DOD129: Easy Kids vs Tough Kids

Transcript

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

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad. That's my thing. I know now what I can offer you that no one else can. Complete and utter dependence. I'm a man. I'm sensitive. I need to feel loved. I need to be desired.

0:00:22 Clip: Telling is the only part of being a father that I enjoy.

0:00:27 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast where everyone is the tough kid. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:38 Eli: Hello?

0:00:38 Thomas: I very much was the easy kid. Sorry. You wouldn't think it. You know, I feel like I'm the tough kid in every other aspect of life um

0:00:47 Eli: I wouldn't, yeah. Who was the tough kid?

0:00:49 Thomas: Probably my older brother and then um my younger sister was I know I followed all the rules I mean I had things here and there don't get me wrong but it wasn't when it was like at the times where it mattered like you know in public I was like always followed all the roles did everything you know my parents wanted me to do and all that but

0:01:08 Eli: Oh, so you were the kind of tough kid that it was easy to ignore that they were going through something, and it was like, yeah, no, this one's got crippling depression, but I'm telling you he's never made a scene in a restaurant, so.

0:01:13 Thomas: There you go. Yeah, that's fine. There you go, that pretty much it, yeah.

0:01:21 Tom: He's sad all the time, but he's not asking for much.

0:01:25 Eli: So, but he's also quiet all the time.

0:01:26 Thomas: Oh, I was not sad. No, I just was very particular about stuff. So, like, my mom had a hard time with, had any time to figure out what was going on. You know, it is funny, I had just had, this is also relevant too, my mum came to watch the kids play baseball. I have not gotten to talk about that at all. I, for some stupid reason, we have the kids playing baseball. I don't even remember. It's like someone pranked us.

0:01:26 Tom: So So why would anybody, why would you want anybody playing baseball?

0:01:49 Thomas: I know.

0:01:49 Eli: Did you did that, I was like, who did that to you?

0:01:54 Thomas: Yeah, I know! That's how I felt, too! I don -

0:01:57 Tom: Baseball? You've got to go watch. No, hold on a minute. Cause you, not only do you have to watch baseball now, but you have to watch bad baseball.

0:02:01 Thomas: I know.

0:02:06 Eli: Worst. Well, all baseball's bad, Tom.

0:02:07 Thomas: It's - okay, but that's better

0:02:09 Eli: Worse.

0:02:09 Thomas: Than - yeah, no, hold -

0:02:09 Tom: Like, that's what I mean. Like you're like all baseball is the worst and you've got a watch like substandard, the worst. I, how mad at yourself are you?

0:02:17 Eli: Tell me at least the T has the pitch clock.

0:02:19 Thomas: Okay. Overshooting it. You're overshooting it so much. I'm not - we're not watching anything in the neighborhood of baseball. We're watching - No, we're watching, we'RE NOT -

0:02:27 Eli: You are. That's the problem. You're watching. You're watch what is identical to me and Tom as baseball. I just need you to know. Up if you sat me and tom down at the world series in the best seats and you sat me and Tom down at Phoebe and Arlo's next game we would be like these are similar experiences I

0:02:46 Tom: Yeah. Yeah, if 100%, if the food is the same, yes.

0:02:46 Thomas: Oh, my God. We had the... Let

0:02:50 Tom: If the, the only thing that would be, yeah, right.

0:02:50 Eli: Was gonna say we would notice the hot dog difference yeah know

0:02:53 Tom: If there's there's a hot dog related difference, yeah.

0:02:52 Thomas: Me me ask you this. Genuine question. This We had this conversation. We had a funniest fucking conversation. And it sucks because it... I don't know if it'll entirely work for you guys because you don't know anything about fucking sports. But we had the funniest conversation. I want to ask you This. Do Do you the difference between force out and a tag out?

0:03:04 Eli: Everything about sports no of course not

0:03:09 Thomas: Fucking God.

0:03:09 Eli: Does

0:03:09 Tom: A tag out, hold on, maybe I do. A force out.

0:03:14 Thomas: We're talking baseball.

0:03:15 Tom: Yeah, no, no. I got that. I got it. I got what I'm trying. I feel like this is a word I've heard.

0:03:20 Thomas: Jedi.

0:03:20 Tom: A tagout, no I don't know. No, I am trying to figure it out. I am try like my context.

0:03:15 Eli: It involve Jedi yeah

0:03:23 Thomas: It's where you do pinch

0:03:25 Tom: Text

0:03:25 Thomas: Your fingers and then they choke and they can't breathe anymore. Oh, my

0:03:28 Eli: Don't don't try to SAT this Tom we don't know

0:03:31 Tom: I was trying I was like wait I could get it's a word problem I know I can figure this out like radius of the ball when traveling through space one half mass times velocity squared

0:03:32 Eli: Rhinoceros real

0:03:33 Thomas: So we had the, okay, well, this is, I got to tell this because you know those delightful husband -wife moments you have where you just have such, like, the funniest thing happens and you're like, ah, I wish we could tell somebody else. But you're unclear if you can. Cause one thing the kids don't understand. They don't understanding the difference between a force out and a tag out. And I like, I'm, this is not a criticism.

0:03:56 Thomas: Nobody's taught them. Yeah. Idiots. Well, okay. So if there's somebody on the base behind you and somebody hits the ball, you have to run. If there's nobody on the bass behind you, you don't have to run. Like you can just stay. If you're on second, no one's on first and somebody gets a hit. You can just say there if you want. So therefore you person would have to tag you. Like if you try to go to third, they have to actually tag you, whereas if there's people on yes

0:03:55 Tom: Those stupid kids right oh they can just throw it to third before you get there and then you're forced out I okay all right I got that whoo

0:04:18 Thomas: If yeah exactly you're forced there you go tom and so I start I just start saying this he mind you absolutely you did mind you lydia when we met uh is more stuff you won't care about but but the the giants the local baseball team

0:04:23 Tom: Fucking killed it yeah

0:04:32 Eli: Hard on our our sweet friend Thomas today. Thomas, can I give you... Here's another fucking sentence you guys are going to hate.

0:04:34 Thomas: It's so hard god God damn, it's a lot of sports stuff and you won't, ugh, it sucks. Anyway.

0:04:40 Eli: God, I fucking hate me. You know we're here because we want to be, man. It's a podcast.

0:04:47 Tom: Yeah, dude, I called you guys and said, let's start a show. It wasn't just, you know, nobody put a gun to our heads.

0:04:52 Eli: This is not a gunpoint situation. You can say all the sentences you want.

0:04:54 Thomas: I just feel like Eli's going to kill himself if I do too much sports talk and I don't want to lose. Eli's pretty crucial to the business.

0:04:59 Tom: I feel like that's going to happen regardless of the sports stuff.

0:05:02 Eli: Thomas Elizabeth Smith. Tonight at 7:30 p.m. I will log on for a citation needed record and Cecil, Heath, and Noah will talk about ball ball for 47 minutes while I sit in complete and total silence at minute 48 tom apparently gets some kind of signal from an outside source and jumps on the call and is like oh my god let's do some cobble beep you you could narrate an entire baseball game and it wouldn't be anywhere close to the fugue state I live in, in a regular basis.

0:05:32 Tom: That is true. I get on this record every time and they're talking and I'm showing up like 10 minutes late and I can hear the silent desperation oozing out of Eli from New Jersey. Across the airwaves okay

0:05:50 Eli: Just What's that thing that spies did for a while where they realized you could like randomly generate all the Zoom calls so they hacked into Zoom calls by appealing for like half a second? That's what Tom does at the Citation Needed record. Listening for sports talk.

0:06:00 Thomas: So I says this to lydia and I said I figured look she didn't play sports either but she watched the giant san francisco giants won you know the great you know how the new york not the new York Giants with Barry Bonds amazing football player Barry Bons but they won won fucking three championships and like around when Lydia and I were getting together she watched it she watched baseball I just casually say like yeah they don't understand the difference between force out and tag out and Lydia hasn't I can tell she just doesn't have any idea what I'm talking about and so I'm like wait you you don't know what that is and then I asked her this and I want to ask you gentlemen this as well she had no idea so Tom pretend you didn't figure out the difference just then you got no

0:06:13 Eli: Great Barry Bonds. Yeah. Fantastic souvenir. I got my neighbor. Yeah.

0:06:45 Thomas: Idea and Then I was like well don't you know what a pickle is do you know what a pickle is though not not the vegetable yeah yeah not the famous baseball

0:06:50 Eli: The brined Cucumber? Because if you're not talking about the brined cucumber, the answer's no again.

0:06:55 Thomas: Thing

0:06:56 Tom: Yeah well it's it's when you're in a bit of a bit of a trouble spot you're at a pickle yeah uh-huh, uh -uh yeah it's

0:06:59 Thomas: Yeah comes from that but what's the baseball that you know

0:07:02 Eli: Stop SATing it, Tom. Stop.

0:07:04 Tom: You know it's uh it'S A LOT ABOUT THE COACHING I FEEL LIKE IF WE CAN KEEP HIM HEALTHY WE GOT A SHOT AT THIS ONE DEFENSE IS REALLY HOW YOU WIN THESE KIND OF THINGS YOU KNOW DEFENCE IS HOW YOU'RE GONNA to take it to the to title oh

0:07:08 Thomas: I I I promise I'm I'm not trying to be a dick this is a thing that's in any movie you know the sandlot the what you know it's just the thing that I would figure lydia would be familiar with she's like oh Oh yeah. It's when guy you, the gets caught between two bases and they're throwing it back and forth. They're trying to tag him.

0:07:23 Eli: Seen those movies.

0:07:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:07:29 Tom: He's had a pickle oh

0:07:30 Thomas: He's in a pickle.

0:07:31 Tom: He should have said that

0:07:32 Thomas: And so Lydia is like, this is so funny. Lydia says, yeah. Okay. I know what that is. And I was like, yeah, did you never think about, oh, I left something out at first. She thought everything was a force out. Basically she thought you just had to tag the base. Andso I says to her, yeah but you know what a pickle is, right? And she's like, Yeah. Cause she actually has seen a movie unlike you two gentlemen. And where the guy's caught in between two bases and they're trying to catch him. You know, they're try to throw it back and forth as classic baseball thing. And I asked her like, you never thought about why that would be like, why wouldn't they just tag the base? If you,

0:08:06 Tom: Exercise I assume it's exercise I see those guys they're a little paunchy you know they're a little punchy you got to get your steps in ever since they put the fitbit you know out there I get a lot more pickles I gotta get their steps

0:08:16 Thomas: I promise I'm almost done. And this was such a perfect, like us are different personalities because I was like, yeah, haven't you ever thought that there wouldn't be a pickle, if it was all force outs, you just tag a base. Why would somebody be running back and fourth? And, and Lydia says like, Oh, Oh, I just, she like realized she'd never thought about it. And then she was trying to put into words why she never thought about it, and the thing she said was like, oh, I just thought that was like the part of the game where they did that.

0:08:42 Eli: Hell yeah.

0:08:44 Thomas: And that was the best. It was the perfect Lydia response.

0:08:46 Tom: They gotta do that running back and forth thing now yeah it's about that time we sing a song about about two -thirds of the way through I know we sing a song

0:08:54 Thomas: So good.

0:08:49 Eli: To be exactly, I want to 100 % back Lydia's intuition here.

0:08:59 Thomas: Me too.

0:08:59 Eli: There's no reason anything happens in sports. So when someone's like, well well, you'd have to. I'm like, no, you fucking don't. We could put the ball down on the ground and leave is what we could do.

0:09:10 Eli: We can do anything. You have to get out of the way of a train. That's what you have to do.

0:09:09 Tom: I love

0:09:11 Thomas: Oh, it was so good, I oh. Oh, it was the best, I loved it. It But didn't come from a place of like making fun of her I genuinely enjoyed that that's Lydia and that's me and like we were just like laughing about it

0:09:25 Tom: Stuff like that though where like it reveals something about your like your partner's personality that you're just like yeah that's just how you think like I get that like I hayley does that to me all the time be like yeah so I you know I then I solve the problem this way just like compromised some way even a little bit at all accidentally and I was like no that's not how you solve a problem

0:09:44 Thomas: Lydia's version of that with me is like you don't know that person's name do you like nope you got me yeah

0:09:52 Tom: Like you know you don't have to throw out the entire situation everyone involved and I'm like well I bet it made it faster and that's better so eli

0:09:58 Eli: I do you know the only thing worse is

0:10:02 Thomas: Only thing worse than sports or eli having to listen to any amount of sports that

0:10:05 Eli: The auto ads yes the auto adds the auto heads are the children playing baseball missing hitting mostly missing and then crying that's the auto ads but you can prevent them by heading over to patreon.com/dearolddads where where you'll get an extended commercial-free version of every show with a little parenting story at the end when Tom feels like attending.

0:10:32 Eli: We've also got bonus episodes. Our monthly bonus just came out. Just came out? Come out. It is.

0:10:30 Tom: One time missed one time is.

0:10:38 Thomas: I'd already came out last week

0:10:39 Eli: Yeah, it came out last week. Okay, I want to make sure. Yeah, the,

0:10:40 Thomas: On time 100 on time on time every time delivered like the postal service or whatever I'm

0:10:45 Eli: Desivered Like the Postal Service. Inefficiently.

0:10:47 Thomas: Like the postal service under to to joy joy like it's still it still happens like it'S just you know nor

0:10:53 Eli: It still

0:10:50 Tom: There you go. Gonna get most of your mail

0:10:53 Eli: Happens. It's just a bunch of people didn't get to vote yeah

0:10:56 Thomas: Rain nor sleet no maybe maybe nor sleep maybe maybe or sleep. I don't know. What's the opposite of, I told

0:11:00 Eli: Rain that we're fine no not so much on the slate yeah patreon.com/dearolddads was

0:11:08 Thomas: You gentlemen, when we got into business together, I don'T do sleep. Sorry. I just don't, I DON'T do sleet. You were confused at the time.

0:11:13 Eli: On his won't list yeah

0:11:16 Thomas: Uh,

0:11:12 Tom: Banned you you didn't have brothers or sisters so were you a tough kid to parent you did but she was so much younger That's what I mean.

0:11:20 Eli: Have a sister. She's just much younger than me. Yeah.

0:11:24 Tom: You weren't contemporaries.

0:11:23 Thomas: I always forget that too yeah you didn't really grow up together oh

0:11:25 Tom: I mean it that way. I meant you weren't contemporaries growing up. So

0:11:29 Eli: Yeah. I mean, it's hard to say because I was so obviously mentally ill that I cannot imagine. Like I occasionally will pick up one of my journals or diaries. I have like 80 billion journals and diaries from starting when I was like eight. And I might as well pick up a copy of the DSM. And I can't imagine that was easy for my parents to deal with, right? Like I can't fath- well, first of all, I can't fathom what it's to have an eight-year-old be like, today my heart is broken yet Maybe I just have a heart that will always be broken and I'm just like holy shit like what medication can we stop they should have shot me with zoloft like a fucking elephant dart just based on that

0:11:42 Thomas: Why why do you still have those boy can I send you phoebe's journals and you can tell me what's going on because that would be great

0:12:15 Eli: And so like that is I imagine I was a very tough kid because I was bright and wildly mentally ill like the other the context that I have to lend is like nobody who listens to my shows or knows me now including including you fine folks, has seen me mentally ill. You've seen me mentally well. And that's this. Yeah. This is the good version.

0:12:36 Thomas: Holy shit hey same goes for me really oh

0:12:45 Tom: And not I'm trying to cast aspersions. You've just mentioned it on the show before. But mom struggles mightily, as I understand from you, what you've said on the Show Before. Your mom struggles Mightily with mental illness. So do because this is actually I think is really important to this discussion. Do you think that that made it easier for her to see you the way you needed to be seen in that mental illness and and parent you? Or do you thinkthat made it harder because she also had to have her issues and now, you know, sort of stack your issues? You know what I mean?

0:13:13 Eli: I yeah, I think it definitely both is the answer, right? It definitely made it easier because she was able to talk to me about feelings not being real in a way that other kids didn't need. Right? Because like, it's really really important to tell kids their thoughts and feelings are valid. It's a really important psychological development thing. Unless your child is mentally ill, in which case you got to be like, okay, so here's the thing. Your brain is a liar and here's how to give it a lie detector test, right? And you need to have those conversations with a mentally ill child in a way that you don't have to have them with a neurotypical child necessarily. So she could speak to me about that but yes she also was dealing with her own struggles and disabilities at the same time but I think it was was easier in some ways, harder in some ways. I also just I made just a bunch of, for who did not experience real trouble, right, the way that Thomas was talking about at the beginning, like, a kid who was not getting arrested or getting into trouble, I just made a bunch of really bad choices right, that my family had to deal with.

0:14:18 Thomas: Like what is a kind of exam? I don't even know what you mean. Actually. I

0:14:19 Eli: I was in very intense intense relationships

0:14:24 Thomas: Was gonna say it did musicals

0:14:26 Eli: Banned musicals I was in very intense relationships very early and did not do a good job of keeping perspective on those relationships uh got into drugs harder than I should have younger

0:14:41 Thomas: I would have considered that like getting okay gotcha oh

0:14:44 Eli: But here's the thing like getting caught with drugs is a is is a kind of trouble right stoned every day and your parents don't know about it or they do know about It but they're not quite sure how or when they're allowed to intervene because you don't live in their house anymore like that's a different kind of problem right where you have to have a

0:15:03 Thomas: You're talking about when you're older I'm sorry I thought you meant when you were a kid still

0:15:06 Eli: Yeah um yeah all that stuff I think I was a pretty tough guy I was also just just like again like mental illness when it is a thriving and it is not it makes me super mean because I'm still funny but I'm in pain so just everything it's funny thomas when you often talk about your dad how like everything was a joke and a chance to break other people down that is how people talk to me about my younger self more often than not is it was it was non -stop with you it was just a certain non -step right and like I Thomas, I know over on SAO, we've talked about my, my history as a bully in it. And I've always had to clarify that it wasn't me like anyone's lunch money, right? It was me not Literally. Yeah. It was mean not being able to regulate my own emotions and therefore just constantly exposing everyone around me to a vitriol that like culture had not caught up to two yet right because if you were like hey beans for knees give me a dollar the principal would be like yes that you're not allowed to do but like if I did a tight five on your stupid hat nobody teachers didn't know to be like you have to treat others with kindness right

0:15:37 Thomas: Stealing their soul oh man

0:16:18 Tom: My brother was the tough kid my brother was definitely the hard kid between the two of us to pair him my by a lot he threw he my brother was impervious to discipline or like an impervious to like seemingly anybody's requests for him to do anything or be anything for you know including helpful and he just didn't care he just did not care and my dad only had and this is the important thing I think to add to this discussion my dad really only had tools in his toolbox his parenting toolbox from the 1950s and and sixties, you know, when he grew up the way that he grew up, he was born in 47. And so like the tools he had were just not the right tools for a person like my brother, Bob. And so there was a lot of that, like authoritarian head budding, you know? So like the immovable force meets the, you know, unstoppable, whatever, you know? I mean, it's just like, they absolutely clashed in like a dramatic, dramatic way. And neither one of them ever gave an inch.

0:17:22 Tom: And uh in heaven for those two at all so I think my dad struggled more to parent my brother certainly than he would have to parent me I was very much a people pleaser as a kid so I was I was pretty easy to parent I think you know it's like hey what do you need from me you'll tell me and then I'll do it and then uh it's easy like the for me it was like yeah everybody just tells you what they want and then as long as that's like within your power to deliver liver like happy like this is easy you know seem difficult for me to keep people around me pretty pretty happy so but

0:17:34 Thomas: Pretty much first off the monkey was the easy kid not tom secondly eli I don't know if this will be like the mom still being alive but tom's dad is younger than my dad that's just a weird that shouldn't be true for some reason isn't that weird 45

0:17:55 Tom: Monkey was the easy when

0:17:56 Eli: Obviously yeah oh yeah I pictured

0:18:07 Tom: Was your dad born yeah that is weird because you're so much younger than me

0:18:07 Eli: I pictured

0:18:08 Thomas: So I I picture I know I picture your dad born in like 20 1923

0:18:13 Eli: Thomas's dad and the holocaust happened around the same time

0:18:18 Tom: That's crazy dude because yeah my dad was 30 when I was born so

0:18:19 Thomas: Not a coincidence right my dad was like 70 I donno I'm not sure I think he was 40 when I was born.

0:18:24 Tom: Right. Jesus Christ. God damn.

0:18:28 Thomas: But the you other, know, those kids, I actually, and somebody pretty close to me has this experience. There are those kids who are just immune to discipline. It's the weirdest thing. And here's the weirder thing. There's of reminds me of like, you know, when I'm a kid and I heard there was like, oh there's a U.S. embassy in, you know, or there was in Iran or something, you You know, and I was always like, wait, I don't understand. How do we, how is there a little embassy in the place where like we're at war or, you know, something like that, where you're like, how does that happen with those kids who are mean to discipline? Weirdly, they can actually be fine or horrible. And you know, like it's, there's a weird like detente you can get into where it's like, okay, well, I won't tell them what to do. They won't telling me what to and just hopefully they don't kill anyone. And sometimes it's fine.

0:18:36 Tom: That was Bob.

0:19:11 Thomas: Like, I know it's the weirdest thing.

0:19:13 Tom: Yeah. What?

0:19:13 Eli: A cousin who that was the case with who like punishment did not work on him in any way shape or form and the minute his parents figured out positive reinforcement was the way to go with him he just completely switched from being like well you know we think that maybe you might want to kill him with a shovel over the summer and then replace him witha robot covered in flesh to like oh he's the best what a delight to have a class and they they were like yeah no we have we have a fucking bag of skittles waiting for him at the car at the end of the day I don't know what you're supposed to do they

0:19:42 Thomas: Yeah. Cause Cause, parents follow the police, the same mindset as the police where, or at least my parents or in a lot of parents where it's like, that wasn't an option. The only option was submission.

0:19:51 Eli: Will kill your dog no

0:19:52 Thomas: Yeah, the only option was suspicion or else, you know, for a lot of parents of that style, there was no option of like, well, we'll work with them to try to, you know?

0:20:02 Tom: Right.

0:20:03 Thomas: And this whole conversation, I'm remembering now why it started with the baseball. My mom came to see the kids play baseball, which contrary to everything we we talked about and everything I would have thought has been a delight. The kids have, it's been great.

0:20:12 Eli: It hasn't no it hasn't

0:20:15 Thomas: It's been fantastic.

0:20:14 Tom: That's. What are you saying right now?

0:20:16 Eli: You're wrong incorrect liar

0:20:19 Thomas: But my mom, she you does more of the, you'll appreciate this. We talked about the revisionist history about my dad and how I had a very recent episode. I was like, yeah, she hasn't completely rewritten it, but she's kind of whatever. Um, she was talking about my Dad and his like hoarding habits through, the 90s and like all this bullshit she's still trying to get rid of and uh she's like yeah well you know he was he he was sick is what she said and and I said oh yeah he was Sick like he you know yeah he had depression so he just would like throw something in the garage and then just like leave it there never you know what I mean like I I don't know for sure but I interpreted that she meant it that way like yeah he's not motivated to do anything she's Like no no the cancer I was like what what the fuck are you talking and she's say the cancer starts like 20 years before you even get it and I was like yeah I was like okay but why what the what would that have to do with him hoarding she's like well it makes him so I think she has had to go back for her sanity and just pretend that everything he was doing that was bullshit was because of the cancer he died of in 2020 whatever it was two or 2021 whenever he died I don't know he died at some point like how fucking nuts is that like Actually, like the cancer was doing it in the 90s, guys. That's what was responsible.

0:21:06 Eli: It is cardboard boxes yeah

0:21:06 Tom: What?

0:21:31 Eli: No it's that pre -pre -cancer that gets that uh makes you not ever tell your son you're proud of him I was reading it in the the medical journal of the the the

0:21:40 Thomas: First thing the cancer does, it it inhabits, inhibits the complement part of the brain.

0:21:45 Eli: Pride glands right next to the pride gland and it'll it'll enlarge slightly yeah

0:21:50 Thomas: I should clarify. He didn't die of a brain tumor. He had like fucking, I always forget. He had some other pancreatic cancer.

0:21:56 Eli: No a dynamite didn't blow a steel rod through his head and his personality changed yeah it's interesting how they rewrite my grandmother I think I've talked about this before my grandma betty before she passed come completely wrote my grandfather father who was a good enough guy right but he wasn't perfect and it was the time yada yada yada but the like last 12 15 years of her life right maybe even 20 years of her life after he passed away my dad would be like and then you know that meant dad would get the belt and she'd be like your father never hit you and everyone in the room simultaneously would be like shut the fuck up and you know for sure lion

0:22:04 Tom: Fucking wild

0:22:38 Thomas: Oh good

0:22:39 Eli: Sack

0:22:40 Thomas: I thought they were I thought they were gonna go with it they didn't go with it oh good oh

0:22:41 Eli: Of shit oh no no no

0:22:44 Tom: That's what I was expecting too

0:22:45 Eli: In my family? No absolutely not everyone's got a score I

0:22:47 Thomas: That's good I don't

0:22:48 Tom: That's true no yeah yeah no that's very true so I will say like with the four kids that I have there is definitely a distinct difference between and and it has changed over time too uh between tough kids and easy kids It's Eamon has always been for me a tough kid, but I think I want to single out. I was thinking about this conversation a little bit and I think I want a single out that phrase for it. And that is for me, um, Eamone has been a tough kid for me. Um, if I did not have Haley would have been a tough to impossible kid for. For me. Um, Aislinn is a very easy kid for Haley to parent. But, and I asked this question earlier to you, Eli, specifically because Aisling shares a lot of the same characteristics that define who Haley is. Um. And that Haley sees in herself when she was a child looking back. And so Haley's able to say, I see myself in that reaction. I know what it feels like to lose your temper and be unable to control. I know what it feels like not to be able to like regulate your emotions in a moment or to have this little thing explode into something that you know is ridiculous and still can't control emotionally. And because she knows that about herself, she's able to parent through that with Aislinn in this really remarkable and extraordinary way. Amon for me, I have a tough time connecting with Amon. I have always had a tough time connecting WITH Amon and finding out out how to bridge the gap that exists between us emotionally and otherwise and so that I think is the greatest source of my disconnect in my hard time parenting him he was tough when he was a baby he's colicky like remy you know like I don't know if remy was colicky but like I mean he screamed for like

0:24:39 Tom: I said he screamed for fucking 14 straight months I mean literally just screamed unless he was nursing so that was tough right that's tough

0:24:39 Thomas: Know man I don't think remy's colicky is just an asshole

0:24:46 Eli: Think you're making it up Thomas I just want to say I've met Remy twice now you're totally making it um I

0:24:52 Thomas: Am not making it up why don't you come bring your ear holes over here let's see we'll see if I'm making it out yeah

0:24:59 Tom: Bring

0:24:55 Eli: Hope that's your new fighting words I know it's also relevant but I hope that's just I hope that's just what you say anytime you want to fight someone

0:25:01 Tom: Your ear holes over here

0:25:02 Thomas: What's that I can't hear you the useless bloody stumps that are my My ears don't no longer work in the way. Yeah. All you have to do is come over here. We'll take Remy and we'll put him in the car seat and then you'll never hear again. That's all. It's all that has to happen.

0:25:20 Eli: That's how you fight off like carjackers quick buckle him in right

0:25:21 Tom: But I wonder I wonder if that you with either of you at all or if maybe that's just my own personal experience but like like finn finn was always easy I think he'd be easy for anybody honestly but like I always felt like fin was a very easy kid and he's to this day is a very easy kid donovan has been easier and harder as he's gone through different stages in his life but he's never been a particularly difficult kid to deal with or spend time with or to parent or to have to like get from one end of something to the next end of something he's had his challenges for sure but they never had a hard time sort of bridging that gap um guess what like what makes a hard kid a hard kit for you guys I guess that's where where I want to start that

0:26:07 Thomas: Screaming mainly.

0:26:07 Eli: Because I think the question and the reason why we wanted to do this episode is like the position that I think dads find themselves in all the time and I think we can agree with this being the easy kid meant you were the a favorite when we were growing up and it like kind of didn't matter that your parents told you that right it was a weird dynamic right it's like a lot of the siblings I know a lot of the people I know are like you were always mom's favorite right and that wasn't that wasn'T like a weird thing we projected parents were just fucking saying that shit in the 80s and 90s like well I I don't particularly care for your brother right like that's some yeah

0:26:42 Tom: What

0:26:45 Thomas: I know that was Arrested Development is the thing I was thinking, too. I love all my children equally. I don't care for Job. And

0:26:48 Tom: What yeah I but here's the thing my dad my same thing in the 80s my dad's told me that bob was his favorite kid even though I know he was was the harder kid to parent

0:26:58 Thomas: He still sucked. Oh man. Weird.

0:27:02 Eli: And so now in modern times where we realize you can't say that kind of stuff, but you also need to acknowledge your lived experience, right? That's something that you guys are navigating as parents. And Thomas, I know something you're especially navigating because of a variety of parenting experiences you're having. Like, what do we do, right, think we can all agree I don't particularly care for Job isn't the way to go. But I think we also don't want to completely deny our lived experience of what's going on, right? We need to be able to have an honest conversation about what it meant to parent our kids.

0:27:33 Thomas: Well, you know, it's another ingredient in that, Eli, for Eli, the mid middle name, Eli, Elizabeth Bosnick is the kids making that observation.

0:27:37 Eli: What's that? Sure.

0:27:43 Thomas: So so this kind of came up for a number of reasons, but, but one of the reasons is that I'm particularly struggling right now with Phoebe. I say, I am, we're both struggling with Phoebe and I'm trying, I was trying to think of how to put it in the framework that Tom's talking about. And I'm not totally sure it fits that framework. I think that's a totally valid framework, Tom. And I think That makes sense for some things like that. I have a few stories with Phoebe where it is like sort of that Haley-esque success story that you're talking about where I'm like, oh, I recognize that was why I started the baseball conversation as well, because what would have happened in my life? OK, first time Phoebe went up to bat in a game, she hit the ball and then just started crying like it's on video. Lydia got video of it and she just hits the ball. She starts crying and she leaves the field. Everyone's like, run to first, run to first. She leaves. Now my parents obviously would have been like, well, when you get home, go to your room for the rest of your life and don't talk to anybody or something. You know, like it would have Been the worst thing.

0:28:39 Thomas: The success story I have is and I can't remember if it was me or Lydia or maybe both of us talking. I really can't. Hopefully I'm not stealing her credit, but one way or the other, we figured out the issue. She was afraid because I think she has some, some mental health challenges, who knows, or maybe it's just normal kids stuff. I don't know. She was afraid to put down her bat. When you hit the ball, you drop your bat and you just run. And then like some, you know, the next batter grabs the bat, puts it away. Figured out through actually trying to talk to her and listen to her, even though she was a bit, you know, she was, she was crying a lot that she was afraid that someone would either pick up her bat or that she would lose it. And so it was like, oh, okay. So in that moment of rather than yelling at her or getting her in trouble or saying, I can't believe you'd embarrass me like this by crying in front of the whole team and leaving the, no, it's we tried to figure out what the issue was and we figure it out. And now she's fine. We did, we told her like, Oh, well, I just told her some, whatever. I was like, hey, hey, here's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna watch your bat. When you get a hit, I will watch it. I will make sure that nobody takes it. And that the, you know, the next person we will look out for, don't worry. And then sure enough, like she's fine now. She hits the, she hits the ball and she runs to the base. And that's like, I have those success stories, but what I don't have is that like that reached a level of difficult sometimes where there's just nothing like she just got the other day. I think it was Saturday, I guess, a couple of days ago, she just had a day where everything spiraled into a crying fit and we couldn't, we just couldn't do it. You know, it's like if, if I had all day to just try to operate with Phoebe, maybe I could have figured something out, but I also

0:30:13 Thomas: Have two other kids and too much work. And like, we really did try it. Like I put in the time of like, Hey, let's go talk. Let's go. But I don't know what clicks in her some days. I don't know what it is, or maybe it's sleep. Maybe it's food. I, I try it, we try all the things where like everything that happens oh reacts like you know someone told her her whole family died in a fire like just everything and and it' s not just that it's also really mean like she gets incredibly mean to us which whatever we don't care she gets really mean to Arlo and that's like hey man you can't just verbally abuse your sibling you know it's, it's like so then that becomes a problem because, you mind taking the slings and arrows of Phoebe's horrendous temper. But like when she starts going off on Arlo, it's it's like, hey, you can't do that. You know, I don't know what to do about it. And it's, it's, yeah, it's like I don't know what the success story is there. We're, you know, she's in therapy, but it's just and we get Arlo who, who will be like, see, I'm the good kid. And we're like, buddy, you don't get to just take this moment

0:31:13 Thomas: Of difficulty.

0:31:13 Eli: Please don't say it out loud. Just, we're all thinking it. It would be great if you would not say it.

0:31:18 Thomas: Man, exactly.

0:31:19 Eli: Losing points of

0:31:20 Thomas: They start making those observations. And then like, even Phoebe will do it. We, we put none of this, this was all them, you can, they have eyes, they can see what's happening, that Phoebe is impossible, and then Phoebe will be like, I'm, I'm the bad kid, and we're like, no, gosh, can you not, you know, it's so hard yeah

0:31:25 Eli: Course yeah yeah And it's tough because again it's like where is the line between accurately communicating what's going on to your kid versus like not making them feel like the bad kid and understanding that like hey we understand you have these emotional difficulties and arlo doesn't but like that doesn't make you inherently good or inherently bad and on top of all that right is such an incredibly complex thing that a young brain physically cannot understand right It's like, oh no, I have the right words for this, so let me open up my fucking Kafka and explain to you like the intolerance of goodness. He's like, no, they're like, oh, I'm bad, and you're like, no, well there's no such thing as bad, honey. Shit, mother fuck, I need you, you mind taking a quick philosophy 101 class for daddy and

0:32:04 Thomas: They can't

0:32:22 Tom: But I can offer what I hope might be some potential solace there for you, though, Thomas, is that, um, feelings that she's got are not like forever feelings that she'll carry with her into adult, you know, because you are doing the work of paying attention to her, paying attention to Arlo, not playing favorites. She might feel those things now while she's five or six years old, but those are not like going to be deep formative feelings and experiences that will like define her and your relationship forever. She's this bad kid. Yeah. Because like it's very unlikely that that is going to be the case for most of our feelings. And I would encourage you to sort of interrogate your own past a little bit, because most of us don't have a whole lot of deep memories from when we were five and six years old. Right. We have a handful of sort of like fuzzy, vague memories that are often not very well tied specifically to events. This isn't true for everybody, right? But our emotional maturation is a long and ongoing and complex process. So even though she feels this way when she's five or six, by the time she's eight, she'll feel something else. And that thing she feels when she's eight is going to be more important while she's eight than what she felt when she was five or six or the importance of the memory of that feeling. I really do think that that sort of stuff, that sort of like emotional forgetting that we have as kids creates a kind of resilience in us that we don't carry forward those because there's nothing externally happening that's traumatizing her.

0:32:56 Thomas: Feeling like she's the bad kid yeah I hope so yeah

0:34:03 Eli: Also, just want to take a second to empathize with that feeling, Thomas. So I have shared this, uh, I think privately, and maybe a little on the air, that Max, um, last few months was going through a hitting phase, uh, it was really, really hard for us, um, various reasons, and like one of the things that me and Anna had to do in that moment, this is, this is not advice, I'm just talking about my experience, but like, like one of the things that had to happen is we would go through that and then we'd be like, holy shit, that sucked. And then, yeah, oh my God, that fucking sucked, right? Like, and then just sort of that affirmation that we were able to provide each other, because I don't know about you, but like for us, whenever that stuff is happening, the thought that caused real suffering was not getting hit or being scratched or all that stuff or having difficulty navigating Max. It was, I am doing something wrong.

0:34:52 Eli: There must be something I can do to fix this or stop this, right? I have to solve this problem. And so watching your partner, and maybe this is a weird thing to say, watching your partner try and fail to solve that problem and being there for them and understanding, hey, you did everything you could. That wasn't your fault, is what makes those moments possible, right, is that just a reminder, like, hey, today it's hard for me so I need you to be there for me, and tomorrow it'll be hard for you and I'll be there for you, sure.

0:35:22 Thomas: It's, other thing is like I start to feel terrified that Phoebe's not gonna understand how much I love her, you know, like I just, when you're just constantly having negative interactions it's, I want to just mind meld with you for a sec to realize that you are my firstborn child, favorite thing in the universe, you know, but they can't. And it's like, it's, it's just so hard and sad when they just like can't understand, like, like the stakes for her. I don't know if it's her particular thing, but the stakes are always at an 11 with her. Like they're always maximum stakes. Nothing's casual. Not, and I know that's a kid thing as well, but for her it's like really, like there's nothing that's just like, oh ha ha fun, you very occasionally, like almost everything becomes incredibly high stakes and you want to just tell her, like, hey, can you just fucking relax, like we

0:36:10 Eli: What if you just chill because I love you and I'll spend my whole life you do whatever you want forever and we will always love you you make bad tv and we'll still love you you'll be on survivor I'll watch every episode of survivor if If you're on Survivor.

0:36:12 Thomas: All love you yeah we're like yeah pretty much

0:36:12 Tom: What? Yeah. Dude, Right, dude, did. I can relate to that and maybe offer, you know, again, maybe just some comfort. And I don't know if this will play for you at all or not, but, you had, and I can't share too much of it on air, but like I had experiences with Finn that up until very recently, I have been extremely, extremely worried about in of like our relationship and how he was growing up. And, you know, I was told by so many people, so many times, you know, don't worry, he'll come around. It'll come back full circle. It will. This is how this works. Interrogate your own experiences. It happened for you. And like turned out to be true. And I think that like in terms of like, you know, you worrying like, oh my gosh, like is, is she going to realize how much I love her? Like, yeah, I think that she will, because every day of her life when she interrogates that relationship with any emotional integrity, which she will, she can't do that now, she's too little, but she will, she'll see nothing but an unending, unbroken streak of your love and support. That's all she'll be able to see there. So I think the highest likelihood is like, yeah, even if in the moment, in that moment where like kids are being tough and they're emotionally dysregulated and they are disconnected from us in these important emotional ways. And I have that with Amon, right? Like Amon and I are struggling right now in our relationship to have real connection. And he is struggling to want to be connected with me, you know? So he comes over to the house. He is not like real engaged. He's pretty standoffish. He is distant. I went through something similar with Finn. There were some external reasons why that kind of stuff was happening, I think. I think the same is true here. It fucking breaks your heart. Like, it sucks. Like, whether they're external reasons or internal reasons, I think like I have to believe that like consistency of experience that you provide, that consistency of emotional support, that consistency of positive words of affirmation, which I'm sure that you provide, there's nothing to contrast that with in her life. Right.

0:38:36 Tom: She doesn't have a point of contrast there. So, yeah, like maybe she's in trouble a little more often and maybe, you know, and maybe that's not the case, but maybe she feels like she's in trouble more often. And maybe that is a place where you can say, okay, for Phoebe, we need to switch from a disciplined mindset. I'm not saying you're doing this, but from a discipline mindset to an exclusively positive reinforcement mindset. And maybe, maybe you guys all have the therapy together to try to figure out how to do that. I don't know, but, you will find ways to to bridge that gap. And she will discover as she grows and matures out of that, that the people that were there when she was feeling dysregulated and the people that supported her in that dysregulation were you and that will that will actually probably make you guys much closer rather than further apart, because she'll see who God, who is my fucking who is my hammock? Who is my support? You know, who was my my safety net every time I felt panicked about about dropping that baseball bat or, you know, not being able to button my shirt properly. God, it was dad. Dad was always there. You know, so I really, I think you have to rest on that. Plus the, honestly, like the lack of the real significant long -term emotional memory that they build right now.

0:39:19 Eli: And I can

0:39:50 Tom: It's just, it's just true. And let it go.

0:39:53 Eli: Also say it as the mentally ill kid, right? Because I know you don't want to diagnose anybody. And I think that's really healthy is to be like, hey, maybe this is going on and maybe it's part of childhood. Because I think we've all seen the other side, which is like, this is just the puss, he's two and a half years old. And here's a list of letters that I've ascribed to him. And it's just like, wow, that fucking maybe. Maybe, but also maybe this is you watching too much internet, right? And so I think that's healthy, but I will say as the mentally ill child who has come out the other side and had great parents, right, I spent a tremendous amount of my life, all the way up to my late teens, blaming my parents for various reasons for my mental illness, for situations in my life going on. And my parents held that sort of stalwart support that you and Lydia hold for all your kids. And now as an adult, we are so much closer because of it. Right. We are so much closer, because truly until I was like in my late 20s, right, sort of had a one size fits all. My mom was depressed and that fucked me up. All for all the bad decisions I made and everything bad I'd ever done. And it wasn't until I did the work and that my parents held that space for me and continued to be supportive, which was not always easy. Right? Because like the the part of mental illness that I think you're expressing here that's really important and that I think needs to be talked about more is like, sometimes mental illness makes you really toxic, right? Sometimes

0:41:18 Eli: Mental illness make you really shitty to be around. And as parents, when and if we can hold space for our kids, as those phases go away, as we grow and mature, we look back on those times and realize, wow, my parents were there for me. Wow. You know, maybe it wasn't always perfect, but man, my parents did the work. They really tried. They really put it in for me. And it is why me and my mom are as close as we are today, right? I think it would have been incredibly easy for my mom because I fought with her constantly and I would just pick fights constantly as a teen. It would have Been very easy for me, my mom to write me off as a toxic person, adding to that all the external stimuli she was getting about me treating other people badly and me reporting, treating other other people badly all that shit right all the evidence pointed towards asshole but that that support and

0:42:08 Thomas: Eli

0:42:08 Eli: That faith that she had yeah It's truly, yeah, uh, all the evidence still does, you know, you all claim to be skeptics but here you are, um, but she stayed true to that idea, and it means that today I never felt like she gave up on me, and that's such a deeply, deeply important and meaningful part of our relationship, yes.

0:42:08 Thomas: Bosnick story yeah there's just like you say there's the toxicity and there's the other kids thing so it's like yeah I have a responsibility to poor Arlo to not let him be abused all the time and it's just like I

0:42:32 Eli: Of course exactly yes and think we all saw that too right the toxic siblinghood where one sibling just became the whipping boy for the other one uh and you're not allowing that to happen as well which I think is really

0:42:44 Thomas: Well it's I don't know, it's hard, it's constant. So if it's 100% of the time, my options are literally, don't ever let them, and they're like best friends, don't ever let them be around each other, or be constantly just harping on Phoebe, you know, or there's going to be some amount of, she's just really, really awful to him. I mean, it's hard. I mean it's just like several times a day I'm just like, Phoebe it's like, be nice, you know? Like, but the other thing is it's not like we don't do much punishment, but the other day I found myself having to be like, you, I tried so hard to do the gentle parenting about it, that day when she just was, could not be, you know, appeased in any way. And then eventually I had to be like, you just have to leave. I'm sorry. Like you gotta leave. She kept trying to stay and be involved in the thing and then would have a tantrum and lose it at us or Arlo or whatever. And I was like, I just need you to go take a nap or something. Like, we can't, you can't do this. Like, we can't take it.

0:43:45 Thomas: It was hours. We can't take it anymore. I don't know what to tell you. You have to go somewhere else.

0:43:51 Tom: But I, you know, I don't think that that kind of asking somebody to take a break is the same thing necessarily as punishment. I really don't. I mean, it's a lot of it is phrasing, right?

0:43:59 Thomas: You know, we try Try to at least word it differently.

0:44:01 Tom: Right. Yeah. That's what I mean. A lot of it is phrasing, you know, a lot of it is, is offering kids and it will take time. Like I know she's in counseling, but like, it will take time for her to build those tools that they're going to teach her and then to try them out and then to find the ones that work for her. And then for that to be reinforced. So that's going to take however long that that takes, man. I mean, it's not going to be like a couple of months.

0:44:25 Thomas: I was going to ask you guys, when does the therapy work? Like, when does that do something?

0:44:28 Tom: It's like, Like, well, that's the thing is like for a young brain that's like still developing and

0:44:31 Thomas: I know. And they only let her do like a half hour. Like, well, she can't. She's a six year old. I'm like, God, can. OK. So over the course of 20 years, maybe she'll have some sort of insight. I don't know.

0:44:37 Tom: You know, I, I don't know if she's too young for this, and I don't know if it's the same thing, but one thing that like, and I know I may have mentioned this on the show, but I, I really, like, I really, really worked for Finn. Um, now Finn didn't have like the sort of like big outburst-based emotional dysregulation, but like he would get overworked sometimes. Right. Like all kids do. Like he would get overworked sometimes. And one of the things that eventually we did, and it took a long time was kind of helped him figure out when he needed that break and then to give him something ritualistic to do in his case, it was take a shower. Um? So like, it would be like, all right, you know, if you need a break, just go take a shower. It's a nice reset. It is very physically stimulating. It, it's a very private thing to do. So it, it, me, it takes you out of a space. It's private it's physically stimulating and it and

0:45:29 Thomas: Plus, these kids fucking stink anyway. That's perfect. That's brilliant.

0:45:32 Tom: So you get it's a twofer so you know there are things along those lines that might have some benefit for her too but the most important thing is she's going to have to start to learn how to identify in herself when those feelings have like bubbled up to the point of like boiling over and that's going to take I mean it could take a few years for that to work because she's so little she's so little

0:45:54 Thomas: We really need. We need. I don' t. we need therapy or classes or something I don't know it's like that's a that that makes sense that's good insight I don t know can we go with therapy with her I

0:46:03 Tom: Well I mean consider yeah consider meeting with her therapist independently you know you and lydia as their own um your as your own moments with the therapist

0:46:13 Thomas: Don' t know I think I should just have her arrested that's

0:46:14 Tom: But you know like the thing I guess I want to leave leave with is um having had kids that were that were the tough kids and then the kids kids that were the easier kids. It is important to be like, you know, my dad loved the tough kid. Dad's favorite was Bob. My dad's favor was the tough kid I it's okay.

0:46:31 Thomas: The message I want us all to take home tom was not the favorite

0:46:34 Tom: I was not the favorite.

0:46:34 Eli: Yeah not the favorite kid yes

0:46:34 Thomas: Kid bob was a better child in every sense so yeah

0:46:39 Tom: No. I I think, but what I'm, what I am saying is it doesn't, it's not about like, somebody can be tough, but like, it doesn' t mean we don't like them. It doesn't mean that you don't love them. I doesn't mean that she can't connect or bond with them. Sometimes it it does. I think it's okay to recognize all of those things in yourself as a parent and not judge yourself for it. To be like, yeah, this is easy right now. This one's my favorite. This one is easier. I need a little break. You know, it's easier for me to spend time with. I'll be, I'm honest in saying right now, it'S easier for ME to spend TIME with Finn than it is for Amen. It does not mean I don't love Amen to say that. Like, and it's OK to acknowledge that and not feel like guilty about it. We don't have to feel guilty about being like, like yeah it's this this relationship is harder because they're relationships right and like there's nothing that means that one is going to be like de facto easy I

0:46:44 Thomas: Stupid

0:47:32 Eli: Right, gentlemen, before we go, my snooty friend always uses French words like hors d'oeuvres in his day-to-day conversation, and that's just for starters, yeah.

0:47:42 Tom: Found that very amuse -bouching I have

0:47:54 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.

0:48:34 Thomas: I just thought that was like the part of the game where they did that.