DOD114: Friend Request Your Kids?

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Tom: Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's looking for better role models. I'm Tom Curry, I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:38 Thomas: Hello, Tom on the internet. Got him.

0:00:41 Eli: All right. Interesting.

0:00:44 Tom: Caught me, my friend. Um, you guys want to give any, like, banter before we launch into the thing

0:00:49 Thomas: Yeah, do you have anything better than that, Eli? I was, I was heavily leaning on Eli.

0:00:51 Eli: Did you guys... I was just gonna let you... I was like, oh, Thomas, because you came right in with the strong... Hey, you know they're the only thing worse than fucking blowing your cold open as hard as we just did? Keep it. Fucking keep it, Lydia. I want you to keep all of this.

0:01:07 Thomas: No, not before I get a chance to say that this was a real lesson that I lean on Eli's brilliance too much. I think Eli was here to teach me a lesson because I can be like, hey, Eli, premise. And then and then you're like, oh, award winning comedy. And then I was like, yeah, just do that. And then then sometimes you're Like, yeah. Thomas premise. Go. Yeah. What about it? What about that premise?

0:01:16 Eli: I think all of podcasting does that. Sometimes Brilliance is in repose, and I think that's what today's episode is about. But the only thing worse than bearing the genius of me is the Auto Ads. Yes, the Auto Ads, which give you an extended commercial-free version of my genius, with my two adorable sidekicks here laughing at my japes and promoting me as I come up with ever more, more brilliant ways to educate you in, perhaps, the thing I'm most knowledgeable about, parenthood.

0:01:56 Tom: Yeah,

0:01:59 Thomas: Tom, we should lock Eli out of the show. Yeah, I,

0:02:01 Eli: Ha ha

0:02:01 Tom: I don't even let's change all the passwords. Change them right now.

0:02:02 Eli: Ha ha!

0:02:03 Thomas: This has gone too far immediately. I, I'm not

0:02:05 Eli: You can't lock me out of the show! You're locked out of the show with me! Or what's the, what does RoShark say?

0:02:14 Thomas: Locked out of the show. You're, no, it doesn't quite work, but it's, it's such a good joke, but we still couldn't find it. I love it. It's the great.

0:02:22 Tom: No. No.

0:02:15 Eli: You're locked in there with each other. Exactly. We didn't find it, but you know what? That's a thinker. That's That's a take home joke for you all. And if you enjoyed that take home joke, why not giving us something to take home by which I'm meaning money, patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads do it.

0:02:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:37 Tom: Okay, so we'll just launch, I guess, right into the episode like it's a regular podcast. I don't know. Let me check my timer here. Here. We're going to get to the topic in under three minutes. This seems like somebody else's show.

0:02:46 Thomas: Oof. Yeah. Yeah. God, should we should we announce some news or scheduling

0:02:53 Tom: Jesus Christ.

0:02:53 Thomas: Stuff or something just to

0:02:54 Eli: Yeah, exactly.

0:02:55 Tom: Somebody just do a soft shoe tap or some shit.

0:02:56 Eli: You guys got any what you talking about over on Talking Ship? Oh wait, we're recording two in one week. That makes no sense.

0:03:03 Tom: But is something that occurred to me this week. So I was reading through some stuff. And in house, and one of the things that in our family we think about a lot is modeling behavior and parenting through modeling. And always been very, I don't proud of myself and our family. For having done a thoughtful and I thought had done a reasonably thoroughly good job of this. And then somebody said something, I read something not that long ago, and they were like, well, what about modeling behavior online? And it absolutely stopped me in my tracks because I'm not connected to my kids at all online, even my 17-year-old kids. We don't share space.

0:03:39 Thomas: Tom blocked him on.

0:03:40 Tom: Space.

0:03:40 Eli: He's blocked. Honestly, if he was about to tell us that he had blocked his kids online, I'd be like, yeah, there it is.

0:03:46 Tom: You'd only be a little surprised.

0:03:46 Thomas: We would believe it. There's no way we would not believe that. We'd be like, yeah, no, that sounds right.

0:03:49 Tom: Well, The thing is like, I don't use Instagram. Um, have an Instagram. I never use it. My kids send me stuff on Instagram. I send my wife panda videos, but I've got like six pictures. I don't use it, so I don't have anything to show them like, hey, here's how to behave online. And like, I I'm not connected to the kids, they don't use Facebook and I don't use whatever else they're using, right? So I have a very limited social media presence anyway, and I don't enjoy spending time online, and so this is a place where I realize I have not modeled for my kids good behavior because I've not modeled any behavior online, and

0:04:26 Thomas: It's not true. If if I ever express an opinion, Tom, you usually disagree online with me pretty harshly.

0:04:30 Tom: That's True. I do disagree, going, no,

0:04:31 Eli: Ha ha ha ha.

0:04:32 Thomas: So if you want to if you want me to do that with your kids, I can. You know, do you want me to like, no, we shouldn't open doors for women.

0:04:35 Tom: I to be fair to

0:04:39 Thomas: And then, yeah, yeah.

0:04:35 Eli: No. Aislinn, I don't think it's Kelly's birthday, and I think you should really consider

0:04:42 Tom: Be fair, Thomas I either ignore you or disagree with you, one or the other, but

0:04:46 Thomas: We can, we can do that exercise with your kids. It's yeah. It'S up to you.

0:04:49 Eli: Donavan, it is not an awesome day at the skate ramp, you idiot. Lydia, get on here and tell Donavan that it's not an Awesome Day at the Skate Ramp.

0:04:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:59 Tom: Like, my kids, my kids are 17, they're online all day, they're online all day, it's like, it's where all their friendships are at, it's worth so much, of their social circles, are, they're on Discord, they're on all kinds of different platforms, and this is where their lives are socially lived. And I realized, like, maybe it's generational, maybe it's personal, maybe it's a combination of the two, it probably is, but I realized, like, they don't get very much modeling from me at all because we don't have that connection online.

0:05:26 Thomas: So that's a very interesting point. I'm so glad we're talking about this. This is a great topic suggestion, But Tom, I want to ask you, what do you think that could or should look like? Because it's a very private thing, even normally, like it's very, you're on your phone or whatever, and you're typing a thing. Like, Do you include your kids in that? Or what are you envisioning as a way to do that?

0:05:45 Tom: Well, I'll give you an example, so Haley is much more connected to her kids online than I am, and this actually came from a conversation Haley and I had, now that's where I remember it, but like, she does a better job modeling behavior with her kids because she's connected to them on the same spaces and platforms. And so she's engaging and they can see the kinds of things she posts, and she can see the kinds of things that they post. And if they post something that's like inappropriate or like whatever, she has insight into that. Right. And she has a connection to that, and they can see in turn the kinds of things that she posts. And so she's modeling a sort of online behavior, because, funny, because I strongly believe in how important it is to have a very cultivated online presence, and I've actually winnowed, and winnowing mine down so much that it's very little online presence, but I believe in that idea so strongly.

But I have realized that by believing that idea and spending so much time offline that I've not done that work of connecting to my kids and showing them, like, hey, here's what's appropriate. So, like, Finn is a great example, he posts stuff that's like not really age appropriate sometimes on his Instagram, and I see it because Hayley shows it to me, right? So she's like, look at this shit Finn's post, and I look at him like, god damn it. And it's nothing like wild or anything, I'm just, just like, dude, come on, man, this doesn't like reflect well on you.

0:05:49 Thomas: Hmm. Hmm. Okay.

0:07:05 Eli: What

0:07:05 Tom: Right, like, if you're gonna, like, meet, like, it's like bad jokes that are like, I don't even know how to describe it, it's like mildly sexually inappropriate bad humor, like it's all teenage shit, but I look at it I'm like, man, like, this is just like fucking really immature, and it's not who you are.

0:07:05 Eli: Is it?

0:07:15 Thomas: Yeah. Well, okay. But, but that what we were doing anyway? Just not online back then, you know?

0:07:20 Tom: Yeah. But the size of audience matters, I think, in a way that's different, you context-free now. So, like, like, when we were joking around, we were joking around in context with people that sort of knew the larger body of who we are. And now Finn has this like outward digital persona that doesn't match who he is, you know?

0:07:28 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, no, that's fair.

0:07:29 Eli: Yeah, there also just wasn't a forever record of it. Right. That like had real world consequences on a pretty regular basis. Like the things that I worry about is like, absolutely. Like I said, and did that stuff when I was a kid as well.

0:07:45 Tom: Right. Right. Same.

0:07:45 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

0:07:56 Eli: And I think we would think a lot of us did. I mean, in fact, I would say the people who are saying that they didn't, um, lying and have formed an identity about that lie. That's really dangerous, and I think that's one of the things that the social internet's done to us, that's really ugly. All that aside, without getting pulled down that path for now, um, think that like amount that you can be that person in public has changed wildly. And so that's part of the internet education we owe our kids, is like, "Hey, I know it feels like a fun thing, but like, here are a bunch of kids like a joke in a locker room or singing, singing a song on a bus." Or, by the way, these are not real examples.

0:08:35 Eli: So if I'm doing something that's a real example, don't come for me. I'm not defending anybody.

0:08:34 Thomas: I was going to say, these are, oh, I'm just imagining that Eli definitely did that butt in blackface as a kid. And that's, yeah,

0:08:43 Eli: I've just right. Yeah, exactly. I am. It turns out someone Googles like kids murder a woman on bus. And I'm like defending the bus murder trio or whatever, but I'm just saying kids do a thing. That's a part of their childhood for which there should be natural, uh, scale consequences. And then then, like, the mayor of their town and the president are talking about it, right? And it's the first thing that comes up when you Google them.

Like, part of what we have to model for our kids when it comes to the internet, and I know I've sort of cut you off before you got to make your larger point, Tom, but I think parts of what you have to do is you have a lot of people who are like, part of we have model for kids on the internet is that the social internet cannot be social anymore. It is no longer a place for you and your friends to connect. It is a place where the mentally ill and white supremacists to hunt for their victims. And if you would also like to use it to find pictures of your cousin's baby, you can. But the jungle is full of tigers now.

0:09:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:08 Tom: Right. Yes.

0:09:38 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I guess the only thing I was, point I was making with that is I do, and this might just be me emotionally preparing for this because this is going to be hard, but I know the transition of my kids going from the sweet, precious little babies that they are everything they say is cute No, I don't mind that, that's gonna be fine. I'm fine with thirst traps, but no, if if Arlo turns into the typical, like, know, adolescent boy, I'm actually really worried about that. But I also know that, like, goes through that phase, the jokes that they make that you me are gonna be like, "You fucking all right, man? Like, grow up." Like, I know I'm gonna have that feeling, and yet I know, know that I would have been that when I was a kid.

And I'm preparing myself for, like, all right, I can't my judge kids over and above what is appropriate there. But the online component, maybe that's a little different. So I was reacting to that and what Tom said. I'm just always sensitive to, are we being harder on our kids than we should because we aren't remembering what we were like when we were kids? That's just my sensitivity.

0:09:51 Eli: To Arlo's thirst traps.

0:10:33 Tom: Yeah.

0:10:33 Thomas: I mean, I'm not saying that, you know, necessarily that's what you do.

0:10:34 Tom: No, no. I think I I've advocated for for so long online is making sure that you have a very carefully curated version of your digital self available to the public and really think about curating that digital self. And that's always been something that I've out of my way to talk about and to advocate for, and it's been something I've been passionate about. Out and then I to

0:10:56 Thomas: Yeah. You came on my show like 10 years ago, and I named it a carefully curated Tom Curry, I think. I just remember that. I'm serious. You could look it up.

0:10:59 Tom: Talk about this yeah yeah yeah That was the name of the episode. A carefully curated version of Tom Curry. Yeah, and I, and I remember that, so it's been something I think about so much. And then I realized I had this moment where I was like, fuck, I didn't do that in a modeling behavior for my own kids.

0:11:05 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:11:15 Thomas: Well, Well, isn't abstinence the ultimate curation, Tom? It's very curated. It's just blank.

0:11:20 Eli: Yeah. Tissue box lasts for three years in the curry household.

0:11:28 Tom: It's just, it's just this fascinating space. And I wonder how, know, like with, I'll give you some other examples, like, know, in our household, I all kinds of attitudes and behaviors around hard work and work ethic. We can model behaviors around, you relationships, friendships around, around how we spend our time, around how we take care of our bodies, around the value and importance of relationships. All those things are constantly being modeled. And then there's this enormously valuable space, this big deal space that may we or may not have access to, even be connected to our kids, with on the apps that they're spending so much of their time on.

0:12:04 Thomas: Okay. I'm so glad we're talking about this because this has been actually a pretty relevant topic And also, I realized that there was a show I wanted to do back in the day that don't I think we enough to do it. But you know how my constant bit, and it's not really a bit, it's kind of like Eli's bit about being, you basically North Korea with his kid and stalking their every move and filming everything they do.

0:12:23 Tom: Right? Yeah.

0:12:23 Eli: Exactly. Yeah, of course.

0:12:24 Thomas: We don't know if it's a joke and we're worried. That's our official position on that as a show. Know?

0:12:28 Eli: Much like North Korea's nuclear policy. Yeah, exactly.

0:12:28 Tom: Right.

0:12:31 Thomas: And my version of that is I don't want my kids to have a phone fucking ever. Like I just feel like they shouldn't have a phone. They that's been my feeling. And then I read something on, I think I read something or as a podcast, one or the other that was like, I know that people have this reaction that they want to protect their kids from phones and they're too young.

And they're right that like, you is true that it is a dangerous thing to let them on too early, et cetera, et cetera. All those concerns are valid. But one thing I heard someone and say, and I don't know if this is like the expert consensus or anything, but I thought it was very well worth considering was actually what you should do is the opposite. You should start your kids early on some kind of device.

You don't just give them an unlocked fucking iPhone 16 or the fuck, but like start them on some device because when they're little, they will actually look to you for guidance.

So you can, can you have that ability to shape what they're doing when they still listen to you and you can demonstrate things and they just plain don't know how it works so like they have to listen to you but if you wait until they're a certain age and then you're just like all right here's your fucking I held out long enough Phoebe but here's your phone all right and then by then I don't even know what the apps are probably it's a whole different internet who knows you know then they're shaping all of their behaviors from what they're observing in their you know friends or whatever and that's not necessarily going to be healthy and that actually that actually has over time I think I've come to maybe accept that and combine combine that with the other day, the delightful story I could have told at the end of the show, but Lydia is a little more relaxed with her phone than I am.

I don't let the kids touch my fucking phone because they're going to ruin something or put all of a sudden I'll be, they'll post something racist and like my career will be over, you know,

0:12:32 Eli: I said

0:14:09 Thomas: Or they're like, no,

0:14:10 Eli: I wanted the show to be bigger, daddy. Daddy, I want everyone to see your show.

0:14:14 Tom: Was just using your autocorrect answers in your predictive text. I don't know how it.

0:14:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Or it'll be like, they'll send the picture of my balls that I sent to my doctor for some shit and post that online. You know, just something

0:14:26 Eli: Thomas, of your doctor, for the last time, your erect penis does not need to be in that picture. I don't know how many times I can tell you this.

0:14:33 Thomas: It's for scale. Yeah. And so I don't let them touch. I cannot, I just didn't know. But Lydia, for some reason, she's like casual about that. It'S fucking weird. I think it it was. Phoebe posted a Facebook story accidentally of a picture of like, like And I cannot believe Lydia would exist in a world in which Phoebe would be doing. It's crazy to me. But anyway, well, the cute part of this is they've been letting, Phoebe's been like, how can I send a message to Dada? You know? And so she'll like go on Lydia's phone and she'll type something out and it'll be, fortunately she can't read. Cause one time she typed like, like, I love you. And then I think I sent an inappropriate response back. And then by second after I sent it, the second after I said it, I just felt something about the punctuation or the capitalization or something. I was like, wait a minute. And I was like, oh, shit.

0:15:25 Thomas: And And so I also sent like a wholesome one right right after that. Yeah. And and And then immediately the next message was like, "Yeah, Phoebe sent that." I was like, okay, thank God, it's fine, situation's fine. But anyway, and so

0:15:25 Eli: Lydia doesn't love me. Right back. Uh, well, uh, contextually, daddy is from uh, Angels Hole, California, so you gotta understand, this is this actually makes a lot of sense where daddy's from. Oh.

0:15:52 Thomas: But it's been so cute, and I constantly, constantly have this feeling, and Lydia and both, I both expressed this of, like, "God, I want to message the kids right now. I want a message them in school all day. I want to know what they're thinking." Eli, imagine if you're a little buddy.

0:16:03 Eli: I can't wait to text Max, me. And Anna talk about this too, I cannot wait to test Max, I'm excited that I just get to talk to him.

0:16:04 Thomas: Yeah Oh, and He won't text us back, it's gonna be great, he won't

0:16:13 Tom: That's exactly

0:16:13 Eli: And he's not gonna take me back. I

0:16:13 Tom: Right. I

0:16:14 Thomas: Yeah for sure. Nothing.

0:16:15 Tom: Texted Finn today. Nothing. Just nothing. Just nothing,

0:16:16 Thomas: Yeah

0:16:18 Eli: I don't know how I, I feel like I've been a broken record and maybe I've talked about this on the show too much, but the fact that he is is my favorite person and that I will not be his is just baffling to me. Right. And I know it's healthy and I know what's good. And then you've got to have a chill reaction to it, but there will be a time where I'm going to be like, Hey buddy, just love you so much. And he's going to be like dad, stop. And don't be like okay. Well, you know, fuck you. Fuck you.

0:16:28 Thomas: Pretty tough yeah I have

0:16:44 Eli: I've read every book you'll ever read. How's that? I've written every book you've ever read in your whole life. Start reading books right now. You'll never read as many as daddy has read and I choose you I choose to love you So fucking you love me back.

0:16:43 Thomas: I have yeah

0:16:59 Eli: You piece of shit

0:16:58 Thomas: God okay

0:17:00 Tom: I'm literally looking at my phone yet yesterday, 9:22 PM. Hey bud, how'd your studying go today? 10 AM. Good luck on your test, bud. No responses, no responses.

0:17:10 Thomas: How that's not, not an acceptable version of reality. How would you, I can't do that, like, I can't.

0:17:11 Eli: Hate hate to see it. Oh, I'd be like there's been an accident Mom's in the hospital call me immediately

0:17:21 Tom: It's, Yeah. Nope. That's

0:17:25 Thomas: All of Max's phone is gonna be just hundreds of uh, your mom's head fell off.

0:17:29 Eli: 911 this is the police. I'm just changing my number

0:17:30 Thomas: Yeah he has to get more and more elaborate, like in hold up in his room, he's got like a full siren going and lights flashing, there's an open up, he like breaks open a door. Oh, of my favorite comedy bits in anything ever of all time is in Arrested Development, where they had, the dad had like the guy he hired to teach the kids lessons.

0:17:34 Tom: That shows Finn.

0:17:39 Eli: Yeah out and tell your daddy you love him

0:17:53 Tom: Yes.

0:17:54 Thomas: I don't know if you guys are arrested. Oh, the best. And that's why you always leave a note. That is one of my favourite pieces of comedy in the history of humans and it's so perfect. Like that's exactly this. Max will come up and he'll come out. He'll come up. He's like, I don't know, I'm not sure. He'll actually come out, Eli will have like full fake blood. You know people, Eli. Like you'll have a full like shooting, like you'll be dead.

0:17:54 Tom: Yes. Oh God. Why you always

0:17:55 Eli: Yeah, I'm doing a fake blood. I've literally gallons of fake blood in my basement right now. I'm ready.

0:18:10 Thomas: Yeah. I don't know why, but okay. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

0:18:16 Eli: I do. I have a lot of.

0:18:17 Tom: I feel like fake was an air quotes and I'm a little upset about that.

0:18:19 Thomas: It'll just be, and that's why you got to text me the fuck back, Max. Come on. Oh, but so all these things have coalesced to be like, I want to get them a device actually now. I know they probably can't take it to school or whatever but just to get them used to hey do you want to know plus it's not for nothing

0:18:24 Eli: That's right.

0:18:35 Eli: You can get him the kid watch.

0:18:36 Thomas: Okay

0:18:38 Tom: Get him a Kindle Fire, man.

0:18:38 Thomas: I was actually literally Going

0:18:39 Tom: It's

0:18:40 Thomas: To ask you guys for recommendations in a sec but not for anything they will be inspired to learn how to write like they will be like how do I write words and I've already seen it with Phoebe it helps that can get them practicing with letters and words is good in my book

0:18:42 Eli: Yeah, Yeah, there's a watch thing that is like a one way communication device. You can text it and they can push a button and send you a little voice message. It's.

0:19:00 Thomas: Oh Oh my

0:19:01 Tom: A gizmo we We got one for Aislinn, it's a gismo, yeah. And

0:19:05 Eli: Yeah,

0:19:04 Thomas: God Literally send me the link to this, I'm buying five of them right now. Because the kids will probably flush three of them down the toilet. Oh,

0:19:08 Eli: They're the best.

0:19:10 Tom: Eli, Thomas, they have GPS so you can track exactly where the kids are all the time

0:19:12 Eli: They fuck yeah fuck right they do this

0:19:14 Thomas: My God, send me this I'm not joking, send me this link now, I

0:19:16 Tom: Yeah yeah We got the gizmos, we got gizmon one for Aislinn because she would just go outside to play and we'd be like all right stay in the front yard or whatever

0:19:24 Eli: Episode sponsored by the Gizmo Watch or whatever the fuck it's called

0:19:26 Thomas: I fuck fine fine I don't care if it works, how do I get it to stay on my kid forever, do they have like a bolt that you can put

0:19:27 Eli: Yeah do

0:19:32 Tom: Yeah all right if you find that out let me know because we bought one because Because Azen would just disappear. She be like, I'm going to go to my friend, like Gianna's house down the street. You'd be, like. Okay, cool. I know Gianna. I know her parents. Go have fun. Enjoy then you go over there, like to go get her, and she wouldn't, yeah, she she's not here, and like what the fuck? Where's the kid?

0:19:35 Thomas: Yeah yeah wow

0:19:48 Tom: And you're driving around, like a, and she'd go, like oh, well, they weren't home, so I just went over somewhere else and didn't stop back to let you know, or

0:19:48 Thomas: I just went to an abandoned warehouse where that what are you fucking Jesus Christ.

0:19:56 Tom: Yeah, you just fucking disappear. She went

0:19:58 Thomas: You know how much trouble I would have been in if I did a tenth of that? Do you ever think about that, Tom?

0:19:58 Tom: Disappearing on us. Oh, my god, I know. Oh,

0:20:04 Thomas: God, your kid won't be able to get out of your sight, Eli.

0:20:05 Tom: I know,

0:20:05 Eli: You know how much trouble my kid will still be in ever again? Know, thank you, but I know there are normal, good parenting reactions to that kind of stuff. I have no idea what they are. Right? The idea that Max is going to be somewhere and I don't know know where he is or if he's safe or well, and then he's gonna come back and be like, "Me and Chris were at the Schmunklekins." I'll be like, "Cool, I just murdered the Schmunkelkins, so you can't go there anymore. The cops are there. Don't go, where Daddy will go to jail forever." Like, what the fuck, I'm supposed to be like, "Well, I sure am disappointed, kiddo. You know, here I was living my life and I was gonna just take a kitchen knife and land it into mommy and me's hearts until the blood stopped up to flowing, but then you decided to walk in from Chris's house, so it's a good thing you" came in when you did, a scooter. Like, I don't know how sane people react, but I need the ability to

0:20:22 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no,

0:20:59 Tom: It's not like

0:20:59 Eli: Hire one

0:21:00 Thomas: It's keep

0:21:00 Eli: No

0:21:00 Tom: That it's definitely not like that, it's that with a murder suicide

0:21:02 Thomas: Keep keep trying, man. Keep trying. Yeah it's not quite there.

0:21:04 Tom: You'll find it you'll fine find it all

0:21:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:05 Eli: Because here's the thing, you normal people lie to me all the time, all the time. You're like, "What do I do when the dog commercial comes on, not cry?" And they're like, "Yeah, don't cry," and I'm like, "Like, well, I don't know what the fuck's happening then.

0:21:07 Tom: Right

0:21:14 Thomas: Oh yeah, I'm with you there. Yeah I'm I'm with you with that. Yeah. Don't get it. Eli, when you find that out, let me know too.

0:21:21 Tom: So you're gonna, gonna get, you're him a device earlier, sooner rather than later, but like the, and I guess you're going to have to get connected with him online and let him see what you post.

0:21:22 Thomas: I What, what Haley's doing sounds actually really good idea to be doing that. Cause if you, in if on that, I see what you're saying. You know, like if you're in on the experience, especially if you start early, it seems to me that it'll allow you a better ability to teach them. Cause if I wait until they're 13 or whatever it is, they're going to be like, Like, all right, they're not going to care what I say, you know?

0:21:29 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I watching it play out in real time, because another thing is, like, is connected to other adults in his life whose material that they post I would consider to be problematic. Right, so I see, I see shades of that.

0:22:01 Eli: Tom's dad posts a lot of hardcore porn on

0:22:03 Tom: I see.

0:22:04 Eli: Facebook. A lot.

0:22:05 Thomas: Was actually going to ask you what you mean, you what, like, yeah, interesting.

0:22:07 Tom: Well, like, yeah, like sexually inappropriate jokes, you which are just like, again, like for for,

0:22:12 Eli: Shouldn't have accepted my friend request.

0:22:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:14 Tom: A 16 or 17 year old boy on Instagram. I don't think those kinds of things. Not so much that they're inappropriate.

0:22:20 Thomas: Yeah, but if you're that old, you've heard it all, right? Like you're, I

0:22:23 Tom: Yeah. But it's it's not the fact that sexual is the thing. It's that they are crude or they're dumb. Here's the other thing. It's like on Instagram, this is where a lot of the kids, and this is like where I see it the most, right? And this is a place where a bunch of people and this where a ton of the people and this was where a whole lot of the kids like meet up and talk and DM and have, they start to form like actual like relationships with each other on here. And I keep trying to explain to them like, look man, like if people look at your site, if you like meet somebody and one of the first things they do is they go find you online to see what you're about.

0:22:29 Thomas: Ah, yeah.

0:22:52 Thomas: Please don't use the word sight. They're never going to stop laughing. Sorry. Your webpage, that your angel fire webpage.

0:22:55 Tom: And If they fight if So people if People Go If people go to your Geocities Page no like stuff if people go and find your social media presence to see who you are and what you're about and who you are and what you're about is a bunch of crude dumb shit they're gonna see a version of you that isn't reflective of who you are because that's not who Finn is right but likes that sort of like skirting the edge toward edgelord type humor and it's not fucking funny and It is not really Who he is as A person and so like he is advertising someone he is not right is advertising to the world and to girls specifically right like I am talking very much about like how teen boys meet teen girls and who vets who online and how they vet each other he is getting vetted based on a profile he has built that hasn't been carefully curated that has been sloppily curated and like is full of all kinds of just randomness that he thought was funny one day and isn't fucking funny six weeks later or six months later or two years later

0:23:00 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Jeez.

0:23:58 Tom: But To Eli's point it never goes away you Know what I mean and worry for him is this is how people are going to look at him like going to apply for jobs and people are gonna find him online because that's a regular thing and they're gonna be like, like, all right, well, who's this guy applying for this job? Who's this person asking me on a date? Like, is this person? That's how we, like, see each other.

0:23:58 Thomas: High standards. Yeah, I assume that's all one person you were voicing.

0:24:19 Eli: Yeah, you know, exactly.

0:24:21 Thomas: Boy, he's got a scholarship from me. I'm giving him a job and we're going on a date tomorrow.

0:24:23 Eli: You know, the job interview

0:24:24 Thomas: It's yeah.

0:24:21 Tom: Does

0:24:25 Eli: Went well, and then he asked me on that date, and I figured, gosh, why not give this fellow a chance? But now I see all these posts about skibbidy toilet, and I'm not sure. I'm not shy, I say. I'm

0:24:28 Thomas: Look up his Instagram. Yeah

0:24:33 Tom: I wish it was skibbidy toilet stuff. Yeah, it's, that makes sense? Does that have, yeah, yeah?

0:24:35 Thomas: Oh, skibbity toilet is art.

0:24:35 Eli: Yeah. So, No, No, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, so part of what we have done is like the, and I've talked about sort of the rules around Max's media usage, which is that there's just no, for right now, and I don't know when this will end, it will have to end eventually, Max does not have private media usage, right? Watches iPad for his hour a day in the house with us watching and paying attention to what's going on, and um, we are aware of what's going on, uh, then without those restrictions, and then he watches the TV that we have agreed on watching and we watch it with him, so, know, that's not necessarily social media, but I think, uh, social media will be similar, which is like there will be no, in far as I'm concerned, there will be no secret accounts, um,

0:24:39 Thomas: Who

0:25:21 Tom: Yeah.

0:25:21 Eli: If there are secret accounts, there will be consequences for them, right? Can be on any social media app, I think, that he wants, that I consider to be a healthy and safe place for him, but I want to see what he, right.

0:25:32 Tom: So no social media apps then.

0:25:35 Eli: Well, I mean, and that's, that's the larger problem is like these things are all so bad, uh, it's, it's really hard because, much like phones, but in a much more important way, like media is really, really, really bad for most brains. And I also have to speak to the fact that like my brain, it was especially bad for. I have a career that it was especially bad for, right. Assuming Max doesn't turn out to be an entertainer, like, will have a very different relationship to social media than I do.

Um, also like a big generational thing, because the truth of the matter is when we joined Facebook, it was a way to connect with your friends, and now it's a way for white supremacists to sabotage elections, right? That's what that app is for, right.

Might also have features where you can connect with her cousin and see her baby, but like the way their resources are used, the way the money is going in and out of those things is being used to promote white supremacy, um, throughout the world, right? That's what those things are, being, if you have a machete and it kills nine people and it trims one person's lawn, the machete is not for lawn trimming, right? So,

0:25:35 Tom: Based on those criteria. Right.

0:26:46 Thomas: Would

0:26:46 Eli: It's also I'm

0:26:46 Thomas: Use a machete for lawn? Do you know what a machette? Nevermind. I'll leave it. Leave it aside.

0:26:49 Eli: You know it's a branch,

0:26:50 Thomas: Leave it inside.

0:26:50 Eli: Fucking bamboo staff. I don't know what machetes are for, I haven't, I've only seen them used to kill people, for all I know they might not have have a practical lawn based use. Uh, but like, so part of it is like, do, do we put our kids into this ecosystem whatsoever? Right. Because like, look, there are a lot of harmful things in the world that my kid is not going to participate in, circumcision, religion, uh, corporal punishment, right?

These are well accepted things in lots of places in the world that, quote unquote, quote, everybody in lots of communities are doing, that I'm just like, hey, no, no, we're not going to mutilate my kid's penis, I know, I know, it's very important and it's not as harmful as you think it is, or whatever the fuck they're on, I honestly couldn't begin to conceptualize that argument, but I'm not doing it, I'm not involving in that part of society, and what I see in social media right now, I cannot picture a healthy way for my son, who I note has autism and will probably already have a hard time with literalism and being taken advantage of on the internet, um, of it, like, I can't imagine a scenario where there will be a healthy way for him to involve that, as I also can't imagine there to be like a healthy way for us to hit him, or for there to be a healthy wave for us to have circumcised him.

0:26:57 Thomas: Yeah, they're for that. Yeah. Amen.

0:27:01 Tom: Lawn based use.

0:28:10 Tom: Right,

0:28:10 Eli: Who

0:28:10 Tom: Right. Funny because, like, I fundamentally agree with that take. And I'm also very much aware that like I can't keep them offline forever, right? At some point, I, also know like I don'tt have control of them, I, my kids are old enough to where they've got a phone, I am not going to go through their phone and delete the apps off their phone, you, yeah,

0:28:20 Thomas: Yeah, that's the thing. You would not believe the ingenuity of kids, you know, it reminds me actually, you know, I worked, used to work for CDCR, California Department of Corrections, they, they have, what, like one time, I didn't, I worked in budget, so I never, I never wanted to go to a fucking prison, but a lot of people either had to or did, because like they're like, oh yeah, we'll take, see, it's cool to go, so I'm like, I want to be nowhere near that, I do not care about that I

0:28:38 Tom: Yeah,

0:28:39 Eli: Wants to go on a fucking field trip to a prison

0:28:51 Tom: What the fuck there's nothing cool I never want to go to prison, like if my kids go to prison, I'm not visiting.

0:28:52 Eli: Yeah

0:28:51 Thomas: I don't know some people People are just, I know some people, some, this is like, you know, the dog commercial comment you made, Eli, this is my version of that. I don't understand any morbid, whatever, like, oh, let's go see the people we lock away horribly and watch how they're doing. I don't, I don't have, but I had to go to the training facility, which is like, it's weird. They have, it's like a, it is a prison kind of, but they let the, like, nicest prisoners go work there, you know, where it's like they get to do live kind of normally, but it's, it's still a training facility for the officers, but also it's a prison, but like, yeah, yeah, it's fucking, it's weird, so I was like, all right, I'll, you know, I have

0:28:59 Eli: Chill crystal

0:29:31 Thomas: To go to that training yeah well, it kind of, like, it is, like, the low whatever

0:29:31 Tom: It's the good vibes prison

0:29:34 Eli: Do you know what happened to the man who killed your father? Well, he behaved himself for a couple of years, and now he's in practice prison, no,

0:29:35 Thomas: Oh it's what, no, it's not like, it's what all prison should be at a minimum, instead of the horror that we put human beings through, through, because of, it's super chill.

0:29:49 Eli: I think the prison system's really chill, I don't, I think

0:29:51 Thomas: We subject people to sexual abuse until they get better. You know, that's what we do.

0:29:52 Eli: You're missing yeah I don't, I don't t think you' re thinking of the right thing, prison with the cells and they get to work out for free, yeah.

0:29:57 Thomas: Let's see the holes in that. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, at this place, they have like a display.

0:30:02 Eli: Sorry, everybody, Thomas is a little confused,

0:30:06 Thomas: They have a display of all the, for one, there's all the like shivs or whatever, that like all all the things they've confiscated and all the ways that inmates smuggle in phones, which now I think is super easy. They just have a drone, literally like drop in a bunch of phones. But just to give you an idea, I know Eli thinks he's going to control every aspect of Max's life, but we literally cannot keep phones out of the hands of inmates. We can't do it. Like, they literally just can't. Like imagine they're fully locked up.

And we can't, and I'm not talking just about this practice prison. This is everywhere. Like they brought in all the stuff they confiscated from, you know, all the, they can't do it. Cause there's going to be a guard who accepts a 20 to do a thing. Like they you know, there's always some way that they are able to somehow the ingenuity of humans is actually incredible when they want something. And I, I actually think it's a pretty accurate comparison, at least because my childhood felt like a prison. So there was always a a way to get something, you know, to find a

0:30:42 Eli: Yeah no, I've seen it, yeah, yeah,

0:31:06 Thomas: Way to do something.

0:30:37 Tom: Yeah yeah

0:31:03 Eli: Yeah and jokes aside, I think that if you do have like a totalitarian relationship with your kids, they will employ those things, they will do those things, um, I know I joke about, like, I'm gonna monitor my, right, but like, I think if you have a genuine agreement with your kid about wanting things in their best interest, and, and they have good boundaries for their privacy, and you have good boundaries for your comfort, that can at times trust them not to violate those boundaries, because there's that mutual respect, even when they're going through tough times, and look, there are going to be exceptions to that rule, there are going to be kids who go through exceptionally tough times, um, one might argue that there are backstops to that, that one might employ through the term of surveillance, but, or also not, but also not, you also could just trust your kid and have a really great relationship where they understand, like, hey, you know, when daddy has a 20 minute monologue about how you listen to daddy talk about the dead internet, right?

Like, I, I know that Max is going to sit there and listen to me talk about the dead internet, and he will probably be like, yeah man, it seems like you need mental health care, and I'll be like, I can't get it, so there will be a conversation had, and hopefully that conversation will be so mutually, uh, enough that Max doesn't feel the need to sneak around me, and if he does, because hypothetically one could have backstops

0:31:17 Thomas: But Eli's a benevolent dictator, everybody. It's fine.

0:32:42 Thomas: Imprison him.

0:32:42 Eli: That he would be unaware of, so that you could protect him in case he made bad choices, hypothetically, hypothetically, because

0:32:43 Thomas: Oh, yeah.

0:32:53 Tom: Think back, man, like when I was a teenager, my dad was very strict, he had a lot of very strict rules, and like, yeah, I it was not Hitler, but my dad was strict, he's a single dad, and I think he needed to keep a lockdown in order to keep his sanity, and keep my brother and I under control, so, Hitler was a single bad, you know, it's, it's a big thing, But remember when I was 17 or so, I wasn't yet 18, that I went out and got a pager, because I'm old and pagers were a thing. I went and got that pager for, God, a couple of years everybody, everybody had a pager. I, a page, where my dad had no idea, and I had that thing for two years. I didn't have a car and I still found a way to pay the bill. To your point, Thomas, like I found a way to get to the mall to buy

0:32:59 Eli: Hitler. We went over this episode one. Yeah

0:33:06 Thomas: Yeah. Hitler kept crime down, I imagine. Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:08 Eli: Because trains ran on time.

0:33:34 Thomas: And you Yeah.

0:33:34 Tom: The pager. I found away to pay them monthly bill even though I didn't have, you like, I had to just take cash. I had get a buddy to drive me

0:33:38 Thomas: Yeah. He He found a way to communicate with Stringer Bell to make sure that he was selling the drugs on time.

0:33:45 Eli: Right

0:33:44 Tom: It was a whole thing, man, like, then I used that pager. My buddy would page me when he was gonna come over at night. My dad would go to sleep, my buddy would page me, I'd like ring him back, be like, "Yeah, everyone's asleep." He'd go, he'd park the car halfway down the street, I'd climb out through my window onto the back deck, over the fence, down the block, get in my buddy's car, and we'd go hang out and do whatever until four in the morning, when I knew it was safe to come back to the house before dad woke up at 5:30. Like, just get away with it, you know? Yeah.

0:33:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:34:10 Eli: And again, I think you did not, because you were a bad kid, right, or a particularly sneaky kid. I think he did that, he

0:34:14 Thomas: Well, Tom kind of sucked, if you remember.

0:34:17 Eli: Did suck but but

0:34:18 Thomas: Didn't

0:34:17 Tom: I was not I was not a particularly good kid.

0:34:18 Thomas: He go, like, beat up a dad at a sporting event? Remember that? Fucking Jesus.

0:34:21 Tom: At hockey games, yeah, well.

0:34:20 Eli: It's think the reason that happened is because you felt like you couldn't trust your dad with what the things that you wanted to do and say if

0:34:30 Thomas: To be chill.

0:34:31 Tom: That's because the things I wanted to do and say were insane. Insane. Like I like, I want to give, I want to give some credit here. Like the things that I wanted to do and say were genuinely insane people things to do. And say like I was not a healthy, well-adjusted, well young man and I was not hanging around with healthy, well-adjusted friends like

0:34:47 Eli: I think the egg of your dad's Nazism came before the chicken of you being a crazy person. I'll let our audience arbitrate that, but I want to use a counter example, which is my favorite example, I tell this story all the time, right, which, in healthy, safe environments, feel safe to push on those boundaries. And my favorite is when you talk about, uh, and Finn wanting to get up to teenage shenanigans and writing to you guys.

I think you've told this story on the air, but briefly, basically texting you and being like, "We desire teenage shenanigans, we want to rent an R-rated movie and buy a bunch of candy," and they trusted you to say yes to that, and they entrusted you that they could confide in you that desire in a safe and healthy way, in, and again, I know it's a different thing, and your dad was a single dad, and I know you're you are very fond of him and don't see a lot of his Nazism, but like I don't think I don't thing, and he's a member of the Nazis, a registered member of the Nazi Party, who posts hardcore pornography

0:35:06 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:09 Tom: Yes. Yep. Right.

0:35:36 Tom: He was not a Nazi. He

0:35:40 Thomas: He was there on January 6th.

0:35:42 Tom: Was was not my dad.

0:35:43 Eli: He was there on January 6th and on 9-11, but he, I think that you probably couldn't share some of those early rebellions with him, which created this cycle, right?

0:35:43 Tom: No, no, no.

0:35:43 Thomas: This is my position. And My theory is that even those early shenanigans were actually a smokescreen, and your sons were getting up to some even crazier shit that you don't know about. That's my personal take.

0:36:03 Eli: That's also possible. I, when people have heard my jokes about monitoring Max, right, and, you know, being a totalitarian, big, big brother state, very often they will reach out and they will tell stories of really horrible abuse they suffered as kids, right? What they're talking about is not parents who used observation as a backstop for trust, but parents who use observation as part of a totalitarian, unsafe emotional environment, right. What I'm saying is the government knows what you're saying on your cell phone, but you probably don't know that, so it's fine. It's fine! You know. What I'm saying, people? Get on board!

0:36:43 Tom: The documentary.

0:36:45 Thomas: It's called enhanced interrogation.

0:36:47 Eli: It's enhanced interrogation.

0:36:47 Thomas: It's not torture. Yeah.

0:36:50 Eli: Jack Bauer stopped all those terrorists. That documentary, 24, where he stopped all those terrorists? The very real and useful application of torture that we all agree is a chill good good time. Torture your kids, you

0:36:54 Thomas: Yeah.

0:37:03 Thomas: Do you think about that, Tom? Jokes aside, do you Think Eli's fooling himself?

0:37:09 Tom: That's I Yeah, I think a little bit. I mean, I love it, but yeah, I think a Little bit. Yeah. I think I know. No, I think, you can't go back, like I think my dad's authoritarianism was very Gen X normal, right? All Gen X parents that I knew, damn near all Gen X parents I knew, were fairly authoritarian except for the wildly permissive cool mom cool dad parents, which is where is the opposite end where you like, that's that's no good either, right? That's a huge problem. And I think my dad's locking things down comes across a certain way in part because he's a dad.

And if you had a single mom that also had strict rules, it would be viewed a little more favorably than it oftentimes is with my dad stories. But all of that aside, that's not why I was an angry shithead. I was an angry shithead that was intent on breaking the rules, not because my dad had rules, but but because I had a shitty growing up, but I had some rebelling to do. And I think that that rebelled took a lot of really self-destructive and otherwise destructive forms and formats until

0:37:11 Eli: Guys are crazy Hitler no, no

0:37:33 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:11 Tom: I worked through that stuff.

0:38:12 Thomas: Like when you beat up a dad that was just watching his kid do a sport. Yeah. Yeah. I hope the law catches up with you on that someday, Tom.

0:38:13 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. Yeah

0:38:19 Eli: There's a statute of limitations of sports fights is 30 seconds, 30 seconds after a sports fight, you're not allowed to do. Thomas, you're the one who ripped a guy's arm off because he tried to hold your hand on the way into the bathroom.

0:38:19 Tom: Statute of limitations. I'm fine. I're fine. Yep. I don't know. I, I don'

0:38:27 Thomas: Oh, shut up. No, he held my arm

0:38:30 Eli: It's not how I remember it.

0:38:30 Thomas: And I didn't like it. That's

0:38:33 Eli: Thomas,

0:38:32 Tom: And you bit

0:38:33 Thomas: All that happened.

0:38:34 Eli: Yeah,

0:38:34 Tom: It off and beat him with it and let the blood spray.

0:38:35 Thomas: One of the best jokes in dad's history is that I'm going to take Arlo skating and I'm going to get in a fight with him because he tries to hold my hand. That was one of those those where I love that I get to edit the show because I hear the jokes more times. And that was a that was a keeper. God, so fun.

0:38:41 Eli: Because he tries to hold her hand on of the ice. Yeah. That's a good, that's the new t-shirt when we're doing merch, it's just gonna be Thomas hockey fighting Arlo while everyone watches in horror at Rockefeller Center. They

0:38:59 Thomas: So more importantly, where can I buy this watch that my kids will have to be GPS? But also I want something where they can type me a little response. Does that exist?

0:39:10 Eli: Can't, yeah, so

0:39:06 Tom: Yeah, they can do it on this watch. They can type little responses.

0:39:11 Eli: Yeah.

0:39:13 Thomas: They could type it.

0:39:14 Tom: There's a little keyboard. There's also like

0:39:15 Thomas: Oh,

0:39:15 Eli: A little keyboard and

0:39:16 Tom: They could just hit a button and they could just like send you like a little voice memo. And the little voice memo is adorable

0:39:19 Thomas: They're Yeah, but I want them to work on their words. Like, I actually think that is a legitimate thing that would be a good idea.

0:39:21 Tom: Yeah.

0:39:23 Eli: It Saves all the voice memos and sends them to you in an email. I'm gonna keep them fucking forever.

0:39:26 Thomas: Oh, I'm doing this 100%. Okay, Okay, but assume I will also want maybe them to have something that's more like a phone. Does that exist? Or could they have like a messenger?

0:39:35 Tom: You get. Yeah, there's there's kids only phones that that only like connect to a handful of numbers, so it's a phone that that only allows them to connect to numbers or connections that you make, yeah.

0:39:38 Thomas: What like an actual phone number. Oh, okay. Interesting.

0:39:37 Eli: There's Kids phones, yeah. And forget what it's called it's Called like the Squishy or something. It's pretty good, it's an Android phone, but the, um, numbers, rather than having to like have them memorize a number, is the home screen has pictures of the people that means call them, so you touch Grandma's face and it calls Grandma. Isn't that cool?

0:39:57 Thomas: Right.

0:40:03 Eli: Yeah.

0:40:03 Thomas: Yeah, I am getting this right now.

0:40:05 Eli: God, I would text my son all day. He's

0:40:06 Thomas: All day.

0:40:06 Tom: So Wonder though, are you guys going to, when, mean, assuming that your kids get social, because they will, because they're, I'm telling you guys, they're going, Eli, Maybe not Max but like, they, the thing is, like, if they don't do it, just, like, run with this premise, if they don't doing it, they're gonna be the fucking only weird kids that aren't on social media, it's gonna make their lives harder rather than better with all of their peers, so in terms of like how we help model them through that, I am curious if you are going to connect with them online and give them access to your and

0:40:15 Eli: Gonna talk a lot about the dead internet. Oh,

0:40:29 Thomas: Well, Yeah, I'm worried about that.

0:40:39 Eli: Absolutely. I'll see everything. I'm their first story like every time until the minute I am dead. If I'm on my deathbed and they're putting the benzadrine into my eyes to kill me at last, I'm gonna like Max's story first. Yeah, no, we're connecting on everything, I'm seeing everything, it's it's tough because

0:40:57 Tom: Does that affect what you post, because that's the part that I was, that I'm really curious about right, because like it's the thing is, this is what I want to get at first before you answered it, because it's not so much that I don't think you'll want to see what they post, of course I know you'll want to see what they post, but my, my point is, is largely like, will you want them to see everything you post and everything you have posted across the history of your social media life, which they would have access to, like a sort of digital diary of their dad? Or would you create a separate account to friend them with?

0:41:01 Thomas: Yeah, you're like, no. He's on my restricted list.

0:41:01 Eli: Yeah yeah Idealistic answer is yes, I would love for them to see it. The realistic answer is I cannot imagine, imagine my presence on social media will last until I, because I'm already so crazy, I can't imagine I will be on social medial when Max is old enough to be on socially I

0:41:47 Tom: Right. But so that's where I'm at, Eli, because I'm barely on two. Too. And so I wonder how will you help model that behavior for them if you're not available to them in that space? That's the place that I'm at. That's The Hard Space that I am finding myself at, Eli, is like, I don't know how to be in a space I hate and don't respect and don't like, and also recognize the value and importance of it and parent through it.

0:42:03 Thomas: Dictatorship. Yeah, Yeah, that is what Eli is thinking.

0:42:17 Eli: Think.

0:42:17 Tom: That's what I don't know how do.

0:42:19 Eli: Well, think, I guess I would say that for me, not everything has to model for you to provide good lessons. So, for instance, like, I don't think you have have to be on Instagram to give Finn feedback on his Instagram.

0:42:24 Thomas: Oh,

0:42:29 Tom: But I won' t see it unless somebody shows it to me. I have to rely on somebody else.

0:42:29 Eli: Right. And so that that is like I'll make a follow account, right? I'll made user 884 and just like follow just Max on everything and do that, right? That's fine, I will do that. I just can't imagine the thing that you're talking about where like I have a healthy relationship to social media and Max sees me like posting a picture of us at the ball game, which by the way, like if you're out there just having a nice time on social media, like please feel free to ignore me.

I know most people don't have my job or my life, and so, or my mental illnesses, so like if I sound like a wackadoo, I probably am. And so this is not a judgment for people who are like, I don't know, it's nice to see my cousin's baby, like if you've managed to save the internet, fucking awesome, man. No, like if you have a great relationship with those things, please don't take my judgment, this could just be me being crazy.

But I think we can give our kids feedback on how we want them to behave in situations without modeling, right? Like, Max might want to do sports, but daddy's not getting out on the fucking field, you

0:43:32 Eli: Know. Yeah.

0:43:32 Thomas: But definitionally, Eli is not modeling that. Yeah. Then along those lines, is there a type of phone? I'm just like, I just want the product recommendations.

0:43:35 Eli: Exactly. God. Damn it.

0:43:41 Thomas: Is there a typophone?

0:43:35 Tom: You

0:43:41 Eli: Thomas, we've given you two product recommendations.

0:43:42 Tom: Simply will not engage the question without this phone answer. Let's do the phone.

0:43:44 Eli: Yeah.

0:43:45 Thomas: No, no. It's part of this. It's a part of it. Is there one where I could like let them have like an app or something or like stuff?

0:43:47 Tom: Okay.

0:43:51 Eli: It's called the Light Phone and it's the one that I have and it's literally just, um, music podcasts

0:43:52 Thomas: Okay. But a social app. Can they get a social out?

0:43:57 Eli: No, No.

0:44:00 Thomas: No. Okay. Is there. Is there social app that you could start a kid on? Not. Like, you know what I mean? Like just to, just to do this modeling.

0:44:01 Eli: Yeah.

0:44:07 Tom: Well, they are all insane, dude. We only have A's on Pinterest, for God's sake. And Pinterest is full of those little TikTok videos.

0:44:11 Thomas: I bet Phoebe would love Pinterest. Oh, it's full of TikTok videos now.

0:44:15 Eli: It's just they're all yeah,

0:44:17 Tom: That Is what I am saying, yeah. Everything is the same, everything gets condensed into the same morass of insanity, like

0:44:17 Thomas: Jesus Christ. Everything's TikTok. Yeah.

0:44:18 Eli: They're all interconnected, yeah. I will tell you, I do a digital safety lesson with my high schoolers and college kids that I teach now, um, and one of the things that I do is I show them two TikTok accounts that do this thing called consensual doxing, you guys aware of of this? So you, you have a private account and you're like, "Hey, I think my account's pretty private." So you, you message these people or you comment, right, dox

0:44:40 Thomas: Hmm. Ah, yeah. There's a subreddit of this too, where they're like docs me and then you try it, see if they can do it.

0:44:50 Eli: Me, and then people just are like, "Well, because you stood in this corner, I was able to see that your mom liked the thing," and um, a, an account called Not a Con Jr., um, and then there's a guy called Jose Monkey that does it just with a, like, a 10 second video, you just like go in a circle with the video of your phone, and he knows exactly where you are based on that stuff. So the kind of stuff I talk to kids about, and I just, knowing that that's out there, and the upside versus the downside, the upside being they send their friend a super sweet meme on Insta, like, I can't, when he is an adult, and again there will be moments of negotiation, right, where he says, "Hey, I'm old enough to make these choices," and I have to go, "Yeah, like, yes you are," right?

And I think that's what's really important is that there will be times where he says, "Hey, this is my boundary of, of, I need to be able to make these choices for myself," and daddy will be like, "What, the dad internet?" And he'll be like, "Yep, no, I heard you about the dead internet, dad, you put it on my birthday cake for

0:45:08 Thomas: Wow.

0:45:46 Eli: My fourth birthday, but like, I need you to trust me that I will trust, and and much as we will allow them to make other mistakes, like get their hearts broken, and get too high at a party, and get drunk, and all, all the things we don't want them to do but are an important part of growing up, I hope that he trusts me enough that when those things go bad, right, as I hope Max calls me when he gets too drunk and can't drive home, I will hope he will tell me when he's accidentally been red pilled into the white supremacist internet, yeah.

0:45:46 Tom: Yeah, See, I just, I, I know that you guys said, I don't remember which one of you said it, that, like, you don't have to model the behavior to have good conversations or teach them, but like I I do worry about that not being true.

0:46:26 Thomas: Yeah, Eli just said that. Hmm.

0:46:30 Tom: I worry about the difference between pontificating and showing, you know what I mean, and demonstrating. And all people in general learn more from who you are and what you do rather than sort of an abstraction. And to teach them how to build a kind of social media self that will play play well with the rest of the world when somebody goes looking for them and somebody's trying to find them, and you say, look, I want you to have a social media self that you can be proud of, that exists in the world, that isn't going to put off employers or put off romantic partners or put off the other people who will use that to try to know something about you.

I worry that like me just saying that to Finn or saying that to a 16 year old or 17 year old has like no impact, opposed to just doing that myself and having shown that to them for their whole lives as we've been sort of connected together hand in hand online, and I recognize that like for the older kids I failed to do that, like they're already 17 going on 18, right, like to some degree that ship has already begun to sail out and I missed that boat, and really aware that like I've got to probably try to connect in these spaces to the younger kids and to demonstrate that, because I do worry, Eli, that like I don't know that I believe that you can have meaningful conversations about something you don't show them. I don't know that people believe it the same way, you know.

0:46:42 Thomas: Absolutely. Yeah Yeah.

0:47:55 Eli: A Pos ability all Right, right, gentlemen, before we go, we've all heard that geology rocks, but geography, that's where it's at. I

0:47:55 Tom: Yeah.

0:48:13 Thomas: Awesome. That's an excellent joke.

0:48:15 Tom: That is Good. That's a good joke.

0:48:16 Thomas: Wow.

0:48:21 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.

0:49:00 Tom: Was a single dad, you