DOD278: I'm Not Gonna Cause I Don't Wanna

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dad, the podcast with all the privileges. I'm Tom Curry. I am joined, as always, by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:38 Eli: Okay, it sounded kind of like you said, dear old dad singular when you did the introduction just now, and I was worried you stole the podcast.

0:00:43 Thomas: Well, you stole a Patreon the other day and made it that, so we just have to adjust it to whatever you make the Patreon.

0:00:48 Eli: Oh,

0:00:49 Tom: Wait, what did I do?

0:00:50 Eli: Oh

0:00:50 Thomas: No, Eli, he'll give the Patreon... He has about a 60

0:00:52 Tom: Oh, he'll give the Patreon as a random thing? Yeah.

0:00:54 Eli: God,

0:00:54 Thomas: % accuracy rate on the Patreon He'll be like, Dear Oldie Dad.

0:01:00 Eli: Dear noon day.

0:01:03 Tom: That's yeolddads at dearold .com. What the fuck? Fuck.

0:01:06 Eli: I have never felt where, so I've been doing a lot of editing for the puzzle shows because we're playing with video stuff and I know how to edit video. My co-hosts are still just learning. So I've doing a bunch, which means I have been listening to me speak the last couple of weeks. And it's truly the fact that anyone who edits my voice likes me is a miracle one

0:01:28 Thomas: That's how I feel about me. Me, Tom, how are we supposed to react right now is

0:01:28 Eli: Out of nine words I say is completely the wrong word, right? I'll be like, I went to the grocery stonk and then just keep on rolling

0:01:39 Thomas: There, oh, I really, I didn't notice.

0:01:39 Eli: Yeah,

0:01:39 Tom: I'm just going to laugh with, laugh with laugh with not at laugh with not at. I just say it over and over in my head. Yeah.

0:01:42 Eli: It's insane.

0:01:43 Thomas: That it's really, I thought you knew this about yourself. This is like Your spelling, yeah.

0:01:48 Eli: I knew that I'm

0:01:49 Tom: I love that. This is a revelation. That is what is getting me. Yeah, do you think you're the edited version of you? Wait a second.

0:01:51 Eli: I knew I misspeak occasionally, but

0:01:57 Tom: Like, as content creators, hold on a second, because this is something to talk, like, do you think you are the edited version of you? Okay

0:01:59 Eli: Oh God, I certainly, that would be awesome. Just a bright shining light of hilarity. Oh, but yeah, no, I can't fucking fucking stand it. It's crazy. Oh yeah.

0:02:16 Thomas: It's It's interesting, there have been some ones where we catch you. Okay, we catch, usually, sometimes.

0:02:20 Eli: No, I mean, look, there's only so much you can do. Look I've learned because I, when I say I'm going to the grocery stonk, you can't fucking have Lydia be like, hey everyone, store, he means store, like you can't fucking, yes, no.

0:02:23 Tom: 100 I want that. From now on I just want, I want, like, a blurb in, but don't acknowledge it. Don't do the hey everyone, he meant, just different voice changing it. I'd be fucking, that's some chef's kiss shit. That's fucking great. That's gotta happen. That's locked in. I'm gonna recall, make that happen on citation Eden Eli.

0:02:32 Thomas: Lydia does

0:02:38 Eli: It's just the, it's just the Lydia, yeah, just doing her best Eli impersonation. Store. It's got a real Yiddish kite accent to it when she does it.

0:02:52 Thomas: A really racist, you know, Jewish voice. Yeah. She's always doing that. I'm glad there's finally an application for

0:02:54 Eli: Really upsetting Eli. Yeah, she learned, she does it around the house for the kids. Yeah, we could talk. Yeah.

0:02:55 Tom: Bosnick, yeah, right. Holy

0:03:03 Thomas: It. You know, it's been before, it's just, it's been pure racism, you know, but, uh, okay, we'll work on that.

0:03:07 Eli: Please let me in the bedroom, give me my shickles. I still want to have sex tonight, but, but, gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than the deeply problematic Eli Bosnick impersonation that Lydia lives 40 to 50 50 % of her life. And why? It's the auto-ants. The anti-Semitic voice of your podcast listening experience. Although, technically, that's just me. But anyways, you can make all that go away. Not the me part. You can't make me go away? You can, but don't, please. Over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dads, where, for as little as a dollar, you'll get a commercial-free version of every single episode, plus a little parenting bonus story at the end. We have little step-man bonus episodes once a month whenever the Smiths fucking feel like it and you get all of that over at patreon.com forward slash dear old dads, like Lydia into the voices of the Jewish people. Rip

0:03:10 Thomas: Uh

0:03:12 Tom: Shit

0:03:18 Thomas: Good Times

0:04:06 Tom: Jesus.

0:04:06 Eli: Into it because

0:04:08 Tom: Christ, all

0:04:14 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:04:15 Tom: Right, gents, so I've been thinking about something now for, uh, several weeks, and we talked a little bit around it a couple of weeks ago. We kind of got moved on a little, what I think of as a tangent, but probably just because I described the situation wrong.

0:04:27 Eli: I stopped the conversation to call you a pussy. Yes.

0:04:28 Thomas: We Fuck. Tom's whole thing, and he's being nice about

0:04:30 Tom: So I've been thinking a lot about the way that we grew up or grow up informs or creates these sort of mental artifacts that kind of tell us what a privilege is and what a privileged isn't. So what I guess I want to describe is I've kind of come to the conclusion that for, at least for me, I don't want to speak for anybody else, but for me what I've realized is that internally speaking what What feels like a privilege is often the distance between what you needed and what you actually got.

0:05:02 Tom: And so when I was thinking about it, like because Haley will tell me these stories. Right. So she'll tell me this very what I have come to realize are normal stories. Right. About like her parents drove her to the mall and they gave her some spending money to buy a clothes or she went to the arcade as a kid or they drove her to gymnastics and she did gymnastics for years. Right.

0:05:20 Thomas: It Tom, is it the inverse of the thing where you start telling a story and it turns out it's horrible, where, like, Hayley's telling story, and you're like, oh, poor rich kid over here Oh my god, and she's like

0:05:27 Tom: Yeah. Like in my mind, when she tells you, it's exactly what

0:05:34 Thomas: Because we were able to get bags at the grocery store They did. It's Like five cents. Oh

0:05:40 Eli: We Had to juggle

0:05:41 Tom: She talks about stuff like that, especially when it comes to not just money, but specifically when it comes to like the way that her parents engaged and provided resources of time and energy specifically.

0:05:53 Thomas: Man, oh man.

0:05:53 Tom: So a lot of those things I was talking about are resources of time and energy. So none of that stuff was how my dad parented me, right? And so all of that feels like, God damn, it's such a nice thing to do. Like, my dad would never do that.

0:06:05 Thomas: Yeah, now imagine, Tom, if you were you except your dad had no excuse. That's where I am. That's me. You're, you're, at least when we talk about it, you're like, well, my dad was working the eighth job and Um, we, he just had to leave that one because somebody said a weird thing, so he had to quit that one, and then that way he had to take up four more.

0:06:13 Eli: Go That's

0:06:14 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

0:06:27 Thomas: And I'm like, well, my dad is just like, he's just watching TV.

0:06:30 Tom: Yeah, well, and I don't want to give my, like, an out is not right, but, like, I've been thinking about this for like a bunch of weeks, like my dead didn't do things to a sort of pathological degree and it It was kind of weird. Right.

0:06:43 Thomas: Me too.

0:06:43 Tom: So I'll give you some examples. Like my dad has never read anything I've written creatively.

0:06:49 Thomas: Okay, but that's normal though.

0:06:50 Tom: I've been writing creatively my whole life. He's never listened to one podcast I've ever done. Like he's never done that.

0:06:55 Thomas: Okay, yeah, so so far totally normal. Is it supposed to be weird? It

0:06:59 Tom: Cecil and I wrote a book. My dad, I gave him a copy. He will never open it. He has not and will never open it.

0:07:05 Eli: So fucking insane to me, that's so crazy.

0:07:07 Thomas: Would be weird if he did. I don't know what, what you're talking about.

0:07:10 Eli: Think about Arlo's first book. You're gonna have Arlo first book, Gay Dragon 27, you're going to have that memorized. You're to be correcting people on the Reddit. You're like, hey, Arlo, dad here, as someone who read the

0:07:13 Thomas: Oh yeah, I have a thousand of

0:07:26 Eli: First seven drafts of Gay Dragons and their Victories, I do want to point out that, but Scalascar always had the Scar token, so it's actually not a plot hole. You're just not following his work.

0:07:31 Thomas: Them That's awesome.

0:07:34 Tom: So Like Dad, for me, like he made sure to provide. There was always dinner. There was always a hug if you needed it. Like he was not, like, there were good things Like, I don't want to say, like, there weren't good things, right? But like he just wasn't going to do things with and for you that didn't connect to what he wanted.

0:07:46 Thomas: Weird. Yeah. God That's so funny hearing you try to explain. Yeah, because like that's so us too. He just wasn't gonna do stuff. I don't know how to explain this to Eli, like, if you know, it was a thing that you'd have to do, he

0:08:07 Eli: Cool. Sure.

0:08:12 Tom: Yeah, so if there was something thing that was like, my dad was a needs versus wants kind of guy, is kind of how I've been thinking about a little bit. If there was anything that was in need, a hundred percent it was covered, right?

0:08:18 Thomas: Wouldn't, he doesn't want to do it.

0:08:25 Tom: Well, no, like, I mean what I mean is, like, if it's something that I wanted, this is really at the at the heart of some of the conversations that I've been thinking about. Like, I grew up thinking that permission meant you were allowed to do something, and Hayley grew up thinking that permission meant you were allowed and would be supported if you did it. So the key distinction, like, let's say, like, like Haley wanted to do gymnastics, right? Can I do gymnastics?

Yeah, you can do gymnastics. And embedded in that is, and I'll help you get there and I will not just allow this to happen, meaning I didn't say no, but I will support the endeavor to help it occur. For my dad, permission and support were not linked. So I didn'T grow up thinking that permission and support Were linked. So when I had this thing happen with Aislinn the other day, where she is like talking about wanting to join Key Club, I'm like, yeah, join Key Club.

That sounds great. Good for your sort of college resume. It literally never occurred to me that I might have to do anything at all, like arrange for rides or bring her to a volunteer event or anything. Because in my mind, my mind is not like connected the idea of permission being accompanied by support. And that's a weird, wrong headed way to think about things.

That's it's an artifact of that gap between having, what you know, between what you need and what you wanted. So like, I got a lot of permission. I didn't get a lot, actually, a very little. But when I got permission to do something, like my dad gave me permission to get a job, but he would not drive me to that job. So the only way for me to get to my job was to either walk, ride a bike, or hitch a ride with a friend. But it was not going to be like assumed that dad would drive you to work. That's, it's not a thing.

But Haley thinks that's crazy because for her embedded in permission is support. And I think she's right that that is a more naturally normal way to sort of parent and think about parenting. But it's created this like weird gap space for me where things don't occur to me, I think, that would occur to more normally raised humans.

Where you're like, yeah, like if I say yes to this, I am agreeing to also support it, to allow it to occur, like to put the pieces in place that will allow this thing I've already said yes to to happen. And I'm just curious, like, where you guys, like, if that resonates at all with either of you or if you have any experience that that speaks to that as well.

0:10:52 Eli: That terrible afterlife punishment that you went through? No, I don't really get that, if that was what you were wondering. No. Poor people? Yeah, no, I've met poor people. Yeah, they smell vaguely of cleaners.

0:10:55 Tom: Do you know people like similarly though? Like, no, no. It's not about poor people. Cause my dad could have, my dad a hundred percent could have on the weekends driven me to work. Right. And I only worked on weekends. He could have driven me work, but that's just not a thing he did. He didn't let me borrow his car. I've never driven a car. My dad's ever owned. Not one time ever. If I've been behind the wheel of a car, my dad owns, that's juste a hard no.

0:11:10 Eli: Mm -hmm.

0:11:21 Eli: You remember at the beginning of the episode when you guys were trying to help me come to the realization that I talk like a crazy person. This is me and Thomas pausing to see if you're going to come to the realisation that your dad hated you. So if you just, no, just talk it through until you get there, King. Whatever you...

0:11:33 Tom: No, I, I don't think he hated us. I, I don't, but I think he's, I think my dad, on reflection, was not, no, I think he was not anticipating, sitting is not something my dad did much of.

0:11:41 Eli: Which he never did.

0:11:42 Thomas: Now, really liked sitting. That's my dad. See, that's the thing. That's why that's the only reason I can't understand you. Is my dad just, it was because of sitting that He didn't do any of those things other than that. I'm a hundred percent with you.

0:11:54 Tom: Yeah. Yeah. For me, like, what I've discovered is, and it doesn't happen very often, but every once in a while, it'll create these, like gaps where I'll think like, yeah, that's like a fucking giant privilege to like have somebody drive you home from school on finals day because finals got out at noon and And you don't want to take the bus at 2.30. Like, that to me feels like not a small thing. That feels like a huge thing. And Haley's like, you have kids. Sometimes you got to pick them up. What are you talking about?

0:12:12 Thomas: Sure is.

0:12:28 Eli: Yeah.

0:12:28 Tom: And I think she's right. And I'm crazy. And that's a weird thing to realize at 48 years old, right? But like, I think that she's wrong. She's right, and I'm crazing. No, I mean, I realize it a lot. But it's just like, though, I didn't realize this one. You know, usually I've picked up on them earlier. You know, I'm

0:12:32 Eli: Yeah.

0:12:38 Thomas: Well, this can't be the first time you're realizing that. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay, I think

0:12:47 Tom: Curious what you think about that definition. I'm not talking necessarily about money privileges, but privileges in terms of like how we spend our time and emotional energy and physical resources. Like, it feels to me like what we sort of count as a privilege measures that gap, that gap between what we needed and what we had. And if we sense that space, it feels like a privilege.

0:13:08 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:08 Tom: And when we don't sense that place, it feels normative. And so people who've always had more, it's like, well, they don't sense any space there, and so that feels normative. And people have had less, they see this wide gulf and they're like, a drive, ride home from school is a fucking big deal. And I don't think it is, but there's a part of me that I think will always think it Is, and that's insane. But what do you think of that?

0:13:30 Eli: Of course.

0:13:34 Thomas: That makes sense. I don't know the part where it's like what you needed because I don'T understand, you know, as a kid, it's, like, you get what you get. So, that part still, frankly, feels a little privileged to me, Tom, that you can talk about having needs. That's, uh, Ooh, boy, rich guy over here. Um, but other than that, yeah.

0:13:52 Eli: Yes. Finally. Yeah.

0:13:45 Tom: Definition. Well, yeah. That's, but Like for you too, like part of it is not money, right? Like take the money aside, like, like there's plenty your dad could have done that wouldn't have cost a nickel, right? That would have been how he, and I don't want to talk about it in terms of money because I think that's just different and there's nothing a lot of people can do about it. But like, there's so much that your dad would have done,

0:14:01 Thomas: Oh yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. That was, that was just kind of joking. Yeah, yeah, yeah you're talking to the guy who got left at school for 30 plus minutes every single day of my life.

0:14:13 Tom: But he made choices on how to spend his time differently, right.

0:14:22 Tom: Like, did your dad go to your games? You were a sportsing guy. Did your dad goes to your game?

0:14:25 Thomas: So, uh, so my dad liked sports, so he went to, let me think about this.

0:14:31 Tom: That's exactly how I would answer for my dad. If my dad liked something, he would do it, right, it wouldn't be that he liked me and that's why he'd do it.

0:14:33 Thomas: So yes, yeah yeah. It's called autism, Tom. It is, a Um, it's an interesting thing, uh

0:14:39 Tom: No, you

0:14:41 Eli: Hey, don't come after our autistic listeners like that. We have some great dads in our autistic listeners

0:14:44 Tom: Would never describe my dad as autistic though

0:14:44 Thomas: No, it's, it's, uh, we wouldn't describe your dad as autistic. Everything you've said about your dad screams out to me. I agree that. Here's, here's what I agree. I don't have any fucking idea who your dad is, so every time you say something about your dad, it's a shock to me.

0:14:49 Tom: If you met him, no, no way, not even close. No, yeah, well, because he doesn't fit a type of any kind. Yeah.

0:15:01 Thomas: Exactly. That's kind of like autistic people, but the thing that, that is the most autistic about it is I've described this about my dad. And it's the main thing that people don't get when I describe it is, well, yeah, he didn't want to do that. So he just never did anything he didn't want to do ever. Sure.

0:15:04 Eli: No, hey

0:15:04 Tom: Yeah, no, it's not like that at all. Yeah.

0:15:20 Tom: Well, no, but I think, I think, like, here's a distinction, here's what I, what I really think, because remember how I ended up living with him, like he just got a phone call that I was getting on an airplane the next day and I was coming to live with him. I don't think he was anticipating raising kids. And I don't think he was really into it.

0:15:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

0:15:36 Tom: And I think that is the thing. I think he w as like, okay, this is not how I thought my life was going to go. This is not what I had my life planned out. All of a sudden I get a phone call and I' m going to do it. I' M going to d o it. A d I' l make sure I hit these high water marks. Bing, bong, boom. But the rest of it I just am not into.

0:15:36 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

0:15:55 Tom: And And I just don't think he was into being a dad. I think he loves us. I think that's clear. But even now, no, no. Even now, if I don't call him, he doesn't call me.

0:16:01 Eli: Tom, it's not clear. Just real quick, I just wanted to chime in to let you know it's not

0:16:06 Thomas: There's a good distinction. My dad thought the whole point of his life was having kids. And this is how he acted. So that's a big... distinction. Yeah.

0:16:12 Tom: Yeah,

0:16:14 Eli: Clear. Wait, now I'm confused about your dad.

0:16:17 Tom: That's very, yeah.

0:16:17 Thomas: No, my dad, my dad on his fake deathbed, when he almost died the first time, gave us a deathbed speech that was like, "Well, all I thought I've ever wanted to do with my life is have kids, so I'm good." I was like, "Huh? Doctor, actually do, do the life-saving. We change our minds. Do the life saving. We just need to know."

0:16:17 Eli: I don't understand. Did the whole room burst out in like, "What the fuck? What? No, wait, sorry, wait, no, give him something that keeps him alive for another hour"? I have a lot of questions. So when When I was at school, you were at home. Yeah, no, take a tube. Put a tube, take it to. I have so many questions about what the fuck you think you just meant just now. That's okay.

0:16:54 Tom: Oh, I understand it entirely. I get it entirely, he wanted to have kids. As soon as you guys were born, he had kids. He doesn't want to do the work of raising kids. I think those are really different things. I think there's a lot of dudes that want to have kids as long as they can outsource all of that work to someone else and just be like, "Yeah, I had kids, that's a thing I wanted, and I got it."

0:17:14 Thomas: Yeah, sort of. I sort of thought I also think like he just thought he was doing it. You know what I mean? Like, I also kind of think, oh, he

0:17:25 Eli: Stan, how can you think your doing it if your kids are unhappy?

0:17:29 Tom: Yeah.

0:17:29 Thomas: Probably thought that kids needed certain, they need, who knows? It's a combination of selfishness and kids need grit kind of thing. I don't know. I'm not sure.

0:17:39 Tom: I can answer that too though, because like, and I still have this that runs in the background operation of my mind for sure. Like, Eli, you're like, "How can you feel like the kids weren't happy?" Because I don't think that, like, people, at least my dad's age, grew up thinking that, like, happiness was an important metric

0:17:51 Thomas: Oh, he didn't give a shit about that. Yeah.

0:17:55 Thomas: No, not at all. For kids, especially. Yeah. Yeah.

0:17:56 Tom: At all. Like, what's most Most important for my dad with kids is that we go to school on time, that we perform well in school, that we are obedient, that we are capable, that we are polite. Like, he had a hundred different metrics before happy. The idea of, like, raising kids to be happy, I don't think entered into the mind of most people born in 1947. I don'T think it was even on his list of, like, things to be worried about. That's what I was trying to tell Haley, because I was like, yeah, my dad, But he gave me permission to get a job, right? So he gave me permission. Well, I got a job at Burger King. I was like, can I get a job? He's like, yeah, no problem.

0:18:35 Thomas: That's the one part that's a little weird to me.

0:18:37 Tom: Embedded in that was not, I care if you have a job or not. He doesn't care if I have a job. I'm the one that wants the job. So if I want something, it's up to me to figure out how to get the thing I want. It's not up to him to figure out howto give me the things I want that is not how he thinks. It'S not how I was raised. It' It's just, it's just it's alien. It's an alien idea to my dad. I'm certain of it because like that's like, well, you're the one that wants a job. So like you problem solve that shit out until you get the thing you want. I said, yes, that's my job. I've said you are allowed to, and that's all I'm going to do on it. But like whether you're happy or not is not particularly a metric. I think my dad is like in his top 20, but I think that's generational, man. I don't think that that's even weird for, we're not the same generation, man, when was your dad born?

0:19:23 Eli: Oh, hey, keep your generation to yourself. I had a great dad. My dad was born in the 70s or something.

0:19:32 Tom: Yeah.

0:19:32 Eli: I don't fucking know.

0:19:32 Tom: Your dad was not born in 1947. I'm 48 years old, man. We're different generations. Yeah.

0:19:36 Eli: He's dead now.

0:19:33 Thomas: 70s. My dad was born in 1945, baby. What, is he Googling?

0:19:39 Eli: When did you Die? When was

0:19:40 Tom: Yeah. Oh, God damn, dude. He's trying to figure out when his dad was born. You could just look him up on Wikipedia, man, you

0:19:46 Thomas: You don't know the year of your dad's? That's weird. That's a funny thing. I know nothing about my family, but that I know for some reason.

0:19:48 Eli: David, that's

0:19:52 Tom: Can literally Wikipedia your own dad.

0:19:54 Thomas: You can't?

0:19:55 Tom: Yeah, I showed it to you like a couple of years ago because he was all footballing. Yeah?

0:19:55 Eli: What I'm trying

0:19:56 Thomas: Oh, because he's the sports guy? Yeah.

0:19:59 Eli: Yeah.

0:19:59 Tom: Yeah, he was a big footballing guy.

0:20:00 Thomas: Class of what? Class of 1970 -something.

0:20:05 Tom: It'll just say when he was born on his Wikipedia, though.

0:20:05 Eli: Something. It didn't say anywhere. 1954. 54.

0:20:11 Thomas: Okay.

0:20:11 Tom: He was born in 54? Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah. I would have, I would've expected maybe a different attitude.

0:20:17 Eli: Nah, man. Yeah. Listen, he fucking loved this.

0:20:19 Tom: Yeah, yeah.

0:20:18 Thomas: No, Tom, I think there are people who are just nicer and better.

0:20:24 Eli: Shit.

0:20:24 Thomas: I don't think it has everything to do with... Yeah.

0:20:25 Tom: I mean, that's, that's probably true too, but I don't know. Like, I just don't remember the adults around me being as concerned with their kids' happiness when I was younger in the eighties. Like it just wasn't as big a deal.

0:20:34 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, they for sure weren't. Yeah. Broadly speaking. Yeah.

0:20:39 Tom: Yeah it just, it, that wasn't like the goal, right. That was not like on the list, you know, it just Wasn't Thomas.

0:20:53 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:20:55 Tom: I mean, your, your experience was very similar. Eli's your experience is very different. When When you think about things like permission to do something, for example, because I think this is an interesting one, is support for that thing embedded in the permission?

0:21:08 Eli: Well, this is the interesting thing. This is how we sort of got sidetracked, because, because you had to ask for everything, so there was never an implication. So a really good example, and I think I've told you guys this before on air, my dad drove me to school every day, including when I went to middle school across the street from my house. I need to be clear I don't mean down the street for my house, I mean look out the front door of my house and I'm looking at my middle school, but we would drive around the block halfway around the block one so that he could park his car and then he would have things to bring into his classroom.

But obviously that wasn't really it. It was so that we would just get to talk. He just liked the moment where we spoke every morning where we would just drive together for the two or three minutes that we were together. We had a door closing tradition. So when I was really excited for it, this is going to sound insane, so I'll try and keep this short. When I was really excited to get a Sega, no, he

0:21:16 Tom: Well, yeah.

0:21:32 Thomas: Oh. That's so funny.

0:21:34 Tom: Well,

0:21:41 Thomas: Why?

0:21:56 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:09 Thomas: It's okay, Tom was just insane for 20 good minutes, so

0:22:13 Tom: I know it's not normal. Yeah, like.

0:22:14 Eli: Was, he was working through something spiritually and we were holding him in the light. How dare you! Or then he would say, I don't love you, and I'm, I'm starting to wonder if that was cool. No. So when I wanted a Sega Genesis, because of how fucking different my life, honestly, Tom, I think I should have been allowed to go first with my story. When I wanted a Sega Genesis, when I would say goodbye to him every morning, I would say, "Buy me a Sega," and then I would close the door.

0:22:19 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:46 Eli: It was the joke: "Buy me a Sega." "Close the doRe And he thought that was hilarious, and then as the other kids got taller, I started to worry about, like, being tall. That was a big thing because I was short. A little what I was actually was was fat. And so I just, I was like, the growing is happening in a different direction for me. And so, so I remember we had a conversation once, really, really, really early, like elementary school, middle school, where I was like, "Oh, everyone's taller than me." It was like, "Ah, don't worry about it, they're all lop heads, lop of heads," I say. Who knows? It's just a thing he made

0:22:46 Tom: What?

0:22:52 Thomas: Yeah, it's

0:23:21 Eli: Up in the second. So what we would do is as I would leave, he would say "Lop a head," and I would say "Sega" and then close the door, right? That was the thing. And I mean, into adulthood that was how we said goodbye. "Lop a head," saying. And so like, that was why he drove me to school every day and drove me to high school every day. And that like, cause he enjoyed being around me. I mean, look, the privilege of having my dad wasn't just extended in that, like he was a cool dude who taught me how to be a good man. Although that was a huge part of it, right? A huge part of it was just, he modeled friendship. He modeled community. He modeled parenting. He modeled being a good husband.

Like I had all of that, but it was also that like. Like, it was unequivocal that his number one priority was his family. It wouldn't even enter anyone's mind who knew him to think that my dad's priorities were anything but his family, right? Like, the joke was, oh, my dad is always doing something for my mom or me, right. Right. Like the joke in amongst our family was like me and mom sit on the couch and send dad out of the room to get us snacks.

That was the relationship dynamic in my family. And I did not realize what a privilege that was truly like as much as we're joking around until I started to be exposed to other families. I mean, I remember I don't know if you guys remember your first sleepover and if you went home from it because you got homesick. Like, I went home from my first sleepover because the parents freaked me out. I was like, hey, can I have some chips? And they were like, no. And I was, like, oh, cool. I'm leaving. And I called and I was Like, hey guys, this

0:23:21 Tom: Yeah.

0:23:36 Thomas: Funny, that's

0:25:03 Eli: House is fucking insane. No, hear me out, hear Me out. I asked for chips.

0:25:06 Tom: They said no, and I'm me. I was me the whole time.

0:25:10 Eli: I asked For chips and they said no and seemed kind of mad. I know, I know. Yeah, you can come get me. Thank you so much.

0:25:17 Thomas: Funny. Yeah.

0:25:18 Eli: So yeah, that was just my whole childhood growing up. And it is what I have turned around and instilled in my own family as well, right?

0:25:26 Thomas: Chips. Yeah.

0:25:26 Eli: Is that I am sort of at my, yeah, chips or whatever. I think I told it in the parenting story a couple of weeks ago, or maybe I just wrote it in our notes. But the other day when I made Max's snack, I came over and I was about to make him his snack, right. He sits and he gets his little iPad time after school. And I said, hey, buddy, what do you want for snack? And he goes, just make me something.

0:25:46 Thomas: Oh.

0:25:46 Eli: And I sort of look at him like, hey motherfucker. And he goes, please. Right. But the just make me something is the heart there. Right? That's the core. And so like, yeah, that is a tremendous, and it wasn't a financial privilege. It was just a tremendous privilege to have someone in your life for whom you were their priority. Now I will say this, I will say this.

0:25:51 Tom: Right.

0:25:53 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:06 Thomas: Never happened to me.

0:26:07 Eli: I think that, I think,

0:26:09 Thomas: I'll go to my grave never having had that happen to me.

0:26:13 Eli: I know my dad obviously was not,

0:26:20 Thomas: It's got to be correlated, at least. Yeah.

0:26:20 Eli: Wealthy for, right. But there were times where my dad had it relatively easy. We had a two income household. I think if you are working super hard and your life is filled with financial worry, unless you have had some time ahead of time, because again, my dad went through some really, really big financial hardships at times in his life. I don't want to say that he, like we always had it on easy street, but unless you are, I don' know, I'm not sure if I'm it is very easy for those things to fall by the wayside, right? If you are working hard all the time just to survive, it is Very Hard to Make the Emotional and Mental Space for Those Other Things.

0:27:02 Tom: Yeah, I think there's some definitely there's some truth to that. I struggle a little bit in the personal side of it because like, again, like when I talk to Haley, you know, she'll describe she had two parents. I had one. So there's a difference there, right? It's literally twice as many people. So that makes a difference. You know, they went through long periods of time where you could never describe them as privileged like by any stretch of the imagination like pretty hand to mouth, and like, they still would figure it out, right?

Like whatever it was as far as like time, or, yeah, you can borrow the car, you know, or yeah, you can, you know, get you to gymnastics, or you can go to the mall, or you can, like, here's, you know, 10 bucks for gas, or, you know, that kind of stuff. Like to some degree, like, I think a lot of parents just find a way to figure that shit out, especially when it comes to like how do we use our time. Yeah, and I think that's the thing, is I think some parents just don't really like being parent, I think

0:27:26 Eli: Sure.

0:27:48 Thomas: Yeah, because they like their kids. Yeah.

0:27:56 Tom: My dad probably did not like being a dad but understood what his obligations were in the broad sort of obligation sense, made sure that he met those obligations. I'm not sure he even necessarily, like, wanted to connect with us as people the same way that, like, you're describing, Eli, where it's like, oh, this is my buddy Eli, we have a little fun in-joke and I like spending time with him because I want to have this. That's just not the sense that you get from him. Like, he'll make jokes at the end stuff, but like we, you know, keep it light, keep it surface. Yeah.

0:28:31 Thomas: See that's interesting because Because my dad and I joked all the time. We did do a lot of joking. That was very fun. But none of the other stuff.

0:28:38 Tom: There was always like a lot of distance and I never really understood how much distance there was until I started kind of thinking about how little little distance there was between other parents. Like I famously on this show, like I don't really know any personal details about my dad. I know we've talked about this before, but like, I don't know very many personal details about him at all. I don't know his religious beliefs anymore.

0:28:40 Thomas: Huh. Yeah.

0:29:04 Thomas: I don't know his religious beliefs. Don't know his ethnicity. No idea.

0:29:05 Tom: I KNOW THAT HE USED TO BE METHODIST 25 YEARS AGO. YEAH, NO, 25 YEARS AGO, BUT HE WON'T TALK ABOUT HIS RELIGIOUS BELIEFS, YOU KNOW, LIKE I DONT KNOW.

0:29:15 Thomas: Won't.

0:29:15 Tom: WE 'VE TALKED ABOUT THIS BEFORE, LIKE WHEN I WAS, Yeah, he might still be Christian, but I don't know.

0:29:17 Thomas: No, I've never heard. I don'T know my dad's religious beliefs, though. Maybe I have. But that I.

0:29:24 Thomas: First off, at least that tells me he's not a MEGA, like, because they can't shut the fuck up about it. And so, yeah, no, I know. Know, I'm just saying, like, my my parents being conservative, like, they can't shut the fuck out, like, nobody

0:29:29 Tom: My dad's not MAGA at all. No, he's not even MAGA adjacent. I

0:29:36 Thomas: That's like the only thing you could hear from my dad was like some dumb conservative bullshit, so

0:29:42 Tom: Wouldn't describe him as particularly conservative or liberal either. It's tough because if he were, I don'T know that I would know it. I think he would think that that was an inappropriate thing to talk to someone about, like anybody about.

0:29:46 Thomas: Autism

0:29:59 Tom: He's a really hard person to know. And if the conversation starts to veer into that territory, even on the phone now, if like the conversation starts to get too personal, he'll he'll make an excuse to get off the phone. Yeah, he'd be like, Oh, I got another call coming in. And I'm like, really? Always? So there's always been this like distance like, yeah, but

0:29:57 Thomas: Too personal

0:30:12 Eli: Well, gotta go. You're being weird.

0:30:20 Thomas: That's fucking bizarre. I don't know what his deal is, man. I still think it's autism, but if you don't like that, then sure, dude. Not telling your kid, I guess. I don't know what that means, like

0:30:26 Tom: It's not if you met him, you would be like no, it's it's not that.

0:30:32 Thomas: The whole thing being like, I don't know my dad's religious beliefs

0:30:36 Tom: If he has autism, he has got the highest level of masking anyone has ever had ever in all of time. Because if you met him, he would come across as incredibly charming,

0:30:46 Thomas: Yeah, I don't think that. Yeah, yeah, I I don know. Yeah, I'm not sure what

0:30:47 Eli: Autistic people can be charming, Tom. How dare you come up for my son like that?

0:30:50 Tom: Comfortable. Well, no, I mean, if you look at the diagnostic criteria for autism, that would be very unusual for people with autism. No, he Would come across As very socially apt, very comfortable, very socially appt. He can make anybody in the room laugh and goof around and like he's very very charming, will never seem uncomfortable in any kind of a social scenario, but you'll never know who he is at the end of it. You won't get any like juice out of him that way.

0:30:56 Eli: You know I refuse to do that, Tom, I hate when people talk.

0:31:17 Thomas: Yeah, I don't even know what that is. So, like, social but not willing to ever talk about anything. What even is

0:31:20 Tom: Yeah. He just doesn't talk about deep conversation with you. Like you won't talk About deep personal stuff. And it's very easy to do. I mean, you know, lots of people that don't ever really talk about anything of substance, right? I mean that's like every work relationship most people have.

0:31:32 Thomas: That? Yeah, but yeah, I get that, but you're talking, like, with your family and your, do you think there's anybody he talks about, do you, thing during that, um, handshake that once a month handshake, like, do you, you think there's anybody he talks about that with, or

0:31:38 Tom: Right. But that, and that's, yeah, I presume that he and Lynn talk about stuff. I presume it. I I don't know. They would not talk about it in person with me. I don'T EVEN KNOW HER ADDRESS.

0:31:52 Thomas: And she, and she wouldn't either, you'd have to beat it out of her, I imagine, too. So Okay.

0:32:00 Tom: I DON'T EVEN KNOW HER ADDRESS NO

0:32:02 Thomas: This episode is just called Tom's Insane. I don't

0:32:05 Tom: I'M NOT INSANE THE WAY I GREW UP WAS INSANE BUT LIKE THERE'S LIKE A LEVEL OF LIKE ALMOST PROFESSIONALISM OR PROFESSIONAL DISTANCE I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING I THINK THAT'S THE BEST WAY TO DESCRIBE IT I THINK THAT'S THE BEST WAY TO DESCRIBE IT BUT THAT'S THAT'S HOW MY DAD IS WITH EVERYBODY LIKE HIS BEST FRIEND GROWING UP HIS BESST FRIENDS WAS THIS GUY NAMED JIM I THINK JIM IS MAYBE be deceased now, but like his best friend, Jim.

0:32:10 Thomas: Know that's

0:32:17 Eli: Yeah.

0:32:18 Thomas: So funny. Professionalism.

0:32:27 Eli: Wouldn't know, because he wouldn't tell me if he had.

0:32:27 Thomas: Yeah, that'd be

0:32:30 Tom: Yeah. So he and Jim were very close all through grade school. They maintained a relationship their whole lives. We'd go visit Jim. He lived a few hours away from us by the time everyone was adults, but we'd go there every other or every, you know, new years they'd come to our house every other new years. They was friends for life, you know kind of thing. And then like Jim in his middle age, he quit his job and he became an an author, a fiction author. And he started writing books. And my dad, as I've mentioned before, is a voracious reader. And Jim asked my dad and I was there when it happened. Jim asked my dad if he would read his first book. And My dad said, well, don't you write sci fi? And Jim said, yeah. And I was like, no, I don't read sci fi. And that was the end of it. That was the the end of it. If my best friend wrote a book about fucking werewolves and vampires on the fucking planes in the 1800s in a romance story, I'd be like, it's not my jam.

0:33:18 Thomas: Unprofessional.

0:33:29 Eli: Yep.

0:33:29 Tom: I'm a hundred percent reading your book because you're my best friend's. Yeah.

0:33:30 Thomas: Autism. Here's all I know: my dad is incredibly, I think, was pretty autistic now that I think about it, and that's the most defining characteristic of my dad. This is the thing you're describing right now. That's all I'm saying. That's what I'm saying, man. The ability to shirk any and all social convention and be like, "Sorry, what's? What kind of book is the, my dear childhood friend for my entire life that I, that's apparently my closest relationship I've ever had? What? Oh, I don't like that genre. The genre." Now I didn't do it. I

0:33:42 Tom: Yeah.

0:33:58 Tom: He's not gonna do it. He's not gonna. So yeah, I think there was, like, there's like this weird distance that always was there growing up, and like, I think it's created all these like pinpoints for me where I look at my kids or I hear stories of other people, and what would read to so many other people as normal reads to me as incredibly privileged, I guess, is the point.

0:34:17 Thomas: Think I've said this before, Tom, but I do think it's amazing how not insane you are, relatively speaking. I do think, is like genuinely

0:34:23 Tom: Like, like, I'm not trying to describe, I'm not trying, say all this was good, this was bad. I'm acknowledging this is all bad, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. So

0:34:24 Eli: Oh, yeah.

0:34:27 Thomas: Yeah, we all know it was bad.

0:34:29 Eli: We know it's bad. I'm glad to hear you know, it's bad. That's important.

0:34:32 Tom: Yeah, but I don't feel hurt by it, I guess. This is just how I grew up. It's a fact of how I grow

0:34:32 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. And that's the funny thing is, when you, I, I do you have two different, like, modules in your brain? Because when I think about that kind of thing, I think about what my dad would do. I have this sense that we've, I think we've kind of both described where it's like, yeah, obviously, well, obviously my dad wouldn't, like, go to my wedding, or, like, obviously. And then And then, like, when I switch into my kid mode, then I'm like, well, yeah, my kids are my favorite people in the world, I would do everything with them and for them that they'll allow me to do, and it's two different modules. It doesn't strike me as the same relationship or something, you know? It's, it's like I don't analyze my dad's behavior at that level, because it's just not the same thing at all.

0:34:56 Tom: Up. Yeah.

0:34:58 Eli: Swan

0:35:22 Tom: I guess I similarly, like, my dad and I don't share the same priorities and values use. And like, to me, that's just okay. I don't need to share the same priorities and values with him. To my mind, it doesn't make him a bad guy. And again, like, I totally recognize that there is a, what were my options growing up? Right? Like, my options were like, I had my, my mom who was like drunk and abusive and, you know, a problem and my stepdad who was the same. And, you know, so like there was that hot fucking mess. And then there was the real stability of my dad. My dad is incredibly stable. And like, I think that I was very grateful for the stability. I was grateful for, you know, the many ways he is supportive and did provide and I did the things I didn't have to worry about. And so no, no ,no ,no. My dad is not. I swear to God, like my dad is not a routinized person at all. He smiles easily like he makes friends with everybody, but nobody will like really know much about him.

0:35:47 Thomas: You had Gilligan. You had the monkey, you know? Yeah.

0:36:10 Thomas: Does he have a lot of routines? Okay. I was just kidding.

0:36:25 Thomas: Ron Swanson. Yeah.

0:36:25 Tom: My dad is a very easy person to make friends with, it but he just, yeah, yeah, a little, little Swansony. It's a little Swanson is

0:36:32 Eli: Statistic.

0:36:33 Thomas: Yes.

0:36:38 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:36:40 Tom: All that fucking insane, is that totally?

0:36:43 Thomas: Well, we are all agreed there.

0:36:44 Eli: Yes.

0:36:44 Tom: Insane, yeah, right. I understand the experience is insane. I guess I'm just like, I, I was wondering if it had any analogy at all in terms of like how you understand what feels like, wow, that's a real privilege, like, versus what's

0:36:58 Eli: Yeah, absolutely. 100%.

0:37:00 Thomas: I've spent since I was like 24 thinking about this nonstop, so I've kind of, like, done a pretty good job of, like, okay, I've separated my weird fucking bullshit upbringing from what is, like, normal, or, like, what you actually are supposed to do. So I have a lot of, a lot of work, doesn't mean it's perfect, but I do, I do have a, a lot of putting good hard hours, you know. I do still struggle sometimes, because sometimes you're like, these fucking spoiled-ass kids, what are you talking about, you know? It's like the food that my kids waste, I can't handle it. And I think it's also, what's also rough is that my wife is one of the kids too, at least in terms of, like, having a normal upbringing, so she's one of the normals too, or I guess. And so I'm like, I don't, what do you mean? They're just eating this and then they're like throwing it away because when they didn't finish it.

0:37:28 Tom: Not Right.

0:37:54 Thomas: What is that? But she doesn't have that same reaction, I guess, or something, because all they do all day is eat shit and not finish it and leave it on the floor for somebody else to get, and it's like, I, it drives me insane. I don't understand it, but I guess that's kind of how other people live. I don't

0:37:54 Tom: Right, right.

0:38:12 Tom: It's funny because I'm just kind of like thinking through, but like, I a hundred percent do have those two modules going on in my brain. Like I want my kids to be happy. And I think that their happiness is of tremendous importance and is a fundamental obligation of my role in their life as parent is to help them build what happiness means long-term to them. Not necessarily what happiness is in any given moment. I think about that idea a lot. I do not, however, think for for myself that one of the top 10 most important things is whether or not I'm happy. That is not of particular motivating.

It's not a particularly motivating force for me. I mean, like I would like to be, I'd like to Be happy, but like, if I'm not, that doesn't worry me or distress me either. Do you know what I mean? And I think that's why like growing up, I don't, I don'T think back at, and then I donT like, I DON'T like hold anything against my dad.

Like, I think my dad got a phone call, called, "You're raising kids, start tomorrow," and he's like, "Shit, wasn't expecting that. Okay, let's figure it out." And I'm not sure he necessarily wanted it. I

0:38:20 Thomas: Know, yeah.

0:38:50 Thomas: Well, that's clear. Yeah, that would have to be how you are. Yeah. Yeah. I know I'm, I'm intensely selfish, so I don't understand that, but yeah.

0:39:22 Thomas: But do you think your dad cares that he is happy? Because it does sound like he prioritizes what he wants and does, you know what I mean?

0:39:30 Tom: Think my dad does want to be happy. Yeah, I think my dad, very much. Yeah. Uh-huh. 100%.

0:39:33 Thomas: That's what's interesting. So it's, so it's like, it's the part where you're not prioritizing yourself at all. In a way it is kind of like your dad, but, but also not really because the ways that he just didn't do stuff in certain I feel like was him just being like, no, not for me. Prioritizing me. Yeah.

0:39:49 Tom: Yeah, there was just, there's just other things that were more important, right? So like, there's always a hierarchy, and I think for, for my dad there's a hierarchy, and some of it is just plain selfish, like, like, I asked him one time, like, why he doesn't live with Lynn. Like, he and Lynn have been together now for 46 years, as far as I know. And they live an hour apart. And my dad's 78 years old. You know, his health isn't going to get better and better. And she's had some health scares. And it would probably even be safer for them to live together. And they are never going to live together. My dad said, you know, I'm a 78 -year -old man. And at this point, you know, I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it.

And I don't want to have to think about whether somebody else wants to do it at the same time. He's like, if I want to go to bed at 8 .30, I'm just going to walk into my bedroom and go to sleep. If I want To wake up at 3 .30 I'm going to wake up At 3. 30. If I Want to get a glass of milk, I'm Going to get A glass of Milk. He's like, I don't want to Have to Compromise.

Well, He doesn't want To have to, He doesn'T wake somebody up or say like, you know, He doesn 'T want to do any of that stuff. He doesn't want to have to compromise. And I think that's how He's always been with His time. I think He's definitely provided for us And I mean, he wouldn't have had to work three jobs if he didn't have two kids, you know, like, mm

0:40:00 Thomas: Yeah, none of those things are things that you're not allowed to do. Yeah sure.

0:41:02 Thomas: Yeah no I get it. There's like a difference between what's like, a societal expectation or what's, like a duty in a way like he'll always do that, but anything discretionary he's not going to do it right. Right yeah yeah sorry yeah yeah for sure

0:41:12 Tom: Hmm, exactly. If it's discretionary, he'll do it if he likes it. So if he doesn't like science fiction, he's not going to do it. I bet, though, that if his friend Jim had written a police procedural, which he likes, yeah, you know, I bet my dad would have happily read it, although I will offer this, he might still have refused because if he did not like it, he would not have felt comfortable saying he did n't like it.

0:41:25 Thomas: A steamy romance novel. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, yeah, yeah.

0:41:27 Eli: Yeah,

0:41:36 Thomas: So that's funny because I feel like my dad would have, I'm trying to think, it almost felt like he didn't do stuff on purpose like that, like maybe that was why, like the awkwardness of, like, having to deal with that social interaction, which I'll be honest, I kind of get at this point in my life, where it's like Boy, I don't like if someone wants me to listen to their music. Sick, I'd probably be like, you know, it's probably better if I didn't, you know, like just for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with Tom's dad on this one.

0:41:46 Tom: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because then what are you going to say? Do you want me to lie about it or do you want me to say I hate it? Like, those are my choices, right? I do think my dad thinks that way too. Like, dude,

0:42:07 Eli: You lie. Hey, guys, do you do you not know about lying? I thought my presence on the show sort of helped out in that aspect. You just lie and tell someone that their thing is nice, it's all you do, it's so easy.

0:42:23 Eli: That's insane. Okay, just so you guys know, just, hey, everybody listening at home, because technically this is the deepest and most private of conversations, uh, but just for everybody at home, just so you know what to do about that stumper: you lie and say something nice. Is what you do on 100 of the time for the rest of your life.

0:42:43 Tom: It's actually funny because I thought about that with respect to his friend quitting his job to write a book. And I thought, what if he's a terrible writer and nobody is nice enough to tell Tell him, go back to work, man, because you know what Jim never did? Publish a book. He didn't ever actually publish a book, so maybe he wasn't very good at it, you know, and everybody is just like lying to him to be polite, and he's like, all the feedback is excellent. Why is nobody taking up my book and publishing it? So, yeah, I don't know what I think about that. The stakes are higher than a dinner party, youknow, ah, great, great lasagna.

0:42:58 Eli: Yeah, yeah.

0:43:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:20 Eli: You just gotta lie.

0:43:21 Tom: Yeah, yeah. I do honestly think that's that that is a big part of why my dad doesn't engage with the stuff that I produce in the

0:43:23 Eli: He's got a lie that's like, this is so easy. This is just Human Interaction 101.

0:43:34 Thomas: It's because it sucks. No, I'm just kidding.

0:43:34 Tom: World, is because if, yeah, I think he's, I think it's like, well, if I don't like it, I'll have to tell him or lie to him, and I don't want to tell them it sucks, so I'll just not engage

0:43:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, there's also, man, and I don't think I'll be this way with my kids, but there is also a sense where it's like they kind of need to have their own things. Like at that part, I kind of get about my dad again. I don'T know that I'll BE the same way, but I, there is a sense when people, when artists will talk about like, oh, and then my, my dad, my parents, you know, they're my, they'RE my best friend. I'm like, I donT know, isn'T that private? I feel like it'S like the art you'RE making is like not, your parents shouldn'T be involved. I don't know why, but they shouldn't.

0:44:18 Tom: It. And Eli's like, yeah, my mom. But see, the other thing too, Eli, is your folks are also also creators or were creators.

0:44:25 Thomas: Yeah.

0:44:26 Eli: Yeah. Well, my dad wasn't. He wanted to be, but he really wasn't, yes.

0:44:30 Tom: Okay, but he was a lover of creating.

0:44:34 Thomas: Creativity and yeah. Yeah.

0:44:34 Tom: And like, yeah, he had an appreciation of that. Yeah. I

0:44:35 Eli: Yes. Yeah. No, he really wanted to be a writer, too, so he got it.

0:44:39 Thomas: Yeah.

0:44:40 Tom: Will say, like, I know I've mentioned before, like, my dad liked to do woodworking and remodeling and, like, you know, the handy man kind of stuff, so that's a lot of times how he'd spend his time on the weekends or, like, in the evenings, like working on some project or building something or whatever. So if I called my dad and wanted to talk about, like, a woodworking or handyman project or something, he'd happily talk to me about that for as long as we, he wanted, because he cares about that and he's knowledgeable, and I think he feels like that's a space where we can sort of banter and have, like, a good back and forth.

And I think if I were to call him, be like, hey, I, you know, I wrote these, uh, poems, Daddy'd be like, fucking shit, I don't know what to do with that, fucking hell. I mean, he's not, like, I love him, but, like, he went to high school and it was hard for him, and that's just true. So, like, I also wonder too if he's like, I just don't feel, like, capable of it, you know. Anyway, no, I just, I was just, you know, curious because these, these issues popped up and I'm like, why do I feel fucking weird about these things, and then why do some things feel like privileges to me? Yeah, well, I don't act on them, you know, I try really hard not to act on these, these things, but they're just those sort of artifact reactions

0:45:23 Eli: Man.

0:45:33 Thomas: Yeah. Theorists to Tom's. Yeah. It gives us good insight into Tom's insane brain. Yeah.

0:45:56 Tom: Where I'm like, that's such a nice thing, and it's like, that's fucking normal, stupid, that's how people are.

0:46:01 Eli: Well, yeah, that's what I was going to say. What's amazing is Is that, like, usually what happens when you're having this conversation with someone, right, is they're explaining away why they suck, right? And what's really fascinating about doing this show with you, Tom, is like, you are a dad like you had my dad, right. Like, you seem to have spontaneously grown all great ideas about parenting.

You've been a good dad the entire time I've known you without exception, and every other time I have this conversation about someone's bad childhood or someone or someone, like, figuring it out as they talk about this kind of thing, it is because they're justifying a bad behavior not being like, and this is what I've noticed in myself, and So, like, I think that's really heartening for a lot of folks in our audience because, look, Thomas can relate to it, but he's just like, no, your dad's fucking autistic. I can't relate to it at all. To me, you said you ever talk to someone who hits their kids? Yeah, to me, your like a guy who's just casually spanking his kid while we're talking, in terms of, like, I have no idea what you're talking about, and I wish there was a kind of jail

0:46:14 Thomas: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

0:46:35 Tom: Oh Right.

0:46:58 Tom: Uh, no, I don't know anybody that hits their kids.

0:47:03 Thomas: Just that one time when it happened while I was talking to that guy, I froze. I didn't know what to do. He

0:47:18 Eli: For you, right? But, like, what I think is amazing is that you have skipped all the bad garbage and gone right to the good shit. Like, imagine Dear Old Dad's 2.0, rip, rip out of it, right, where Finn and Donovan and Amen and A's, I mean, think about the fact that one of the bits that I did on our bonus episode with A'slyn and Donavan was like, oh, it's pretty easy to tell when Tom is mad, and they didn't have that relation because they've never seen you

0:47:28 Thomas: Really hits his kids, like just totally be ripped out. Well, sometime, one time he broke the software door somehow, like he ripped the software door off its hinges. Yeah.

0:47:51 Tom: Yeah, right. Yeah. No, never. Yeah.

0:47:51 Eli: Mad. We mostly interact via Skype, and I've seen you mad a bunch of times. That's Right, like they're not going to be able to relate to this absence at all.

0:48:10 Thomas: Yeah, that's the goal, man. That's

0:48:10 Tom: Right. Yeah.

0:48:10 Eli: And I think that's really, I think that's, like, really, yeah, I think that's the fucking goal, is to stop. And look, I know you probably wouldn't use the term generational trauma, that's something that just all of the psychiatrists would use, but like Like the fact that you stopped that generational trauma or that generational absence in its tracks without ever needing. And here's the other thing, too, because I think this is something, Thomas, that maybe you've experienced. And feel free to tell me I'm I'm speaking too far. I think part of the way that Thomas has been better is to acknowledge the failings of his parents and hold them responsible for it. Part of the way that Thomas is better than his dad is being like, oh, no, that was a shitty thing of my dad to do. And what's interesting in this moment is that you recognize that you don't want to do the things that your dad did without going, he sucked.

0:48:26 Tom: Yeah, yeah. I feel very reluctant to blame like I think my mom sucked, right? Like my mom was a bad. I think she is a. Oh, real quick. She's still alive. I just want to tell the listeners she was supposed in January. This is crazy. She sucks. My dad is just my dad. But like my dad tried his hardest, I think, to do a good job within the constraints that he felt. And I sort of am sympathetic to that.

Like, I think it's OK to be like, I don't think I wanted this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Here's the best you can do. And I think that's honestly the role that he was probably playing.

But my mom's a piece of shit, and it's funny to talk about, like, my mom in January, for listeners, like, they'll remember in Januar she was literally on death's door. The Panamanian government gave my brother, like, wrote a letter to get my brother a emergency passport so he could fly down to Panama and help cedar her final affairs. She was on her death, literally on her deadbed. That bitch is up, up and kicking. She has got congestive heart failure, she's got COPD, she's partially deaf now from, like, this experience, like, damaged her hearing

0:49:03 Thomas: Yeah That's true. He saves it all for his mom. Oh

0:49:06 Eli: Yeah. She's still alive!

0:50:08 Tom: But she's just like, fucking whatever, like, I'm just made out of doers and cigarettes and fucking beef jerky or whatever, and she is just Like, powering through, my man, powering through. It's a guy, because I texted my brother, I never talked to him except for on Christmas, and something popped up on, like, Facebook Marketplace that it made me laugh. And for some reason, it reminded me of Bob. And it's, I mean, I literally only talked to him on Christmas. I texted him out of the blue. And then I was like, wait a minute, is mom still alive? And he was like oh, yeah, like she's like, you know, this and that. She's doing better. Yeah, because I forgot to ask about it. It's been five months.

0:50:08 Thomas: Yeah, jeez.

0:50:17 Eli: Powering through my mom's corpse.

0:50:43 Thomas: Yeah, hey, whatever happened with that? Yeah.

0:50:49 Eli: Yeah,

0:50:50 Tom: And I'm like, she should have died a few months ago. And I can see him not telling me because he knows I don't really give a shit. So I can say I'm just like not mentioning it. So, like, yeah, I guess that she's still alive.

0:50:58 Thomas: Like that thing you remember to ask to be nice socially, like that thing, you know, like Eli's blog, like, oh, oh, whatever, what happened, what happened with the, with the, like, your, our mom thing you were into? Yeah, you were doing that something weird about caring about her mom or something, how, what was that? I like

0:51:10 Eli: How's your blog, buddy? How's our mom doing? Doing?

0:51:16 Tom: Yeah, well, he knows I don't, like, he knows I don's give a shit, so yeah.

0:51:24 Clip: DEAR OLD DAD

0:51:30 Eli: All right, gentlemen, before we go, I changed the light bulb across the street and walked into a bar this morning. My life is a joke.

0:51:41 Tom: Oh my god, oh my god, that was pretty good, actually.

0:51:43 Thomas: That one, that was good.

0:52:29 Tom: Laugh with, not at. Laugh with, no doubt. I just say it over and over in my head.

0:52:34 Eli: I was like, hey, can I have some chips? And they were like, no. And I was, like, oh, cool. I'm leaving.

0:52:41 Tom: Great lasagna. Yeah.