DOD137: Happy Father's Day

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Tom: Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's having its day. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello gentlemen and happy belated Father's Day.

0:00:40 Eli: Father's Day!

0:00:42 Thomas: More like happy, fellated Father's Day. Ha ha! I don't know.

0:00:45 Eli: Yeah.

0:00:46 Tom: It's about time men were recognized. I just want to start there, right?

0:00:48 Eli: Finally, yes.

0:00:49 Thomas: Yeah.

0:00:50 Tom: I want to start there. It's a belt time men got our day, damn it.

0:00:55 Thomas: Day, and I told Lydia, I was, like, oh, yeah? Is it Father's Day? She's, like, yeah, there is every year. And I was, like, oh, good. Then.

0:01:02 Eli: They always say that, but it never comes around. It never actually comes around, so I want to relay what I said in our message thread, which is I think we should cover Father's day so we can hear the tragedy that is both of your lives. I've written a prediction here you guys can reveal of your father's days, based on the however many years we've been doing this show. Was going to be a father, but forgot, wait, didn't forget, scheduled a quadruple recording that day, and then it turns out clocks only move forward. Stupid clocks. Clocks are the worst. First. Tom was awoken by his new flamethrower bed, which wakes him up by shooting him in the face with a flamethorower, because otherwise, Eamon would have to slice a banana in half for breakfast, and that's an impossibility.

0:01:05 Tom: It's just, okay.

0:01:29 Thomas: Definitely a father. Ha ha ha. Ha ha.

0:01:55 Eli: I, in the meantime, celebrated Father's Day.

0:01:58 Thomas: Ha ha, ha, pretty good. I want to add to that my particular insanity of how I knew Father's Day was coming. I most people somehow know the calendar or something. I don't know. That doesn't make sense to me. I can't remember if I've said this on the show, but Lydia said we're trying to schedule something and she's like, oh, it's when Labor Day is. And I was like, OK, so it's any time between, you know, the months of December and January or something. I have no idea. And so what was funny is I got an email from Remy's. Now it's only Remy school because the big kids are on their school together. Email from Romy's school saying, hey, come do a Father's Day thing. And that was like earlier. It might have been last week. I can't remember. And so my idiot brain can't just look at the date and then look at the calendar and be like, like, okay, that's when I'll do that. I'm an idiot. So I, my brain is like, well, sucks for that father. No, I'm like, my brains like whenever that is, I'll be like, I don't know.

I don't do that and I figure sometimes they send you stuff way early. And so I was just like, all right, filed away. I saved the email, but I was like, yeah, I probably don't have to worry about that for a while. And then all of a sudden someone says, I think it was my brother was like hey, are you watching the U.S. Open? Which I said, fuck, is it? That means it's Father's Day Sunday.

Because some, at some point someone told me like, yeah, they always do the U.S. Open for golf on Father's Day. And that stuck in my brain. Cause that's something I can connect, you know, like two different things. So it was this really stupid reaction I had front in of Lydia, which was like, wait, is it S Open? That means Father's Day. So I have to go to R Remy's class, you know? So it, it was very stupid. So that bit of insanity would be hard for you to predict, delight, but that happened for

0:02:00 Tom: Oh, oh, wow.

0:03:40 Eli: Yeah.

0:03:40 Thomas: Sure. Pretty much.

0:03:41 Eli: I think I nailed it. Oh,

0:03:42 Tom: I want to call myself out for dropping the fucking Father's Day ball. I always get my dad the same gift every Father's Day for years and years. My dad loves...

0:03:52 Thomas: Just not talking to him, can

0:03:54 Tom: I call him or I text with him, but I always get him a gift, and I always give him the same gifted gift on Father's Day, which is I always ship him aged Wisconsin cheddar cheese. It's his favorite thing. He loves it. So I Always buy a big thing of, like, sharp cheddar cheese, and I ship it to my dad for Father's Day, and I fucking failed. I just missed it. I knew Father's Day was coming, and I was like, oh, I gotta buy Dad his gift, and then I got busy doing something, like, fuck, I gotta bite Dad his gifts, and I got to, and I had to call him and apologize. I'm like, dude, I'm really sorry, your gift is gonna be late, and I have not

0:03:54 Eli: No.

0:04:05 Thomas: I be your dad, what?

0:04:15 Eli: Yeah.

0:04:22 Thomas: Are you me, and he's

0:04:27 Tom: I don't think I've missed a gift. I felt terrible, terrible.

0:04:27 Thomas: Like, oh, is the U.S. Open on Tom?

0:04:30 Eli: Tom. On everything I know about your dad, that was the last time you ever are going to speak to him. Yeah.

0:04:39 Tom: No, you know what? If I never bought my dad a present, he would never say word one about it. He He Would not hold it against me.

0:04:44 Thomas: Wakes up tomorrow, every cheese he's ever given his dad is on the porch, like, just repackaged, like, returns all of it. Sure.

0:04:49 Eli: Yeah. Exactly. You

0:04:49 Tom: Was, I, my dad does treat us differently, I think, than, than other people for sure. So we're lucky there. More, He, we Get a little More grace, but yeah, I fucking just, just, I can't even believe it. I, I the ball completely on getting my dad his cheesy gift. So I do, I do.

0:05:07 Eli: Hate to see it. You hate having a dead dad pays off once again.

0:05:11 Thomas: It's the best Yeah. Yeah.

0:05:12 Eli: Whoo!

0:05:12 Thomas: High five. Woo.

0:05:12 Tom: Yeah. Save a little money on father's day. Yeah, it's a, Oh fuck.

0:05:14 Eli: Nobody to buy for, I'll

0:05:14 Thomas: Yeah. As opposed to when he was alive, when I didn't do anything. So I've saved money for my whole life on that. That's just me.

0:05:21 Tom: Oh, Oh,

0:05:20 Eli: I'll say this. I have a Facebook because I'm a crazy person who can't handle having too many Facebook friends. And so I've friended my family and I've taken some of the posts and I'm moved them other to the thing. But Facebook has been guilting me about how I used to make Father's Day posts in memoriam of my dad. And now I don't do that anymore. And it's not not because I don't miss my dad. It's because like, like you ever go to the Hiroshima museum, right?

There's not still a guy crying there. You know what I'm saying? So at a certain point you got to stop me. I think it would be more honest. I think it would chill. Like, I think it would be good for the world to know and to understand me if I was like, another Father's Day, psychologically broken in ways I'll never recover from for over your death Dad, miss you so much, have no sense of reality, yourself anymore, just kind of existing. Love, like, I, but I'm 37, you know, if a 37 year-old man writes that as a status, you know, you can click the three dots and get this person out, and the fucking, the will call the cops to go shoot that person's dog or

0:06:10 Tom: Oh man.

0:06:21 Thomas: Yeah, I

0:06:21 Tom: Jesus Christ.

0:06:32 Eli: Whatever it is, like, you at a certain point you have to, to stop mourning. But hey, you know, the only thing worse than the inevitability of death and the sadness that comes with it that none of us will ever be free from? Why, it's the auto ads, the death of podcasting. Yes, for too long podcasters assumed you would keep listening to our shows no matter how many ads for hair care in Spanish we pumped into your ears, and slowly but surely you leaked to wait to this new format, YouTube I'm hearing so much about, until all that was left was just podcasters talking to other podcasers in a circle about podcasting. But you can prevent that day. You can delay our inevitable demise and the demise of our art farm by giving us as little as a dollar over at patreon.com forward slash Dear Old Dads. Patreon.com forward slash Deer Old Dads. Whip into it!

0:06:32 Thomas: Don't

0:07:29 Tom: What is the, rip into it, is That our new catchphrase? I like it. I like it. I think it's a it's an improvement from locked and loaded.

0:07:31 Eli: That's our new catchphrase. Rip into it me and Tom River did it

0:07:36 Thomas: Remember agreeing to that. Okay, uh Damn.

0:07:40 Tom: I think it's improved from locked Locked and loaded. Yeah.

0:07:41 Eli: Earlier today when we got on we said rip into and two votes earlier today we were talking about a thing, and Thomas was like, oh, I don't want to do that, but if it's two votes against one, which is such a terrible precedent to start with, me and Top, like What a foolish thing to say, because we could literally be like, oh, yeah, hey, put rip into it on the iTunes fucking logo tomorrow. Thomas, I vote Tom, yes. Certain point point

0:07:43 Thomas: It. I I slept through another meeting Fuck, okay. Yeah.

0:07:53 Thomas: I mean, it's been how we do everything this whole time, but yeah. You can't physically control my body. Like, you're gonna have to, you idiots are gonna have to figure out how to do that at some point if you want this to happen. I'll

0:08:08 Eli: Oh, you mean we'd have to steal the passwords and lock you out of the show.

0:08:14 Thomas: Give you the passwords. You just have to find out how you're going

0:08:16 Eli: I hate to tell you this, Thomas, I've heard that's pretty easy

0:08:18 Tom: Impossible. It could never happen again.

0:08:20 Thomas: To do it. Jokes don't work anymore because, well, I can still joke that Tom has no fucking idea how any of this works, but Eli will talk about like, you'll joke like you don't know how anything works. And then they'll be like, so I was learning a new programming language the other day. Cause I'm, you know, I have an AI girlfriend or whatever the heck you're talking about. So Eli actually does know how to do all that stuff.

0:08:36 Tom: Which,

0:08:36 Eli: She loves C plus plus. What can I say

0:08:37 Tom: By the way, I find is rude. Like, I need somebody else in the same camp of incompetence, want to just spend all my time in this incompetent space by myself it's

0:08:46 Thomas: So, well guess I'm going to have to forget how to doing everything. Okay. Done. It's actually not that hard for me, but

0:08:49 Eli: Yeah, do you feel so free, do you feels so free at last Okay.

0:08:53 Tom: Very nice. I'm not gonna lie

0:08:55 Thomas: I do want to have, you No, I had the best Father's Day. I still did have to work a little, but I was able to. Actually, OK, I cleaned the house for like six hours. But because if I'm not working, that's when my mind is like, holy shit, I have to clean this fucking pigsty of a house. So I don't actually ever get any time off. It was so nice because I had to clean the house. I had my best day with the kids. I really did. Woke up in the morning. They had made me a bunch of nonsense cards. You know, that made no sense. A bunch of like, yeah, they make you, you know. And school do that kind of thing where they have him do like a handprint or a footprint or something like that?

0:09:06 Eli: Okay, can

0:09:25 Tom: Oh, that's nice. What

0:09:32 Eli: I say this, this is what sucks. They did, and then his teacher just didn't send it home. She was like, oh, I sent those home on Thursday, and you weren't here and I was like so what'd you do, throw it in the fucking garbage, just just slam. Because my mom got a handprint, it fucking ruled. Ah, sucks.

0:09:40 Tom: Do you mean they didn't send them home? So

0:09:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's the best.

0:09:49 Tom: Wait, what happened to it? You don't even know?

0:09:50 Eli: I I think she threw it in the garbage. I think she threw it in the garbage. I think she was like, well Max isn't here today, so fuck him. That's what you get for having a grandma with a house in Connecticut. Slam. Yeah.

0:09:56 Tom: Jesus Christ.

0:09:52 Thomas: Oh, my God. No way. I doubt it. That would be pretty insane. I got a little footprint from Remy and then the kids. Oh my gosh. I and Arlo somewhat, what but Phoebe especially is at the phase where she knows all the letters and sounds but obviously doesn't know how to spell our insane language because it's insane and so she does the, practically the fucking, what's homophobic restaurant commercials, Chick, is it Chick-fil-A where they

0:10:17 Eli: Chick -fil -A, yeah.

0:10:23 Tom: Chick -fil -A, yeah. That

0:10:23 Thomas: Yeah,

0:10:23 Eli: She writes like the cow from Chick-fil -A. They're

0:10:25 Thomas: Exactly. And it's hilarious. So I got a whole Father's Day note that was full of that, and it is, man, it is so funny

0:10:32 Eli: Adorable. It's so good.

0:10:32 Thomas: Yeah.

0:10:32 Tom: Actually is exactly the same as the text messages I still get from Finnegan at 18, like his or

0:10:36 Thomas: Laughing.

0:10:33 Eli: Yeah. I was gonna say. And the, and the emails you get from me, so you know, there's a delight around every corner. Exactly.

0:10:40 Tom: The Citation needed. Essays we scratch our heads trying to read. Yeah, same, same.

0:10:45 Thomas: It was so nice, though. Ahead, Tom.

0:10:47 Tom: Had an awesome Father's Day. I to sleep in, um, shock watches, no flamethrower bed, nothing. I slept until I woke up, the, I had a whole father's weekend. So on Friday, right.

0:10:57 Thomas: Imagine that before bed, Haley had, like, one of those wands, like metal detectors. It was like, all right, Tom, you're not allowed to wear any of your fucking shit. And it's like he's dropping all the stuff. Not even this or this or that. He's got a holster with a ball.

0:11:01 Eli: All Right. I

0:11:07 Tom: Just a whole, yeah. Right. Just, just various shocking devices.

0:11:11 Eli: Think you aged. I think if you did that, I think of you actually let yourself sleep until you wanted to, you'd wake up with the face of a 70-year-old man and be like, oh, my skin all relaxed while I was sleeping. God damn it. Oh,

0:11:11 Tom: No.

0:11:15 Thomas: Oh, yeah.

0:11:19 Tom: Oh, we, were talking about this the other day that I don't know if I'm a morning person or a night owl. I have no idea. Cause I've just not had an opportunity to wake wake up when I want to. So high school, I don't know. I don'T know what I am. So I've got too much to do to figure that out. But Haley had muffaletta sandwiches flown in from New Orleans, from Central Grocery, which are my very favorite. And they're enormous. They're like 12 inch round sandwiches. They'RE just fucking ridiculously bad for you. Covered in olive olive tapenade. They're fucking delicious.

0:11:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:31 Eli: Right. Oh.

0:11:54 Tom: Dude.

0:11:53 Thomas: All of Tabanod. Okay. Okay, I was going to say, should I be embarrassed that I don't know what this is, but olive tapenade is so, oh, I love olive tapenade, delicious, oh

0:11:55 Tom: So good. Oh, do you like olive tapinade? Thomas Smith. Let me change your life right now. The muffaletta sandwich from new Orleans. You You Can't go to the store and buy the ingredients and just make it yourself. Cause you can'T even get the bread locally. Like it's yeah. It's a whole thing.

0:12:03 Thomas: Really, is this vegetarian or is

0:12:12 Tom: Oh Lord.

0:12:12 Thomas: There meat involved? Okay, well then how am I going to, so then I can't do anything with it, I'll I'll just have olive tapenade then,

0:12:13 Eli: Definitely not just

0:12:13 Tom: No, no, no. I like it. It'S not. Yeah. Oh that'S true. I forgot. You know? Yeah. So it'S, but it'S It's delicious. It's just have all the top and I'm,

0:12:20 Eli: Eat a jar of olive tap tell us how it feels if

0:12:21 Tom: I would too. I've

0:12:21 Thomas: I will, I have, will and have, have and will,

0:12:24 Tom: Done it with crackers. Yup.

0:12:26 Eli: You do it with crackers, it's fancy, and

0:12:26 Tom: Yup, Friday I got, two I of these sandwiches delivered to the house, you flown in from, new Orleans Saturday. We took all the kids, um, plus one of the kids friends, and then the nanny tagged along and she was basically one of the kids to the local carnival. So we had a big carnival about 10 minutes from the house. So they They had, you know, the funnel cake and the lemonade and the, you ridiculous, unsafe rides manned by sexual predators, like the whole thing, you and we had an awesome time.

0:12:52 Eli: That's just the funnel cake.

0:12:53 Tom: That's just the funnel kick. Yeah, exactly. But, uh, and it was awesome.

0:12:55 Eli: That sounds lovely.

0:12:57 Tom: It was great. Like we did that for several hours all night. The whole family went out. We all rode rides. Amen rode his first like rides. Like he went on.

0:12:57 Eli: Roller

0:13:05 Thomas: Wow,

0:13:06 Eli: Coasters. How do you feel? Oh

0:13:06 Thomas: Really,

0:13:07 Tom: Oh my God. Did he hate it? It was hilarious. Oh, You guys, this was so funny. We get on the first thing called was called the Rock Star, and it's this thing that does like descending drop after descending drop, right? So it's that it's that stomach feeling, you know, and so he's brave as fuck, he's sitting next to me.

0:13:10 Eli: He hated it. Interesting. Interesting.

0:13:13 Thomas: Oh I love those, it's the only way I feel alive.

0:13:21 Eli: Hmm.

0:13:23 Tom: He's like, "This is going to be great," and then the second his stomach does that lurch feeling, he just, absolutely in terror, clings to me. He's 10 years old, his little hands are biting into my skin through to my skeleton. Like, "I don't like it, make it stop." I'm like, "Buddy, there's nothing I can do to make it stop." We go through the whole ride, and this is my favorite part: as soon as it's over, I look over at him, he's like, "Okay, that wasn't so bad." It but he hated it, he literally hated it.

We went on another one, was just like the Pharaoh boat, you know, at the carnival, which is the same thing, it's that stomach drop feeling, and same thing, he was absolutely gut-wrenchingly terrified until the second it was over, and then he was perfectly fine. But he rode he we did we did bumper cars as as a family, which was hilarious because there's so many of us, there's seven of us there, so like most of us were in the bumper cars, some other family was was in the lines, but they were like me and Haley and Finn and Donovan and Amen, we're all in our own cars, we are the bumper car section, just like ramming into each other. We had the best time. Saturday night was awesome. It

0:13:38 Thomas: Really? Yeah.

0:13:45 Eli: Oh.

0:14:04 Thomas: Those are always fun.

0:14:22 Tom: Was just a really great time, and then Sunday, actual Father's Day, Haley bought me some very, very nice presence in addition to the sandwich. So I got a, a Henny strap.

0:14:22 Eli: That's so awesome. Another

0:14:32 Tom: I'm almost out of the two 12 inch sandwiches already, but I got a gift, which was a Henney strap attachment for my power rack for lifting weights, which I've wanted for a while. It's awesome.

0:14:30 Eli: Sandwich. I didn't know what any of those words were. I was completely lost. A power rack.

0:14:43 Tom: I know it's super cool.

0:14:46 Eli: I think is weights.

0:14:43 Thomas: Yeah. I think Tom's going to get pegged. I think is what something.

0:14:48 Eli: Yeah. In which case, if I haven't heard of the attachments, you shouldn't use that brand, let let me tell you.

0:14:50 Thomas: Yeah, a

0:14:49 Tom: That's it. It'S a sex thing. ItS a sex thIng. Some socks, a shirt, a bunch of like meat sticks, which I always get meat sticks for for every holiday. So

0:15:00 Thomas: Good meat stick. Yeah that's good for pegging. I agree.

0:15:01 Tom: Yeah. So I had a great, I had great Father's Day. I had a wonderful Father's, hung out with the kids all day Sunday, Saturday. So

0:15:07 Thomas: Take Take that Eli. We sort of had, you know, semi -sane father's days. Good job Tom.

0:15:11 Tom: Did it, we did it, Eli! And

0:15:15 Thomas: Progress.

0:15:14 Eli: Yeah, I'm so happy to hear it.

0:15:16 Tom: I didn't even work out on Sunday. I

0:15:17 Thomas: I was absolutely 100 % sure Tom was going to to have gone to, did you see that news about the ride where people got stuck upside down for like 16 hours? I was pretty much a hundred percent sure that happened to Tom and he didn't mention it until like now.

0:15:25 Eli: Yes, for like three hours. To Yes. To

0:15:31 Thomas: He's actually podcasting upside down from the ride right now.

0:15:25 Tom: Did

0:15:34 Eli: That is the kind of thing that would happen to Tom, that would only happen if you could somehow cue him to be like, actually, funny story, right? You'd have to be, like, oh, yeah, internal hemorrhaging. And he'd be like. Okay, now you know what? You just reminded me. So Mom

0:15:36 Thomas: Yeah. The one time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or it'd be like, it would be the one time he decided to relax. And he's like, never again. This happened because I took time off.

0:15:48 Eli: Yeah But

0:15:54 Tom: That's Right You

0:15:54 Eli: His mom would have to be in charge of it, so like his, he gets on the ride, he sees his mom is running it, and she's like, hey, Tammy, and she throws the switch and walks away. Sounds like Cecil's Boston lady voice in my head. I don't know why.

0:16:01 Tom: Don't even know what her voice sounds like anymore. It probably does

0:16:09 Eli: I don't I don't care. I hope it's gone, I hope it's gone from the universe, like so much tragedy.

0:16:10 Tom: God

0:16:13 Thomas: Yep, she's apparently doing fine. Gotta get her on the show.

0:16:13 Tom: Me too Yeah She is alive

0:16:15 Eli: She's alive. Think about we don't have any. Let me say something as brave as it is vulnerable. Anyone who ever tells us they're a fan that hasn't killed your mom isn't really a fan. I love your stuff. Really, have you killed Tom's mom? No.

0:16:20 Tom: Jesus

0:16:27 Thomas: Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha, ha.

0:16:32 Eli: Then you're just a listener. I

0:16:34 Thomas: Ha ha!

0:16:32 Tom: Christ Jesus Christ, please don't ever commit murder for the show. No I don't need that

0:16:40 Eli: Cannot possibly be legally. I don't want to speak because I'm not the one with the law podcast. I don't think it counts as murder if you do it to your mom. Tom, I think it's some kind of self-defense for as the the species. There

0:16:46 Thomas: Ha ha... Ha ha.. Ha ha.... Yeah.

0:16:50 Tom: Well She's down In Panama, are there laws in Panama? I don' t know there's probably

0:16:54 Eli: Are not laws. She's okay. Here's the great thing: your mom is 100% hanging out with ex who escaped the Nuremberg trials, and they're like, I really can't stand Tom's mom. She is just the worst. As I guessed, like, a million Jews, and this this lady, she is the worst. You'll know, everyone says the worst person since Hitler. I literally met Hitler now. I've met this lady. She's worse than Hitler. She's worth. I'm glad his brain is in a jar. I wish her brain was in a jaw. Yes.

0:16:57 Tom: Oh

0:17:04 Thomas: Ha ha!! Ha ha!!! Oh,

0:17:17 Tom: My God, why I think I told you she survived, like getting, like, a, like, black fungus mold infection Or some shit. She's just indestructible.

0:17:27 Eli: You told us Indestructible.

0:17:29 Tom: Like in her lungs, like she just was like in her, yeah, because she cannot die.

0:17:26 Thomas: God. Like, on her person? Oh, my God. Because the mold

0:17:34 Tom: It's, she's been, she

0:17:34 Thomas: Is like, oh, God, get me out of here. Fuck.

0:17:36 Eli: How do we get out of here? Mom, why does she mostly breathe in strawberry Jewel? My father's day was great, thanks for asking. You pieces of shit.

0:17:38 Tom: She's so pickled at this point. I don't think it can take hold.

0:17:54 Thomas: Yeah,

0:17:49 Tom: Guys, I found a, an article on the New York times. I thought, well, I thought you told us about your father's day.

0:17:54 Thomas: We know yours was great. We

0:17:56 Tom: You already said, tell us more detail about your father's day, then yeah.

0:17:59 Eli: Gentlemen. I went to Connecticut and visited my mother, got to bring the boy with us and we had a lovely trip down. So you just get this little house in Connecticut. It was like five minutes, truly fake, like the most fake life of fake lives. There's a little children's museum there we went to every day. And he and his mom were on the beach, I'm not kidding, for like three hours a day. Three hours a Day, they would just go and play. Watched I my wife, my bride, mother of the year, play, I am holding a bucket of water. I hope no one knocks it over. And then my son knocks it over 100 times in a row. I counted because I was like, oh, they've been doing it a lot. I wonder if she'll do 10.

0:17:59 Tom: Oh. Oh. Wow.

0:18:08 Thomas: Hashtag fig life.

0:18:37 Thomas: Wow. Jesus.

0:18:43 Eli: I wonder she'll drew 20. I wonder, she did it a hundred times in a row and it only stopped because I shouted, you've played that game a hundred times in her own shoes. Like, yeah, my legs are kind of cold. I was everything should be cold. I can't imagine that you're not frozen in that state forever. Like the Colossus of roads for just turn

0:18:45 Thomas: Holy fucking shit.

0:19:02 Tom: Man, don't old, I is Max now, he's Yeah. How long, I don't remember because it's been a minute, how long does repetition the games last? I mean, like, I have a Sonic game which, you know, Amon's 10, he should have fucking outgrown, but like the physical repetition games.

0:19:05 Eli: For sure.

0:19:14 Eli: I mean, if our autistic listeners are any indication, we it might be 30 years on the neuro spice side of the spectrum that just, that just starts being called a hobby, you know what I'm saying?

0:19:19 Tom: Oh shit. Yeah. That just goes forever.

0:19:28 Eli: At a certain point

0:19:28 Thomas: I would walk into the sea. I wouldn't. Man, that's so weird.

0:19:30 Eli: Oh

0:19:29 Tom: God, The games are tough. Like, I will admit, like, that. Let's go up and down the stairs a thousand times. Let's drop shit off the high chair 835 times. Like, that stuff. I do remember being like, okay, done with this game I don't like this game anymore

0:19:47 Thomas: Yeah. No, that is a valid stance. Can't now look, Eli's going to tell me my kids are going to do heroin, but I give my kids rule of threes. Maybe I'll push it a little bit. And I say, Hey, let's do a new joke now. It. Cause Let's then now what they've done is they're in a phase where every time they say something funny and they get a reaction, then they repeat it as many times as possible. Cause that's how jokes work. If you said a funny joke, it's like, well, just say it a hundred thousand times. And I give them, you know, I'll give them the second laugh a little bit. The third, I'm like, not giving them a reaction. I see if they're gonna stop on their own. If they go for a fourth, I'm like, "Hey, let's do a different joke." And, uh, that's, that's how it goes. What

0:19:48 Tom: Oh Yeah That never stops As

0:20:07 Eli: Yeah do ever have them do it, but they want to do it as the, the play that as a play that's what Max does. So Max will do something funny or praiseworthy, and then he'll say the tagline, and I'll be like, "Right." And he'll be like, "No, no, good job, Pete the Cat." And I'm like, "Oh fuck, great, okay." So he wants to hold me, right?

0:20:26 Tom: A play No

0:20:27 Thomas: Do you mean there's a play?

0:20:40 Eli: He wants to do, like, a Civil War reenactment of his funny bit, but from the beginning, like we're starting at one he's like Yeah, exactly. I'm getting called at 5 a.m. I'm getting crafty, I'm meeting the extras, I'm taking headshots with everybody, like, it's fucking insane how much the one that he wants wants to do specifically Right? So he's learning to read, like, a lot now, right? So he can, like, basically, you can hold up cards that he has never seen and he can straight up read them. He knows what a lot of words look like, and he can also start to sound words out, but he's been saying

0:20:38 Thomas: Oh he's like reenact it, yeah Yeah Yeah that just happened yeah Yeah. Nice.

0:20:58 Tom: Good

0:21:11 Eli: Some advanced ones. And so the other day my mom got him these flash cards, and it had the word "yawn" on it, and so we're like, okay, why is for, and he turns around. It's just a cat sitting in a bed, he's not even yawning, so I figure he's not going to get this one because the picture is always a little bit of a cue. He sounds out and goes, "Yawn," and Anna and I simultaneously are like, "Good job, beat the cat," because he, for some reason, he wants to be Pete, I don't know. He wants me to get it. We're like, "Good job, beat." He's laughing and we're all praising, my mom joins in, right, and I see it settle into his eye, right, and he's like, "You're gonna do that 10,000 more times."

0:21:11 Tom: For him

0:21:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:44 Eli: And I was like, fuck, oh God. I mean, no, me a mediocre job

0:21:46 Thomas: He declares it a national holiday. Let this be the day that's forever remembered as Yawn Day.

0:21:48 Eli: Yes Exactly and I shall begin Pete the Cat. We now do me and him back and forth, and me at gunpoint, I would say, a third of an episode of a Peppa Pig episode, because what he wants to get to is the part where Peppa's dad says, "Don't exaggerate, Peppa, it was only a helicopter." But there's like 15 lines before that, and if I get, if I get one word wrong, he tells me, "I have a stomach ache," which is what he thinks the word mistake is. So then we gotta start all over for it when I

0:21:53 Thomas: Oh, boy. Oh, my God.

0:22:22 Tom: Wait a minute he thinks the word mistake and his stomach ache is mistake? That's fucking great and

0:22:24 Eli: Yep So when I make a mistake, he'll go, "Do you have a stomach ache?" And I'm like okay first of all very menacing

0:22:31 Tom: You're like yeah all the time all

0:22:27 Thomas: That's hilarious. It's like the most passive -aggressive way to criticize you. Oh, I'm sorry, idiot. Do you have a tummy ache?

0:22:33 Eli: Yes Exactly do you a stomachache do

0:22:39 Thomas: Do you get a little tummy ache that's why you can't get your lines right? Right? Be a fucking professional.

0:22:42 Eli: Stomach Which makes you stupid, right?

0:22:45 Thomas: Well, while on the topic of that, I realized, and I always pick up on these things because I love it. It's the best. I realized the other day, I put this on Facebook, but I haven't said on the show, Arlo has been saying a word that's different, that makes total sense. It is a thing in philosophy where it is like, well, there is actually no way to ever know whether you are translating this word correctly.

0:23:05 Eli: If you're red is there red

0:23:06 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, it is one of those those kinds of things. Cause I kept saying like, oh yeah, okay. This looks familiar. And I heard him say like, Oh yeah, yeah. That looks from earlier. And I was like, wait a minute. Have you been saying from earlier this whole time? He's like, yeah, from earlier and I was that's the best because familiar and from earlier, it's the same fucking thing.

0:23:25 Thomas: It there's No way he would ever know that that's wrong. Short of, you know, being able to hear the difference, which kids just can't quite do, you know, like they don't quite have that fine that grain thing. So he's been saying "from earlier" instead of "familiar" the whole time. It's the best, I love that stuff so much. I

0:23:07 Eli: Yeah Yeah they're the same thing, yeah Oh

0:23:16 Tom: Familiar that's great

0:23:39 Eli: The little malapropisms, things, and you don't want them to, to go away, and

0:23:43 Thomas: Know, yeah

0:23:43 Eli: You also, you can't tell anyone but other parents about them, because other parents, they at least acknowledge, right? Other parents are like, "I know how much I love this when my kid does it, so I'm gonna hold you in the light." But you will go to a single friend or a childless friend and be like, "No, no, you gotta hear this story," and you just watch their face freeze in horror as you wind up for a 96 minute story about Peppa Pig, there

0:24:00 Thomas: So word was different, huh? Yeah so they said a word different, okay

0:24:09 Tom: Telling that shit to people without kids, it's like telling, and I'm like, "Oh, I had a dream last night, let me tell you about my dream," and everyone's like, "Oh cool, let me stick an ice pick in my ear and deafen myself forever."

0:24:17 Thomas: I love it. I take on, I love it's so much. I take on others. I started saying Nintendo. I don't even know what my kids didn't even say that it's the best.

0:24:21 Eli: You go, minted there you bring it on that's It's important.

0:24:24 Thomas: I accidentally corrected Phoebe the other day, and then I was like oh you idiot, yeah

0:24:24 Tom: That's just your own Thomas is going to straight up regress backward his entire speech through the

0:24:30 Eli: That's right.

0:24:31 Thomas: I it's so funny me how they said "calipitter." Why would I ever say the right thing again? It's the best

0:24:32 Eli: Got to do it. It's important, important correction. Now, to be fair, your single friends, especially at our age, because I'm 37, your single friends, they tell you the same boring stories about how they're incapable of love, and you're not allowed to call that out, right? Like, there's not a socially acceptable way to be like, "Oh really, Ashley, did another relationship not quite work?" Right, you're not allowed do that. But when I tell my super fun Nintendo story, she's allowed to roll roll her eyes, doesn't seem fair to me. Oh yes I wish I wish I still have local theater friends. That was the best. Now I just have failed actor friends who are like, "I lost my health insurance right after the eyeball popped out, so that was unfortunate," and I'm like ah, but you have two eyes in the headshot, so you can see why they were mad. Oh

0:24:59 Thomas: Yeah mine Mine. Are like, oh, you auditioned for a show and you got a part no one cares about, and it's so cool, awesome and local theater. Oh no I still still gets some of the like cast drama of the thing, and I cannot I couldn't care about that when I was in the cast and these things were happening to me. I couldn't even care about people like, wow, that person. I'm like, I already don't care. I have a life. And now it's like, boy, I, this is talk about a dream. This is like saying I had a dream within a dream, within a dream. And you're like, sorry, none of this matters.

0:25:29 Eli: I got

0:25:46 Thomas: This, none, none. None of this.

0:25:45 Tom: Doesn't matter literally can't matter

0:25:48 Thomas: Matters.

0:25:48 Eli: I love it. I little cousin is on his first ever summer stock gig, right? Now, and he's dealing with cast drama, but he's just one of those naturally balanced, healthy people who somehow just tapped out. They were like, hey, just so you know, and they were like cool, and so this production is just falling apart around him. There's like fire and flames and actors running at each other with bared swords, and he's like, "I'm moving to the Chipotle. You guys know there's a Chipotle here, right?"

0:25:53 Thomas: Oh man.

0:26:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yep.

0:26:18 Eli: It's the best. Mm

0:26:18 Thomas: It that was me too. You can opt out of it. It actually works. Cause like these, the people, they just want that reaction. They want to have the thing. Did you hear what? You can just be like, sorry, diplomatic. I mean, what's the country that was always neutral? I'm that one. I don't, Switzerland. I don't nothing. I will not react. I don't care about this. And then they're like, oh, okay. You're not playing the little game that we play for some reason.

0:26:22 Eli: -hmm Switzerland I'm Switzerland yeah you can just be like, I'm not playing "the bushes aren't snakes," and they're like, all right, fine, if the bushes are in snakes, can I say I'm all the way in on the bushes aren't snakes. I love the goss love the gas love the guys I

0:26:41 Thomas: Yep. Yeah, Yeah, no. We you were in on the guys. Yeah,

0:26:52 Tom: Yeah, Yeah, I feel like as long as you don't like spill your tea, it's perfectly fine to drink up everyone else's, right?

0:26:58 Thomas: That's fair.

0:26:59 Eli: I'll make up some tea if there's none. If I see a perfectly balanced cast, I'm gonna be like, that guy killed his son, we don't talk about it, but he did, ask him about Michael, you'll see, stir that pot, no

0:27:11 Tom: Right, so in honor of Father's Day, I found this article. Uh, well, I didn't do shit, I just happened to read the Times like I always do, and it came up and I said let's do this for the show, but

0:27:19 Eli: Read the Times, I get the

0:27:22 Tom: So uh, they had an article I'd never have played Wordle yet, so uh uh uh, no, I've never played Word all

0:27:24 Eli: Wordle in five You never played Wordle you're not a crossword guy not a word puzzle guy. I

0:27:31 Tom: No I play uh, Wordscapes once in a while on my phone until I get bored with it, and then I put it down and forget it for two years and then go back to it yeah

0:27:38 Thomas: Hell is that are

0:27:40 Eli: Have a great combination combination of people. I'm going to get to your thing in a second time, but I have a great combination of people for the Word Game Sphere. So Anne and Heath are far right, right? They're like, we managed to make the Sunday crossword in under 37 seconds this week. And I'm like, relax, okay? Relax. Whatever you're doing, God's not going to notice when you get to heaven how fast you did the crossword.

0:28:01 Eli: But But on the other side of the spectrum is a friend who I know listens to this show, so I'm not going to hurt her feelings, who is an idiot, and she and her significant other, they're both idiots, and I love them with my whole heart, they try to do the mini in the day, like they just sit there staring at that four by four square all day being like, three letter word for feline, I am lost. And so I feel perfectly in the middle because occasionally they will call me, like, shaking, being like, do you know what a three-letter word for vehicle is, we have been up since seven this morning

0:27:59 Thomas: You Sure, we don't know that.

0:28:39 Tom: I have never

0:28:39 Eli: Trying to figure this out, and I'm like, is it car, and they're like, you are the next Einstein. But then if I ever get too braggy, like I made the mistake of sending Keith and Ann my Wordle in three the other day because I was like, oh, I got Wordle in three, and Ann sent me back like seven ones, for somehow she had seven ones in a row, or whatever it is.

0:28:59 Eli: So it keeps me humble. Keeps me humble,

0:28:58 Thomas: Well, that's means she's playing terribly, yeah. What?

0:29:02 Tom: Tried it. All right, so this is from the New York Times, the best advice for dads according to dads, um, and I thought it'd be interesting, I'm curious what you guys think of some of this advice, so, because some of it, it starts off on something of a dour note in my opinion. So this first one is: find delight, especially in the first few months. Find the fun. The early months and years are repetitive and tiring. If that's what you focus on, you're not going to get the most out of being a parent.

0:29:26 Thomas: What? Idiot Wrote This, there's

0:29:32 Tom: This. Is the first piece Of advice, guys. Instead.

0:29:33 Thomas: No. Fun In The first few months, there's zero fun. There's

0:29:35 Eli: Yeah, yeah.

0:29:37 Tom: Look for the fun. For example, I was changing my daughter's diaper around six weeks, I lifted up her legs to wipe, and suddenly she had a bowel movement that shot out at me onto my pants, the bed, and our carpet. I thought it was hilarious. I was impressed, it was her world record. It also involved a lot of cleaning, but it was a world record. We have to do the hard stuff, the repetitive stuff that comes with being a parent, but choosing to see the fun, delight, and wonder at every step of the way gave me a far richer experience. I call bullshit.

0:30:06 Thomas: Is stupid. Yeah.

0:30:06 Tom: I call bullshit Nobody gets shit on by another human being that isn't into German fetish porn and is like, this is a great day, I had an awesome day today, I love my baby right now. That is not how it works.

0:30:05 Eli: Complete bullshit, complete bullshit, yep.

0:30:07 Thomas: Well,

0:30:22 Eli: One of those spiritual geniuses who you just can't talk to as a person, right? When you read Mr. Rogers or hear Mr. Rogers interviewed, you're like, yeah, that's the best thing anyone's ever said, man, but it applies nothing to me. I'm not that kind of human do

0:30:34 Thomas: Yeah. Well, It's also, it's useless advice because, like, if you could do this, is it's stupid. It's like if you were freezing on the top of Mount Everest and they're like, "Hey, but just pretend you're warm, though." It's like Well, if I could do that, then I don't have any problems, like they're

0:30:45 Tom: Yeah right well even worse, it's like if they came up to you like, well, you know, there are some Buddhist monks who can raise their body temperature through meditation. You're like, what am I supposed to do about that now? I'm freezing right now. I don't have 30 years to learn this. I just got shit on by a baby.

0:30:56 Thomas: Yeah. Cool. Yeah. To

0:30:59 Eli: You Have a meditation app on your phone, no advice always in that first three months is like, "Hey, this is the worst." They called the newborn forest in a minute Just trust me that you aren't some kind of special person who wasn't supposed to have kids, right? Because that's the fear I had over and over again, was just like, "Oh no, I've made a mistake. I'm gonna be a bad dad. I'm gonna feel disconnected and alone and scared and hating this for the rest of ever." And then of course it clicked in and it's the best thing in the universe, but I needed someone to be like, "This part's the worst, but then it gets better." Everyone's just kind of like, "Remember the memories." And can I say, I love the fact that all the bad memories are gone, right? I know that's how I felt

0:31:07 Thomas: Yeah, that's a weird one, yeah.

0:31:10 Tom: It's the first one.

0:31:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:31:47 Thomas: Interesting.

0:31:47 Eli: Because I told myself I would tell myself this is how I felt, but now even the stuff that I know was like heart-wrenchingly destructive to my mind and soul, like my son spitting out his pacey, I'm like, he didn't want to keep that pacey and, oh, I remember it with a tired fondness. I

0:32:08 Tom: All right, so here's another one. Panic in shifts. The best advice I offer new parents is something I learned while having a son who spent the first four weeks of life in the hospital. Only one parent is allowed to panic at a time. From an emotional standpoint, if both parents are a mess, then it's hard to hold each other up. This doesn't mean to dismiss your feelings, just remember that sometimes you will be the support on the outside, and your time will come to lean on someone else. Yeah.

0:32:33 Eli: I don't know about you. Don't get a chance to, I don't choose when I panic.

0:32:36 Thomas: You don't get to again, yeah. Pretend hot is cold and cold is hot. It's not, if you're, if you panic, then you're probably pretty panicked, or if you are somebody who can't consciously make that decision, then you're probably fine anyway, right?

0:32:47 Eli: I, I make the choice to not panic anytime I can.

0:32:50 Tom: I'm glad you guys took that because I read it and I'm like that makes sense until you think about it for even one second, right? Because like, if I'm panicking, it means I'm completely emotionally overloaded and I can't not be panicking, right, so like if I can hold it in and be somebody's rock or whatever, then I'm gonna do that, and then I'm not gonna be like, all right, three, two, one like what, what the fuck is that like

0:32:52 Thomas: Yeah, these are stupid.

0:33:02 Thomas: Yeah, you don't have a choice.

0:33:16 Eli: Uh,

0:33:13 Thomas: Yeah. Is it my turn? Hey, hon, can it be my turn now? Yeah. Got Call dibs on the next panic. Shotgun.

0:33:20 Eli: Lydia, Lydia, I'm looking over our panic balance here, and you've taken up 67% of the panic this week because of that car crash you were in. So chill

0:33:23 Thomas: Yeah? I'm going to need you to pull your weight, make an effort here.

0:33:33 Eli: Out.

0:33:32 Tom: I feels like that false egalitarianism that often gets thrown around as like relationship advice, where it's like, oh yeah, like we're gonna split everything, we're even gonna split when we're in emotional distress, and you're like, why would you do that, just get that, like, yeah, both people can't fall apart at the same time, but like, yeah, unless they do, right, then what are you going to do?

0:33:54 Eli: I

0:33:54 Thomas: Yeah. Well, always trying, I don't know. I feel like I'm just a weird person, but I do something crazy where I'm always trying to calibrate my reactions and feelings to the reality of the situation. That's all, like there's plenty of times they're like, fuck, we should be panicking because this is a big deal. That's fine. Then

0:34:13 Eli: Think of a time that that happened to you, Thomas. Can you give an example of a bad happening to you?

0:34:14 Thomas: But if there's times where it's like, all right, here's the thing that's like we're a little bit worried about, and it's worried about it, but I've, like, with, okay, when Phoebe was going in to get x-rayed for the scoliosis that I was pretty sure she had, I don't understand what the advantages are of either panicking or not panicking. I was like, well, I'm pretty reasonably worried that she has this and it fucking sucks, and I feel bad about it. And then that was, then she had it. So I don't, I don't understand.

0:34:42 Thomas: Like, am I, is there, should I be like, Oh, what if she has it? Or should I be like, I don't care about that.

0:34:41 Tom: But yeah, no, I, right.

0:34:46 Thomas: No, I'm just, yeah, yeah.

0:34:44 Eli: Yeah, the idea of panic as like a thing you can choose to do or not to do, I can only imagine saying that to someone, someone who's having a panic attack when I want to extend their panic attack

0:34:50 Thomas: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, or, just gaslight them. Yeah.

0:34:50 Tom: Right.

0:35:01 Tom: Actually, it's not your day. Wednesday is not, I look at the calendar.

0:35:01 Eli: Right.

0:35:02 Thomas: Well, Well, so far, this advice sucks.

0:35:06 Tom: Literally terrible. I'm glad it is

0:35:07 Thomas: Yeah,

0:35:06 Eli: Well, to be fair, it is dad advice. It is bad advice, and I, I, this next one, so I'm excited to disagree with this one. Wait, nope

0:35:08 Thomas: Sweet.

0:35:10 Tom: Dad advice. I'm, do it your way. Take the time early on to develop your own style of parenting. Early in my fatherhood journey, I realized that I had been running on parental autopilot and parenting everything, good and bad, my father used to say and do when I was a child. I realized there's no one right way to parent because parents and children are all individuals with different needs and preferences. I started doing things my own way based on my children's individual personalities. We're all much the happier for it. This one I liked, so I'm curious what you don't like about this.

0:35:30 Thomas: Oh, yeah, I agree with part of it.

0:35:41 Tom: This is not dissimilar to what I say all the time. So, yeah.

0:35:41 Thomas: Yeah? Go ahead, Eli. Mm hmm.

0:35:42 Eli: Here's my Thought, right? You're talking about different ways that don't matter. Yeah, absolutely, right. We try to use I-messages. Well, we reinforce emotions, right? But if the difference is like hitting versus not hitting, there's definitely a right way to parent, right?

0:35:59 Tom: Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, I agree. Like, there's some red line stuff, right? There's definitely some redline stuff.

0:36:04 Eli: There's We should say that, like, 99% of parents should just be concerned with the red line stuff, right? I don't know about you guys. When I meet 99% of parents, they're like, "Can your kid drink yet?" And I'm like, "No, man, they can't fucking drink. Are you going to finish that meth? Nope. Your kid shouldn't. Ah, right, here's the problem. I think there's too much wibble wobble on, like, you know, there's no right way to parent, but there is, there is like a very important right way. And then there's a bunch of stuff inside that only depends on income. And we can't say that because it's mean, right?

0:36:21 Tom: Yeah,

0:36:22 Thomas: Yeah yeah

0:36:39 Eli: There's things like educational outcomes and all that kind of stuff. And that is, again, we've talked about it on the show, that depends on your zip code, right? Your zip code is like the number one predictor of all those things about whether or not breast milk is necessary or formula, all those stats, all right, all of those things, when they study them and they actually bring money into the equation, they're like, ah, shit, it's about having money. Right. Then I think that we sometimes create this illusion of different parenting styles for ourselves, because it sort of, like, gives us a chance to, like, take credit for things that we shouldn't necessarily take credit

0:36:39 Thomas: Interesting yeah

0:37:16 Eli: Right, because I think, like, love and kindness and not hitting and affirming your child in their things and not being a bigot, uh, using all the practical, scientific, medicine-based, uh, that experts give you on boring websites. Like, that's the right way to parent. And then everything within that is sort of like a subcategory or a personal choice. But I think very often when we tell people there's no right way to parent, the people who hit their kids are like, that's right, agree to disagree. You know what I'm saying?

0:37:48 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah

0:37:50 Tom: I guess I would push back a bit, though. I think the heart of this comment, though, is like, hey, people parent the way that they were parented, and that's kind of the autopilot that a lot of us default into automatically. We sort of parent without intention, right? We parent sort of through instinct, and instinct is going to be informed by our own experience, which is probably not the best way to parent. So I think this suggests like, hey, I'm going to parent not based on what I think is a sort of overarching philosophy about parenting or sort of how I was parented, but I'm gonna look at my kids and be like, "Hey, what are my kids specifically need?" And parent based on their specific needs rather than based on, like, developing a style, right? And that's something.

0:38:30 Eli: And that I like. And that's

0:38:32 Tom: Yeah, it

0:38:31 Thomas: Yeah

0:38:32 Eli: Something you've talked about a lot on our show, Tom, is sort of how each kid is different and necessary. And I also think, I won't throw this out there because Thomas, I know you've represented this, I think that a really valid parenting is if you had a shitty parent, and I know lots of parents who do this, if you had shitty parents, the, I'm not gonna be that asshole method of parenting has created truly some of the best parents I know, like, of the top 10 parents that are in my friend group, I'm gonna say five of them are like, my fucking dad was such a piece of shit, so I'm going to love him, come here, come get this hug, you

0:38:33 Tom: Is.

0:38:51 Thomas: Mm -hmm yeah yeah yep

0:39:08 Eli: Feel this hug, my whole heart's in this hug, my whole fucking heart's in this hug, and he's in the earth with the words

0:39:14 Thomas: I my vote is, I think, I'm switching now, this is good advice, because I think I'm going to say this is for the average dad, which is, as you kind of know, there doesn't read the New York Times. The average dad. Think anything that gets the average Dad to think, hey, maybe I shouldn't just repeat what was done to me, I think is going to be a net positive.

0:39:24 Eli: Right who reads the New York Times like Tom yeah

0:39:25 Tom: Well yeah well who doesn't yeah

0:39:38 Thomas: You know, like, I doubt that they're going to be like, "Yeah, I should be even shittier to my kids." You'd think, on average, getting the average parent to be like, "Huh, do I need to spank my kid, because that was done to me?" Would probably be good, you know?

0:39:38 Tom: So another one, um, this one I think has a pretty rough subtext, adjust your expectations. Yeah I am a father of four children, my oldest is 18, my youngest is 11, I was just

0:39:57 Eli: Wolf Tom did you write this one Tom did you read this one I'm reading ahead Tom and I'm pretty sure you wrote this one I'm aiming if you're listening it's I mean of your dad to have written this one yeah

0:40:04 Tom: No no I nope I was I was a stay -at

0:40:05 Thomas: You have to tell us Yeah.

0:40:21 Tom: Home dad for a little over 13 years. Through all the changes that children and parents go through, I found the best thing for me to do is to have realistic expectations. I try to wake up every day and ask myself, from both myself and each of my kids today? Says Anthony Loudon, 48, exhausted, Minneapolis, Minnesota this is giving up the advice column

0:40:40 Eli: Yeah I maybe Anthony's in some kind of recovery, maybe there was a time where Anthony was selling his urine for meth, and today he's just sort of making it through the day

0:40:44 Tom: Yeah

0:40:54 Thomas: Is he talking about

0:40:55 Tom: The read I have on this, the most charitable read I have on this, is sort of like, look, you might have a lot of expectations for who you're going to be that are sort of like top-bar expectations for how you're gonna parent, and you might wake up and be like, "You know what? But if I get them fed today and get them off to school and clean clothes, I'm going to just have to be okay with that. I think there's some legitimacy to that. Right. Also, that can't be your whole parenting outlook, right. It's like, oh, you know what I'm gonna do today? The bare fucking minimum and then crawl back under my bed. You know, like I'm just, you know, you wake up and they go to sleep, that's all I got to give here is this feels exhausted.

0:41:12 Thomas: Yeah.

0:41:24 Eli: Whatever God damn it, there's a day, another day, another dollar, okay this next one's my favorite because it's the best contrast between advice and name, so I don't want to take away the reader but may I okay be generous with praise, don't pass up an opportunity to tell your kids that you're proud of them. I can remember a moment from decades ago that a father figure went out of his way to tell me the same, and I've never forgotten it. Craig Crabtree, Kaiserslautern, Germany. Imagine having lovely advice that is completely shat on by the fact that your name is Spoon Boom Singlesile and you're calling from Vusavus in Poland.

0:41:42 Tom: No, go, go. Go. Yeah.

0:42:13 Tom: Well, also, Eli, imagine living, living a life where you remember the one time somebody who was a father figure was nice to you in passing, like on a train once.

0:42:20 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine that yeah. That must be that's

0:42:24 Eli: All right, Tom. Tom, let me challenge you on this. Let me challengeyou on this Try to think of a nice thing to say to a person whose name is Craig Crabtree. I think only one person is going to manage that, right? Because every other conversation Craig has had has been some... I'm sorry, did you say Craig? So your name... Last name was already Crabtree, and they went with a C, no, they went for the C name, I know, it's stupid. Anyways, nice hat, you know what, man, I'm gonna remember that for the rest of my fucking life I'm going to write that shit to the New York Times and

0:42:29 Thomas: Crazy.

0:43:03 Thomas: Oh.

0:43:04 Tom: It's so fucking raw, it's so rough, there's so much advice here that's like, here are the ways I was traumatized behind the words, like it's

0:43:13 Eli: That's our brand, damn it, yeah

0:43:15 Thomas: Can see these people go back to, "Hey, make it good, that was good advice, your first one, let's just have fun out there, you know

0:43:20 Eli: I hope both teams had fun in the parenting that's all that mattered sure Right, gentlemen, before we go, why are pediatricians so upset all the time? Because they have very little patients. Please

0:43:26 Thomas: Yeah, that's pretty much what it was.

0:43:45 Tom: Just have like that one.

0:43:46 Thomas: Nice.

0:43:52 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.

0:44:33 Eli: Fucking dad was such a piece of shit, so I'm going to love him, come here, come get this hug, you feel this hug, my whole heart's in this hug, my whole fucking heart's in this hug, and he's in the earth with the words. Love your stuff, really, have you killed Tom's mom? No, then you're just a listener, I