DOD132: AITA Makes Local Eli Lose Mind

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that is finally going to figure out the Am I the Asshole that Eli put in our notes over a month ago. I need to understand this. I'm Tom Curry. I've joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:35 Thomas: Jesus Christ. I hope so. Yellow. How's it going?

0:00:45 Eli: Hello?

0:00:45 Tom: Alright, so we missed it by a a week or so, but uh, Mother's Day has come and gone and got to tell you guys uh, Mother's Day story. So um, obviously I'm not buying anything from my mom, like my my actual biological mom. I, you know, she's, I'm fresh out of monkeys. The monkey delivery service is a little pricey. Uh, alcoholics down in Panama, right?

0:01:01 Thomas: Well, she can't compete with Gilligan like the gifts that Gilligan is the best gift giver.

0:01:05 Tom: That is that is so I I tell you, like, I found out she got black mold. Uh, she lived through black, that woman is gonna live for fucking ever. I found it over Christmas, like she got black mold in her lungs and just like, I don't know, drank enough doers that she killed it or whatever.

0:01:06 Eli: Yeah, obviously.

0:01:07 Thomas: Thoughtful, you know. Jesus.

0:01:13 Eli: Yeah. I mean, if you were black mold, would you want to hang out with your mom?

0:01:23 Tom: So but I do, I do always buy my, um, lack of a better word, my stepmom, right? Like my dad's 44-year-long girlfriend, that's been in my life forever, right?

0:01:30 Thomas: Yeah. Who he may or may not have been married to this whole time or not. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.

0:01:33 Tom: Right. Yeah. The mystery Lady, so then that, that's, that's great. So I always get her something for Mother's Day, um, because in, in many ways she fulfilled parts of that role for me in my life. And I know she looks forward to that.

0:01:35 Thomas: Yep.

0:01:43 Eli: Aww. You don't have to read the card to us and everything, Tom. It's so sweet.

0:01:47 Tom: Well, I don'tt know how else to express it. Once a week, it's not... I don' know. It's a complicated relationship, Eli Bosnick.

0:01:53 Eli: Thanks for your work on the tape.

0:01:58 Thomas: Oh God, ouch, Jesus.

0:02:00 Tom: But always get her something. Usually what I do is I send her a plant or flowers or whatever. But this year, I was like, I'm so fucking tired of sending her like a plant or flowers or something and

0:02:00 Eli: Oh,

0:02:05 Thomas: How Embarrassing is it that Tom does more for whoever this lady is than I do for my mom. God damn it. Yeah.

0:02:14 Eli: For your mom, I thought you were going to say, for Lydia, I was in agreement. For your mom. Fuck your mom! For your mom, just write, like, in a card a mean thing your dad said and was like, you were probably standing there. Love, Thomas

0:02:26 Thomas: Uh, There's There's so much mirror to my mom that she deserves do

0:02:28 Eli: Disagree and

0:02:31 Tom: Like Then I got to thinking, I was like, well, I, I like giving gifts. We've talked about this on the show before. Like, I like given gifts. I'm a good gift giver, and I got to thinking, I'll get her something different this year, and I realized the depth of my lack of knowledge about this woman in a way that I have, I've always known that I didn't know much about her, right? That she lives, um, extremely private life, and she is also an extremely austere woman. So I, I posted a thing on, on the Dear Old Dad's group saying, hey, you know, it's really hard to buy something for somebody who's, you know, got a severe level of personal austerity and, like, a lot of, you, personal privacy. I'm really struggling to buy or something. People had these great suggestions.

0:03:07 Eli: I'm not gonna talk to her, so yes

0:03:12 Thomas: You you know that lady in the picture with the dude and the pitchfork standing there, like What, what do you buy for that lady? She already has a pitchfork.

0:03:17 Eli: Right. And you remember you can't talk to Eric because

0:03:21 Thomas: Can't

0:03:21 Eli: If you do she'll die.

0:03:22 Tom: Well, no, here's the thing, Eli. People suggest, well, why don't you just ask her, right? But

0:03:25 Thomas: Talk to her

0:03:22 Eli: Yeah. Because they're humans. I

0:03:27 Thomas: She's she's painting or whatever. That's why is

0:03:30 Tom: I literally only see you on Christmas. It would be super bizarre.

0:03:32 Thomas: That a photo

0:03:32 Eli: Bet you had a, a way to track her down. I bet you could have found a good enough detective.

0:03:35 Tom: What? No, no. Eli, I have caught like, so, so this is part of the, I don't know anything about this lady. Let me tell tell you how little I know about this lady. I found out that she had cancer two or three years ago after she beat the cancer.

0:03:37 Eli: Right.

0:03:49 Thomas: Died. Oh. Tom.

0:03:50 Eli: No.

0:03:51 Tom: She didn't tell anybody that she got it until she had already gotten through the prognosis into the treatment and had already gotten like, okay, this is going to be fine. Then she was willing to allow us to know. And when that happened, I thought, this is finally an opportunity for me to reach out to her and try to build some kind of a bridge, some kind of a connection with her, right? So I started sending her these very nice check-in text messages, and she would respond to them with these, like, one-word answers. So I'd send this very nice long, and she'd be like, doing great. I was trying man, I was just trying to bridge this gap, people, woman in my because as a step parent, I understand now differently differently, like difficult of a role that is.

0:04:26 Thomas: Don't you have enough to do, like, do you need, what No. Why though? Why are you trying Yeah.

0:04:29 Eli: That's But you Bet she loved those text messages. She's

0:04:38 Tom: Maybe she did. I don't know.

0:04:40 Eli: A boomer. She doesn't know how to text and

0:04:42 Tom: So she, she sent back these very sort of like curt and she didn't, you know, there was no like offer of exchange, conversational exchange, it was never like an open-ended anything or like, and so the, The the, conversations were always just like asked and answered kind of a thing, you Now then, so, and I've tried a handful of times.

0:04:57 Thomas: Okay. You tried you tried. It's

0:04:59 Tom: Yeah.

0:04:59 Thomas: Over.

0:04:59 Tom: I've tried a handful of times So would be very awkward and weird for me to call up, and I already know her well enough to know that if I called her or messaged her and said, "Hey, what would you like for Mother's Day?" She would say, "You don't have to get me anything." Get her something.

0:05:00 Thomas: You don't need a relationship. Yeah. Yeah.

0:05:13 Thomas: Well, She's right, actually. Yeah.

0:05:15 Eli: Indulge my fantasy, indulgemyfantasy, and then you say, no, you know, I was thinking about it this year. You mean so much to me. I always get you the same thing. I really want to get you something meaningful. I'm going to get you something. Will you give me a little guidance? Right. And then your family implodes.

0:05:32 Tom: I guarantee it would not be

0:05:40 Thomas: Oh. That's Nice. Okay.

0:05:40 Tom: A substantive thing

0:05:43 Thomas: Well, End of discussion. A car

0:05:43 Tom: Answer.

0:05:44 Eli: Well, That's when you go give prank. You get her like a hundred bouquets of roses. Yes, exactly. You got her a car with flowers in it and you said flowers are fine. Right. And then she learns don't fucking stonewall me world war two generation. I will get you a Volvo full of carnations.

0:05:47 Thomas: Oh. Flowers. Oh, she

0:05:56 Tom: So But I, I want to, I want to give you guys some of the answers that were just so funny to me that I had to reply back. So like, people are like, well, she get her nails done? I'm like, no, she would never get her nails done. She's never, my dad has bought her, my my dad is bought her clothes any number of times, and she puts them in the closet and wears them only when her prior clothes have worn out. Like, the level of personal austerity is extreme. She's also wealthy.

0:06:11 Eli: Have fingers. I

0:06:12 Thomas: It's her pitchfork hands, they won't Christ. There's a reason she's your dad's soulmate.

0:06:24 Eli: Don't think she's having conscious experience. I just have to throw that out there. I ran about philosophical zombies.

0:06:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. She

0:06:26 Tom: It's unbelievable. I've never been to her house, so I don't know what her personal aesthetic is, so I have no idea if she likes you don't know where she lives.

0:06:31 Eli: Oh, Oh, show up to her house. Show up to our house.

0:06:39 Tom: My dad would never tell me where she lives. He would never do that. Show up.

0:06:39 Eli: Dad knows your would, he would, you'd be like, Hey dad, I'm so sorry. It's an emergency. What's Lynn's address? And then you just fucking show up, show up with a, with 12 pack of Heineken's and you're just like, Lynn does matter. You're drinking them. You'RE drinking them in her house.

0:06:53 Tom: She doesn't drink.

0:06:55 Thomas: Doesn't drink Yeah. Drinking would be a conscious experience, so

0:06:58 Eli: And you're drunk. Yeah, no, she can't drink. She actually doesn't absorb nutrients.

0:07:03 Tom: Doesn't like sweets, like, so I've been being serious. She doesn't like sweets. I've never been to her house. She doesn't like massages. She doesn't get her nails done she

0:07:05 Thomas: I bet it was awkward when you tried to give her a massage, though.

0:07:13 Eli: So weird. Yeah. I was going to give her that note.

0:07:15 Tom: Was, I was having these sort of back and forth, and they made me realize how little I know about this, this woman. So when I've never heard her refer to a friend by name. I've never heard or referred to her family by name unbelievable.

0:07:23 Thomas: Yeah, so this isn't a person. This is some sort of doll, or is

0:07:29 Eli: Is it your dad in a wig? Is this the shiny, is this a psycho thing, right, where she's gonna stab Hayley in the shower?

0:07:30 Thomas: This a Lars and the Real Girl? Oh, yes, yes.

0:07:36 Tom: When she refers to a sister, she's got sisters. I don't know how many, but when she refers, she refers her sister. She refers to them. She'll say my one sister. She'll never give her sister's name. I I DON'T KNOW ANY ACTUAL THING. 44 YEARS. This person has been in my life and I realized like I don't I don'T KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT HER AT ALL

0:07:55 Eli: Yes, thank you.

0:07:52 Thomas: Has she, though? In the same way the vacuum cleaner has, I guess, or the water heater, or doesn't

0:07:59 Eli: Right, yeah.

0:07:58 Tom: RIGHT HOW MUCH DISTANCE THERE IS AND HOW MUCh PRIVACY THERE IS I LIKE I DON'T KNOW WHAT ANY OF HER HOBBIES ARE I DON'T KNOW WHERE SHE LIKES TO EAT I DON'T KNOW THAT SHE DOES I THINK ALL I KNOW ABOUT HER SHE WORKS like that's it like it's it's unbelievable she

0:08:11 Thomas: Have any. Yep. What does she do? Oh.

0:08:16 Eli: Do you know what she does? Okay. There you go. She probably likes laws. You could start there. Get her a big fancy Is there, like, a Grey's Anatomy of Law?

0:08:18 Tom: Manages a law firm yeah

0:08:20 Thomas: Wow. Why

0:08:27 Eli: Get her one of them.

0:08:27 Thomas: Are you trying to get her stuff? Just stop. I

0:08:29 Tom: Well because I care about her because like she's been in my life for 44 years

0:08:30 Eli: Don't listen to Thomas.

0:08:32 Thomas: Don't think her, this is for you, Tom. You're the one who always says this. This is for you. She doesn't give a shit, so you're doing something for you. Yeah.

0:08:37 Tom: I well no I I actually do think and here's the thing is that she is unfailingly polite and she is unfailedly generous so I do think that if I didn't get or something all of a sudden and I've been doing it for my whole adult life that would not play right she would feel very hurt by that so I always remember her birthday and I always remember her on on mother's day

0:08:57 Eli: Sure. Like a mousetrap with no cheese in it. It's just pain.

0:09:05 Tom: It's just it was one of those things that like as people are making these suggestions I'm like those are great suggestions for human people but I've I've no like I don't know any single thing about hayley's like what What does she like to eat? What's her favorite restaurant? I'm like, I can't, I can't answer that question.

0:09:11 Thomas: Nuts.

0:09:19 Tom: I don't know.

0:09:19 Thomas: Bolts and oil.

0:09:11 Eli: Yeah. Got Tom me throw this out there, and please don't react negatively. Really open yourself, open yourself up deep breath in. All right, what if you kill her? In case there's reincarnation, she can come back as a person.

0:09:25 Tom: Yeah, I'm here.

0:09:32 Eli: Yeah.

0:09:27 Thomas: As anything else Yeah.

0:09:33 Eli: How about that? You'd be like, look, the chances that this is real are very low, but it's not like you're fucking crushing it, am I right? I asked my dad and he went, so I'm gonna shoot you with this harpoon gun. This

0:09:39 Thomas: Get

0:09:47 Tom: I did have an exchange with my dad where I was like, what the fuck should I get her? Like, I want to get her something meaningful and that she would actually like. And he's like, yep, she sure is hard to buy for her. I was like, fuck.

0:09:57 Thomas: Her a new software update

0:09:58 Tom: But I did get her a gift from one of the listeners. They recommended a, uh, feeder that has, like, a camera in it that identifies the birds and I was just, it was a total wild one

0:10:08 Eli: Is I you

0:10:08 Thomas: Okay. Birds are at least living things you can get a living thing around her a gift. Yeah, uh

0:10:10 Tom: Right I was

0:10:14 Eli: Give it to her. She's trembling. I've hated birds ever since they killed my sister. What, come on that's

0:10:20 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:20 Tom: I would have no idea. It Was like, it was such a, it was just a wild swing. Why I was like, I don't know if she knows how, how to use her cell phone well enough to connect to this thing. Right then somebody was like, "Oh, I mentioned that." I was like, "That's a great idea. I don't know if she'll send you a cell phone." You're like, "Oh, well, you can set it up for him." Like, I can't set it up for her. I've never been to her home. I'll never ever go to her home, but

0:10:23 Eli: Why I never mention her. We don't touch. Maybe I think you might have imagined her. It sounds like a traumatized Tom. Your mom like, fired you out of a cannon, and traumatized Tom was like Right.

0:10:42 Thomas: Oh You invented a mom. Yeah.

0:10:50 Eli: And then you were like And

0:10:42 Tom: Just invented This Lynn. Yeah. Right.

0:10:51 Thomas: It's just like a jacket on a coat stand and a wig.

0:10:54 Tom: Right, but

0:10:54 Eli: Exactly. And there's a, there's a lady named Lynn who comes over every week, and my dad is, and her, they are friends. Exactly.

0:11:02 Tom: Evidently she loved the bird feeder, or at least she said she did. The best thing about her is, even if she didn't, she would tell me she did. I have no idea if it's true, because she's so polite, polite. She's so polite about it.

0:11:12 Eli: Here's the question that comes up for me, Tom, and Thomas too, right? Because I wonder this with both of your things where, where it's like, I haven't read the journals or I've never talked to my mom about that or me. I would never tell my dad that I loved him or whatever the fuck it is you people do. I can't help but violate social contract the minute I sense it in the room. What do you guys do in the situation? I'll give you an example.

At Right a Con this year, which was lovely, Right a Con guy comes over to the table, and I was like, oh, Texas, I point to his name tag, and I was like, how do you, you like it there? And he goes, in what sense? Right, which is just like a social context thing where most people are supposed to sort of take a pause and consider. Right, it's just one of those, like, creating distant statements, and a normal person goes, I don't know, the weather. Right, I went, sexually. How do you like, in Texas, sexually? How have you not been like, everyone tell me your deepest secrets now at Christmas. What

0:11:15 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:11:22 Thomas: Oh yeah, I forgot about those Oh yeah I didn't get to go

0:12:08 Eli: Do you have to lose? What do I have to do? I would just be like, Like, tell me the darkest thing that ever happened to you. Go. Now, anyone who tries to speak, I'm going to hit with this wet pool noodle. If you ain't secretin', you're getting the nude.

0:12:09 Thomas: Yeah Yeah Oh man

0:12:17 Tom: I I, I don't know, like, do feel like I, like, I love Lynn. I have a lot of affection for her, she, she's done a lot of, I would never bring her to my Christmas.

0:12:29 Eli: Bring me to Christmas.

0:12:32 Thomas: Man, Eli That should be a service of yours We really should just bring Eli to different things and cut through the Yeah

0:12:33 Tom: Yeah. Oh.

0:12:38 Eli: Absolutely. I can't promise you much. I promise you there are, I've tried to think how many girlfriends I've had, at least ten. There have been at least 10 families in the United States who are like, except for that Christmas, where I was just like, why is everyone so quiet?

0:12:39 Tom: My God.

0:12:47 Thomas: Jesus Jesus.

0:12:56 Thomas: You've met 10 sets of parents? Jesus fucking Christ.

0:13:00 Eli: Oh, are you kidding? People introduced me to parents right away. Right away.

0:13:05 Thomas: Well, the only thing worse than being an unfeeling robot who doesn't actually exist in any human way.

0:13:06 Tom: All right,

0:13:12 Eli: That Tom imagined is the auto ads. Yes, that's right, podcast listener.

0:13:14 Thomas: Yeah. In order to cope with this horrible childhood.

0:13:17 Eli: You did not imagine those. Let's see. It's been 13 minutes to record. So you've heard 27 auto ads by now. You did Not.

0:13:24 Thomas: Hey, I've cut back on the auto ads a little bit. I'll have, you know, So, you know, now that I'm out of the lawsuit.

0:13:27 Eli: You didn't. You did not imagine those auto ads, but you can make them fade away, just like Lynn would fade away if Tom ever asked her any question about herself, ever.

0:13:41 Tom: Oh, no.

0:13:41 Eli: In any way you can make them faded away by heading over to patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads, where you'll get an extended commercial-free version of every show with a little parenting story at the end. Last week, uh, find out whether or not my son farted. Did he fart? Did he not fart? It's only one way to find out.

0:13:58 Thomas: Oh, this week, I'm actually going to tease because I'm going to make sure I tell this. The Tooth Fairy forgot to visit. So I need to tell everyone about that in the after show.

0:14:09 Eli: Now that you're not in a lawsuit, when you do shit like this, what are we supposed to say and do? Crazy, we were always like, "Oh," but now you just suck. So what do we what do we say now? Do we just boo? Do we boo you? Okay.

0:14:21 Thomas: Yeah, that's fine. Sure.

0:14:23 Eli: We'll just boo. Okay, but yes, you can make all that go away at patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads. All right, gentlemen, this week I wanted to talk about, um, the nest a little bit, which is a, a topic I think we have glazed over a bit here and there. Of course, we had, uh, for those of you who listen to the special patron-only content, we know about Donovan's recent aborted trip to Georgia, um, and just generally like the teen phase where your kid is just so desperately being an asshole to you and how you handle it, uh, and so I thought I thought this, "Am I the Asshole," was a good illustration of that.

0:14:59 Thomas: Is that what it's about? Okay, if you say so, man, we have no idea. Tom and I have been dying. It's been a month

0:15:00 Eli: Yes. Yes.

0:15:03 Tom: Yeah, I don't understand this one at all. So, yeah.

0:15:05 Eli: It's been pushed back. It keeps getting pushed back, it's the Matt Damon of our show, and now we're going to talk about it. Alright, Tom, you want to read this one? You have the most melodious reading voice, after all. While Tom is looking that up, I'll explain sort of why I wanted to read this one. So I am fascinated. I have a friend who's got a teenage child right now. And that child is so smart and so precocious and so cool. And they fucking are so mean to their mom.

0:15:06 Tom: Oh,

0:15:33 Eli: They're just so mean to their mom all the time. They're not even that roasting thing, right? It's just that, like, roll-your-eyes disgust that teens have from, like, 12 to 15, which is just so fucking hard to take. And I have, I've talked with this friend about sort of how they're dealing with it, and, and friend is really, really awesome and really, really cool about it and is sort of just sort of taking it as it comes. They're a much more laid-back person than me. So one of the things that I want, want to talk about when we read this is, like, one, I don't know how I'm gonna handle this, because I don't, about you, Thomas, but, like, I am so massively in love with my kid, right? Like, the notion that he's gonna be mean to me someday, right, and I have to have, like, a normal chill reaction to that, as opposed to, like, either tearing my shirt, like I'm at the end of the Unexpected Bar Mitzvah, or, like, roasting back way too hard

0:15:33 Thomas: Wow yeah yeah

0:15:35 Tom: Whoa.

0:15:42 Thomas: Jesus yeah oh

0:16:26 Eli: Which you're not supposed to do, your kids. So, uh, so I'll be, be interested in your thoughts, Tom.

0:16:30 Thomas: I thought you were gonna say if your if kid is mean to your partner too because that's gonna be interesting

0:16:34 Eli: Also, a thing I'm worried about. I feel like I understand how that's gonna go. Oh,

0:16:34 Thomas: Yeah forget

0:16:40 Tom: Am I the asshole for being bitchy about my mom reading my book? Of my favorite authors just published a new book a couple of days ago, and I, 17 female, bought a copy that arrived today. However, I have a lot of exams in the next few days, so I told my mom that I'll be reading it after I finish those exams while opening the delivery box. My mom then immediately said, I'll read it for you first.

And I, kind of not knowing what to do, said, sure. I was kind of upset about it because, one, I really like the author, and now I'm probably going to read it after my mom hands it to me and says something like, oh, that was an interesting story, or something negative, which is more likely going to be the case. And two, I've only seen my mom read one book that wasn't work -related my whole life, so that was kind of weird.

I then remembered that when my grandma read some of my books a year ago, she circled and underlined a lot, so I asked my mom not to do that, which kind of irritated her. I then saw her go talk to my dad in the kitchen, and left the book there with my cat nearby, so I picked up the book to move it to somewhere safe,

0:17:43 Tom: So am I the asshole for emphasizing the please don't write stuff in my book thing and passive-aggressively reading the book after she said she wanted to read it? If so, what should I do? Edit: Please understand that I am not mad at my mom or wanted to complain about her. I was quite excited when she wanted to read the book and I really wish she would read it and like it. But I was also scared that she'd say something bad about it after reading it. So I guess I just babbled the "don't write in the book" thing. I just want to get some takes on whether she was irritated by my behaviors, so I can figure out whether I should apologize to her or just put the book in her room. I found this whole story to be baffling

0:17:42 Thomas: About what I don't

0:18:18 Tom: And I cannot understand the conflict. Yeah.

0:18:18 Thomas: Even understand it I don'T UNDERSTAND

0:18:20 Tom: I don't I need so much help with this. I Don't even understand the conflict.

0:18:20 Thomas: WHAT'S HAPPENING CAN SOMEONE Yeah. Eli, just tell me what this is.

0:18:25 Tom: Yeah, what is happening here? Whoa.

0:18:26 Thomas: Oh,

0:18:21 Eli: I totally understand it. Yeah. Let me translate from teenage ease, right? It's that I teach high schoolers enough that I can read between the lines to what a piece of shit this high schooler was. Okay, so first of all, your mom does not want to read your favorite book as a 17-year-old. She doesn't, she doesn't because your your favorite book as a 17-year-old? Fucking sucks. It's the young, smart girl who was smart and young, who was magically great at everything and went to the fantasy genre. And there at the fantasy genera, she discovered she was amazing and great. And there was a tall, dark, handsome man who did not teach her enough about consent, and they fell in love the end. Your mom doesn't want to read that book. Your mom loves you. You're her favorite person. And you opened up the book that she bought with her money. You didn't buy that fucking book, 17 - year -old. Oh, yeah, you have an Amazon account?

Out, suck my ass. You have an Amazon account. She bought you that book. It shows up, right? And you're like, "I've got so many exams, I'm probably not going to be able to read it." And she's like, "I'll read it." Why does she want to read? She wants to talk to you about it, you fucking asshole. She loves you and she're gonna read the stupid Court of Thorns and she'll pretend to like, "Oh, but, but what if she says something bad about it?" Sometimes people don't like books. That's what talking is. You

0:18:36 Tom: You're

0:18:42 Thomas: Interesting.

0:18:53 Thomas: Yeah. That's every. Yeah,

0:19:37 Tom: Losing

0:19:38 Eli: Dick I "I liked the book. I didn't like the book." That's the foundation of discussions of literature. You motherfucker. So you were like, ah, okay. I sure hope mom doesn't dislike my book because I would die, right? So then she goes into the kitchen and puts it near the cat. Now, maybe I missed a further edit where he hates literature and has participated in several book burnings. But last I checked, most cats don't usually fucking shred a book in a four second ratio. Then you walk in the room. Your mom loves talking to your dad about her job at a law firm or whatever the fuck she does, some grown-up thing, so you could go to college and eat food and have 19 subscription channels for the animes you like. And you're like, "Hey, by the way, don't underline in my book. Fuck you, I'll eat every page as I read it if I want to, you fucking fucking asshole." I'll buy 26 copies of this book and take my next 25 shits in the 25 preceding copies and

0:19:38 Tom: Him Holy shit

0:20:41 Thomas: I don't

0:20:42 Eli: Then give you the 26th one. Do you not understand how fucking insane? You think your mom doesn't know? Don't underline in your book. Why? Cause it'll be unreadable. You think she's going to scratch out the parts she doesn't want you to see? She has offered to read the book and your first reaction is, make sure you don't ruin it. You fucking loon. Finally, she leaves the room. She's talking to your dad. She puts it near the cat and you very clearly are like, you ignored my book. Now it's lonely, and it's gonna get PTSD.

Look at my book doing heroin in the corner. You go in the other room, and she's like, "You know what? Keep your fucking book. Keep your fuckin book." And then you go on the internet. You go in the internet full of pedophiles we're gonna try to fuck you and your mom's gonna stop them by reading your emails while you're asleep sleep. And you're like, "Am I?" Yes. You're the asshole. You are the asshole that you're the ass holiest of assholes. All your mom wants to do is love you and pretend to like the Crown of Thorns book of horrors, wife, werewolf, Twilight.

0:21:06 Thomas: Know what's happening.

0:21:43 Tom: Wow Wow I just, I feel like we should just end the episode there, because that is, that's, that's it that's

0:21:43 Thomas: Wow, I didn't I

0:21:47 Eli: Every mother of a teen girl is never felt more supported and held in the light by me right now. I'm just throwing that out there.

0:21:55 Thomas: I didn rea d any of that. I didn d see that in the thing in the, there's something about a book, I don't know, but

0:21:56 Tom: The craziest I take I've ever heard for this story. I love it. This is

0:22:06 Eli: Is a great take, people. Look, there are a few times I've asked our listeners to rise up. First of all, the legions of perverts who rise up every time to remind them that they are crazy. But two, dose, now I need the legion of teenage mothers. Take all the anger you've ever felt, all the angry you've ever pushed down, and release it onto Tom and Thomas in our Facebook group and let them know how amazing my take on this Mi the Asshole is

0:22:12 Tom: God Well, I will say your, your take was intensely uncharitable. Well

0:22:36 Thomas: Maybe it 's right, because I just, I didn't even understand why anyone had a problem, like what the conflict was, like, maybe you're right, because I don't understand it otherwise. I don't have a better explanation of what this Emma the Asshole was.

0:22:48 Eli: Thomas abstains, that means I have two votes. Thank

0:22:48 Thomas: Yeah you might be right it's

0:22:50 Tom: Look I I I think for the purpose of discussion let's assume that your insane take is right, just for the purpose of discussion.

0:22:52 Thomas: Not what abstain means But

0:22:57 Eli: You I ask you guys to do this on the podcast all, all the time, and you guys are like, "No, we can't do that. That's a federal crime." We can't give out phone numbers on the podcast. Can we give out phone numbers on the podcast now that the fucking lawsuit's over Tom Shut up. Thomas, I don't know. I'm just gonna start giving them, I'm say phone numbers, and then, podcast listener, you at home, you just text him and see how you feel. Thomas, he's not saying no, everybody that

0:23:05 Tom: So That's

0:23:11 Thomas: Whose phone number? I don't think that was because of the lawsuit that we couldn't do that. It just sounds like weird

0:23:30 Tom: Just, you just can't do that. All right, so let's talk about something that is not whatever, whatever

0:23:30 Thomas: Yeah Yeah

0:23:34 Eli: One was Cecil, everybody. I don't know, know if he cut it, but it was Cecil. Yes.

0:23:40 Tom: Just happened there. Your take on it here is that this kid is shitting the nest, that this kit is reached. So, I guess that's the part that I'm curious about because I've got, I teenagers now, 13, 17, 17. them have gone through the shit the nest phase.

0:23:59 Tom: None of the them have hit that shit the next phase at all.

0:23:59 Eli: I know if anything fucking Finn is like floofing out a blanket again, as, as the patrons to the, uh, parenting stories know, like, Finn has, is the nest, he's he's bringing an armful of straw. I

0:24:10 Tom: Yeah. Is determined to live with us forever. She's said as much. She just wants to, like, hunker down and just be with us forever. That's her goal in life, is to, is to live here with us forever. And Donovan is like, I, I understand the concept of just, Donovan, Donovan wants to move out and be self-sufficient, but he's never, ever been, he's ever hit that rebellious thing and that, like, let me be, like, just mean or shitty or like roll your eyes

0:24:38 Thomas: I wonder how much that's a product of yeah, know when you, the household isn't the most fun to be in, like, you guys probably have a, you, a fun unsupportive household. How normal is the

0:24:40 Tom: Yeah So so far we've not encountered that. I did, I know, I certainly didn't do that. I didn't, not, like, would for different reasons, like I I, my dad certainly would not have tolerated me rolling my eyes at him right, like yeah yeah was no world where I was going to roll my eyes that my dad or get snippy with my dad, like, that was not something that he would have tolerrated at all. And like, my kids haven't done that yet, so I actually am wondering how ubiquitous, Eli, you feel like this stage in life is. Yeah

0:24:47 Thomas: Yeah yeah right exactly we were just under authoritarian control yeah interesting

0:25:13 Eli: I went through a major shitting the nest phase. Um, I was just a real piece of shit. Um, I have older friends whose kids I, I would say with the, the exception of you, Tom, have all gone through really huge shitting the net phases. I also watched my friends go through them, so I felt like it was a very relevant part of my life. Maybe it was just, you know, I am under no delusions that I was incredibly spoiled as a kid, so maybe it's just like a spoiled kid exclusive. That's

0:25:45 Tom: I, I don't know. I'm thinking back to, like, when I was in high school and ,005 years ago now, but, like, my closest friend in high School is this guy, Dave and Dave was a shithead. He was a total shithad and he absolutely did.

0:25:51 Eli: True.

0:25:55 Thomas: So are you I'm still mad at you about it. Just beat up a dad. Could have been me. Could have been me. A

0:25:58 Tom: He hockey too. It was hockey too hockey

0:26:02 Eli: Never could have been you.

0:26:03 Thomas: Hockey Dad I know that's

0:26:03 Eli: You would have won that. You

0:26:04 Tom: Dad. Yeah. But it was street hockey. It was street hockey.

0:26:04 Eli: Won that fight, Thomas. Thomas they wouldn't have let go of your arm, you would have seen red, you would have woken up pieces of curry everywhere. All

0:26:09 Thomas: True, yeah. But then you're causing the stress of, like, shit, did I just beat up a kid? Am I going to jail? You ruined this man's life. I, I need to find him.

0:26:17 Eli: Right. That also would not be an issue. They

0:26:21 Tom: But Dave did go through that phase, looking back and just thinking about people that I knew. I think Dave very much did go through that phrase. In, he, that phase really for middle school forward. I think Aislinn had a moment that turned out to be hormonal and just needed some medication where she was struggling to regulate in ways that she hadn't struggled with in a long time, as we recognize that pretty quickly and and were able to regulate her hormones and that just fixed it overnight. So part of me wonders, like, how much of this is just

0:26:38 Thomas: And

0:26:49 Eli: Had her spayed if you haven't listened to that episode. It's very lovely, yeah.

0:26:52 Tom: But part of it wonders like how much this is is like teenagers hitting a point of just, and it's probably the same effect, you know, just hitting that hormonal phase where they're just like on a fucking hair trigger anyway, but

0:27:07 Thomas: How much of it is incomprehensible babble? I still don't understand what it said. How much of It is that?

0:27:11 Eli: Yes.

0:27:11 Tom: If But your idea of shitting the nest is like, this is like developmentally part of that distance building, right? That's that's part of that next phase into adulthood, and I will comment on that, that, like, I did feel with all of the kids, I do feel at around the age of, like, call it 12-ish, give or take for each kid, that they do start to create distance. Um, they create distance through, like, general shittiness or just from kind of a disinterest. Um, all they all went through that disinterest phase. Um, Finn, I worried about it because I, you know, I don't have as close of a day-to-day connection with him, um, so I was just like, fuck, I hope I get that back, you know?

With the other kids, I was like, well, I'm here all the time, so I'm less worried about him. But I do think that there's something to be said for around that middle school time, that developmentally, whether they they shit the nest or whether they just sort of, like, wall off the nest, there is that distance building that that does happen, and as a parent it feels fucking awful. Like, I will say that, like, it feels kind of weird until you realize, like, by googling it, if you're me, like, oh, this is just developmentally appropriate. This is actually just a perfectly normal developmentally appropriate stage. Kids come back around, there are ways to deal with it, and then you just kind of, like, fucking breathe and relax. But it does feel fucking weird. It super feels weird, yeah.

0:27:22 Eli: Right.

0:27:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:54 Eli: Because You love this person, right? You love so much. You adore this person. And then all of a sudden they, what feels like, fall out of love with you, right? Like a shitty ex, right? All of a suddenly your favorite person is just like, I want to go hang out with Nicole. And you're like, who the fuck is Nicole?

0:28:52 Eli: I've been there every time you've thrown up in your whole life, in your hole life. And now Nicole, right it's funny. I, I say that Anna has to remind me not to say it. So my son, when he wants to hold hand, will go, can you hold my hand? I And will often say, yeah, man, you're my favorite person. I'll never stop holding your hand. She's like, you gotta be chill. You gotta be a little chill about that. But like someday he won't want me to hold his hand anymore, right? Someday he will find that to be silly or unnecessary, but like, I'm not going to change, right.

0:29:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:25 Eli: I'm still going to love him. I will want to hold His hand forever. I won't wants him to be embarrassed. That will will obviously be more important to me. But what this really gets to for me, at least what I projected onto the mind of this mom is like, here you are trying to connect with your kid's sexy vampire werewolf book, right? Which you do not want to read. Your mom has not read a book outside of work ever. There's no fucking shot. She wants to read sexy vampire werewolves, Thorna Crowns, right? And she's, you're trying to conect with your kids and your kid is like, don't write in it. It, like, what is this? Is my question, right, is the healthy reaction? Because I'm I'm also dealing with it a little bit with Max going through his mommy-centric phase, where he's been very like, I don't want Daddy, not Daddy, kind of stuff, and that I just sort of, like, cheerfully exit the situation. I'll be like, no problem, buddy, and then I go in the other room and feel my feelings. Um, like, what do you do when this is a conscious person?

0:30:08 Tom: Yeah.

0:30:17 Thomas: Well, here's the reason that I think that Eli is kind of wrong about whatever this is, although I recognize that I barely comprehend it, so I could just be wrong. But if my kid was like, don't write in it, I'd be like, oh, okay. I wasn't gonna write in it. I don't why the huge reaction to that. I don't know if that's the kid just describing stuff unfairly because reaction felt weird, you know? No, no, you don't think so? Well, there's clearly a reason that the kid thought this, and it's either gonna be because there's a good reason or because the kid, you has issues

0:30:18 Eli: No.

0:30:37 Eli: Because family has a very specific tradition of writing in books. Nobody writes in books, so

0:30:51 Thomas: With anticipating Yeah. Good.

0:30:51 Eli: She explains. She says, yeah, the kid says that one time I was reading a book at my grandma's, and it had underlines in it, right? So I assume my mom also underlines books?

0:30:53 Thomas: Yeah. Well, Well, that's a kid thing to think. But like this, a very interesting interaction to have an opinion about like that, because that's don't underline in my book doesn't cost the mom anything. That's doesn't I guess. But it sounds so it attenuated that I don't even know that the mom would understand why she was saying that, you know, would the mom know that she one time saw a book at her grandma's that had underlines or

0:31:14 Eli: No, but it's just a dig.

0:31:29 Tom: I don't know, but I think, like, I think if the, if point of the, of what Eli's is kind of just trying to drive at here is, like, less the specifics of the AITA and more just, like, like, at some point, like, kids are gonna start behaving in ways that are designed to create distance.

0:31:45 Thomas: Well, but But Here's why I think this is important, Eli. Max tells you, "Don't underline, don't, don't write in my book." What do you do? Okay.

0:31:46 Tom: Yeah.

0:31:52 Eli: I'd be like, okay, I won't run underline in your book, but, but

0:31:55 Thomas: Sweetie. Love. Love you so much forever and ever and ever. I won't under the, yeah, you know, hide

0:31:59 Eli: Right, look, I'm better at hiding my emotions than this mom is. And I always will be. And I always can be because I've squeezed tighter and harder than the, all except the two members of this podcast. So it's not, I'm obviously going to be a better liar.

0:32:10 Tom: That's

0:32:07 Thomas: My emotions for shit. Are you kidding?

0:32:14 Eli: Yeah, exactly. I'm going to do it. I'll do it for you. I am going to see a much better liar than this. Mom is, but I absolutely see the moment in my mind of being like, "Oh, I can read the book. Uh, if you want me to read the book and then you'll read it." And she's like, "Sure." "Don't writing it." I'm like, "Fuck you, fuck you, I know what you fucking do. Don't writing it." "Well, I'll writing if I want to fucking writing to it, that's what I want to say, it's my book, I'll eat it like a sandwich.

0:32:37 Thomas: Yeah. I don't understand. Really? Why?

0:32:36 Tom: I I, what? I love Eli, is like is what's being compared, yeah, it is her book, but like what what's funny here is there's, like, you're reacting to the kid's emotional reactivity, but, like, you're also making a whole series of, like, emotionally reactive internal assumptions as well, right?

0:32:41 Thomas: It's her, it's her book.

0:32:45 Eli: It's mi book. I

0:32:55 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:32:56 Eli: Think, I'm just nailing her to the wall. I think I'm just, I just see through her bullshit. I bet if this, oh, I wish this mom, I hope this mom's a listener and she's gonna be like, "Thank you, Eli, you saw through the, you read between the lines." You know, it

0:32:57 Tom: And that's okay.

0:33:09 Thomas: Everyone else is telling me I'm the adult in this situation and I have to actually, you know, act responsibly, but you're the one who knows it's the kid who's a piece of shit. Yeah.

0:33:16 Eli: Is the kid who's a piece of shit. That's part of it too, is that, like, you do have to act responsibly, but, like, god damn, man, you know, I

0:33:18 Tom: But like thing is that, like, kids, especially, I mean, moving into those pre-teen and teen years, they awash with all these fucking hormones and their brains are changing and their environment is changing and they're starting to have way more independence and the depth and quality of their friendships is starting to take on an outsized level of personal importance for them. Them, everything is shifting in their life in this really fast-paced way and they are going to be aggressively emotionally reactive, right?

Tell you, like, the easiest thing in the world is to make a fucking teenager cry, like, they are so either it's easier than a toddler, it's, it's so emotionally reactive, like, they're, they're living on these fucking hair triggers and the size of all of the seemingly inconsequential events in their lives are just, like, massive right now, they're just, they're so big. So I think as the adult, like, you've got to definitely take a moment and step back and be like, "This has nothing to do with me." Like, moment, like, whether you're upset, like, is it nothing? This has almost nothing to deal with me personally as, as the parent who is, Tom, this, this is nothing to do with what I am, is an outlet and a safe place for the venting of these feelings.

0:34:01 Eli: Know, thank

0:34:38 Thomas: Yeah, Eli's, Eli's interpretation aside, Tom, I feel like you would probably agree with me that this is the kind of thing, this kind of unpleasant escalation that seems to have happened, the reason it's so incomprehensible to me is I don't, it think that's the kind thing that requires a bunch of bad interactions that have already happened, you a bunch of times the mom has already not kind of turned the other cheek a little bit with the kid, and so that way everything is kind of fraught and every little interaction is, is about all the previous ones, don't you think? I mean, I feel like this doesn't, this made no sense as, like, oh, this is kind of the first step here, like This is, this

0:35:15 Tom: Yeah, this this am I the asshole on its own, which is kind of why I'm just sort of, like, kind of ignoring it, like the, the am I the asshole? I can't make heads or tails out of it, so I just, I'm taking Eli on his, on the face and just saying, like, "All right, I'll just, I'll go with Eli's interpretation." Um, I have had, you know, experientially as a parent, like, I, I certainly have had all of the kids at some point have, like, these emotional moments that are well outside and outsized to the experience that we're sharing together, right? And, like, definitely as the parent you can be the brunt of that, like, moment for them, right? And I think there's a tendency to view them because it's hard, you have to hold two ideas as a parent in your head at the same time and they, they conflict. You have to see them as real people with valid, real feelings and emotions. But you also have to say, "But that

0:35:16 Thomas: Yeah. Sure. Sure. Sure. That

0:35:25 Eli: You, yeah.

0:36:05 Tom: One there, when it's directed at me, that's got nothing to do with me. And they're not mad at me even though they're saying they are. They're not. And this is meaningless. And all this is is somebody in a young phase of their life who is not able in this moment to control that emotional space. And so you have to have, I think as a parent, it requires you to really work on your own emotional regulation, like in a really, really big way, because parents that don't do it, they react back, right?

0:36:06 Thomas: One. Was Dumb. Yeah. Yeah.

0:36:30 Thomas: Yeah.

0:36:36 Eli: Yeah.

0:36:36 Tom: So you've got some young person who blows up and gets mad and then the adult reacts as if that's actually directed personally at them, because, like, if you talk to me that way, Thomas, or I talk to you that way, we would have to have a moment, right? Like, because that would be unacceptable because we are adults, so that would be symptomatic of a real conflict. But I think you have to recognize when dealing with kids, like, no, we don't have a real conflict, you have an emotional experience right now that you can't control.

0:36:37 Thomas: That's what's happening here. Yeah.

0:37:02 Eli: It's so hard because they feel so much like adults when they're that age, like they, they sound like adults. It's like having to remember you're talking to the chucky Cheese puppet, right? You don't actually have to, to emotionally connect with it.

0:37:07 Tom: Right, Yeah, no, that, that's exactly it, you, because in all these other spaces and all these other connection points in your relationship with them, they feel like other real people, like that you're having real conversations with, a meaningful connections with, and then, like, something, something, teenagers just will blow the fuck up or slam a door, get upset, or roll their eyes or behave in these ways that, like, with other people in your life would be signs or signals of massive disrespect and conflict and so you have to be like, "Nope, that's not actually a real person right now," and you, you really do have to hold those two things in your mind simultaneously and just be like, I not goingto let myself be outwardly reactive when inside you might be like, fuck you too," but you just have to eat that shit, you have to swallow that shit down.

I don't know what else you do, because if you don't, then you end up in that, with that family, and everybody's been to that house, right? Like, if it wasn't your house, you've been to it, where, like, the teenagers are yelling and the parents are yelling right back.

0:37:43 Eli: Exactly. Oh, and they're just screaming at each other, absolutely.

0:38:20 Tom: And you're like, "What the fuck is," like, like, like adults should never lose their tempers with kids. Like, it's your job to be emotionally regulated by example, that's your job. Like, your kids can't learn to do it if you can't model it, right? Like, if what they're going to do is create a conflict style that will not serve them down the road if you can't model that. And I do want to give my dad credit, that man never one time ever, never, know, he had definitely had emotions.

0:38:24 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. And

0:38:45 Thomas: For never having emotions. Yeah.

0:38:47 Eli: It's true, he never told you he loved you, so

0:38:48 Tom: He's not you, know, but he never raised his voice, not one time, not, I, I have no memory of my dad ever raising his voice or yelling ever, not ever even when my brother in sixth grade, my brother invited the whole middle school over and threw a party and they trashed the house and they drank my dad's alcohol and they, like, burned shit with cigarettes, like my, my dad, like couch And like furniture, they damaged the house. He just threw a party in the middle of the day. We had a day off, my dad was at work, and Bob invited the school to the house. My dad did not lose his temper. My dad got up and took a walk, and he came back when he was calm. Oh,

0:38:48 Eli: You didn't, couldn't get to him or hugging. What

0:39:07 Thomas: Holy shit. What the fuck?

0:39:27 Eli: Do you think he said on that walk, do you think he was like Oh, ball sex Rex, do

0:39:29 Tom: No. My dad. I'm no, I'm sure my dad was flipping shit for the 45 minutes he was walking, but, but to his credit, when he walked back in the house, he was calmed. He did start smoking again. Though, I will say that he had given up smoking. I think he actually walked and bought cigarettes and he started smoking again. He had been he had quit for about a year.

0:39:41 Eli: You he was like,

0:39:49 Thomas: Went out for a pack of smokes and actually then came back and had no emotions.

0:39:52 Eli: Except

0:39:52 Tom: Yeah. Came back. Yeah. He had quit for about a year, and, but he came back and he was smoking again, so I want to give him credit for that, because he, like, never in my entire life did I see my dad lose his temper, and I, I've tried to model that with my kids. I don't think they've ever seen me lose my temper. That's

0:39:53 Thomas: Yeah. Wow.

0:40:07 Eli: For when that guy jumped a bunch of smoothies on your lap.

0:40:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:40:10 Tom: True. No, you know, I don't want to misrepresent, I did lose my temper, I, and it was a hormonal problem. I did loose my temper, um, somebody dropped a whole bunch bunch of milkshakes on my lap and

0:40:11 Thomas: I'm going to say. It might have been a milkshake problem.

0:40:21 Tom: I lit, I, into him, I lit into him in front of my kids, and I shouldn't, I shouldn' a lit into him, and I definitely shouldn't lit into them in front of my kid, so I did do that.

0:40:27 Eli: I thought it was weird that you made him wear your pants as a hat.

0:40:32 Eli: And then you said, I'm going to stand here just out of frame at this delivery window. And if people ask you about my pants around your head, you have to say, this is my stupid hat for stupid people. I think that was a little too far, Tom, but you know.

0:40:44 Tom: Man, if the kids weren't in the car, but yeah.

0:40:48 Tom: But I, I don't think I've ever lost my temper directed at the kids, like, I don't think that's ever happened. I would be very surprised if If, if I'm wrong about that, I think that's, the, that's kind of piece that you're speaking to, right? Is that emotional regulation conflict?

0:40:59 Eli: Yeah, exactly. And I honestly, it's interesting, as much as I had a take on this, the take I had not considered as the, like, you maybe you shouldn't let your teenager feel like an asshole, right? Of it should be, right, because if your teenager goes onto the internet and is like, am I an asshole, maybe you didn't do a good job of communicating to them what It is that, that you understand what, what they're dealing with. I don't know. I also think that your kid can still take that in and understand it rather than not. But that's, that's an element of it that I hadn't considered. I had just considered how much I hated this child.

0:41:19 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:41:36 Tom: Well, we don't take it personally when, like, our, like, when, when a six or seven year old yells at us or, like, it's like, I hate you, you know, and, like, throws a temper tantrum. We don't think that that's a good thing. We don' t take it personal. We don'T actually think that person hates us. What we recognize, hopefully, even though it sucks when they do that, is, like, all right, you don't hate me. You're, you've just lost your shit. You're juste six years old. You just don't know how to control your feelings right now. Oh,

0:41:36 Thomas: It Still gets, uh, let me tell you, it still gets tiring, you know.

0:42:02 Tom: Yeah.

0:42:02 Thomas: Yeah.

0:42:02 Eli: No.

0:42:02 Tom: No, it does. It's like, I don't, I'm making it sound like it's easy to do. It's not easy to Do, but I don't think that the obligation is different, I guess, is the point I'm trying to make, because I think that, like, we kind of go through these sort of, like, you know, hills and valleys of sort of, like, our ability to emotionally regulate ourselves. And I think in that, like, preteen to teen space, that's actually a really difficult space for a lot of people to do that work. And the difference is that they seem so rational in other places, so I think we can be fooled into sort of, like, holding them accountable to adult behavior when they're not yet adults, like, emotionally speaking. Does that make sense? Oh,

0:42:03 Eli: Yeah, absolutely.

0:42:42 Thomas: Yeah. Think my position on this has been, I don't mind, you know, I'm gonna model what a human would react a little bit, you know. I'm not gonna get, like, I'm not gonna get on their level, but I, I look at it as a little bit, I think the ideal way to be might be a little bit like, oh, we're in the, we're in the matrix simulation here, training program, where it's It's like, okay, hey, you were, I don't know if you know this because you're a kid, you were just a massive piece of shit. Now, I'm not going to, like, be a massive peace of shit back to you, but I'm going to explain like that, like if I were just another person,

0:42:42 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. We're in the danger

0:43:07 Tom: Yeah.

0:43:13 Thomas: Yeah, like, if you were just interacting, yeah, exactly.

0:43:13 Eli: Room.

0:43:15 Tom: I think That's an important part. Yeah, that feedback super

0:43:17 Thomas: That's kind of how I feel, where it's like hey, that, you know, I might be like, hey that really hurt my feelings or something, you know, like I might do it, I am not going do it in a way that's like I am in there in the fight, oh yeah, but like I I might explain like, Hey, that was kind of, that was hurtful. And that was whatever. Isn't in an effort to like in a safe environment, try to try to get them to realize like, hey, these are going to be the consequences of treating other people, not non me people like that, you know?

0:43:18 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:43:18 Tom: Important yeah what I think the timing of that feedback is really important too. Right? Like, and I think that's something that, like, are at least, like, many people I've seen, like teachers, authority figures my whole life got that timing piece wrong, where they would react in the moment to it. So you've got somebody who's like, you got a young person who has lost their shit. They're angry. They're whatever. They're clearly not regulating themselves, though. Right? And they've, they've said something cruel or mean or whatever. They're not in a position in that moment to receive feedback. Back, right? They're not, they're, they cannot receive it in a way that's meaningful to them. But I've seen so many authority figures my whole life giving that feedback right then in that moment, and it's totally, and then you just escalate conflict.

That's all you're doing. So like, I, I, like, I have learned too that, like, that, that feedback is absolutely essential. They do need to know that they behave poorly. They do needs to know there are sometimes consequences for treating other, other people like that. But in the moment, that's when I always received that feedback as a kid. Like, I received it right then when I was not capable of really taking it in, and it was not, that was not the right time. And I, I think that was, that was something too that I've learned parenting is, like, they'll, that's hear that feedback and actually process it if you can wait an hour, you know?

0:43:55 Thomas: Hmm.

0:44:15 Eli: Right.

0:45:02 Eli: Yes. And, and the best feedback I have gotten about stuff, even as a, as a conscious adult, right, you know, as you were telling that, I remember I had a teacher who I cared about very, very much, was very close to, um, and I did, we were doing, like, original pieces, and I made a piece about cheating on a test. Um, it would have been very easy for him to call me out in the moment, but he actually wrote me this lovely email being like, hey, I want you to know that piece you wrote is really funny. You absolutely cannot put me in a position of having, I'm having to choose between keeping secrets for you in class and my job.

So I'm assuming that's not real. Right. Because it was a composition for class. But like never talk about anything like that in front of me ever again. It put me in a really uncomfortable position. And again, if he had done that to me in the classroom, I would have shut down and closed up tight and would have developed like huge resentment. And I still think about to this day how useful it was to me. And in the couple of times I've had to do similar things with my students, I've tried to adopt the same techniques because of it.

0:45:46 Tom: Yeah yeah You know, you ever have a, an adult in your life that couldn't emotionally regulate, and then the kids, well, you realize that when you're, like, a teenager, and then that person become, becomes a target in order to make them flip their shit? I, I had that. I remember we had a sixth grade teacher, and she didn't last the whole year. Mrs., um, Fisher was her name, and she could not emotionally regulate. Like, she was as reactive as a lot of the other sixth and seventh graders. And we figured that out fairly quickly. And we would purposely then do things to make her lose her shit. So like when you figure out to, like, like, when kids will figure out, I can get your goat and I can make you lose your temper and I Can Make You Become Illogical and I Could Make You Not Be Able To Think Clearly.

And it becomes a game, and it becomes this sort of, like, well, this is a way for me to win. I might not have authority as a kid, right? I'm going through this phase where I'm sort of testing out the boundaries of my skills and my power in the world, and if one of the ways I can see that I can do that is fucking with people, I'll fuck with people. So I think that's, like, another thing to keep in mind when we're trying to, like, regulate and make sure that we're only modeling that regulated behavior, is that if we don't do that, one of the consequences is we teach Teach kids how to fuck with people to get what they want, how to create reactions in other people by building conflict. Because I did it. It was fun. We made her quit halfway through the year.

0:46:16 Eli: Right. Right. Right.

0:47:29 Tom: Like we used to we fucked with her so much that eventually she just quit. We got a different teacher and we thought it was great.

0:47:33 Eli: Exactly.

0:47:33 Thomas: Yeah. That's funny. We had a teacher like that. And I obviously can't, you participate in it. Just made me feel bad. But the other kids like like the Tom kids did the same, the same exact situation. It was a chemistry teacher. And I remember just even as a 16 year old or whatever, or that was, I think it was earlier, it might've been 14 or 15. I was like, man, I was, uh, I wasn't, I didn't know what to do. I didn' I was there pulling for her. I Was like, come on, just figure out that these are kids. No, I really was. I WAS like, Come on, you're an adult. Figure out that. These are kids you don't need to get upset.

You don't need to be upset, but she would every time. It Was the weirdest thing. I WAS Like, why, why even I know this, what are you doing? What are you Doing? Like I get getting getting upset in the moment, but she would, she just couldn't handle it. And she did. I can't remember if she quit or what, I think she might've quit, or at least I would see her like leave the classroom and like go cry. And I'm just like, come on, man, you got to have some amount of armor for that. Especially when it's not your kids, you know? So I think if it's your kids that's going to be hard for, you Know, Eli and I, but, but

0:47:46 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:48:00 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:48:33 Thomas: Like, if you're dealing with other people's shitty kids, just be like, boy, that's a shitty kid. Don't let it bother you.

0:48:37 Tom: Yeah.

0:48:47 Eli: Absolutely. All right, gentlemen. Before we go, the other day I was at the airport with my son, and he kept wandering off, and I told him, hey, you do that again, I'm going to check you with the luggage. So he wandered off again, and I brought him up to the gate. The stewardess looked me in the eye, and she said, Sir, you can't check your son's luggage. And I said, So you're telling me I have to carry on my wayward son?

0:49:08 Tom: Oh, I love that.

0:49:17 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:49:57 Tom: Sure. Let me call it up.

0:49:57 Eli: That's why you're... Wow, God, unprepared. You're probably too busy texting Lynn, your best friend in the world.

0:50:07 Tom: Doing fine, she says. Okay, good. All right.

0:50:09 Eli: She just sent me the thumbs up emoji on text. I didn't even know they had that emoji. Sometimes people don't like books that's I liked the book. I didn't like the book." That's the foundation of discussions of literature. You motherfucker. So

0:50:14 Tom: Right?