DOD172: The Bad Influence Friend

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.

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast where Eli explores online child content even he's uncomfortable with. I'm Tom Curry, joined as always by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, and welcome to our final episode, gentlemen.

0:00:42 Eli: Series the series finale of dear old dads everybody we did it we didn't now

0:00:46 Tom: This intro was written so you guys know after I said, Eli, give me a brief idea of what this episode will be about so I can write the intro. So that is oh

0:00:56 Eli: I'm just picturing the itunes dropout you guys have those itunes like second to second metrics that you could use to be able to subscribe to used to part the curtain slightly yeah they don't do it anymore but you used to able to literally see at least on itunes the second someone turned your podcast off and now I am picturing just a giant drop off after what tom Tom said that, We'll get to that in a second. Guys, guys, I thought I'd bring a little news. Unrelated, nothing really about the podcast. We talked about this before the air, but I do want to talk about it on air as well, which is we to make a little bit of fun of Tom here for his paranoia around technology. You know, he's a little big fan of the podcast, but he's not a big fan. He's a bit old fashioned and he's Illudite and he doesn't quite know what things are. But if you haven't heard the news, worst nightmare, what Tom would accuse Pokemon Go of doing is true, right?

0:01:13 Thomas: It's funny and weird yeah yeah if Tom knew enough about the internet to make this accusation in the future

0:01:49 Tom: It I know

0:01:52 Eli: Tom doesn't know what Pokemon Go is.

0:01:54 Tom: What pokemon go god damn it

0:01:56 Eli: That's where you ride them for sport, right.

0:01:57 Thomas: What

0:01:56 Tom: I called cambridge analytica before cambridge analytical and everybody's you're crazy I'm not crazy all

0:02:04 Eli: So, yeah, they're doing a Cambridge Analyticus, right。 So if you had described Pokemon Go to Tom, right.? it's a game you play with your phone the camera and there's different locations you play with the cameras Tom would have said something like I bet they're secretly using all your camera data to register every building in the world and scan it and then they're collating that data and they're going to sell it to a paramilitary organization and we'd be like oh Tom you humble slut and just sort of ignore him as we always do well it turns out that's That's what they're doing. They're selling all the pictures you didn't know you were taking of buildings to the people who make robot dogs with flamethrowers on them.

0:02:37 Thomas: Fucking way I wonder what I had me

0:02:43 Eli: So, Electra,

0:02:43 Thomas: To try to cash that Charizard at the nuclear uh warhead that I was took me all the way to here yeah

0:02:48 Eli: On the pad, too, I was wondering. But, yeah.

0:02:50 Thomas: It was really weird but I got him it was good yeah

0:02:51 Tom: This feels feels like a bad simpsons episode like it really does like we're like the russian spy comes over and tries to get homer to take pictures of the nuclear power plant this feels like the same thing

0:03:01 Thomas: It lures him over to like area 51 you know he's trying to get through the defense.

0:03:07 Eli: I will say because I have different relationships with my memeing for everybody uh as heath has mentioned like I tend to hit him with like bulldogs on skateboards right I'll hit other friends with like political memes and stuff I've stopped sending thomas videos of people falling down at his request right oh no credit no yeah like two years ago thomas was like please please

0:03:28 Thomas: Yeah. That was like two years ago. Immediately when it happened, I was like please stop doing this.

0:03:31 Eli: These people are dying like they I you watch the ambulance come over and the guy shakes his head that's a child please so I stopped sending those but tom tom's in a very special category which is just like ai news that tom would have woken up out of a sound sleep screaming yes only

0:03:46 Thomas: Skynet awakens. Yeah well

0:03:47 Tom: You only send me upsetting shit like that's the best thing like Eli's

0:03:51 Thomas: Maybe you're the one causing it Eli. Maybe you're causing it. It's a feedback loop.

0:03:54 Eli: I sent I sent tom the the news story about claude as an autonomous agent logging into a different autonomous agent and trying to talk dirty to it that was a good one that I was excited about that

0:04:06 Thomas: See I like that though. That's good. You know it's

0:04:09 Eli: Was good yeah no it's a reflective of the internet you know it's just uh it's like peering through the back of john malkovich's mind uh

0:04:16 Thomas: Like that when they when it becomes sentient and does something either funny or quirky I'm like you can have that ai you can that's fine tyler

0:04:22 Eli: Now you know only thing worse than uh hacking tom's children to death while he he weeps and wails in the foreground of our tragedy why it's the auto ads? How dare you, sir. Uh, the Auto Ads, yes, the Auto Ads, the robot dogs with flamethrowers of your podcasting experience but you can makes those go away over at patreon.com/dearolddads where you get an extended commercial free version little parenting story the end of every show Tom told us a little Finn story on the last episode about what a good boyfriend he is he's raising them right over at the curry household patreon.com/dearolddads ring rip rip rip rip into it we're getting seasonal people get ready

0:04:27 Tom: Fuck

0:04:32 Thomas: Character

0:05:11 Tom: Oh and hey if anyone is wondering um you can buy the flamethrower dog and they will shit it's just a thing people can buy yeah it's $9 ,420 it's distressingly on back order

0:05:16 Eli: You can buy it yeah you can have those those boston dynamic ones do yeah no

0:05:18 Thomas: You serious that's that's not enough money it should be more it's

0:05:26 Tom: Thomas smith it's not you could also get a quadcopter flamethrower as well

0:05:31 Thomas: Like when someone gets convicted of hiring a hitman to kill their like partner and And you find out it's for like one hundred and fifty bucks.

0:05:31 Eli: And it's like 500 bucks yeah yeah

0:05:37 Thomas: Yeah. Like Jesus.

0:05:39 Eli: It's a bummer every time it really is it's bummer

0:05:41 Tom: Just in case anyone is like maybe a listener not in america and thinking we're kidding no like it's that's commercially available is the flamethrower dog

0:05:50 Thomas: Well, Tom, when you consider that also every single kind of automatic weapon that can, you Know, tear our children to shreds at school is also easily obtainable. I guess by comparison, it's like, well, at least I can run away from the dog. Yeah.

0:05:59 Tom: The right it's just like all right that's just track they call it the therminator just that is kind of funny right that is pretty

0:06:07 Eli: Come on okay as

0:06:10 Thomas: I wouldn't have thought that our apocalypse would be.

0:06:12 Eli: The flesh is melting from our bones we are going to turn to each other and be like that's pretty funny the terminator

0:06:15 Tom: Good

0:06:17 Thomas: Yeah, that's pretty good. That's a Heath or Cecil level pun. Yeah, not bad, not good.

0:06:20 Eli: I think that's like as I think that's a civilization suicide right if you name it the terminator and it boils you to death I think you I think that counts as a suicide

0:06:28 Thomas: It is. I can't wait for the robots to even find it ironic. They're like, I can't believe you named us after a thing.

0:06:31 Tom: Actually

0:06:36 Eli: Ha that's a good one anyways

0:06:40 Thomas: Hold still while I burn your skin off.

0:06:43 Eli: Meanwhile I'm turning to tom tom you're really paranoid about this we don't know he's gonna aim the flamethrower at us man he burned all those other people but they were running Running and screaming. Maybe it doesn't like running and screaming, do you think of that? Oh, I'm dumb, I'M DUMB! I'M SO AFRAID OF THE FLAMETHROWER DOG! Of technology invading your homes, I have spoken about it before this show, but I am a screen time crazy person. Yes, Maximilian Bosnick, still limited to less than an hour of screen time a day. I know, I know.

0:07:00 Tom: Less

0:07:14 Thomas: That's child abuse.

0:07:15 Eli: Child abuse, I will be less than a hour. Yep, that's what the AAP... Actually, the AAP says he can have now, and we have occasionally gone over, but they segments that he has during the day, and

0:07:15 Tom: Than an hour wow no

0:07:27 Thomas: Just want to make sure. That's time without a screen, right? They can have one hour without a screen? Okay.

0:07:30 Eli: One hour without screens a day is

0:07:33 Thomas: Good. We're doing it right then. Okay.

0:07:33 Eli: Our very, very firm, yeah,

0:07:35 Thomas: Just making sure.

0:07:36 Eli: But we an hour of screens a day, and the big rule, right, actually significantly more than the time limit, because the time limit's just sort of arbitrary, is he never does screens alone, right? So whatever he watches, I watch it with him, right. Right. So he tends to eat dinner with his iPad. He tends to have snack with his iPad. Those teams to be the times that he likes to have his iPad and so I am at the very least in the room able to hear and see anything he's watching. Loves number blocks. Are you guys familiar with number blocks? Oh, number blocks fucks so hard.

0:08:04 Thomas: Maybe.

0:08:07 Eli: If you got a little kid who's just learning math, highly recommend number blocks because number blocks is a new math, the television show, right? The reason why I'm bad at math is because the way I was taught math is imagine the concept of three and I'm like, what? And they're like, nevermind. Now imagine the content of three. The concept of two. And I'm Like, what is that? And they're like, stop interrupting. That's five. And what you do is if you're good bad at math, you memorize that. But then when you get to the part of your life where memorization, rote memorization fails you and you're supposed to use like number feel and logistics to figure things out you fucking fail math which is exactly what I did right they were like okay now x equals negative b and I was like I'll be crying in the bathroom thank you it's got too hard to memorize right so what new math does is it's about math visualization right and the number blocks are the educational version of that each of the characters block number one he's a little square square and block number two is two squares on top of each other. And block number three, she's a triangle block. Number four is a square. Octoblock is a superhero,

0:09:10 Thomas: Man,

0:09:10 Eli: Right? But it's basically teaching these kids to visualize numbers and max fucking loves it. He loves adding. He's been doing adding and subtracting because he's memorized all the different things and he can kind of figure it out. We'll tell him to make, make three on the number blocks, make two on the numbers. He fucking loves it, right. Other day he's watching what sounds like number blocks. Right. I'm hearing the number blocks audio, but he's cracking up.

0:09:10 Thomas: This is great. Hmm.

0:09:33 Eli: Now, I know my son.

0:09:34 Tom: You're like math isn't funny

0:09:36 Eli: It's literally what I know. I'm like, number blocks isn't funny. It's kind of lame and weird. And I turn, and sure enough, he is not watching official number blocks. He is watching a fan edit of number blocks that someone has made in Scratch, which is like a children's coding program. And what they're doing in the video is all the number blocks are fighting each other they're like punching each other now it's not gory right it's very basic animation where the number blocks are just like knocking each other off the pillars and stuff but my son is cracking up in it but we don't do violence right and especially because he's going through a hitting phase right now we especially don't dupe violence right

0:09:49 Thomas: My god. Oh boy. Okay.

0:10:16 Eli: So I turn okay exactly he loves violence yeah no he's is a big fucking fan uh

0:10:16 Tom: He does we just watch itchy and scratchy on repeat we just splice together old itchy and scratchy well

0:10:23 Eli: So I move it off right and I I'm like oh buddy this isn't the right one and I just like hit it and then I mute the channel and all that but later on I'm like who the fuck makes a bunch of like number blocks fighting each other videos because there's a bunch right I see there's like a whole sidebar of like two versus eight death match and I'm like okay what fucking adult is making two versus a death match with their one given life uh I mean mean do you want me to spoil it for you because I feel like I feel like we should give everyone a spoiler warning who's exactly yeah uh so I go and check it out later because I'm always interested in the content that max is interested in as well and again he's just loving this video before I turn it off and ban it from his ipad so I also like kind of feel bad like actually he was like no want that one and I was like ah sorry buddy that's not the right one like we don't watch those things those people people aren't being nice to each other. And he was like, right. And we put it on something else and he's instantly distracted because it's a giant dopamine machine. Like

0:10:48 Tom: Wait a minute who wins

0:10:51 Thomas: Cause It's cause seven, eight, nine

0:10:58 Tom: Break his heart really

0:11:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:26 Eli: You didn't have to convince him to do more iPad. Right. Um, although I will say max now turns the, this is something that I have been really, really proud of. He gets bored and turns it off himself. On Like a pretty regular basis before his screen time is over. I'll just be like, Hey buddy, you got like 10 minutes left and he'll just like pop the iPad off and I'll be like, Oh, are you done? And he's like, yeah, just fucking goes and yeah,

0:11:46 Tom: That's a fucking win dude that's awesome

0:11:47 Thomas: He's like, now that you won't let me watch the good shit. Yeah, I'm done.

0:11:50 Eli: Now that I can't watch who's going to fucking win in this deathmatch, what's even the point?

0:11:53 Thomas: You're telling me I also don't get to watch these numbers. Fuck. Like, come on.

0:11:57 Eli: I was promised if I subscribed to the Patreon, I could see the numbers. Fuck, dad. You're ruining this for me.

0:12:00 Thomas: I totally ship four and six and

0:12:04 Eli: Yeah, obviously. Huge ship. Huge ship between four and seven. The tumbler is aflame with the ships. So I'm like, okay, this is weird. Who the fuck did this? And I look, so I go find the channel, look the channel on my YouTube account, right? It's made by a child. Are a child who has gotten these frames of these like characters and put them into Scratch, this children's coding program. And they have made this as a form of creative expression. Right? And the thing they wanted to do, because they were very, they're a very young voice on the videos, is they want to do this. And I had this very weird moment right because when I had pictured protecting my son from content I pictured adults right adults but this is the first time I ran into a kid who I'm I'm gonna guess like I don't see their face and it doesn't say on the channel how old they are but like they sounded less than 10 right I was like okay now I'm protecting my kid from another kid kid. And aside from that being a slightly amusing story, what I realized is that like, when I think about the things that I was exposed to dangerously, right? When I think about the bad choices I made or the mistakes I made, or the things I did that I shouldn't have done as a kid. And again, I had a relatively sheltered childhood, but like not perfect. Um, were often other kids who influenced me to do those things. Not adults.

0:12:07 Thomas: Nine. Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:30 Tom: Want

0:13:31 Eli: Very, very, very rarely wasn't an adult it was mostly another kid who wasn't being raised as well as I was and so I guess my question for you guys is in the case of thomas like how do you plan on handling that in the case of both of you did you share that experience and in thecase of tom like what did you do to deal with that oh

0:13:51 Thomas: It's is the anomaly, I think. That was like because of the Internet and anonymity, I guess it's we're kind of worried about that. But like for the most part, you know, like your kids aren't going to interact with adults in that way unless, you know, there's a really catastrophic thing like the day to day is them with some shitty kid being a bad influence in school like every day, you know, so it's going to be the more frequent thing. Are you anticipating this? This, are you asking like in IRL or, or like online or,

0:14:21 Eli: I mean I mean all of it really I mean so online I feel more comfortable with because I have a better grip of the internet and its toxicity you know what I'm saying like because I'm a person who makes their living online and people have done and said the worst things you can do and say to a human being in the name of being slightly annoyed to me like I I am exceptionally prepared to prepare my son for the toxicity of the Internet right and to have I think really good conversations with him about like hey just so you know like this isn't this is not real And you shouldn't interact with it. And like, this is right. I feel like I can have healthy conversations about that. But I actually was sort of in the opposite mindset in that I was really, really not prepared for there to be other kids involved. And, like, I don't know how to handle that. Like, I had a moment when I was looking at this profile where I was like, should I email this kid's mom and tell this other parent that their kid's making a video? Like, what do you do in

0:15:17 Thomas: Interesting. Yeah.

0:15:22 Eli: Those situations, right? How do you handle it when you're, like, when And also, like maybe not all parents agree with me, right. The number blocks were, like bumping each other off ledges. It's not like, you know, they were pulling out each other's fingernails and we could, right, yeah, it's not that we could all sit. But even then like some parents are like yeah it's just a video game who fucking cares with mortal kombat right like I hear that shit all the time right so like how do you handle it when you might have different values than another parent but they are directly influencing your kid you

0:15:33 Tom: Yeah it wasn't like mortal combat shit right yeah right yeah yeah

0:15:51 Thomas: And, actually Tom, since you've kind of obviously gone, gone more of the parenting than we have in general, has there been the, like, oh this is the, this is the bad influence friend where you got to like, yet

0:15:58 Eli: Have your kids had bad friends and how do you yeah yeah

0:16:02 Tom: Aislinn, we've had a friend um for a variety of reasons many of which were very sad actually and I don't want to get too specific about them but for a priority of reasons um felt like that friendship wasn't going to be a good friendship for Aisling maybe not even a safe friendship for Aslinn to have um we just had to talk to her about it and she was pretty young I mean, that was the other thing is like this was like Aislinn's only 13. This wasn't like yesterday. This was a few years ago, maybe three, four years ago. So Aislinn was nine or 10. And we had to put a stop to that friendship. We tried to limit her exposure to this person by saying, OK, well, like, you know, you can't go to her house, but she can come here. Her friend can come to our house. And because that way we were able to sort of, you know, supervise and control the environment, make sure that, you know, things went the way that we wanted them to go and just kind of, you know maintain that level of control. And I think that that was a I think it was a really genuinely reasonable take and then things kind of accelerated with that friendship in ways that we were like, okay, this just can't we just can continue and had to put a stop to their friendship and we had a we did pull Aislinn's on the side and sit her down and say like hey you know here's the deal like this is a person that I'm sorry it's like it was actually her probably her most I want to say her closest friend but it's her most frequent friend you know what I mean by that like just they saw each other a

0:17:26 Tom: Lot

0:17:26 Eli: Saw each other every day kind of friends yeah the

0:17:28 Tom: We had a waiter well he's on a side and say like this isn't a friendship you can't have you know we just don't think and here's the reasons we were pretty like we weren't able to be entirely specific just like I'm not being now. Like we were able to say like we this, don't think this person is ultimately going to be good for you. We don't Think this person has ultimately, like, the same values we hold as a family. Most of this is not her fault. But you know, we just need to put distance here. She's not somebody that you can go to her house. She can't come to our house. We'd like you to disassociate from her in school as much as possible. Aislinn understood that we were were able to point out specific yeah we were able to pointout specific like behaviors and stuff and say like how did you feel when this happened and make you feel good and you know like yeah

0:18:13 Thomas: So it's, I wonder if it's going to be yeah if it's things where it's like that aren't directly affecting your kid you know where that maybe that was um it a little easier to drive the message home versus

0:18:24 Tom: Think so I think it did you know I remember as a kid 21 years ago I remember is a kid I got in trouble used to take apart I'm so fucking old we used take apart my our G.I. Joe guys, remember G.I. Joe the the action figures yeah the war War propaganda.

0:18:38 Eli: War propaganda yeah absolutely Absolutely.

0:18:40 Tom: Yeah. The toy slash war propaganda. So they had like one screw in the back of them that if you unscrewed it, they would come apart and then you could swap all their pieces out and make new guys.

0:18:48 Eli: Swap the parts. Yeah, it was great.

0:18:49 Tom: Right. Yeah, super cool. So me and these kids down the street, we used to we swap used all these pieces. They would come to my house because my dad had an extensive workshop full of tools and stuff. So there was always the right size screwdriver. Screwdriver.

0:19:01 Thomas: He's the kid from toy story one tom is the kid FROM STORY STORY ONE Sid

0:19:07 Eli: Of all, his name is Sid Second of all his journey was a healing one pay attention to the movies

0:19:08 Thomas: Yeah it's true yeah there are eggs coughs

0:19:13 Tom: No. So So they came over and they were in my dad's workshop and we were like unscrewing our GI Joe guys. And then they started looking around and they stole some of my dad's wire cutters. Jesus Christ. No. My dad's a good guy.

0:19:24 Eli: Nazi memorabilia Have you seen a plate around here?

0:19:30 Tom: Christ no

0:19:28 Thomas: You don't steal from Tom's dad. I'm just saying, like, nah you don's steal from tom's dad

0:19:34 Tom: You don't steal from my dad but

0:19:35 Eli: He's never spoken to those kids again

0:19:37 Tom: They they stole they stole these wire cutlers to use to cut the uh security tags off of cds from back in the day so they could steal cds um they got caught and then their parents were like where did you find the wire cutders for these and they're like oh we got them from tom and then I get a call my My dad gets a call and I get in trouble. And my dad was like those kids. And this is the thing about about kids, too. He's like those kids. You never see him again.

0:19:37 Thomas: And he may have killed them oh fuck yeah

0:20:03 Tom: He is like they are done. Like they are done. You have a lot of control over your parents social lives outside of school as parents of young kids. Like you can put a stop. You can put a pretty hard stop to a lot of the ways the kids socialize. Where you are totally out of control though though, is when they're in school.

0:20:20 Tom: When they're in school, the only control that you can exercise is if you can get the administration to get on board. And I think that would take, like, that would take some real effort. Like, you would have to have a situation that would, that Would take some Real effort. So, will say, I never fucking hung out with those kids again. They lived right down the street. And my dad was like, those kids are effectively dead to you. And I'm like, Sure are, dad.

0:20:41 Thomas: Fair

0:20:41 Eli: No my dad did the same thing with some kids I got in trouble with in middle school in is 8th grade and I'm sure I've told the story about the infamous pot party on the air before but yeah when I

0:20:51 Thomas: I don't know I'm

0:20:53 Tom: And I don't know the infamous pop party.

0:20:53 Thomas: Not sure I know this yeah fantastic

0:20:53 Eli: Haven't told you guys this fucking story

0:20:56 Tom: No, No, I need to know about the infamous pot party

0:20:58 Eli: My god this was the controversy of my childhood and I am actually interested cause often when I reflect my experiences much like our good friend Tom on this show everyone's like hey just so you know that was fucking crazy so maybe I'm about to find out this is fucking crazy. So I had not smoked pot all the way through grade. And more importantly, my dad who fucking loved marijuana, um, me he had never smoked pot in his entire life, which for you to understand, I need you to understanding that is like no illusions telling his child I've never smoked a pot in my entire life. Right? It was a big deal and he was was very anti -drug. Now, in my father's defense, the reason why he told me that is because he used drugs a lot. I was a blabbermouth and wanted everybody to like me, and there is no chance in God's green earth that I would not immediately have

0:21:12 Thomas: All the way through eighth grade oh yeah jesus yeah yeah

0:21:53 Eli: Told people that my dad smoked pot, who was a public school teacher, by the way, that my Dad smoked pot in order to get them to like me. There's no fucking shot. You guys know me as an adult, and you know that if you tell tell me something pretty soon. I'm going to tell everybody about it and attempt to get them to like me. Right. So I, he was like, Hey, I have never smoked pot before. And therefore you can never smoke pot. So in eighth grade, I was hanging out with the cool kids. Yeah. I I was trying really hard to be what, uh, was called in my generation. And at my time, a prep, right. These were the the athletes, the jocks, but just generally like there was like a category of cool kid called preps. And I was desperately trying to be their friend. Why? Cause the middle school didn't really have a drama program. Drama was a thing I'd sort of did after school and in the summers, but I just sort of hadn't found my place. I wanted to be with these cool kids and these cool kids were already really smoking pot, right? And now they were smoking Binghamton, New York pot. So they, I'm sure they were smokin, you know, half oregano, you know, half basil leaves 90 % of the time, but they were smoking pot and I wanted to smoke pot with them. So in the end of eighth grader, my parents took a trip, just the two of them. And for the first time ever, I was allowed to stay Stay home. By myself.

0:21:57 Thomas: Fair yep fair enough yeah

0:22:00 Tom: Eighth

0:23:15 Thomas: Jesus

0:23:16 Eli: Ain't great. Yeah. So.

0:23:18 Tom: Not even legal in Illinois.

0:23:19 Eli: It sure isn't.

0:23:20 Tom: Yeah. 14 is the you can't you cannot be alone.

0:23:22 Thomas: My god I gotta check this age for the for california I'm

0:23:26 Eli: Cause I've already broken it. Remy stands like five. Five out of seven nights.

0:23:31 Thomas: Going to turn to matt gates all the sudden but instead of the age of consent I'm gonna be looking at what's the age I can leave my fucking kids at home and we're gonna leave to

0:23:35 Eli: What's the age if I can leave Remy alone and he's screaming himself. God damn it. Get a cookie if you want a fucking cookie kid. I got nothing to do here. So. We had neighbor friends who were going to check in on me. Right I could go to their house for dinner right there were meals my parents had left me money but like I was fine so I learning about this immediately planned to have all the cool kids over to my house for a pot party yeah a fucking pot party because can I say this and this is true of everything in my life this has really been true a bunch of times for all the worst moments of my life all the the worst moments of my life have been preceded by a moment where I go well you have to admit this is kind of ironic right where I have made I've been about to make a bad choice right or a terrible thing is about to happen to me that inherently changes who I am as a person and I go yeah but like for the plot this makes a lot of

0:23:57 Thomas: Your house oh wow that's bold

0:23:57 Tom: A pot party. Yes.

0:24:30 Thomas: Yeah

0:24:30 Eli: Sense right and what makes sense for the Plot right in the the afterschool special is that I hold the pot party. So I hold a pot party, the two cool kids that are like my best friends at the time. Now, the other thing you have to understand about me as a kid, and I don't know if other kids who are not so straight can understand this, but if you were not so straightforward and you were growing up in suburbia in upstate New York, when you had a crush on other boys, you were just like, I just really want that guy to be my best friend super super bad. Right. Because you couldn't be like, Oh, I want to smooch him on the mouth. Right? Culture was like, you don't talk like Jack from fucking Will and Grace. So you can't possibly want to smooth your friends on the month. You just want to be super, you just want to be friends super bad." So the extent that, and this is a really good example, there's a, I forget if it's a Walt Whitman quote, but I believe it's Walt Whitmen quote that says, save me from adhesive love. And I

0:25:12 Thomas: You're straight like will huh

0:25:28 Eli: Was like six or seven when I brought that quote to my parents. And was like oh my gosh this is like so many of my friendships and they were like oh the Walt Whitman quote huh okay

0:25:28 Thomas: Jesus christ that's

0:25:39 Tom: I'm just six years old reading Leaves of Grass. Anyway, just normal. Listeners can relate. Listeners kan relate.

0:25:41 Eli: Yeah truly truly truly and actually and my parents were like anything you want to tell us and I was like I love musicals and they're just like all right so I also so the thing is that these weren't just my best friends but I also had this very unhealthy like obsession with them right I really wanted them to like me I really wondered of them to think that I was cool, right? So I planned this pot party. Not only are they coming over, these kids I don't fucking know are coming over, right.

0:26:10 Thomas: Always what gets you yeah

0:26:11 Eli: They come over and I smoke marijuana for the very first time in my life. Now I had actually like smoked earlier in the day. Like when they first came over, we smoked a little, I didn't really feel it. And then we smoked the second time and I get like the highest you'll ever get, right, which is that very first time marijuana kicks in on you and you're just like, oh, yep, I'm high now, right? Because everyone does that thing where they first smoke marijuana and you don't have THC receptors and you're like, Oh, I guess this, maybe that's what being high is like. And then you do it the second time and you'RE like, OH, NOPE. NOPE, THIS IS WHAT BEING HIGH IS LIKE. I FOUND THE EXPERIENCE. WE'VE DISCOVERED IT, WATSON. I AM HIGH OFF MY ASS. HIGH off my ass when, and we're all hanging out in my attic right when the doorbell rings the door bell rings and I go to the door and it is the dad who is supposed to be watching me yeah so

0:26:35 Thomas: It doesn't work so you do too much yeah yeah it's the neighbor checking on on you yeah

0:27:03 Tom: Did

0:27:07 Thomas: Yeah

0:27:07 Eli: This is the family right that is but that I'm supposed to sort of go to their house it turns out of a

0:27:12 Tom: You have enough pot for him to share?

0:27:14 Thomas: I was gonna say and

0:27:14 Eli: Friend of the family was walking saw the kids I didn't know coming into the house and assumed someone was breaking in while the family was away so they called my parents my parents called jerry cohen a gastroenterologist a lovely jewish man who well it's so funny because jerry Cohen was one of these like he talked like this he was a very mild guy a very good doctor but just sort of you know lived his life and now he was having to bust up a pot party which I'm pretty sure is the most conflict jerry cohen ever had in his entire existence right this is a guy who like sat in the back right corner of temple and was like good shabbos and that was all I ever had

0:27:32 Thomas: Total narc no I'm just kidding uh yeah

0:27:58 Tom: To be fair, a bunch of 13 -year -olds high on pot are probably not a high -conflict group. This is a very low -coninflict group, right? Yeah.

0:28:02 Eli: Right I bet it wasn't as dramatic for him right so

0:28:06 Tom: Yeah, he answers the door with, like, bugles on his fingers.

0:28:06 Eli: He shows up to the door I am wasted and of of course I reek of pot, but I'm also high. Yeah, truly,

0:28:14 Tom: Like, I'm fine. I'm totally fine.

0:28:15 Eli: Truly. Yeah.

0:28:15 Thomas: You turn into tom not thinking anyone can tell he's mad

0:28:18 Eli: Exactly. Exactly. Yes. But slightly more subtle than that. So I'm like, so I'm, lIke, oh, hey, Mr. Cohen, how's it going? And he's, like, yo, um, who are these people? And I was, like, oh, um, and this is exactly the excuse I made. I remember it very well. I was like they're here helping. We had two Shih Tzus at the time. I was, like, they're helping me here, uh, train the Shih Tzus for my parents' anniversary and He was like, okay, well, uh, time for everyone to go now. And so they all, like, leave, you know, shamefacedly. And I come back, I am devastated, right? You got to remember I was the golden boy. My parents were so explicit, and here I was having a hot, a pot party. I was sobbing

0:28:40 Thomas: Pot party

0:29:00 Eli: And begging them not to tell my, please don't tell my parents, please don't tell my parents, because I knew what a crazy overreaction my dad would have, right? Of course told my parents. They were like, oh, we're not going to tell, because they didn't want me, they didn't want a fucking 13-year-old sobbing in their house. They were, okay, well, we'll think about it, we'll see. Parents come home, and my dad is doing a Tom, right, because they have told me that they, that they didn't tell them. And my dad comes to the door, and it's like, hey, boyo, how are you doing, me, oh, I'm just breathing normal, just, just doing a normal breathing, let's go home, right. So you get home, and they, my dad is so disappointed, he is so, so, so fucking mad, right, he did not speak to me for three days at all, he gave me the

0:29:01 Tom: Is great. Wow.

0:29:56 Eli: Silent treatment for three Days could not speak to me. At the end of the three, and I'll tell you why, I ended, at the end of the three days I was like, hey, man, like, we've got to talk, right? I was like, you're my dad, and like, I know I fucked up, and we got to figure out what to do about this, and I'm willing to be punished however you want but like

0:29:58 Thomas: Jesus

0:30:10 Tom: I love that you had to be the mature one in this group.

0:30:12 Thomas: Kidding

0:30:12 Eli: I had to be like, I, you can't do this, I don't know what's happening, but you can't do whatever this is, um, it was huge, and a bunch of the, like, laxity around my curfew and stuff changed forever, literally, literally forever for the rest of my life, right? Like I was a senior in high school and I'd be like, hey, this thing's going on, and my dad'd be like, like the time me and your mother went away, and I was like, come on, man, it's been five years. So yeah.

0:30:40 Eli: I mean, we worked it out, it, it was what kept me sober, I, there's a couple of things about that story, the one, and the reason why it's relevant to our episode is one of the conditions is he was like, you will never see those two boys again. And I didn't. I literally never hung out with them again. I think he also called their parents and was like, hey, I don't want your kids to hang out with my kid. Like, if they see him, should it be understood that they are not welcome in my home and they should not talk to my son at all. Because they, I, they were mad at me from the pot party. I think they were told by their parents, like, hey, Mr. Bosnick from the middle school called, and probably did it. I will also point out he probably did as good a job as Thomas of anger, hiding his anger on those phone calls. So I'm sure he was like, hello today, normal breathing, just wanna let you know, I'm gonna kill your kid, right? I'm certain that's something close to what my father did or said, right? Yeah, I never saw those kids again. Little fun postscript to that story, because I think it's just such a perfect encapsulation of my life. That was the first time I smoked pot, was there and getting caught by Mr. Cohen. Second time I smoked pot was three years later with my father, with

0:31:20 Tom: Already beat up both of their dads. Are you serious? Are you serious?

0:31:48 Eli: My father. And that's

0:31:47 Thomas: But Was he still mad at you after that, or still like wouldn't let you do anything after that yeah

0:31:53 Tom: Didn't talk to him for six weeks. Yeah, right. Dad did he beat up after you guys smoked pot together? That's confusing.

0:31:55 Eli: I know he had no dads to be to himself.

0:31:59 Tom: That's tough. Yeah, that's a, that

0:32:00 Eli: Yeah. He had to do a

0:31:57 Thomas: Himself yeah he had to liar liar himself yeah jesus

0:32:01 Eli: Mirror match against himself. Yes, exactly, yeah. My mom always tells the story. He was so, they were like on a drive away, and he had to, like, he was so enraged he had to pull over the car to, like, scream anguish to the skies. Again, to be clear, to my father's credit, right, an incredibly addictive personality, and there is every chance that my entire life became about pot if I had not had that sort of scared-straight moment. I don't know that to be true. I know a lot of people who have healthy relationships with drugs who didn't have that experience, but what I will say is, in my humble opinion, hey tom you're the one who said it not me you know what I'm saying I I needed that experience, because the, I will say, the direction I was headed with those people as my friends was not a good one. Yeah, I was not making good choices, and I was going to continue to make bad choices, uh, with those people as my friends, and I, I attribute a lot of the reason that I made it out of my town and into the many privileges that I had as an adult because of that sort of turning point in my life.

0:32:38 Tom: Just look at your friend Noah. To circle it all back then, I think you do have a good template for, or I don't think there's any, I don't think there's any, I guess what I'm saying is there's no magic bullet to it, right? Like, we've got to keep our finger on the pulse of who our kids are connected to, and then I think at some point there are times where you have to be like, guess who you're not connected to anymore, that person. And like then there's also the time in their lives too where you have to realize you're just totally out of control, and you have to hope that you set up enough good preconditions ahead of time. So I'm thinking of like yeah, like, because my dad, my dad did a bad job of giving me any freedom, which, which means, which means he did a bad, which means he did a bad job of, like, preparing me for anything.

0:33:43 Thomas: Have to hope that person's farm that they're driving to out in whatever state isn't that no

0:34:00 Tom: So all the preparing the Tom did, he did in the moment, right? There's just no, no prepare at all. He was just like, well, let's see if this works. And like, sometimes it didn't. And you're like, that's traumatic. And you feel like, fuck. So,

0:34:09 Eli: Got grounded. Grounded him again. I buy a monkey.

0:34:18 Tom: But yeah, I, I, I'm thinking about, like, Donovan and Finn right now. I don't know most of their friends. They're both 18 at this point. I mean, Finn will be 18 when this probably comes out. So,

0:34:25 Eli: Apparently they only hang out after fucking midnight.

0:34:28 Tom: Well, that's the thing, is they're, like, they have cars. Their friends are not close. They go to their friends, like, Donovan is hanging out with people that, like, so far he met at college. They don't live nearby, because they go to the same, the college pulls from, like, a pretty wide geography, much wider geography than, like, the high school does, you know, and like the same is true to some degree for Finn. Like, they've all got cars now, so, or they all have access to cars, so, like, his friends, he'll be like, oh yeah, I was hanging out with fucking Andrew, and I'll be like, who the shit is Andrew, who the fuck is Andrew, man, like, I'll get a text from Donovan, and he'll be like, yeah, I'm hanging out at my friend fucking Jimbo's house, and I'm like, who the fuck, who are these fucking people

0:35:08 Eli: Who's Jimbo? Let me come over and talk real calm at them. Hello.

0:35:09 Tom: Right

0:35:09 Thomas: I really hope he's just making up names every time just a prank he's

0:35:12 Tom: Yeah just and it's like it's great, because I, I do want them to have expansive and ever-changing social lives, I do want that for them, like I want them to have that, like, social experience of meeting new people and trying new people on for size, so to speak it

0:35:30 Thomas: Jimbo come on they shouldn't be named jimmo

0:35:32 Eli: Come on.

0:35:33 Tom: Should not be that. Now my pants are chafing me too, but

0:35:38 Eli: Jimbo's on a full scholarship to Harvard right now. We don't get to see him that often.

0:35:43 Tom: It is weird, because at some point you're just like in that trust zone where the person you're trusting is your kid, and the person you'd never get a chance to know if you would trust are all these people that you don't even know if they'll talk about you, don't even know if they'll bring them up in conversation, like, I don't know, I know Aislinn's, like, friend, like, I know the names of other people, but, like, that's it, all you know is their fucking names, it's yeah

0:36:06 Eli: It's so easy now that they're little, because they're just friends because I'm friends with their parents. It's the best. I'm friends with their parents. So I'm, like, we go over and we hang out, and I like all the people there. But then, then there's going to be a day where they're like, this is Schmagoogle. And I'm gonna be, like, I'm not friends with your dad.

0:36:26 Eli: How do I know your dad shares values?

0:36:26 Tom: Well dude it's worse yeah but dude, it's worse than that, because, like, I'll tell you from experience, they're also making and maintaining friendships that are online, so they've got, and there are no clear boundaries with the kids there

0:36:39 Eli: I've got that covered Tom. Tom, don't you worry about that. I've got that fucking cover baby.

0:36:40 Thomas: He's cloned to everything you need

0:36:44 Eli: I'm all my son's online friends.

0:36:42 Tom: Are NO CLEAR about that's

0:36:44 Thomas: To find a way to clone max himself and then you do all

0:36:48 Eli: I have already Facebook jacked all of Max's childhood friends. And when he goes to find them on Facebook, he will find find me instead and I will be like hey man just doing homework make sure you

0:36:56 Thomas: Thank god I thought that was like a sex act so you're not confessing to not confessing to enter okay they

0:36:59 Tom: I was what I was a little nervous myself yeah but like they, they also, they don't draw any distinctions between when they talk about their friends. There's no distinction between an online friend and an IRL friend. That's not, that's a distinction we make as old people that don't matter, that is not a distinction that's actual for kids, so that's fucking weird, too, too. Right.

0:37:23 Tom: Because you, like, not only do you not know them, you don't, like, nobody actually knows them. Like, kids don't even know if those people are kids. It's they

0:37:17 Thomas: Could

0:37:31 Eli: They could be fake, they could be grown-ups pretending they could and often are grown-ups pretending to be children because they want to fuck your children

0:37:33 Tom: Could be a. Yeah.

0:37:39 Thomas: Be just using your data for military research purposes

0:37:42 Tom: Attach to the flamethrower gazelles.

0:37:43 Eli: Me and tom are right about this all before we go, uh, how long does Sean Connery get to Wimbledon tarnish

0:38:03 Tom: Oh, my God. OK, I actually kind of like that one.

0:38:05 Thomas: So you switch to good jokes again yay

0:38:06 Tom: I that was good

0:38:07 Eli: You were so sad at the end I saved a good one for you I can you know cheer you up in these darkening times gotta keep a lookout parenting

0:38:19 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.

0:38:59 Eli: Oh Tom you humble slut and

0:39:01 Tom: The fuck is Andrew, man, like

0:39:03 Eli: Sorry, let me do that so I'm not doxing a real child.