DOD121: Should We Nuke The Nuclear Family?

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 keeping it all in the family. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:40 Thomas: Reporting for duty.

0:00:41 Tom: Just realized that that all in a family might be a reference to a terribly abusive television program of the 1960s, so I feel a little weird about that now.

0:00:41 Thomas: Before my time. Don't know what it was, oh.

0:00:50 Tom: Yeah.

0:00:51 Eli: All in the Family is about a lovable, let me check my notes here, racist?

0:00:57 Thomas: Is that that one with the guy that was the racist, uh, okay, Archie Bunker, okay.

0:00:58 Eli: Yeah! Archie!

0:01:01 Tom: Yeah. So that was terrible.

0:01:02 Eli: And then it got super depressing?

0:01:04 Tom: Yeah. I've actually never seen that terrible show, so. So, no,

0:01:02 Thomas: Yeah I

0:01:06 Eli: Haven't seen All in The Family? Hey, y 'all, if you have not gotten a chance to revisit All in Family, it is fucking bananas, right? Cause you're like, well he's a grumpy old racist but he's got a heart of gold. I cannot not emphasize enough, he does not have a heart of gold. He is a toxic, abusive monster. It is literally the golden generation making a television show about why you can't stop talking to them. It's, you know, those Dennis Prager crazy letters where it's like, my grandson doesn't talk to me anymore just because I refuse to acknowledge his life and who he loves and who He is. And every Every time he's around, I did name him. Why

0:01:07 Thomas: Haven't seen it either

0:01:08 Tom: You'd be surprised, Eli. I haven't seen anything.

0:01:26 Tom: Yes.

0:01:49 Thomas: No

0:01:50 Eli: Are they so mean? Okay, they up on All in the Family, and they think they're compromising, right? They're like, Archie used to get a nice pat on the head. Because keep in mind, Archies big quality, right, that he is a racist, right. Not like, oh, not quite right with the times, not anti -PC. He is a visceral, vicious racist. Racist. There was a spinoff show about the black family he hates. They were introduced on the show, the Jeffersons. They moved next door and for seasons at a time.

0:01:59 Tom: Oh, my God. Wait, the Jeffersons was about that. I've seen the Jefferson so many times. That was a spinoff. I

0:02:25 Eli: Yeah. The Jefferson's, unless I am incorrect and I do not think I am.

0:02:29 Thomas: I think that's right, I, I only know that like trivia-wise, I've never seen a single episode of any of this, but I think I've seen a

0:02:32 Tom: Am learning something in real time right now.

0:02:30 Eli: Yeah, yeah. The Jefferson's were introduced as black neighbors who moved in and they spent seasons with him being like, Like, I don't want no black people living here. And America was like, you card. You absolute card.

0:02:45 Tom: Yes. It is. Because the Jeffersons first appeared in All in the Family episode.

0:02:54 Eli: Fuck yeah.

0:02:54 Tom: Lionel moves into the neighborhood. I just, I have watched a million episodes of the Jeffversons. Growing up, it was like those reruns were after school type reruns, you know? Like, yeah. Holy shit. The goddamn Jeffers is moving on up. That one. Holy shit!

0:03:00 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. Now, everybody, everybody. I know what you're thinking. What were the Jeffersons about? If it was a spinoff of a show about a racist. It was also a show. About a racist because that dad was racist. He Would just be racist. To the other rate. Honestly, if you think about it, the All in the Family Jeffersons is a really good portrayal of the cycle of violence that the rich impose on the poor to make us hate each other so that we don't eat them. It's... here's what you should do. You should take those shows and you should like zoom them out so that they've got like a meta frame. And then it's just Ronald Reagan counting money on top of the frame. Now, I know the timing doesn't quite work out because of the 1960s, but I think it's a good message. Occasionally you can drop a dollar in front of the screen and be like, "Oh, don't pay attention to me. I'm just, uh, nothing. I sure hope I don't pay anyone to rape some nuns."

0:03:15 Thomas: Lot of it I've

0:03:21 Tom: Oh my god!

0:04:02 Thomas: Seen a little bit of it, these things. I'm sure this is great comedy. I don't know what it is. Sorry, I'm not a million years old, yeah,

0:04:06 Eli: Okay,

0:04:05 Tom: Okay. Feel like this has got to be a Citation Needed episode right now. This is amazing.

0:04:08 Eli: Let something That's a little bit relatable, okay? Because you know the only thing worse than a television show about a racist and why you should just allow him to be a racist because he's slightly older than you? Why? It's the auto-ends. The racism of podcasting. Podcasting. Hear me out. Racism comes from financial repression, as do our auto ads. Thomas's children insist on eating food, not just once, but every single day. And in order to feed their mouths, which I've seen Remy, so I know this is a substantial food input, we must pepper our show with auto ads, the racism of podcasting.

0:04:34 Thomas: God,

0:04:46 Eli: But You can end racism today. And I'm not even talking talking about the racism podcasting if you get us to a bit let me adjust it on our Patreon, if you get us $10,000 an episode there will be no more racism, which means if you're not a patron it's because you want racism to keep going, and last I heard I was about to at you on Twitter for exactly that reason, so check it out over at patreon.com/dearolddads, little is a dollar. You get -free version of every single show, and you'll put an end to racism. Patreon.com/dearolddads.

0:04:46 Tom: Oh, my God.

0:05:00 Thomas: We're

0:05:26 Tom: Don't That's know that we should even follow that up, Thomas. I don'T know that WE EVEN SHOULD. WE SHOULD JUST THAT SHOULD JUST BE THE EPISODE.

0:05:28 Eli: When podcast hits $10,000 a week on Patreon, I will end racism. That I promise you. Hey, hey, I promise I'll end racism, I promiss. I'll do it.

0:05:40 Tom: THAT'S IT. THAT'S I KNOW I FEEL LIKE DONATING TO THIS SHOW JUST TO SEE IF WE CAN TEST THIS OUT.

0:05:43 Eli: If you don't, it's because you like racism. What? Hey, I'm sorry everybody just quick. I'm a little confused because you're not donating on patreon right now, and that means you like racism Awkward

0:05:58 Tom: Noted.

0:06:00 Thomas: Gonna be the only podcast that cancels its entire audience like instead of them canceling us

0:06:03 Eli: Yeah

0:06:04 Tom: Instead of the other way around. Right, so I read this article the other day, guys, in The Atlantic, and name of the article was The Nuclear...

0:06:04 Thomas: Yeah

0:06:04 Eli: Hey, The Atlantic. Fuck you fuck you, Tom for ever bringing the Atalantic on our show we do actually hate the Atlanic

0:06:13 Tom: Do we hate The Atlantic now? Do

0:06:11 Thomas: Yeah, uh, yeah, actually I, I do. They, they brought in a bunch of anti-trans people and so they, yeah. They

0:06:20 Tom: Wait, we seriously, we hate the Atlantic. I didn't know we hated the Atlantic now.

0:06:22 Thomas: Used to be good they used to

0:06:24 Tom: I love the Atlantic

0:06:24 Thomas: Be it and that well, and this was in 2020, it wasn't, this article super old, like 2020, 21, 21, but they know, actually they did still suck then. There is something I actually wanted to talk about on Where There's Woke and haven't gotten to it. There's an Atlantic cover that I think should be in the Museum of All Humanity. It is, I'm not even joking it's the best it

0:06:29 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. I, I,

0:06:29 Eli: Yeah oh it's the like when your child tells you they're trans, is that the one? Yeah,

0:06:44 Thomas: Is, but it's, it's even better than that, it's there's is, it's essentially trans panic. It is, are your kids going to trans and trans brands. And then in a tiny, tiny little paragraph, Ed there's, Yong or whatever. They have one real journalist who does the whatever. And this is in COVID, the this tiny little article headline in the side is, we might not be prepared for the next pandemic. And it's so fucking, this is real. I actually checked it because I thought it might've been made up by, like, you know, Occupy Democrats, something, blah blah, but it's literally, it's real, it's a full page cover of the trail, your kids gonna, whatever, like, are, like, trans, uh, hormonal

0:06:46 Eli: Graham yeah

0:07:19 Thomas: Therapy is

0:07:19 Eli: We gotta buy it and frame it yeah it's

0:07:20 Thomas: It safe. I know, I actually, that's funny, I went through that same thought process and I forgot to buy it. I gotta do that. I'm actually doing that right now. It's on eBay, yeah.

0:07:27 Eli: The episode artwork for for Where There's Woke. But Tom, in your defense, if we weren't using articles from publications that hosted transphobes, we wouldn't be able to talk about the New York Times either, so So, occasionally

0:07:37 Thomas: But yeah that's so true, no

0:07:35 Tom: Oh, talk to you guys about the the nuclear family was a mistake. I And thought this article raised some really interesting points. It actually relates back to something I was just saying on our last episode around the idea of family isolation, and how it relates to how we raise our kids and the sort of loss of multi generational ism, like within our our homes and within our family structures. We And sort of like have gotten to this place where we've idealized the nuclear family as the sort of, like, cultural ideal. Like, this is how we should have families. We have families, you out and then they get married and they start their own family. And then they don't, you knows, have any sort regular or living touchstones to other generations. And this is what we have idealized with the nuclear family and

0:08:11 Thomas: Yeah.

0:08:23 Thomas: Yep. And then when our parents get old, we put them in a closet and try to forget about them. Well, that, that was good advice in my case, but like in other people have good parents, you know?

0:08:27 Eli: Right. Right.

0:08:28 Tom: Yeah so I, I have really mixed feelings about this, about this idea, right, and we don't have to go through the article in depth, but I just kind of want to introduce the idea because I read this article and I have these really strong mixed feelings where on the one side I'm like, yes, all of those things, I feel like they are objectively just indisputably true, and at the the same time I have been raised in this soup for so long and, like, I've I've come to like value my family's independence from other family members in such a deep and important way that I can't imagine having a strong connection to my dad even as part of my day-to-day life.

Right. And my wife Hayley has had most of her life a very different experience where she's had really strong daily or weekly life connections with her family. So she's had more of a multi-generational upbringing with her grandparents coming to live with her. Never had anything like that, and that I've come to sort of idealize that sort of toxic independence of family. We talked about toxic independence early in this, our sort of show history. So I thought this was a good opportunity to kind of wrap around and to talk about the idea of sort of toxic independence when it comes to family structure. And I'm curious where you guys fall on that idea.

0:09:01 Thomas: Yeah.

0:09:31 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:09:44 Eli: It's so funny because I think Thomas's joke just now actually kind of gets to the heart of the matter, which is like, those things are all true, but a major requirement of them is that your family doesn't suck. And I think what a lot of people are realizing, and I think ours is truly like, I know our parents kind of recognize the not great things about their parents, our grandparents, but like ,I think ours as the first generation to be like, oh yeah. And the abusive people in our life don't get to be part of our lives anymore. Right.

There were, there was separation and broken families before that, but it was usually much more extreme and it was often initiated by the parents, but ours is the first generation. So like, it's interesting because like it is absolutely a problem. Families are supposed to be multi -generational households are supposed to be multigenerational. And I have reflected on how lucky I am to not just have so many many generations in my house. I mean, again, we talked about this when we were first starting the show, but like the first time Anna and I were able to do anything because Max is a COVID baby was because my mom came and

0:09:56 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:10:31 Tom: Right. Oh

0:10:49 Eli: Watched him, right? And I remember so clearly us going to a park four minutes away from the house and sitting and eating this takeout food on a bench and not being with a baby for the first time in four months. And

0:10:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. By my memory, the, the pandemic was actually a big reason. A lot of these articles started being written because people were like, Like, we can't do anything because, you know, like that was certainly true for us. We had no ability to do anything because we can'T bring a babysitter into, you during COVID, we CAN'T do that. And they're not in school. And so it was like, well, if we had all had a family member we lived with, like an older, you or whatever it is, that would be super cool. And there were a lot of these articles. And I actually, it's one of those things where I actually think this might be one of those things where I'm almost into the far leftist, this is a capitalism conspiracy thing. Like I'm, like I'm on this Issue. You, yeah.

0:11:33 Tom: Yeah.

0:11:34 Thomas: Because It's, you all have to have a separate house, that's the economy, you all have to drive your fucking separate cars that you all bought everywhere, that's more of the economy crap, like it's all about the fucking economy and It's just like it makes it so much worse as just a living experience, like it makes our day-to-day experience so much worse, but it's one of those things where I can't just fix it, like point, not just that, you know, a lot of people's parents and suck now, but also just infrastructure wise, we're like so deep in this concept that to undo it, I don't even, how would you even do that?

0:11:34 Tom: Yeah.

0:11:43 Eli: It is. Yep.

0:12:04 Tom: Yeah, I don't know how we undo it. Clearly It has a deep economic element to it that has been socialized in this like really deep way. My dad lives entirely alone, right? So my dad lives by himself and his health is not so good. He's a 76 year old guy. He has had, I dunno, two or three heart attacks. He has had a million back surgeries, had his hip replaced. And I've talked to him and been like, if things for you, we can work something out.

0:12:29 Thomas: He's lost a pump in his sex tapes. I've noticed he's really, oh

0:12:33 Tom: It's nowhere near as much vim and vigor in him. I'll tell you, it's a lackluster performance. But I've told him like, hey, at some point if things rough and you wanted to live with us, and he's like, that'll literally never happen. He alone and he feels this strong sense of his own independence being being more valuable than his personal safety and I fucking get it, that's the thing is that like I I'm like that's horrible and I don't think he's right, but there's a part of me that's like even though I think that's wrong I fucking gets it and can't escape the feeling that like, yes, I know I'm wrong about that, I know that's toxic, I know it's bad for me, I know it's good for my kids, but also like, embedded deep within the part of of me that stood up and said the Pledge of Allegiance in 1984, you know, like the part of me that's made out of garbage and I know it, but I can't get past it because because we've talked about before like the we get socialized in these worlds, we become

0:12:36 Eli: Yeah, exactly.

0:12:52 Eli: I Oh, okay.

0:13:00 Thomas: No, this will be you, Tom. This will a hundred percent be you. Yeah, no.

0:13:18 Eli: Is the part of you that's like, right.

0:13:28 Tom: A part of this, we have successes that we attribute inaccurately to some of these ideals, you

0:13:35 Thomas: Well, or we don't know if it's accurate or not. I mean, maybe, maybe I'm delusional, But I feel like it's hard to know precisely. There may be some things where bad worldviews, you know, like the garbage things you're referring to, Tom, maybe they do have benefits that ultimately probably aren't worth it. But like, we can't know for certain that might be true. Like, the way, I's sure Michael Jackson was a really fucking good dancer, probably in part because his dad fucking abused the shit out of him. Like, I'm sure that's true.

0:13:52 Tom: Right yeah Yeah.

0:14:00 Eli: Yeah.

0:14:00 Thomas: But like that doesn't mean it's good, but it's also hard to be like, well, shit, what What am I going to lose if I, you know, lose this harsh part of my, you know, psyche or whatever kind of thing.

0:14:00 Tom: Yeah.

0:14:09 Eli: Yeah, I had the exact conversation with my mom the other day. We have a family member who's in a terrible nursing home situation, which is just, she is miserable and she hates it there. And I was like, well, mom, you know, like if we ever got to that situation where you felt like you needed to be in assisted living, right, we would be that assisted living.

0:14:27 Thomas: Wow.

0:14:28 Eli: And of being that imposition. And I was like, we just had like a 20 minute conversation about person. We love like possibly being abused. You hear how that's worse, right? And then when I said to her on the phone is I was like, look I'm psyched for it. But like, you know, you changed my diapers for a few years.

0:14:38 Thomas: Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

0:14:45 Eli: I'll change yours for a Few years. Like that's, that's kind of how the arrangement needs to go. Now let's, let's get the elephant out of the room. Because Right? If you want the problem, not to come up. To kill yourself early and often. Okay. And look, I'm the one who's going to be brave enough to say it. Okay? I got a plan and everything. You got to kill yourself in a way that they don't know you killed yourself. And you got to do it early enough that you aren't a burden on your family, which means you probably got to do it when you feel okay. And Look, I the one, who's brave enough to tell it to you. All right. Now I got to plan.

0:14:46 Thomas: Yeah. God. Oh, okay. I thought Jesus

0:14:58 Tom: Oh my

0:15:12 Thomas: Christ. The suicide hotline, by the way, suicide hot line is.

0:15:16 Eli: I've that's but the thing, right. Think the mistake that comes up for a lot of people when it comes to being a burden on your family, right, everyone waits until it's too late. Right. Everyone is like, I'm not going to be a burden. I can kind of make this work. I'm not gonna be a button. It's working less and I need a little bit extra to help. And then you are a burden, but like you do not have the facility to not be a burden anymore. Right.

0:15:41 Eli: Which is why you got to work that stuff out early and often. Credit to my wife's parents. Good. Grandma who lived to be a hundred, a hundred and one hundred and two, like got unhealthy and it was very clear that she needed help. She moved into the house with them. She lived in the back room. They lived in in the front room. They took care all her needs. And the last few years of her life fucking ruled. They reeled her over the kitchen table. She would draw a pair. They'd be like, you'd fun. She was like, yep. Give me a large print book. And

0:15:41 Thomas: -hmm yeah well fun uh

0:16:12 Eli: And she'd be like large print Booktime. She'd read a large printing book all all day, have a little, you know, oatmeal for dinner, go to sleep. 45 seconds before she died, she was is like, "I think I'm good," and she fucking went out. That's you have family there taking care of you, that is the way it can go. The problem is we have this toxic independence that Tom is talking about, and we also have thisxic independence of ourselves. Well, I don't want my mom or dad to be a burden on me, and we don't talk about it because it's a shameful thing to say, so we just do it, we just put our family into nursing homes, we just puts our family

0:16:24 Thomas: That's that's the way to go

0:16:40 Tom: Yeah.

0:16:46 Thomas: Okay

0:16:46 Eli: Into assisted living tissue you

0:16:46 Thomas: Okay this is good I want to bring up a counterpoint, and it's actually not for me. For one, I I've actually thought about this because like, I was a time when we weren't sure what to do with my dad. Um, yeah, God, that was a whole thing. It was during the pandemic, so so it all blends together, but it's, it

0:17:00 Eli: Didn't know which color trash bag to use, I get it it's, I think it's the big red ones, but you got to go to the titty well

0:17:02 Tom: Yeah.

0:17:03 Thomas: Was, there was actually a, like an inter family fight that was pretty extreme because there was like, my mom didn't want to put him in a home, uh, not a home. But it was also like, he needed medical care. Cause he had some sort of cancer. I don't remember what, well, yeah, I Don't, I don't know. It's, I guess it wouldn't be like hospice, would it? Or I don't know what it was. But argument was somebody wanted to keep take him home and somebody else wanted to fucking know he needs medical care that like, you know, my old elderly mom can't help with. And it was a big fight and I was there being like, I support both sides of this. Uh, it's one of those things where, because again, my sisters live close them to still, and me, my brother, don't exactly, we're not super far, like hour and a half, you know. And so I was like, hey, if, if it's a money thing, I'm in for I, I'll do my duty. I'm didn't feel any big allegiance

0:17:17 Tom: Like a medical rehab facility type place, like long -term care.

0:17:54 Eli: That must have

0:17:55 Thomas: Allegiance.

0:17:55 Eli: Meant a ton to them, Thomas.

0:17:56 Thomas: No, no, no. They don't believe me. This was yeah. They everyone knew the situation like my it was the kind of thing where I was like, hey, I obviously don't super care about my dad, but I also am not going to be an asshole and like say, therefore, my other siblings have to bear the financial burden of it because it actually it was a money question. Like it's it's expensive after that's the thing about elderly care, like it's super fucking expensive. And so I told them, like, I will help financially to whatever degree. I'm not going to like, you put that all on my siblings just because I don't like my dad. And they did. You know, like I feel like I just feel like that's shitty. I didn't I didn'T want to do that.

0:18:19 Tom: Yeah.

0:18:33 Thomas: But know they also knew, like, I wasn't, not only do we not live close, I wasn't going to take on any care of him or anything, things. So that

0:18:32 Eli: No, it's great, that's right, it's absolutely great. Yeah, It was weird that you paid in pennies. If I can give you that note, I think so. Like, I get that you see it go viral threesomes

0:18:40 Thomas: Make him count them Make him count them too. No, but talk, though, not have coincidentally two different married couple friends that had to have their moms start living with them for, for different reasons, um, was kind of just general elderliness, and the other was a weird a weird fucking thing where like, there, there was flooding. It has a lot of connection to the, the you overall general end of the world through capitalism. It's amazing how it's all connected if you start seeing it too much, but like, yeah, yeah.

0:19:04 Tom: No.

0:19:14 Eli: It's Like there's an underlying problem to society.

0:19:16 Thomas: And you know how in California we don't rake our forests enough. So no, literally this, My friend's mom lost her home because of the, it wasn't the fire. The weird thing you don't know with the fires is the flooding is a big problem too. Because like, like once the fire goes, is it like the thing that keeps all the goddamn ground together is all the roots and the blah, blah, yeah.

0:19:16 Eli: Ah, Yep. Yeah,

0:19:20 Tom: Yeah, right. That's that. Yeah. That is the famed issue.

0:19:36 Eli: It becomes a horrible mud hell. Yeah. Big

0:19:38 Thomas: And so in that next winter after big fire, a huge fire, there was like a massive mudslide took out. Yeah. And then big tobacco.

0:19:46 Tom: Big problem.

0:19:47 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. No. And it took out her house. It took out my mom's house. Andso two, again, couples both have their their mom's staying with them and they are both, I don't know if they listen to this, but like, they are Both so fucking miserable. Like poor couples, one more than the other. They're like not doing like to the point where I'm concerned, you know, where it's like, it's such a drag on, cause they're not super wealthy. One of them, their house is pretty small, you Know, like sharing a very small house with a your mom, you as a married couple, that's not

0:19:44 Eli: Water

0:20:06 Tom: Yeah? Yeah.

0:20:18 Thomas: Good for your relationship. Like it's yeah.

0:20:20 Tom: Well, because we've raised been without any kind of modeling for that. We don't know how the power dynamic is supposed to work. We move out. We establish our own life, our own family, our own nuclear sort of unit. And then you try to integrate somebody else into that unit in a home that is probably not built for it. Right. That doesn't really have it's not it's just physically like look, I look around my own home right now. I think like, yeah, I would love to offer that to my dad. And I would. But I have no idea if he was in like, how would he shower in a home that's built the way homes are built now, you know?

0:20:25 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God, there's so many considerations like

0:20:55 Tom: So almost design ourselves for failure in this way. And then I think too, like on my end, because I'm a bad person, I think two about the opposite end. I've been trained in this sort of mindset and I lived it myself where kids grow up, they reach a certain age, they are supposed to move out and become come independent people. And I there's a part of me that's like, yeah, like at a certain age, I don't want to keep supporting the kids. And that is me perpetuating that same, go out and start your own nuclear unit. Right.

0:20:55 Thomas: That.

0:21:27 Eli: Right.

0:21:27 Tom: That is me literally thinking and sort of like, I know dreaming is too strong, but expecting that there will come a time where the kids get up and they move and they start their own nuclear union. And now, now now, our sort of cells have divided. And I Am looking forward in some ways to that because that gives me the ability and the freedom to like move out of town and live somewhere else and begin another phase of my life, because we sort of, we've all of these pieces, and all that does is like, if I really think about it, just furthers the problem, like, right, one generation forward instead of looking one generation back. And as much as I know, like, that's probably not good, that it's probably, probably not in everybody's best interest to have that sort of like grow up and get out kind of mindset, I still feel it. And I still know, like if my dad came to move in with me, I know it would be an enormous strain because my dad and I don't have a power structure. He still thinks of himself self as my

0:21:42 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well,

0:22:15 Eli: I

0:22:25 Tom: Dad, right?

0:22:25 Thomas: And often you don't you don'T realize and I say this again because I'm seeing it with my friends. You don'T realized that like also with age, even if you had a great relationship with your parent, they start to lose who you are. When you get a certain age and certain health things happen, you're not the same person in ways that you also don't know. Like you're not aware, as a fucking 80, 90-year-old, that you're not quite who you were. You still think you're independent and you're não. It's like there's so many stressors that I guarantee you much of our audience is like, oh, my God, plus a billion other things that I don't even realize because I haven't been there.

You know, like there's a lot of people in this situation where they have to try to all of a sudden provide this care in a way because, you know, again, capitalism has left us with no other goddamn option because even if you want to put them in a home, it's too expensive.

The amount of trouble that causes in ways like even even in the best of cases where you're trying to do a good thing and you want it to work out and you had a good relationship, it still can be such a strain. And I don't know what the right solution is to that. I know what

0:22:39 Tom: Yeah. Right.

0:23:27 Thomas: I'm doing for me. Me?

0:23:26 Eli: Know Know What The right Solution is

0:23:28 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Well, we had to edit out Eli's solution. In solutions, it's solutions we could talk about.

0:23:28 Eli: Did You edit out my solution, you fucking count? Hey, Podcast Listener, You Know What my solution Is. Hey, podcast listener, You Know My Solution Is.

0:23:37 Tom: Oh my God.

0:23:39 Thomas: No, we'll keep it if you want. It's fine. But no, my solution is I'm going to start mentally preparing when I'm like 65, 70 for living in a home. I'm just going to be like, I'm gonna get psyched for living In a Home. I'll save enough money. And I'll be like Like, I'm happy to do it. Don't Don't don't worry, Phoebe, Arlo, Remy and the fourth kid.

0:23:52 Eli: Thomas, I don't

0:24:01 Tom: Wait,

0:24:02 Eli: Know how to break this to you, but if you you live in a nursing home right now, they would get shut down for abuse. You're going to do just fine in a nursing home. Not going to make you edit 19 podcasts a day, Thomas. It is by default going going to be better than your current living situation. You'll get to sleep as late as you like in your body, they'll come in and remind you to take your pills remember

0:24:10 Thomas: I'm like, they really.

0:24:26 Tom: Can I, can I sign up for this home? Can I get this

0:24:28 Thomas: Yeah, I know. Tom and I will be psyched. Hey, roommates, buddy.

0:24:30 Tom: Home sounds fucking Fucking amazing.

0:24:32 Thomas: Roommates.

0:24:32 Tom: Actually.

0:24:32 Thomas: Yeah, or not roommates. I don't want someone in the same room. The cellmates? What's a real word? No, suite mates. I don't know, yeah.

0:24:32 Tom: Yes. Let's do it. Yeah.

0:24:33 Eli: When we yeah You Guys, remember when you started a parenting show to talk about being dads and you guys realized you were slowly torturing yourselves to death, the podcast? Do you remember that? I was like, I'm gonna be the wacky one, get ready. And Tom was like, the shock watch doesn't work anymore, now I have to wear three

0:24:44 Thomas: What?

0:24:53 Thomas: Happens when your nerves die in your ball sack and it doesn't wake you up anymore. No, but for real, I'm gonna get psyched for like living in a home. I'm not, they won't be like, you know, Phoebe, Arlo, Remy, the fourth kid won't have to be like, hey, um, dad, bad news, we have to, I'll be, no, I'm in land party, that's the thing, because I think the homes will be cool when we're that old, you know, like I feel like when we are that old, when we were 80, whatever, I'm going to get a fucking, I'm gonna, classic video games, I'm going to land party it with up with other grandpas, we're all day, it'll be a land party, so fun, I won't have to edit, it'll be the best, I'm looking for, can I do that?

0:24:53 Eli: Yeah.

0:25:26 Tom: Won't

0:25:26 Thomas: Now, someone put me in a home.

0:25:26 Tom: Have to edit.

0:25:28 Thomas: Now, yeah.

0:25:29 Tom: I love love that everybody like at our age, at least like dream of like retirement and like, oh man, I can't wait for all the things I won'T have to do. Like it's just, it's a subtractive sort of method when you sort of dream of old old age.

0:25:36 Thomas: Oh, no, I want to have a retirement, no, I don't want to have retirement, I want to get a retirement where I get to travel and do stuff, this is when you yeah, you get old enough to where you're like, like, yeah, yeah.

0:25:44 Tom: No, I know, I know.

0:25:46 Eli: This is post -retirement right. This is

0:25:48 Thomas: You can't really do much.

0:25:48 Eli: After the fall. Pop pop took, right. When it happens, right, listener, and look, I'm gonna be straight with you, podcast listener, that's wenn, right? Because it's like, how you doing, pop up?

0:25:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. Yeah.

0:25:50 Tom: Oh, right.

0:25:58 Eli: Okay, I still make my way around, you should make your way to the stuff underneath the sink, pop, pop, that's what you should fucking do, but you don't because you're a coward and you think it's fun to be at Christmas,

0:26:05 Tom: Fuck.

0:26:08 Thomas: We'll have a full circle moment where the kids will be like, look, it's okay. Put the Mario Kart on the mode where it just does everything for him and he doesn't have to drive. And then I'll be there. Man, I'm killing it. Mario Kart. I'm got kids. Look, I's. I'm winning. And I'm like, yeah you sure are. You sure are, dad. Dad.

0:26:20 Eli: Yeah, I'm winning, oh, you, pop pop still had it. And then, and then you'll realize that's the case and you'll be like, Eli was right to kill himself on September 27th, 2027. Oh, what, a mistake, 40,

0:26:33 Thomas: That's when your fall is going to be a couple of years from now. Eli's going to fall

0:26:37 Eli: 40, baby, 40, you tell me shit's gonna get better after 40. Any adult, look me in my fucking face, look me up and down once and be like, it's gonna, going to get way better after 40, and I'll never do it. Lies. You can't fucking do it, you can't do it. You'll break, you'll break like Jimmy Fallon during a sketch on SNL.

0:26:57 Thomas: During every sketch on SNL. Yeah.

0:26:59 Tom: Having just turned 46, Eli, I'm going to look you right in your eyes. It doesn't get better after 40. It does not. I do not feel better in my 40s than my 30s.

0:27:04 Eli: That's right, Tom, thank you for your support. I'm

0:27:10 Tom: I'll say that for fucking sure.

0:27:10 Eli: Just, I'm picturing Lydia walking over to Thomas during the edit of this and being like, so not this one, right? Not this episode. We could keep the intro, right, Right. Where he said hi. I think

0:27:25 Tom: Cancel the rest of the program.

0:27:25 Thomas: I think there was some random shit about the Atlantic art. Yeah, Yeah.

0:27:26 Eli: That's it. I think that said why was there. Yeah we can talk more shit about the Atlantic.

0:27:30 Tom: That was fine Yeah, that was fine. Yeah.

0:27:32 Eli: That's good. I think that was all keepable.

0:27:31 Thomas: God, I want to find that cover again. I literally want to order an eBay copy of that. It's fucking insane.

0:27:37 Eli: Say I have A New Yorker cover reminds me of me and Anna framed on the wall. It's called The Conversation, and it's like almost exactly what happened the first time we met. Is It was a haunted house instead of a party, but we were hanging out talking in a room while everyone else was a piece of shit, and it's this beautiful yeah, it's fine. You look it up. New Yorker cover, the conversation.

0:27:43 Thomas: Oh, that's nice. No, no. I like that.

0:27:57 Eli: You'll see it, um, exactly.

0:27:58 Thomas: Mean, in between talking about, you know, suicide to where I have to give out the suicide hotline, it's nice to have a nice moment every now and then. No. No, here's the other cool thing I do. And this is, you know, more middle-aged than than, it's a different thing. Um, middle-age versus is obviously when you have that fall and you can't do anything anymore.

0:28:13 Eli: When you have my family history, it's not, "Hey,

0:28:15 Thomas: Oh God, I keep trying to bring it to something less depressing and Eli keeps finding a way.

0:28:16 Tom: Oh, my God,"

0:28:20 Eli: My dad went out the hard way. He didn't, he didn't do that himself, and his dad.

0:28:23 Thomas: Yeah, but I say, and I think I even messaged you guys, as much as I personally think I am going to have a hard time with getting older or not, you know, because sports is such a big part of my life, and just think I'm going to be able to have a hard time with my body, not doing what I wanted to do anymore. I think mentally that'll be tough for me. But, um, do think that like I messaged you guys the other day, while I was on this trip, I am so fortunate that I just love being around these kids so much. And I just hope that some, like, I know it'll change when they get older, but I have hope that if we build this foundation of like, we're all just enjoying our company together, that maybe that will translate to like continuing doing that even after they get through their, you know, shitting the nest phase that Tom, uh, I think, or one of you brought up.

0:29:04 Eli: And let me add to the hopecore there, Thomas, because I have seen this model in action. So my family in Cleveland, right, are the perfect example of that. They are in their 70s now and their grandkids and no great grandkids yet, but their grandkids and that like they see them all the time, not monthly, not yearly, weekly, right? Right?

0:29:26 Thomas: Mm -hmm.

0:29:26 Eli: And they go on trips together. And my uncle out in Cleveland, my uncle Larry, his mom, who was one hundred and one years old, passed away this past weekend. Right. And she was a great example of like had family around her at all times, was in an assisted living situation, but in a place she loved with friends she ate lunch with and saw her family three, four times a week. And then, you know, a little bit before it was time to go, it was Time to Go. No, but like what want to say is like as someone who has observed people do the right thing and seen how well it goes, I've actually seen this be so workable, right? Like I am so jealous of my Cleveland family because they're taken care of for a life in a way that I cannot fathom, right.

0:29:34 Tom: Yeah.

0:29:51 Thomas: Mm -huh.

0:30:12 Eli: Until the moment they're gone.

0:30:12 Thomas: Can they write a book about it or something? We need a how-to. There's a, yeah.

0:30:14 Eli: They Oh, yeah well

0:30:15 Tom: Because yeah like like a lot of what I'm hearing though it's like everybody has to have this sort of I don't know like this sort of a collective agreement that they're gonna have this collective space that they're all gonna like you know do this thing where we rally together and we come together and I wonder I'm thinking through because obviously with my dad that's not gonna happen right because he's already expressed like yeah I'd rather die outside in the snow than come like live with you for even one hour you know like that's just never gonna happen so fine all right I get that, but I, right.

0:30:44 Eli: Until He runs out of money and then he has to, which is what happens to 99% of people.

0:30:48 Thomas: Yeah.

0:30:50 Tom: Yeah, I know. But I,

0:30:50 Thomas: No, I actually believe that he would still do that. I believe Tom and Tom's dad would still die in the street rather than, you Like, I don't think, yeah,

0:30:57 Tom: I, that's the thing is I don't want to, like, totally recognize that, I that have a, I HAVE a real hard time with the idea of like opening myself up to multi -generational living. I will do it if I'm obligated to do it. Right. There's going to be moments in my life where I'm like, like, yeah, no, I like I'm a private, private even, like overnight guests. You know, I don't want people staying overnight.

0:31:16 Thomas: Mm-hmm, I know. Yeah, For sure. No, I don't either, and I think I, I think that put me in the home. Actually, I'm gonna go in the home now just in case that talk myself into it are

0:31:21 Eli: See

0:31:22 Tom: Like although I think I would like want to open myself up and meet my like sort of moral familial obligation. I know there's a part of me that's like, fuck. All right. Yeah, you can move here. Fuck. OK, great. I'll bring I'll all your stuff and fuck, you know, the whole time. Just feel it. And the same thing is true of like thinking

0:31:38 Thomas: You talking about your dad or when your kids are doing that with you, okay yeah

0:31:41 Tom: Both. Yeah, both. I think both, both sides of it, you, if my kids wanted to live with me into their late adulthood, you know, if my kid's wanted to leave with me, even though I know objectively that that would be a multigenerational home that I'd be opening up and welcoming them into that and creating a new communal space for them and their new families as they grew, like that all makes all the sense in the the world and I could say it and I know that inside I'd be like, fucking move out.

0:31:42 Thomas: Yeah

0:32:06 Tom: Move out, go, go, but

0:32:06 Thomas: That's a separate conversation

0:32:10 Eli: I have a question about that because because that's

0:32:10 Thomas: Yeah

0:32:11 Tom: It's all kind of wrapped up in the same thing, you know, I do

0:32:12 Eli: Sure my question about that, and like, Tom, I know you adore your kids, so like as much as we joke about it on other shows and sometimes here, like, I know you adore your kids, I can't fathom wanting Max not to be here, right, and I will point out right now, Max, if you're listening in the future, you're about almost four years old, you fucking suck, man, every time I offered you more Cheerios the other day because you asked me for more Cheerios, you act like I shot you in the fucking face, so point being, I can never imagine wanting him to be gone because I assume, and and this is what I've gotten from your experience as well, he's only going to get more awesome as he gets older, you

0:32:52 Tom: I mean, I guess I, there's a part of me that looks forward to a life where I get to make my own choices about where I live, which would not necessarily be Illinois. Want to do that, but I can't do that if everybody is still under my roof. You know what I mean? And there's going to come a point, too, where I'm nervous about what it's going to feel like to have adult children living in my house.

0:33:14 Thomas: Well, we did, we did an episode on that because I think I, I've at least mentioned that my dad's whole thing, yeah, we kind of talked about this, but I think it's been a while, my dad's thing was, if you are not enrolled in college, the minute you turn 18, you're not living here. And there's no option to live here if you're in college. You can live here during the summers until you graduate, and then you don't live here anymore. And it wasn't, no, you know, there's no flexibility. There's no thought that like that was something that he wasn't serious about. And part again, this challenge that I think we often have is, is, okay, yeah, that sucks, but in my mind, I knew I had to fucking figure something out, like there was, you know, there wasn't, uh, I don't know if that was ultimately helpful

0:33:39 Tom: Right.

0:33:51 Tom: It's not all bad for there to be pressure. Right? I

0:33:52 Thomas: Yeah

0:33:53 Eli: Yeah yeah, I got to be such a better fighter when my dad put me in the cage with that wolf. Like I was, I'll be honest, like I was not nearly as good at fighting wolves before that moment.

0:33:53 Thomas: Yeah you knew you had to fight the wolf there wasn't

0:34:03 Eli: And people are always like, you wake up three or four times a night screaming the wolf, the wolf. But like, I'm sorry, I'm not part of this generation that can't fight a wolf and thinks that maybe fighting wolves wasn't the best for a mindset. And maybe the large-scale use of violence, both sexual and intimate, has to do with the abuse cycle that

0:33:55 Tom: Don' t think it'

0:34:03 Thomas: It, you weren't getting out of it

0:34:07 Tom: S all bad

0:34:26 Eli: We continued. Meh, meh, mehh. What I know is I can fight a wolf better than my son can. Please help me. Please get me the psychological care I so desperately need. I

0:34:39 Thomas: But that whole conversation, though, I think does have a lot to do with wolves and your expectation of your kids and what they're going to do. Whereas the elder care thing, I think is a little bit different. You know, like I think that there, there could be an element where I would love to live with my kids forever. Cause I love them, but also I think they need to go and do their own thing eventually, you the elderly care is like, okay, we don't have any other fucking choice because of money or because of whatever, how do we do this kind of thing? I think it's a little Bit different pressures that are causing that.

0:34:49 Tom: Yeah right yeah no, I, I think so too, and it's just it, you know, it all kind of circles back to, the in my mind it all sort of circles back to like, well, you know, at some point, like you gotta go off and establish your own nuclear family, you know, and that way you, you've done your sort of economic duty for the country, you know, like I think that pressure that, like, Thomas, your dad was sort of putting on you is sort of related at least

0:35:26 Thomas: Oh, I'm sure he just didn't want us to be around, no, I think he actually did think it was best for like, I actually do think he thought it was better for us to have that mindset, I

0:35:27 Tom: Yeah right yeah

0:35:29 Eli: Think it was convenient for a whole generation of people to tell themselves whatever their conscience felt that the thing that was convenient for them was best for you

0:35:45 Tom: No

0:35:45 Thomas: I would, I would agree with you except that my dad isn't like Tom, where he was like, man, I would love to have my own choice of what to do in the world, and I would loved it, because Tom does have a sense of like, boy, I wasn't looking forward to not having to be a parent, in some ways you've said that on the on the show, like being able to like, you be in a different phase of your life, essentially, right? I mean, I don't want want to mischaracterize you. Whereas my dad had no other phases of his life. Like he didn't, he didn'T do anything when, because we left, like, because he kicked us out, there wasn't like, woo party. It was like, Nope, he just was depressed all day still.

0:36:03 Tom: No yeah well

0:36:15 Thomas: Yeah. Same.

0:36:15 Eli: Now it's quieter around the

0:36:17 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Pretty much. And I don't actually think that he liked it. I actually, actually, because he got so little human contact, I do actually think maybe not so much with me. Well, maybe me before I kind of, I don't know, disowned him, but I think it was important to him to have that interaction with us and my older sister. And like, I think he did desperately need that, but he did, if nothing else, my dad did have a sense of like, he wouldn't have held us back for him. You know, I don't know. It's hard to explain. So it wasn't really, I don't think it was

0:36:14 Tom: Now I can sleep yeah right, right no

0:36:17 Eli: Chair

0:36:46 Thomas: Selfish of him.

0:36:46 Eli: No

0:36:46 Tom: I totally get it

0:36:46 Eli: No I I think you speak to that well, and know, I I often say over and over, and this is about all forms of right winger, but like, they often damn themselves to a hell I would never put them in right this is something that we see coming up a lot, because one of the things that we've sort of gotten feedback about from this show, especially in person when I meet people at like conventions and stuff, is they talk about like, hey, I come from an abusive household and I I separated from that family and now I'm in my own family. And like, it's really validating to hear you say, I I didn't owe anything to that abuse. Right. And something that we often see, because we follow the right wing and we follow, you, right wingers for our various other livings, is like, so often they put themselves in that position based on their so -called principles, and then and spend the rest of their lives being miserable as a result, right? Whether it's like the closeted gay Republican congressman

0:36:47 Tom: No

0:36:57 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, Mm-hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

0:37:41 Eli: Who never get to like blow a dude on a dance floor the way they really want to, or the, right, or the parents who just fucking drive everyone out of their lives and then they're like, well, now I'm lonely.

0:37:45 Tom: Yes

0:37:45 Thomas: Madison Cawthorn. Yeah.

0:37:56 Eli: Time to get dementia. That'll make it better, right. Like, one of the things that I, I, I think about quite a bit is like, uh, I saw this speech and it's on TikTok now, which is crazy, it actually came up on my For You page and I was like, oh my God, I saw that years ago. Um, the speech is "Why Does Mom Keep Repeating Herself" is what I think the speech is called. Um, she explains in the speech, she's an elder care specialist, she's like, when you get older, your life becomes very small, your partner is probably dead, um, your children don't interact with you nearly as much as they used to. Right. On how you count the statistics, old people get between one and three phone calls a month. Right? When you see them, they are often bill

0:37:58 Thomas: Huh.

0:38:01 Tom: Yeah.

0:38:34 Thomas: Thank God. I'm tired of these fucking phone calls. Does that include, does that include, yeah, know, no, does that include the scam calls? No, it's actually just scam calls.

0:38:36 Tom: Thomas Smith is so happy right now, he's just yeah

0:38:43 Eli: Yeah, no, no. Those are the only, well, honestly, like that is why they tend to fall for those scams Is because they're so fucking grateful to have have someone to talk to.

0:38:48 Tom: Right. Yeah. They're

0:38:45 Thomas: God. Yeah. Know. Yeah Lydia Liam knows someone who just, his kind of elderly parents fell for a scam like that. And it's getting worse, too, because they have the AI mimic the kids' voices and stuff. Like, it's crazy.

0:38:51 Eli: Yes. Of course I talked to my mom through the scam because like we are all vulnerable because our voices are online, so I was like, hey, if you ever get a call from me and say it's an emergency, here's the password, we have to set up, blah, blah, blah. And my mom was so fucking insulted through this whole conversation, she was like, oh, are you sure I'm not supposed to just give out my pin number on the phone? I was like, statistically, you're gonna fucking fall for this, so just bear with me all right, thank you.

0:38:59 Tom: My God.

0:39:19 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yep.

0:39:21 Tom: Right. Right.

0:39:21 Eli: But so one of the reasons, the reasons why adults, even pre-dementia adults, repeat themselves is because four things happened to them that month, right? And they are going to tell every new person they see. So if it's Thanksgiving, right, you go and talk to mom, and then your sister comes over and talks to mom. Mom doesn't have a different set of topics to talk about with your sister. And so what's often perceived as repeating or pre-dementia symptoms, is just someone who is so desperately, terribly lonely and alone. Because one of the things that we really, and again, capitalism's fault, is we assume we will be able to self-entertain, right? We assume I'll just watch TV, I'll play video games, I'm fucking whatever it is.

0:39:33 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:07 Thomas: Okay, that was going to be my next 20 minutes, so does that not work?

0:40:08 Eli: Yeah, it turns out you won't do those things, what you will do is go crazy, right? You'll get early onset dementia because those things are not meant to hold the attention span and they're bad for it, right? So like, obviously if that was a viable solution, every room in a nursing home would just have one big screen TV and everyone would be ba -ba -ba loving it, but that's not what happens, right that's

0:40:15 Thomas: Well, shit. New plan.

0:40:33 Thomas: Okay, okay, but we don't have data from old people when Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are out. You know? We don't know. Those games are immersive enough, and who knows what they'll have when we're 80? You know? Yeah.

0:40:40 Eli: True yeah maybe ChatGPT 7.0 will be enough of a person that our brains won't destroy themselves you hear that Tom, you lucky so and so, maybe ChatGPT 7.1 will do a good enough impersonation of Finn that you won't put a shotgun in your mouth. Rude.

0:40:49 Thomas: The video games will be so amazing yeah I think that's there's a chance

0:41:11 Eli: Right, gentlemen, before we go, the other day I accidentally stepped on a pickaxe, but don't worry, it was only a minor injury, um,

0:41:10 Tom: Oh, God.

0:41:20 Thomas: Uh

0:41:26 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.

0:42:06 Eli: Not here to give you notes, Lydia, you do the job, I'm here to give the hot takes, I'm here to give you the gossip. Okay? Yeah. Tom. Rude of you not to respond on, I think we did, but it's very funny if he's just sitting there in angry silence there

0:42:12 Tom: Fucking move out move

0:42:14 Thomas: Did we lose top oh okay yeah

0:42:19 Tom: I here?