DOD144: Having Our Kids' Backs

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that the right intro for this show last week. So, I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:39 Eli: Hello. I'm happy to say that everything in my house is fixed. Record two episodes a week, so I don't know that that's happened. Oh, and Tony's our accountant. Him and Thomas, man, they had this beautiful moment where turned to him and he said, Tony, me.

0:00:44 Tom: Yeah, I am certain that's not true.

0:00:44 Thomas: And the taxes are paid. Absolutely not. Biggest asshole I've ever

0:00:52 Tom: Brothers now.

0:00:56 Eli: At a certain point, you just have to admit that a man is smarter than you. And that's you to me, Tony. That's you to me. And Tony put his hand on his shoulder and he said, Thomas, you're the son I've never had. And it was really, it was beautiful. It was beautiful to watch.

0:01:11 Eli: And Tom's polyamorous now. Those are the things that took place in between these episodes.

0:01:15 Tom: Equally likely.

0:01:09 Thomas: I, God, a lot has happened. Uh, equal idiot, ah.

0:01:17 Tom: Equally likely. Yeah.

0:01:19 Thomas: I think it's more likely we could turn Tom Pauly

0:01:23 Tom: I think it's more likely we'd hire Tony.

0:01:25 Thomas: No, that isn't, there's zero, I do, don't you guys not know me, like, I'm not, I will leave the company, I'm nodding. Hey, it's been a good show. Everybody, um, this is our farewell episode. I will never ever give any of my money to that fucking, fucking idiot. I will not give any money to him, never do it. He's, he's a perfect combination of the biggest asshole in the world and an idiot. It is, that's who you want to pay your money to anyway. More happier topics, yeah.

0:01:33 Eli: It's fine. Stay tuned

0:01:49 Tom: Right.

0:01:50 Eli: Everybody.

0:01:50 Thomas: And you know what's even worse than Tony is this.

0:01:50 Eli: Stay tuned. So you know, the only thing worse than the inevitable reappointment of Tony as our accountant? Why, it's the auto ads. The auto ads are in there interrupting your podcast. You don't like to hear some Verizon ad, perhaps in Spanish, which is what, what always happens to me. You want smooth podcast listening experiences. And the only way to get it is one simple trick. That's giving us money over at patreon.com/dearolddads. You'll get access to a commercial free version of every episode. Plus you'll get little bonus stories at the end of every single show. Those bonus stories include parenting stories or little tidbits here and there, deep insights into the tragedy that is Thomas Smith's life. But you can only find them by, I give enough is as little as a dollar over at patreon.com/dearolddads. Rip into it. Yeah.

0:01:57 Tom: Tony The accountant.

0:02:49 Tom: Rip into it. Did I do it right? I feel like I died.

0:02:53 Eli: You know, you nailed it, 100. Got into one. You got to do it with the conviction with which I insist Tony will be our accountant. That's what you got. It "rip into it."

0:02:54 Tom: I felt, I felt like I found the heart and soul of bit. Yeah. Yeah,

0:03:03 Thomas: A, oh, I know what this Tony account thing is. It's a way to soften me up to get "rip into it" to be our official motto. It's like, all right, well, okay. Not Tony G, like fine.

0:03:11 Eli: Fine, if you're gonna say no to Tony, then I guess you'll have to pay for these rip into Intuit t -shirts. Yeah.

0:03:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Rip into it. Okay. Fine. Yeah, no, that's, yeah, that does sound more, more reasonable by comparison.

0:03:19 Eli: It's just the dear old dad's logo, but it's in that. Remember that like Raptor font that certain sports teams would use? Like it was looked like tears.

0:03:22 Thomas: Yeah, yep, yep. Like the Toronto Raptors?

0:03:26 Eli: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Them. Sure. You could have said literally anything just now. And I would have been like, yep.

0:03:26 Thomas: Yeah. Do they still exist?

0:03:32 Eli: My favorite team.

0:03:26 Tom: I'm

0:03:32 Thomas: They might not still exist. They might have moved. I actually have no memory of it. Anyway, the

0:03:36 Eli: Raptors. Uh, they went extinct a couple thousand years ago.

0:03:38 Thomas: Toronto raptors.

0:03:39 Eli: Idiot. I liked that. I'd said thousand. Thousand is good.

0:03:45 Thomas: Yeah. That's what I caught after

0:03:48 Eli: Thousands. The good is the, is the beautiful shine on that um as it's so often in the case here on d -roll dads uh week, I shared a TikTok with the guys, and this is sort of an ongoing saga. What happened is, well, China wants your data.

0:03:48 Thomas: Not hearing it. Yeah that's good so us never watching them holy

0:04:01 Tom: I want to say real quick, I discovered something important about TikTok I want to share with the audience, and that is you can download the app, not establish an account. And if somebody sends you a TikTok, you can still watch it. I have no account for TikTok. I've never logged in. I didn't create a login. All I did was verify my birthday and I can I watch a TikTok that Eli sends me.

0:04:15 Eli: Ooh. Ooh.

0:04:19 Thomas: Shit well that's enough that's how they get you Oh

0:04:26 Tom: That's it. So I don't have to have a fucking TikTok account, which I'll never use and don't want to have, but I can watch the TikToks finally. Cause before Eli, I would send them to Haley, like a, like an old person. Like, can be like, fuck, I got to watch this because what if it's accidentally relevant to the show and not just some crazy shit Eli's sending me? And that's almost never the case. But I would send him to her anyway. Like, all right, can you open this on your phone? And then she would be like yes, old man, with your graying fucking hair.

0:04:51 Thomas: My god do you guys do this one, okay, this, well, obviously Eli doesn't, but this is Tom, I don't know if you'll relate to this. Sometimes I try to watch the things my wife sends because she is my wife and my favorite person, so I do make some amount of effort, but also sometimes I just the phone and the sound bothers me, the fact that they have, we talked about this, the, the diabolical battle that may just be between me and every app and how to turn on the sound for their videos. It's a cat and mouse game. They, they, what they want you to do is turn on the sound and then not be able to turn it off. That's what they Want. And so they hide the fucking volume button after you do it. And so I'm very, very hesitant to watch any sort of fucking video that my wife sends me ever. Uh, and sometimes I see it. I see this, this little preview and I'll be honest, sometimes I think, okay, that's enough. I can guess what that was.

0:05:40 Eli: I get it. There's a cat. Yeah.

0:05:41 Thomas: Yeah, there's a, yeah, something I can, I can guess. And almost always wrong on that, by the way. That's, that means, I'll be honest with myself. That's hard, actually. The screenshot the video is usually not enough for me to meaningfully relate to my wife on it. So what I'll do is when she says, oh, did you watch the video I sent? And I'd be like, oh which one? It was this one. And it turns out I hadn't. I'll go, oh yeah. And she's like, you gotta watch it. And then what I basically do is filibuster until she just pulls out her phone and turns. Because she said we equally have it like she sent it.

0:06:11 Tom: Right.

0:06:11 Thomas: I, you know, it's the same. It's the Same Place, actually. It's equally the same place. And so then she'll play it for me.

0:06:17 Tom: I do something similar because Haley likes to know that I've watched the video she sends. And she gets like real happy to know like I've enjoyed the same thing that she's enjoyed, right? So what I do now is I don't even check them until we're together. Together, and then I'll be like, oh, let me watch all the videos that you sent me. And then like, I'll like sit there, watch the videos she sent me again with her, and that's how we actually watch all this shit that she sends me, because we both get to sort of re-enjoy it again. But I, I even check my messages, I'm like, I don't even look at them until we're together and I can watch them with her. Oh

0:06:49 Thomas: She needs to do a TikTok that's just reaction to you watching the stuff. And then she's going to play it. She'll be on the side reacting to your reaction. I think that's all media now. It's just that.

0:06:56 Tom: My god no that's yeah, right, yeah, we're

0:07:00 Eli: My problem with that is that when Anna, so I could not watch stuff in front of people people that I love, especially if they think it's funny, because I will often find something funny, but because I have comedian brain when I'm not consciously thinking about it, I don't laugh at

0:07:17 Tom: Yeah, well, I'm aware of that, having having recorded hundreds of episodes of citation needed with you and hearing the deafening silence of your disapproval on the other side.

0:07:18 Thomas: Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Tom, so that's the explanation.

0:07:26 Eli: I told you I'm waiting for my turn to talk, and that is what's most important. I'm fully focused on that.

0:07:29 Thomas: Yeah. I genuinely thought it was because you didn't believe another person could ever be funny, like compared to you.

0:07:33 Tom: He does believe that that is a hundred percent. That's locked in, man.

0:07:38 Eli: Also, it's a big part of it. That's why I'm being radically vulnerable when I say that's obviously true, um, no, uh, problem is, like, I want to say that I love these videos and I can often respond privately, right? I can toss in an LOL or, like, "that's so cute" in a messenger, where if you watched me watch, I would, would just be like It's stone-faced silence.

0:07:42 Tom: But

0:08:01 Eli: You know, yeah.

0:07:59 Thomas: Stone -faced. Yep. Yep, Actually, I have that too. Now that I think about it, that is... Oh,

0:08:05 Tom: Wait a minute. You can't like, you not like laugh or smile because like, you know, this is a shared moment. Like

0:08:11 Thomas: Sorry. I want to clarify. Eli can't laugh or smile because that would admit someone else is funny. I just have a thing where I feel like often I don't find stuff as funny as maybe other people might. And so I appreciate that when it's a text, I can just give the old laugh react. And then it's like, it's the perfect crime. You think I laughed just as much as you at that. And sometimes, you know, it is fun. It's, you know it's, it chuckle, but

0:08:16 Tom: True. Yeah.

0:08:19 Eli: Oh

0:08:36 Tom: Me, like, I, if I think, if I were to watch half the stuff that I get sent without Hayley laughing next to me, I would be like, yeah, that was funny. And because she's laughing and taking such joy in it, like, it ramps it up for me. It's like, I, like other people's, like, I'm very, like, a reactive to other people. Yeah, right. Yeah, up. I need the laugh track, Thomas.

0:08:51 Thomas: That's why you leave the sitcom audience. Yeah. Oh my

0:08:56 Tom: I'm the dullard the laugh track is meant for. I fucking hate laugh tracks. Is there anything worse than a laugh track you like, Bosnick?

0:09:02 Eli: We

0:09:02 Thomas: God. Didn't we already do that? Didn't do that.

0:09:04 Tom: Holy shit, we did.

0:09:05 Thomas: It is the auto Autoass. Double autoass.

0:09:04 Eli: Did that yeah man lots

0:09:07 Tom: Oh, hey, oh, what is this? Look,

0:09:08 Eli: Of things are worse oh You doesn't laugh at my jokes. Tom doesn't know where he is in our fucking show.

0:09:13 Thomas: All right, Joe Biden.

0:09:14 Tom: I'm not paying a lot

0:09:15 Thomas: Come on.

0:09:15 Tom: Of attention right now.

0:09:18 Thomas: Tom is unfit.

0:09:13 Eli: Yeah Grandpa Joe trying to murder your political opponent, uh,

0:09:24 Thomas: So anyway, the TikTok that you, yeah.

0:09:22 Tom: Yeah, So the TikTok, we'll get, get to it. Yeah, yeah.

0:09:29 Eli: So the, the TikTok that I saw is basically a girl who is like a relatively shy person, got sent home from school for being high. Now, she wasn't high. She has allergies and she's a shy person who gets nervous in front of her teachers. The, get a call at school and they're like, "Hey, your kid is high. Come in and get her." So they see that their daughter is very much not high. She's just like having anxiety because she's in trouble at school. And also has eyes that are red because of the season, uh, they're like, "Great, can we give her a drug test at home just to make sure that this isn't the

0:09:29 Thomas: The?

0:10:04 Thomas: A

0:10:04 Eli: Case?" Yeah. And

0:10:04 Thomas: Drug test? I'm already, like, that was already weird.

0:10:06 Tom: I'm

0:10:08 Eli: They'relike "Hey, she's not high," and they're like, "Well, we think she's high," andthey'relike "Great, we're going to give her a drug tested home," like "Cool, give her drug tested home." So they go, they give her a drug testing home, I'm summing up a very long tick tock Right?

0:10:13 Thomas: Jesus. Yeah, yeah, Yeah。.

0:10:19 Eli: They go, they give her a drug tested home, sorry. Of course, the girl had not been smoking pot, so they bring it in, they're like, "Hey, she wasn't, this is what was happening," uh, and they're like, "Oh, that's not valid, we have to at the nurse's office." So they give her a drug test there at the nurse's officer's office, and again, it's, kid has not smoked pot, right? The drug test comes up negative. So the dad comes in and is like, "Hey, like, she's really upset that she got sent home and suspended and stuff like that. There was all these punishments being levied at her.

Now that that's not the case and the punishments are undone, we would like someone to apologize to her specifically. We'd like the, like, assistant principal who, like, called us and told her she was in trouble and all that stuff, we'd like them to, like, speak to her." And the school district called this meeting. This is the TikTok that I sent you where they were like, "We have decided that it would be inappropriate for a assistant principal to enact the action in which you have requested. It, within 30 days you may give feedback to this decision by filling out form 84B slash nine." And so I think there are two, fuck these people

0:11:08 Thomas: Okay. Yep.

0:11:21 Eli: Is the obvious reaction to that TikTok. But I think There are two really important conversations to be had there. And you know, we were talking last week about healthy anger, right? Like me not having it. And So I think this is actually a really important thing, which is like, when the system does an unfair thing to your kid, and I know we have listeners who have been that I I know we have listeners who have kids who have, like, the victim of systematic, like horribleness. What do you do? What How do you react? How do you train yourself to react in the best possible way? Because, like I make a lot of jokes about it and they're hilarious and amazing and I'm very busy making them, which is why I don't have time to laugh at Tom's jokes. But, like I genuinely don't know what to do if I am ever in that position. Right? Genuinely, when they don't know what to do, I can't handle a fucking carpenter's dispute, right?

0:11:22 Thomas: Yeah.

0:12:13 Thomas: This Yeah, to make one comment, and we don't have to go with it at all, but just the woke fucking person in me, this is why when people get mad at, like, Black Lives Matter protesters, I get so fucking frustrated by the fact, "Oh no, they should just politely be like, 'Hey, please don't keep killing our sons and daughters,' and, you know, like, 'Please, sir, don't do police violence on us.'" It's like, no, if, if those people were half of an Eli, we'd have terrorism every day. You the idea that we're, that people should just sit and politely take it when they're getting like actually killed is just absurd. So how do you do it? I actually don't know in this situation. I don't know that I would be an Eli, but I would be pretty fucking mad. I, what the fuck is, do we think this is, like, this is some bureaucratic way to, a dude doesn't, hasn't have to apologize, is that all this is, or am I missing something? Yeah.

0:12:38 Tom: Well,

0:12:39 Eli: Right.

0:13:00 Tom: So So I think it matters a great deal to sort of define with specificity what systems are being unfair, right? And I think that kind of speaks to your point, Thomas, right? So if the system that's being unfair is the criminal justice system, that's a wildly different response than if the system that's being unfair to your kid is the school system, like in terms of what, like our rights are and like how we can interact with those things, you know? So if, think if your kid is engaged in a system where you have actually a lot more rights than you may think that you have, which would be the school systems, that there are ways for you to engage that. And I will tell you that on our side, we haven't had kids get in trouble at, in any meaningful way.

But there have been a number of times where we've been unhappy with the school's response to something. And what we've done is we just put everybody in the school system on blast with an email. So it's like, oh, I didn't like that answer from the teacher. So the next escalation is not teacher to principal, but it's teacher to vice principal to principal plus the dean plus the school board and

0:13:21 Thomas: We

0:14:08 Eli: But

0:14:08 Tom: All of its members. And this way, what you've shown people is I immediately escalate to the maximum level in order to get answers that we want. Aislinn's private school during COVID here in Illinois, there was a mask mandate during COVID for schools and the school, the private school she went to at one point said, hey, you know, we called Jesus and then we decided we're not doing masks because Jesus And he's like, yeah, I didn't wear a mask on the cross bullshit.

0:14:39 Thomas: Made women on their periods leave town. But, oh,

0:14:44 Tom: But we're not we're not doing mask. So, you with them to see if I could win that argument. I did not win that argument. And then I immediately went to the newspaper and I immediately went to the at the same time that I did that, I went to this state board of education. And within a handful of days, they had their license taken away, their ability to teach.

0:14:54 Thomas: Nice. Nice.

0:15:02 Tom: And there was a story that was written. And then lo and behold, masks came back within a handful of days. I think that there's some systems where you have to say, I am willing to take this if the system itself is unfair. You've got to be like, cool, I got a great big spotlight.

0:15:02 Thomas: Holy shit. Wow.

0:15:19 Eli: Right.

0:15:20 Thomas: Then there's also the case of like, well, when you're facing a bigger system potentially where you know, you know that you're not going to solve it in time, not just like, oh, for our lifetimes, but often with kids stuff, it's like, well, they're going to a new school next year or they're gonna, you Know, there's that balancing test of like I want to fight this, but like how much is it worth it? How much is it going to make the kid's life worse right now? And that's a really hard balance, I think, to strike oftentimes.

0:15:47 Thomas: But with COVID, I want to make very clear with your case, 100%. I wasn't suggesting that your case.

0:15:46 Tom: And here's like in but in the tick tock that Eli was referring to, I think there was an interesting principle that was involved that I want to talk about a little bit, because I really appreciated it, and Hayley and I had a long conversation about it after we watched the TikTok together, you know, and in and this case the school was up in 15 days and what they could have done is they could have just said, "Hey, privately, we know this is bullshit. Shit. School's over in two weeks. Let's just get through the next two weeks." That I think would have been really a bad call. Parenting wise. I think parenting wise, you've got to say, look, if it's unfair, even if we can't win, you need to see that I'm here to fight for you.

0:15:51 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm. Yes.

0:16:28 Tom: You need to see that. I'm going to, like, show up and I'm gonna be a fucking bulldog and I'm gonna call meetings and IMA to tape those meetings and put those meetings on social media.

0:16:39 Tom: And I'm, you're being treated unfairly, right? If there's a system that is going to treat you poorly, the kids have to see that they've got your back, like that you as their parents are willing to sort of, like, show up for them even if you lose, even if the system can't be swayed, even if the bureaucracy runs you right at the fuck over. At least what the kids will get from that piece is, well, man, my dad went to bat here, my mom went to bad here, they fought for me here.

0:17:03 Eli: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

0:17:04 Tom: I think that that shit is at a principle level and a relational level. I think that shit is real, real important.

0:17:11 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:12 Eli: That's what this dad is doing in the TikTok, right? Is he's bringing that to public attention. He has obviously hit the wall of, uh, you kafka, -esque paperwork as it will, and, uh, bringing that to public attention, because public attention changes that stuff. But I, I worry a lot, right, because the, the emotional regulation shown by that parent, and maybe this is the, the part that I'm worried about more than, like, what does one do, is, like, what does one do about how you feel, right? I'm so glad you brought up that story, Tom, because that, that is the example I think of quite a bit, um, and I wasn't sure if I was allowed to tell that story on air, so I was gonna be like, Tom, I, we can cut this if you want, but like, I think this is a really good example of it but

0:17:21 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:52 Thomas: I, too, knew that Tom spotlighted a fucking thing and did. Did you also expose the Catholic Church while you were at it? I don't know if you told me this and I forgot it or what, but I didn't know you did all that.

0:17:59 Tom: I remember if I mentioned this

0:18:03 Thomas: I probably forgot it, to be honest with you. But that's really cool.

0:18:03 Tom: Before. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah,

0:18:04 Eli: Yeah, But amount of control over your emotions that takes, right? Because like, I, I think something, thing that we talk about on this show that is good, right, is we talk about, like, not failing in the way that our parents failed us, right? And my parents didn't significantly fail me. Like, I think my parents did a pretty awesome job. But like, Thomas, you've talked about the way of, like, showing up in ways that your dad didn't show up for you. Tom, you of course show up in major ways that your mom didn't show up for you. I don't think you fed any of your children to a snapping turtle, for example.

0:18:35 Tom: Not yet.

0:18:36 Eli: Right.

0:18:37 Tom: Not yet.

0:18:38 Eli: Do we do when we have weaknesses that our parents didn't have? Uh, we don't have a, like, I'm not gonna be like that model, right? Because, Thomas, you know something that you've talked about a bit is, like, I have the impulse to that and I know it's bad so I do the opposite, right? Whenever I have the, like, we'll stay away from the precious impulse, I'm like, oh shit, I gotta go to the park with my kids, and I, and I do feel that. But the protective impulse, which my parents were very good, not that they had to do it very often, but my parents were very, very good at protecting me. And I feel ill -equipped to protect them. Right? Told the story before and...

0:19:18 Tom: Because you think you'll lose your temper and won't be effective.

0:19:19 Eli: Right, exactly. Because the way I will lose my temper will directly make it worse in any possible situation.

0:19:25 Thomas: Yes. Eli, I constantly worry, even though I don't, I don't quite have your insanity, but it's close because I worry that no matter if me or my child is the wrong person that I will come in and be such an asshole that all of a sudden I'm actually the villain of the thing, you know, even though I'm definitely not, but if you're, if you're an soul enough, if you're disruptive enough, then people look at that as like, well, you're the one making the fuss. Like, this person, sure, what they did was wrong, and in my mind it's because people don't, like, evaluate how much worse it is if, like, institutional power is doing something wrong. But hey, we live in and a society, a lot of people would be like, yeah, but you're also yelling, so that's wrong. As, yeah.

0:19:43 Eli: Right, exactly.

0:20:10 Tom: I think for this sort of thing, I think it's, it's important if it's possible for you. I think it's important to have two places that you can talk. And what I mean by that is I think it's a place

0:20:22 Eli: You want me to get a second therapist. Okay, Dom, I hear you. Sound just like him. Can I say that?

0:20:30 Tom: Where you can have an emotionally volatile conversation and that space so you have that outlet, and then a separate place and know that, like, okay, I can vent to my friend or my spouse about all the ways this infuriates me and is unfair. And actually, in a circumstance with the kids, sometimes maybe that answer shouldn't be your spouse, right? Because they're probably also hyped up and amplified and emotional.

0:20:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:20:58 Thomas: Gosh, that's, oh, that's a big one for dads to consider, by the way. I think great point, Eli.

0:21:04 Tom: Think you've got to have a place for that, right? I think you've got got to have a place where you can kind of be unfair in your speech and not careful and, like, vent out and just be fucking frustrated about stuff this

0:21:14 Thomas: Have you considered getting a dummy car that you can go and slash the tires you Slash your own tires that, that might honestly, it's safer for you.

0:21:19 Eli: Slash my own tires. It's true. It's my property.

0:21:24 Tom: Just keying his car, like, I, but workspace, I teach other people to do the same thing. What I, I tell managers that work for me all the time is when you vent, you never vent down. You never vent down to your employees. No matter how frustrated you are with a situation, you cannot vent down because it's ineffective. It creates a problem.

0:21:44 Thomas: Just now I'm picturing Tom yelling that as a, you never bent down ever. You scum.

0:21:50 Tom: So what I tell them is like, vent to me. Like, I'm your boss. It's okay to call me and just be like, I just need to vent. Be like, cool, we're not problem solving. We're just venting. And then we have that conversation that just lives in that emotional space. It's like with your kids, you've got to be able to find, because then you can kind of put that somewhere, and then you can have that rational conversation with the powers that be, because you've already got a space for those emotional outbursts. Because we do live in a space where as soon as you start yelling, cursing, losing control, you're lost.

0:22:22 Thomas: Yep.

0:22:22 Tom: Bureaucracy is rubbing its hands together in glee at that point, no matter which bureaucracy it is. This is true of like schools. This is true of, like, doctor's offices. This is true all the time.

0:22:33 Thomas: I know I bring this, uh, you know, back to my one experience all the time, fellas, but is it kind of like when someone stole an entire company and tried to embarrass me publicly and it cost me half a million fucking dollars. And then I put some intro quotes that were like ambiguous and could have meant either way. And they're like, "Well, that's okay. That's too far. Thomas, you have gone too far," it's unfortunately there's, that's a lot of people are that fucking stupid. I mean, are that dedicated to politeness?

0:22:52 Tom: Yeah.

0:23:04 Tom: Think having two spaces for this kind of stuff is really valuable.

0:23:07 Thomas: Another podcast, got it.

0:23:11 Tom: Do you think that would help Eli?

0:23:13 Eli: Tough to say. You know, one of the things that I am trying to work on lately, and I apologize for turning this into the Eli's Therapy podcast, but one of the things I'm trying to look on lately is asking other people for help. And Tom, I know you deal with this in the same way. And Thomas, I know you do this as well. When you're at the bottom of the pyramid for so many people, it's really hard to ask for help, it is really hard to reach out and say, hey, do I have someone I can vent to? Because while you were saying that, again, I completely agree with it. I was like, yeah, but like, who am I going to bother about that stuff?

0:23:48 Eli: You know, like, I don't want to impose on anybody.

0:23:48 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Well, You at least have a therapist. That's, that's good. Yeah.

0:23:55 Eli: I do have it there. That's true. Yeah. But like, how do to about that stuff and also my And again, not that this invalidates your solution, Tom. I think it's a good solution. And I think could, it would prevent the problem. My worry is always like my temper in the moment, right? Because it is truly, a lot of the time, a coin flip between me being like the sunniest, sweetest person or like complete psychopathy. Right. And I often don't feel like I have a lot of control over that. Um, I will say, you know, not to put myself in too vulnerable position here, but like, if anger is involved, I don't say I get violent, but I talk about violence almost immediately, right? Like, I shared the conversation with you guys of, like, carrying Anna's, um, into the bathroom at the science museum and a guy being like, uh, is the men's room, and me basically instantly being like, would you like to have a fist fight, other father, in

0:23:56 Thomas: Oh, Yeah. Yeah. That's

0:24:10 Tom: Mm -hmm.

0:24:55 Eli: This science museum, right? And like, that's, that's not good, that's not bueno. But here's the thing, right? Are a small man with small ideas and you should feel bad for yourself, right? Is what is to say, let us roll about and punch each other is not the right thing to say under any circumstances, and especially when someone has expressed that they don't care about proper societal norms like that. Like, I'm gonna run into some people, people who are like, I too don't understand that that's an inappropriate way to deal with emotions. Shall we roll about with the punching? And I'll be like, I would love to roll about with the punch in good sir. After you. You know what I'm saying? And like, again, this is something I have dealt with my entire life. And there have been anywhere from moderate to some pretty severe consequences for it at points in my

0:24:58 Thomas: Appropriate, actually. No.

0:25:40 Thomas: Eli

0:25:40 Eli: Life. I mean, there are stories I could tell that have been extremely not cash money where my mouth has written checks. I definitely, well, Well, I, yes.

0:25:47 Thomas: Has gotten his ass kicked a lot of times. You know, we talked about it more in the beginning of the show, like the first few months of the show, every other story was about Eli getting his ass kicked in increasingly funny ways, but we haven't gone there in a while, so, you know, anytime you want to dust those off. Hmm.

0:25:50 Tom: Yeah.

0:26:00 Eli: Exactly. Only have I gotten my ass kicked a bunch of times, but I also like got in trouble for winning a fight, which is something that they don't talk to you about as a young man. Like, saw my dad fight a lot in a small town and I saw him win those fights. And then, like, cops would come, sometimes it wasn't, but then they would just be like, all right, Dave, get out of here. I think I can remember one time that he was, like, arrested, and it's because he won by too much. But, like, again, as a child, I did not see all of those consequences, so I'm not aware if he, like, had charges pressed against him, or anything?

0:26:08 Thomas: Geez. Right. Yeah. Geez. Really?

0:26:35 Eli: Like that. But, like, I have won a fight and then been arrested and they've been like, hey, you might be charged with assault. Yeah, we went all the way down to the, like, it was a whole thing, and I was like, that whole time I kept being like, oh no, we just had a fight. And they were like, what do you think that you I was drunk at the time. Reasons why I'm sober. I was drunken at the top and I was like, is dueling laws, man? And the cop was like I'm sorry. Do you believe dueling is still legal? And I was like, no, but it's like it inherits from dueling laws. And he was like it sure doesn't. It sure doesn't

0:26:50 Tom: You can't just do that, right? Yeah.

0:26:58 Thomas: I don't know this one at all. Geez. I just can't believe you ever won a fight. Who did? Who's on the other end?

0:27:13 Eli: Right. Yeah, I know. I know it's like I

0:27:17 Thomas: Jesus. You

0:27:18 Eli: So it was a child. It was a it was a six year old boy and I

0:27:19 Tom: That third grader. Did not. Yeah, scrappier than you would have thought, though. Scrappyer than you would've thought.

0:27:23 Eli: Surprised them.

0:27:23 Thomas: Can Duel a child? You're allowed to duel a child?

0:27:24 Tom: Yeah.

0:27:26 Eli: Want me to do it. It's called respect. Yeah, like that. That was a real thing. And that's bad. Right. And I live with those consequences. And I've done a lot of really good work to make myself better. I know from the way I present myself on this podcast. Right, I must seem like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to more people, but there used to not be a Jekyl, everybody.

0:27:27 Thomas: Like,

0:27:45 Tom: Yeah.

0:27:46 Eli: It used to be all Hyde all the time. And everybody was just like, stay out of that psycho's way. So I've done a lot of really good work and I'm proud of that work. And I also think it's important to own like, hey, when you have a certain makeup, when You have certain impulses, the work you do is important and good, right? And you credit for that, even if it's not necessarily perfect. Here's my thing. As sad as those consequences were for me, as bad as those consequences were from me. And I will say as long as it has been, I mean, I was a very, very young man. I was in my early twenties. The last time I rolled around on the ground with another person with the punching. Right. Like, again, it's been more than a decade since I have made those mistakes. I'm just aware that I have those proclivities. My worry is the stakes have never been higher than they are with Max. And where I feel the most vulnerable. That's where I feel least in control. And the consequences won't be for me. The consequences could be for him.

0:28:47 Tom: Yeah. I I guess, like, I don't know that I have piece of advice to offer, because you already have a therapist, but I would strongly, so there's, there's been any, there's number, I can, I can kind of empathize that my kids specifically have been put in situations any number of times where my emotionally, like, I have wanted to be extremely reactive to to the positions of danger.

0:28:48 Eli: Right? Mm -mm.

0:29:08 Thomas: Sargon was around them and still

0:29:11 Eli: No, Tom doesn't defend his wife when Sargon says mean things about her. Remember, Thomas? I

0:29:13 Tom: That is not the case at all. But I will say, like, look,

0:29:21 Eli: Like that I'm trying to encourage you to fight this person in a time machine if I

0:29:23 Thomas: Still yeah it's like eight years later. No, I still, it still applies. I, I think I think

0:29:29 Eli: Could change the narrative enough, Tom might go back in time and fight Sargon and I think we all agree that's a, that's cash money world. It's exactly

0:29:36 Thomas: There's a setting on his Ball Shocker 5000, like he goes too far on it and his balls go back in time.

0:29:39 Tom: There's thousand percent that would have been a great joy to me to do. But like there have been an number of times where where things have happened with my kids, where they've been, you situation has not been cash money, to use your phrase. And I have felt extremely emotionally reactive in those moments. And recognize that what I need to be is effective, not cathartic. Emotionally reacting might be cathartIC for me, but it's not effective.

0:29:42 Thomas: Yeah.

0:30:08 Thomas: So True.

0:30:08 Tom: And my goal as a parent is to be an effective parent. And so I keep that in the forefront, not the background, but the forefront of my mind, especially when I'm challenged in that way. And I'll make me get kind of like a fucking psycho, because I'll get real quiet and take me a real long time to respond. Bond, but

0:30:25 Eli: Oh, is is this the thing where you think you're calm, Tom?

0:30:28 Tom: I'm calm. Look, I'm not, no one is under, if I'm angry, not grumpy, but angry, I guarantee everyone is aware of that. But what I also guarantee is that I'm not losing my temper unless got to push me awfully intentionally to get me there.

0:30:44 Eli: Looks at a pot of boiling water and he's like, nobody could tell what's going on with that water. That's how Tom is when he's angry. Exactly.

0:30:50 Thomas: Yep.

0:30:54 Tom: But I'm saying like with the kids, like, especially that's a moment where like, you've got to try to find a space where you think, where you have to be able to say like, what I need for the kids is to be effective right now. And if you can't be effective, then you've gotta remove yourself until you can come back and be effective. And, if you cant do that at all, then what you have do is find somebody in your life that can advocate for your kids in a way that's effective and not cathartic because Because your to be right or your need to vent or your needs to, like, explode or have that cathartic, like, release. The kids don't need that.

0:31:04 Thomas: Yep.

0:31:19 Eli: Exactly. Yes.

0:31:27 Tom: That's not what your kids need from you.

0:31:28 Eli: Doesn't serve them.

0:31:29 Tom: It doesn't. It does not serve them. So there have been, I can't tell you how many situations I feel like my kids have been put in where what I've wanted to do, and what would be, I think, emotionally fair for me to do, would not have been effective. And so I've had to, I've had to sort of take deep breaths, take moments, stare off into the middle distance, clench my jaw till my teeth crack, whatever it takes, you yeah.

0:31:29 Eli: Right.

0:31:54 Eli: Through a block of wood that I pull from a structure I'm standing near.

0:31:58 Tom: Whatever it takes though, whatever, whatever.

0:31:59 Thomas: That's what happened Eli's column, and

0:32:00 Tom: Whatever it takes to to not be ineffective for their care. Right. And that's a really tough ask. Like it's a huge, big ask, but but I think if you frame it in your mind is, is this effective or is this just for me? That give you that moment of pause for your forebrain to take control over your emotional brain. Does that make any sense? Does that seem useful at all?

0:32:22 Eli: No, absolutely not. It's completely useful. It is 100% true. And I think it is important to remind myself of, and I will say, I want to give myself credit, there have been moments of not cash money -ness. Now, again, we have been wildly lucky, but there have been moments of not awesomeness. And I have shown up very well in those moments for Max, right? Where we have had to advocate hard for Max and it has been fine, right? Where I bet if you had asked me, how are you going to deal with this? I would have worried that I would deal badly. And I think the stakes do help that. I think The Stakes do make that easier to understand and remember. Yeah, I think, I think that's an incredible, incredible advice and a much more important outlook as well, right?

0:32:44 Tom: Right.

0:33:07 Thomas: We're often in this hostage situation where the thing I think what you're saying is not only true but more true than I think most dudes realize, like almost, almost never, I would say almost never, is the appropriate solution any problem, any sort of, forget fighting, just of show, intimidation or violence, like it, like even in situations that seem like they, what is called for, the better thing would be if you somehow, uh, had that situation in a way that kept some sort of rapport, like so that the threat was never there to begin with. I mean, it just is, like, it's, it sucks because I think a lot of, you know, the male instinct is like, yeah, but there's gonna be sometimes when I got to step up and be like, oh no, and it's like, okay, maybe if you've gotten yourself into that situation, then maybe, yeah, like you will have to have some sort of conflict, but the better option was to not get in that situation. And there's always a way to avoid that. Pretty Like much always.

0:33:47 Eli: Yes and that you made that point, because again, one of the things that we talk about on the show is, like, pushing back against toxic masculinity, and I think one of the pieces of toxic masculinity that I got really badly is, like, cues for disagreement are cues to fight, right? You see that all the time in, like, um, and TV, right, where, like, Bruce Willis is riding the train and these guys get on and they're like, hey, hey, man, give us your wallet, and he, he never, like, just leaves or de-escalates the situation, right?

0:34:34 Eli: He always, like, breaks their bones or, depending on the rating, maybe murders them, right? I'm only kind of joking that, like, that's all demonstrations of manhood, right? Like I remember

0:34:17 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. No, that's true. Yeah, yeah. I

0:34:47 Tom: Yes. Yeah.

0:34:48 Eli: The, the Quiet Man was my grandfather's favorite movie. I don't know if you've ever seen this. I

0:34:52 Thomas: Don't think I've I

0:34:53 Tom: I don't know that that movie now

0:34:53 Thomas: Don' think I see it. Which one is that again?

0:34:55 Eli: It's called The Quiet Men, and this is this is the plot of the movie. It's uh, it's Wayne and he goes back to small town in Ireland where, where he's from and wants to marry this girl and the dad doesn't like him and wants to fight him. And the entire movie is him refusing to fight the dad, while the dad's like, you're a fucking pussy. And the end of the movie is he fights the dad.

0:34:57 Thomas: Yeah. Who is it again? Who's? Oh, is this the one that where they fight for like an hour?

0:35:25 Thomas: They fight for, like, a half hour. I remember. Yeah Yeah. It's like really funny.

0:35:26 Eli: It 40 minute fight scene. Yes. Where they just, they fight their way through all elements of this town.

0:35:30 Thomas: Yeah. The whole town. Yes. My my older sister loved old movies. Uh, it's weird how, how much that goes along with her turning Catholic. Like, I feel like there's just something weird there. They want that like old timey masculine. Cause that, that's something that she would watch and unironically be like, this is the best. Yeah, Yeah, this is, this is how problems are solved.

0:35:41 Eli: Yep. And here's the thing, I grew up with my grandfather showing me that movie and being like, you see, when a man is pushed too far, he's definitely not If you like that movie, or if you've watched that movie, if you're just peripherally aware of that movie, I promise you, from my heart, from the part of my testicles that makes boys, you do not realize how little provocation is in that that movie until you rewatch it. You could just be, I mean, you swap out John Wayne for Thomas Smith, that movie is 45 seconds long.

It's like, you won't be marrying my daughter till you prove yourself a man. Uh, do you want to leave this? Your dad's a piece of shit. I'm not gonna talk to him anymore. I'm gonna go wait in the car. If you want a fucking, oh, you, you're on your dad side on this? Okay, well, this isn't gonna work out, um Nice meeting you, you all suck. You should be ashamed. And then the credits hit, right? But like, I grew up with that and was so deeply aware of that, and again, I modeled on my dad, who had a temper, who I would watch fight.

And because he was so perfect in my head, it never occurred to me. And like, as an adult, one of the hard pieces of work I've had to do, I remember a therapist years ago, and I had such bad cognitive dissonance, show plug, um, had such bad disonance at the moment that I, like, got insulted. I had this therapist for a while when I was in hospital, and she was like, do you think your dad ever fought someone who he could have not fought? Like, do you think he ever, like, picked on anybody? And I was like, uh, no, you fucking whore. Do

0:36:25 Tom: This

0:36:36 Thomas: That is absolutely, that is 100%.

0:37:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:37:24 Eli: You want to fight me?" And she was like, "interesting, let's explore how you reacted to that," and I was like, "let's not. I'm gonna draw a picture. Sure. You getting eaten by an alligator

0:37:34 Thomas: This is so believable to me like that.

0:37:34 Eli: God

0:37:37 Tom: Is A thousand percent. True. I believe this with my with my whole heart

0:37:39 Eli: Thomas

0:37:37 Thomas: Yeah. Oh my god that is, um that's what an insight, too, by that person. That's excellent. Yeah.

0:37:44 Tom: I had, I, another couple of thoughts I wanted to offer, too, and see where you're, where you guys land them, because this happens to me, I know, I know. I'm sorry.

0:37:51 Thomas: We

0:37:49 Eli: Just yap. Yap, yap, this episode buddy, open the floor a little. I'm sorry, everyone. I, I try to keep him from talking on the show. You see me doing my best. That's

0:37:58 Tom: It's, they mute my mic most of the time, but like there But there's something that I do, like, I don't know if you this guys do the same thing. It might just be because Hayley and I are, um, blended family, and many of the situations that we've encountered have involved, involved kids, and of, she's got a little bit different sense of space or distance. So but, you know, like, it's just different with step step parents or whatever. But what happens for me, and I do this from time to time, is like something will come up and I'll turn to her and I'll realize, like, I'm not thinking clearly right now, like, like there's just like a dull buzz right in the back of my head. And I'm just like, I'm recognizing that I'm, I'm not a creative problem solver right now. I don't know how to be an effective parent through this situation.

And I'll just turn to her and I'll be like, I need help. I can't think right now, can you help me? I need someone else to help me think this through. And then there have been times where we've both, where I've recognized like, hey, we're both pretty reactive in this moment right now, and I've turned to her and said, hey, this is too big for us. We need help thinking

0:38:01 Eli: Most of the time. Yeah. She hits, right?

0:39:00 Thomas: Need a

0:39:00 Tom: This through right now, and and that

0:39:00 Thomas: New kid. No. I'm just kidding.

0:39:03 Eli: We gotta get rid of Amen. We, we got to get rid of him.

0:39:04 Thomas: Let's

0:39:05 Tom: God damn it. I love you, Amen. Ignore this man, he does not speak for me, but but I feel like having somebody in your life that you can turn to when you can't think through the situation is really, really useful. And I think having, like, professionals that you, you can turn to if you realize like, shit, this problem is too big, we should not be responsible for problem solving in this moment. Both of those things are like moments of clarity that I think we have to seek out in ourselves, even in those like big emotional moments, which are hard for men to do.

0:39:08 Eli: Eamon, if you're listening from prison, this is why.

0:39:30 Eli: Right. Yeah.

0:39:41 Tom: Like, cause you're at, you're raising your hand and being like, I'm not the answer right now. And I got to tell you, like in 99% of my life, I's always walking in the room with my hand up up and being like, yep, I'm the answer right now. That's literally my job. You know, let me be the answer. Let me be this solution. And it doesn't feel good for me to have to be like, yeah, I actually can't think right now, my brain doesn't seem to be working. I can't think and I need help. But Haley does an outstanding job of of recognizing that like, OK, like going to be the problem solver right now and she does a great job. And like I said, there's been times where I've been like, hey, I don't think think either of us are thinking clearly. Let's make a phone call. Like, let's get somebody else that's a professional here involved.

0:40:21 Thomas: Call Eli.

0:40:22 Tom: Let's Never. I said a professional.

0:40:22 Thomas: Oh Yeah. So

0:40:25 Eli: Should kill that guy. You should killed that guy, so

0:40:29 Thomas: There any more to this story, or was it just like this hat, did they, you know, like, is there a fucking update on this?

0:40:34 Eli: I don't know how it got resolved. I haven't seen it. You know, I hope my FYP brings me back for the resolution. But until then, oh, for you, Paige, is the slang. I'm sort of the youth of this podcast. I keep, uh, I keep all the hip hop going.

0:40:35 Thomas: Oh Dang. Sorry. What, it, yeah. Yes. You objectively are I think

0:40:54 Eli: You know what I'm saying?

0:40:54 Thomas: I'm like one year older than you, but also 20 years older than you. Yeah.

0:40:57 Eli: Yeah. And to be fair, Tom is 78 now, 79, bud.

0:41:00 Thomas: No, Tom's

0:41:00 Tom: That's that's true. Yeah, that's truth. Yeah.

0:41:01 Thomas: Not Tom's in the running for young. But yeah, he's

0:41:02 Tom: I've Well, can we wrap this up? My moons are over, my hammy are getting cold These

0:41:03 Thomas: Not even. Yeah. Hey.

0:41:03 Eli: That's true. Exactly. Got to get that daytime special. All All right, gentlemen, before we go, to whoever stole my copy of Microsoft Office, I will find you. You have my word.

0:41:26 Thomas: You got a better source for these lately or something? These are killer. I love it.

0:41:29 Tom: Are good. These are all right.

0:41:34 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.

0:42:14 Eli: Raptors. Uh, they went extinct a couple thousand years ago. Idiot.

0:42:18 Tom: You know, we called Jesus, and then we decided we're not doing masks because