DOD224: Knowing When to Walk Away

Transcript

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

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad, that's my thing I know now what I can offer you that no one else can Complete and under-dependent I'm a man, I'm sensitive I need to feel loved, I need part of being a father that I enjoy

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's not playing Monument Valley. I'm Tom Curry. I'm joined as always by Eli Bosnick and Thomas Smith. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:39 Eli: Hello!

0:00:40 Thomas: Hello.

0:00:40 Eli: Welcome back to Tom's Joy Watch. J -J -J Joy! Yes, that's right. Before we get into our episode today, I want to talk about what our podcast has become when we decided to start Dear Old Dads. I wasn't sure what the show would be. How much would we have to say about parenting and the experience of being fathers? Turns out it was about 22 episodes.

0:01:03 Eli: So what would the show be about from thence on? Well, as you know, if you are a regular listener to our radio program, it's been about Tom's eventual realization that he is in the bad place. And we got the best possible example of that. Tom, what happened this week? Tell us a little about what happened.

0:01:03 Tom: Man, it's just like, listeners to this show will know that I am not much of a gamer. I don't play video games. I don't do a lot of casual gaming either but I did stumble across a few years ago Monument Valley which I thought was really fucking cool and really beautiful and like it like is really relaxing and calming it's a very chill game it's really cool I can't recommend it enough well there's Monument Valley 1 and Monument Valley 2 and they came out with Monument Valley 3 and I was all excited it was like available on like the Netflix suite of apps which is annoying and obnoxious but like fucking whatever and I got it and I started playing it and I played through I don't know most of it but not to the end of it and then I went to open it up it's just fucking gone it's fucking wiped out of the app store it's you can't it's it's fuck you now that's what it is even if you had it downloaded it's just fuck you you just can't have it because I liked it that's why you can't have it they realized it was on my phone it's gone

0:02:12 Thomas: Eli, how did you do it? How did you it?

0:02:23 Thomas: That is what it says, like in the notice on the app store, it says like, hey everyone.

0:02:27 Eli: Sorry, Tom was enjoying a thing and we couldn't have that.

0:02:29 Tom: It's just uh it's just it was nice and relaxing and chill I don't fucking want a nintendo switch I just wanted to pick up my phone and move the little guy around and solve some puzzles which are really easy but to make you feel clever I don' want steam I fucking would rather kill myself than Then I have Steam. Oh, God, Jesus Christ, I don't want that. I'm going to sit in front of my computer on purpose? I sit infront of my PC when someone pays me. That's it. Yeah, you can get it everywhere but anywhere I would use it.

0:02:32 Eli: Well, Tom, you can get it for your Nintendo Switch. You got one of those, buddy? Huh?

0:02:43 Eli: Why don't you get it on Steam? Why don't you download the video game client, Steam then you go to the Steam store after you've signed up for your Valve account? You get it right on your computer, huh?

0:02:56 Thomas: Oh, okay. So you can still play it. You just, you just need it on anything but mobile. Is that what it is?

0:03:07 Eli: Except the place that Tom had joy.

0:03:09 Tom: Yeah, I would only ever use it if it was on my phone.

0:03:11 Eli: Yeah, there are arcade cabinets of it on every corner

0:03:13 Thomas: We need to do an experiment. Pick up a Switch so that we can see if it, like, follows. It's like, oh, no, well, we can't have it on Switch anymore.

0:03:17 Tom: I don't want that!

0:03:21 Thomas: No, just as a test, you know?

0:03:22 Tom: I, like, no. There's a 0 % chance I'm gonna do anything other than use it on my... I'd rather just never have joy than use a Switch. It's just not gonna happen

0:03:29 Eli: It's just such a perfect Tom thing to happen because I've never heard about that. Literally the only other time I've heard about this happening was when we all collectively lost flappy bird and people were selling phones with Flappy Bird on it for $100 ,000. And this would only happen to Tom. This is just Tom. Tom is the only person who would be like, Whoa, would you look at that? I found a little quiet place for my mind. Monument Valley 3 breaks free from Netflix on July 22nd, folks. Oh, man. You're going to be able to get it on the PC, the Switch, the PS4, and the PS5, as well as the Xbox and the Xbox Series XS. Can't you wait for it? And they

0:04:09 Thomas: And the Zune and the, yeah, your TI -87 calculator. Everything but mobile.

0:04:15 Tom: A mobile game that's like it's built it looks it's not that big a game it's fucking mobile game it would be like being like yeah we're gonna move flappy bird to the switch only like that's a fucking mobile Game this is a mobile Game

0:04:18 Thomas: It's weird.

0:04:28 Eli: Took it from you they took it away

0:04:28 Tom: I don't understand it at all but I can't have it I just can't I can't have it.

0:04:31 Eli: They took away they took it away because they brought you joy and if you have joy you will keep not realizing you have any idea how sad and freaked out the scientists outside your simulation machine are that someone had to go into Greg's office and be like um we could uh we could take Monument Valley 3 off his phone maybe I don't really think I think... Hey, hey, have we totally given up on the just everything's on fire all the time idea? I think you might get it if we just everythings on fire and then the little dog. You remember the little dog? He'll know that meme. But gentlemen, gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than Tom's lived experience of the universe? Why? It's the auto ads. And just as Tom will someday day be brave enough to get rid of his lived experience you know what I mean people you can help us over at patreon .com forward slash dear old dads with our new patron goal one thousand dollars if we get one thousand one thousand dollar patrons tom will own monument valley three that's right check it out we're gonna buy tom a zune a sweeble an rtx 5000

0:05:49 Eli: We're going to load Monument Valley 3 on there for him. Single tear will roll down his cheek and then it will immediately run out of battery is the plan.

0:05:57 Thomas: On the plus side, Tom, I heard there's another four apps you got to download for your kid's school. So that should make up for it, right?

0:06:02 Eli: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, no.

0:05:59 Tom: Jesus fucking Christ. You're not wrong.

0:06:04 Eli: Here's the fun thing, actually. If you make it to the end of Here Comes the Bus, it's Monument Valley 3. That's why you can't have him. You got to make it, you got to choose between. Exactly, Here Comes The Bus. It's a kill screen. Like so many things in Tom's life, Facebook and ChatGPT have a kill screen. Patreon .com forward slash dear old dad. Like Tom Psyche in the universe. Rip into it.

0:06:12 Tom: It's fucking like pitfall it's just got no end just over and over all right

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0:06:38 Tom: So we're gonna do a listener email eli real quick if listeners wanted to write into us for some advice what should they do

0:06:46 Eli: Well, they can just shoot us an email at thedads at dearolddads .com That's thedads at dear old dads dot com We'll read your email on air. We'll give you advice straight from the hip.

0:06:57 Tom: What if they don't want their email to be read out loud for the public

0:07:01 Eli: Then you send it to go fuck yourself stewart at gmail dot com We won't see it, but whoever has that email will.

0:07:05 Thomas: What?

0:07:04 Tom: Though we should bomb go fuck yourself stewart at gmail

0:07:12 Eli: Yeah, we don't do enough harass - Hey, guys, look. All podcasts I've realized descend eventually into misogyny and white supremacy let's start with this one gmail let's just look a lot of our listeners did the difficult work to rise out of problematic origins and it's still in there people so just send all your hate to fuck you stewart at gmail .com

0:07:35 Tom: .com this email comes from erica dear dads of varying oldnesses been listening to the podcast for a while first time writing in I'm 25 several years ago realized I was trans I entrusted my dad with this information before I came out publicly and the first thing he did was talk about steroids as in taking estrogen is like taking steroids, and also women's sports. This was discouraging, but I made multiple efforts over the course of a year or two to reach out, offered resources about transness, tried to explain my experience to him. Every time, it pretty much ended up as either a pity party for him or just completely stonewalling me about it. This came to a head around my birthday a few years ago when we took a one -night trip to see Megadeth live. In the car on the way home, I confronted him about constantly avoiding it and misgendering me, not getting my name right even once. He said his ignoring my transition was the compromise.

0:08:31 Tom: I pretty much cut off contact after that. I feel like I did everything I possibly could and it still ended out shitty. Some of your previous episodes have covered similar situations, but I wanted to write in and ask because it's been eating away at me for so long. Do you have any advice? I'm still bitter about it, but I miss the man I thought my dad was and I'm worried things won't come back around again before he's just gone so I thought this was an interesting email and in particular because I think that Erica has done everything right and I think there's that like impossible nexus where you've done all of the right things in terms of your obligation as a child to the relationship and you desperately still miss this person who loved and cared for you and did all the parenting things things, but that bridge may not be able to be built.

0:09:23 Tom: And I think that's a real interesting question. How do we think about that when that bridge cannot or will not be allowed to be built?

0:09:32 Eli: Yeah I mean that's exactly why I was fascinated by this email as well as one I think it's important to come because we talk a lot about like toxic parents and how we deal with them because obviously both you and thomas had a toxic parent one that you cut off one that cut himself off um and I still can't believe your mom's alive every time I remember your mom's Alive it's like I know about 9 -11 in 1998 that's how I feel about it you know you guys have talked about cutting off a toxic parent but I think exactly what you just spoke to tom is the crux of this email which is that like sometimes that person that you loved whether it's because of trump or early onset dementia or mental illness or whatever the fuck's going on right that person that you loved is gone and that you didn't do anything

0:10:19 Thomas: They were never there, really.

0:10:21 Eli: Or they were yeah it's possible they were never there

0:10:22 Thomas: It's kind of an invention of your brain, really, it could be. I don't know. It just depends.

0:10:28 Eli: it'S just about the limitations that our loved ones have and understanding that those limitations often sometimes have to mean the end of a relationship right and and because we are raised in a culture that teaches you when you run up against your parents limitations which everybody does right everybody runs into oh, my mom does this, or my dad says that, and ugh, I don't know that I like that, I don't love how that feels, right, and you sort of navigate that relationship, there are some times when you run into a thing and it ends that relationship because of your parents' capacity. Your dad cannot accept you for who you are, love you for whom you are in the same way that he can't do a backflip, and there's nothing you're going to do to make your dad do abackflip. You didn't do anything wrong. Now it's about your safety emotional safety and the way you secure that emotional safety is with distance and boundaries

0:10:38 Tom: Know, one thing that occurs to me is that we are taught when it comes to romantic relationships, right, that many relationships have a start and then they fail. And then, you know, Dan Savage has that sort of famous saying, like, every romantic relationship you'll be in will fail until one doesn't. You know, we are sort of taught this idea to expect that relationships of this type will end. And when they end, we're going to feel sad or the other person is going to feels sad or whatever. And there's a process of grief and heartbreak. And then we sort of pick ourselves up after that process of grieve and heart break. And we go out and we, you maybe try again, maybe don't try again. End, whatever.

0:11:59 Thomas: Eli, do you feel like this is how Tom breaks up with people? There's this, hey, you're sad or whatever. And then there's a, yeah, they end. And yeah. I also

0:12:05 Tom: I gotta go. I can't. I can't see you anymore. Yeah, that gets it.

0:12:09 Eli: And then in his vision they fade like a ghost at the end of an episode

0:12:13 Tom: But, like, we don't recognize the same sometimes truth about other relationships, right? We're not, and this is true of friendships, it's true of family relationships, sometimes those relationships end too. But we don'T have the same narrative around the ending of those relationships that helps us to to sort of contextualize and put that heartbreak into a place where we can understand it and to understand like, okay, sometimes we won't have a relationship anymore with our best friend. Sometimes that person who is our best friends for 25 years will stop. Sometimes our mom will no longer be a part of our life. Like we don't have culturally a sort of idea around this that we tell stories about in the same way we do romantic relationships. So I think it's harder for for us to sort of wrap our emotional heads around that truth that many relationships in your life, not just romantic ones, will come to an end and we have to have heartbreak and wehave to feel grief and wehave to like figure out how to sit with that and mourn it and then move on from it. And all of that is way easier said

0:13:23 Tom: Than done. I don't think from this listener that there's anything to do. I think there's just a lot to feel.

0:13:32 Thomas: Think that it's not necessarily true that it is over, over. I mean, this person is 25. That is around the time when I first started questioning, you know, my dad. It was probably a little earlier than that. But, you know, it is funny. This ties into, I wanted to talk about it in some way, but it is kind of weird and hard to talk about. But my mom dropped off some VHSs the other day that she wants me to, like, digitize. Because, I do not know, I have the, we have the technology and I keep telling her, she's like, oh, I'll sign up for that thing where you send it all in. And I was like, I will just do it. Just fucking bring it. And then she just never brings them. And does a thing where she's, like, I should just sign up that thing because you don't have time. I was, like you never brought them. How would I do? Like, I'm not going to, I don't, anyway. Yeah, no, don't get me wrong. No, here's the thing. I've given her two conditions and I've been very honest about myself. I'm like, if you come over to bring them and then you come over to pick them back up, I will do them in that time. And it's a real cool challenge because she has some thing about like not being able to come over. It's the weirdest thing. I still don't get it. It's not just with me too. She does it with, you know, my brother. She does It with like, she can't, I think it's anxieties around travel or something, but she barely sees the kids. And it'S like, whatever. That's, that's up to her. I don't know. Anyway, point is we did get one round of it. So she did come up and I was like, oh, here, I did this one. And I watched this video. It was actually genuinely like a bit of a mind F because if you were to watch this VHS tape of my, we, we bought, I guess my dad bought like a video, you know, whatever the fuck you would even call that video cam, not a camcorder. It wasn't the kind where it was like small enough for like a child to hold. It was back when, if you wanted to film stuff, you had to buy like a

0:14:12 Eli: You can't I can't have failed you until you do the thing yeah of course yeah Yeah, no, I'm not going to do it.

0:14:16 Tom: Then I'll fail you don't get me wrong mom I will fail you

0:15:20 Eli: It was just a boombox? Yeah, mm -hmm.

0:15:20 Thomas: TV station camera. Camera yeah it's it's genuinely like that big and if you were to watch this I watched this thing I was like this looks like an idyllic childhood it was like kind of honestly messing me up a little bit I was thinking about it for a while because this is something that I think our listener is going to deal with forever probably is also the feeling of like whoa wait a minute is is there something there is there some way that this could have been better that this would have been and avoid, you know, is there some way that this person can change? Am I wrong about it? Like, that's the, that'sthe hardest part. And, and, you know, genuinely, Erica, like, I, I obviously joke a lot about it, but the, the hardest part is truly the uncertainty. It's truly the, and then, you know, eventually, if your dad's like me and he's an idiot and doesn't take care of himself, he, he dies earlier than he needs to. And then that's done. There's no, that was the only thing I always worried about was like, well, when he's dead, there's no more trying anything. So it's It's just really hard to feel like this is final, final. It's really hard to do that final give up on a person, no matter how shitty they might seem. It's a hard thing to do. I don't think it's something that any like empathetic person wants to do, nobody wants to just write off, I mean, Tom does, but

0:16:33 Thomas: Like people, that's why he loves firing people, he's like, nope, wrote that person, already can't see him, but like it's hard, it's like could there have been something, you know, was there, and seeing this, you know old VHS tape of, uh, us playing with toys, which it's also funny because it's right on brand where I remember all these cool toys we got from somebody else. It wasn't my parents buying us anything. It was my brother's friends like grew out of their toys. And so we got like a shipment of toys, you know, that were hand -me -downs

0:16:33 Tom: Yeah yeah it

0:16:37 Eli: It was. Yeah. Mm -hmm,

0:17:06 Thomas: And it was like, Oh my God, this is better than Christmas. And we were playing with some of them and it's like, yeah,

0:17:09 Eli: And your dad pulled out the video camera and was like, that's right, nailing it, everybody.

0:17:14 Tom: Only felt better than Christmas because it was actually better than your Christmases that's the reason yeah right

0:17:16 Thomas: Pretty much. And it was also like, like, God, there's a time where my dad, my older brother and my older sister were watching like America's Funniest Home Videos. And it's so funny because I looked up based on the date. It was like one of the first ones or something. So it's like, you place it right in the time. And then I hear that music, you know, and I'm like, oh my God, that's a theme song I haven't heard for 4 ,000 years. But then right when I hear it, it's today, like it's just yesterday. And the feeling is so eerie of like, it really all at that time was about as good as it gets. Like it really was like, I know Eli won't believe me, but I think what happened with my dad was he got a lot of enjoyment from little kids, which I can understand. And when you have little kids and I think this is something a lot OF dads have to deal with. You're the center of the world, you know, like you're everything you tell them is a new thing. Everything you say they're interested in. You're the most interesting person to them I get that I guess for someone like my dad that was really cool he was genuinely pretty good at those times but once we got older and we you know started to grow minds of our own Andy you know he I don't know probably took care of himself less or something was alcoholic whatever he just kind of lost all interest you know and it's

0:18:37 Thomas: It's made it even more just I don't even know what it is just just the fucking bummer to see like man if you go back to 1980 fucking nine or whatever it was when this film was that night in 1989 that it was was perfect it was so everything was so good

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0:19:02 Tom: Do you think that a relationship like this can be self because I here's the thing that I wonder about I totally understand wanting to salvage that relationship I am very sympathetic to that desire to be like shit you know like this person is gonna go and they're gonna be gone and They're going to be lost to me. And I have, to your point, like I have all these like really good memories and that person loved and cared for me. And like I look back at like the sort of like videotapes in my mind of these memories. But like in this example, yeah, I don't I don'T really have any good memories there. But like I understand that like conceptually people may.

0:19:31 Eli: Slow motion, running through a field with a snapping turtle on one hand, mom on the other.

0:19:34 Thomas: But I could imagine having

0:19:40 Eli: It's possible that I would have, not with her but I fields exist I had monument valley 3 I remember I liked

0:19:51 Tom: The problem I run into with this stuff is like you have a desire but you have no responsibility or ability to take action and so when you butt up against a place like that where every time you sort of throw yourself against the rocks you're just battered against the fucking rocks at some point I think the better thing to do is to be like, look, I, I can't be here to keep trying. I won't continue to hurt myself for you. You know what I mean?

0:20:19 Tom: Like, I'm not going to do that anymore. Like I've done all the hurting myself that I can do. I'm now complicit in my own abuse any longer or my own neglect or my own damage. I just don't want to do it. And I feel like at some point it's like, yeah, maybe this person would come around. Maybe they won't, who knows, but like you have no responsibility responsibility, or importantly, ability to move that ball forward. And I think it's okay to say, all right, I've done it. And like, I'm going to mourn this loss and I'm Going to figure out how to mourN this loss the same way I would mourN the loss of anyone else that I once loved. I think if we have that skill where we can say, I know how to mourн a heartbreak when it's a romantic partner and I've been broken up with, or I break up with somebody. I also know how to mourND the loss Of somebody that served a different function in my life. Cause I'll tell tell you what, you're going to do it anyway. We're going to mourn losses in our lives. We got to figure out how to do it.

0:20:19 Thomas: Yeah yeah it's just such a different thing I think there's not any one kind of loss hmm

0:21:13 Eli: It and something that you spoke to thomas that I think speaks to erica's situation and I think speaks to everybody's situation is the underlying idea that you are the reason it's bad your dad was good with little kids well so let me let me get I'll I'll explain I you're just such a piece piece of shit, Erica. No. So this notion, because I think we do realize this limitation about our loved ones, like that your dad was a great with little kids, right?

0:21:29 Thomas: I don't think I said that at all Eli just heard like you're just annoying annoying yeah I don't

0:21:47 Eli: And you relate to that and you understand that. And maybe not consciously, but I think unconsciously there is a, why did I have to grow up feeling? Or in Erica's case, why Did I have to be trans? There was a change that that I underwent that this person could no longer relate to me. This person could know longer be a parent to me and it's heartbreaking because I think secretly we do blame ourselves even when we consciously know it's not our fault. Even when we unconsciously know it was the adult's responsibility to adapt and grow and change and love us for who we are when they were in stasis and we came into the world and they loved us when we are the one who transformed and then they very clearly sent us the message that they didn't like that. It's hard not to take away that you're the one who's at fault for the change podcast

0:22:36 Thomas: Know if we're supposed to do the um uh oh fuck what's the movie the uh no the uh the goodwill hunting moment or something I don'T I DON'T feel any of that I mean maybe maybe you're right I can't argue if someone wants to say there's something going on in my brain that I don' t know about but they know about somehow maybe and maybe erica feels differently but in my situation it was more that I was surprised that it ever was good so I never had a feeling of like, I changed it. You know what I mean?

0:22:44 Tom: I

0:23:04 Thomas: So like, I just thought my dad always sucked. It's almost easier to think like, oh no, he just always sucked, and then to see like, oh no he actually was pretty good for a while there. It was kind of a that was new, it was almost new information, or at least that level of feeling. Just seeing it. I don't know, it's just different just seeing it, and so I think that's a valid thought in terms of, I could see that potentially, and maybe that's how Erica feels, but I do think that it's the kind of thing where I think erica needs to stand up for herself and not in a way that's like confrontational but in a ways that like maybe you need to never confront him I don't know what

0:23:38 Eli: Boundaries

0:23:38 Thomas: What it's going to be yeah but setting that boundary and if it were me I think I'd say look here's honestly the conditions under which I'll you know I'll see you or have a relationship with you and

0:23:49 Tom: Thought about that when I first read that email because that was going to be the same advice I was going offer. But then when I reread through this email, I feel like this person already did all of that. They did every reasonable thing and they are still being treated in a way that they find entirely unacceptable. And like universalizing it out from Erica to other their experiences as well. Like sometimes there's no more boundaries left for you to draw. Like there's No way to circumscribe a relationship that works at all. If you say like, Hey, every time I come to your house, you know, the only way for us to have a relationship is for you not to look at me or speak or refer to me in any way, because if you do, you're going to do it in a shitty and abusive way. Like you can't have a friendship. Like there'sno boundary that makes any sense there. I guess I feel like for me, when it comes to relationships of any kind, I like to think of it like the only thing that matters is what I get to control. Everything else I have to react and feel about, but I can't do anything for. I only control what I control. I feel here there is a lot of damage that could still be taken by this person or by anybody who is continuing to hold open this this idea of hope when there are no indicators for hope, you know, again, like, like just to use an example that I think is apropos, if somebody breaks up with you and you're like, well, I'm not going to move on. I'm going to hold myself open and make myself emotionally available because they might come back to me. You're not going be in a good emotional and psychological place. That's bad for you.

0:24:31 Thomas: Yeah yeah Yeah, for sure.

0:25:21 Tom: You should not do that. We know that when it comes to romantic relationships, I honestly think it's the same thing for any type of relationship. If somebody is rejecting you accept the rejection recognize like I've been rejected okay that sucks I have to feel about it and deal with it is it under my control no it's not I can't make this person not reject me I put my best self forward they said no thank you not interested awesome that's not my friend that's Not my mom that's My dad that's my wife or husband like we're done Yeah. And it's easier said than done. But I think the alternative is to hold ourselves open and remain vulnerable for people that have chosen to hurt us already.

0:25:53 Eli: Monument valley yeah and let them do more damage more importantly because like the other thing is this and I I remember being 25 and really hating it when older people said that so forgive me erica but 25 is really young you have so much growing and learning and finding yourself as a person to do and stopping by pop's house to get a punch in the stomach is a really really bad way to do that it is going to set you up to have unhealthy relationships to feel unhealthy ways about yourself and like even when you're not trans 25 is really hard it's a really hard age you're finding your way in the world it's significantly harder when youre trans and your support network needs to be all the way there for you uh and so exposing yourself to that kind of damage it is is no good it's not good

0:26:54 Tom: Yeah, and I'm going to loop back because something else just occurred to me when you were talking, Eli. There are some people who if they reject, I do so much. I just wanted to have a little fun.

0:26:59 Eli: God I missed monument valley yeah

0:27:06 Tom: I also think that there are some relationships where if you are rejected at all, that is a much greater sin than in any of and that's parenting. Right. Like I'm just thinking like my kids, they can do a lot of shit. But in order for me to like reject them in some significant way, that's kind of unforgivable. Like those are my kids. That's it. It. We can have differences of opinion, we can not like each other, we can disagree about our values, but at the end of the day, if I reject those kids, it's not the same. It's not the same as a friendship in that it's a higher bar, actually. It ends in a much more binary bar, I think. Can you imagine what it would take for you to reject your kids,

0:27:06 Eli: Oh it's just fucking impossible the

0:27:48 Tom: Right?

0:27:48 Eli: Amount because here's the thing murder I'd be like hoodie murder okay well what was the situation like there's so I would have so many questions before I was like right Right, exactly. But let alone like a thing like this, a thing about who he loves that makes him happy, that makes him feel good. And look, I know your dad doesn't have that level of understanding, right? I'm not going to pretend that your dad's sitting there going, you know, well, I've read on gender and I don't know, I think Adin Mahid makes some good points in Advocate magazine, but I've only read half his columns. Like, I Know Your Dad is just like fucking what Joe Rogan yelled into one of his ears and what Graham Linehan yelled into the other. So, you Know, who the fuck knows what culture vomited into his ear through youtube shorts but like I can tell you as a person who is not well educated on a lot of the world and has very very strong opinions about a lot of stuff that I'm stupid about none of it would be a part where I'd be like I guess I just gotta fucking isolate my kid I just got I really

0:27:57 Thomas: Maybe the gender construct had it coming, you know? Like, yeah. Yeah.

0:28:50 Eli: Gotta make my kid feel alone and tell them that this This really important thing to them, uh, really hurts me. And then it's about me. I'm hard pressed to find a thing my son could do where I would say that, right? He could be an avowed racist and I'd still be like, ah, he is, he really, he has.

0:29:03 Thomas: And is, by the way. And is. Old Uncle Heath.

0:29:14 Eli: Once

0:29:14 Thomas: Old Uncle Keith got to him.

0:29:15 Eli: We got to the slurs and speech therapy, he really took off. I'll tell you, it's really, it'S been night and day since then.

0:29:19 Thomas: And the therapist was like, look, I mean, you got to go with it. Otherwise, you can't learn to talk. That's just, yeah,

0:29:24 Eli: And I was like, but like, the truth is like, even if it was some major political political disagreement that I feel profoundly about because one of the questions I get all the time is like what if max is religious and I'm like okay okay okay we'll figure it out we'll figure out how to talk about we'll figured out how make him feel comfortable I imagine and again I'm not going to project onto your dad I'm not going project into you but like I imagine the dismissal and the offense and the sort of disgust that I feel about religion is pretty close to how homophobic transphobic dads feel right which is like I don't know about none of that I'm pretty I'm not really interested in hearing about anyone's lived religious experience and people try to share it with me on a regular basis we'll get an email to scathing where they're like when jesus came into my life I was living in the gutter and I'm like ah it seems sounds like you're wrong about some shit glad you feel better right like I am by no means you the empathetic third of this podcast is not me when it comes to that stuff but were it my son and if he accepted christ as his lord and savior it became an incredibly important part of his life I'm not saying I'd accept jesus because I can't but I would absolutely not fucking shit on his jesus stuff and if He was like jesus this is really important to me I'd be like tell me about that

0:30:46 Thomas: Please don't listen to my shows.

0:30:48 Eli: Yeah don't listen don't listen to daddy shows but also like and this is the other thing I've seen the minions movie 250 000

0:30:58 Thomas: Yeah, but that's much better than Jesus.

0:30:59 Eli: Times it's but there's nothing I can be offended by or upset by at this point the amount of times I've been offended by the amount of time I've seen boss baby you would talk to me about luke I've read luke

0:31:01 Thomas: Way better. Oh boy.

0:31:18 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:31:20 Tom: I can envision a world where my kids and I grow up into adults that don't like each other. I can vision that world, right? I can envisage a world we're not even close. I would hate it. I can imagine it, though. That's a thing that happens, obviously, to lots of people. But I can't envision a word outside of the kids fundamentally becoming horrible, horrible monstrous people like committing unspeakable crimes type of shit right where I just reject them right I just can't see

0:31:49 Eli: Keep money it would have have to be unrepentant unspeakable crimes if my kid did a little hello to more I'd be like just a

0:31:57 Tom: It well I'm not quite as far along as you are but like that's why I think it's it's even more important like that like this is somebody whose primary job in life was not to hurt you that's the thing is like your real job in life with this relationship is don't fucking hurt this person and so like if you're on the the receiving end of this kind of hurt I think it's okay to be like yeah I'm just not we're not doing that anymore that's cool like we are not doing that any more you don't get like I'm not gonna keep myself because this was the one thing you weren't supposed to do we can disagree about stuff we can even not like each other we can get mad at each other all that's fine that's all on the table we're coming up on adulthood you know we're 25 all of that stuff's on the table but like you can't just reach in and hurt me and I do think that like broadly speaking in any relationship with parenting. Like if your parents are like, yeah, I'll fucking hurt you. Yeah. I'll just, I'm not holding myself open for you to come back to me at some point. Yeah, right? Yeah. No, if my mom gave me a try to, well, I don't know how she would contact me, but if my mom fucking sent a telegram or something and somebody delivered it and I read it, which I wouldn't,

0:32:55 Thomas: You say, hey mom, I, no I'm just kidding. Hey Tom's mom.

0:33:06 Eli: Drunk carrier pigeon waddles up to tom bottle tied to one wing

0:33:07 Thomas: Yeah an an alligator.

0:33:09 Tom: But like if she were to somehow get a message through to me, I'd be like, this is nothing. I don'T know what this is. And I would, I would reject it because I donT hold myself open and to be hurt anymore. My ability to continue being hurt by this person ended 26 years ago. I was like, yep, nope, that never happens again. And it never happened again. Like we're done with that now because I will not allow any space in that door. I do think that like with our parents, that's the one thing they can't do to you. They can't hurt you with intentionality. They can'T hurt you and know they're doing it, I guess.

0:33:44 Thomas: It's just a question of like, again, I relate to the feeling of like was there still a chance that this person could get better, you know? And it's going to be, I've talked about a lot before, but it's all about you, Erica. And I mean that in a good way. Like it's not about your dad. It's about how much effort do you want to make, if any, in an ongoing going way to try to see if this is something that can ever happen, to see if your dad can kind of change his mind and treat you with the dignity you deserve. The answer to that is 100 % on you. It's either, well, fuck it, none, or the answer might be for you that you do want to make that effort. And the answer may be in an age where social media and everybody's telling you it's not your job to educate, etc., etc. And I think you already know this, because everything that Erica says, Tom, to your point, you're totally right. Like Erica has done all the things, but it also takes time for people to change. So like, it might be that this takes some more time and at a later time, maybe he could come around or something. And so it's about how much does Erica want to risk her mental health or whatever to bring that about or not? And I think that's entirely a personal decision for which there isn't really a wrong answer. I mean, we can certainly have different opinions about like, oh, maybe you should kind of cut yourself off because this is doing you you more damage, but that's ultimately your decision. Like it's not anything anyone can make for you. And it might be that you're open to undergoing more challenge on that and taking on more kind of bullshit for lack of a better word from your dad than someone else might be. And And that's entirely an individual thing.

0:35:19 Eli: Yeah you get to make those decisions I'll say one other thing too which is that a lot of times in these situations abusers are enabled by neutral family and something that you can do is you if you have supportive family that are also tolerating your dad's abuse by like, they show you love and acceptance. They show you affection. It's because look, the binary that gets put forward is making everyone choose a side. Right. And you don't have to do that. Right? You don't Have to make everyone choose a site. But if you have accepting family that still have a relationship with your dad, because look your dad is only going to move when there are consequences that he cares about. Right and you telling him how you feel and what is happening to you and what you're going through that hasn't done it I don't fucking get it because there's pretty much no if max was like it's really important to me that you read case for christ again I'd be like chapter one the height of a bookmark or whatever the fuck that stupid book I'd read it right there's no there's nothing my son could present me no set of ideas no matter how devoutly I disagree with them that I wouldn't be like all right let's give it a fucking shot you know but there are probably people in his life that he does care about their opinion he probably does care about their company he does he considers them an equal in a way that he might not consider you and a conversation with them about the damage being done about the fact that this is abuse that it is not okay that it endangers you like you sound safe in this email and I'm so happy to hear that it's confident self-assured young person that's awesome but like your family should be made aware that like for a trans person this kind of familial rejection is more dangerous than certain forms of intravenous drug usage and so if they actually care about you if you actually matter to them if they actually want you to be happy they should look into some of the statistics about parental acceptance of trans people and they might want to change their relationship with your dad if he doesn't care about those those things all

0:37:21 Clip: DEAR OLD DAD

0:37:28 Eli: Right gentlemen before we go my neighbor is a pacifist he won't fight anybody even though he's a trained martial artist he's got a black belt in taekwondo

0:37:40 Tom: Oh my Lord. Crickets, crickets, cricket.

0:37:43 Thomas: Tom brought his own crickets for that one. That's how bad it was.

0:37:47 Eli: Yeah, I killed mine for this podcast it

0:37:49 Tom: I don't believe you ever found that cricket. I think it just starved to death in the hellhole of your basement, yeah.

0:37:53 Eli: Just stopped start starving today it's nice now it's a nice basement now Tom it's got fancy it's so

0:37:54 Thomas: Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.

0:37:58 Tom: Is it? When I see pictures, I'll believe it. I'll believe it when I see pictures.

0:38:01 Eli: Nice so lovely you don't even know you even know how lovely it is you're You're just such a piece of shit. If my kid did a little hello to more, I'd be like, we all