DOD196: Breaking the Pattern

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Eli: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's not afraid of resisting generational trauma. I'm Eli Bosnick, and I'm joined, as always, by Thomas Smith.

0:00:38 Thomas: Yeah, hi, that's me, I'm that one. How's it going? This is, it's, it's awkward saying hello to you when we've been trying to figure out how to record for a good hour and a half because when Tom's not here.

0:00:46 Eli: It's true, yeah, you gotta stay for the

0:00:48 Thomas: Yeah, when Tom's not here, we're just like, "Like, what, how does anything," both of us have other podcasts we do that were, some of them we're in charge of, but yet some, yeah, it's

0:00:55 Eli: We do. Yeah. And you introduced some of them. Yeah, I can get away with it because I don't introduce any of mine.

0:01:01 Thomas: So weird. It's like, oh, you know, when you try to dance but on the other side or whatever, and you're like, Oh, first off, I'm so dumb. I thought this was symmetrical.

0:01:10 Eli: Had me at when you try to dance. I understood the meaning, the metaphor.

0:01:13 Thomas: I, yeah. Yeah. Like I don't do a lot of dancing, but didn't realize that, like, the non -male partner was doing a different thing. Then you're like, that's so much harder, even though it's the same thing, but just slightly different. And that's this. That's this anyway. Do we do a show yet? This is so hard. I'm sweating bullets.

0:01:28 Eli: Let's do a show. Hey, you know the only thing worse than trying to do a without the meat in our sandwich tom curry? Why? It's the auto ads. Yes, the auto adds. You've probably heard 10, 12, maybe 67 of them by now. After all, we have been recording for almost a minute. But you can make those go away over at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads where you'll not only get a commercial free version of every single episode, you also get bonus episodes. We just recorded a little bonus AMA last week. That was fun. You probably already have it in your ear tubes if you give us your money. A good time. It's good vibes over there in the Dear Old Dad's Patreon. I checked it out for the first time.

0:02:04 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of participation, a lot OF comments. It's fun.

0:02:08 Eli: It's nice. The vibes are good. It is.

0:02:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. There's only like 20 % of people who want to pay us to be mean to us. It's

0:02:14 Eli: That's true. Well, So head on over, be one of the nice ones at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads. Rip into... That's

0:02:24 Thomas: If we pay for someone to be mean to us, it's great and a fun time. But if someone who pays us is mean to US, then that's that's hell.

0:02:30 Eli: A good time. Depends on how much you pay us. There are patrons who have given us an amount of like April Poff. If the next time I see her, she just flying kicks me in the chest. I'll be like, wow, look at you. You got some air there.

0:02:37 Thomas: That's true. I'll be honest, that's true, even if April never pay. That's just because of April, you know, like I don't even know.

0:02:49 Eli: But just how wonderful a person

0:02:50 Thomas: Yeah, I have no idea what level of patron she is to anything.

0:02:50 Eli: She is. But I would just assume she was balancing something out karmically or I deserved it or.

0:02:56 Thomas: Yeah. You do.

0:02:58 Eli: Do. I do somewhere a listener question for you today. That's right. Podcast listener. You can have your questions answered by the only people least fit to answer them over at the dads at dear old dads .com. That is the dads. This question comes to us from a listener who says. Husband grew up with a very similar dad to Thomas's. Now, his first instinct, whenever my youngest, seven, makes the tiniest errors is to make a contemptuous comment. I don't know why it's only my youngest. Maybe their personalities are too similar, or he was born right when his dad died, and unlike Thomas, the death of his dad completely broke him to a nearly non -functioning state for years. So with that time period? Anyway, I wonder how Thomas healed his parenting style when it sounds like he was raised similarly, where judgment and contempt for others were the only currency in their family's bonding. And his domestic servant and breadwinner mom was the butt of every family joke.

0:02:59 Thomas: .com slash zero deaths domestic Servant and breadwinner, yeah, that's, yeah, that is, that was my situation. Huh.

0:04:04 Eli: Yeah. And then one other thing about this thing is, anyway, my husband is a stellar dad to my older son and I've been with him 20 plus years through ups and downs. So I'm hoping that maybe Thomas has tips for escaping the parenting influences of a dad like his.

0:04:19 Thomas: Can you channel this person so I can ask a series of follow-up questions?

0:04:24 Thomas: Yeah, I, we're to believe that this person wasn't shitty when that older, uh, was younger.

0:04:30 Eli: Stellar dad to My Older Son.

0:04:30 Thomas: Yeah. Now, but I'm saying, I, you know, I guess we're to assume. It's not like maybe she's kind of not remembering that he sucked back when that kid was young, you know what I mean? Like could be an age thing, but Uh, yeah, if we're stuck with the text, like originalists, except more honest, we'll stick to that. Um, only reason I say that is there is a sense, and I feel this a little bit it too, where the dad had a harder time when we were younger because you kids can be less rational, and there's that awkward time, and, and seven actually might be around that. Um, and it may be this that's going on, where early, early kids are so cute that obviously they're, you know, my dad wasn't getting mad at babies. My dad was very loving to, to babies. Uh, you, oh yeah.

0:04:40 Eli: Not according to the text. No. Yeah.

0:05:10 Eli: Interesting. Mm

0:05:12 Thomas: Yeah, my, he, dad was like, the, it, too, is that his, he didn't take care of his mental health and it got worse and worse. Like he was a kind of a different person when I was little, you know, and you Know, that sense in which especially I think men when they still for some reason have something to try for, maybe like he was still kind part of society somewhat, you he just wasn't and had nothing to care about and no accountability to anyone. But early on, no, he was not bad. He good. But what I was going to say is there's a phase of kid where they're little and cute, so it's fine.

But then when they get a little bit older, They're they're tough. They're childish and, They are you irrational and that's a really hard thing for my dad. Like Like, anything he saw as, like, irrational, that's a tough one. I relate. I get it. It's the kind of thing where, for me, when it's a kid, for some reason, it doesn't trigger the same thing that I guess it did with him. A certain extent. I don't know. I guess – it get tougher the more you feel like they should know better. Like, it does gets tougher to deal with some of these absurdities. But I

0:05:18 Eli: Hmm. Yeah, Mm hmm. Sure.

0:06:13 Thomas: Think that might be what's going on, possibly. Like, that's my first instinct is that it's it's that awkward phase. But I don't know. That's reading a lot into the text.

0:06:20 Eli: No. And I think you actually hit the nail right on the head because this was my thoughts when I first read this email, which is that when you go through a childhood, you kind of get grandparent syndrome, which Something that I know a lot of folks go through with their own parents is their parents will be like, oh, well, when you were this age, I just put you down on the front porch and I said, you eat this peach until you're feeling better. And you would just sit there happily chomping away. And then they don't remember that you were 15 and not two. Right.

And so I think that could be a big part of it. Right? If you've been with someone for 20 years, they raised an older child. Right, American averages, they probably haven't dealt with a younger child for.

Decades and decades at this point, and so their expectations might be at teenager, young adult, uh, in which case a lot of those reactions are healthy social manufacturing. Not all the time, obviously. You don't want to be roasting your 18-year-old necessarily, but like, it is to be like, "That wasn't very smart of you" to an 18-year

0:06:24 Thomas: Hmm.

0:07:21 Eli: The reason I was really interested in having you answer this question, Thomas, is because I know that it's been tough with the Pheebs. You've talked about it on air quite a bit these days. And, like, you and I both share the gremlin who just wants to make the bad decisions all the time. And so I was wondering, sort of, in how... How you deal with that, because obviously I'm going through some frustrations with Max. I've talked about the hitting phase, which I think at this point we just have to call the hitting era hitting period.

0:07:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:07:49 Eli: Right. You know, like Picasso.

0:07:48 Thomas: That's just the kind of Pokemon

0:07:50 Eli: And yeah, he's yeah, He's a fighting type.

0:07:50 Thomas: He is, you know, it's not like he's, um,

0:07:53 Eli: Yeah. So, you know, I have noticed in myself my own bad habits and wanting to be better and wanting maybe this isn't fair, so correct me if I'm wrong, as someone whose parenting model has been, I'm not going to make the mistakes he made, what are you catching? What are you finding in yourself? Or is it better the start?

0:08:13 Thomas: There's a lot going on. I, I picked out something. There's part of this question that we're, we're maybe leaving for later if we have time, but in it there's something I want to read that I, I think is, is helps illustrate what's going on. It says, "Another time my son was having a meltdown at the bottom of the bouncy slide. And while my husband just sat there with sarcastic comments, a family friend was watching the balcony and calmly pointed out a quarter next to him. My son was delighted with the quarter discovery and scampered off happy as a lark. That's rough. That's rough, don't I know. Oof. So know to what extent, you I understand what this listener's partner is doing and this listener understands what my dad was doing. You know what I mean? Like, I'm NOT it's hard to know.

0:08:51 Thomas: You tried to still like a upbringing, entire upbringing in a podcast. But yeah.

0:08:50 Eli: Sure, yeah, of course. I wish you would. But do it anyways, though. Do it now.

0:08:58 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And Also, I do want to say, like, I actually don't, I don't, I don't know how much I've talked about the Phoebe stuff lately on air, because it's been like, it's painful. I haven't really even done it. I know it's hard, because we as dads, like, we love to chat before and after. And sometimes we blend in, like, what's, what's, I could First step, my dad, everything was a joke. If we did something wrong, it was a sarcastic joke about it. And here's the important thing.

It was incredibly cold. We were afraid of my dad. Even though he was never abusive except one time when I deserved it. As I said, I still actually agree with that. I was was in high school and I was shitty to my sister or something. I actually don't, I'm not even, I don't even hold that against him. I would fight with my little sister all the time. And I just, yeah, it wasn't good.

Like I was, mean I to her and like, she was mean to me and it was awful, but, um, and that was the one, one time he ever did anything physical at all, he just wasn't a physical guy, but we were always afraid of him, he were afraid of his temper and his yelling and his, like, it was mostly just cold, like it Was just hard that, like, it felt like he could completely be ice cold at any time if we did something, and as kids we didn't really understand, like, there probably was a logic to most of it, um, were some things where he was just insane, like he just could not deal with, um, things that, that anyone else would not have a problem with, like he just couldn't deal with them, um

0:10:15 Eli: Like what?

0:10:16 Thomas: Like, I remember one time, it's hard to remember examples with me per se, but I do remember it with my mom a lot, so like, I Remember one time my mom, uh, him the wrong, like, breath mints and he was like so mad about it and like he had like, like he just like went to his room, you know, he didn't yell, it was, he didn't yell as much as you might think, it was more like just made very clear that he was upset in and, like, oh, I can't believe you could be this stupid to get the wrong fucking breath mints or whatever from Costco, and that meant it was like, you know, a truckload of them, so we didn't have any money, so I guess I, she did get the wrong flavor

0:10:32 Eli: Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. Were the mints for the year.

0:10:53 Thomas: Yeah. They kind of were, and the snakes needed him too, yeah.

0:10:56 Eli: Was the wintergreen year. Damn it.

0:10:59 Thomas: But, but he would kind of just go in his room and it was like, well, ice cold whole house, you of being shitty kind of thing.

0:11:06 Eli: No, I look, I think that's a very common kind of abuse and one that media has not done a good job talking about, right? Because like when a dad's an abuser in a movie, he's like, go get the belt boy, and like, go give the belt boy hasn't been illegal for long enough, but it has been illegal a smidgen. So like, people do stuff if you're a go-get-the-belt-boy dad sometimes, not all the time. Not Nearly enough because they're still alive, but You know what I'm saying, like Even The movies now reflect that that's a bad thing. The movies that are made for the part of the country that votes for Trump understands that go get the bellboy is not the ideal solution. But yeah, I friends whose dads made it very clear when they misbehaved that not just like, are you not loved in this moment, but like, I don't like you. I actively don't like you. And like the vibe of your house sucked, right?

Like you'd come over, you ever go over to someone's house when their parents were fighting and like the vibes were super bad and you'd just be like, hey, I'm so sorry. I came over to play Super Nintendo with Jeremy and instead I was hoping I could drown in your pool. Do you guys mind if

0:11:12 Thomas: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, not All the time. But yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's way less common. Now.

0:12:14 Eli: I switch up that agenda?

0:12:15 Thomas: Well, we've talked about before, I mostly had the thing where I, I actually would be confused that the dad being mad wasn't a big deal, like I go to someone's house, I think we talked about that, I go someone's home and they'd be like, the dad would be upset and I, I'd go into like, uh, fuck, you know, just kind of waiting for the, the shoe to drop kind of thing, but then it would be like, yeah, where did you bury your dog, where'd you dig a hole where the dog used, used to live, uh then and it would be like, you know, that there would be jokes about it, we never joked about my dad being mad, never, like that's a good indication, because we joked around about everything and us being mad was something that obviously could be joked out, like we could be made fun of for having a fit, throwing a tantrum, something that, checks notes, is fine for a kid to do, like that's kind of like normal for a kids to do is like get upset, set, throw fits, there was no joking, no one ever had the fucking guts to joke about my dad, any of his insane behaviors.

0:12:32 Eli: Where's your dog buried? Let's go stand near it. Where'd you bury your dog? Yeah, exactly.

0:13:00 Eli: Right, yeah. No, because that was the rules, right? It was the way, it was the world. The entire world was mad.

0:13:09 Thomas: Really, yeah. Exactly. And and it wasn't something never talked about, never at once addressed, never even considered it, you know, like it's, and, and that's an example of how it's really hard to, like, give people an indication of what that's like without being in it, but, uh, maybe, maybe, maybe it's not, maybe people understand, but like, that's just an, an example, like we would never crack a joke ever about, about the fucking mints, for example, like we just wouldn't, like, know what I mean?

0:13:35 Eli: To sort of what this carries forward, right? Because one of the things that when you read about ACT and a lesser extent cognitive behavioral therapy, right, those notions, those oughts that get instilled in us as kids, right. That you are only worthy of love when you fit into these boxes, when you do these things, that the world must be a certain way and that when it isn't that way, it is. A good thing to be outraged, you should expect it to change, right? If you grow up in those environments, you tend to pass those environments on, right, instead of just realizing, like, oh, yeah, like I want my four -year -old to stop punching me in the face. That would be sick nasty, cool stunts, 180 fresh, but he's also a four. Almost five and they punch people in the face. So you gotta be where it is and you gotta make healthy reactions instead of what I often catch myself doing, which is like being mad later about it. And I'm like, he's not playing man. Now you're just an adult mad at a five -year -old, you

0:13:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:35 Thomas: It's kind of why I picked out that, um, comments about the meltdown there. I will say this, I, I worry here's why I've been conflicted and not quite maybe speaking as freely as normal. I worry that I'm failing as a parent lately, like, it things have been so hard with Phoebe, um, and Phoebe, Remy's getting better, but, um, been so hard that I don't, I just worry that I'm, I'm not failing and I worry that I'm not doing a good enough job at it, don't think I'm being my dad because I'm just not, I just not like that.

But I won't be failing in other ways that are sort of related, because just so hard. It's impossible. I worry. But I will say this for myself, any of my kids are having a meltdown, I'm never making a sarcastic comment ever. It's just never, that's, I'm not doing it. Never happens. Doesn't mean I'm the perfect, like, I'm, sometimes I might be like, hey, because they have meltdowns that really dumb entitled shit, you know, that you have to sit there and be like, okay, hey buddy, you're got a baby in this house that does this, you know, when it's Arlo or Phoebe, because they're bigger, I'm like, hey, we've Got a Baby that does This, it's Remy, like, to use your words and let's, you know, I'm Not, I'm not like super always understanding of the dumb meltdown they're having, but I never make sarcastic comments, I never like, oh look at this fucking could cry. You know, I've

0:15:19 Eli: Of course. Exactly.

0:15:37 Thomas: Never, it's always with a, like, Hey, you know, like come on. You want to, yeah. It's always, do you want to hug? I'm always, you I'm want a hug, but like, come on, there's a little ridiculous where it's like, it'll be times where, you if it's Arlo, like I've given Arlo like the most amazing day full of wonder and this thing, the likes of which I never saw in my life.

0:15:39 Eli: It's never roast festival. Yeah

0:15:53 Thomas: And he's on his, yeah, he's not his his fifth new video game, and then, and I don't know if that, technically, it's in a video game, everyone, it was in a game, it is not real, he is joking, it, if anything, it would be inappropriate, if to not, the age gap, anyway, yeah, and it will be like, like okay, if, now it is time to, you know, fucking brush your teeth or something, because it is the time to go to bed, after we already let you stay up, like a little bit late, and he gives me a bunch of shit, then it's "don't make fun of him," but I'm like, "buddy, you know, look at all the things that happen, like, come on, this is your, you know..." At my harshest, I'm like, "you're being a baby, this is like, think about what I did for you today and what everyone did for you, to do what your mom did for, and this is acceptable" - not kind of thing, but I never gonna roast him about... I think that's so toxic. I think it's so bad. Yeah.

0:15:53 Eli: He's inside the Zelda game. Heege from a bokoblin. Bokoblins are younger than Arlo. Don't get mad at me.

0:16:22 Eli: Right.

0:16:44 Eli: Out two really important things there. The first is I think feeling like a failure as a parent is way more common than we all acknowledge it is. This is something I've been feeling last couple of months. Obviously not going through as hard a time as other folks are. But Uh, like with this hitting phase, right? I know it's typical. I know. It's kids stuff. His teacher's not worried. His IEP meeting was like, nah, it's good. We got this, like his doctors and his OTs and all, and everybody has been like, we got this. This is something that we could deal with, but I can't fix it. And so I feel like a failure, right. I feel. You failure in all the possible ways. Cause if I was loving him, right.

And I was parenting him, and I was paying enough attention or reading the right books or using the right strategies, it would just fix itself. Cause that's what those books and fucking blogs all tell me, right? Is I'm going to, I'm Going to use fast food talk and he's going to be like, thank you for understanding me, father. I shall never scratch again. Right. And then just move on. But like, the truth is, I think you always feel.

A state of failure, if you're doing it right, you know, one of the quotes that I talk to young artists about, and I promise this is relevant. One the Ira Glass quote about taste exceeding ability, that you will never be as good as your taste understands you

0:17:01 Thomas: I love

0:17:56 Eli: Should be.

0:17:56 Thomas: That Yeah, it's the Salieri effect.

0:17:59 Eli: Yeah, exactly. I think that's true of parenting as well, right? As I become a better parent, I realize the ways in which, ooh, I was a little like sharp there. Ooh, I didn't speak the same way or ooh, didn't the best way. You should be looking to constantly improve. You know, all the shitty parents I know convinced they're nailing it. I don't know a single shitty mom or dad who is like, I'm a fucking bad dad. Not one.

0:18:08 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. And yes. And. Yes. And when their kid turns out like shit and they talk about it, they talk about it being the kid's fault. Yeah. Well, you, was tough.

0:18:30 Eli: Yeah. Put clothes on your back.

0:18:33 Thomas: Yeah. He was, that's the thing. Did my best, but there's, you know, that kid just wanted to be, you know, and it's like, I will admit that that like, that's less crazy than I used to think it was based on the challenges I'm going through because Because there are things like, I don't know, mental illnesses or certain neurodivergence where it's really hard to work with. You don' t know the answers. And it is true that, like, your kids' personalities are very, a large percentage are kind of determined. Like, they just are. But I still think that re totally you' right that the ones who are bad parents never think they' re bad parents. Like, the animals never do.

0:18:33 Eli: I put food on your belly.

0:18:43 Eli: Yeah, I Had a comforting moment because I was talking to my aunt about the phase and how much it sucks. And, like, I really feel like I'm messing up. And what does she recommend? Blah, blah, blah. She was talking about my cousin. Younger cousin apparently went through a hitting phase as well. And my younger cousin is the chillest, sweetest motherfucking dude you've ever met in his entire life, like, you'd be like, oh, there's a fire and a bomb that needs to be deactivated, let's get him, he seems like he might do some cool acapella while he's deactivating the bomb. And she was telling me, oh, no, we had a sticker chart and it was a good day or a bad day, and he came back with so many so many friends. Oh yeah, we're doing a, we're chart dad corner. Oh, wait, sorry, that's

0:19:22 Thomas: Hmm. Wow. That's what I'm doing with Arlo right now. That is so funny. Yeah, let's talk charts. Wait, so

0:19:53 Eli: Suck to dick corner.

0:19:53 Thomas: Are we going to suck a

0:19:54 Eli: Yeah.

0:19:54 Thomas: Dick?

0:19:54 Eli: No, stay away from suck.

0:19:54 Thomas: We don't. That' s too

0:19:55 Eli: Do not combine chart dad.

0:19:56 Thomas: Different. Oh, wait a minute. Hold on. This chart says I sucked enough dicks. Did I get a...

0:20:00 Eli: I told you, you went to the wrong corner.

0:20:02 Thomas: No!

0:20:02 Eli: Oh God.

0:20:02 Thomas: No!

0:20:03 Eli: We're, we're lost in the Dear Old Dad's affairs. Hey, guys.

0:20:07 Thomas: Yeah, we're on the... I don't want to hijack it, but Arlo... yeah, we were having, you know, maybe similar-ish problems that Max was having with the, with the hitting. Not quite the same, I don't think, I but think expectations are different based on, uh, know age and school and grade and all that, um, he's, you know, he was doing some hitting, he's doing some, that kind of stuff, and the teacher actually suggested, hey, maybe we, maybe we do this, maybe we can do a star chart and he can work, work toward his, uh, goal for the day. And so he gets he can get up to five for different things like safe hands and

0:20:07 Eli: Sure. Mm. -hmm. Yep. Right. Now, let me hit you with something that I've enjoyed over in our chart corner. Wait, let make sure I'm in the right corner.

0:20:43 Thomas: Here we go. Yeah.

0:20:43 Eli: Okay, good. No, we're in the, we'RE in the RIGHT corner.

0:20:45 Thomas: Yeah, this is the right corner. I do a dick and balls for the stars, but it's not related. It's just for fun.

0:20:49 Eli: Good. That's just for you. Just to keep it fun. Keep it fun! Tell the kids it's a rocket ship.

0:20:50 Thomas: Yeah. I promise this is not Suck a Dick Corner.

0:20:55 Eli: Now I'm picturing a disappointed bokoblin walking out of the corner.

0:20:59 Thomas: Ah, should I just?

0:21:02 Eli: Hey, if you love Zelda and don't hate that joke, that was right in the middle of, I was right. In the bullseye for you. Yeah, we're So this is cool because the thing about a day chart of, like, you get four today is that kids can get thrown off by the failure mechanism, right? Of like, oh shit, I lost, the whole day's a wash, let's get buck wild. It's a, it's accumulative model. So a picture, a Candyland board, the good decisions all move you forward on the Candyland board towards the prizes. But there's nothing that moves you backwards. There's no moment

0:21:09 Thomas: Yeah. Like it. No, I haven't. Yep.

0:21:42 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:21:42 Eli: Of indication of failure.

0:21:43 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Which is good. I mean, it's, it'S the kind of thing that like, I think a lot of old school and probably my parents would be like, Like, oh, wow. So it's so soft that you're not, you can't discipline. And it's like, nah, it's actually better because the teacher actually said with Arlo, yeah, I think I'm going to start small and make it pretty achievable for the first few days. And just like if we can find like one moment where he's doing the things well, we'll say that was it. And it works because, you know, it really is true that that do respond. And, you when you're dealing with neurodivergence and depending on, you know, kind of the level there, things this advice might not apply, you know, but, but is, is he's on the spectrum, which he probably is, it's, pretty it'S like borderline. Like that's why he initially didn't get the diagnosis.

0:22:22 Thomas: I think we're going to try to update that because it seems like he probably needed it. So he's got a lot, you Know, you got to work with the kid you have. And I can imagine different children with different needs and different abilities to kind of respond to these incentives. But I will say that for kids, those positive incentives work just so much better than negative ones. Just do.

0:22:21 Eli: Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah, Well, the thing is positive reinforcement works better on everybody in every scenario, no matter how you test it.

0:22:46 Thomas: Yeah, that's right.

0:22:47 Eli: There are pretty much no scenarios where negative enforcement. Right. Like a couple of really dangerous sex crimes that it's probably a good idea to shock people into not doing. But other than that, positive reinforcement is the way to go. And to be fair, they're only doing those sex crimes because they didn't have a Candyland chart when they were a kid. Their parents were get the belt parents. That's statistically the case. I So we have Max's like no hitting chart. No hitting Candyland thing. And he is one X away from small prize. We're, we're a ways away from big prize, but he's one X way from small price. And so every morning before school, we can walk over the chart and I can be like, buddy, good hands today. Good choices. No hitting, no pinching, no scratching, no running.

0:22:51 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:23:29 Eli: You know what you get to come home and do? And he's like, I'm going to choose this. And we're like, yeah, give me a high five. Right. And like, has all week this week, have we not gotten a fucking ex? Yeah. But he doesn't need to be reminded of that. Right? He's not sitting there staring at four days in a row of failure being like, oh, here's my parents being fucking pissed off at me.

0:23:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love that. So wait, is it for a whole week? I didn't that, connect that it's not just the day. So it's like you're working. How long of a time period is it?

0:23:55 Eli: We have eight spots on the chart, two small prizes, one big prize at the end. Basically it's he comes home having done well that day, kept his hands to himself, made good choices. Right, gets an X on the charts. Right and we are just moving forward through the chart. Right? It's not about today or tomorrow. Right is you move. So it's gonna take him fucking three weeks to get through this one chart, but he could have done it in eight days. Right? He could have.

0:24:00 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Oh, I like that.

0:24:19 Eli: And as he gets better at building those skills, he will see it move faster. He will see prizes more. It's positive reinforcement. And again, we're always looking towards the positive. We're always having a conversation about the good thing he's going to do, not the bad things he's done.

0:24:19 Thomas: I want to bring it back to, I'm realizing more in the spirit of the question, because I think about this myself too, when it comes to escaping the parenting, the the upbringing that you had. And I I wish I had a better answer other than that. Like for some reason I've just, I think I've mentioned it before. Like I always just was a sensitive kid, like in a, in ways that like were like to people. Like it was just sensitive about stuff. Like I didn't, things made me sad and like, I know, I DIDN'T really get to talk to anybody about it, but like I've taught, I THINK I've MENTIONED the time when my, my died that like really affected me in ways THAT like just, there was nobody around me who gave a sh - I I mean, my mom did, but she just didn't, she didn't have time. And I think she's where the strong ADHD comes from. So I think there was a lot of like memento disease going on with my mom.

0:24:57 Eli: Of course.

0:25:16 Eli: Sure.

0:25:16 Thomas: Like, so, stuff like that, where all I can guess is that I just was really sensitive in that way. And so, um, what I had to do is shatter the illusion of like me being perfect because that's what, that's, what happens with this behavior. Then that's What I think my dad had. I think I was absorbing some of his like, I think it's common with a covert narcissist behavior where he has these incredibly high standards for everyone, including himself.

And he thinks he's passing those standards, but occasionally he's not. And it's actually really hard and will trigger, like, you know, like a depression. I think I had some form of that for a while where it, it wasn't as extreme, but, like, there are things I thought I was doing well or good or was good at or, and not even, I'm not even talking about, like, being a dick, but even just things I thought I was better at than I was maybe.

Oh, then I see, like, oh, that there's the advent of smartphones, I see a video of what I was doing. And it's like, oh, I'm not as good at that as I thought. And then I think I went through enough of that

0:26:09 Eli: Can't actually do a pull up. What's crazy is there's now a flashback to that video. You just struggle and cry and vomit. And then Lydia goes, you did it.

0:26:11 Thomas: Fuck you I paid so much to have them edit that to make it look like... Yeah, no, yeah, but, and it's, I did have enough of that where it really, that really did change me enough where I was like, oh, I don't think I'm as cool as I thought it was.

I don'T think I'M doing things as right as I THOUGHT it was I donT think I' m as like, DON'T think I' M as rational as I thOUGHt it was, I dON'T think i'M as, you know, all these things that like as a kid, because of my like, absorbing, I think my dad's kind thing, it was this intensely intensely judgmental attitude toward everyone but us, you know, and I think I eventually absorbed enough of that, fortunately, to be like, Like, oh, no, I fall short in all kinds of ways.

And it really shattered that illusion for me. I don't know that someone who's actually a covert narcissist or a narcissist can do that. Like, actually, I'm fucking scientist, but I actually think they can't. Like, kind of stuck with that. But I don'T think that that was me. I think I was doing learned behavior stuff. You And, know, as evidence of that, I would say, like, I've changed so much. It's not even, it's night and day.

0:27:03 Eli: Yeah.

0:27:14 Eli: It's part of, you know, that book that I read that has a great three quarters and an absolutely terrible last quarter. More Mr. Nice guys like that notion that we pass on to young men, especially that you are not OK just the way you are. Right. That you need to be and do certain things to deserve love. That's really fucking toxic. And it is a real it's still consciously a hard habit to break. Right, because I'll tell you, like. Max doesn't have to do anything to earn my love, right? Max could be whoever he wants to be and as long as he isn't actively harming other people, as long he is, like, true to himself and enjoys life, I will adore him fully with my whole heart. Me? No, I need to earn it. I must do my cartwheels for my love. And I think a lot more of us are living in that world than we acknowledge. So, I don't know. I hope there's some useful stuff in there

0:27:26 Thomas: -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I wanted to just, um, talk, talk about the Phoebe stuff for a second, um.

0:28:11 Eli: For you. Please.

0:28:11 Thomas: Like, I, the reason I reacted when you made that comment is, like, there, I don't have any, when you get to a level of fucking, for lack of better word, fucking just insanity, and I use that loosely, I don't know of a better word, but just like hysterical fucking behavior, we'll say, there's, don't have any desire to make jokes about it. It's not, you know what I mean?

0:28:21 Eli: Oh, yeah.

0:28:29 Thomas: Like, and I'm not, not saying that about you. I'm saying that when you said, like, oh, you're dark passenger and you want to roast your kid, Phoebe's behavior is so extreme that it's not, it's like beyond that. It's like if you, if you're in Arkham Asylum and somebody's like fucking screaming and you're like, that's not, I don't have any jokes for this, you know, like she's

0:28:44 Eli: I don'T GOT BITS. Yeah. No, no. I feel that. Believe me, I feel

0:28:46 Thomas: She's going through something that I strongly suspect is actual, like, oppositional defiance, that is as hell, I can't, I wouldn't wish on anybody. It's like, it, what's making me feel like a failure is that there's no, if, if she was our only kid, I think we'd be fine, because I think we have all the, the and ability to do the things we need to do.

But the problem is when she abuses her brothers, like, we, we can't, it's hard to gentle parent when you have no time or bandwidth and one of your kids is like hitting your other kid, you know, both your other kids, and there's no room to be like, let's take an hour and, like, talk through this while, while you're still hitting, you know, like, you have to stop them. And the minute she perceives that she's in trouble at all, she fucking loses it.

Like she loses it in ways that are so extreme. Even anyway. So that's what we're working on. And it's, it's really hard to feel like we're ever doing a good job there because the answer actually is, I think that we do have have to kind of ignore it a lot, even it's so insane. So it's almost like if someone pulls out a like a gun and tries to rob you and then they're like, you know, actually, I'm going to not do that. And then you're like. Oh, cool. So we're best friends now. Right. Like it's like you have to act like, OK, everything's fine.

0:29:57 Eli: Mm-hmm. Yep. And believe me, I know it's to a less extreme extent and Max is younger, so it's a little more expected. But that's exactly what we've been going through with Max. Which is that like after he has scratched at us and clawed us and we've had to put him in a basket hold and keep him from hurting himself and us and, you know, making him take a single breath. And it's just been 20 minutes of that. Once it's over, what every smart person says is then it has to be over.

0:30:22 Eli: And I can't be like, oh, I'm actually still. Positively livid at you. Right? You can't do it.

0:30:22 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah it's really tough. And and this Phoebe thing in particular, not going to win a battle with her. Like there's no winning. It's incredible. There is no winning like there's times where, again, if she's being dangerous enough to her siblings and to us, actually, she hits us like she hits literally everybody in the house. Like she hits us all the time and it's like this weird compulsion thing where she can't stop. Like once she, once she starts going down that path and if we show her any disapproval, which is impossible not to do as a human being, like, and I mean anything, like if our eye moves slightly, then she starts going down this path of like lashing out at us for that. And then she started, and then she like hits us more. It's crazy. Like it's absolutely crazy.

0:30:56 Eli: Of course.

0:31:07 Eli: The tantrum becomes the bigger tantrum, becomes the big tantrum.

0:31:11 Thomas: But imagine, Imagine Max plus, like, such attention to detail of your expressions. You know, you often say Max doesn't know you're there. Ours is the opposite, where it's like, Phoebe's like that stupid Lie to Me show where she's evaluating yeah, every single thing and if

0:31:11 Eli: Yeah true. Yeah Tim Roth, just you micro -expressed your disapproval, yeah. Now I'm gonna punch Remy in the face.

0:31:32 Thomas: If a fucking eyelash is a scant, then she knows that we've given up. And so we get locked into these cycles and it's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. The times where I need to get her to physically separate, I have to carry her. I have to physically say, "All right, I'm carrying you to your room." And then when I go to carry, when it finally gets to that point, then she'll usually storm off and she doesn't want to be carried. I have to do that like all the time. I don't know what else to do. I, we could, could evacuate the house, I guess and like that I think

0:31:45 Eli: Yep, yep. Right a series of cages hanging from the ceilings. You push the coordinate, it comes down over.

0:32:01 Thomas: Yeah, I think the thing we're supposed to do is actually leave her. Like, I think it's supposed to be like trying to show that people won't want to spend time with her if she's mad at them in this way, or if she acts that like that. But like, it's hard when you got four other people and one of them's a baby, like you can't coordinate behavior like that yeah, it's like impossible. We have to stop every different thing we are doing. Yeah, like we're going in a storm shelter, there's tornadoes coming. God So anyway, I'm a failure and it's really hard and so fucking impossible.

0:32:22 Eli: Right, yeah, you can't just gather the whole household off into the next... You're not Mormons escaping... Phoebe's shelter, yeah. I hear you, Thomas, you are not alone. A lot of people out there, included, a lot these days are feeling that as well. Before we go, met a girl with 12 nipples. Seems strange, doesn't it?

0:32:57 Thomas: Stupid. Oh,

0:33:05 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.

0:33:47 Eli: I got to do the shit. I was like, Tom, you fat piece of shit. All right, let me get this.

0:33:47 Thomas: Oh, yeah. No, let's just wait for Tom. Oh, boy. Welcome to Dear Old Dads.

0:33:56 Eli: No, how dare you? I was so fucking ready.

0:33:58 Thomas: Oh, I thought you were... I thought... Do it, do it. I didn't mean to.

0:34:00 Eli: All my lips were pursed.

0:34:01 Thomas: I didn't realize you were preparing like you had a really unpleasant dump to take.

0:34:02 Eli: Pursed. I did a fucking

0:34:08 Thomas: You're like, oh,

0:34:08 Eli: Scene study. Oh, no, I was ready. I'm so ready. Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast. No, that's too douchey. Too douche. We need to welcome them.

0:34:09 Thomas: God. It was like radio. Welcome to Dear Old Dads.

0:34:18 Eli: Yeah, we need to warmly welcome them in. They're a new listener. We can't say come in the first 10 seconds.

0:34:23 Thomas: Dear old Dads, morning zoo. Got traffic on the 405 looking bad. Okay, yeah. I got

0:34:26 Eli: That's right. Exactly. I hate to be out there, but I love to be in here with you. That is Body Ray and I killed my daughter. How about as a prank? Because Tom is going through hell. We just do jock jam radio voices for 43 minutes without breaking.

0:34:47 Thomas: But also have like a really heartfelt conversation while doing. I'm like yeah, I think it was my dad. The thing

0:34:50 Eli: Yeah, at the same. But the. Got to escape that generational trauma. Yeah.

0:34:59 Thomas: Whoa. It's a drama dump. Hit the button. Like, like some actual, like, toilet dump sounds, you know?

0:35:06 Eli: And gentlemen we got them yeah exactly Exactly.

0:35:14 Thomas: Drama dump. That's our new radio show, everybody. All right.

0:35:15 Eli: Uh -huh. It's all going. That's it.

0:35:19 Thomas: I think we've done enough here whenever Tom is gone, our entire show it's so weird. You realize how much he's the structural integrity.

0:35:21 Eli: All right. Enjoy the. One minute falls apart. Don't know what you got till it's gone.

0:35:34 Thomas: That's not even the right voice for that song, unless you're doing the Joni Mitchell cover now.

0:35:40 Eli: That's what I was doing. I was the Joni Mitchell cover. Yep, so fucking good.

0:35:41 Thomas: God, I love Joni Mitchell. I joke, she's my fucking favorite in the world. So I don't want to the

0:35:46 Eli: And can I? Well, I can't talk about it on air. I love Joni Mitchell I a would be sick nasty, cool stunts, 180 fresh, but chart dad corner oh wait sorry that's suck to dick corner yeah heege from a bokoblin.

0:35:46 Thomas: Best .com slash zero deaths domestic Wait,