DOD151: We Love Some BDE - Big Dad Energy

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's bringing the Big Dad energy to Dear Old Dads. Nope, that was terrible.

0:00:34 Eli: What?

0:00:34 Tom: I tried to riff it and it didn't work.

0:00:35 Eli: No, keep it! Keep it! Thomas, hello!

0:00:36 Tom: Nope. Nope. Nope!

0:00:37 Eli: And I'm Eli Bosnick and this is Thomas Smith!

0:00:37 Thomas: Rip, rip out of it.

0:00:38 Tom: Nope! God damn it! We're just, I tried not to write the intro. I had a thought, this is what happens when I'm in a rush. All right, skip. No intro.

0:00:45 Thomas: Be in the end. Wow, wow. You tried

0:00:48 Tom: You know what's worse than a bad intro?

0:00:48 Thomas: To like yes -and yourself into an intro.

0:00:51 Tom: Fuck. Shit. God damnit.

0:00:51 Eli: I think

0:00:52 Thomas: Welcome to the podcast, yes -an, yes and, yeah.

0:00:54 Eli: Think he would have been caught in an infinite loop if we hadn't interrupted him.

0:00:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:00:58 Tom: No, I

0:00:59 Eli: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the Dear Old DADS, the DEAR OLD DAAAADS!

0:01:03 Tom: Dads are God damn it. I was Tim Walz that dug him off. Shit.

0:01:09 Eli: Good man.

0:01:10 Tom: God damn it.

0:01:11 Thomas: Old dads, where a dad is like a deer in the headlights trying to come up with...

0:01:17 Tom: Okay, that was better than what I did. God dammit.

0:01:17 Eli: Shot by Tim Walls, and the rest is so

0:01:21 Tom: Son of a bitch.

0:01:22 Thomas: Dude, dude, we gotta talk about how what's-his-name killed a bear and then tried to make up an insane lie about it. Does that have anything to do with what we're talking about today?

0:01:29 Eli: Good.

0:01:30 Tom: F.

0:01:30 Thomas: Because it's just so funny. It's just so fucking funny. Do watch that guy and just think, man, Cheryl Hines, is it? Yeah, she's, you know, she's cute, she's, she's successful. Do you ever think, what is she thinking right now, like

0:01:30 Tom: Kennedy Jr. Oh my god.

0:01:30 Eli: Yep, so good.

0:01:43 Eli: Was like, I'm gonna marry a Kennedy. Yeah. She was, like, oh, a Kennedy is free. Huzzah. Oh, it's even the one, it's the son of the really good speaker who was the brother of the president. I bet he's just like his dad. And then she was ,like, oh no, it's one of those things you buy from the arcade that you flip over and goes, eww. Eww. Eww, eww, ew. Heh

0:01:45 Thomas: Yeah.

0:01:45 Tom: Yeah.

0:02:05 Tom: An interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. where Cheryl Hines was like in and out of the interview, and I get an impression that, like, yeah, cute is not exclusive of fucking crazy. Like, that is something that is absolutely True. Like, she is, I

0:02:16 Thomas: Of course wow.

0:02:16 Eli: Heh heh. Sometimes when I write a sketch sketch where Cecil is screaming in the background I'll just write like asterisk screaming asterisks to indicate that I need him far from the mic and screaming that's what I imagine being in the margins of that interview just Cheryl screaming in The Bank I wanted a Kennedy hell

0:02:31 Tom: Mean it was an extended interview about their emus. It was bizarre. It was utterly, utterly bizarre. So

0:02:41 Eli: Yeah but Gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than hoping to marry a Kennedy and being married to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? Why? It's the auto ads. Yes, the auto ads, the anti-vaccine family member of the podcasting experience. But you can send those things into third party media irrelevance by heading over to patreon.com/dearolddads. We're happy to say, I know those of you tuned in last week. Unfortunately, and obviously put the hotline on the podcast. Jack Jack, unfortunately, um, shoved himself up his ass to death. Um, and so they won't be doing that change, uh, that we talked about. Yes.

0:03:22 Eli: Thank you. Please keep that up. Um. So all nothing but love to Jack's hat collection. Um... There is a GoFundMe in the show notes to get those fedoras placed on the head of date rapists across America. Yeah. Um.. But you can give us as little as a dollar over at patreon.com/dearolddads. So get an extended commercial-free version of every episode. And my friends, last week, the parenting story that we got from Tom about the beacon of positive masculinity, the radiance of friendship and allyship that he has raised in his home, worth the whole damn kitten capoodle. Check it out over at patreon.com/dearolddads. Rip into it. Oh,

0:03:18 Thomas: I will remember you yeah

0:04:16 Tom: Do think we have to talk about this fucking big dad energy moment that is like, like infusing American politics right now, the Tim Walz, Doug Emhoff, just wonderfulness of it all? Have you guys seen all the, like, you, Tim Walz backs into his parking spaces. Tim Walz measures twice cuts once. Like at all this, this stuff, all this, like, Tim Walz stuff. And this is like a quintessential guy's guy, like a, like a quintessential, like, man's man in all the ways I think that that remind me of the kinds of masculinity that I think the three of us value, with, like, none of the lack of empathy and cruelty and indifference and, like, uh, that that is oftentimes, like, valued on the right and on the other side of this sort of, like, political spectrum

0:04:34 Thomas: He

0:04:36 Eli: Yeah yeah

0:05:11 Thomas: Was created in a Dear Old Dad's laboratory of, like he's perfect I love him

0:05:15 Tom: It feels like it, right? That's

0:05:15 Eli: Truly yes I uh saw a quote which I have thought about a billion times a day since I saw it, which is that Tim Walz is the dad that Fox News stole from the the country, right dad who got fucking turned into a slobbering mean-spirited racist idiot by Rush Limbaugh uh, should have just been Tim Walz. That's Tim Walz, right? Tim Walz is just the guy who, like, was middle of the road. And I also think this, like, I think Tim Walz feels the way most Americans feel, especially if they haven't been brainwashed by the social internet, right? Like, I think Tim Walz is where, I think, if you're gay and you want to marry another fellow, well, you know, I might not want to marry you because I'll never look that good, but I, I don't want to do any planks, so

0:05:28 Tom: So good. Yes.

0:05:37 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah

0:06:05 Eli: That's why I'm not gay, right? Like, they're just they just want people to be well, and when their vegetarian daughter says they're vegetarian, they're like, you can have turkey, right? They are harmless in their sweetness, and I, and I think that, again, one of the reasons we started this show is that masculinity has been so poisoned. And I think that Tim Walz just demonstrates the positive way that masculinity can actually present itself.

0:06:07 Thomas: You know Our guest on OA on Monday's show had a really nice quote that stuck with me, where she said, like, he's utterly unintimidated by a changing world, and I was like, that's so, yes, exactly. Like, all these fucking terrified little, you weak, cowardly-ass men like Vance and Trump, there's, it's such weakness. That's what's so frustrating, is, like, it's not even a manly thing. It's just weakness and overcompensating for it is, being mad and being heartless. It's weakness, and being cruel is, is and is looked at as, like, oh wow, he's a man. He's a macho. But, like, what Tim Walz is doing is, is my idea, if any such thing needs to exist, of what a dude should be. That's, that's masculinity, like, again, unconcerned with a changing world, because that's, like, let's be real that's where the reactionary politics comes from. It's the entire thing.

0:06:54 Tom: It's not Yeah.

0:07:16 Tom: Yeah

0:07:21 Eli: Like, also point out the bar is so low, right? Tim Walz isn't like, well, after I got my 17th doctorate from Harvard, he's just like, Like, I think if you spend most of your time thinking about which children with which genitals should go to the bathroom, that's a little weird. That's the bar.

0:07:23 Thomas: Yeah it is

0:07:25 Tom: Yeah

0:07:39 Thomas: Yeah yeah.

0:07:40 Eli: That's what's expected of men, not just to be like good men, but to be great men, to be great men who represent us nationally. You have to be, like, I think you should talk about children's genitals less.

0:07:41 Thomas: Yeah if

0:07:53 Tom: Well So much of, like, the, the, like, out there about masculinity that have kind of become part of the social internet, they are this, like, performance, performance of masculinity for other men. They have no, they prescriptive value other than, like, perform this for other women, like, here's, be how to get you men's approval.

0:08:13 Thomas: We all do this, then none of us have to do anything. Like, if we all act like this, then one no can make us be considerate for a moment. Yeah.

0:08:21 Tom: It is focused so much on, like, what they find threatening rather than any positive, like, values toward, you know, actually building, creating, supporting, empathizing. That's this, like, really beautiful service- and family-driven version of masculinity that I think I see so much in my dad that I've always admired. Like, jokes aside, like, my dad is a service- and Family Driven person, the meaning that he finds from his life is but It's about being of service to other people. Like, my dad would never be, like, late somewhere. My

0:08:25 Thomas: It's allowing people to cut off his son's ears that's, yeah what to the ear chopping off ceremony

0:09:00 Eli: Listen

0:09:00 Tom: He would never like give unsolicited advice or like be judgmental about other people's lives.

0:09:05 Eli: To his son's podcast.

0:09:06 Tom: Like what? He's not perfect. Right. But like he is service driven. Like his life is a, is a service and family oriented life. And I think that that's this view that is getting lost in the social Internet about externalizing how we externalize our masculinity. It's become this horrible, toxic externalization to sort of like upstream against feminists, you know, and like more plates, more dates, like all this kind of like really hyper aggressive, not at all appealing version of masculinity. There's this great quote from like this WAPO article that I read that I'll summarize. It said something like this is a version of masculinity that women would run into a burning building for.

0:09:04 Thomas: Also

0:09:28 Eli: Mm -hmm. Right.

0:09:50 Tom: This is what's actually really appealing, not just to other men, but to women, which is a lot of what the performance of masculinity is for it when it's performative. And so it's really funny to me. And I think it's like really worth noting that like this performance of masculinity that Tim Walls is embodying is actually far more attractive than the sort of Tate-level performance that's being sold to young men.

0:10:17 Eli: I I was just going to say Andrew Tate. Yeah.

0:10:19 Tom: Right. Right?

0:10:21 Thomas: Like the way Tom said WAPO, I thought it was a slur for a good 20 seconds, so I I was like, oof, this WAPO article.

0:10:25 Eli: Well, you know, give it a second. Maybe we'll find out. Yeah.

0:10:28 Tom: Thing? Do we not call it WAPO?

0:10:29 Thomas: Fucking

0:10:32 Tom: I think just that that contrast is just really important. The kids on the social internet, they're seeing this version of masculinity embodied in these Tates and these Rogans and these other assholes.

0:10:42 Thomas: Tate's.

0:10:43 Tom: That's not what people want. Not what women are asking for. Women are asking from more Tim Walls. Look at the response. If you want to know how to get laid, look at the response from women for Tim Walls for

0:10:44 Eli: Yes. And

0:10:54 Thomas: Oh, he's fucking so many chicks right now, that Tim Wallace. He's a...

0:10:57 Tom: Real

0:10:56 Eli: Oh, he's just slaying it. Yeah. But yes.

0:10:58 Tom: Like and isn't that what a lot of this performance is around, like, it is when it's performative around this idea yeah

0:11:04 Eli: And I think it sort of is the porn star effect, right? Is a social agreement that men want blonde, like, hair and quadruple Double D boobs and a tiny waist and big plumped-up lips because that's what porn stars have, right, generally speaking. And obviously, I'm speaking generalizations because that is what culture does.

0:11:13 Thomas: Oh, God.

0:11:26 Thomas: Stars have, which is kind of the same thing now.

0:11:28 Eli: Right, exactly. Right, these ideas. And there are women who sell other women this idea that, hey, I am close to this thing or I am this thing that your husband, that your boyfriend, that you son, that brother wants.

Right, and if you want to be desired, you need to be like me, right? And I think as a culture we've gotten better, though certainly not good, at recognizing and addressing that, right? I think the male version of that is the Andrew Tates, right, who are like, women want 19-pack abs and they want you to be ready to fly into a murderous rage at a moment's notice, right? But But because men are so unreflective, right, because men are so unselfaware that when those conversations about body positivity try to happen in men's spaces, right?

Shut ourselves down, right. In the same way that we saw, like, a lot of the toxic fat shaming in, like, the eighties and nineties, and then obviously still today as well, but, like, with less of a response than it had. And so it's interesting to watch these two or this case of Walls, just the one example of positive masculinity and positive response to it, because I think it does trickle down.

I think it does trickle down in a positive way that will inform young men they can be kind and caring about the people they love and the less protected in society without losing this sense of manhood.

0:11:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:11:29 Tom: Tomato tomato

0:13:01 Thomas: Yeah. It's really interesting. If you think about, like, for two seconds, you think about Andrew Tate or whatever his name, and you think think about, uh, Walz, and so clear for one is a real man and one is not, because, like, just imagine, like, okay, those two guys meet and we're gonna have, like, a man on, we're gonna have that typical, like, they're staring each other down, they're they're going to have some some, like, sort of measuring contest, you know, and then you think, like, what's that gonna mean, I mean, short of, like, I don't know, fighting, what what is Andrew Tate gonna do that Tim Walz can't? Tim Walz will fix your car, he'll have repaired every door in your house He's got WD-40, he's got a special, um, a holster for it that he carries around all the time, you know, and it's like, and in anything that you would need in your real life and any reason you would think, hey, I sure wish I had, like, a you type person, like a typical masculine figure in my life, for anything you'd really need them for, like, he's just the best.

0:13:33 Tom: Yeah.

0:13:51 Eli: There are a hundred reasons to have Tim Walls in your life. There are zero reasons to Have Andrew Tate in your Life. Unless you're like, I gotta get rid of this hornet's nest, but I want them to take someone with them when they go, right? Like, I would use him, you know, to dry up toxic waste, maybe, or if I had a bunch of poison I needed eaten.

0:13:55 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. No. That's fair Yeah. Yeah. Like you just did an oil change and you're like, ah, we're not allowed to, like, throw this in the trash, but

0:14:12 Eli: Right, yeah, he's, that, can I throw it into an Andrew Tate? And he'd be like, oh, rub it all over my body, and then move to Lithuania, and I'd be, like, yeah! Go ahead, do that! But and I think it's so funny that we we feel the needs to caveat, except if it were a fight, because Tim Walz is never gonna fucking fight Andrew Tate, Andrew Tate orders his third drink at the bar and Tim Walz is like, that guy's gonna try and fucking fight someone in a bit, I'm gonna leave, don't, the do hon, I'm on my way home, oh did I have fun, I had a great time, me and the boys were talking in there, and Andrew Tate's just getting beaten to death by a cop on the front step of the TGI Friday's where he started started a fight,

0:14:15 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. No.

0:14:48 Eli: Right? No universe where Andrew Tate is useful to anybody except Andrew Tates mental illness, right. That is the only person who wants more Andrew T. It's Andrew Tate's psychosis.

0:14:52 Thomas: Yeah. He's not useful. Yeah. I never

0:15:00 Eli: And again, the reason we are sold Andrew Tate is because Andrew Tate is the version of masculinity you can buy. You can buy a gym membership. You You can buy a fancy haircut. You can Buy Oil to smoosh all over your abs.

0:15:01 Thomas: Thought about that. You can buy your way out of those rape charges.

0:15:16 Eli: Buy your way, well, it turns out not so much, but you can buy your a lawyer to move you to Lithuania or whatever it is, right? But you have to earn the Tim Walls, right, you have be there, you have show up for people, you have care genuinely, you to have something to say. And Andrew Tate will never have that. Comes down to Andrew Tate tomorrow, and it's like, Andrew, you're a douche. Change your ways and try to be as much like Tim Walz as possible. He physically will never be able to do it. He does not have the things inside capable of it, which is why he has to constantly be selling his version of masculinity to everyone else. Because if you aren't selling it, if you weren't constantly pitching, That commercial capitalistic version of masculinity, people recognize it as worthless, which is the thing you're most afraid of being.

0:15:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:15:41 Tom: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:16:17 Tom: The Fucking 100, all of that, Eli, and the other things that this this brand of particularly toxic and violent masculinity does is, once you've believed in and created yourself as a solution for a violent and conflict world, when that's the world that you have been training for and sold yourself and all your buddies have sold each other on, what you're going to do is look for and create conflict. So you're creating a more violent space so that that your tools will be useful, right?

0:16:46 Eli: Yeah, of course.

0:16:47 Thomas: Right.

0:16:48 Tom: You're not going to say, these are the things I value about myself as a man and then live an entire life where none of those things actually come in handy. What you will do instead is create an environment around you where those tools, those tools of violence and aggression, are at least in your own mind useful. So you'll actually create a more violent world and create violent situations situations because, like, that's the only tools in your toolbox and you don't want to walk around being like, did I waste my whole life, like the whole thing

0:17:20 Eli: Yeah.

0:17:20 Thomas: That's really interesting insight. I wouldn't give him credit enough to be doing that intentionally, but I feel like unintentionally

0:17:21 Tom: No. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's entirely unintentional, and then you compare that to, like, again, what I feel like is this service-driven mindset around masculinity where it's like, well, how can I be useful to others, like, how How can I be competent and useful to others? And how can I have service to the people that I love? And how could I extend that idea of loving service into the world in ways that, like, my values and in ways reflect my competencies? That is, like, so much of what I see reflected in that sort of Tim Walz ask stereotype, you know, or or prototype, rather.

0:17:26 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:18:03 Tom: And it's so much better. It's so much better!

0:18:04 Thomas: I was gonna say Yeah. And you also look look at the things, I don't consume any of this stuff, but I just absorb enough of it from you and whatnot, but you see all the things those taint taints care about, and they'll be like, does your girl have a, you're a cock if she's got a big body count and she gets, it's all stuff that if you peel it back for two seconds, which these guys never do, it's all insecurity. Why why why all worried about, like, that, the purity of the girl, that's the whatever, that's just insecure. You're worried that if a woman has ever found pleasure in another man, that's a threat to, like, your entire ego as a person. It's all so weak and frail and fragile, the opposite of what you would think masculinity should be.

0:18:46 Tom: And again, I think that goes back to the idea of focusing on building a masculinity based on threats and what we find threatening and what we find, like, we're insecure about and trying to change the world to fix our insecurities rather than fix our insecurities in ourselves. Like, there's this idea that, like, if I'm insecure about something, that is something you have to fix about yourself, your life, society, an entire gender, whatever, rather than being like, hey, I'm just insecure about that, and that's part of the human condition is to not be perfectly secure, and I have work to do that that side of the aisle, that side of the world, I should say, like, that idea, like, it's got no solutions. There's no solutions there. Yeah.

0:18:52 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I

0:19:02 Eli: Mm -hmm.

0:19:30 Eli: Think it can't be, right? Because I think deep down, people like Andrew Tate know they're not capable of being a Walz, right. I know as a humanist, I'm supposed to think that, like, you know, given the right circumstances and maybe right. Like, I would love to be proven wrong about that. But I think that people like Andrew Tate and Donald Trump are so far gone down a version of poison that all they can do is poison the pool around them and hope no one notices we shouldn't be swimming in poison. 100

0:19:40 Tom: Yeah.

0:20:05 Tom: And there's also a a total unwillingness, I think, reflected in that to ever experience vulnerability of any kind. I, you look at somebody like Tim Walz or Doug Emhoff, and you see people that are very demonstrably okay with feeling things and being vulnerable. And I think You look at the stated goals of this sort of Tate-esque model of masculinity, and it's like there's vulnerability available to those men. So if you buy into that worldview, you, buy into a worldview that I think just necessarily is lonelier, necessarily lacks love and lacks connection and lacks the ability to open yourself up in ways that allow you to be hurt because being hurt doesn't fit that aggressive worldview that, men have to be this, you armored stoic kind persona, and you look at Tim Walz, that's a guy who just unabashedly loves, and Emhoff who unabashedly loves, and I don't think you can, like, unabashedly love and accept the vulnerability that's part of that and also have this sort of of, like, aggressive worldview. Yeah.

0:20:54 Eli: Percent.

0:21:17 Thomas: We should talk about the Doug Emhoff part of it I was interested in, in that, I think before the VP announcement. I want to talk about that just because he had, uh, a pretty high -powered career. Like, he was, uh, uh, entertainment attorney and he had to kind that so there wouldn't be conflict of interest. And now, you know, it's like, he's obviously, there's notoriety with being the second gentleman. But like most men I don't, I think that's insane. Like, think probably most men couldn't handle that, or maybe at least a large group of them. Yeah.

0:21:19 Tom: Yeah.

0:21:44 Tom: Uh-huh. Yeah, I, I do still think that we are enculturated largely in a space that sort of requires men's idea of themselves to include a work at a certain level that is at least on par if not in some measurable or at least like, like conceived ways of being more than their spouse there if they're heterosexual. Right. I an enculturated space that we have not walked away from. We are still asking of men that they think of themselves in this way and reinforcing and rewarding that.

0:22:23 Thomas: How would you guys feel about that? I, I would, mean, be a fan. That'd be fun. I mean, I, I would love to take a little, little vacay. Uh, yeah.

0:22:47 Eli: Field, right? So like, when I watch Anna in the folk music world, right, which is where Anna thrives, obviously, she's amazing on her shows and people adore having her at live shows and stuff, but like a thing we do together, so it doesn't appeal to the sort of fragility that might come up were I not involved in the podcast, right? But in the folkmusic scene I do see that, right, often gets brought up in sort of a roundabout way because Anna is such a, uh, like a well -known player in the spaces where she plays music. And so I don't, never mean it like a negative way, but they do sort of hint at, are you mad about that, right, or are you intimidated by that? You know, the example that I think of all the time is, uh, my friend Rachel, who both of you have met, is like a pretty well - known and pretty successful magician. Um, and she was talking to an interviewer for like a pretty well -known, press, uh, outlet that she was being interviewed for.

And they asked her, is your fiance mad that you're gone so many nights a week? And she Was really blown away by the idea that like, cause you would never ask a man that, right. You'd never be like Senator

0:23:54 Tom: Right.

0:23:54 Eli: To just, well, is her wife mad that she's gone so much? That you're not home for dinner by 5 PM, but because she's a woman, right? It was just like, man, how about, how was the man who owned you feel about that? Right. And so, yeah, I think I think it's a really.

0:24:02 Thomas: You

0:24:06 Tom: Well, I did have to swallow an air tag. So, you know, that helps keep. Yeah, right. Yeah. I would raise my hand and say it would be a struggle for me. It shouldn't be so admit that, but like a big part of how I've my value to the people around me is as, like, provider financially. Know that that's insane, and I don't think that that say, like, net positive, but it's also still true, you, if Hayley tomorrow found some, you, career or occupation, and it meant that I was, like, she was all of a sudden the primary breadwinner in the house, I think that I would be lying to you if I said that I wouldn't quietly struggle with that. I would be smart enough to make that a quiet struggle and to go seek a therapist you know.

Yeah, because I know inherently that that's fucked up, right? I admit fully that I two things can be true at the same time, and that is that I have that are probably not good, but that have benefited myself and my family. And my family looks to me to fill that role, and they are grateful that I fill that roll, and it's a dynamic that we've always had. I think if tomorrow it were reversed, it would at least be an acclimation about how I think I'd have a hard time being like, OK, so what am I here for again? I know that that's bullshit. I know I bring a lot to the table person as and as a partner that is not connected to my paycheck. Check

0:24:08 Eli: Yeah, exactly. Mm hmm.

0:24:50 Thomas: Wouldn't podcast about it, yeah no I'm just kidding. Yeah. I'm here Purely for sexual pleasure, baby, be

0:25:33 Eli: I've always said that about him. I'm always said that.

0:25:35 Thomas: And we've

0:25:34 Tom: Like I bring a lot of energy there to the table at the very least, but like, yeah, I, you know, I can't pretend that, like, as a 46-year-old man that I could turn on a dime in my head. You would do it, nobody would. I would not tell a fucking soul about it except for a therapist, but like, I would be like, awesome. I'd be the most outwardly supportive supportive, a hundred percent rah, rah. But I think in in my, my head, in my heart, I'd be like, oh, huh. Huh.

0:26:00 Thomas: Covered this. Eli and Eli and I are firmly available and taking offers for sugar. Was it sugar mamas is that what you said? We are firmly

0:26:00 Eli: Mm. Yes. Absolutely. Sugar mamas. Sugar. Hey, don't don't limit us by gender. Thomas. Sugar mamas, sugar daddies, sugar they thems.

0:26:07 Thomas: Yes. Oh, that's fair. That's sugar at partners, yeah, anyone's got some sugar

0:26:15 Eli: We are. If you've got sugar, we're buying this.

0:26:15 Thomas: To to spread we are white,

0:26:19 Eli: Actually the backup catchphrase to rip into it is, if you've got sugar, Dear Old Dads, if you got sugar, we're buying. Yeah, but I mean, look, and I also think it is worth exam, not just examining, because we're obviously examining it by talking about it, but like, the notion that you need to earn your place in the world is something that I have been working on a lot, right? The the notion that you are valuable just by existing, that you deserve to be alive and be happy

0:26:19 Tom: If you've got sugar, we're buying.

0:26:20 Thomas: Pasty oh wait, is that what we're saying now? Shit, I didn't I don't know if I signed on to that fucking wokeness ruins another podcast. I don't

0:26:45 Eli: Right and be I know, but like here's here's the thing like, as much as I joke about that, I really actually believed that not to be true of myself until I examined that belief. Like, I actually genuinely thought, like, well, no. No, I mean, most people are valuable and deserve to be alive and deserve to be happy just because they're a human being, but not me. I mean, I, I have to make the funny, funny laugh, laugh jokes. Otherwise I don't deserve.

0:27:14 Tom: Yeah.

0:27:18 Thomas: Have that problem. I'm just like, well, the people who deserve happiness just for being humans and alive are Lydia and the kids. Everybody else, you gotta earn it. I'm sorry. And so there's no, there's no there's no cognitive dissonance there. I'm fine. I think that's a consistent policy that I sign on to. Yeah.

0:27:28 Eli: Interesting.

0:27:29 Tom: Yeah. Would echo the same thing. Like, I think like I very aggressively and openly rail against the idea of transactional relationships about quid pro quo being like a good basis for like love and long-term happiness. And at the same time, I fully recognize that like if I don't perform the ways that I've agreed sort of relationally to perform, like if I don't fill these roles that, but why would anybody want to stick around?

0:28:02 Eli: Nope.

0:28:02 Tom: And like, I don't hold anyone else to that, right? Like, I don't know, Haley to that. I don't hold, you know, anybody that I, that I love and admire to that same thing. But like, right, there, yes, anding, like, I do think very much that in my head and in my heart I'm like, yeah, all right, but like, I can't get sick, like, would fuck up the whole thing

0:28:21 Thomas: I think this is just some woke bullshit Eli's trying to spew, you know. I, I don't agree with this. I'm not saying we all need to jump into the mines or else we're not worth it, but like, you know, you gotta, yeah, did you contribute a little to life in some way or another? You gotta, you know, you gotta be, do something useful here a little bit. Don't you think

0:28:38 Eli: You do not. You do Not. You You are worthy of love and existence, no matter who you are and what you do.

0:28:39 Thomas: Nah disagree yeah

0:28:43 Tom: OK, but I'll push back against that. Like why? That's a thing that people say. But like I ask it and I do want you to answer it, but let me expound on it. Like what makes me worthy of love is what I do if I do different things. I in the same way that like I don't believe in the reality or goodness of of unconditional love. Like one of the conditions is what I do. Right.

0:28:45 Eli: Sure. Because Right, that that belief is incorrect, right? It is that that that is wrong. Right, You know how babies deserve love, even though they haven't done anything yet.

0:29:15 Thomas: Wrong, Tom. Incorrect. Yeah but they're babies. Yeah, that's

0:29:17 Tom: Just incorrect. OK.

0:29:23 Eli: Right so that but but it's to be true. You are worthy of love.

0:29:24 Thomas: Different kids are different nah you age out

0:29:28 Eli: Love.

0:29:28 Thomas: Of it. No, you age.

0:29:24 Tom: Yeah. But

0:29:31 Thomas: You have to file the draft thing still?

0:29:33 Tom: A minute.

0:29:33 Thomas: Do we still have to do that? Fill out your draft card. And then that's when it's like, oh, and check this box that you are no longer worthy of love by default. Yep. Okay. And you're all good to go.

0:29:33 Tom: I don't buy this at all. Like

0:29:43 Eli: You It's the same time as the draft. Yeah.

0:29:45 Thomas: No,

0:29:46 Tom: T I can't buy that at all like is a difference between like a parental love for a baby and relational love. Right? Right. Like we love people that we're in a relationship with because we love things about them.

0:29:57 Eli: Well, there are mutualistic there kinds of love, but I'll it this way. Right.

0:30:04 Tom: Maybe we're talking about something different from

0:30:04 Eli: Right. If if Finn never does anything with his life. Right, doesn't do anything bad. Right? But just doesn't provide much. Right, kind of works a dead-end job, and, you know, goes to work and comes home again and cashes his check and does the things

0:30:06 Thomas: Eli's just wrong.

0:30:22 Thomas: That's plenty. That's plentiful. He's earned his keep.

0:30:23 Eli: Okay So, well, then, then, uh, phrase is better put like, existing is the reason you deserve love, right? If just doing your job and going and coming, uh, not from a romantic partner, right? I'm not talking about a romantic I'm talking about your son, right? You would not stop loving Finn.

0:30:33 Tom: A relationship partner. Let me make sure I'm understanding the same thing. All right. Sure.

0:30:43 Eli: There's, there's no checklist of things Finn has to get done in his life for you to love him, right? If he never gets a job, if he never leaves home, if he never gets a girlfriend or boyfriend, if You never gets married, if You never has kids, you will still love Finn.

0:30:57 Thomas: No way Tom's agreeing to this.

0:30:58 Eli: Yeah,

0:31:00 Tom: Think that I would love him. Don't think I would respect him. But that's different. That's guess Like, I'm trying to understand how that inter. Because, like, that's

0:31:05 Eli: And that's totally fine. Yeah, totally fine, right, but

0:31:10 Thomas: It's not worth a hill of beans, as they say.

0:31:12 Tom: That's a very specific relationship, so yeah

0:31:16 Thomas: Something happens in my life, maybe Tommy will agree with this, to where the thought in my head or anyone else is like, well, at least his mom loves him. Then that's nothing. That's a zero. I'm sorry. That's That's the same as saying nothing. Okay, Yeah. I'm going to love my kids forever. They're on the list. The kids are on the lists. They get in the club.

0:31:31 Thomas: But like, yeah, I mean, you got to do a little something to earn any sort of affection from other people. I think you got something.

0:31:26 Eli: Hehehehe mhm,

0:31:37 Tom: Right that The difference I'm having too is like, yeah, like I love my kids, but like, part of that is just like, I biologically can't fucking help it at this point, right? Like there's just it's just built into the structure

0:31:40 Eli: So mhm hehehehehe

0:31:45 Thomas: Yeah, he's tried. Believe me. He's yeah should try to shock himself out of it, didn't work. You can

0:31:50 Eli: It's true.

0:31:48 Tom: No agree with with that. But like, don't feel that way about other people, I think. And I don't feel that way about how I want to be loved either. And that's an important distinction. I don't want to be loved in a broad, unconditional sense that doesn't take into account what I do. Because part of what I value about me and part of What I Value About Others isn' t just the fact that they can sit and occupy a space in a body, but it's about who they are and who we are is not just what we think and feel. It's what we do. Like it's the difference between somebody who's just paying lip service and somebody who who's, who's acting in the world. And that's something I can't, segregate. I Does that make sense?

0:32:35 Eli: Definitely, Yeah. Because I held the same mindset for a really long time. And more importantly, I applied the mindset to myself, right? And when you apply the mindset of, you people pleasing or getting your worth from others to yourself, what you do is you create a standard that you will never actually measure up to, right.

Only way for that standard to be a healthy one, and nobody does this, the only way to be healthy standard is for you to say, I need to check these boxes, and need to check them forever, and check them in a way that I will never fall short of.

And when you you lose your value or when you lose your lovability when you fail to check those boxes, all of the sudden, when inevitably we fail to cheque those boxes because human beings are flawed, people get sick, people become this disabled, is something that ACT talks about quite a bit in disability culture, which is someone who is used to providing in a certain way or being there for their family in a a certain way, may become disabled and then no longer be able to provide for that family and then feel truly like they have become worthless because their sense of worth is only based on what they can do for others, right?

0:33:56 Thomas: Still do shit. I, this, this strikes me as how you're, you can't do any amount of social media, you know, whereas like Noah and to some extent me and Tom a little bit, I think, are like, yeah, I can jump on there a little bit. You're like, no, if there's a standard, then it has to be an impossible one that no one could ever. I'm like, no, just have, like, a pretty relaxed standard, you know? Like, just have to be contributing a little, little bit meaningfully, you know? That's it yeah emotional support. There's plenty of things you can do that are not working in the minds what's

0:34:04 Eli: So

0:34:19 Tom: Like have a contextualized standard. I that we

0:34:25 Eli: What guys are describing is ACT, acceptance and commitment therapy, calls values. Values, um, that that is exactly the solution to the issue you guys are speaking to in ACT, right? So ACT replaces the idea of, uh, worthwhileness or being lovable with the idea of, are you doing things that are in line or out of line with your values? So your inherent worth

0:34:49 Thomas: ACT again what do we, who made them the arbiter of whatever it's

0:34:50 Eli: Uh the follow -up to CBT, right? So CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy, popularized canvas oil, yeah, uh, yeah, exactly. You can put it in your coffee, they sell it at that weird smoke shop down the street from you. So CBT is cognitive behavioral therapy, uh, popularized by David Burns, Robert Burns, that, like, and other, uh, disorders are caused by thought rather than, uh, like, specific distortions in thought, um, and that. That you can be in conversation with those thoughts, distortions, to live a mentally healthier life. ACT is the step that follows that, that sort of corrects the overcorrection that CBT does. Because CBT often involves saying no to your thoughts. And so the approach of ACT is radically accepting those thoughts. Accepting those thoughts and then instead doing things that are inline with your values, right?

0:34:56 Thomas: Like cannabis oil, oh yeah, yeah. They Had to invent this for Eli, by the way, because there's, like, I've never seen someone had so many horrible thoughts in their brain. We got, guys, we, we need a new thing.

0:35:50 Eli: Yes guys we need a new one CBT's

0:35:56 Tom: Got to invent an entirely different therapeutic model

0:35:57 Eli: Not doing it, it's too many distortion. No, but truly, like, so the difference is, like, when Eli is, depression tells me I'm a worthless piece of shit, right, which it does every day all day, when it's not coming up with sweet, sweet zingers for people at the movies, it tells me I'm a worthless piece of shit all day every day. So CBT is I sit down and I write down, I'm worthless piece a shit, and then I'm like labeling, right? But then I'm just in conflict with my own thought, right? So what ACT, and again, I'm oversimplifying, and give your baby a whole bottle of Tylenol, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a psychologist, I have no form of medical trainings, this is just my interpretation of the therapy I've had in the books I've read, but what I do is I then then sit down and I go, okay, I understand that I feel that way. I accept that I feel that away, but what can I do now in this moment that is in line with my values, right? Lying in bed all

0:35:58 Tom: Right

0:36:09 Thomas: Nah.

0:36:51 Thomas: Oh,

0:36:52 Eli: Day thinking I'm a big, massive piece of shit and I'm unlovable and I'M unworthy of love is not in line with my values. What is in line with my values is, uh, getting up and going for a walk or playing with my son or for taking, you care of my loved ones. But more importantly, I do not allow the underlying belief that I am without value to, uh, those actions, right?

0:36:52 Thomas: Shit. I I think I might have accidentally invented this, too, myself. No, really, because what happened... All right, this is going to sound shitty. Eli, you can roast me all you want. But Here's what happened to old, depressed Thomas. Although, I think also some amount of this is medication. It's hard to know. But what happened old, oppressed Thomas is I had all these negative thoughts about myself. Still do. But then I, I started being successful with stuff. Like, got a beautiful family. I got a great job. I gotta, like, all these accomplishments that, like, eventually it didn't work anymore for my brain to be like, yeah, but you suck. Cause I'm like, nah, but like, not really, you know, it's hard to believe. And so I still have the thoughts, but I'm just like, eh, that's, I don't matter though. That's just like a thought that is in my brain that doesn't really do anything. Is that that what you're talking about?

0:37:22 Eli: Thank you.

0:38:00 Eli: Yeah. So, uh. My friend and Rachel, Rachel, I mentioned earlier in this episode, we call that the Shyamalan twist, right. So it's, it's the moment where a depression thought, thought, it's

0:38:01 Thomas: Jeez. That just made me feel worse. Shit, am I like any comparison to that guy

0:38:12 Eli: The moment where a depression thought gives itself away. Like the twist of a movie, right? Like, like I'll be sitting there and I'll Be like, Oh, a piece of shit. I fucking hate myself and nobody, I'm not funny. And everybody hates me. And someday they're all going to go away and I'm going to have to sell magic thumbs again. And those theaters are good. But then, then my brain will be like, and your wife doesn't love you. And I'llbe like, sorry, old man Hankins. AndI pull off his mask and it's depression underneath.

0:38:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:26 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:38:35 Thomas: Yeah. We're getting away with it too. Yeah.

0:38:38 Eli: Right? Exactly. You would have gotten away with it, except you went too far. So that's exactly what it is. It's recognizing that as a thought distortion. Now, where this comes from, so there's this great book, and I, I've, I, I've recommended to both of you, and now that I've finished it, I'm so excited to announce, written by a fucking crazy person called No More Mr. Nice Guy, um, is by this psychiatrist who talks about sort of nice guy syndrome. Now the beginning of this book is one of the most interesting, thoughtful, thoughtful, and insightful books into the minds of men and where toxic masculinity comes from that I have ever read. This book are the most batshit, anti

0:38:42 Thomas: Yeah. That's interesting.

0:38:55 Thomas: Oh. Great. I No.

0:39:15 Eli: -feminist, anti sex.

0:39:17 Thomas: What?

0:39:17 Eli: He literally concludes the book by recommending you heal the sexual trauma you have had from watching porn by jerking off without porn or fantasizing just for the love of the game. Yep. In order to cure your sexual dysfunction, you have to sit there and just be like, I am picked off my own penis And if you start Yep.

0:39:30 Thomas: Really? Into the feeling of my hand

0:39:40 Eli: And when you start thinking about a lady, you're doing it wrong. Is truly how that book ends. So yeah.

0:39:40 Thomas: All right. It's It's like the Quaker Oats guy. It sounds like it's like that level of bullshit.

0:39:47 Eli: Yes. It's It's very Kalagian.

0:39:48 Tom: It sound Kelloggian. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:39:48 Thomas: Yeah. That's what I'm going for.

0:39:51 Eli: But at the beginning of, of the book where he goes absolutely crazy. At the end, he talks about where that self-image comes from, and he says that the two things we need to understand about children, right, that, um, will deal with the experience of abandonment at some point in their life, and they are entirely self-centered, right? So at some point as a child, all children will not have their needs met. It's the nature of the world, right? Mom will not be hovering with every food, drink, drink, and hug you need for all time. So we all experience the feeling of abandonment at some point.

But because as a child, you are entirely self -centered, you do not believe that you are not the cause of that problem. And so what he calls the initial distortion is that you are not okay just as you are, right? And that and this is true of men, women, and people People identify who don't as either, but that, that core belief that gets instilled in us from that experience of abandonment, that you are not okay, just as you are, that you must do a thing or be a thing to to have your needs met, to be worthy of love and have your needs met. Right. The initial dysfunction from which all other distortions come.

0:39:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:53 Tom: Okay.

0:40:23 Thomas: Game. On. Oh.

0:41:06 Tom: I know we have done this show, but I feel like there's so much in there that I, that got to talk about this again.

0:41:12 Thomas: Think Eli read a bad book by the Quaker Oats guy, and now he's trying to make us believe it. But

0:41:15 Eli: Read it. We're book club. Everybody don't buy it. Steal the book, because he is an anti-porn weirdo, and I don't want anyone to be like, hey Man, why don't you recommend that, but, but little, but honestly, first chapter, we could do first chapter book Hey Tom Tom, can we steal it from your show? You read the first chapter, like, cognizant

0:41:16 Thomas: Yeah. If God if you can pick, like, a smaller selection of it. We could do it for a bonus or something. If it's short enough. I'll do it. Oh. He's gonna read it. Oh, how long was that? Okay, sure. It's

0:41:36 Eli: Yeah.

0:41:36 Tom: Yeah, I'll read it. I don't give a shit. I don't fucking, it's just reading.

0:41:39 Eli: All right. Before we go to our patron-only book, book club, um, the dad jokes page up and it's, yeah, not today. At some point, gentlemen, before we head to our patron-only book club, uh,

0:41:53 Thomas: Not today. Just to be clear. You guys both fucked it up today, the intro and the outro.

0:42:03 Eli: What?

0:42:03 Thomas: Intro.

0:42:04 Tom: This is your revenge. This is you're revenge for not letting me start over when I was trying to just, you know, riff it into it.

0:42:08 Eli: Edit point thank you, Lydia. Riff

0:42:11 Tom: Riff into it!

0:42:11 Thomas: Rip

0:42:13 Eli: Into It? Yes, I am open to changing it, and to riff into. I would like to officially announced, uh, do you call friends you eat with your taste buds

0:42:13 Thomas: Into it. Nah. Rip

0:42:23 Tom: I actually like that. That's good. I'm getting shirts printed.

0:42:23 Thomas: Into It. Yeah. Wait.

0:42:27 Eli: Into it. No.

0:42:33 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.

0:43:13 Eli: Am picked off my own penis, and

0:43:16 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's bringing the Big Dad energy to Dear Old Dad's. Nope, that was terrible.

0:43:22 Eli: What?

0:43:22 Tom: I tried to riff it and it didn't work.

0:43:22 Eli: No, keep it! Keep it! Thomas, hello!

0:43:24 Tom: Nope. Nope. Nope!

0:43:25 Eli: And I'm Eli Bosnick and this is Thomas Smith!

0:43:25 Thomas: Rip, rip out of it.

0:43:29 Eli: Andrew, you're a douche. Change your ways and try to be as much like Jim Walls as possible. He

0:43:25 Tom: Nope! God damn it! We're

0:43:40 Thomas: Eli, you can roast me all you want.

0:43:42 Eli: Hon, I'm on my way home. Oh, did I have fun. I had a great time. Me and the boys were talking in there and