DOD225: How Much Should Parents Let Their Kids Be Weird?

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 getting weird. I'm Tom Curry. I am joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:32 Thomas: Speaking

0:00:37 Eli: Been weird out here, Tom. Been weird.

0:00:39 Thomas: Of being weird, I've got a weird morning going. First off, yesterday, like every day around this time of the year, was 100 and something, 102. I won't exaggerate. It wasn't like a really bad one, but it was like 102, I think. Wake up this morning.

0:00:53 Tom: It's a dry 102. It is fine.

0:00:54 Thomas: Yeah, well, that's what I'm about to say. Wake up this morning, you know, around 20 minutes ago or whatever, and I

0:01:03 Eli: Ready? Yeah.

0:01:01 Tom: Morning. Morning is in quotation marks here. It's a technical morning.

0:01:03 Thomas: Hear what sounds like rain. And I was like, well that can't I must be losing my mind there's no fucking way it's raining and I text Lydia I'm like is it raining she's like yeah what the fuck was a hundred yesterday and she's Like well it's keep in mind this is to reveal a very shocking secret it's about 9 45 at this time she says well yeah it's already it's 90 degrees at 9 45 in the morning and raining is this global warming what the is that that's like Hawaii shit I've never that's a weird thing I don't know what what that is. 90 degrees. So it's still hot at 9am and it's raining. Okay. So anyway, that's the new climate we have or something. I don't know.

0:01:45 Tom: I love that if you want to find out if it's raining, you text your wife. Like, you don't, like, check the weather app or look out the window.

0:01:49 Eli: Look out the window.

0:01:50 Tom: You're just like, I'm not getting out of bed. I' m going to find if it' s raining from somebody else first.

0:01:52 Thomas: Well, it was shocking. I dunno.

0:01:53 Eli: Also, I know that there's absolutely nothing more deadly for comedy than you shouldn't have observed the observation you just observed, because I'm exposed to it on a regular basis, but what were you surprised by? Rain in the morning? Hot rain? Okay.

0:02:08 Thomas: Okay. Sorry. I forget that California's climate. So when Tom joked, it's a dry heat, that's because it doesn't rain in California. First off ever. Famously, we have droughts all the time. It never rains in summer. Like I know it's not, is it? It's not technically summer. Wait, is this still technically summer I can't remember yeah it never rains in summer like pretty much never and if it does rain it's because a storm moved in and it's actually rain temperatures like you know 60 at least seven yeah it doesn't 90 degree rain at 9 a .m in the morning like is water

0:02:24 Tom: It's still summer, yeah.

0:02:34 Eli: It's cool and raining. Yeah, okay. Because my lived experience is you had no fucking idea what rain was. You were like why water come out of sky big big sink up there they're

0:02:46 Tom: What?

0:02:46 Thomas: What the fuck did you leave a hose on on the roof I don't man

0:02:50 Eli: Big faucet come down

0:02:51 Tom: You can actually only hear it if you expect it. That's the problem. So if you don't expect it, you can't hear it, yeah?

0:02:54 Thomas: Yeah well that observation Observation definitely doesn't work if that's just abnormal for me and no one else. Sorry. That's a weird weather.

0:02:59 Eli: It was even harder because of the patient way you were setting it up right you were like so I wake up right I fluff my pillow I throw back the blankets and what do I see outside fucking water falling from the sky can you believe this folks I kept waiting for you to be like and And then I get outside and there's dead raccoons.

0:03:17 Thomas: I'm sorry. Are you saying in your climb, in your area, are you saying that it's often 90 degrees at 945 in the morning and raining? Is that often?

0:03:26 Eli: Okay. First of all, you got to stop with 945. I know that for you, you're saying crack of dawn, but for all the humans in our audience, I wake up, my eyes crack open, the rooster crows at 1155 AM. And there I am finding myself in the hot, hot sun with water coming from the sky. The same stuff you drink. You hear? Yeah.

0:03:49 Thomas: So when it's 90 at that time for us, that means it's going to be like 110 that day. Like, cause it just keeps going up all. That's why I keep saying that. It's not that it is. It's that when it is 90 already, cause we have a thing where it cools off at night. Is that another thing that's weird? Because I'm not in a body of water or something. Maybe I have the only one with weird weather of anybody.

0:04:08 Tom: No no it cools off it's 20 30 degrees cooler in the evening or morning

0:04:13 Thomas: Right. So if it's already 90 at that time, that means it's going to be like, I'm probably not exaggerating, at least 102 today. It's just fucking weird to have. I don't accept that this is a normal thing for Eli. Like, yeah, 102 degree day. It's raining. Is that normal for you?

0:04:30 Tom: I don't know in new jersey I'm coming to find out is you know a weird utopian paradise that I did so I guess I didn't know anything about new jersey I wouldn't expect 90 degrees and raining I expect if he was in like miami I'd be like yeah it's fucking Miami that's normal right it's tropical whatever whatever.

0:04:35 Eli: Beautiful. Beautiful Mecca. So yeah. Speaking of which, if I can brag on Jersey for a second, Jersey has a state-mandated special ed parent forum. So you know how like the PTA, they have mandated weather. It's actually not allowed to rain on my boy's special day. We only allow rain on days when we have mass shootings. So we never have rain.

0:04:54 Thomas: Okay. I thought you were going to say they have mandated weather. They actually make the weather conform to.

0:05:06 Eli: You know, the PDA is just like the parents get together and I want to dance. So the special PTA which is state mandated, they invited us to it because our kids in special ed technically and it's just like a hey if there's anything that they're not doing now you get to form a committee to yell at them it's the bet it's a committee of yelling yell committee you'd be so good at a yell committee and

0:05:24 Tom: What? I want to be on a yelling committee. I yell all the time and it's just I would love to be at a yelling community. I would be the fucking chairman of the yelling committee.

0:05:35 Eli: Here's the best part are you ready they have to listen to us because it's just the special ed parents a normal parent doesn't get to be like anyways I was thinking under the sea we just get to be like and the ramps aren't tall enough or whatever it is we want. And they have to be there.

0:05:49 Tom: Do they have to actually act on it or they just have to like sit and like take the verbal abuse? Because here in Illinois, they would definitely just take the abuse and be like, cool, cool, cold, cool. We're not going to do anything about that. Our budget is out of whack. Two of our governors are in prison there's nothing we can do

0:06:05 Eli: So they don't have to do a lot about it. But I was really excited by this prospect because I was like, what do you do if they don t listen? And apparently, part of all the IEP contracts in the state of New Jersey is this PTA for special ed. So it's a signed contract with the district. So what you can do is you can sue the district if you feel like that group is not representing your interests. That's why IEPs are degree yeah the reason IEPs work is they're a contract between you and the district and whenever they don't do anything it's just a breach of contract and everyone knows legally like oh yep no you win did

0:06:40 Tom: Interesting we had our IEP meeting the other day our first notice of conference meeting for Amon

0:06:45 Eli: They remember that you're a parent or were they like where's that wife of

0:06:48 Tom: They did put the paperwork in there and they have added Haley to all of the paperwork I thought that was that was awesome all of that turned out great we did request I'm a little annoyed because at Amon's old school I was pushing his old school to get Amon occupational therapy because his he doesn't seem to like use his hands very adroitly at all and I think it makes him tire out when he's doing writing right so I think when he is writing he is not actually expressing himself as well as he could because I think he just fucking like literally tires out physically and so he just writes less than he otherwise would be able to so I expressed that concern I'm like yeah I gotta try to get him OT at his old school they fought back on it I wasn't able to get anything done and this new school is like yeah we'll have him assessed this week no problem like we'll we'll We'll have him sit with an occupational therapist and assess him this week. They were so much better. I can't even tell you how much better the vibe at the very least was in terms of us being like, yeah, let's, you know, this, that went through all of his accommodations and stuff. And they were just like, Yeah, no problem. We got that. Awesome. Terrific. Everything was a yes. It's literally an adjacent district. It is an adjacent District to the one he was in. And the difference is fucking night and day, night and Day. So I'm hoping they follow through with all this stuff, but like terrific.

0:07:13 Eli: Yours

0:08:03 Thomas: Which property taxes fund that school versus the other. Yeah.

0:08:07 Tom: Is a big difference. That is the truth of it, Thomas. It's a really big difference, so like this district is a district where the property values are significantly higher than the district that he was coming from, so by probably, you know, 40 to 50 percent, like it's a pretty big difference so I'm sure that that's most of what it is, but like for a dude who's now literally 10 minutes away from his old school and to have like meetings before where they were like, yeah, And now they're just like, yeah, whatever he needs. We'll just, we'll take care of it. It was terrific. It was a great experience.

0:08:39 Thomas: The school district just got here from New Jersey. We're just getting situated. We moved the whole district.

0:08:43 Eli: Right yeah we're visiting we're a visiting school district

0:08:46 Tom: Yeah, right. It's a traveling New Jersey school district.

0:08:50 Thomas: Well, I'm sure that's all great, Tom. Didn't hear any of it because I was just talking to ChatGPT about weather. So the rainfall chances. No, no, no. I do appreciate.

0:08:56 Tom: Thomas is not letting it go. He has a fucking, we are going to have more conversation about the weather. You fuckers.

0:09:01 Thomas: Here's what I appreciate. This at least isn't Eli gaslighting me because it turns out that is normal in New Jersey, but it's not normal here. It's like, I just looked up. They said the average rainfall in September for the entire month in this area is 0 .3 inches for the whole year. The entire month. Yeah. No. What? It's that. Yeah, so this never happens. Okay. And it said I could do 10 pull -ups, by the way.

0:09:16 Tom: Jesus Christ. Fucking Irish weather. Fucking hell. 0 .3 inches.

0:09:26 Eli: And it said you could do yeah it said

0:09:26 Thomas: That's pretty cool. ChatGPT, offer that out of nowhere. Nowhere.

0:09:29 Eli: Wow not only are you groundbreaking the amount of weather that you're looking up is groundbreaking it's not just weather it shows you're thinking in a different weather paradigm you're not crazy you're advanced

0:09:34 Thomas: Great question. Wow.

0:09:45 Tom: Your weather reading skills exist in the liminal space between weather and non -weather

0:09:50 Thomas: And it's really excited about my weather startup app idea that I told it to. It's like, wow, let's get going on that.

0:09:57 Tom: Did I tell you guys about like me feeding some of my writing into chat gpt out of curiosity to see what it would say so I had a I had facebook friend who gave chat gpd access to all of his email and asked him to like use that email to write a biographical analysis then he posted the biographic analysis that jet gpt came up with and of course it was just like ridiculous and fawning and all of this but I was like yeah that's actually pretty accurate like if you strip away the fawning dick sucking it's a pretty accurate analysis of like who I know this guy to be right so it's like that's kind of

0:10:24 Thomas: Isn't that kind of important now? Yeah. I mean, if you strip away the dick sucking, it's kind of accurate. It' s like Like, you heard

0:10:31 Eli: Man a

0:10:32 Tom: Interesting so I waslike well I can't give it access to my email because I never in my life have written somebody like an email like hey here are my thoughts and email is just like I'll be there at six you know like here I'm forwarding this thing like I don't use my email for anything like that so yeah that's me but I was like well I've got other writing I can give it like access to some of these like online spaces where I do some writing you know and so I was like all right I'm gonna give it man it is the fucking biggest lying liar that ever lied some lies like I know my writing is sometimes okay sometimes bordering on next to okay good but doesn't really go past that into the solidly good or great phase I know that it's fine this thing will tell you that you are the next great talent, that you are moments away from revolutionizing what it's useless. It is abso -fucking -lutely useless how sycophantic it is. And even if you tell it, please stop writing so sycrophantically. Just give me an analysis of the writing, please. Tell me specifically what could be improved. It is still like, it

0:10:47 Eli: Few words yep uh

0:11:41 Tom: Is is unbelievably useless. It's terrible.

0:11:45 Eli: Non-patrons you just heard a big long beep but uh patrons if you raise your pledge to the 20 level you'll get that actual audio but gentlemen do you know the only thing worse than the dome polishing of chat gpt 4 .0 as opposed to 5 .0 which fucking hates you I am so sorry that I didn't have fucking yes ands to a half inch of rain in the morning and the crack of noon why it's the auto ads you can get rid of them over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dads little is a dollar you get a little parenting story at the end of the show commercial free version of every podcast check it out over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dads, like a raindrop in Thomas Smith's slumber, rip into it.

0:11:51 Thomas: The familiar sound of Eli gaslighting you about weather? I don't know. What's the only thing worse?

0:12:42 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:12:44 Tom: So I stumbled across this video. I want to play a video that I stumbled across from Facebook Reels or whatever it is. I thought it would be a good conversation conversation starter for us it's

0:12:51 Thomas: I'd rather Eli gaslite me more than listen to this fucking video again, honestly. I can't stand this fucking thing. This fucking video. It's, yeah, yeah. And his whole thing and the whole attempt and all of media that we are so I'm sorry I'm going

0:12:57 Tom: Just the voice of the guy is so bad right it's it's terrible

0:13:04 Thomas: Right I didn't do you have more intro to it or no okay huh is there anybody else have anything before we to delay this before I have to push play on this fucking shit again okay here we go yeah it's raining holy shit it's a full rainbow

0:13:06 Eli: Look

0:13:04 Tom: Yeah it's that's all that's the intro I got I think we just play the play the video and we can chit chat about

0:13:13 Eli: Out the windows. You know, you get some, you wind up some of that fucking class A rain material.

0:13:14 Tom: It yeah what's the weather right now you know text lydia see what's happening outside you're tight five on rain in

0:13:24 Thomas: Oh yeah climate change is great because it's gonna be like holy shit I woke up and our glacier's melted and Eli will be like that's totally normal where I'm I don't know what the fuck you're complaining about it's a completely normal normal what god

0:13:33 Tom: New jersey we actually have a special committee to yell at the

0:13:34 Eli: ChatGPT just told you it's normal where I'm from.

0:13:39 Clip: Stop allowing your kids to be weird I know that sounds like a lot to say but we all know what we're talking about here with the weird kids I don't have the faintest idea but um hit me with it you're expecting society to just accept whatever they throw out there that's not how this works. If you are not raising your children to be socially acceptable, you are setting themselves up to be bullied. You're setting themselves up to be unaccepted. Not even because you're not setting them up to be bullied or rejected. You are the bully who is doing the rejecting. If you are demanding that your weird kid behaves only in socially acceptable ways, then you're bullying them. What is going on? It kills their self-esteem and it kills their confidence and you're not doing right by them. It is wild that anyone would be suggesting that encouraging kids to not be themselves will support self-esteem because that certainly doesn't seem to be what the scholarly opinion is here. Oh but that's because you are not familiar with the the scholarship, are you? This is not a slight against hairstylists at all. I think my barber is great, but he doesn't market himself as some sort of expert on parenting. Please don't listen to hairstylist to advise you to bully your own children.

0:15:06 Thomas: I fucking hate everything about that video so much this reminds me of a early Game of Thrones review where it was like kind of satirical and the guy's you know talking about the characters and then he got to Joffrey he's like that guy needs to die that kid needs to be killed what I haven't watched the show I don'T KNOW WHAT'S ABOUT JUST Just that kid, just from the look of him. That's me with whatever the fuck this guy's face just said. I can't take it. Tom, tell me in a voice that's not the most annoying thing I've ever heard. What that guy said.

0:15:08 Tom: Glaciers well I am on the hairdresser's side yeah yeah I think that's why I wanted to do this video because I figured we would be very three bears on our take on this on this video

0:15:34 Eli: Well, no, Tom is on the hairdresser's side.

0:15:36 Thomas: Oh, Eli, tell him. I forget that story. Was one of the bears like, fuck this whole thing. I don't want to do.

0:15:49 Tom: So I don't like the sound of your fucking voice I can't even engage the

0:15:54 Eli: Spoilers for the episode. Tom's going to be like, like, you should bully your kids. And I'm going to be like, you shouldn't bully yourkids. And Thomas is going to be like I wasn't paying attention, but I'm mad anyways.

0:16:04 Thomas: I want to bully that guy. That's... No, it's just the fucking tone. He had to have a... He's saying the most normal things. And he's got to be saying it like he's a fucking genius bringing you... Oh, that... You're not familiar with the scholars. Fuck you. Jesus Christ.

0:16:06 Eli: That video is so long. God, it was like a dry spell in California. Ring-a-ding-ding, ding ding.

0:16:21 Eli: You can't raise a generation on YouTube reaction videos and expect us not to talk that way.

0:16:26 Thomas: God.

0:16:27 Tom: Content it's fucking true yeah

0:16:27 Thomas: I hate those, so I don't watch them. Maybe that's why I'm just an alien. Sorry. Anyway. Bullying or something? I don...

0:16:32 Tom: I generally like this guy's takes I will start off I generally like this guys takes but I think he's wrong

0:16:47 Eli: I'll poke him. I'm poking with a knife.

0:16:49 Tom: Here and I think he's pretty big wrong here and I I think if he were poked at about this at all with any detail he would discover that

0:16:50 Eli: God, I hate how he talks. Who are you?

0:16:51 Thomas: I don't know.

0:16:53 Tom: But I want to make sure that we start from the same uh starting point or foundational point I think she does say that like the ground zero here is social acceptability so what we're defining as weird is behaviors that are outside of that which is socially acceptable and I think if that's the starting point then I completely agree with her like no notes I think like yeah 100 we're doing doing things all the time as parents to teach our kids what is socially acceptable and to drive them toward that as often or as much as it benefits them.

0:17:28 Eli: And I want to preclude something at the beginning of the conversation, because I think people will shut down unless we preclude it, which is neurodiversity, right?

0:17:37 Thomas: Hmm.

0:17:38 Eli: Because a tremendous amount of weirdness, right, that what we grew up with, weirdness or social unacceptability, we now understand to be neurodiversity, and a tremendous amount of what my son is going to struggle with when people think he is weird or different or strange, which has already happening, I already see kids doing it because of his disability. For this conversation we'll get to the neurodiversity thing towards the end because it's a bummer and it's sad and it's just gonna be like well of course you shouldn't bully neurodiverse people so like but that's gonna be such a fucking it's gonna be such an umbrella hanging over the conversation that like there will be no listening or talking if we don't get it out of the way so

0:17:38 Tom: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks for saying that. Because I actually, when I was thinking about this, I actually really wanted to say this. It only refers to people who have the ability to behave in ways. So if your ability to behavior in ways that are socially acceptable is not under your control like this advice this conversation isn't about that right like it's like right

0:18:32 Eli: Right or if society doesn't understand that your abilities to not participate in certain things right like we got to get all that out of the way right

0:18:38 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, feel free to shut me down, but at the risk of doing what Eli didn't want to do, my take would be I don't know how you separate those things. And I think that's the risk. So, yeah.

0:18:38 Tom: Yeah this conversation is not about that yeah well you're the parent in this case so the advice is to parents right so I think you know if your kid

0:18:51 Thomas: You think you can cleanly separate which behavior is like neurodiversity versus not? I just think that is hard to do. Maybe I am wrong.

0:18:58 Tom: Oh I don't know I mean if you have a kid that doesn't have any apparent neurodiversities and they're still behaving in ways that are not socially acceptable it would be our responsibility as parents to help guide them towards socially acceptable behaviors

0:19:12 Eli: Or at the very least you could make the argument that there will be some behaviors that your kid does that are definitely not because of a neurodiversity that are just socially unacceptable how do we guide them around those because thomas I was going to make the exact same point at the end which is I think that like sort of the weird barometer has moved so far just in our one generation that I think it will move even further in the future and the things we consider to be rude or socially unacceptable that were not okay okay, for our generation are becoming accepted now. And so I think a lot of the things that we aren't accepting now will be accepted in the future. But I was sort of saving that for the end because I wanted to talk about this idea of like, when we are talking about neurotypical people who are just making, I think this is also easier with like adult kids too, you know, late teens, those kinds of kids.

0:20:02 Thomas: We're just being assholes on purpose and it's not. Yeah. Yeah, fair, fair. No, no.

0:20:04 Eli: Exactly, like all the cards are on the table, like how we guide them and have that conversation. And then I'll be like, this hairdresser uses the Arsler in her private life, right?

0:20:08 Thomas: OK, I'll keep that in mind then. Yeah yeah.

0:20:13 Eli: And then we'll just we'll wrap up on some universal agreement do a tight five on snow good to go have

0:20:20 Thomas: Snow. I would have had to see it for you to do a tight five. What even what even is snow? No.

0:20:23 Eli: You heard of it I wake up the other day I'm looking at this Christmas book the floor is white why would the floor be white buy a carpet who's

0:20:27 Tom: Right a couple of things that occur to me like we are constantly teaching our kids to behave in ways that guide them towards social acceptability when they don't want to we teach our kids to have good hygiene this is actually something that as kids get older is a harder harder thing to teach kids. And there's a lot of people, weirdly, this is something that I never encountered or I don't remember encountering when I was a young person. It doesn't mean it wasn't there. It just means I don'T remember it. There's so many kids now that I meet that have fucking terrible, terrible personal hygiene. Body odor you can smell from like a few feet away, like terrible breath and teeth. Just, it's crazy. I don' t remember that growing up. When I was at at the high school, walking around with Aislinn, I probably ran across 15 people that I could smell from, I don't know, two, three arms distances away.

0:21:22 Thomas: My God. Throw them in their lockers, too, while you're at it.

0:21:27 Tom: I don'T remember that, man. Like, I DON'T remember that shit. But like, personal hygiene is a matter of social acceptability, right? Like, teaching kids, like, to have good hygiene. Teaching kids that, hey, you've got to say please and thank you. That's social acceptibility. We're driving people toward moving to socially acceptable behaviors. I don't think that there is a big leap from those things, which we sort of all kind of blanket understand and generally agree to. I Don't think it's a big loop to say, Hey, if you're going to behave in these sort of like counter -cultural ways, cool. I behaved in a lot of counter -cultural ways too, during my sort of everybody has one rebellious phase, but do it in ways that you can take off and put back on without making any permanent adjustments to your body. Dress weird that's cool but learn like when the context is appropriate for that stuff because social acceptability is a big fucking deal and like I do worry about people we

0:22:23 Eli: Drinking

0:22:23 Thomas: I mean, we live in a society, you know, like that is true, though. Unironically, we do live in society for now.

0:22:25 Eli: We do actually live in a society yeah I'm

0:22:26 Tom: Do like I'll give you and I'll gave you an example and I will turn it over to you guys and I may have told the story on the show before I don't if I did I apologize but there was a woman that I worked with at a very high level so she's upper upper management and I'm in a group chat she sent everybody a picture of her daughter and she said hey I'm having you know it's just a friendly chat like she's not and she says would you guys hire my daughter to work in one of your offices and her daughter had very extreme makeup like very very extreme very bright colorful you know makeup

0:22:57 Eli: Picturing a clown in case anyone's wondering

0:22:58 Tom: I mean it was like it's it was extreme makeup she had

0:23:00 Thomas: Oh, I was picturing just a little bit of like it's actually nothing. But Tom overreacts.

0:23:04 Eli: True that's more accurate to tom yeah I was picturing just like full clown

0:23:05 Thomas: Yeah. Slight amounts of eye shadow. Yeah. Yeah, there was like some blush and it might have been lipstick.

0:23:08 Tom: No this was like wings and like it was was very extreme makeup. No, no, no.

0:23:14 Eli: She was a crow.

0:23:14 Thomas: I mean, it was just I

0:23:15 Tom: And she had multiple facial piercings. She had a tattoo on her face, a small one, but she had a tatoo on her fac. She has very brightly colored hair. She's a very traditionally countercultural kid, the way that those countercultural kids present themselves. But everybody on the chat was like, no of course we wouldn't hire this person. I cannot hire this because I know my clientele and I can't put this person in front of my clients. This would be a distraction it's not possible for us to hire this person I would and I said like I would hire her for a work at home only position but that would be the only thing that I'd be able to offer her yeah

0:23:36 Thomas: Picture

0:23:52 Eli: And even then, you've got her bat cave behind her in the Zoom call.

0:23:56 Tom: You know what there's a level of

0:23:57 Thomas: Tom just absolutely roasting this woman's daughter to shreds for 30 minutes. A la, you know, the vulgarity for charity roasts.

0:24:05 Eli: Oh, oh, okay. Here's what I'm picturing. I'm picturing that Tom misread the tone and she was actually asking if someone had room in their office to hire her. And Tom was like, that whore will never work a day in her life. Tom's like, I've been getting less hours lately. I know that's not. That's weird. They don't ask me to golf anymore.

0:24:19 Tom: That oh that's it's weird

0:24:21 Thomas: Another HR meeting in my calendar. What the fuck?

0:24:27 Eli: That's crazy. Crazy what do they need me for five minutes for yes

0:24:28 Tom: Huh and I reject the idea just completely

0:24:33 Thomas: Do you think Tom's work would have him fire himself?

0:24:36 Tom: Oh that would be fucking hilarious

0:24:36 Eli: They put him in a room with a card bound stun out of him and a gun with a single bullet you

0:24:38 Thomas: Tom, one last job.

0:24:42 Tom: Did I tell you guys when I had to fire my boss before okay so this company I worked at before like two companies ago which was an absolute insane company I should tell you you guys those stories sometimes times they'll fucking curdle your toe it's crazy I worked at this company that was absolutely nuts they went out of business for setting a fire to their own company and stealing a bunch of money like it like it was in the newspapers crazy shit right so the owner of the company is this guy tony my boss was this guy rich I get a call from tony one day I need you to fire rich I was like I can't fire rich tony he's my boss and he says not after you fire him he's not and I was was like, I can't walk into Rich's office and fire Rich. He's like, it's your office now, but you got to fire Rich,

0:24:45 Thomas: Holy shit. This is so funny. This is fucking insane.

0:25:25 Eli: Know

0:25:26 Tom: And I was like I don't have the authority to fire Richard. He was like I need you to fire rich, and by the way, I'm like 24 years old, right? Like I don'T know shit about fuck.

0:25:33 Thomas: Oh my God. God. Was this your first firing? Was this where you got the taste for human blood? Oh, okay.

0:25:37 Tom: This was my second firing. This Was literally my second Firing and the first one went very badly right? So the first time I had to fire a young late. I fired a young lady. I was so nervous to do it. I didn't know what I had no idea what to do. I just got a phone call again. Same guy Tony Tony, I need you to fire this gun. I was okay. I called this young lady into my office. She started crying. I didn't know what to do. I panicked and left my office with her sitting there crying.

0:25:59 Tom: You take some time. I don't know What to do?

0:25:59 Thomas: Then he called the cops.

0:26:04 Tom: So I go into Rich's office. I go into my boss's office to go into Richard's office is like, Hey, I just got a call from Tony. And I have to let you go. And he looked at me and I looked at him. And it was insane.

0:26:17 Thomas: That is insane.

0:26:17 Tom: It was insane! He's like, you don't he's like I'm your boss. I'm like, Rich, that's what I told him. I I don't know what to say right now. It was the craziest thing. And so Rich knew, like, ultimately he was fired. So he starts packing up his shit. And I was like, I think I just fired my boss and now I'm the boss. That's how and that is literally what happened. That's How I Got His Job.

0:26:22 Thomas: Oh my God. That's fucking crazy. It wasn't sensitive for you to come into that meeting with your cardboard box full of your stuff and start setting it up on his desk.

0:26:49 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:26:51 Tom: But I want to like I want to poke at this because I also I fully reject the idea that teaching your kids how to behave in ways that are socially acceptable is bullying. Bullying. I think like if you're a complete asshole, anything's bullying. Like if I tell you to like eat your vegetables, I can do it in a way that's bullying or I can do it In a way, that encourages you to eat foods that you need to be alive and have good micronutrients, right?

0:27:14 Thomas: If you're Eli, even talking about the weather is bullying. I I hear you. Yeah. Yeah, it was. Okay.

0:27:25 Tom: Like, but I feel like it's a

0:27:27 Eli: I felt pretty bullied by it I did it's true especially when you looked it up you saw my new jersey weather was actually very accurate to your lived experience guys I'm stealing the podcast I

0:27:27 Tom: Parental responsibility, like to teach people to be socially responsible. So it's socially acceptable. But I don't think Eli, you agree with me on this.

0:27:34 Eli: Don't here's where I want to speak to to the merit of the argument because I think there is a very easy straw man to make of this right which is if in order to disagree with tom you need to use a behavior that we now consider acceptable that was once unacceptable you're not addressing the argument so like the really easy counter argument you could make would be something like well in the 90s or as late as the early 2000s being seen as like gay might be socially unacceptable right so like should we have trained our kids not to react as gay right so you have to use these vestiges of the past things that we understand were like bad creations of culture to defend this whereas if you say like a behavior like rudeness which is something that people allow their kids to do all the time I worked in a toy store I've already done my rant on this show about like shy kids versus rude kids right that it was very obvious to me the difference between a kid who was experiencing the emotion of shyness and a kid Who liked having power over other adults and would be like now everyone is going to play the game where I pretend to be afraid of an adult I'm talking to and so when you take actually unacceptable behaviors and you don't project acceptable disability or or different lifestyle, or unacceptable culture onto them. I think Tom has a point, which is that I think we have been so trained to love and support our kids in everything that they do, that we have been so training to be positive reinforcers, and to gentle parent, and say good things, and praise our kids, and not break them down, and not repeat the trauma that was visited on us, that I think it has gone too far that a lot of kids, right? And I think hygiene is a really good, acceptable example of that, right, a lot lot of kids never get told things they would want to hear by

0:28:49 Thomas: Jesus. Mm.

0:29:30 Eli: People who love them because the initial hearing of it is uncomfortable through

0:29:35 Tom: My My dad, this is just a funny, my dad's story. My dad once hired, he had an employee. He had this employee that worked for him and like the guy had bad hygiene. My dad told him, he said, look, I got to climb up a ladder after you. You smell bad. You got to fix that. I cannot have you showing up to work stinking. And the guy showed up to the end of the day. He showed up at work the next day and he still had a hygiene problem. My dad's like, you stink, you're fired.

0:29:39 Eli: Lie in my

0:30:02 Tom: And the guys got fired because he's like I just am not putting up with that shit. Like is I'm not going to put up with that shit.

0:30:02 Eli: Eyes

0:30:05 Thomas: I do think there's also another interesting corner of that behavior. And for me, since I have neurodiverse kids, it's hard for me to talk about anything. They're not fucking normal. So I don't know how to talk About the other scenario. Arrow, but there is a pattern of a set of behaviors that are both potentially socially unacceptable and also in part fueled by neurodivergence. That's important because I actually think as a parent of neurodiverse kids, I think that's one of the biggest challenges is picking that battle and figuring out, okay, like how much of this is like theoretically controllable, how much of THIS isn't. And it's, it's a big challenge and something that I take very seriously, but I also, I think I'm, I, I Think it is a good three bears because in addition to, you know, being being weirded out by the weather and wanting to kill that guy. My other third bear take is kind of a combination of you guys, which is I do think there are behaviors that you just need to do your best to make sure your kids don't do. Like the rudeness, like the, especially your kid might be rude to a waiter or server or whatever, or some customer service or something because of their neurodiversity. And it's also unacceptable. Like, it's like,

0:31:14 Thomas: I draw the line at like, my kids don'T get to be mean to somebody because of their neurodivergence. And it's hard because that puts you in a position where you have to be kind of on your kid about something that's not as under their control as you'd hope. I get nervous about those things. I get worried about those thing. But I also think that is a natural part of parenting. Like if there's no friction in your parenting, then I think you're either the luckiest fucking parent in the world or you're kind of not, like you're letting your kid get away with too much. Like there's going to be friction. And I think that's a natural part of them building the voice in their head that tells them, oh, wait, I shouldn't just bark at this person who helped me, you know, like because I'm focused on my thing. You know what I mean? Like, I think I think That's gonna be a part of of them developing that voice. And what sucks, what breaks my heart is that I know for me and ADHD, I know so much of that is like forever a negative thing for me. Like I'll never not have the kind of self bashing voice. That's like a result of never being able to pay attention, like in class and all that. Like, I'll always have the, like, come on, fucking Jesus. But you know, like I want to be able to like, do my best to not have that be the voice my kids hear.

0:32:29 Thomas: But But also, I don't fucking know. Like, I do not know how much you can do those things. I do know how many, if you have ADHD, how much there are certain things you need to do that, like, I know not how else you do them. Because I do, you know, short of the medication I am now on. Like, do I know how kids who often are not on medication are supposed to be able to do these things.

0:32:49 Tom: Just to say that, like all of my kids are neurodivergent. All of my kids have diagnosed neurodiversions. So I get it. No, I know. I totally get it now.

0:32:56 Thomas: Yeah, Tom just does not care. No, I am just kidding. I am totally joking. I am totaly joking.

0:32:57 Eli: Tom doesn't care he doesn't well he doesn' believe in psychology he said that it's a it's all

0:33:01 Tom: I fully believe in psychology. Like and I think like what we do is we acknowledge, hey, this might be more difficult for you. Like hygiene is a great example. For some of my kids, that's more difficult than for some of my other kids. And we just tell them like out loud, like, hey look, I get It's harder for you. This is harder for you. For people who struggle the way that you struggle or have the issue that you have, maintaining your hygiene is going to be more difficult. Here are some tools you can use to give you some reminders to do this stuff. Here is a specific life or a specific kind of counselor who specializes in people that have the same issues that you have that can help you build these essential life skills because at the end of the day, if you stink, you get fired. That's just how the

0:33:08 Eli: Fake

0:33:46 Thomas: Blow

0:33:47 Eli: Right

0:33:47 Tom: World works. Like there are some things that like, and I think I want to draw a distinction between the kinds of like baseline social acceptability that I had called out before and sort of like intentional counter-culturalism. Cause I think they're both worth exploring. And I think there's like the baseline social accessibility of like, Hey, like you've got to be polite to people. You know, you've Got to show up on time. You've got To do the things that you say you're going to do. You can't just blow everybody. You got to, you can't, you got to to have decent hygiene. Those are like,

0:34:15 Eli: You can't just blow everybody buddy. Yeah.

0:34:16 Thomas: Everybody? Buddy Eli you can't just blow everybody suck the dick corner show

0:34:23 Tom: It'd blow people off is what I meant, but yeah, or blow them. But like, you've got to dress in ways.

0:34:26 Eli: You also can't just blow everybody.

0:34:26 Thomas: Me in the rule book show me

0:34:30 Eli: I keep telling Finn that.

0:34:38 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:34:40 Tom: I'll give you a real life example from when I was working before I was work. I used to have a great big office, like 12,000 square foot office at like 80-some people in cubes and offices and whatever. And there was a younger employee that we had who kept coming to work in a midriff shirt that was like white and mostly see -through and like a hot pink bra underneath it or a very visible bra underneath yeah

0:35:03 Eli: And I told him, Steve, I don't know what the fuck.

0:35:04 Tom: And it you know I actually had to ask somebody else to talk to this person because I was uncomfortable talking to them about their attire in this way but like they were confused they were convinced because nobody had taught them that this was an inappropriate way to dress in an office environment and so I didn't have a manager of mine sit down and bring up photos of what business casual dress was and this is an adultish person this is a 20-some year old person because nobody had told them that this was not appropriate socially acceptable behavior because what people seem to not be understanding all the time is that context determines what's socially acceptable and I do think that there is like kind of a weird permission structure that is being embraced that sort of ignores the value of contextual social appropriateness. And that's not good for people. I think that's abjectly bad for people. This young lady had no idea that the way she was dressing was inappropriate, so much so that when somebody told her to dress more appropriately for work, she didn't understand what that meant.

0:36:13 Tom: So her parents clearly had not done that work. That's a parental responsibility to say, hey, there are times in your life where you have to behave in socially appropriate ways. If you don't, you're going to stand out in ways that otherize you and reduce your opportunities. And that, to me, is the heart of what this lady is sort of saying. She's saying, like, if you are the weird kid, whatever that means, you will be otherized in ways that reduce your opportunities or reduce your social opportunities, your financial and work opportunities, romantic opportunities in ways you might not want them reduced. So our responsibility as parents is to try to help our kids not do those things as much as is possible. Does that make sense?

0:36:55 Eli: I'll say as someone who has been on that side of it, the other side of a socially acceptable thing. First of all, I looked amazing in that white top and the pink bra. And Tom, you were way out of line having Cecil talk to me about that.

0:37:05 Thomas: He did.

0:37:08 Eli: No. Um, so like I actually use myself as an example for this a lot because I dress casually on purpose all the time. I wear basketball shorts and a funny t-shirt, a funny non-threatening t -shirt all the time, all day, every day. That is what I wear. That is what I would wear to all events, foreign and domestic, given my druthers. And what I have learned over the years is not that there is anything wrong with the way that I choose to dress, right? There is nothing wrong with that I chose to dress. It is comfortable. It is that if I show up dressed that way to certain events, to certain people, it will hurt their feelings. It will make them sad. I've shown up to events that were like a little bit formal or celebrations or job interviews, right? Things where someone expected for me to show up, and part of their value structure was we dress a certain way, we present ourselves a certain way. Now, we can have a philosophical conversation about whether or not that person's values should include those things. Doesn't matter. They do.

0:38:13 Eli: They do, and there's nothing inborn about me that makes me wear basketball shorts and a t-shirt. I don't have a special disease that means I can't put on long pants. I just don't wanna. And so, one of the behaviors I have had to learn as an adult is not just one, how people will treat me when I choose to dress that way, but how I am treating others when I choose to dress that way. And that is something that I will say, quote unquote, my side of this doesn't hear often enough is that it is not about, well, I'm some prude who doesn't like it when you dress this way, or I'm some square who don't like it. When you have tattoos or nose rings or whatever the case might be a lot of the time when you make these choices outside of the social order they make other people feel bad and if you aren't willing to acknowledge that and make changes accordingly you are the one who is being unkind not the other way around smelling around another person I was a smelly kid too right I was my parents had to fucking pitchfork me into the shower as a teen boy like I 100 remember that being smelly around other people is unkind it is not a nice thing to do to the people around you and if we don't reinforce that to our kids if we act like personal choices of fashion and hygiene are a thing that just exist inside your own bubble and don't have effect on other people we are denying someone a core empathetic experience of being a person

0:39:44 Tom: I think that that's extremely true. But I would say, and what I talk to the kids about is like, I think of it just in terms of, look, I truly believe that one of the most important things and one ofthe most valuable things to learn is how to be likable. Being a likable person will get you further than any set of technical skills that you can possibly, almost any set OF technical skills that you CAN gather to yourself. Being likable matters. It matters immensely. I think all the time, like I look around at work events that I'm at. So I work for a Fortune 300 company. It's a big company. I'll go to a work event. I see people who are, by most social measures, very successful. They are all of them to a one likable. They are likable people they do not all have the most technical knowledge the sharpest deepest bank of technical skills I think of my a good friend of mine who is the director of IT at a giant company his technical skills are good they are not great he's the boss because he's likable though he's very technically proficient he's got a master's in IT project management and all that stuff. So I'm not taking that away from him. But I know that there are people underneath him that have a deeper set of technical skills, but don't have the people skills. They're not as likable. Being likable will get you further. It will make your life easier. And there are just things you can do to make yourself more likable, you will get a recommendation from your professor to go on to that master's program more easily, right? If you're more lik able, learning to be be likable is a skill

0:40:49 Eli: He calls it a compooper yeah

0:41:26 Tom: Set. It can be taught. And I think that like embracing only the counter cultural sort of aspects of a person's personality is a real disservice to that person. Even if like that is like who they really are inside and that's their values. I think if you say, great, go out into the world, be your counter cultural self. And I'm not going to teach you the ways that that will disadvantage you. I think we should be able to put that shit on and take that shit off when it's appropriate and when it advantages us and when it disadvantages us so that we can get ahead and so that we can make the kind of progress in our lives that we want to take on and make. I think like if we neglect that as parents, we're doing our kids a disservice by just being like, well, that's just who you are. Get another face tattoo. Split your tongue down the middle, you know, pierce your face. Like, no, I don't endorse that stuff because I I watch the ways that that limits people yeah

0:42:22 Eli: Yeah and I know we're running out of time but I do want to take my heart rate turn because everything I've said on this episode has sort of been agreeing with the video and agreeing with tom here's my like and this is why I don't agree with any of it right because I have had to be doxastically very generous in order to sort of agree with these points the reason I don't agree with the hairdresser or Tom is because I would argue, 99.999999% of the time, the reason why something is socially unacceptable, both in history and today, is neurodiversity, sexuality, or something that shouldn't be part of society to begin with. So the reason why I push back against this is that I do not trust for this message to be delivered to the kids who need to take showers and the kids who need to say please and thank you and not treat the waiter rudely and not throw a ball at the waiter's head when they walk over to the table. I think 99 .99 % of the time, this is gonna be applied to the neurodiverse kids.

0:43:21 Eli: I already see it applied to my son. Like we talk about playgrounds and I think I've told this story, right? But like I've seen adults tell my son who is five that he is rude because of his limitations, right. So my response to this, all good ideas aside, side and I think we've spent a lot of time on them I think they're very useful for those of us who are parenting in those moments of decision all that aside I think 99% of the time this advice is going to be applied wrong to a thing that someone either cannot or should not change about themselves and that's why I disagree with it that's how I always get tom on my

0:43:58 Tom: I think you're probably right in the sense that most people are the worst right no I like I want to acknowledge that too like yeah you're operating from I'm trying to be practical and pragmatic about the benefits of being socially acceptable I think that they're legion I do honestly in my whole with my whole heart I believe that likability is a big driving factor for the success of most people so I think And I think about how to train and teach it. But I think that most people don't operate that way.

0:44:29 Tom: I agree with you. Like most people are just like, you made me feel bad about myself and I don't like it. And then they are shitty and they are not kind in the ways that they teach people. So like if the lesson you walk away from is like, these are the things I can bully my kid about. That's complete ass.

0:44:28 Eli: Side yeah

0:44:45 Tom: Right. If you walk away from it, like, huh, I need to teach you when it's OK to wear five inch fucking platform combat boots. And when you got to wear Oxfords, that's different. Sometimes you got a dress night.

0:44:45 Eli: Right right tom's wedding for both one on each foot

0:44:58 Tom: You had a yeah like eli you're a good example not that long ago you had if I'm not mistaken you had an interview at NYU I would imagine now you're gonna prove me wrong I would imagine you didn't wear basketball shorts to it

0:45:11 Eli: No I wore my so this is I was actually going to use this as an example is when I got my current job the new teaching gig that I have the full-time teaching gig this year for the interview I asked the guy who was sort of pitching me for the job I was like what do I have to wear and he was like a suit and I was like I don't really wear suits and he was like what wear a fucking suit and I did in fact wear a suit right I have this cool line that I use which is like the last time I wore a suit was my dad's funeral and he can't die again right and he was like I don't know what that is that's horrible you have to wear it alright gentlemen before we go how does a deer keep his pants on a buckle

0:45:47 Clip: DEAR OLD DADS

0:46:01 Thomas: Kinda. Going red!

0:46:50 Tom: Yeah I don't know what

0:46:55 Thomas: Well, I'm sure that's all great, Tom. Tom didn't hear any of it because I was just talking to ChatGPT about weather.

0:47:00 Eli: Tom's gonna be like you should bully your kids and I'm gonna be you shouldn't bully your kid's and Thomas is gonna be I wasn't paying attention but I'm mad Anyways, he calls it a come pooper One second gentlemen before we go.

0:47:09 Thomas: So, Eli, you can't just blow everybody. Okay. I don't know.

0:47:27 Eli: How does a deer keep his pants on?

0:47:24 Tom: Is that

0:47:29 Thomas: Did you have to fight a guy for that joke?