DOD149: Are Parents Living More Meaningful Lives?

Transcript

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

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

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

0:00:30 Tom: That J .D. Vance used to listen to in college. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:40 Thomas: Much would you gentlemen be willing to sell out to become president? Cause I don't, I don't, I don't. Yeah, that was what I predicted. I, I, okay.

0:00:45 Eli: Everything. I would throw your children into a furnace, Thomas. One by one while you were tied to a chair.

0:00:55 Thomas: That's exactly the kind of person that should be president too. You know, they always say You want the person who wants it the most.

0:01:00 Eli: Nobody who wants to be president should be president. Yeah, exactly. If we could force Thomas to the president, either of the two co -hosts who deserve to be president on this podcast would be such good presidents, right? Because they'd be like, hey, you know, Thomas, there are kids starving in Zambia. And he'd be, like, well, that's fine. I'm just going to, you, know, if I work Saturday from midnight until 7 a.m., I can actually get the Zambian minister on the phone. And then I don't need to take a break. Well, I have breakfast while we're doing the meeting. It'll be a breakfast meeting. So, I'll actually be fine. Like, you would get so much. Both of you would be such excellent presidents. Except for Tom, who would do weird, insane laws.

0:01:35 Tom: What do you mean weird in St. Laws?

0:01:37 Eli: But if you think you wouldn't pass the me smash computer bill of 2025 you're

0:01:41 Thomas: I mean,

0:01:42 Tom: That's true I would I would roll back time yeah by

0:01:46 Thomas: He still has to get Congress to go along with him, which maybe he would actually. But can

0:01:50 Eli: Not I was gonna say

0:01:50 Tom: By executive order I would cancel the internet yeah I would do that for sure yeah you're not wrong there I

0:01:52 Eli: Thomas

0:01:54 Thomas: You believe J .D.? I mean it's on the topic of what we're going to talk about, but just, you know, we're not a political show, but to have Trump say what he did about Kamala and not understand how mixed race anything works, and then to have have his VP who is literally married to an Indian woman. Like, and then to have that groveling little shit have to like, I don't know. You're like, can you grovel to that degree? I don't know. Are you capable of that grovelling? Cause I'm not, I couldn't do it.

0:02:09 Tom: Know

0:02:19 Eli: You've watched me do that level of groveling and I am so grateful for you to pretend like you don't know that I'm capable of it that's such a sweet

0:02:27 Thomas: But whatever it comes to Anna though, what

0:02:28 Tom: Eli's public statements have never been constrained by a relationship to the truth so what a fucking train wreck

0:02:32 Eli: That's true when it comes to anna I do I lose all fucks so that's that's

0:02:41 Thomas: You'd have to choose between your lust for power and your lust for your wife.

0:02:46 Eli: My wife yeah and I choose the lust for my wife every time you can get new power uh but gentlemen do you know the only thing worse than what must be the tense and silent dinners at the vance household why it's the auto ads the auto AutoAds, you're trying to fuck the couch of podcasting, but we are the internet telling everybody that you did it with our auto ads. But you can stop and just fully fuck the coach of our podcasting by giving us as little as a dollar over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dads. Well, you'll get an extended commercial-free version of every show, a little parenting story at the end. You hear about Tom's new enemy at the End of Last Week's show. Is it a person, place, or thing? We'll never tell. There's only one way to find out and that's by giving us a buck over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dads do do do rip into it I

0:02:53 Thomas: Wholesome. I

0:03:44 Tom: I like the music you got to program that into your uh touchpad you

0:03:48 Thomas: Feel like it's not hardcore enough, but oh, wow.

0:03:49 Eli: So I did a bunch of mushrooms on my airplane here to las vegas um

0:03:55 Tom: Did mushrooms on the airplane

0:03:57 Eli: I ate uh half a shroom chocolate bar which is about eight doses of mushrooms

0:04:03 Tom: On the aeroplane what

0:04:04 Thomas: Should I be doing this?

0:04:06 Eli: Yeah it's fucking chill as fuck I highly recommend let me just say as someone who last night as a bit with my friends smoked salvia on a casino floor like you probably don't want to be doing the drunk ideas that I do okay

0:04:23 Tom: Is happening over there

0:04:22 Thomas: I he's still high. I didn't. Wow.

0:04:27 Eli: Buddy matt and I I would when we did yeah

0:04:30 Tom: Eli bosnick I have tenuous brain chemistry I am gonna fuck with my brain chemistry as often as possible what

0:04:33 Thomas: Did we accidentally record cord a little longer than you thought and now it's hitting early and you're trying

0:04:40 Tom: And bad trip on an airplane couldn't possibly be a bad idea holy shit dude dude. What?

0:04:45 Eli: It was fun it was a good time I of all you're not when your brain is as bad as mine there's no such thing as bad trips there's only there's Only Reminders no so when matt and I used to do salvia a bunch at college and we had a joke that was called Worst Place to Do Salvia, where I would just be like, oh, oh I have a new worst place to do salvia, a preschool, and he'd be like oh, it's pretty good, so if you're not familiar, salvia is a legal hallucinogen it's one of the strongest hallucinogens in the world, it only lasts 15 minutes but it's like a total ego death hallucinagen,

0:04:54 Tom: Fuck.

0:05:19 Thomas: Whoa I want to do that it's legal what this I this can't be right mechanical else yeah

0:05:19 Tom: So fun. Fuck that.

0:05:23 Eli: No sense of self, light and colors mechanical elves, yeah, so it's crazy, right? And so then one night we were like, oh my gosh, doing it in Times Square would be the worst, right. And we were, like, it would be the worst. And he was like, we have a pipe. Let's go do Salvia in Times Square. Like, let's just do it. And we did, and it was awful. It was just mind -blowingly terrible.

0:05:43 Tom: Jesus Christ. What is, why are you doing this to you? Do

0:05:47 Eli: But he's going to be at this convention, and I was like hey, hey, do you want to go? So if you're not aware of Las Vegas, there is a famously awful now closed casino called Circus Circus. I believe it's closed. It might still be open, but I, I think it's close. So we were like, you know, where it would be terrible to do it. The main floor of Circus, Circus like cause they let you smoke in casinos. We should just go and try and do Salvia on the main floor Circus circus. We didn't get to Circus circus, but we did get to like what I think is the worst casino in Las Vegas. And we managed to smoke some salvia in the center of the casino floor.

0:06:00 Thomas: That's close huh I

0:06:26 Eli: And it went exactly as bad as you thought it would go.

0:06:26 Tom: Why, just, why

0:06:32 Thomas: Used to have more sympathy for you in your mental state before I learned you were doing cia level experiments on your own psyche we

0:06:38 Eli: You got to do omega levels. My point

0:06:40 Tom: You, or alternately you don't, you

0:06:42 Thomas: Just did MK Ultra on opening arguments it's still happening didn't realize oh

0:06:47 Eli: Is I ate half a mushroom of chocolate bar and on the plane I created a document which is 14 pages of rip into it intros for our show now keep in mind these are mushroom ideas so they don't make sense yes no

0:07:01 Tom: None of them are coherent yeah right yeah

0:07:05 Thomas: Now it won't be good the fucking do them are you doing oh wait maybe that could be the after show oh

0:07:12 Eli: I'm doing one each week and when I reach the final one the final ones one I just call the bud Dwyer so you all have to keep listening for you so

0:07:21 Thomas: My god I

0:07:16 Tom: For the next 14 pages oh good yeah oh that's fun that's fun hey man nice shot fuck

0:07:30 Eli: It's okay. Here's the thing. We don't talk about the Bud Dwyer clip enough because we're cowards. We're afraid of the truth. We're scared of the reality. We're not afraid to be vulnerable with open hearts and minds. But the guy who shouts, it's okay, immediately after Bud Dwier shoots himself in the face, I that, want him in my life. That's the man I want leading me through life. The guy who's at a press conference where Bud Dwire shot himself and is like, I got it. We're good. But I've got this handled.

0:07:45 Thomas: Didn't know about that that is insane I don't remember that so I guess we're doing you dear old dads and the mates fear and loathing of Las Vegas aside.

0:08:08 Eli: Self -loathing.

0:08:08 Thomas: Yeah. I I want to talk about, I know if I can remember at this point, Tom, do you have any idea what we set out to do here?

0:08:10 Eli: -loating in Las Vegas. Because

0:08:15 Tom: I think we were doing, weren't

0:08:17 Thomas: Jesus. There's something about Vance.

0:08:18 Tom: We doing a tweet or something? I don't fucking

0:08:20 Thomas: Well, you know, so the right is going all in and I love this. And again, not, this isn't for the political point, but it is for the parenting point about it. But we've got to talk a little bit about, you Know, the political situation, the right. And I say the right. It's really just, you know, Vance.

0:08:20 Tom: Hell.

0:08:31 Eli: We try to remain politically neutral here on Dear Old Dads.

0:08:34 Tom: You can't tell, are you?

0:08:34 Thomas: I'm not going to do like a whole thing is all I'm saying. And I'm like, and

0:08:37 Eli: Hold who you vote for against you.

0:08:39 Thomas: I think it's really going to hurt his chances in Florida if you ask me. Like, I're not going do any of that is all. I'm sorry. I'm going to punditry.

0:08:41 Tom: What?

0:08:45 Eli: Guys seen that face? I'm sorry to just derail you. Have you seen that Facebook post that's like, don't let something as simple as politics break up you and your friends? Have you seeing that?

0:08:55 Tom: No. What?

0:08:56 Thomas: I know.

0:08:57 Eli: Seen like three of those posts And every time I'm like, I cannot imagine the mindset of a person who's like, I might not agree with this Adolf Hitler guy, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let me and my buddy Frank stop.

0:08:57 Thomas: It's so funny. Yeah. Let Let me help you, Eli. It's just people on the right? Right. It's people on the right or, you know, they say on dating apps, if men have like centrist, then that means right wing because they they want to still get laid. It's just that they're trying to do this like counter movement of like, well, what if we just agreed that my just disgusting views didn't have any impact on your perceptions of me? What if we juste agreed that? And I don't think there's many takers.

0:09:14 Eli: It's just Republicans. Yeah. Right. Please don't hold me responsible for the things I say and do.

0:09:35 Thomas: Things I say and believe and vote on. But

0:09:38 Tom: Make friends that have shared values. That's a stupid thing to align your friendships around. Yeah, right.

0:09:41 Thomas: Theyre Vance is going all in on the childless cat ladies thing which I just it's so funny I haven't gotten a chance to really talk about this on anything but how it'sso transparently sexist obviously but like their idea that the world he says the world is run like country the is run by childless cat ladies like know the whole thing how if in a meeting a woman talks for like like a minute. Everyone thinks that she talked for like four hours, you even had a female president yet. And like, they they're convinced that the world, the country, the whole thing is run by childless cat ladies somehow just because they exist or something. I don't even know what

0:10:14 Eli: Because it's actually run by needle-dicked white guys, and so we have to tell ourselves that it's run by women to justify our needle-dicked white guyism? Because that is also a part of it, right? You're at a buffet and you've been eating all the food on the buffet for 800 years, and then someone else picks up the ladle, you're like, Like, great, there's not going to be any food left for me.

0:10:40 Tom: Not for me.

0:10:40 Thomas: And so, you we do the thing where a lot of people sanitize it. Well, should childless people have a – it's going to impact the way they look at stuff and blah, blah, bla. I just wanted to talk about that a little bit and as it relates to this this other tweet I saw that went – was I think in kind of in response to it. It was semi -related that I found really interesting that I want to get you guys' take on.

0:11:04 Eli: Oh, you're going to get me in trouble, Thomas. You're going get me so much trouble.

0:11:07 Thomas: That so here it is it someone said and this went pretty viral so it resonated with a lot of people it makes me sad when people say you need to be a parent to find meaning in life not because strangers think my life is sad but because they have never felt meaning from something other than their own children in a world that offers an abundance of it if you're willing to look when someone tells me their life had no meaning until they had children it does not make me want to have a baby but rather makes me feel sad for them that they did not feel meaning before that. I wish everyone the amount of meaning I feel in my life as a childless person. This is not to say that having a child would not bring additional meaning into my life. If I got multiple goes at it, I might choose to be a biological mom in one of them. But in this version, I'm not worried about my life lacking meaning because I'm childless and neither should you.

0:11:51 Eli: We're standing at the precipice of two universes. I want you to know right now, there is a universe where I shut the fuck up right now in this moment and we don't get in trouble. And then there's a universe, where I say what I actually think about that tweet, where we get in. People, I want you to imagine a frozen world of people, hands above keyboards in the Facebook group, ready to deliver their anger. And then there's also one where I'm just like, yes, absolutely. Oh my gosh. So brave. So brave go top, go. They love you. They're going to love it

0:12:27 Tom: I don't know. Like, I feel like I genuinely.

0:12:30 Thomas: Tom, is the one who tweeted it. I didn't say that. It was Tom's tweet.

0:12:34 Tom: Know. I don't think Cecil has a less rich and meaningful life than I do. He seems to have a very I don't think he does like or yeah or like, you know, Sarah, like I don't think my life meaning will change once my kids grow up and I don't think my dad's like sense of meaning in his life is reduced because he and I don't spend as much time together as he did when he was raising me full time. I don't, think there's a lot of ways for people to find meaning. And I think it's, it is really fucked up and like cruel to suggest that the only way to have meaning in your life is to have children. Like it is certainly deeply meaningful to me. I mean, I've organized my entire life around having kids and taking care of kids and, you with somebody that, that, has kids and step parenting, those kids, like my whole life is around it. And, and every decision I make functions around that, but I don't think that my life would be less meaningful to me or

0:12:42 Thomas: Bad example. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah,

0:13:32 Tom: Less full or less rich. It would just be different.

0:13:33 Thomas: I I feel kind of centrist about this specific tweet, which is not a thing I normally am.

0:13:40 Eli: Want to get laid, but you don't want to.

0:13:43 Thomas: Yes. No, it's that I don't want anyone telling me what my meaning is either. So like if the complaint is that someone said their life was meaningless without kids for them. Well, yeah. Okay. But my life was, I don't consider it meaningful without kids. So that's me. So I'm allowed to have my thing. And if someone wants to say, well, that's not at all me. I don'T need kids to have meaning. A hundred percent. I don't have any judgment. We do this thing where people No one does this, and I get it, but no one does this with anything else. If one of these Olympians who does these weird fucking sports I've never heard of is like, hey, without badminton, my life is meaningless. There's not a bunch of like, how dare you suggest that because I don't play badminton, that I don't have meaning in my life. And I get It. It is a lot of societal pressure stuff, but it's not, in my opinion, it's not really different. And Like, if that guy were to say, you have to play badminton well your life right now it's meaningless without badminton man you haven't tasted the sweet smell of the shuttlecock in like or whatever you haven't had

0:14:41 Tom: All right. That's a different conversation.

0:14:42 Eli: That's how you end up with kids. It's the sweet smell of the shuttlecock, yeah.

0:14:43 Thomas: This the shuttle way of the shuttlecock is the only meaning in life there's that wouldn't be threatening to me I'd be like yeah cool man awesome that's other things that I do that's meaning but with kids you know and I think that's a combination of perhaps pressure, obviously. So it feels more like an accusation probably when it comes to something like kids because of people like J.D. Vance and that whole movement. I get it. 100%. There also might be some defensiveness there. I don't know. There might be something like, you know, like, I don't know. Some worry that like, what if that's actually right, though?

0:15:09 Eli: No, wait, sorry, Thomas, I just, I'm worried that people are going to interpret you wrong. You're saying that people without kids can be defensive about that choice? I've never met one of those people, so you might want to be on there. No, no, no. The childless people that I know have always been really, really chill about it. They do not mention it, and they definitely don't have dukes up.

0:15:30 Thomas: I want to just emphasize

0:15:31 Eli: So I mean I

0:15:31 Thomas: That Eli is on massive amounts of drugs right now. Mind altering drugs cannot be held responsible.

0:15:39 Tom: Feel like there's a huge difference, though, like that we got to acknowledge that like those attacks, for example, like the J.D. Vance attacks, those attacks only work because they tap into something that society does expect and enculturate. And 86 percent of women well last I looked it up have kids so overwhelmingly most so like I think that if you are on the outside of that for sure it's not just like oh these are both like equally 50 50 valid choices they're not because socially we don't validate the choice not to have kids because if we did then the attack on women that don't have kids wouldn't tap into anything that resonated with people it'd be weird to be like it'd like if somebody was like well I will only you know want a president that has you know enjoyed badminton everybody'd be like you're fucking crazy what does that have to do with anything it's because we only think of women as serving their biological imperative function and their social function when they have kids so I think there's a huge difference there that is just it'S it's just a straightforward truth that we do think socially less of people that can't have kids we just do otherwise the attacks would be just like a badminton attack it would be bizarre and nobody would would fall for it

0:16:51 Thomas: I want to be careful with the we. I do think this is a majorly polarized thing. Yeah, I think that on average, yes. But I also think that obviously this is a struggle of the right. Don't even consider personally like I honestly didn't remember that she didn't have kids. She has stepchildren. Of course, we could talk about that another time, too. But it's I don't care like it's also an attempt, by the way, it's thing if we were to treat it as sincere, it's not even sincere because really what what they're saying is you shouldn't be in politics. Get back in the kitchen. That's what they'RE saying. You know,

0:16:54 Tom: Culturally we culturally oh yeah yeah

0:17:21 Eli: Yeah it's it's about uh a woman for making the choice that we congratulate men for making he's

0:17:27 Tom: Up we only level that attack against women right we never say that a man who doesn't have children we never even point at that at all it's yeah. Yeah.

0:17:36 Eli: An eligible bachelor a man about town

0:17:39 Tom: Like, do, and we're not going to talk too much about the step parenting thing, like as like a whole episode right now, but it also really grates my nerves a lot to be like, Harris doesn't have kids. Yeah, she does have kids, she objectively has kids, step kids are kids, they are your kids, if they're not your kids then neither are adoptive kids, kids right

0:18:00 Thomas: There any distinction not to start an argument, but is there a distinction at the ages you, you know, become the step parent to them? You

0:18:07 Tom: I think the distinction that matters is less age and more involvement so like if I become a step parent to a teenage kid which which is when uh harris has became involved with her kids her loves them deeply she's involved in all aspects of their life they refer to her as mamala like there's a depth and richness richness.

0:18:25 Tom: Yeah. I love it. Right. There's a depth and a richness to that connection and to the obligations and to work that's done. That is just parenting. She That's is a parent. They are her kids, you know I'm sensitive to that as a step parent, but I also had step parents, you and I know how much I loved my step parents. I as fucked up as, as my stepfather was I fucking love my stepdad my step dad Gino I fucking loved that guy and I was heartbroken when I moved from Florida to Chicago and never saw him again even though he was a deeply problematic character in my life and like Lynn functioned in many ways like my stepmom and weird as our relationship was I genuinely love that woman I have an enormous amount of love And I know, like, Donovan and Aislinn, like love me. Right. And I love them. So it's parenting. I So it's also super fucked up and dismissive and dishonest to be like, yeah, she's not a parent. And it's like, oh, she is objectively apparent.

0:18:24 Thomas: That's fantastic. Yeah,

0:18:25 Eli: Mamala that's great yeah

0:18:35 Thomas: For sure. No, he should be. Yeah.

0:19:26 Eli: A horribly insulting thing it is too to talk about sort of that miracle of love right that two strange families can get together united by a relationship of two people and find that same family which has been you know canonized as this miraculous thing that only comes out when you front poop a person but that you can actually create that thing that you could that you kan in fact find family and the shitting on that not just just as a general idea, but the shitting on that by the family values party, right, is always what I find so fascinating because if you actually look at like what we consider to be real family's values, right? Which is loving people unequivocally and helping other people thrive and picking people up when they're down, The right definitions of family by everybody, right. The most hardcore core Republican when you say what family means, right? Unless they are very specifically lying to try to make it about an issue, right. You just sort of casually ask them what the important parts of family are, they're going to give you those answers. And yet the family values party is explicitly in favor of destroying those things.

0:20:40 Thomas: Yeah. And, and I know this is obvious, but it's, it's not the family values party. It's, it's the party of that wanting to women to stay at home. They, I think many of them would actually say, they would say, well, I care about with family is for one, not killing babies, you know, in the womb. And for two, a parent being able to stay at home and raise the kid. You got to raise, you got to actually raise the kids.

0:20:46 Tom: Exactly it. Yeah. Yep.

0:21:00 Eli: Boxers having XX chromosomes is what What I define as a family.

0:21:07 Tom: Yeah. I know we're not trying to get like all the way down that. But like, yeah, the goal, Thomas, is exactly what it has always been. Right. I mean that's like, all right, well, we're going to only validate one certain kind of family. And that is a family that produces biological offspring. And then we're, by the way, incidentally going to make it more difficult, if not impossible, for women to have access to contraception or to have access to abortive contraceptive. Contraception and then you know we're also going to like kind of nudge over here at no fault divorce and know where we're interested in how families function we really want you're interested making sure women aren't in the workforce competing against men that's what you're interesting and it's super obvious right

0:21:45 Eli: You're interested in women not being empowered because the minute a woman makes her own money, a minute a women can leave the house, you lose control over her. It's the abortion thing too, right? People pregnant is a great way to keep them subservient.

0:21:54 Tom: So but let's let's return to the meaning let's turn to the meaning tweet because I think that maybe it touched something for you guys that's different than what it touched for me. Because Eli, I think you respond. I know you're joking around, but for me, I don't find anything controversial about that. I feel like who am I to decide what's meaningful for other people? If somebody's like, hey, tell me the only way to be meaningful in my life or to have meaning socially in the world is to be a parent. And I think we do have that cultural message, right? I mean, like broadly, We, we, not everybody, but we broadly social, socioculturally, we have that message. It tells people, gosh, you, you know, you better have a family. And it is a super common refrain when people get married for the next question to be, when are you guys having kids? You as know, if like the only reason two people unite to love one another is to reproduce. So I think that that is embedded in so much of our language that it is difficult to tease out that expectation meaningfully. Yeah

0:22:32 Eli: For sure, yeah, right. Yeah, and I also think to be a little serious, I think that acknowledging the toxicity of the expectation might be more important than the philosophical truth of meaning, right? Because when I read that tweet, right, there are sort of two ways to read it. The generous way is to see someone who's pushed back against a really toxic narrative, right. That tells people the only way to have meaning in your life is to have kids. And, you implications of that for someone who might want kids who can't have kids, right? How poisonous that message is and how hopeful that tweet might be to someone who wanted kids and couldn't have them and now feels like their life is devoid of meaning and constantly has that message reinforced them by every Christmas movie and every romantic comedy and every this and every the right. The happy ending is the marriage and the kids. There is never a solo happy ending. And so in a serious way, I think it's important we push back against that message. I think that message is much more prevalent than the childless cat ladies that J .D. Vance imagines run our world. And so I think the tweet is very valuable in that way. What I will

0:24:22 Eli: Say that will get me in trouble, if someone said, I don't need to leave my house to have a meaningful life, I would say, I think we have different definitions of meaning, right? I think that would also assume things about their mental state and wellness, that they did not want to experience something that me and everybody else agreed was pretty important, right? Leaving your house is actually like pretty cash money and that you should do it, right Does that mean that there couldn't be a perfectly mentally healthy person who has an incredibly rich lived experience by never leaving their house? Of course not, right. Not here. I mean, One, it's impossible to give meaning to life or anything else,

0:24:22 Tom: Just say it my guy wow

0:25:16 Eli: But me and everybody else, the world at large, we sort of agree that leaving your house is pretty chill. It's pretty dope. It's Pretty Cash Money. So when someone says to me, when say you need to have kids to have meaning in life, if it makes me sad because I have this fully enlivened life, I would compare it to this. Loved my high school girlfriends. I did. I really did. I felt the emotion of love for them. Did not love them as much as I love my wife, right? Love that I have for my wife is more mature, more developed, more intense, more adult, felt and more significant in a way that I significance to a thing, right? Life with my son is significantly more meaningful than my life before my son. I did not feel that absence, know, right, I forget, I think it's Susan Sontag says falling in love is like finding a ballroom in your house, right.

0:26:23 Tom: I love that quote yeah

0:26:24 Eli: Think it's important to note that like the message that we send people is you're walking around missing a room in your house. And I think that's toxic and I think it's poisonous and I Think it's really mean spirited. Um, I, I think it necessarily negates the idea that I have found a higher form of meaning, a more important form of meaning uh that I have children and gotta say that like being forced to go for me at the end of that sentence feels weird it feels like I'm saying going outside of my house is good for me you know yeah

0:27:04 Tom: I get that look get that because I feel like all jokes aside like I feel very similarly like I can't imagine I mean I've oriented the entirety of my life around my kids there they are the thing that is the the anchor spot like the reason I I look around like the, the house I'm in now, I only own because I have kids like my entire career. I only kept myself within this career because I had kids that needed to be taken care of. I, understand like the a sense of like and dignity and integrity and sacrifice that I don't know how I would feel those same things if I didn't have kids. Sort of move me along that path but I sort of recognize that like yeah but I maybe I would like I feel the things I feel because I live through them so

0:27:53 Thomas: You don't know what, yeah, exactly. You don't what it would feel like to not.

0:27:56 Tom: That's not like for me I'm like is it a meaningful comparison to be like these things felt the best for me and so they will also feel the best für you like or or that these things like provide context or anchor spots or meaning or like and so that that's the way that you're are going to find that too. I don't know. I contrast that with, and I know this is a weak contrast. I recognize that, but I contrasted that with the repetitive studies that show that people who are child -free are happier. Studies are multicultural and repetitive and they're clear. So I'm like, I don' t know. Like I'm not going to tell those people that their lives are less meaningful.

0:28:34 Eli: I mean they're way happier than me there's no there's no doubt that they're hashtag

0:28:37 Thomas: Happiness and meaning, not necessarily synonyms. I think that, yeah

0:28:38 Tom: And I said, well, it's a weak comparison, but I think there's a correlation there. Like, I think you'd be hard pressed to say that you a had life had a meaningful that was happy but not meaningful I can't imagine how you could square that circle really

0:28:48 Thomas: I think, I think I think pretty easy. I, I think that it, yeah I really think it depends on what you mean by meaning. I mean maybe you struggled for a cause all your life and you felt that, yeah, it would.

0:28:51 Tom: But wouldn't that make you unhappy yeah so

0:29:00 Thomas: So I think you'd be unhappy but you'd have great meaning. Oh,

0:29:01 Tom: So you oh yeah no but I'm saying like the opposite is not true right it doesn't reverse itself so you couldn't be happy and find that you did not have meaning in your life

0:29:13 Thomas: I thought that was the easy side of the equation. So yeah, I I think you could just literally live a life of leisure and, you know, a fig life. Hashtag fig life, fornicating, you totally vapid, whatever.

0:29:21 Eli: Fake life yeah

0:29:25 Tom: If you felt like something was missing, then

0:29:26 Thomas: And then you wouldn't, yeah, you would be very happy. Oh, you're saying the minute you recognize you didn't have meaning, you'd be unhappy or something? Is that what just, maybe?

0:29:32 Tom: You'd be unhappy. Of course. Yeah. So you couldn't, right? Like, cause of course you couldn'T, you could not be like, I'm very happy, but my life has no meaning.

0:29:36 Thomas: I don't know. I'm not sure. Yeah, is that true? No, okay. No, hold on. I think he could, because again, the point I wanted to jump in and make is that, you You know, I think I think there are some philosophical points to be made here. For one, I do think meaning there is no meaning, I think, in any broader sense. So it is self -made and it definitely has to be meaning for me. But so by that token, I think you could be someone who thought there just is no meaning to the world of the universe or anything. And so therefore didn't miss like could say, yeah, my life has no meaning. Don't care. Had a great time. Did drugs. Big life. I think you'd be happy and not care about meaning. I think that's absolutely possible.

0:30:13 Eli: Getting into plato's cave right like the part of that that people miss right because they're so busy being so excited that they are the one they've left the cave is that he comes back and he's like you're in a cave and they're they're like, fuck you. I love those shadow puppets.

0:30:28 Thomas: Cave has Nintendo. So, yeah. Another point that came to my mind. Well, while Eli was talking, which is I can't think of anyone I'd rather argue with less to be a parent or something than someone who says, like, I I wouldn't find it more meaningful to have kids. It's, you know, it's like, cool. Then I guess you wouldn't, yeah. Like if, if someone told me, I don't want kids. For I whatever reason, I don't think it'll be meaningful. I'm not going to tell them all then you're missing out because I bet they're the kind of person who maybe they don't find that meaning, or maybe they would be some of the people who we've heard from who had kids and actually regret it. And they feel like they can't tell anybody about it. If, and in that sense, they're they can be the only ones who are right about them. I can't go and tell them they're wrong about themselves.

0:31:09 Eli: Look, you put it so well and you actually put it in a way that is so smart that that I'm feeling, but not put like an asshole. Which if you want to put that on your cards, the thing Eli is thinking, but not an asshole, you're welcome to it. Because what I think you're getting at there is you are not telling the person they are broken because they don't want what you want. And I think that's the toxic thing. Right? So like, I've talked about this before. I've used this as an example. Like I'd very recently did not understand asexuality. Like, I just hadn't done my research.

0:31:42 Thomas: I was going to bring that up too. Yeah, that's a great

0:31:44 Eli: Church.

0:31:44 Thomas: Example.

0:31:44 Eli: Yeah. And so I was like, oh, asexual people must be mentally ill. Right. And it's just one of those like shitty, casual douche bro things that you think because you've never questioned your beliefs. And I remember someone brought up asexually. I think we have a friend who was, oh you know what it is? We have an ace patron who uses it in their patron name.

0:32:04 Eli: And I was, like, yeah, I've been carrying around like that shitty idea. I bet I'm wrong about that. And so like, again, I do, I'm not Richard Dawkins, right? I wasn't tweeting, you know, the need to finally be put into the camps. Now they will finally learn another character without a love interest in a movie. When will the PC wars end? But so I did my research and I understood that that's just experience an that some people don't need in their lives and that it's not caused by trauma and it's não é causado por doença mental. It is just a different way of being, right? Is a different identification than my own, even though I can't fathom it. And I think that it kind of strikes similar chords, right? Which is that, like, I can't imagine being an ace person. I can imagine being asexual or aromantic. I can't imagine removing that from my life. I think it's okay for me to say I can't imagine that for me. I think It's awful to say you are broken because you don't want that. There's something wrong with you to

0:33:03 Thomas: There's no contradiction there. That's what that's why I said it was kind of centrist -y because but it's actually how I feel because talk about I was gonna bring up the asexual thing too or or whatever which is not something I know that much about but if If someone were to say, like, I don't ever need, and I know there are people like this, I don't never need a romantic partner. It think that's why ultimately maybe I disagree, maybe I do disagree with the tweet a little bit because I will both be 100 % sure, hey, that's wrong for me. There's no other world in which I just go without Lydia and then I find equal meaning. I don't think that exists. But

0:33:05 Tom: I agree with that completely. Yeah oh

0:33:08 Eli: Maybe

0:33:36 Tom: Yeah right.

0:33:36 Thomas: I also don't think that their meaning doesn't exist, because for whatever reason, talk about asexuality, there's nothing I could could relate to less. I truly could not relate to anything less.

0:33:47 Tom: So I guess I I don't understand because I agree completely, but I don't understand then what part of the tweet you disagree with. Because the tweet is entirely descriptive, not proscriptive. So I'm trying to understand what part of the tweet.

0:34:00 Eli: So I disagree I think it is prescriptive

0:34:01 Thomas: The think it's a little bit. So there's a solid sense in which they're saying anyone who would that their life had no meaning with kids was missing something, some ability to find meaning that this person actually has. So she says, when somebody tells me their life had no meaning until they had children, it doesn't make me want to have a baby, but rather makes me feel sad for them that they did not feel meaning before that. So I think that I would

0:34:24 Tom: So wait a minute. So so can I can I want to pause real quick? Because did you feel like before you had kids, your life did not have meaning? Not that your life became more meaningful, but I am curious. Curious, did you feel like your life did not have meaning before you had kids?

0:34:43 Eli: I feel like my life was very meaningful before I had kids but I I compare how I felt so that again this is why I think the tweet's prescriptive is I compare how I feel about the meaning in my life before I have kids to my high school relationships right was in love with my high school girlfriend, and now I have found a new, higher version of love. I had a life full of meaning before I had kids, and again, I really hate having to say for me, but for me I have now found a much higher sense of meaning now that I've had kids.

0:35:20 Thomas: I do want to say Tom also this, the beginning of the tweet does say because they have never felt meaning from something other than their own children in a world that offers an abundance of it. If you're willing to look. So that's suggesting that those people were missing an ability. They were not willing to look for meaning.

0:35:36 Tom: I agree with that because I think what it is describing, well, at least I agree to it a to point. I think what it's describing is an issue of, hey, there are people who are saying something which is fundamentally different than what Eli and you are saying. And I think it's the important distinction which is there are people are saying my life had no meaning not more meaning different but my life has no meaning before I had kids and now it does and yes I think if you said my life hadn't well because it's binary it's it's saying when I asked you like there people going around for 27 28 20 and 30 years of their life they have no meaning in their life at all. That is sad. That is something to say like, wow, that sucks. Like that is a that sucks for somebody.

0:36:00 Thomas: So you think that's an invalid thing to say? Why? So there's two different things that are sad. Are you sad that they didn't have kids in the same way that you would be sad for someone who says, I really want to have a kid, turns out I can't. You're sad because they can't have kids or you're sad because they can't find meaning without kids.

0:36:31 Tom: I be sad that somebody can't find meaning without kids.

0:36:34 Thomas: Yeah, so that is a judgmental thing. So you could be right in that opinion, but that is not a neutral thing to say. So my point has been that these values are for the person to decide. And just as someone can decide that they don't need kids to have meaning, someone could decide that they have to have kids to having meaning. Those, to me, are equal choices. Now, this tweet and what you're saying is that that's not a choice someone can make without.

0:36:40 Tom: No, no it's not. Yeah. Oof. Yeah, I think that's deeply unhealthy. I I think you can have more meaning in your life because of your kids and that's great. That would be awesome, right? If the only only way for you to have meaning in your life is kids, then that is a deeply unhealthy way to live your life. Because what if you decide, what if the only way you were going to have, find meaning in your life was to have kids and then you can't, or the only Way for you To have meaning In your life was kids. And it's the only thing that can you figure out that would bring you meaning. And then something, God forbid happens. And one of your kids passes away or you have kids. And then the kids leave and you guys don't have a good relationship like that's a really unhealthy take on life like life should be meaning in your life in order to be healthy it can have parts of your life that are more but like to have it be exclusive the only way for me to have meaning as kids is like god what a dangerous space emotionally for you to live in and like what did you do for the first two and a half decades or whatever of your life just live in a fucking meaningless vacuum I

0:37:17 Thomas: Yeah, that would suck.

0:37:59 Eli: Think I would feel that that was unhealthy about any single meaning attributed

0:38:05 Tom: Same

0:38:06 Eli: To life right I don't I parenting different than someone who would say I want to be an actor and if I don't make it as an actor my life is without meaning right would think that was the same kind of unhealthy as someone who said I want want to be a parent. Um, my life, without being a parent was meaningless. Here's what I would say. And maybe I'm being overly generous because I identify with it. I think when people say my life was meaningless until I had kids, they mean it in the way we say I wasn't really in love until I was in love with my wife. Right? Way that I can acknowledge that I felt a certain kind of love in those high school relationships and that that love is valid and real while still being a lesser love, I would guess that is what people mean by my life didn't have meaning until I had kids. Not I lived a conscious experience of meaninglessness but that now looking back that I have found this meaning in my life I identify the life before that right as meaningless yeah and

0:39:10 Thomas: You can't imagine it going back, essentially.

0:39:13 Tom: I agree with that completely like I'm right there with you on that like that is an analogy that works for me completely I get that yeah yeah

0:39:19 Eli: What that tweet seems to prescribe that there is something wrong or incorrect by that attribution of meaning.

0:39:30 Thomas: Yeah. And that's what Tom's saying, too. Too. I think he's happy to claim that view. And I'm just saying, logically speaking, you can claim that view, I can't really disagree with you. But But the tweet is not neutral. It is making that claim is all I'm saying. So like, if somebody is on their deathbed, and they're like, I was just never able to find anything that had meaning. Wasn't kids, I wasn't able to have kids, I tried and I just felt that the only thing that would give me mean was kids was never able to do it. There's not really a sense in which there's any point in telling them like, Oh, Oh, try harder. It's like that might just be how they are. I'm not going to argue with how they are.

0:40:05 Thomas: Yeah. And the way the tweet puts it is that if willing to look. And that I take a little bit of issue with because, hey, there are depressed people. There are people who like if someone just told me to like be happier or find more meaning out of stuff, it doesn't work. Like I can't really do it. I think that things are something, a lot of things that people find meaningful, I didn't for the longest time. And now Now I do, and I don't know why. It might just be the kids or it might be getting more mentally healthy as well. But it's not a question of just being willing to look. That's the thing that I take a little bit of exception to in it.

0:40:04 Tom: For sure yeah yeah true yeah yeah I think that's judgy language for sure I I agree with that I think that that's judgy language I guess I since I have so many people in my life that are child free I most of my friends don't have kids and by a lot so most of my friends don't and I look at them and and I know them very deeply as people and it's not like I mean it's not one or two or three couples it's like these are like really deeply deeply happy, invested, engaged, healthy people with, varied with interests and exciting lives that they seem to love. And it would be weird for me to be like, yeah, but I mean, you're kind of, you don't get it.

0:41:01 Thomas: Me too. Yeah, no, that is, we are agreed there. Yeah, sure.

0:41:20 Tom: Yeah, no, I know. I'm not disagreeing. I'm just sort of framing something differently. I think culturally we are telling those those people yeah but you don't get it you know like because I mean you're on the outside you're the first of all you're a tiny fractional percentage almost everybody has kids so you kind of don't count and like you don'T really get it right missing out you're messing out and I think I think there's a lot of pushback that feels very reasonable from people saying like hey don't discount my life just because I don't have that same thing and romantic example is a great example. Like are people I know that, just that have never fallen in love at the depth that I feel like I have. And I'm like, God, I would never fucking go back. I would Never want to live my life without what I have without this feeling that I have, but I also know like, it's not like I was a miserable, unhappy person before who lived a meaningless life. You know what I mean? I just just have more now, like a lot more, but I have more. Now I worry that culturally we tell people that they don't have anything that matters rather than they could have something different that matters. Do you know what I mean? Like there's a, there's a big cultural narrative

0:42:25 Tom: That feels really unfair.

0:42:28 Eli: About getting in trouble is because it's so impossible to extract the conversation from the toxic message.

0:42:34 Tom: Right. Cause know, like the whole idea that Harris is a, is a cat like that message plays to a significant significant number of people doesn't play to everybody, but it plays to a certain number of people because there is a significant number of people is like, yeah, the like for women to exist is to have kids. That's that's why you're here, you know, is to Have kids and it's like wow, geez, right?

0:42:54 Thomas: They are idiots because they don't care that the other side is thrice a guy, divorced guy who cheated on his pregnant wife with a porn star. They don't actually care.

0:42:59 Tom: There's no honesty there.

0:42:59 Eli: Obviously. Yeah.

0:43:00 Thomas: Yeah. It's just, it's just misogyny.

0:43:02 Tom: Yeah. It's get me wrong. It's not an honest position, but it's still a sociocultural position that I think child free people have to like live within as this, as tiny minority. And I do think it's fair to push on it.

0:43:14 Eli: And a lot of republican platform points are that right which is like a here's the thing you're probably a little uncomfortable with and don't understand it's bad and you're like oh great it's bad chill oh I was worried for a second I might have to learn and change and grow but uh no jd vance told me it's bad so I I hate it now I actually hate it so so much easier than I made me uncomfortable because I recognized recognized myself in it as a sort of cultural mirror. And that was uncomfortable. So yeah, all the better.

0:43:30 Thomas: Man.

0:43:52 Eli: All right, gentlemen, before we go, I don't know if you know this, but my penis is in the Guinness Book of World Records. And after I take it out, it's going to be in Jane Eyre.

0:44:09 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

0:44:49 Eli: There is never a solo happy ending. And

0:44:51 Thomas: You haven't tasted the sweet smell of the shuttlecock in