DOD115: When Your Kid's Drawings Suck

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's doodling its doodles. I'm Tom Curry, I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:31 Thomas: Hello hi thomas smith here ready to go let's record Oh, wow.

0:00:38 Eli: Wait. If you doodled a doodle, does that mean we're inside a doodly -doo? Like, podcastiverse -wise,

0:00:45 Thomas: A doodly -doo is different than a doodle, though.

0:00:44 Tom: It's the most meta doodeling.

0:00:49 Thomas: We doodled a doodley -doo.

0:00:48 Eli: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, no, I think a doodel... But if you doodle a dooodle, I THINK it becomes a doody -doo by default, right?

0:00:55 Thomas: Oh, it could.

0:00:56 Eli: A doodle doodle? I think we're too close.

0:00:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:00:57 Tom: Is Are you doodaling a doodly -doo? If you sketch it out, if you've got an art board of your doodley -doo, are you dootling a dooodly -do?

0:01:00 Eli: I'm just saying...

0:01:02 Thomas: And these are the conversations that you can expect on Dural. These are the listeners.

0:01:08 Tom: It's a hard -hitting journalism. Journalism.

0:01:09 Thomas: Yeah, I'm

0:01:08 Eli: That's right. This is the quality programming, but

0:01:12 Thomas: Getting too heavy too early. Maybe we should like ease into doodly warning. Yeah, I

0:01:14 Eli: Yes. Warning. Doodly doodles. Doodley doodle. Doodle.

0:01:22 Tom: So I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while because we have a discussion today on your kids artwork. And I will say in our household, we run the spectrum in terms of talent, In

0:01:34 Thomas: Bet.

0:01:34 Eli: My household too, Tom. My household, too.

0:01:39 Tom: And I like, it's funny because, I, I was a kid, like, my most hated classes were art and music. I fucking hated art. I was like, "God, can I just go back to English or history or social studies or literally anything, anything?"

0:01:50 Thomas: You could have gone to a small-ass town where you don't have funding for those classes and then you wouldn't have to take him, Tom. I never had art or music.

0:01:55 Tom: Would Would've loved that. I fucking hated art class so much. I was so bad at it, like, and I just would be so discouraged. Like, they'd be like, "All right, time to, we're gonna learn the shading," and then the teacher come over and they'd, they'd be like, "You didn't even try." I tried so hard. I'm just terrible at this.

0:02:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:12 Tom: Like, I fucking hate it.

0:02:11 Thomas: Why do we do that? Like,

0:02:12 Eli: Have you heard Jacqueline Novak's joke about that? New special is on Netflix. It's called Get on Your Knees.

0:02:19 Tom: No.

0:02:19 Eli: It's insane. It's it. She is so brilliant. Don't I particularly adore her delivery, but she is one of the best writers of Comedy, alive today, everyone should watch it. But she's got a great joke in that special about art teachers and how, like, an art teacher would show you how to draw and be like, that's what it is, and you're like, yeah, you're good at art, what am I doing here? Oh.

0:02:27 Thomas: Huh?

0:02:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that sounds familiar. I Was going to say, why do we do that? Like, like there's classes. Okay. Math, uh, English. You gotta get people to a certain level there. You can't draw just like, all the people who can't, you can draw, you never draw in your life ever, you just don't. Nice.

0:02:44 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:57 Eli: Are you kidding? I feel like I'm compelled to draw all the time. I cannot tell you how often in my life someone's been like, yeah, I have to use my friend Rachel who can draw on a regular basis for non-drawing related activity. This happened the other day. Me, my friend of mine had, is a big meeting coming up with an agent for him to do some cool, like, behind the scenes stuff, like design, set stuff, for Broadway level producers, and they were like, yeah, just bring in your work and some sketches.

0:03:02 Tom: Really?

0:03:21 Thomas: Okay.

0:03:21 Eli: And he and I both, not art people, were like, fuck, so we called Rachel and we were like, we need you to draw a lady floating on a table, and she was like, all right, give me a second. We were like, thank you.

0:03:32 Thomas: Okay, but recognize that most citizens are not like pitching magic shows, places. So like, like, Lydia, Lydia can't draw, she says she can't, I'm not insulting her, she just says, oh, I can't drop, she I've never seen her drop, she's never drawn, she never drawn anything, it doesn't come up, it doesn't come up, she probably has done more algebra recently than drawing, yeah.

0:03:36 Eli: Yeah.

0:03:37 Tom: Right.

0:03:52 Thomas: Yeah, good.

0:03:52 Tom: Objection That I have is like, I am a proponent and like supporter of the arts and teaching art. I really do think it's valuable to do. What makes me crazy is the way that we approach it as if it's fun for everybody rather than shitty and annoying and difficult, just like any other class might be shitty and annoying and difficult, but we approach it like, it's like this, like, oh, it's just art class, everybody loves doing art. It's like, you know what, when I was a little kid, I would take my crayons, take the paper off them, lay the crayon sideways and color shit in with the side of the crayons to get it done faster because I hated it so much, I'd be like, yeah, I'm just, I got the big giant And they, I

0:04:12 Thomas: A good point, he's shocking the testicles of his art project over there,

0:04:30 Eli: It's It's really a good summary of you as a human being, Tom. If like, if you want to save some time at the pearly gates with Saint Peter, I think you could just pull that memory up and he'll be like, yeah, man, yeah, okay, get on down there, you scamp. Draw.

0:04:45 Thomas: Yeah, yeah,

0:04:32 Tom: Was just like, it's done. I turned it in. I just fucking didn't like it. And they always treat it like, but I I don't know why they treat it like something everybody is just intrinsically enjoys when like some people just don't. It's, that

0:04:50 Thomas: Well, I don't mind when they're little, I don't mind when they're little, it's so cute, it's great to have, they do art projects every day and it's bullshit and who cares, that's great, I love that, I, but but like, when you get older and they're starting, if they try to teach you like, okay, yeah sir, shade this This fucking guy's fucking cape. I don't know. What are you drawing? I don't even know.

0:05:08 Eli: A circle. Then draw an an X.

0:05:08 Thomas: Yeah. Another.

0:05:10 Eli: On the face. Now be good at art. Erase the X.

0:05:14 Thomas: I know.

0:05:14 Eli: Continue. Being good at it all.

0:05:15 Thomas: They start with all those shapes. I'm like, I've

0:05:17 Eli: Right, here's

0:05:17 Thomas: Seen the end result. Those shapes aren't in it. I don't know what the fuck you're doing. It's a lie, right? All those shapes, they're not in the art.

0:05:23 Tom: Is a lie.

0:05:24 Thomas: It's total lie.

0:05:23 Eli: Here's Here's

0:05:24 Tom: That is a Lie because they teach you to draw by erasing the thing you just drew. And like, for some of us, I'm just like I, I DON'T. And then at the end, I'm like, I didn't care that I drew it in the first place. I didn't care. They're like, you drew a bird. And I'm like, I don't care that I drew a bird. I didn't want to draw the bird. I'm not excited about this bird at all. Like, I just, I remember taking my artwork and they'd be like, all right, take it home. And I would just throw it in the garbage in class. Like ,I'm not taking this home. What would I take this home for? It's hideous.

0:05:29 Eli: Yeah.

0:05:46 Eli: Is My Question for the cross face drawing people, are people who are talented at art thrown by the spacing of eyes? Is that what's going on? Because all the good at art people are like, now you got to do the crossface thing, man. So does that mean they have collectively gotten together and been like, look, we all know the exact shape of a nose, and when we think shape of the nose, our hand does it, but these eyes could be six inches apart, six millimeters apart, I got no idea, I need an X on a circle to guide my way, like is that was going on for them? Is my question.

0:06:21 Thomas: Or, Or, here's my other hypothesis. We can figure this out. Or it's like, you know, when you're good at something, you might do some weight resistance, you know, like you're swinging a baseball bat, you put a weight on it, get stronger. I think all that shape bullshit is actually like bullshitting they're like, we'll make it even harder to draw, imagine if, in order to draw, you had to write a bunch of absurd shapes on the thing first, then overcome that, like, weight resistance, and then draw a thing, that's, that's what I think it is, there's

0:06:31 Tom: Right. Yeah. All right. Okay.

0:06:48 Tom: Look, expressly acknowledge that, yes, probably that is a real and actual way to learn to draw. Like, right? Because I know. But, But, like, because I know we're We're going to get fucking emails and say, it's like, I will expressly acknowledge that.

0:06:53 Thomas: Yeah. I'm joking, everyone Yeah, yeah I know we will we will get the emails

0:07:00 Tom: But I also want to say like, there's a subset of people that that are not, and I'm not the only one of me that I've met that have been like God, don't make me draw something. Cause they'd be like, well, just draw what's in your head and be like it's all words in here. It's all works. It's words. Why won't you just let me write words?

0:06:55 Eli: Yeah. Show is jokes actually yeah

0:07:13 Thomas: We I say, Tom, just for the rest of citizens, don't draw what's in your head, like, I don't want to know, like, I feel like the trauma the snapping turtle yeah the snapping turtler related testicular trauma that is in your, your head should not, that's about Lovecraftian, like, who knows what's in there would

0:07:20 Eli: Definitely don't draw what's in my head yeah don't throw what's on Tom's head, yeah, yeah, exactly Yeah, yeah, there's one guy who drew what was in Tom's, and it was my, in the Holocaust, and everyone was like, all right, we just, we just need one of those books, thanks, I appreciate it I

0:07:40 Thomas: It surprise you guys to know that I actually was good at drawing as a kid, I okay, it's like, it's a thing I forget about because I was really good at a specific kind of drawing, and and my parents and like some other people thought like, oh, you're gonna be a good artist, because I could draw any, any cartoon character, anything like that, that I looked at, like if you put a picture of Bart Simpson, or that's pretty easy, but like even something harder, put a mixture of that in front of me, I could copy it over like super easily and draw it. And like something about the spacing of everything made sense to me. But people thought I was going to be good at art, and like, I'd go in art classes, and they're like, now apply that to like, like you said, Tom,

0:07:43 Tom: No, a fruit

0:08:14 Thomas: Draw what's in your head.

0:08:14 Tom: Bowl. Right.

0:08:15 Thomas: I'm like, it's not, I can't think of a character though. Like I can, I just didn't have that component of it. And if I tried to draw a real person's face, like it was not good. Tell you what, maybe I need the shapes actually, now that I think about it.

0:08:15 Tom: Yeah, right.

0:08:27 Eli: Think this generally applies to all of school, which is, I think school should be a buffet, but they should stop making you eat at the parts you don't like, right? Because right now, school's a buffet, but like kindergarten through ninth grade, you're gonna fucking eat mashed potatoes. It doesn't matter if you're allergic to them, doesn't matter if you like them, it doesn't matter if you hate them. We, because you know pretty quickly whether or not you like certain subjects, and are going to excel at certain subjects, and I think we need to be brave, brave and open our hearts to the fact that maybe your second or third grade teacher comes over and is like, Hey, um, we're done. We're done with math. You're going to go, you're going go to the reading room and uh, learn how to use a pocket calculator and um, if anything harder ever comes up, that's uh, you gonna have to pay somebody. You're gonna have pay somebody who stays in this room. So get on out of here. You scamp gonna get on down there, get into hell with Tom.

0:08:52 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:08:58 Tom: This is gonna be terrible no No, way, that's insane.

0:09:21 Thomas: You

0:09:27 Tom: I, I, I was gonna be on board, and then you went inevitably into a place of utter insanity, I can support that, I, I will say, with things like the arts and and other, I don't, I guess, like, secondary or even tertiary subjects like that, kind of makes me crazy that we think of arts in this very narrow, the visual arts terms. So, like, I would have loved, for example, to have taken, you creative writing at a younger age as a separate class. Like, right, I always had an affinity for writing. I enjoyed writing. It is an art, right?

0:09:49 Thomas: Should

0:09:57 Tom: Literature is an arte.

0:09:57 Thomas: Do do something involved in, sorry, Tom, you should apply that sometime, you know, like, yeah.

0:10:02 Eli: Yeah, Start

0:10:02 Tom: I know, I should give that a whirl once in a while. But I should I should put pen to paper. I should see what happens.

0:10:04 Eli: A blog, man, it goes great. You should Get a big tattoo

0:10:08 Tom: But you don't get an opportunity to do that in school until you're in like high school or college, which makes no sense.

0:10:08 Eli: That no one notices and

0:10:12 Thomas: Yeah, no, that's totally true. Yeah. And I don't think it was taught. Okay. I can't use my experience, but I, writing was hard for me, but I, I would have been really into the creative, um, part of it. Like I love coming up with stories and I loved all that. I never had the slightest bit of instruction on that whatsoever a single time in my entire career. It was always like, so the gerund is the thing that's this plus. And like, I get it. You know, I want to learn English. I get It's, you know, grammar and stuff is important, but there was never, it was always, here's the fucking noun, infinitive, fucking whatever bullshit diagram, the sentence or read fucking portrait of the artist as a young man. And that's it. Like, those are the two things. It was book you don't care about or technical bullshit.

0:10:30 Tom: Right. Yeah. Real, instruction on creative writing. I didn't get until college, like literally Zero. And that was that was the area of my interest, I took AP English, etc, etc. There was literally zero instruction. Sometimes we would give an opportunity to do some creative writing, but there was never instruction in creative writing until I chose to do it at the college level, which strikes me as again, as utterly insane. Saying it'd be like it'd be like the first class you took in music or art you didn't come to until college and it was like, okay, now draw something, you're like, I never heard of doing that before.

0:11:03 Eli: Right.

0:11:31 Eli: And It was somehow a composition class. Right, like you didn't get any music education. Yeah, it's it's a weird thing, I think it is largely because we view some things as like mystical and entirely reliant on talent and some arts we value less, right, don't think there's a create, maybe there is, but I don't think there's like a creative writing and sip class in my local town, right, everyone's just like, nah, you can make some fucking pottery, right.

0:11:34 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm. Yeah.

0:11:36 Tom: Right. Right. Right.

0:12:00 Eli: It's just bad. Pottery, who fucking cares. Like I think there is a part of it that's like we're we're not worried about whether or not this is good or bad, so that's why we like feel comfortable putting kids in those places.

0:12:00 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:12:02 Tom: Right.

0:12:13 Thomas: Interesting.

0:12:13 Eli: Right, we couldn't come up with a young person's version of creative writing exercises, you know, my dad was an English teacher, uh, speaking to dads and this, he spent most of his semester. So it is an option for teachers, which is actually a huge bummer, uh. To find out, uh., that you can actually do a bunch of creative reading instead of reading The Giver, right? Which is what my dad would do, right. They gave him a big, because He was like, hey, how come all the books suck? And they were like, they don't actually.

Here's all of these books that you're allowed to read for eighth grade, but The Griver has a bunch bunch of worksheets that come with it and you don't have to think about it, you can go to sleep behind your desk and That's why most of us read the Giver, but like my dad taught the Greek myths, Romeo and Juliet, which he thought was the best introduction, and then he did a creative writing project and a creative film project with his eighth grade English students, right, so they would write something and then they would make a short film for their last semester of his class in eighth grade, right, and look, they weren't making great films, they

0:12:20 Tom: Oh,

0:12:33 Thomas: Yeah,

0:12:35 Tom: Fuck.

0:12:46 Thomas: That sounds right.

0:12:47 Tom: No.

0:13:00 Thomas: That's crazy. No.

0:13:08 Eli: Weren't doing good things but

0:13:10 Thomas: Nothing you do is good in eighth grade. We need to be.

0:13:12 Eli: That's Right.

0:13:12 Tom: It's Not Supposed to be, yeah.

0:13:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:14 Eli: That's not the point, right? Need that freedom and you need that teacher who's going to say, hey, this is a safe place to be bad at something.

0:13:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, what's the eighth grade product of our podcast?

0:13:22 Tom: Yes, Yeah, yeah. Well,

0:13:28 Eli: We're 13 minutes into the podcast, Thomas. It's too late. It's Too Late to Plug the Patreon.

0:13:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:32 Tom: There's already been 22 auto ads.

0:13:35 Eli: Yeah, exactly. If they wanted to be patrons, damn it, by now they would have.

0:13:35 Thomas: Jeez. Oh, but it just makes an easy place for us to put an ad break. Okay, fine.

0:13:42 Eli: Okay. All right. Well, look.

0:13:44 Thomas: We'll put the ad break here. Patreon.com/dearolddads. Go there for no ads.

0:13:49 Thomas: So here's why this came up. I told the boys here, I told them, the dads, I okay, here's one topic I've been thinking of. You might remember that Phoebe loves to draw. I've, I've a few art nights with Phoebe. I, you know, I, God, I have no fucking time. It sucks so hard. I'm cats in the cradling every day, every day. I am like, no, son, I got to work. This fucking sucks so much. You have no idea how much I'd rather not be doing this.

But a the, couple of weeks ago, I had one of those moments where I was like, you don't have time, but I'm going to create time out of a vortex of like, be in a lab. I'll figure out like if I mix time and anti-time particles until they cancel out, then I'll find like 20 minutes. And so I did art day with Phoebe and I tried to do Arlo too, but he wasn't as into it.

I was like, you can pick whatever you want and we could draw it. I was like, here's what we'll do. Cause again, I'm, you know, secretly I'm a little good at this.

So I was looking forward, although I haven't, I literally have not drawn a thing in fucking got 25 years, I had no idea, I had no idea how this would go, but I was like, yeah, who do you want to draw, think of any character you want, whatever, and she was like, Bluey, I was like, fucking yeah, yeah, you, okay, you have no idea.

0:14:57 Eli: Nice.

0:14:57 Tom: Slam.

0:14:57 Thomas: That's the perfect so We did Bluey, and then also what was funny is they wanted to draw, I've been showing them, um, of the Wild a little bit, uh, or the new Zelda as well, and they love the guy, they love the Cork Seed guy that expands your inventory because he does a little dance and they freaking love it and they do the dance every time and They're like, like, oh, that guy too, and I was like, oh yeah, sure, and they're like, well wait, but he's not on the iPad, you know, because I was looking stuff up on that bit, it was really funny, side note, like their idea of what technology is, I always wonder, they're like, well, not on the iPad, and I was like, do you think that Bluey's on the iPad because we watch Blue, do you think that's how I'm, it was really interesting, they thought because we had watched Bluey on the the iPad, that means I

0:14:57 Eli: Yeah.

0:14:58 Tom: Dunk. Kid. Yeah.

0:15:07 Eli: Hell. Yeah, he does, yep.

0:15:36 Thomas: Can find a picture on Google images.

0:15:38 Eli: That's Where the squares are, that square has Bluey, that square has Little Einsteins.

0:15:38 Thomas: Yeah. And they're like, you can't get Zelda on the iPad, and I was like, yeah, we're just searching, and you can search any image, literally anything. They still don't get it. It's funny. I love those ways of technology that we just can't even imagine thinking like that, you know? Like, why would it? Anyway, so we look up that. We look up the other thing. We start drawing Bluey, and we're like. I'm like, okay, I got Arlo to kind of do it. Phoebe did it.

She did a pretty good job. She still goes way too too fast. That's fine. And I was, meanwhile, she's done. And I've drawn like one eye and I was like, oh, this, I'm not trying to make you look bad feed, but this is going to take me a while. Like I just can't, I can't do things quickly like that. And Arlo, here's why, here'S why I brought it up. So Phoebe's doing a great job. She's such a little artist, you know, she'S practicing. She'S, she working hard. She''s doing all the things that, you know, She may not end up being an artist or anything. She has a lot of talents, but you know we want her to draw. We want her TO take the time.

So I'm doing everything I can to make that, You as possible. Encourage her to practice. Let her know that, like, it takes a lot of work. All that stuff. Who knows if it'll work? Arlo, meanwhile, Arlo comes in and he takes a piece of paper and he wants to do it, by the way. He was pretty excited about this. And he does, you know, a couple squiggles and it looks like absolute dog shit. And he's like, there, I'm done. Bluey.

0:16:12 Eli: Yeah.

0:16:51 Tom: Love

0:16:51 Thomas: There's Bluey, everybody. And I'm like, ah, yeah.

0:16:52 Tom: It. I love him, Arlo. I see you, buddy, yes, and

0:16:56 Thomas: And here's the thing. OK, but it's not quite like you, Tom. Here's what's going on that I wanted to talk to you gents about. Arlo has started doing this where he's doing a lot of drawings. He likes doing it. He's generating a lot of art. It wasn't just this one, as other times, too. He's generating an awful lot of art and it's all extremely bad. It's extremely bad, like it's, and furthermore, he's like, isn't this awesome? Check this out. This is the thing, that's that's the thing. And I just have to be like, Jesus Christ, this is, oh boy, this is really bad. He is uh he's turning five in two couple months, three months, yeah, I mean, I'm not expecting him to be amazing, but it's that's

0:17:26 Tom: Remind me again, Arlo's age stage. Okay. No, no, no. I just was curious. I just wanted to get a sense of it. Yeah, right.

0:17:36 Thomas: Yeah. I think the other funny part that I'm not used to is he thinks it's brilliant, that's that I wasn't ready for, because Phoebe, we have Phoebe, who's, you know, she draws, but she's always fighting her demons, she's always frustrated, she's like, oh, that's not good enough, that's not whatever, and I'm always doing the opposite where I'm like, like, no, it's so good. Oh, look at that. I love how you did that. I'm trying to be encouraging. Like all my muscle memory is this poor child is too frustrated. I need to help her. I need point out where she's doing a great job. You know, I need to encourage her. And then along comes Arlo.

0:18:06 Thomas: And 100% of my muscle memory is like, oh, buddy. Oh, good.

0:18:11 Eli: Well, it's because we train our kids that whatever they do is right their whole beginning of their lives, right? They squiggle with a crayon and we're like, oh, I'm gonna to put this on the fridge. Look at this beautiful picture, which is what you should do with little kids. Right. Then, and this is where you're at, Thomas, is like, it's like, okay, but when do I stop lying?

0:18:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:32 Eli: Right. Cause you don't, you don'T want to never lie. Never lying is how they end up heroin addicts who shock their balls to wake up. Right?

0:18:35 Thomas: Yeah. That's not good.

0:18:40 Eli: That's like I have always received truth from on high from the man. And you're like, "Oh, okay. Cool. Nice. Excellent. Enjoy it in hell with Arlo and Tom, right?" You but then there's we end up doing is doing a weird compromise where we put like bizarre pressure on our kids, right? Because the the impulse is to be like, "Well, Arlo, I mean, how hard did you work on that?" And he's like, "I don't fucking know, man. That's never been a factor before."

0:18:40 Tom: Okay, I don't do heroin.

0:19:03 Eli: Why do you seem displeased?" I

0:18:49 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah five work units yeah exactly

0:19:06 Tom: Art is one of those interesting exceptions to the general rule that like if you're bad at it, the world will gently sort of weed you out of it, right? So if you're you're not naturally a good athlete. You can still go to gym and play in gym. You can still do intramurals. You could even still join teams when you're little. Right. But at some point the team will weed you out. Right. You won't get picked. You won'T get selected to move on. You WON'T get allowed to join the intramural club. You Won'T.

0:19:32 Thomas: Yeah there's no art dodgeball that like you're like

0:19:36 Tom: Right there's At some point there's not like, I'm sorry, to make the art JV team this year. So you're not going to be able to art and you're just like, oh, I guess I wasn't good at that. So it's, it's one of those things where you could just be bad at it forever and keep doing it and nobody will, I mean, like, not nobody. Eventually people will be like, hey, you're bad at this. You'll have to look at your parents, be like, why do you tell me? I wasted 21 years of my life, I have a goddamn MFA, dad, what am I going to do with this? I, you know, so

0:19:36 Thomas: Yeah exactly He's like, I don't know. Go tile your hallway.

0:20:02 Tom: It is kind of a funny exception

0:20:03 Eli: Wasn't paying a lot of attention. Don't call me if you're ever in jail, that's what I say, so you know, you weren't in jail, else and I'll call me.

0:20:10 Tom: Deception. But yeah. I think when they're little, you just have to, because I'll tell you what, man, Amen loves to draw and he draws crazy shit. Like the shit he draws, he's nine and he draws these like obviously Sonic-related battle scenes and Then he'll bring them over to the house and be, be like, this one I'm so proud of, can we hang it on the wall? And I'll look at it and it's fucking scribbledy fuck, you know, but he's super proud of it. So I'm like, yeah, man, we can hang that on the Wall. Let's put that on The Wall. I'll staple it to my fucking forehead if that's what makes you happy. Yes, absolutely. Like, let's do it.

0:20:28 Eli: Yeah, he does. Absolutely.

0:20:43 Eli: Tom.

0:20:41 Thomas: Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Just don't ask me what moves this guy has. I don'T care.

0:20:54 Eli: The subject of child fascinations, do you every think about the fact that long after Amen has outgrown Sonic and moved on with his life, you will still have all the Sonic in your head, but he will have left you alone with it by the side of the road, like he'll be like, "Oh, yeah, no, I remember that from when I was a kid." Fun, and you'll be like, "Dr. Robotnik actually created Knuckles in the new version. I know he's from an alternate dimension in the old one, but in the reboot

0:21:07 Tom: So Yes. Oh, yes. Uh -huh. Yeah.

0:21:23 Tom: Dude, it's gotten worse. Let me, I know this is like not the conversation, but it's gotten worse because Aislinn recently discovered a cartoon called Sonic Prime, and I is like in love with this thing, so now she's into goddamn Sonic and

0:21:37 Thomas: Oh,

0:21:38 Eli: Double the Sonic

0:21:38 Thomas: But can't you have them, them like cancel each other out then? Can't they play?

0:21:39 Eli: No

0:21:40 Tom: Is into Sonic no it does not, it does. I will, no it's

0:21:44 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:44 Eli: It multiplies and multi, they both come to you and they're both like,

0:21:45 Thomas: Yeah it's actually exponential amounts of Sonic, yeah.

0:21:49 Tom: Bad, like, now what she does is there's a character AI, so she goes to this character AI, AI, and has these like conversations with like different Sonic characters dude it's the worst thing in the entire world and she thinks it's great, and I'm just like, why does it have to be fucking Sonic of all the shit that we have to have in the house repetitively, why does it have to be motherfucking Sonic

0:21:55 Eli: Cool that sounds so cool I love that I

0:22:02 Thomas: Yeah what a great world

0:22:16 Eli: Don't want to go full curry, but if my child was having a converse, because I am well aware of AI's limitations and foils, if I found out Max was having a conversation with an AI, anything, at this point I would destroy whatever device that was, be it the computer or the country's internet, whatever it took to, not, because look, here's the thing, I use AI on a regular basis just to look stuff up or get a little help, search this document, that the other, the thing, and I'd say one out of 20 times it'll be like, you could cure your cancer with blue food dye, and I'm just like, oh, Uiai, you are a terrible danger to organized society, the fact that that is being put in front of children as a fun thing to play with, fucking, more, that would be like, you told me, well, they make a Smith and Weston Sonic version, so she's

0:22:37 Tom: Yep yeah

0:22:37 Thomas: Yeah yeah what's

0:23:10 Eli: Just, you know, loading the a clip and popping it into the back of the gun and pointing it at her eyeballs every so often

0:23:16 Tom: I don't feel dissimilar to it, but I, when your kids are 13, at some point, like, it's not that, like, all the rules are moot but there is a, there sense that there's... there's only so much leash is reasonable to have them on and

0:23:25 Eli: Yeah you right you don't want you to become the dad who like ranted at you guys about TV, I don't know if you guys had this friend dad who'd like, you'd be watching TV at your house or their house or something, and their dad would just come in and start talking about how, like, the government lied about the Gulf of Tonkin, and you'd like, "Hey, hey, grown up, I know that this is really important to you, you seem crazy to me," so I'm gonna need you to scale it back that's

0:23:54 Tom: Yeah well

0:23:56 Thomas: Even more dangerous is, you, you can't, as a kid, you can't really tell that they're crazy, though, you know, if you're young enough

0:24:00 Eli: Well no sometimes you can't, that's good when you canít, they, give you they fuck you up for life, right? Like literally that was the crazy dad for mine, it was a guy who had, uh, testified and been a part of the, like, My Lai repercussions, like he had actually been part of that legal process so from the moment I, I met him, he was like, let me tell you about the My Lai massacre and only as an adult do I look back and go like oh I'm an adult should not have talked to me about the My Lai massacre I

0:24:02 Thomas: Yeah Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. Oh

0:24:22 Tom: And it's jesus christ well

0:24:15 Thomas: My God. Jesus. Oh, for fucks. I would kill that person. Yeah. Yep. Oh yeah. Eli, this is a, you and I get to be doing, if someone does a thing with my kid about that, about some horrible thing, which there are those people in the world. And I think it's just dudes actually. There are those dudes who are like, I would love to tell your child about a a traumatizing, horrendous thing. If I find out that happens, I'm going to murder. Like, I don't know how I'm gonna deal with that.

0:24:30 Tom: All

0:24:39 Eli: Think it's everywhere look let me be real, I think most of the internet, and I would argue more leftist than right wing internet, tends to do that shit all the time I cannot tell you how many young, my, my students that are like high school and college aged have absolutely bizarre takes about the dangers of the world, like a completely detached from reality takes about the dangers of the world, about how right wing their government is, about how conservative most people are, like, they have these absolutely bizarre takes because they were thrown into the internet where people say the the wildest shit for the most amount of hearts, and the algorithm rewards that, and their parents don't ever sit them down and go like, yeah, okay, look, hey, let's have a real conversation about the dangers of climate change for you as opposed to the dangers right, when my 19 year olds say the world is on fire, they don't mean that ironically, hyperbolically, they don't mean that with like a big heavy dose of irony, right?

Many of them have like frequent anxiety attacks because no one in their life has ever talked to them about steeped consequences, right? Doesn't mean climate change isn't real. Doesn't means climate change is a really serious problem. But if you're a white, upper middle class person going to a private university, you should not expect the floods to come for you by next fall. And that's the problem, is the internet sells emergency, not subtlety.

0:24:54 Thomas: Mm,

0:24:58 Tom: Time yeah

0:26:17 Thomas: And that's why Arlo's drawings are not good enough.

0:26:23 Tom: All, so let's, let's get back to the drawing thing. So, what I said, there's... there's an age at which this weeds out for most other talents, but it never weeds out for drawing, and all jokes in the initial part of the episode aside, I don't think there's really any harm or any reason to ever tell somebody their art is bad. The world, if they continue it, will give them that message, right?

0:26:44 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:44 Tom: So, whether it's music, or whether it is art, like visual arts, whether it's writing, as a parent, I am never going to be the one that says your art is bad, because art is a vulnerable expression of self, that is different than most of the other things that we do but he's

0:27:00 Thomas: I think you should see some of these pictures. I don'T think, it's

0:27:05 Eli: I agree and I also think that like things we carry away from the people we love and trust and again we're joking around here because like we know thomas would never just be like that fucking sucked arlo but like the Things We Carry Away From When People We Love And Trust Tell Us That We Didn't Do A Good Job At Expressing Ourselves Or That The Way In Which We Express Ourselves Are Limited Are Often Not The Things They Intend Right What They What We Often Intend in those moments is like focus on your strengths or work harder or put more time and effort into this thing that you're working on and what we often take away and certainly what I took away a lot of times in my life all the way into adulthood is I am inherently broken in the way that I do this thing and uh there's no way for me to do it well

0:27:21 Tom: Yeah

0:27:28 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah,

0:27:52 Tom: Agree with that entirely, and I would add too that like you also don't want to reinforce the talent versus effort dichotomy that is a problem with, at the arts specifically. We tend to think erroneously of art as appearing or arising through some natural grace of talent. And that's not entirely untrue, but it's not the most important aspect of doing well in an artistic endeavor. The most important thing is effort and and time that you spend doing a thing, that is going to drive success and growth and skill set and all of that stuff. And I'm not saying that natural talent isn't real.

It's, of course, very, very real. And it's part of what drives people to be successful initially, because we tend to repeat the things that we're good at, Right? But you as the parent, I think, need to steer away from the talent versus effort dichotomy and and try to avoid that sort of like, well, you know, Arlo's not as talented at this initially as, you know, maybe Phoebe would be, so we don't want to put the same effort into, or or expend the same resources because maybe he'll eclipse her in effort, you he'll put more time into it, and that can easily surpass talent

0:28:00 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:28:20 Eli: Absolutely exactly yep right

0:29:09 Tom: Over Time. Our

0:29:09 Thomas: I I think there's a broader thing, because if we talk about these doodles, let's be real again, 99.99% of us, our drawing is not going to factor into like our life. You know, I think we also and I'm guilty of this. You have a you have a when your kids are tiny, it's hard to not look at everything they do, but like, that's what they're gonna do, you know, and it's like, well, or they'll just fucking work at a bank, you know, you don't know. But like, but there is a broader discussion separate from just the drawings, although the drawings are part of it.

I really don't know, like, because Phoebe's already again, I'm so comfortable with that dynamic, because phoebe's already so uncertain. I don't know, she's just been born that way. Like she's just always had these insecurities that I've, I've in my entire muscle memory has been, my entire pattern has been trying to help with that. Arlo might be the opposite. It might be like, do I need to figure out when and how, if at all, to put any doses of reality, just a little bit of reality in there sometimes and be like hey, oh you

0:29:20 Tom: Lives? Yeah.

0:29:21 Eli: Yeah yes yeah no

0:29:29 Tom: Right. Never.

0:30:09 Eli: No

0:30:09 Thomas: Could try, no I just didn't, no at a certain age, yes. I mean, that's, you know, I'm talking about a broader conversation of when they're a certain age and they're doing something horribly wrong, like you're going to want to help them somehow. And I'm trying to find where, you Know, how to do that.

0:30:13 Eli: Never under any circumstances no

0:30:25 Thomas: Math homework. They're bad at math. And you're just like, that's great. Yeah, you did it.

0:30:28 Tom: No, no, no.

0:30:29 Thomas: Right.

0:30:23 Eli: Nope that's great two plus two is seven buddy let's get on out of here let's go get some ice cream

0:30:31 Thomas: Yep.

0:30:29 Tom: No. I do think, though, Thomas, I reflexively but also seriously because I do separate the arts from all the other things that we do. I really do. Like math is objectively right or wrong.

0:30:45 Thomas: Hold On. Go with me here though. Cause I'm Talking about a broader, we've what had this conversation a lot and it's, it's one that I'll never, I'll want to to have all the time because I never know what's right. The three of us, for example, we have become successful and to a certain degree in what we do, and I feel like it's because in the things we do we work hard, we know what we need to achieve, and we know where we're falling short and we want to improve.

I'm just talking about in general that life skill of, well, hey, maybe this part over here could use a little work, recognize that, and I'm not, it doesn't matter matter what it is, it could be art, it could be fucking anything, could be sports, it could be any number of things that that do matter or don't matter, that life skill of taking, developing a sort of objective eye to look at yourself with, at least somewhat, so that you can genuinely improve, make improvements to anything you're doing, it's like, do we, do I need to try to work to develop that? Does that come naturally? Do you know, what do you think? Yeah.

0:30:46 Tom: Sure. Yeah. Well, I guess I kind of retreat back to the position I had before a little bit. I do hear what you're saying, but I think that we have to recognize two important pieces of context around that that I think helps inform the conversation, at least for me. And the first is that, um, would treat sort of non-essential things as different than essential things. If my kid is in need of assistance with math or English or core subjects, I will treat that as objectively, like, hey bud, like, and I have this situation, I can tell you from experience how I would treat this. Like, will help Finn, for example, with his math by giving him extra resources because it's an area that he struggles in and he's aware of that, like he gets a grade on that, so he gets already somebody objectively providing him an assessment that I don't, I'm not responsible for that objective assessment element, right? But when it comes to how I respond to him, I think as his parent my job is not to do the world's work. This is like how I feel.

0:32:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.

0:32:35 Tom: The world will do the world's work. The teachers will give him grades. He will not get selected or get selected for teams, for accolades, etc. The World will do The World's Work. My job is to support where I see.

0:32:35 Eli: Yeah I mean not

0:32:44 Thomas: OK. But, you know, those people who they outnumber us, who when they don't get the grade, it'll be the teacher's fault when they don't give the accolade. Oh, it's that idiot who's in charge of the accolaids when they don't like everything becomes everyone else's fault.

0:32:54 Eli: On the podcast it's just me well

0:33:02 Tom: Yes.

0:33:03 Thomas: And I don't want that to happen. Like, I think that I it's it's a little bit more I

0:33:03 Tom: Yeah,

0:33:06 Eli: Some people are stupid and named thomas how about you like that big stupid face thomas I would hate for my I would hate for my kid to end up a big cocky stupid face stupid podcaster stupid

0:33:08 Tom: Okay.

0:33:12 Thomas: Don't

0:33:19 Tom: No, that's that's that's so like I guess like you would have to actively be that parent, right? Are you saying like you're Well,

0:33:19 Eli: Oh

0:33:28 Thomas: Know I don I'm not sure, like,

0:33:30 Tom: My I mean, I don't know, my kids are now 17, I've never had them, I've ever gone to bat for my kids for a grade or for a team yeah or

0:33:36 Thomas: For the wrong cause yeah

0:33:39 Eli: I thought you were just gonna stop and I was like hey man we gotta stop doing this podcast we gotta hey everyone thanks for coming

0:33:44 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, it

0:33:47 Tom: That's it, Tom doesn't give a shit.

0:33:49 Thomas: Might be one of those things where we both model, maybe just modeling is enough. Because, like, they'll see anything that I'm working on or doing, I'm not going to be like, well, this sucks and that means it's great, don't have to try. You know, maybe, maybe they take after what we do rather than what we say on that.

0:33:49 Eli: Series finale again

0:33:49 Tom: No, yeah.

0:34:04 Tom: And I think I mean

0:34:04 Eli: I didn't attack you guys when I did my shit and you guys because how dare you well

0:34:08 Tom: I I like, like, Finn is, Finn got invited to the um advanced placement English class for his senior year, and so we had, and he's very nervous about saying yes to it. Um, his academics, while they've gotten way better and he's doing phenomenally well this year, they have previously been something that he struggled with. When he came out of the Montessori school and entered the gen pop of the of the local schools, he really struggled in that transition and he took a big hit in his sort of like self-confidence to engage school in a graded system. And now he's doing very well and he got invited to this advanced placement class, and I think that's great, and I I fully support him, and I'm kind of pushing him fairly hard to say yes to it, even though he's nervous, right? Even though I know that that advanced placement class doesn't matter, right.

0:34:18 Thomas: Hmm. Hmm. Mm

0:34:55 Tom: Getting a three credit hour leg up on it. It doesn't care. It's a, there's no net effect in his life that will be joined. But I think the net effect is a self-confidence boost. And I think that that's worth doing, but I would not have gone to the school and said like, send my kid, get into an advanced placement, you know, he's I I feel intrinsically like he's bright, and I think that's what you're pointing out, is some people do that, I would never do that. Right, like, if that's, that's a crazy person thing to do.

0:34:56 Thomas: -hmm. Yeah. Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah. And

0:35:23 Eli: Is one million per if the minute phoebe arlo and maybe even remy is like oh I I didn't make it into the advanced placement thomas magically transmogrifies inside that teacher's desk to be like hey I just I just want to have a conversation about standards and values I just want to just want a simple simple conversation.

0:35:33 Thomas: No, not at all. What are you talking about? No.

0:35:34 Tom: Okay.

0:35:41 Eli: Here, come on serious inquiries only.

0:35:42 Thomas: No. What I will do is what I've already done is they've already taken a practice version of that test ahead of time. And they're just going to nail it before we even get there. I, hate to, no, and-ing you, but like, I'm so the opposite of that person, Eli. It's, it couldn't be a worse joke. It'S like saying Tom is like a lazy, doesn't work at all, never shocks his balls. It just doesn't work. It doesn't WORK as a joke. No,

0:35:51 Eli: You go. Failure is not an option.

0:36:04 Eli: Mean, he doesn't always show up for the parenting story. That's all I'm saying. Okay.

0:36:07 Tom: Time, goddammit, it's because I had to work a different job. Whoa.

0:36:10 Eli: It's because you were starting a different podcast with that whore.

0:36:14 Tom: Absolutely not. Absolutely.

0:36:17 Eli: Hey, Lydia, it's important that you cut that from this podcast for me to be alive.

0:36:21 Tom: Not. Please. Don't.

0:36:24 Eli: So only leave it in the podcast if you want me to die.

0:36:24 Tom: Do that. This. Jesus Christ.

0:36:32 Eli: Sorry,

0:36:33 Thomas: We all know I had the opposite of that. I had the parents who, if I was doing something well, they'd go in and ask the teacher like, well, that can't be right. He must suck, right? Like there's something, you know, like they're trying to always get at The opposite. I'm not even joking. Like they were more, and I think a certain amount of that is good though. I do, I do think the idea that it's always always the teacher's fault is maybe not as fruitful in this day and age, especially because we pay our teachers nothing and give them no resources and make them scared of guns and school. Like we're going to get what we're gonna get.

Like going in there and demanding that better customer service from our teachers, I think is less fruitful just on an individual basis than saying, well, what can we do? Like, how do we, how do we try to, if we have any time, which we may not, how did we, how do we work on ourselves here?

And that's what I mean, like some, some amount of that because I, I worry about that's actually what I worry I worry about doing too much like my parents in that way if

0:36:42 Tom: You. Okay.

0:37:25 Tom: Yeah, yeah.

0:37:26 Thomas: Now I feel like I do a good job of being kind of just in my kid's corner and whatever, but there is a part of me that once they're getting objective marks, I'll be like, well, that's the objective, like that's the you Have to do Better

0:37:37 Eli: That's it. There were 10 questions. You got 7 right. That's a 70.

0:37:39 Thomas: Yeah. 70. Yeah.

0:37:41 Eli: Do you want to come on Serious Inquiries only?

0:37:38 Tom: Well but That's Yeah. But Thomas I think That's, that's it, man. I, I think to have you to see your kids with rose colored emotional glasses and Clear tinted like educational glasses and Skills glasses. Right. And I think.

0:37:50 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Mm.

0:37:56 Eli: Transition lenses for parenting.

0:37:57 Tom: Yeah.

0:37:58 Thomas: Wow. That's actually not a bad idea. Yeah. Transition. That's a pretty good metaphor.

0:38:04 Tom: And I think that that's very possible because you have, you, you're not a crazy person who believes that your child's child, every doodle is a good doodle. You're this, that conversation is evidence of that, right? Like, Arlo gives you something and you love it and treasure it emotionally because it comes from Arlo, but objectively you're like, "Yeah, you're not good at this, bud." Like, maybe you'll get good, maybe you won't, but right now, today, this is a garbage drawing of Scribble Dick, who gives a shit.

0:38:18 Thomas: Mm-mm.

0:38:27 Thomas: Scribbledick is one of the characters that,

0:38:29 Eli: Scribbledink. It's actually on Sonic Prime, and he is, can I say, problematic. Problematic. They're always like, "Let's get chili dogs," and he's like, "Let me draw on your dick," and then the cartoon ends. It's fucking weird. Anyways, I write for Sonic Prime and uh, it's not going great. Is what I'm trying to tell y'all. Here's the other thing that I wanted to talk about, in relation to like kids being good and bad at art, that I think we sort of reap the consequences of, and I'd be interested to hear you guys' thoughts on this. So when I was growing up, the minute you were good at something, and Thomas, you brought this up in sort of the first thing you were talking about, someone was like, "Oh, you're gonna be a that when you grow up," huh?

0:38:32 Thomas: Yeah. Ha -ha -ha. Yeah. Mm -mmm. We

0:39:10 Eli: Right.

0:39:11 Thomas: Still do that. Yeah.

0:39:12 Eli: And I want to be clear, like, yeah, they're better at it now, but like I want to be clear that I was three when I chose my life path. I was in the Where the Wild Things Are show, and everyone was like, "Eli, you were so good," and I was like, so I'll just do that forever for my whole fucking life. And they were like, "Yeah, go ahead, bud, you have all the information you need." And I cannot emphasize enough, I did, right? Like, that three-year-old called the shot, I've been following the directions ever since. So there's a part of me that's like, is there room, and this is such a weird thing to say, but like, is their room in this conversation for, like, even if you're bad at a thing, maybe it's about whether or not you love it.

0:39:11 Tom: Yeah. Yeah,

0:39:15 Thomas: Mm -umm. Yeah.

0:39:57 Eli: Right. Like, Do we communicate that to our kids in a way that's healthy? Because I'll tell you, I, again, you guys are much better at this stuff than me, I can't possibly think of a healthy or sane way to be like, "Here's the thing, this is bad, but you don't have to stop."

0:39:58 Thomas: For sure. Yeah.

0:39:59 Tom: To a degree. Yeah, to a degree, right.

0:40:15 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. So that's, I think this is infected even that I was going to say this a moment ago when, when you drew the distinction between art and something in math or whatever, something like that, I was about to say, I agree with that, but the key isn't, you need to falsely think you're good at art and then accurately think you're bad at math. It's like, you just can enjoy art even if you're bad at it. Right.

0:40:35 Tom: Yeah.

0:40:35 Thomas: I mean, do we have to, has, has this meritocracy idea or whatever ever, in fact, it is so much that literally it's synonymous for, I think, honestly, parts of this discussion, it's been synonymous. It's like, well, in order to enjoy it, you must falsely think you're good at it. Like, there's no way you can enjoy something unless you are such an idiot and out of it in the world that you think you're Rembrandt. And it's like, that's why I was pushing back a little, in that I kids to enjoy whatever they're doing, but I don't know that that means they have to have a really false sense of how good they are at it.

0:40:49 Eli: Yeah.

0:40:50 Tom: Yeah.

0:41:06 Eli: Yeah, but

0:41:07 Tom: No, and I, and I agree with that, I just think that with art, at some, I'll give you an example, for me with band, right? So I wanted to join, I wanted to play the drums when I was a kid, I was in fifth grade, and they said, "Is anybody," I remember the lady came in, she says, "Anybody want to join band?" I just raised my hand, I was like, sure, I don't know what that mean, I'll join band.

0:41:22 Thomas: Tom's seeing Animal the Muppet. He's like, yep, that's me, baby. That guy shocks his balls.

0:41:23 Tom: Yes that's me. I'm it so

0:41:25 Eli: Absolutely. How many sets of drums did you break before they told you you

0:41:29 Thomas: Yeah, exactly.

0:41:28 Tom: I what? No. So, so here, I never played the drums, I didn't get that far. So I the played drum is how far I got.

0:41:35 Thomas: He's trying to set it up and it just exploded. Ha ha ha ha.

0:41:38 Tom: I crushed the drum.

0:41:38 Eli: I keep giving it hog snuggles, what would Dick scribble do sorry no

0:41:43 Tom: So in fifth grade, I was like, oh, I'm going to play the drum, and I was bad at it. I have no sense of rhythm, and you'll be amused. I would hit the drum way harder and louder than was necessary. I was badass. I was just, I just whacked it. That was terrible. Just absolutely terrible.

0:41:51 Thomas: Hmm. Nah. Oh, I mean, he did record the drums for several Metallica albums, but then Lars was like, all right, I'll try to figure it out.

0:42:07 Tom: By seventh grade I was disinvited to band, right? So I tried to sign up to band in seventh grade and they were like, I'm sorry, but your skill set has not, is not such that you're allowed to progress. And all jokes about art aside, the same thing would happen in high school and in college, right? Like you would not be allowed to take the next class if you're that bad at it.

0:42:14 Thomas: Oh, my God. It's

0:42:24 Eli: So That happened to me that happened to me too. I played the French horn because my mom wanted me to play the frenchhorn and so I played the frenchorn and I played it, fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade. We, we did this thing called NISMA. Now, that's a New York State version, but there's a, there's a, go have a stranger from a different school listen to you play your instrument, and then they give you a grade conference in every state. So I went to it, and the guy, I finished my, and he was like, hey, you're really bad.

0:42:57 Thomas: Pretty good French horn.

0:42:58 Eli: You're nowhere close to as good as you should be at this. You should stop. And I was like, really, I really fucked shit on that hard? Right. And he was, he was just like, yep, you should stop, you should stop it, stop pretty

0:43:10 Tom: They walk up and they just stuff the French horn full of like, just Be like, we're selling this for you after this interview. This is not, you're not allowed.

0:43:12 Eli: Much yeah and I did I I quit, I quit the French horn. And whenever, it's weird, whenever I have told that story at various times in my life, people have been like, oh my, that is so terrible, but now as an adult I'm kind of like, yeah, man, thanks, like there's a part of me that's so

0:43:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:18 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, somebody saved you a lot of time, right? But I will say, my dad never told me. And I actually practiced the drum. I never got two drums with an S.

0:43:34 Thomas: Yeah, I think so. I was

0:43:41 Tom: I had drumma.

0:43:41 Thomas: Going to say you said drum and I was OK. So that was on purpose.

0:43:42 Tom: Yeah yeah, I never progressed Thomas passed drum, right?

0:43:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:46 Eli: Sad. I'm surprised your dad let you have the drum and that you didn't have to like sneak Sneak to the trash can outside.

0:43:49 Tom: My dad bought me a drum. My dad, my dad was super supportive. He hated it. He He had told me years later, he's like, I wish you'd pick literally anything else. I, he bought me as snare drum. I had it in my bedroom and I diligently practiced and I was just bad. And I was never going to get good or even like a facsimile of competent at this instrument. It's just not who I am. I don't have that.

I was not going to make up for it with effort, right, this was just evident to me at this point, I was not going to be the guy that made up for with effort, but my dad never said shit and the world weeded it out and I still felt supported by my dad and so I think that that's kind of how most of this stuff generally will play out where you're just like, yeah, all the other kids are better and I see that because I'm maturing too and don't think any of my kids are any about their skill set as they reach their mid-teens. By their mid-teens, they look at their peers and they're like, yeah, I'm not as good as the other

0:44:20 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. That's fair.

0:44:40 Thomas: Hmm.

0:44:41 Tom: People at this. And then they naturally weed themselves out. So I think that deluded sense of your own sort of skill set, I think there's so many avenues of the world that kind of inform that for you as a person. The last person that needs to do that is your parents, which

0:44:56 Thomas: There's always podcasting, I guess if it if Arlo Arlo

0:44:58 Eli: Always podcasting.

0:44:59 Tom: You don't have to be good at

0:44:59 Eli: That's right.

0:45:02 Thomas: Walks in my door is like, Hey, Dad, that podcast fucking sucks, man. I hey, how does it feel? How's

0:45:13 Eli: All right, gentlemen. Before we go, speaking of our limitations, it was a mistake for me to challenge death to a pillow fight. I was not prepared for the repercussions. I was NOT prepared for the repercusions. There

0:45:29 Tom: Out

0:45:28 Thomas: Reaper cushions? Oh, I was like, were you trying to go Reaper concussions?

0:45:29 Eli: It is.

0:45:31 Thomas: I thought it was that but repercussions oh repercussions is good well

0:45:29 Tom: Repercussions I like I saw

0:45:32 Eli: Repercusions, cushions, repercussions

0:45:39 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.

0:46:19 Eli: Like we need you to draw a lady floating on a table and I finished my, and he