DOD206: Is Parenting Joyful?

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's full of joy and happiness and much less nerve pain. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen. Da -da -da da -da ta -da, da -ta -ta ta -ta, da, da.

0:00:40 Eli: Watch, that's

0:00:43 Thomas: Would say a lack of intense pain is the closest Tom comes to joy. So I think that's a, yeah,

0:00:47 Tom: Ha

0:00:47 Eli: Right. And we found it, we found it today, Tom, the people cry out. When I was at this live show in Portland this past weekend, people were like, "How's Tom doing? How's Tom neck?"

0:00:47 Tom: -ha -ha! Yeah! That's so sweet!

0:00:56 Eli: How's

0:00:55 Thomas: True. It's

0:00:56 Tom: That's SO sweet!

0:00:56 Thomas: Actually true. That's not even a bit. I was there too. A lot of people asked about you.

0:00:57 Eli: Time Yeah. So update us, Tom. How's your neck? What happens?

0:01:03 Tom: Fucking amazingly better. Like, phenomenally, wildly, crazily better.

0:01:06 Thomas: Hey, Tom, shut the fuck up. Is there a place where people could go right now to already have a lot of this talk that. That is more personal and more in detail. Is there some place folks could go? What do you think? Anyone know?

0:01:08 Tom: Ha -haha -ha, ha -ha.

0:01:22 Tom: Patreon.

0:01:22 Thomas: What are you going to do? Eli, I was queuing you for some rip into it.

0:01:24 Eli: Oh, sorry, you said Tom, so I was thought you, I thought you were queuing time. Oh, Tom, shut up. Why, why, why? Of course, Thomas, they can get their update, the full Neck Watch update, over at patreon.com/dearolddads, where we talk about how Tom's operation exposed his greatest weakness. Was it his fear of death?

0:01:26 Thomas: No, I said, Tom, shut the fuck up.

0:01:46 Eli: Tom?

0:01:46 Thomas: And it turns out Tom also did a crazy thing. It was going to be about alpha male boot camps. And then we realized that Tom's actually that's his. He did that for a living. That's him.

0:01:55 Eli: Did an alpha bail moot gun you get to watch me and and hit the brakes super hard on making fun of the people who do those things to be like, oh, cool, cool.

0:01:55 Tom: That's my kink. That's kink, I did one by accident, yeah.

0:01:56 Thomas: Oh, boy. Yeah. Yeah, I

0:02:05 Tom: Yeah, no, that's fine, you did that,

0:02:05 Eli: Cool. Yeah. No. I

0:02:05 Thomas: Mean, some of them are probably, yeah, like some, not all of them are this, like they're probably, yeah.

0:02:06 Eli: Can see it's cool if

0:02:06 Tom: Huh? Not that bad. It's kind of that bad, though. It's partially that bad!

0:02:10 Eli: Someone put a bunch of Jews in a gas chamber. I'm gonna pull the lever. I'm not gonna not do what I'm told to. That's

0:02:15 Tom: Jesus Christ, man!

0:02:16 Thomas: Oh boy. Everything except that last joke at the this month's bonus on patreon.com/Dear Old Dads.

0:02:18 Tom: Jesus Christ!

0:02:21 Eli: True. That's the joke that Thomas made on the show, everybody.

0:02:24 Thomas: Shut up.

0:02:25 Eli: That's what he said. Loves an edge joke, everybody. All give us a taste of the neck. Give us a little, a little kiss.

0:02:29 Thomas: But give the normies some amount of neck update though. Like give them some amount of, keep asking you this.

0:02:36 Tom: A just a touch. Yeah. The surgery was fucking unbelievably successful. It's just fucking, it's an amazing amazing.

0:02:37 Thomas: Yeah. Has two necks now.

0:02:43 Tom: Like, just, it's so much better. I'm still in a lot of, like, post -surgical discomfort, like, whatever, who cares. The nerve pain though, my thumb is still numb. That They said there's nothing they can do about that. That's just going to be the case until the nerve heals.

0:02:56 Eli: Of your life.

0:02:57 Tom: Well, like what the guy said, he's like, yeah, that nerve was like crushed and severely deformed, so like it had just gotten smashed. Yeah, so yes, it hurt like a son of a bitch for a reason.

0:02:58 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Really? Oh, shit balls. I have all my nerves crushed? Can someone crush all my nerves so I don't have pain anymore? Is that a thing we could do?

0:03:16 Tom: They went in, it's fucking amazing, they go in through the front of your neck meat and then they like pop out the old discs, they put in spacers, they screw in some plates and screws and then they sew you back up again and then eventually bone will overtake those spacers and it'll fuse up together. But like what it did is it immediately just created space, which the space had collapsed. So like there was essentially no space, now there's space again, which means that like I've got post-surgical pain, but post-psychical pain is all muscle pain and like skin pain. I don't give a shit about that. Like it's uncomfortable comfortable. And I'm like, oh, like I grunt and groan if I move around a little bit, but I can also just like relax and not like if I can be in a position, I can sleep. Yeah, I Can Sleep. Like couple of days after surgery, the sleep was like a little erratic, but it was still a million times better. Like I have literally no nerve pain, which is its own special kind of pain.

0:03:51 Thomas: You always did that. Yeah. Yeah. Can you sleep?

0:03:55 Eli: Did you fall asleep?

0:04:08 Tom: I have muscle cramps like crazy. So my shoulders, they told me to expect it and that's happening. Like my shoulders, my traps, they're just like constantly cramping up.

0:04:07 Thomas: Wow. That's awesome. Oh, that's what I have all the time, but not as bad, probably.

0:04:17 Tom: Again, I don't really care. I'm like, yeah, whatever. Like my shoulders hurt. My neck hurts. Like, I DON'T care. I don' t have this like debilitate.

0:04:19 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:23 Eli: You get a little saucy -shaj? You need a little massage?

0:04:26 Tom: No, I can' t not until at least six weeks. So yeah.

0:04:28 Eli: Oh, they might pop your neck open again.

0:04:30 Tom: Yeah.

0:04:30 Thomas: You say they go through your front neck meat, I don' t think I have neck meat. You know what I mean? Like, when you said that, I was like, oh, is this because you have a tree trunk for a neck?

0:04:31 Tom: No, no, no. No. No no. Well,

0:04:38 Eli: You know, yeah, you know the muscle on the back of your neck, Thomas? Yeah, Tom has that on the front of his. He's actually got two necks.

0:04:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:39 Tom: They the the did say I texted Haley after like after after I talked to him, he did say, he's like, you have an extremely muscular neck. You really made me work for it when he had to like move stuff off to the side.

0:04:55 Eli: And

0:04:55 Thomas: We he did the old hey get in here everyone, holy shit oh

0:04:58 Tom: Look at this. Yeah. Yeah, nerve it pain is what you just can't, like for me, I just could not abide it. Like I just couldn't, I just, I could not, I couldn't. Could not abide. So the rest of it is certainly uncomfortable. Like, you know, there's going to, I'm going to have to heal for a while, but like, okay, fine. I I'll heal for awhile. It's not even that bothersome yeah it's awesome so

0:05:03 Thomas: It's impossible yeah great to hear, man, he

0:05:17 Eli: I have a friendship-related question because I'm a little jealous, I'm jealous, I've been, Cecil took you to and from the hospital, how was that experience, if

0:05:20 Tom: Uh huh, yeah, yeah he was beyond awesome, like Cecil was so good, like the hospital is a two-hour drive from the house, so and that's just because that's where my surgeon, he moved and I'm like, yeah, I'm moving with you, dude, like wherever you go I go, so

0:05:37 Thomas: Didn't have to do a mid-surgery though, that was kind of

0:05:39 Eli: You're a bird I'm a bird

0:05:39 Tom: A little awkward yeah so yeah, Cecil was awesome, he's like, yeah, just tell, tell me, he moved around his whole, like, life schedule, recording schedule, moved guests around, like everything, dropped everything. He drove me there. He hung out with me the whole time. Stayed till after the surgery. He stayed that evening and then he got a hotel.

0:05:40 Eli: Yeah, yeah

0:05:57 Tom: Got a an appointment. He got an interview at a hotel right down the street. So so he would be there if something if I needed something.

0:05:41 Thomas: Yeah jeez he's hotel he there something more going on here, is there, yeah yeah

0:06:04 Eli: That's fucking friendship, do you hear that, do you hear that friendship podcast listener it's amazing, yeah no I didn't actually have any, I thought I might have some bits to shit on that, but it's just lovely it's, it's just a nice thing.

0:06:07 Tom: Beautiful. It was great. Great, yeah, honestly, like, everybody should have somebody like Cecil in their lives, yeah yeah he was outstanding,

0:06:14 Thomas: No I

0:06:19 Tom: And then, like yeah, I didn't have to worry about anything at all, and he was like, hey, what do you need to be more comfortable in the car, I'm like, I don't know, he brought pillows just in case, I didn' t need them, but, like it was sweet, like was just a hundred percent, because Haley can't drive, so Haley couldn't do it, she's, She's she cannot drive. So it's

0:06:35 Eli: It's because she's drunk all the time, everybody.

0:06:36 Tom: A lot of drinking. It's so much more than you would think.

0:06:37 Thomas: Also don't think she cares for you much well

0:06:40 Eli: I'll drive you to the fucking hospital. In. Seat am I supposed to be in?

0:06:50 Tom: It's awesome.

0:06:52 Eli: Neck Watch. And hey, once again, just a reminder, folks, if you would like to help pay for Tom's full neck replacement, you can do so over at patreon .com forward slash Dear Old Dads. Where you'll get a commercial-free version of every single episode with a little bonus parenting story at the end. You'll get that bonus episode we were telling you about. Learn about Tom's secret deep hidden weakness as well as why he went to a weird cult tough mutter ruck whatever the fuck he did. You can find out all of that over at patreon.com/ dear old dads. Like the surgeon did to Tom's neck. Rip into it.

0:06:50 Thomas: Great to hear, yeah

0:07:01 Tom: Do.

0:07:02 Thomas: Also

0:07:29 Tom: So we want to cover this email we got from a listener. Dads, I'm listening to an old episode of yours in which you guys are espousing the sheer joy you feel at parenting every single day. Two of you just said your love for your kids far outweighs the love you feel for your spouses. This was odd to me. I do really love my kids but it's an apples and oranges feeling compared to how I feel for my and parenting is not a joy every day. Should I feel joy every single day of parenting? Am I supposed to feel love overwhelming every single instant that I parent? I would gladly jump in front of traffic for my kids or my wife, but the first three and a half years of kid number one were pretty insane. Highly sensitive child, tons of screaming, tons of crying, brutal tantrums. I really, really like my life.

I love my kids too. I never regret having both kids, but But I'm not filled with bubbling joy. Should I be? Think that's I think that's that's a great question. I think there's actually a lot of stuff embedded in here. I think there's there comparison that I've never liked where people compare different kinds of love to one another. Like, romantic you love should, I think, not be compared to the love you feel for your kids. They're just different kinds of love. They almost need different words,

0:07:46 Thomas: Not sure I yeah

0:08:38 Tom: Actually, I think I don't, I don't like that we use the same word you an idea that like because you love something you love it all the time, or that if you don't you should feel guilty, or that like if you don't love doing something it means you don't love the person that you're you working. There's a lot of stuff in here, so I'm curious where you guys are at with this.

0:08:56 Thomas: Well I don't totally agree with the characterization that, did we say we love our kids far more than we love ourselves? Is that something we said?

0:09:03 Eli: Remember specifically saying, you said, fuck Lydia, I'm all about these kids, about these kids. No. Treble

0:09:08 Thomas: Yeah don't care if she lives or dies yeah, no. With Tom that it's a different, it's a different thing. I will say that, like, because of all the, you know, there's just so much tied up in kids, there's so much, you bigger for me, especially, I think, a product of my weird life and upbringing, is that, like, there's just nothing, nothing comes close to as important as these kids for me. Not even close. And it's a different feeling, like, you, it's said, Tom, it's, so it's never fun to, like, do a comparison thing.

There's nobody, nobody wins when you're trying to do a comparison like that. It's, it's a more intense thing. It's a More all consuming thing. It's more, um, it feels like an a, ongoing, like day is a new experience, a new thing. And to the, the to point where, you know, that's just not what you look for in marriage. Like like your your, kids are growing every day. They're experiencing new things. They, they, they're learning stuff.

You're teaching them stuff. It's just not the same kind of relationship. I, I would hope, unless you're in a weird movie where it's like the born the hot yesterday thing or something, the trope they always do. Um, so it's a different thing, but yeah, Eli, what do you, what do you think about that? Yeah.

0:09:11 Eli: Yeah I mean, you know, I look, I, uh, listeners will remember much better than I do the things that I've said on this show. Um, I'm definitely not bubbling with joy every day, I'll tell you that. Um, no, definitely not that. Um, anyway, yeah.

0:10:20 Thomas: Eli's seen some shit since then. I think me too me too

0:10:27 Eli: I don't know. I don't know, maybe, maybe that you held a mic next to my mouth the second I saw Max or something. I, I don't fucking know.

0:10:35 Thomas: You it used to be different for both of us. I think it usedと be different you because, because the younger they are, the more idealistic you can be, like, and it becomes harder when they genuinely present difficult challenges. I know, especially, I know we've had some of the same issues, Eli, but especially when, when, you know, when your kids are hitting, when your kids are, you know, all the time, when they're doing stuff, it's, it does become harder to feel that joy all the same for certain, not even close.

Um, I doesn't mean that like, I still have a very profound joy about it pretty much every day. I mean, every, every day we can get into it. My, um, I'm particularly having a hard time. I say, I like Phoebe, we're having a heart time with Phoebe. It's really, she has some struggles, some difficulties that like, I'll tell you how hard it is with Phoebe and with Remy. We decided, we decided to fucking chop my balls off and not have a fourth kid. That's how hard it is. You know how, you know how not easy of a decision that was. I would have loved a fourth kid, but Phoebe is seven, Remy is, uh, nine, and Arlo is half a kid in

0:11:17 Eli: Hard is it?

0:11:35 Thomas: Terms of difficulty.

0:11:35 Eli: Half a kid. Half child, half Nintendo Switch.

0:11:39 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, he's like a Borg or whatever, like, like it has, like, instead of the, I thing, it's like the Switch, you know, Joy-Con kind of thing. Um, amazing. He's the, Arlo's just the fucking best, man. He's so good, and, and I, I want to make clear, clear in case somehow my kids are ever listening to this, like, their value does not come from how easy they are for me. Like, and I hope they'll know this. I hope, I hope I will instill that to them, that I think it is, you, unfair for, for their, and I'm gonna, it's hard because it naturally happens, it naturally happens that, like, especially with me and Arlo, because he's so much like me and he likes so many of the same things, it becomes so easy to be like, well, that's my kid, you know, he's just, we can just play the Switch, we're happy, we're blah blah. It's really, really, really hard to not, kind, um, of fall into that when, you, other kids in the household do not name names, except it's Phoebe and Remy are really, really fucking really hard. They're

0:11:43 Eli: We can rebuild him.

0:12:28 Thomas: Really, Really hard.

0:12:29 Eli: I'm not going to name names. Just take a moment to acknowledge how awesome it is for Arlo to be the first middle kid in history to be preferentially treated? It because the fucking middle kids throughout history are just like, "Hey, everyone, um, I noticed you only got five pieces of chicken, but I'm also, oh you're gone, okay, all make some soup out of these bones."

0:12:39 Thomas: Oh yeah. Not even close.

0:12:49 Thomas: Yeah. No, it took me a second to remember that he was a middle kid. I Didn't even realize what you're were talking about because he's the best. It's not even, it's not even close.

0:13:00 Eli: You ever, like, hang out or date a middle child and they just don't have needs their parents were just Okay.

0:13:03 Thomas: I don't date children. I tend to just date adults, Eli, but

0:13:05 Tom: So awkward. Yeah.

0:13:07 Eli: Judgy weird Uh, like, they just don't have needs, and then you're like, wow, it's crazy, you don't have needs, like, you just don't. What do you, like, you know that thing that's, like, that old hack joke where it's like, "What do you want for dinner?" And they're like, "What are you want per dinner?" But it's just that about everything, and then you go and you visit their family, and their younger sibling is a heroin addict who won't stop sucking dicks at the table, and their older sibling has tattooed the family's schedule across their forehead so everyone can read it easily, and you're like, oh, so this was a survival thing, and they were like, yeah.

0:13:08 Thomas: Yeah, I that's me. I don' t know.

0:13:28 Thomas: At the table. Oh, man. This why I have no preferences and can't decide what to eat ever? Is that what you're saying? Is that what she's telling me?

0:13:40 Eli: Yeah. I remember I told, like, because she had an older sister who just, like, absolutely went, I'm there, and his sister, like, absolutely has this fucking meltdown about the thing that's supposed to happen the next day, and I can't believe it's not happening." I'm I'm dating this person, and, and her older sister has this mind, this thing is supposed to happened the next day. I can't believe you people, it's not fucking happening! And the younger sibling is like, like, I don't fucking care, I don't fuckin' care about your name, and I was like, that was fucked up, and she was like, wasn't, and I was like, yeah, just screaming, there was screaming, did you not hear your family screaming, and she was, like, ah, it's just the holidays, and, I was, like, I don't think it's just the holidays.

0:13:55 Thomas: Is this? I think I missed it. Oh, oh.

0:14:13 Thomas: The difference

0:14:23 Tom: Right.

0:14:23 Thomas: Between being an only child and not has got to be profound because like, and say this all the time that if Phoebe were our only child, if Remy even were our own child, I think we'd be fine. But now I'm realizing like the The amount of screaming that you would hear, that one would hear as an only child versus with even a single sibling is, exponential because like when it's just two adults and a kid, yeah, it's not that hard as an adult to be like, I shouldn't be screaming. Like, I mean, maybe you can scream, maybe I'll get a little heated or something, but I shouldn't be screaming with kids who are screaming at each other all the time, like all parts of every day. And then they won't, literally won't even hear me if I don't yell. Like, amount of screaming goes from zero, near zero, to infant, infinite scream. Is that true for you, Eli? No.

0:15:11 Eli: No, I never, I never scream, I only have one.

0:15:12 Thomas: I know that's what, yeah you have one kid and you're an only child or you were an only childhood for most of

0:15:17 Tom: A long time, yeah.

0:15:17 Thomas: Yeah. Right.

0:15:18 Eli: There's No screaming, me, none. There is none, screaming unless I was fucking up majorly, uh, as it can, but even then, like, that was just, you know, me being a crazy person, just

0:15:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. That's

0:15:27 Tom: Famously, like, my dad never raised his voice. I've never heard my dad raise his voice fought, but never in front of dad Yeah, never infront of dad

0:15:31 Thomas: True, but you and your brother fought like crazy, though, right? Oh, OK.

0:15:37 Eli: Having a whisper fight outside the door. Exactly.

0:15:39 Thomas: Yeah. Like if the streets of North Korea are quiet, does that mean it's a peaceful existence?

0:15:44 Eli: There's

0:15:45 Tom: Never in front of dad. Dad was not excited about us fighting with each other. So he made that possible.

0:15:50 Eli: Say this, there's also big yelly loving households, right? And I'm, I'm gonna say something brave here, so relax, Italians, if you've ever been in a house of Italians, there's a lot of noise that would, would mean people don't like each other in an Italian household. That is not the case for Italians. They're just yelling to communicate. Oh

0:15:58 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:16:12 Tom: So like, if you come from a household, I will say like, if you come from a household where nobody ever yells, I would contend that it is literally impossible to acclimate to yelling, like yelling for me. If, if somebody, like, raises their voice and yells, that's a huge big deal. Like, that's not a little thing, that's like, that'll stay with me for a week. Like, if I yell at somebody, like, we have a problem. Like, things have been pushed to a place where, like, things aren't good. I don't know that we can make them good. Maybe we've a problem, problem, right? Because I don'y yell, I don't. It's not my go to. It's not my second go to, it's not my fifth go to, so like, being yelled at is like, it for, like, for me it's like a fucking huge trigger, it's a huge problem. I'm like, whoa, like, you don't respect me at all, like, maybe we should just, like, never see each other again, like, I don't even know how to, like, be friends anymore, like, it's a huge thing for me. Well,

0:17:06 Thomas: Trying to think like because It's not as though I have any yelling in my everyday life with anybody. I'm try to think how it affects. I just think it must affect you. You know, like there's got to be some way that that difference manifests in your life, like to come from a yelly household versus not. And I just don't know what it is for me because I will say my household, it wasn't, and maybe yelling isn't even the right word. It's more like just bickering, you know, it's a lot of bickery, a lot. Like we came from just constant fucking little bickerin. I thought that I would be able to, you help create not that for my kids. But it turns out, I think what creates the bickern is a lot the very things that have made me, Me, me and my family, my family. It's about having a lot of very strong opinions about stuff and, you know, things that are qualities that I think are, I guess, don't really come from so much that aren't so much learned as I might have thought that they're more a little bit more ingrained. Phoebe just

0:17:19 Eli: Sure. Yeah. Right.

0:18:02 Thomas: Has these fucking thoughts and preferences and feelings things that are so fucking intense for her and cannot and control them. Like we're working on it, but she just cannot fucking control them and it it is so exciting. Exhausting. It is so fucking exhausting. And I don't know what to do about it. It's still a work in progress. But how do we get on that? It's rough. It's very yelly around here. It's Very Yelly and it's Very Bickery. And it just never fucking ends.

0:18:09 Eli: Yeah.

0:18:25 Tom: And it affects your experience as a parent, affects it, you as a your experience of joy, right?

0:18:27 Thomas: That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

0:18:28 Tom: Like, to get, to get back to the listeners, like, question. Like, when we sort of, like, romanticize parenting or anything else, you know, when we overly romanticized parenting, we kind of create a system of, like, expectations that will never be met by the experience of parenting. And then people have kids and what they do then is they internalize an intense sense of guilt, you know, like, oh, everybody else seems to really be enjoying this more than I am. I'm actually just having a hard time and struggling with like, am I doing this right? I'm tired. I wish they would just get along. I don't know how to fix this problem. My kids aren't emotionally regulated and that's a trigger for me. Or, you know, I worry all the time and I never seem to get a break from the worry. There's so much about parenting that is just like guilt based and like worry based because it's not like any other relationship. You this in a romantic relationship or a friendship, right? You would not accept the same level of, God, this relationship sometimes makes me feel

0:18:43 Thomas: Mm -hmm. Mm -huh. Oh, God. Yeah. Not

0:19:29 Tom: Bad, and it's also like parenting is a project -based relationship, I I think of it all the time as the project of raising adults, like the project of raising kids into good moral people, the project you know, independent, like financially and otherwise independent human beings. It's a project that, that has, if not an end date milestones and markers that we are working toward together. Other relationship is built like that. There is no other relationship that you think of in these sort of like project esque terms where you're like, okay, there are, there are clearly definable goals. We are working to reach together that, kind graduation, this kind of independence, help with your relationships when you become romantically entangled with other people, building your emotional self -regulation. There's all this stuff we're working on that feel project -based to me, that feel like they have really definitive markers of success, and then they then also have definitive markers of failure. Other relationship is

0:19:29 Thomas: For four minutes of a day, Tom. Not for five. It's like, it's

0:20:38 Eli: And The goalposts are constantly shifting, too, right? It's like, "Oh man, I hope my kid talks," and then your kid starts talking and you're like, "Oh, I hope mi kid walks," and your kid stars walking and youre like, "Oh, oh, I hope my kid reads. And then your kid starts reading.

0:20:48 Thomas: So fun. It's the best. Yeah, it is.

0:20:51 Eli: Like, for there's, me, at least there's never been a moment where I've been like, we did it.

0:20:51 Thomas: It's not just the best at us. Yeah,

0:20:54 Eli: Hooray. It's just like, okay, here's

0:20:55 Tom: Like this. Yeah.

0:20:55 Thomas: Of course. Yeah, I would hope not. And then you just leave Max somewhere.

0:20:57 Eli: The next thing.

0:20:58 Thomas: Yeah. Max. All done.

0:20:58 Eli: Right. It'S Here's the next way in which you feel like a failure. And then everything takes to like, like this, you just, you just struggle and struggle and struggle. And then the second you achieve something.

0:21:06 Thomas: I don't have that. That might be, yeah, that's unhealthy, Eli. You shouldn't feel like a failure in a different way every single day, Eli, that is. That's not good.

0:21:14 Eli: Yeah. It It's just a, you're like, oh, now I'm a failure in this way.

0:21:17 Thomas: Oh, that' s not good, yeah.

0:21:18 Tom: Feel that though. Like, like with all the kids, there have been moments where I'm like, I into it, but like, there have been moments with all the kids, even the older kids, where I'm like, God, you're, you're just, you're not happy, and I, I don't know how to fix that, and like you're sad, and I don't know how to fix that, or like there's something that has happened in your life which, like, I think I've put all the preconditions to make that not occur, and it's occurred anyway, and you're like, fucking, like, I don't have a different tool to use, but I love you so much, and you're, you're like, why won't you just this? Or why can't you just do the thing that I can see clearly that if you just do this, it will help. It will, maybe it doesn't fix it, but it will help, and it's like, well, because that's a, that's actualizing human being with their own, like, their entirely own world instead of, you know, and I know that too, but as a parent, you're, like am I fucking it up? I fucking it up because you

0:21:32 Thomas: Yeah, man, yeah yeah yeah it's

0:21:56 Eli: Right.

0:22:15 Thomas: Really hard.

0:22:16 Tom: Aren't doing great, right? In this moment, you're hurting. In this moment, I found out that you used to hurt. In this moment, I find out that, like, maybe this thing is happening in your life that's not optimal or that makes you feel bad, and you're like, fucking, but I did, I fuck that up, did I? And sometimes the answer is like, yeah, I had a hand in that, you know, maybe there were things in retrospect I should have, could have, would have, and you're like, fucking, but I can't go back and fix it. I can go back in, like, relitigate these, like, seminal moments of your growth and development, and you're like, fuck, all we can do is just apologize and, you try to do better and like try to fix the errors that we make. And it's a, it's so fraught. It's so fraud because like the stakes are higher than other things. They just are. The stakes are, are higher because you have a greater sense of responsibility. Like I that I absolutely feel that

0:22:31 Eli: Right.

0:23:07 Thomas: Yeah. Just to quickly answer the joy part. And then I want to really talk about kind of what you just said, Tom, because I think we're going through a similar thing. It's a, it's a topic that I've kind of had on our list for a while. It was really hard to talk about, but in terms of the joy, I do want to say that like, no matter what, and I'm just always speaking in current time, I don't know how long this will apply.

Eventually your kids get old and boring, you know, it sounds not the same, but I will say that no No matter how hard the fucking day is and no matter how bad the tantrum was that we just left off on before bed, no matter what, there comes a time at, you know, if we put them to bed by 9, there's always that time at about 9 .15 where I'm like, fuck, I miss the kids.

Like, And sometimes it's like I don't mention it because I think Lydia doesn't miss the kid. I think Lydy's had enough. But, like, almost every night I'm, like. I wish I could wake them up. Like,

0:23:58 Thomas: Just no matter. Matter how how rough a day it was, I'm never like glad that they're not awake. I'm like, I am, I am glad for the rest, don't get me wrong, I'm glad for I'm Glad for getting a break, but like, it's still just like, for me, it's like the possibility of the good times is so much better than anything else for me, like when the kids are happy, when we're experiencing joy, when we're joking together, there's that's the only game in town for me, there's nothing, you know. It's almost like, yes, I'm taking a break, but it's not like I'm going to something else that's more rewarding. It's just like, all right, I just hope I can have a better experience tomorrow. But I will say that I think, Tom, what you're describing is really, really profoundly difficult, and it's something that I'm facing with Phoebe. It's been like a note on our board for a while. It's like it's just so hard to love a kid like Phoebe as much as I do. Like it's genuinely, and It's hard to even talk about because it,

0:24:07 Tom: A way better person than I am she

0:24:50 Eli: To be clear,

0:24:51 Thomas: No,

0:24:51 Eli: What you're saying, I just want to rephrase that slightly. You love Phoebe so much and that makes what she's going through really hard. Not, it's hard to love her.

0:25:00 Thomas: I said it's hard to love her as much as I do. Maybe I mumbled that part, but yeah, it's Hard to Love Her as Much as I Do. And, and yeah, yeah,

0:25:05 Eli: That's what I meant. I meant that there's a tremendous amount of love there and that is what makes it hard. Not I got She's Fucking Hard To love. I just

0:25:11 Tom: Is Hard to love. Yeah. Just

0:25:10 Thomas: I yeah I think saying as much as I do is kind of, kind of conveys that, but maybe, maybe not, maybe I'm wrong, but not hard to love Phoebe.

0:25:20 Eli: Didn't want you to get misinterpreted. I just didn't want anyone to Sew that onto a pillow And send it to Phoebe on her 17th birthday. It's Me. I'm Gonna Do that. Oh,

0:25:23 Tom: Looking Out

0:25:23 Thomas: It is Yeah. It is hard To love Phoebe as much as you because when it comes to someone like Phoebe, and I think this is going to be true for a lot of people who have very, very, very emotionally complex children who, you just a fire in Phoebe's brain. You there's just a fire in her brain that never goes out. And I think the same is going to be true with Remy. It's a little different for now. And when Phoebe was young, there was nothing that it it hadn't manifested yet fully.

It had manifested in the best way, which is constant curiosity, constant tinkering with things and, and play and stuff that like made Phoebe the best, like having just Phoebe. The best experience of my life.

I think, I don't know that it'll ever top that. I don't think anything will ever top, like, the first, like, year and a half of just having Phoebe. Um, then to, to see that, like, a lot of those same qualities, you know, that intensity, that curiosity, that all that, to couple with, with getting older and, you know, the struggles she's had and the anger she has near constantly. Um, just that intensity kind of turning from something that's mainly a positive, you know, and a cool creative thing, to a negative thing and a thing that's just constantly a dark cloud of potentially on every single day that might come anytime. It's hard and it sucks, because, like, I, I love this kid so much. Do you ever, I'm sure many parents have this, do you never just, like, want to just hold your kid still and just be like, do you understand? Like, can you fucking understand understand, like, how much I love you. Like, can you just, can I just put this in your skull? You know, like, man,

0:25:30 Eli: I Say that all the time. I say it out loud

0:27:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:01 Eli: All the time. Yeah.

0:27:01 Thomas: I'm like, I wish you could get it. And I know if it's just because my, you my ADHD kids, but what happens when you do that? Looking elsewhere. They're they're not, not even listening. They can't Even, you know, it's like they even if they could listen, I don' think they'd get it and I don''t blame them for that. Of course. Like if my, if my parents did this to me, I'd be be like, fucking, okay, this is weird. You know? And it's like, yeah.

0:27:18 Eli: No, That's That's how He reacts.

0:27:21 Thomas: He all of a sudden steps out of like being a kid and turns into an adult. He's like Eli, this was weird.

0:27:23 Eli: The Vibes are Off. The vibes are off, dead. It's A weird Thing.

0:27:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:27:29 Tom: Think Think Though, that, like, I feel that, like, because you feel this sense that, like, shouldn't that matter more? Like, Because I love you so much, shouldn'tthat fix some of this? Like, shouldn' The Intensity of my love for you be a bandage? Shouldn't this solve some of this difficulty for you? But, like, the problem, the problem is that kids just developmentally, and this isn't, like, shitting on kids, just developmentaly, they're like, yeah, of course you do. But like, I still am this intensely selfish, and I don't say that with bad connotation. There's nothing in the world more selfish than a child. They are in a place where their ability to like see, recognize, empathize, connect with others, like all that stuff is learned. Their

0:27:34 Thomas: Yes. Yep. Hundred percent.

0:27:48 Thomas: No.

0:28:06 Thomas: Yeah

0:28:07 Tom: Entire experience Is this personalized, internal. Time is different for them. Their whole experience is different. So you're like, "But I fucking love you. Doesn't that fix it?" And they're just like, "No, I'm still upset right now." You course you love me, that's your fucking job." Or "You wouldn't have had me." That's Literally Nothing

0:28:07 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:20 Thomas: Couldn't be more right. It's the air they breathe. It's the water they swim in. They don't, it's nothing to them. And I don't blame them at all for that. I don't blame them out at 0%. Yeah.

0:28:26 Tom: Right. Yeah. And

0:28:32 Eli: A good air to be breathing. Yeah.

0:28:34 Thomas: Yeah. That's what it should be.

0:28:34 Eli: Yeah.

0:28:35 Tom: I'll tell you too, like, an adult who is big sick, and in moments where they are big sick, the only thing you can do is be like, "But, but I fucking love you." It doesn't fix it. Doesn't fix it for adults either. Because like when you are in extreme distress of any kind, right? And kids, they don't have a fucking volume knob on their distress, right.

0:28:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:56 Thomas: No, no.

0:28:57 Tom: Everything is a new experience.

0:28:58 Thomas: Well, or it busted off and it's on 11 for Phoebe. So

0:29:00 Tom: Right? Yeah. Right. So

0:29:02 Eli: Tom, I hate to push back, if you love an adult enough they actually do instantly get better. I just, I don't want an audience to think that's not true, it's it's sort of there's this yellow glow that starts in your chest and it passes to their chest and then it sort of does like a "ha," and then they're fine. So if you had a different experience, it's probably because your love is like bad or wrong in some way. But go ahead. Do you guys,

0:29:08 Thomas: I don't want you spreading bad science on the show.

0:29:19 Thomas: That means you don't love. Yeah, yeah, it's not good enough.

0:29:07 Tom: Like, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I failed, I've failed, well, you know, it I don't know, like, I'm just, like it feels not dissimilar, where you're like, you've run out of all the practical things that you can do, and you're just left with this, like shouldn't this help, because, like inside of me is this, like, cavern filled with you, and if you could just see it, you, that feel better, and it's like, yeah, I mean, but it doesn't, because I'm still in, in distress, I'm still in this moment of, like, extremists and panic. No

0:29:36 Thomas: Not could not be more correct, Tom.

0:29:51 Eli: Completely agree that. And do you guys have moments? I keep it inside, but do you have moments of psychopathia in those moments where they're upset about a pack of markers and you're like, I'll go to the store and I'll buy every fucking pack of markers and then I'll burn down the store. I don't fucking care. You're the whole ball game kid. But like, that doesn't matter. That doesn't change the situation.

0:30:13 Tom: Yeah.

0:30:14 Eli: I remember this is the closest I've gotten to I'll kill everyone in the building, charge my son's iPad with max is, uh, he was eating his pizza. I cut up his pizza, I gave him his pizza and we're out of pizza. Right? The amount of pizza I've bought that day, he would like more of it. And he's really upset. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go get more pizza, buddy. And I stopped because again, I don't, I shouldn't do this. I don' t need to do this and I was was like, Hey buddy, just so you know, we're never running out of food. Like I will always make sure you, the person have food as long as I'm alive. And he was like vibes are weird. You're

0:30:08 Thomas: Why is that part? Yeah, don't believe you. I already don't blame you.

0:30:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:30:46 Eli: Doing a thing. And I was like right. Yes. I'm going to get the pizza. But I think that speaks to what you're talking about. Is this like, hey, I just so, you know like I've got this. I have got this the whole game is about you. So you should stop being sad, worried, afraid, struggling, needing of anything, because don't worry, don't worry, I'll be all those things until you feel better.

0:30:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

0:30:48 Tom: Yeah, well,

0:31:09 Thomas: I add one more wrinkle that I don't, Eli, that I don't know if you have, Tom, maybe you do one more wrinkle to it, which which is if you come from, I can do 10 pull -ups. If you come to me, I'm going to say, I don'... If you've come from a where you felt that maybe you didn't get what you needed, and... And maybe your parents didn't, maybe quite feel the same, or one of them. Then there's that added component where you're like, "Fuck, man, like, it's enough to be like, shouldn't it matter that I love you so much in the whole world?" It's another thing to be like, "But, like, I didn't necessarily have this." And you do. Shouldn't that? Yeah. Like, shouldn't that make up for something? Shouldn't, shouldn't that solve something? But the answer is no. Like, of course, the

0:31:16 Eli: Could do sit -ups.

0:31:47 Thomas: Answer's

0:31:47 Tom: But Of course it doesn't, because it's like, if you're not hungry all day and somebody's like, "Isn't it awesome how you weren't hungry today?"

0:31:47 Thomas: No. Hmm. Yeah.

0:31:53 Tom: You just be like, like somebody, why are you making those sounds at me?

0:31:54 Thomas: Nothing. It's irrelevant. That's nothing yeah Shouldn't

0:31:58 Tom: That's crazy. It's like, but I grew up hungry.

0:31:59 Thomas: You be happy you don't have cystic fibrosis right now? It's like, fuck, I guess I should be, but it's hard to, like, in, you know, I'm like not happy about it I don't. Yeah sad

0:32:05 Tom: I didn't... What? Those are noises from your face hole that you've made, and it sucks. It's when I think the only solution is obviously we should neglect and hurt the people we love, so then we can turn around and then fix it.

0:32:09 Thomas: Yeah I'm listening

0:32:17 Eli: Then we take off a mask and we're the good dad. And we're like, hey everyone, the moon has changed, that means good dad is here. I love you. And they're like, oh man, do I believe it? I believe that other guy in the Garfield mask, he was doing some weird, weird shit, right?

0:32:20 Tom: Yes.

0:32:24 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh.

0:32:35 Thomas: God, man, so true though. And say, um, think I just said this, maybe in person to Eli or maybe it was Heath. I don't know. But like the one, the one place, because I, you know, I don't want to dwell too much on it, but the struggles with Phoebe are very, very, very, very difficult, the, and, and I've said it before, but the, problem with the whole thing is that any gentle parenting stuff that I want to do is so difficult to do when your kid starts killing your other kids. Like, it is not fair for me to, you Know, know, lollygag and, and maybe, uh, Phoebe kill the other kids for a little bit of time because I can't, you know, I don't want to be too rough or I don'T want to BE too loud.

0:32:59 Eli: Right.

0:33:09 Thomas: Yeah. Hey, don't.

0:33:08 Eli: Gently, whispering, quiet hands while she drowns Arlo in the tub.

0:33:11 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It's like that and that, that is truly the part that is, I DON'T know how to solve that because there are times where I cannot turn off my visceral reaction to someone hurting my kid. Like I can'T and I DONT want to, and I'M NOT going to.

0:33:23 Eli: Yeah.

0:33:24 Tom: Of Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:25 Thomas: And so often we literally there's a thing where like, and it's sad, I hate this, but there's now a thing in the house that is scary dad. And like Phoebe, sometimes I have to scare her because she won't fucking stop. And by scare her, I just have to either like physically remove her from something or I have have to like, or if I'm too far away, I have to yell. Cause like, she's about to kill somebody. I'm like, Hey, don't do that. You know, like there's no other way to do that, that I know of like that works a hundred percent of the time. Like there are just times where I need be to, loud and scary enough or physically move her.

0:33:26 Eli: Course. Right.

0:33:38 Eli: Right.

0:33:59 Tom: Yeah.

0:33:59 Thomas: She, she doesn't like it. And she says, it's scary. Dad. She says, you scare me sometimes. I, that feels great. Like that's not fun yeah nope

0:34:02 Eli: Yeah. They don't register, like, well, here, I had the knife above Arlo's throat, right? And that's why they're just like, hey, your voice, little louder than speaking tone, think about your actions. What's

0:34:10 Thomas: Nope yeah it's not good sometimes

0:34:18 Tom: I would go back to the romantic comparison because I think I want to make a point on that piece. It's like

0:34:24 Eli: It, like, when you were scary dad to Hailey A scary husband

0:34:25 Thomas: Have to scare lydia yeah

0:34:25 Tom: Like One of the things that I, one of the things I've always hated about that comparison is like, my I marriage with Haley is something that like, okay, I'm, I're very aware that this is, this is the person I've chosen specifically and intentionally. I've chose it. I made a decision to be the, my sort of like ride or die, right? That's the, she is my ride or dying. My kids, I'm aware that like my kids might decide they don't like me anymore, right? That's just a fact that like they could turn into people that like one I don't like, but that probably wouldn't matter that much because they're my kids.

They could turn into people that look back at me and be like, I don't like that guy. That's a relationship I don't choose. They don't choose. We're just sort of like thrust into this relationship together. And then we grow up and then we all cross our fingers and we hope really hard that what's going to happen is that we'll all turn into people that become some kind of friend down the road, that have a relationship of choice. And is not a guarantee.

And I've always been aware of that, that. And I know I've said it on the show and I've always been like, yeah, I'm prepared if that happens. But like when I say I'm prepare for that what happens, what I mean is I know that at some point each of these four people could reach inside of my chest and break my heart. And I'm like aware that that's something that I've given them all. And I'm aware that's control that they have and I'm aware it's control.

I don't have any say so over and like I'm blase about it when I I say that out loud, but what I really mean is like, there's a high pot. There's a, there was at least a one in four shot, right? Like there's four of them. There

0:36:10 Tom: Was four of them.

0:36:10 Eli: I don't think one of them has to, hey, Tom, I don' want to push back. I don't think one of them has to break your heart, you

0:36:13 Tom: Yeah, I know. Think that they have to either, but like, it just seems like the more of them you have, you sort of spread those chances out.

0:36:22 Thomas: Yeah

0:36:22 Eli: Increase those odds, you do decrease those odds.

0:36:23 Thomas: Yeah

0:36:23 Tom: Right. And that's a crazy thing to think too, is like I didn't choose this relationship. They didn't choose this relationship, as we grow into people, they will turn into people that, God, I hope they fucking love me. I hope they like me. I hope they don't look back and be like, that dude sucks. We have different values. We have different, like, views on the world. I don't actually, I'm going no contact with Tom. That's a possibility.

0:36:46 Eli: Right.

0:36:46 Thomas: It's Not Happening It's Not happening

0:36:47 Eli: Yeah.

0:36:47 Tom: No, I mean, it is, though. Like, I am sure my mom, I am sure my mom doesn't see herself as the villain.

0:36:48 Thomas: Yeah tom you're your mom you're the the same person.

0:36:55 Tom: No.

0:36:55 Thomas: You're practically the same.

0:36:55 Tom: I don't think I am. But what I am saying is nobody thinks of themselves as the villain, and

0:36:59 Thomas: And that matters when they are the villain, but you are not the villain.

0:37:03 Eli: Thomas will bring your kids on. Serious agrees only, and defeat them in a debate.

0:37:05 Thomas: Yeah, I'll debate me, bro. Debate me. Tom. Yeah he's a little intense. His neck sucked. There's things about Tom that weren't great, kids, but he fucking ruled as a a dad.

0:37:14 Eli: He did the ruck. He did. He did the ruck, and that's a great point. That's a great point. I don't know why he did it either.

0:37:16 Thomas: Ruled as a dad, you are wrong, kids. Sorry.

0:37:21 Tom: Well, I will say, like, the day after my neck surgery, the day I got home was Aislen's eighth grade graduation ceremony, and I was like, I'm going. Like, I fucking showed up for her, and I've got pictures with her, my neck all bandaged up. And, like, I hope that's something that she remembers, right? I hope that like they remember that We showed up but like get

0:37:38 Eli: You had to make it about you didn't. You Oh,

0:37:35 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, of course, of course it will be. It was weird that he gave a speech like the valedictorian was going, he pulled the mic from them. It's like, hey, yeah, see this bandage on my neck?

0:37:47 Tom: Out get out. I'm gonna let you finish. I'ma let you finished. Well,

0:37:51 Eli: Excuse me, I'd like to scream in pain real quick.

0:37:54 Tom: Know, you never know. The point is, like, you never know, like I've seen people grow up and turn into real assholes, and I'm like, God, your parents were, were really sweet. Your

0:37:58 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, and you never know, like maybe, you know, who who knows addiction, you know, stuff, stuff happens.

0:38:06 Eli: What I was thinking I was thinking about, like, a Beautiful Boy situation. A Ben Is Back situation. You

0:38:06 Tom: Yeah.

0:38:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, Remy, Ramy is gonna be a drug addict. So there's already a criminal. He this is amazing. Remy just takes sweets. He it'll be like can I have a lollipop? No. And then five seconds later, he'll just be eating the lollipop and I'll be what you can't do that. Like I didn't know you could just ignore the law. Like, I didn't know that was an option. I should have known by now, but he just doesn't care.

0:38:34 Eli: Betray the law. Yeah.

0:38:35 Thomas: But I meant to, I'm so sorry, I did have a thing I was getting toward when I started the thing and I totally forgot, which is, much that as I can't do the gentle parenting I want to be doing all the time and all that stuff, the one thing I'm still hanging on to that's very important to me, and I hope this is worth something, and I probably said it before, but I just want to, it bears repeating, is still, no matter how shitty, no matter matter how intense this and horrible the things get and the tantrums, and it gets really bad, it gets really fucking bad sometimes over here, no matter what, if Phoebe resets, I reset with her.

If she's like, "Hey, I'm fine now, I'm a new day," and how often does it happen? 17 times an hour. But, but every fucking time, I will, like, and seen, you know, like, I will, I will reset so that if she can get to a happier place and she can get to the place where, like, we can recover the day, we're recovering the day. I'm resetting with her. I'm not, I'm not retaining any anger. I'm not, like, that's the

0:39:18 Eli: Yeah.

0:39:30 Thomas: One thing that I, at least I know I'm giving her that I didn't have that.

0:39:29 Eli: That's so important.

0:39:34 Thomas: And I just hope that's worth something. Cause it's just fucking man. If not, it's I'm in trouble. Cause it'S really hard over here.

0:39:40 Eli: Important. No, I think, I think it means a lot, and I think it's going to be a huge reason, uh, for building, because that's what they say, right? That it is about letting them reclaim good behavior. It is about letting, it's all about that positive reinforcement, right? And so you're doing perhaps the most important thing, aside from, you know, knocking the knife out of her hand, which is that you're giving her a chance to learn the good lesson rather than the bad one or the sad one or the scary one, um, which is what a lot of our generation's parents did. A lot of our parents were like, the more I can shake them, the more I can scare them, the more this affects them, the better. And of course, all the science points the other direction, which is the, the more you can open to that positive experience, which is what you're doing, the better. So

0:40:21 Thomas: I would say, even with all that difficulty that I've described, I would still describe my every day with these kids as joyful. It doesn't mean that every moment is. It doesn't mean that, like, honestly, it doesn't even mean that majority of them are. But, like, the fundamental project of me and these kids, for me, for my brain, is joyful. It's my favorite thing. It's the best. And so I, I just hope that people don't take our early enthusiasm as, like, every minute is, is joyful. That's never been, it was closer to that when Phoebe was little, but that's never been what it is. Like there's plenty of non -joyful moments, but fundamental the thing, like at the end of every day, I miss my kids. I love them. I want them to wake up. And like, I just want to be with them again. I wanna another chance to like have a better day. And I'm sad when they're away. Like for me, that's what it Is. I don't know about for you, Eli, because it seemed like They were responding to our comments maybe about the joyfulness, but that's how I feel about it.

0:41:18 Thomas: No comment from Eli? He's like, yep, that sounds great for you.

0:41:16 Eli: Nice. All right, gentlemen, why do sperm no fucking comment

0:41:21 Thomas: That sounds great. That sounds good for you, Thomas.

0:41:22 Eli: That sounds real fucking

0:41:24 Tom: It awesome. Good job. Hey, golf clap, golf clap. All right, nice job, Thomas. That

0:41:25 Eli: Nice nice gentlemen worried my wife will break up with me because of my small penis, but, but it's okay. Wasn't that into her.

0:41:45 Tom: One was good. I thought it was good. Oh, it was good. It was really good parenting.

0:41:47 Thomas: Took me a sec.

0:41:56 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email thedads 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 and the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILf, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music, which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues, LLC, copyright 2022, all rights reserved.

0:42:39 Tom: Don't give a shit about that. Like

0:42:41 Eli: You if you had a different experience it's probably because your love is like bad or wrong in some way but go ahead. Do you guys, moon has changed, that means good dad is here.

0:42:46 Tom: Noises from your face hole that you've made, and