to do shorts. It was like jorts. I thought there was some dangerous version of jorts back then. Jarts. That's when you sharted in your jort. When you shart in your Jort, it's a Jort.

0:15:19 Tom: It's a chart.

0:15:09 Eli: Yeah oh man when you were if you sharted in your jarts I feel like we're gonna activate a winter soldier I don't know why but I feel I feel if we just if we keep fucking around with this premise one of our listeners is gonna shoot the president and we've got to be careful we've just got to be careful so yeah I mean yep

0:15:31 Tom: Because, I- Like, Even though I think that that's true, like, I'm, I'm 100 on board that, like, the dangers that we think that our kids are are facing are so much less in reality than like what we build up in our minds. I'm a thousand percent there. And I still, I think back to when I was a kid and I walked to school by myself when I was six down 63rd Street in Chicago. And I'm like, I wouldn't let Finn, who's 17, drive down that street right now.

0:15:44 Thomas: Yeah.

0:16:00 Tom: Are you kidding me? I remember this is, so there is this vast gulf, I guess, between the acceptable dangers that we took on when we were kids and sort of the way that I parent my kids now, which is like, Like, I know where they're at all the fucking time. They all have like an app on their phone. I look down, I'm like, yeah, I know where the kids are a hundred percent of the time.

0:16:00 Eli: Yes

0:16:01 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And then you can tell if they've jerked off and they can tell if you've jerk off, right? Right there. The accountability, buddy.

0:16:23 Tom: And we don't have, you'll

0:16:24 Eli: Exactly you covenant eyes each other

0:16:26 Thomas: Yeah. Coming to us.

0:16:26 Eli: Yeah obvious that's important yeah

0:16:27 Tom: Have the same app. I promise.

0:16:29 Eli: Oh tom tom you

0:16:30 Thomas: Oh, 100 percent.

0:16:31 Tom: Oh, I knew it.

0:16:31 Thomas: Yeah, I want it now.

0:16:32 Tom: I know you will.

0:16:32 Eli: Think I'm gonna have one fucking app that's the issue

0:16:33 Thomas: Yeah now, Eli, he was Eli. He was talking to me. He's not he already knows that you're going

0:16:37 Eli: Oh okay yeah all right yeah

0:16:37 Tom: Yeah. Eli, I expect you to, I expect you just so an air tag into max any minute, like at any moment. And surgically implant an air tag.

0:16:43 Eli: No no yes

0:16:44 Thomas: To invent actually like marvels of biology that are like, scientists can actually use the tech you invent to track your kid. Like, it'll be that you'll create a fake heart.

0:16:51 Eli: Exactly I'm I was disappointed that they didn't include a microchip with the vaccine because I would have loved one of those for my kid so

0:16:59 Thomas: You asked him at the place, you're like, can I scan a QR? How do I, you know, like how do I also track with the microchip?

0:17:03 Eli: So

0:17:05 Tom: Was like, my kids didn't learned stranger danger, though. My kids learned. And I think this is way, way better. My kids learn about tricky people.

0:17:11 Thomas: I like that. Okay.

0:17:12 Tom: Smart thing about the difference between stranger danger and tricky people

0:17:14 Eli: That code for jews it feels like it's code for Jews yeah

0:17:16 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:17:18 Tom: Is that tricky people can be family. They can be teachers. They can beat people that aren't strangers. In other words, the people most likely to commit a crime against a child. Right. So

0:17:28 Thomas: Tricky is way too delightful a word for that. Cause I picture a guy smoking a cigarette with a deck of cards, like under a street lamp. Right. Isn't that what you picture?

0:17:37 Eli: Doing the coin flip thing yeah

0:17:37 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:37 Tom: Just Eli. Yeah. Yeah, but

0:17:38 Eli: Yeah

0:17:38 Thomas: Yeah. The cornflakes. Yeah, that's either one. Just showing basic dexterity with something. Yeah.

0:17:44 Tom: Do remember liking that program that Finn and I don't know that Amon's gone through the same thing. I remember this for Finn when he was little is, yeah, they went through this whole tricky people program and it was, yeah. Like there are people that are going to try to like make you keep secrets, you know, and like they had a whole program. Then it really worked to move away from the stranger stuff and into the like, hey, like the reality is it's going to be people that, you know, so like maybe watch out for those fuckers, you know, and here's some things that tricky people do, you and a big part of it was like, you relationships and having secrets that like they don't want your parents to know about.

0:18:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. Yep, yep.

0:18:18 Tom: Like, that's not cool.

0:18:19 Thomas: Well, we had that whole discussion and I did the SIO with Stormy Decisis on it. I really think that's valuable information. That's the thing about, we joke, but if you are actually just interested in keeping your kids safe, then you should want to know the best data on what that is, you know? Because I feel like a lot of parents, it's just they're reacting out of fear, which I understand. I understand the parental fear, but if If you do an irrational fear where you're just reacting to the things that you've seen, the things that it's called the, what heuristics where it's like, because you've seeing the quicksand in a movie or cartoon, you're like, well, that's everywhere, but it's fucking not. That's not a reliable way to, and I think Tom, what you're kind of reacting to is a, yes, things were more dangerous back then. There's no way that's not true. Like with all the technology and

0:18:21 Tom: Yeah, right. Right. They

0:18:37 Eli: Right right that

0:19:03 Thomas: The thing they were, but, but not, near enough by an in order of magnitude to justify how people acted back then, because stuff is just mostly bullshit. And it's crazy. It's, I think even today it's hard for people to wrap their minds around how bullshit that was. Cause it's, you can't help, but think like, well, it must've been based on something. It's like, well, kinda.

0:19:03 Tom: Just were. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah do you guys when you were kids do you remember getting fingerprinted in case you were ever stolen or lost?

0:19:28 Thomas: Oh my God. Who brought that up? Was that you? Somebody,

0:19:30 Tom: I fucking got fingerprinted when I was a kid. My brother and I, we were at like a fair, like a thing.

0:19:34 Thomas: Lydia might've as well. Lydia, Somebody has brought that up, and maybe it was just you, Tom, but I think Lydia said she did or something.

0:19:35 Tom: Yeah. And now I resent knowing I'm in some fucking police database somewhere, right? Like I'm like, God damn it.

0:19:40 Thomas: Yeah, and honestly, that

0:19:45 Eli: Data was sold long ago

0:19:46 Thomas: Might be what it was for. Honestly, like, the police might have done that for that reason, like it might have been a program they did because, like, oh, we'll catch these fuckers when they steal stuff in, in 10 years of

0:19:47 Eli: Yeah tom if it makes you feel any better um fingerprints are buried under really thousands and thousands of rape kits so they're They're never going to get to them. Don't worry, buddy. You're, you're real safe.

0:20:00 Thomas: Rape kits that haven't been tested. Yeah. Oh, but, oh,

0:20:03 Tom: Fuck.

0:20:04 Thomas: I have to say, this on the password thing, this was having a rough night the other night. And I've talked about Phoebe. She definitely has some mental health challenges. We're doing therapy. Hard with a kid. Kid therapy is really hard. She's got some interesting, you know, things going on. Other day, I was talking to Phoebe, and I was like, the other tonight, she was having an hard night. And she was crying a lot for no reason. And that happens. I think it happens to all kids to some extent.

But, you know, she has a hard time. And she, for some reason, she was kind of just having like a fear-based thing. And she was like, she didn't want to do bedtime because she was like, oh, what if, what if there's a monster? And I always do like, no, don't worry. My job as a dad is I do a whole thing where I'm like, my job is dad. I don't let any monsters in. And I just, you know, I'm like, I lock the doors.

I make sure, you know, I check for monsters everywhere. We never let any monsters in the house. That's my whole job as a dad. So don't worry. And, you know, it kind of works a little bit, but this one, for some reason she got some weird, maybe it was a a movie, maybe who knows, but she was like, what, what if, I, I think it's you guys, but it's not. And we're like, what?

She's, yeah, what, what if, like, I think it's like you were mom, but like it's actually not, it's a bad guy. And I was like, uh, well, you'll know it's us. She's like, no, because they'll look exactly like you. And I'm like, oh, fucking Jesus Christ.

0:20:04 Eli: You're ooh,

0:20:04 Tom: Shit. Oh my God. God

0:21:15 Eli: Skinwalkers.

0:21:15 Thomas: Yeah, I know. And she's like, where's this coming so she's afraid of a thing that, and, and then she's, but all on her own she's okay, so what we're gonna do and keep. And she's fighting back tears. This little champion. Phoebe is actually my hero, by the way, because she has these horrible, like stressful things go on and she fights her way through it. You know, it's like, it's so, it's hard to watch, but it's also really like inspiring in a way, like, so she's finding back tears, which to her, this must be like the scariest thing ever, you no, you're also inspiring. I'm glad you're here, Eli. It's amazing what you've gone through.

0:21:16 Eli: Nice.

0:21:17 Tom: Damn.

0:21:38 Eli: Never Never say that about me. Just saying I have, I have a bunch of really realistic fears and I'm fucking, I'm

0:21:47 Thomas: But yeah, no. That's fair. That's a fair point. Point, but like fighting back to, she's like, okay, so here's, here's what we'll do. So we're going to do a password and that way you'll say it, you'll see it. And I'll know it's the real you. And I was like, oh yeah, sure.

0:21:49 Eli: Also afraid of skinwalkERS.

0:22:00 Thomas: Fine.

0:21:59 Tom: And I want it to be multi -factor authentication, dad. I want to

0:22:02 Eli: Oh shit. You got to get a push on your device. What text did I send you? Shit. God, trust

0:22:03 Thomas: You need to also, also I'm going to draw a picture, touch all the ones that are car lights and not the one, you know? And so, and so I was was like, well, this is already in my head. I'm like, this is fucking cool. I just love when my kids think of interesting things, you know, but I'm, like, okay, yeah, sure, and so, and she even does a thing. I think I was, like, yeah. I'll just say, hey, it's dad, or I can't remember what I said, but, I said something. She's, like, no, Here was the next thing, and I think maybe she's incorporating some of the Santa technology.

0:22:12 Eli: All the bicycles. Calls Man.

0:22:32 Thomas: She was, wait, but if they can hear us, then I can tell you what it is, because then and they'll hear it and then they'll say it. And then I was like, Jesus, fuck, what is going on in this poor kid's head? And so then I Was like, okay, here's what we'll do. You're going to, I'm going to go right to your ear. You'RE going to whisper it just silently in my, just, just no one else will hear. And she's like, Okay. And so I go and I put my ear and she whispers. I, it was some nonsense. I can't even remember the word. It was something nonsense.

0:22:58 Eli: I need you to fucking remember the word, okay. Thomas.

0:22:59 Thomas: Nope. Totally forget. I completely forget what it is.

0:23:00 Eli: Cool.

0:23:01 Tom: The stakes feel really high right now.

0:23:03 Thomas: I'm just realized this was a week or two ago. I've I've completely forgotten what it was. But fortunately, so do all kids. They forget everything that happened five minutes ago. Yeah, well, it hasn't come up. No, you're right. I probably should have remembered it, but I don't now. Anyway, this was right before bed. Like literally she said it and then she goes to sleep. She doesn't fucking remember. She doesn'T write something like that down. Well, no, she probably does remember, honestly. Okay. I'm actually a skinwalker.

0:23:27 Eli: Starts to panic.

0:23:28 Thomas: Yeah. I am going through

0:23:28 Eli: Fuck, what was the word I

0:23:30 Tom: How do I get her to tell me the goddamn password?

0:23:31 Thomas: A crisis right now. Do I have to call a helpline and be like, I need to reset my, oh,

0:23:33 Eli: Need to reset my password? Um, can you send me an email? Oh shit, it's my old one. Um, okay. I is

0:23:43 Thomas: It's to my old body. That was a good facsimile of me.

0:23:45 Eli: Yahoo still operate? Yeah. There's still a Yahoo.

0:23:48 Thomas: Y 'all are male.

0:23:48 Eli: Apparently. Sweet.

0:23:50 Thomas: No, but she whispers. And, and that, and what I loved is that actually worked. Like the cool thing is, and I don't know if all kids are like this, but with Phoebe, sometimes you can reason her into being okay. You know, like it is a irrational fear, but he's such a rational thinker in a lot of ways is that if I can make up something that works, you know, like it'll fix it. And so once she did that, she whispered the thing. She was like, okay. And then she like went to bed. She was happy, like smile on her face. Like went to, it was so, it was just a nice interaction. I actually really liked it.

0:23:49 Tom: Oh,

0:24:20 Eli: I, I hear that kind of stuff, I think about John Green's story from when he's a kid. He tells the story in the Anthropocene Reviewed, his new book, but um, so John Green has really terrible OCD. Um, when he was, I think, eight, he became convinced that his parents were aliens, and he secretly believed that his friends were aliens for like two years, right?

0:24:35 Thomas: Oh, wow.

0:24:41 Tom: Shit.

0:24:41 Eli: He would just like think about it at night and think about it when they weren't around. And when he was 10, he basically had an intervention where he was like, "Oh, okay guys. Um, I know you're aliens and I don't want you to be" mad at me. And I don't want you to be upset. And like, they got him the therapy and he was the beginning of his diagnosis and all that stuff. But I, I, you know, he, he describes it so beautifully. The, um, the image of, so he had a, uh, in the hallway that would cast the shadows of his parents as they were walking past his room every night. And he would wait for it because he believed that was them taking off their human suits, because

0:24:41 Thomas: That's rough.

0:24:54 Thomas: Wow. Oh my God.

0:24:55 Tom: I

0:25:17 Eli: It kind of looked like human bodies falling to the ground when he did it. And the things that kids invent in their imaginations, you know, and that's, that's part of what I wanted to talk about, because like, I know I carry an unhealthy amount of fear around everything, Max, right? Um, And Me, me, and several

0:25:34 Thomas: No are we supposed to pretend that no

0:25:37 Tom: Didn't catch that from you.

0:25:37 Eli: No, No, no, no. Me and several medical professionals are working on my fears, but like one of the real things that I worry about, like genuinely, I don't care if I'm in a state of panic for the rest of my life. It's fine. Whatever. It wasn't great to start out. I wasn't, I wasn'T working at a 90 and I moved down a bunch of points. Right. So like I'm, whatever's going on with me, I just don't want to pass it along to Max, especially because Max has really, really significant communication communication issues. Right, the things that he is afraid of, he might not necessarily be able to communicate to us. Right, a funny version of this, a funny vision of this happened the other night, which is that my mother, Max is fucking obsessed with Hanukkah this year, who knows why. He's like, Hanukah fucks hard, it fucks long, I

0:25:39 Tom: Sure. Sure.

0:25:53 Thomas: Yeah oh yeah oh nice it's

0:26:25 Eli: Love Hanukka, so we were like, yeah, man, whatever we we don't believe in any of the gods, so we do Hanukiah. So my mother got him this really art lovely, artist, artist-made um that looks like a little train, and my son fucking loves trains, so he's super psyched about it, but then when Anna hit, lit the candles, he just kept saying that he was too and being really upset, and I think he thought maybe it was his birthday and we had the wrong amount of candles, like, but again, because he has such severe communication issues, that's one of the things that we really struggle with, is like, Max cannot tell us what

0:26:26 Tom: Oh,

0:26:27 Thomas: Often said about Hanukkah yeah no No, that's, well, yeah, it's over now.

0:26:50 Thomas: Oh, birthday cake. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

0:27:01 Eli: Is going on in that moment, so that is one of the things that I really worry, is like passing those fears along to him. And where I'm interested is like, where you guys think those healthy lines are, and like, also where we talked a little about, like, lying to your kids last week, like, where it's a good place to lie to your kid and not lie to your kid, right? Because I, I think there are some, like, truths about the world that I think an adult brain really needs to handle. Like, one of my wildly unpopular opinions is like, I think grown-ups talk to kids about climate change way too much, right?

0:27:02 Thomas: Wow.

0:27:37 Thomas: Interesting.

0:27:37 Eli: And I think it's because they want responsibility, right, and they want kids to care about it, but I think the way kids process the conversation about climate exchange is wildly different than what we think, right? We walk away and we're like, man, I really impressed on that kid the importance of taking, taking care of the earth, and you know, we're not too far gone because this next generation. And your kid is just like, I have an anxiety disorder now, it is in here because you told me we're all gonna die. And like, that's not, you can't, you're not doing like a wink. I don't have a wink in my brain yet, that's a wrinkle that's not there yet. Um, so like, when, yeah, it comes to the stranger danger stuff, like, Thomas, are you gonna do tricky people? Like, what are you, what are of you, what's the, what's the system I

0:28:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:02 Tom: Yeah.

0:28:18 Thomas: Well, first of all, I think it's important to talk about ages because I do, it is. We often do like, don't talk to kids about, and it's like, well okay, do you mean three years old? Do you mean 14 years old, you know, like I think that's a wide range. So I think at a certain age, he'll

0:28:30 Tom: Until

0:28:31 Eli: Forbid anyone to talk to my son about climate change until he's 21. No,

0:28:34 Tom: He's 21, yeah.

0:28:35 Thomas: Have already learned about it by then. No, but I actually am genuinely.

0:28:37 Tom: It won't matter

0:28:39 Eli: No, cuz I'll be standing in the back of his, I'm gonna, you know, those weird people who the fucking perverts who come in and like, there better not be a gay kid in a book, I'm going to do that with climate change, right? It's just sitting there in science class and just hard eye contact.

0:28:49 Tom: Right.

0:28:51 Thomas: Oh, it's OK. That guy is also doing that. Don't worry. That guy's like, there better not be a gay man in the book and climate change isn't real. Yeah, you don't have to duplicate his labor is what I'm saying. Yeah.

0:28:58 Tom: Yeah.

0:28:56 Eli: Hey, I found friends nice, once, again. I find myself weirdly allying with the right, nope,

0:29:04 Thomas: Yeah, let's take that as a sign. No, I think there's an age where it makes Sense. I think it's okay. I mean, look, there's a lot of just general in Disney and whatever, just like, oh, pollution and the earth, take care of the, you know, Fern Golly, don't you know, so like that already gets that message out a little bit. But in terms of the stranger danger, I actually am really, what do you do, and Tom, what did you do? Because this comes up to me all the time. I don't know if it comes up for you guys, but my kids will ask, are there bad guys? Are there real bad guys, you know? And I'm always like, well, not really, you know, at first when they were super little, I'm like, nah, but like now, you know, they're a little bigger, I'm like, not really, there are, there are bad guys, but they're not like, you, the movies, they're just kind of, they' re just very not nice or something, I don't know, how do you guys handle that question?

0:29:06 Eli: I refuse to learn thank you it's tough, right? That's exactly what I'm talking about, because like, practically, I need them to understand yes, but also I need to lay the foundation for the fact that, like, evil is often code for societally unacceptable, and that most of the people who make those rules, we disagree with, right?

0:29:57 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And to the, I don't want, want them only on the lookout for cartoon evil, in the same way that you don't only want to be on the lookout for stranger danger. Once again, sorry to say, but back to that SIO episode, if you want them to be protected against, like, getting, you know, assaulted or abused in some way, if you tell them certain with a, with a weird uncle. Yeah. If you, If you tell him only, you know, no, no one touches and also no. What was the one that was a really good one? It was, um, it if you frame things in terms of like, often they do like, you you know, oh, the doll, like no one touches you in your special place, that leaves out a bunch of stuff. Like, did someone change in front of you? Cause that's actually, you know?

Like what these people do to sort of initiate, that they start a slower and try to build trust. And so if just frame in terms of, did anyone touch you in you're probably bad place, you're like, you're actually doing yourself a disservice and trying to protect your kid. And those are the things that, but I'm, I'm interested in that because I want to the extent that I'm going to help my kids and really protect them, I want it to be in the effective most way possible.

And the best way to do that is to do our best current understanding of how things work. You tell us a massively different thing than stranger danger. Look out for those, you know, the guy in the dark that will have the thing. It's like, no, no. So I want them to not just be on the lookout for the villain from fucking Fern Galley or whatever.

Like I want, you know, I want him to be aware that often society's bad guys come in a shell that might look pleasant or not. Or might, you know, like, but I also don't want him to make, to become afraid of literally everyone. You know, how do you fucking

0:30:13 Tom: Right.

0:30:22 Eli: Leave them in a car, yeah. Right

0:31:35 Thomas: Strike that balance?

0:31:35 Eli: And there are also conversations you don't wanna have, right? Like that, that is something that I'm confronted with, is like, you know, I think the reason why stranger danger was so easy to teach is it was like, be careful kid, they'll snatch you off the street, and then your single smudgy handprint will press against the glass as the van drives away, right? Whereas, like, hey, sometimes adults will wanna want to, you know, touch you in places you don't want to be touched. Kids are going to ask, like, why would they do that? And then you've got to be like, ah, ah, fuck, okay, so here's the thing about

0:31:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Evolution.

0:32:10 Eli: Pedophilia, okay, nope, nope, right? Like, that's, and these are really necessary conversations.

0:32:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard.

0:32:16 Tom: They are, yeah.

0:32:18 Eli: And it's, I just, yeah, I feel very um, tricky

0:32:20 Thomas: I think tricky people is a promising premise. I've never heard of that. Yeah.

0:32:22 Eli: People sounds fucking awesome. Yeah, Yeah.

0:32:24 Tom: Tricky people was, I, I had no issues with the tricky people thing, I thought that made all the sense in the world. I think all of the answers to all of these questions are, they're so deeply age-dependent, like everything, like you'd mentioned before, like, you, there's a huge difference between what you're going to tell, you know, your point, Eli, like, would you tell, like, if your kids say, like, are there bad people in the world? Well, yeah, I mean, like, when my kid is four, I'm going to say, I'm not going to be a bad kid, I'm just going to tell him something similar what Thomas said. I would say, yeah, there are, there are bad people, but you don't have to worry about that, because dad's here to keep you safe.

0:32:53 Tom: I would tell my kids, my number one job is to love you and take care of you, and I'm good at my job. And it always made them feel chill about things. I think when kids are little, part of our job is to minimize some of those anxieties before they accelerate and get out of control. And you minimize them not by being dismissive, but by reassuring them of all the ways that they are safe, you know, and telling them all the things that are in place in gentle and not, you know, broad stroke kind of age appropriate ways, all the way that we work to make them safe. Hey, you don't have to worry about that. It's my job to keep you safe and I'm good at my job. You know, like I'm stronger than any bad guys. You don't have to worry about that. I'll take care of you. You're always by somebody that I love and trust. I make sure of that.

0:32:35 Thomas: Yep. Yeah, yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah

0:33:36 Eli: Easy for you to say, Tom. Like my kids are going to be, oh

0:33:37 Thomas: But do you have a Phoebe? If you have Phoebe she'll be like really how much you bench? Well let me see your numbers. How much do they bench? Do they?

0:33:43 Eli: Shit. Okay. Well, so here's the thing about the bad guys. Okay?

0:33:51 Eli: They all have a really weak knee. I know it's great. See, this is, this is how you get a skit. I'm giving my kids schizophrenia because I'm trying to figure out how my kid won't obviously see all guys, let alone bad guys could kick my ass. So I've got to be like, yeah, no. Um, so there's a big red button on it, but you can't see it. Fuck. It's invisible. Okay, so there's things called fleshmancers. Never mind, honey, I did fleshmancer again. I said yeah, no, I told him there were fleshmansters again.

0:33:55 Thomas: And I'm Yeah.

0:34:06 Tom: Wait.

0:34:17 Eli: Yep.

0:34:16 Thomas: Oh,

0:34:18 Tom: So, but I mean, you're joking about that, but like your kids at especially a certain age, like they already see you in that way. They see you as like indomitable and invincible because you're the one that can scoop them up and pick them up and like hold them and like you'rethe one who makes them safe.

So it's an extension of their belief that you already make them safe, so I think for most kids in most circumstances, my experience was that kind of language really works works to alleviate those anxieties. But I think that as they get older, we do have to do some work of like, helping them confront the reality of a world that won't always be safe for them.

And it's, it's everything from like, all right, well, you know, I'm gonna let you go to your friend's house alone for the first time. So, you Now, I need you to like, look both ways when you cross that street, and don't forget, you're going to do this and that you're gonna, you know、, let me know as soon as you get there. And you do. Finn is 17. This is a great example. For example, Finn is 17, and this weekend he hung out at our house.

He was with us for the weekend, and he drove himself. So he had borrowed his mom's car, and he drove himself, which means he drove himself to my house with my other son and home, back to his mom's house. Was and like, yeah, you're going to need to text me when you get home. I know it's 12 minutes away. You're 100% going to need to text me when you get home because I am going to be

0:35:28 Tom: Biting my fucking nails for that 12 minutes while you're driving the car. So that like anxiety and that checking on doesn't ever stop. It just sort of shifts as the kids get older. But get back into the self-defense thing, but I think we at some point have to get real with the kids when it's a developmentally appropriate to say, all right, there are things you're going to have to do.

0:35:28 Thomas: A hundred percent.

0:35:48 Thomas: Give them, here's a sword. Oh.

0:35:50 Tom: There are going to be things you're going to have to do to take care of yourself now, you I'm not always with you and I'm NOT always going to BE able to swoop in and be there and protect you. And starts to change as their physical autonomy distances from your connection with them. Right. When they're really little, you're always right by their side. It's the easiest thing in the world to keep them safe. Like you're just physically some parent or trusted guardian is literally right there all the time. And then that changes.

0:35:50 Thomas: Okay. I thought that was,

0:35:50 Eli: Yeah

0:36:15 Thomas: Well, also don't, want I parents to put it too much pressure on themselves if their kids are still afraid of a lot of things. Cause like, I think a lot of that is just in, in built. Like, I Think a lot of it is you get a kid that's afraid. Arlo's afraid of nothing. Phoebe is afraid of everything. Like that's just, that's constant. You could tell it's amazing to me. It's so fascinating to me how much you can tell when they're fucking zero years old. Like it's, it is it that I, that is if the one thing I did not predict about having kids is how much that's true. And I don't, I, you know, I don't want to say, therefore, nothing you do matters. That's not true. Because as scientifically, again, from Stormy to Cysis, a bad parent can really fuck up a kid. So maybe becoming the 100th

0:36:26 Tom: Yes. Yeah.

0:36:27 Eli: Thus.

0:36:57 Eli: Tom.

0:36:58 Thomas: Percentile versus the 97th percentiles, whatever the fuck, that's maybe no difference. But the percentil to Tom's mom, that is a massive gulf. You know, like, so don't don't let it convince you that nothing matters. But a lot of this stuff, I think, is very ingrained and was always the same way. And so I'm doing my best. And I think that Tom doing some of those things of like, hey, you know, I'm I'm going to protect you and and you don't have to worry about bad guys as much like that. It does help. But just I would say just if your kid is afraid of a lot OF stuff, don't take it personally. Like, I really think, you Know, some some kids just have that anxiety. I just want to speak up for the for the the parent of kid with anxiety.

0:37:09 Tom: Yeah. Yeah,

0:37:10 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:37:31 Tom: No, yeah, yeah.

0:37:35 Eli: You just like haven't made them feel safe, you know, like they're the, like that core calling, that one thing that was asked of you, which was to take a child and make them feel safe and warm. You just failed at that.

0:37:42 Thomas: Yeah. Somehow, somehow I nailed it with Arlo though. I don't know how I fucking absolutely nailed it.

0:37:47 Eli: Failed at it, but you know, Hey, I'm sure you were

0:37:49 Thomas: Well, with Arla, I failed the other way. He's not afraid of anything. So yeah, it's like you can fail both ways. He'll just go get in someone's car probably someday.

0:37:53 Tom: It's fucked up. Oh, it's fucked up.

0:37:49 Eli: Really busy. I'm sorry. You had something better to do instead of making your child feel safe. Look, if your kid's not afraid enough or too afraid, what we're saying is you're a bad parent and it's all your fault.

0:38:06 Tom: Want to share real quick a that I think speaks to this a little bit. Aislinn used to be really afraid of thunderstorms, time, like she, every time there was a thunderstorm, She Would

0:38:13 Eli: Well, that's just stupid. Tom thunderstorms, not going to molest your kid. We're talking about serious shit today. Day he doesn't listen, Thomas, he does not listen. We're talking and He's just like, just like it's like he doesn't even hear us, sorry.

0:38:20 Tom: I Don't know Again Again

0:38:26 Eli: Go ahead, you

0:38:26 Tom: No She, every time there was a thunderstorm, she would run into our room and she'd be like, very afraid and in tears and like, she just like, she wasn't afraid of so many other things, but like, there were some things that absolutely just completely irrationally freaked her out. And there was like a real nice moment where, um, there was kind of like a turning point. And I gathered her over and, like, you know, calmed her down a little bit. And then I was like, when I was a kid, I used to stand at the window and I used to watch the thunderstorms with my dad. We used to watch the lightning and we learned to count between the lightning and the thunder to see how far it was. And I was like you want to just like hang out with me and we'll watch the lightning. We'll watch the thunderstorm together. And it she was very trepidatious at first, but after a while we stood there and

0:38:34 Thomas: Wow. Yeah. I love that.

0:39:08 Thomas: Like, great

0:39:08 Tom: Like watch this thunderstorm.

0:39:09 Thomas: Dad. Now I'm scared and bored.

0:39:11 Tom: Yeah.

0:39:12 Eli: Added math to my fears shit because.

0:39:18 Tom: But I I really enjoyed that moment where, you know, after that she, she really relaxed, like she still would run into our room a few times afterwards, but it was much less fear and was much more, "Well, let's watch the thunderstorm now." You know, this one, she was pretty little, you know, and it really helps to sort of acknowledge where the kids are at with those fears and to not be like, "Oh my god, that is a big deal." Because the other thing I think there's a tendency sometimes to do is to catastrophize with them in terms of the amount of empathy. So if they're upset at level 11 over something that's a thunderstorm, which is a level one, you to meet them somewhere in the middle. You don't want your empathy to be at 11.

0:39:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, you have, I was going to say you do have to, you can't do zero. You absolutely can't do zero you do have to meet them a little bit yeah right

0:40:03 Tom: Right. Yeah. Absolutely not. But it's a problem to meet them at 11 too, right? Because that to a large degree, if you're empathizing at the same level as their fear, I think to a larger degree, you're validating that fear, right. You're saying this irrational thing you're terrified of my God, you should be so scared. And I'm going to swoop you up in my arms. Like this is the biggest deal ever. There's a middle space to find there. And it can be very tough to find that, especially in the moment. But I think that's something that if you can do it can really go a long way toward like reducing that anxiety, if that makes sense.

0:40:08 Thomas: Yeah for sure yeah and when she's all calmed down, you say, you know, there's going to be bigger and bigger versions of these storms now because of climate change. More people are dying every day how

0:40:42 Eli: He's climate change you

0:40:43 Tom: You know lightning and

0:40:43 Eli: Know there's a the the midnight clock they've moved that clock even closer to midnight I don't know if you know this really look into that but the occurrence of where are you going one

0:40:44 Thomas: Many people are drowning yeah it's actually after midnight now somehow yeah

0:40:48 Tom: Sometimes the lightning does go through the window it I'm just want to tell you it does it can yeah roy cone had it only if

0:40:54 Eli: It does it can but

0:40:54 Thomas: Yeah but only if you've been bad the lightning only tries

0:40:58 Eli: Only if you've angered god well and look if I can pivot slightly because we've had this whole conversation. It's fucking nuts that all over the world right now there are kids who are like, I had a nightmare that the devil took my soul. Because I know listeners have told us these stories and their parents are like, yeah, no, that's a real thing to be afraid of absolutely make sure you stay afraid of that and don't, you know, be gay or whatever. Maybe

0:41:01 Tom: You've been bad oh yeah right right

0:41:00 Thomas: Oh god yeah yeah major concern yep make sure you fucking do a weird ritual to appease the fucking indifferent god, you know, like make sure you get this little

0:41:24 Tom: Oh

0:41:29 Eli: You won't be so sleepy on Sunday now because the devil is going to take your soul away.

0:41:31 Tom: Thomas

0:41:30 Thomas: Yeah yeah make sure you clutch this statue of a guy being tortured to death and like say some magical words to it, and then for some reason that helps. I don't, you know, like that, that, yeah, that makes the all knowing creator of the universe slightly happier with you and won't kill you or something. I don't fucking.

0:41:42 Eli: That helps. That's a big helper.

0:41:50 Tom: Real quick, one thing for Phoebe too that I, um, did with Finn god fucking a million years ago, I just remember this is I I bought some like, uh, aerosol like, uh, Febreze type stuff and and um put a well like a thing around it, around the thing, it said monster go away spray spray and like you do a like a go away spray before bed, it's like, oh, well, monsters hate this so we'll just spray this around, it'll keep the monsters away because they're already magical thinkers, so you can kind of just like play on that a little bit when they're little enough that that that works pretty good

0:41:55 Eli: You hide under her bed.

0:42:02 Thomas: Hmm. Oh, pretend it was like, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. I love that. Hmm. For sure. And that's, I, I've read that in parenting books is a genuinely good, like piece of advice to, cause it still validates, you know, it doesn't shut down like, and make them think their concerns are invalid. Valid?

0:42:22 Tom: Right

0:42:29 Eli: Interesting. I would be worried that that would result in like my son bringing someone home from a date. Like I had a really good time tonight. Me too. Um, do You want to come inside? I would, uh, I would love that. Uh, give me one second. I just got to spray the monster spray. We obviously, we don't want to be interrupted by what we're about really got to get this monster spray, you know, they don't sell this. My parents make it at home and they send it to me, uh, every time I run out of it and I just need I need more and more, I can't sleep, where are you going, you're going, oh, you're gone at least they're not religious. Am I right? God, can you imagine what a fucking horror story that must be?

0:42:36 Thomas: Let me spray this. Yeah. Yeah, give you some if you, yeah.

0:42:52 Tom: Secret recipe yeah and You know, I actually, now that I think about it, since 16 years almost, I want to give credit, that was actually Cecil's wife who came up with that idea, I remember she made she now I'm just remembering she made the first monster go away spray that I used and then I made, I, I remember because she made like this nice little, like, wrapping, like, this thing around it, like, yeah

0:43:13 Thomas: Oh, wow. That's awesome. Oh, that's fantastic. Oh.

0:43:25 Eli: Nice I bet she did yeah she's an amazing artist

0:43:26 Tom: Right

0:43:26 Thomas: Oh, that's amazing. Oh, that's great.

0:43:27 Eli: Okay

0:43:27 Tom: Yeah I just remembered that, that was her idea, not mine, so I don't want to, yeah yeah

0:43:30 Thomas: That's so cool. Yeah.

0:43:31 Eli: Here's a question, because, so, for those of you who don't know, check uh it out, famousafteridie.com, I feel like Sarah wouldn't object, uh, draws these incredible, like, gothic, uh, horror is kind of one word to weigh, but you just gotta look at her work, it's so incredible would when you take your kid to their house do you have to be like, now don't worry, those are all the monsters she's killed already with her spray, like, I know you're gonna see a woman and eating out of her own skull, but that is just, that has been taken care of that lady

0:43:44 Thomas: It's like steampunky too, right? Or something.

0:43:47 Tom: It's got steampunk influence it's beautiful yeah

0:43:58 Thomas: That was a doozy. Yeah. She got that one. Yeah.

0:44:03 Tom: They I, I have a number of uh originals and prints in my house, so they've grown up around them, they've

0:44:08 Thomas: Nice.

0:44:16 Eli: Right, gentlemen, before we go, uh, did Adele cross the road to say hello from the other side? Hello

0:44:25 Thomas: Oh, Tom, you get that or you just pretending I didn't, I, I was ready.

0:44:27 Tom: I get that, that was great that's

0:44:29 Thomas: I was bracing for like, Oh, this is going to be a punchline. Nope.

0:44:29 Tom: A good joke you don't know that song

0:44:33 Thomas: I don't listen to any popular music because it's terrible.

0:44:34 Tom: Oh my god it's a great song oh it's great song

0:44:29 Eli: From me so sad oh Adele's music is great, you listen to some Lydia, you take off the headphones right now, you, you put on some Adele and you bring Heath, what's his name, not Heath, Thomas it's been a long week to get ads, you bring Thomas into a new world of music, Adele America's England's songstress and

0:44:39 Thomas: Oh, okay, Jesus

0:44:39 Tom: It's a beautiful song

0:44:47 Thomas: Christ, nah,

0:44:58 Tom: It's beautiful song, yeah and

0:44:57 Thomas: Lydia showed me one song she liked in the 90s and never again,

0:45:05 Eli: You were like, fuck you, and she was like

0:45:07 Tom: You're like I hate everything

0:45:07 Thomas: I was like,

0:45:07 Eli: Oh okay that's my life, all right

0:45:08 Thomas: Um, no, she just saw me, have because, a stroke trying to pretend I liked it, oh, yeah, they're singing, ah, and then she's like, you don't have to, okay, thank god, thank you, oh, thank god, all right, I mean, I can't just don't, oh, thank

0:45:14 Eli: I

0:45:27 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.

0:46:06 Eli: We got these, sorry, sorry about that.

0:46:11 Thomas: Slept for an hour and 40 minutes, yeah, oh

0:46:13 Eli: No, that wasn't a yawn. It was like a bad taste in my, I don't know what I, I licked my mic by accident or something. Fascinating things for the out. I don'T know what, I DON'T want to talk about it or think about it too hard. It's too much to

0:46:21 Tom: You're going to

0:46:17 Thomas: Weird what the fuck well it's definitely going in the outtakes

0:46:29 Eli: Just exist in this body than it is.

0:46:32 Tom: Lick the mic. Just do the breath work.

0:46:35 Eli: Yes. Thank you, Tom Gans. Tom is among the legions of listeners who tried that. Know I'm right but won't admit it okay um no

0:46:44 Thomas: You shart in your jort, it's a jort.