Best of Tom: Are We Spoiling Our Kids? (DOD4)

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Tom: Welcome to Dear Old Dads, the podcast that groans every time it tries to get up from its chair. I'm joined by Thomas Smith and Eli Bosnick. I'm Tom Curry.

0:00:37 Thomas: There's a... I have a mathematical formula about that, because it's the sound going down into the chair is the direct inverse of the sound coming out of it, you know?

0:00:45 Eli: Oooooh.

0:00:46 Thomas: So, going down, you re like, and then going up, you gotta be like, you know? It s exact.

0:00:49 Eli: Ah! Yep.

0:00:51 Tom: You guys are a lot younger than I am. Are you guys at the groaning stage? Have you reached groaning stage?

0:00:55 Eli: Physically, I'm several decades older than you, Tom. Right, exactly. I have far exceeded my half-life, if you will.

0:01:00 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, there's your atomic age and then there's

0:01:10 Eli: Like kids can play with me at this- yeah, you could make a playground out of me at this point and they'd be okay with it, the level of out of shape that I am at this point, my man boobs have formed a crease and underneath them and it just always hurts a little, there's just a, my skin is like we're being folded and I'm like, I don't know how to undo, and then they're like, please eat less bread, and I'm like, no, I can't do that either.

0:01:10 Tom: That's a hard yes from Eli

0:01:17 Thomas: The doctor's like, are you radiating, how are they,

0:01:38 Tom: Yo

0:01:39 Thomas: You know What, I'm gonna make you feel better, or maybe Eli, because I'm sort of on the other end of that, in that I'm too old to be doing the things I'm doing now, which is playing hockey three nights a week and then working terribly ergonomically. So I'm in constant pain at all times. Like there's no time at which I'm not in severe pain. So either way, like we're just too old. You just get old and your body's like, I don't need to do this anymore. You've already reproduced. So I'm quitting, you know, essentially. Eventually.

0:01:55 Eli: Yeah, To be clear, we were supposed, supposed to be like dying now, the 80 is like a possibility, right, like, you know, when they like rot a thing out in a farm in Pennsylvania and they're like, this is what a tomato looks like after 70 years, like that's what our bodies are doing, humanity is just like we, this is quadruple the time when we were supposed to be eaten by a saber-toothed tiger, then

0:02:24 Tom: Yeah,

0:02:10 Thomas: Oh yeah. Yeah. Evolution is like, I'm going to get you to one boner and one reproductive act. And then you're just on your own. Like you just, I don't even care.

0:02:38 Eli: You're on your own, tell everybody which grass looks like lions, we're fucking done, and speaking of our inevitable death, gentlemen, it's Father's Day, Father's

0:02:39 Thomas: Yeah.

0:02:39 Tom: After

0:02:54 Thomas: Father's day special.

0:02:55 Tom: So for Father's Day, um, well, first of all, are you guys doing anything for Father's Day? Do you have plans? Do you have like any Father's Day tradition?

0:03:01 Eli: I wake up with the baby, um, at the same time as Anna every morning, we wake up together, I go downstairs, I make breakfast and the coffee while she like actually wakes up the boy, uh, and some days of the week, because she does so much more child care than me, Anna sleeps in and I never sleep in, I, I just never sleep in, except on my birthday and Father's Day, on my birthday and my, and Father's Day, I go full podcaster, 11 a.m. wake up time, it's delicious, right?

0:03:28 Thomas: So you convert to like my schedule when I'm trying to wake up early. Gotcha. No, that's no longer true. The kids have ruined my life. They wake me up at 6 a.m. every single morning as I've already covered. So yeah, that would be, that'll be, maybe you've given me an idea. That's my new plan. Find a way to sleep in. But I'll, I'd have to stay in a hotel. Like there's no way do it. I'm serious. It gets to, they get to an age where they can open door, they're raptors. They've learned to open the doors and, you know, and they can just run in and just be a siren anywhere in the house. There's no escaping it.

0:03:31 Eli: Exactly.

0:03:31 Tom: So This Is great because my kids are at the age, and I'm at the place where they're all old enough, where they get up, I'm at the other end of it, guys, I'm the light at the end of the Tunnel, I Sleep, I sleep in Every weekend Every Single Weekend I sleep until I wake up, whatever Time That Is, unless I, I got plans, because the kids, they get up there, I mean the youngest is seven, so he gets Up and like, he'll turn some shit on YouTube and get himself some cereal and

0:04:07 Eli: Yeah, Oh, I

0:04:09 Thomas: Oh, I know. I can't wait. I can't wait. Those were the days. Right. Yeah. Go down the right wing rabbit hole on YouTube, you know, just do Saturday morning Nazism, you know?

0:04:27 Tom: Chill Oh, Yeah, he's, he's Way down there, Stefan Molyneux Is Like, basically raising Him at this point, yeah

0:04:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:32 Eli: Was Gonna Say, Tom, How Often Have you come down and your son is like really worried about white flight in South Africa?

0:04:33 Thomas: But it's worth it. Yeah.

0:04:40 Tom: Dad, I have questions About replacement theory, theory, I just God damn It I

0:04:43 Thomas: You know, What's What's Funny is I get to be somewhat of the stand in for like the standard dad among you three, because you aren't into sports or anything like that. So like Father's Day, I don't even know if you two know this, Father's Day is always when the U.S. Open is for, for, uh, you know, golf, U.S. open and uh I

0:05:04 Tom: Literally did not To refer To. I was like, is that a tennis thing?

0:05:06 Eli: I I Was I was Like That's The Tennis One

0:05:05 Thomas: Yeah well there's tennis has the u.s open as well yeah there's some other that's why I specified yeah Tennis also has U.S. Open, but no, it's the golf U.S. Open, uh, which is one of the four majors, of course, and uh, I imagine Tiger's gonna be trying to play it, so I'll be watching that like a normal sports dad, like just a regular, regular Dad, uh, this, Sunday, I can watch Sunday, when, it's, when it's good a little bit, it gets, it's a good, I can have it on and do other stuff, you know?

0:05:09 Eli: Okay, cool. Yeah,

0:05:10 Tom: You watch golf.

0:05:29 Eli: You don't Want To watch the Boring games of golf, just the really thrilling ones

0:05:29 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:32 Tom: Oh my God. I have to golf once a year, maybe twice a year for work. And I'm always like, this is great. I don't know why I do this more often the entire time. I'm like, oh my God, why isn't this over? This game takes so long.

0:05:33 Thomas: It's just pretty thrilling. I love it. It does take too long. Yeah.

0:05:47 Tom: It takes so long. Like when you're actively hitting the ball, it's perfectly fine. That's That's 4% of the entire game of golf. The rest of it is driving around looking for your ball. It is a scavenger hunt of stupidity. It is the worst.

0:05:51 Thomas: Yep. Dude, I Looking for your ball is also an active thing. What's even worse is getting stuck behind slow-ass old dudes who take fucking forever getting stuck behind Tom looking for his ball. Actually, that's the worst.

0:06:06 Tom: Oh, yes. I don't even care. Like the ball, I'll buy like two boxes of balls. And if I look for the ball, I'm not even kidding. I'll look for the ball for maybe a minute and a half. And then I'm just like, I literally don't care. And just drop the ball where I'm standing. Like, I don't care.

0:06:19 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. This this is not at all. I'm not gonna take too much of your time because I know you guys don't care about this, but I have committed several felonies while playing golf because I get so I've gotten to the point of my life where I can't wait for people anymore. I'm very good at golf and I like to play, but I like to find times where nobody's around so I can just whiz through, through and slow-ass people. Here's the thing about men in golf. It's actually hilarious. We can cover it sometime under masculinity it. Thing. Cause men are hilarious with their golf. They all suck and they all cheat at it. They all lie about how good they are. It's the best. But anyway, I I have like driven over like, okay, I'm skipping this hole. I'm going around this guy. I just commit. It's, it's just war crimes. Like when I try to go around these slow people golfing, it's nuts.

0:07:05 Eli: Now I'm picturing Thomas alone on one of those Mad Max cars with a blood flag strapped to the front

0:07:09 Thomas: Pretty much, pretty much the guy playing the electric guitar, you know, like, Oh my

0:07:11 Eli: Yeah, I

0:07:13 Tom: Okay, Patreon goal, Thomas and I go golfing. The Tom and Thomas Golfing Show. Eli films it.

0:07:17 Thomas: God. I will set a $0 goal for that. Cause I will just go.

0:07:22 Eli: Was Gonna say one dollar, and I'm putting it in. The weird thing is when you don't golf and you're fat like me, people always try to appeal that part of it to you. They're like, "and you don't have to be in shape." And first of all, hey, stop selling, thank you, I appreciate it. But second of all, they always try to coax me with snacks. They're like, "oh, we get a 12 pack of beer, maybe some burgers." And I'm like, so here's a, I've got terrible news for you. I've already discovered that I can eat and drink in my home with, with the clothes I'm already wearing. So yes

0:07:23 Thomas: Yeah.

0:07:38 Tom: Oh, my God.

0:07:55 Thomas: There's okay. This is legitimately a worthwhile topic for another time, but there, There, do you notice that there's a certain number of guys, namely, I guess all of them actually, like everybody except the three of us who most of what motivates their behavior is getting away from their wives. Have you noticed this?

0:08:12 Eli: Man.

0:08:13 Tom: Yeah, we've got to talk about the garage dads. The dads that just hang out in the garage.

0:08:17 Eli: Caves. Yeah.

0:08:13 Thomas: Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah. Cause the three of us, I think are all people are like, no, I actually just like being with my wife, you know, like pretty big fan of it, you know? So like people will be like, oh, it's the best.

0:08:26 Eli: Yeah.

0:08:19 Tom: Oh, yep. Yep. Yep. Oh, our work trips are like that. My, our work trips, I was like, oh, it's so nice to get away. And I'm just like, I like sleeping with my wife. That's why I married her.

0:08:35 Eli: Yeah, that's that's my best friend. That's why we had a party to celebrate how much we liked each other. You know, if you don't like a woman, you shouldn't marry her. Right, Greg?

0:08:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. Nope. Most people don't know. Most people don't know that this is, we can do a whole show on this. It's hilarious, we should do our father's day special

0:08:52 Eli: Father, stay special.

0:08:52 Tom: We should, we should. Okay.

0:08:53 Thomas: Father's happy father.

0:08:54 Tom: So you're going to sleep. Oh, Eli, you're going to sleep in

0:08:56 Thomas: I might legitimately try to find a way to sleep somewhere that I could sleep in. I might try. I mean, I'd have to go to. Can I go to your house? See, fly across the country to get one night's sleep.

0:09:07 Tom: I

0:09:08 Eli: You could still somehow hear your children in the morning.

0:09:12 Thomas: Sunday. Also I edit opening arguments. I'll just be working. I don't do anything. Honestly. I don't really care. My wife will probably do something, some sort of thing. Nice. Also we're so overwhelmed with these children and we both, my wife works so much that we're both kind of at our limit right now. So we have a, we have a sort of like a truce on like, nobody's doing anything too crazy for one another now on holidays, Christmas, you know, we're just like, okay, we've, we've gotten to each other enough things over the years. Like we can focus on the kids. So, you know, maybe she'll, she'll get me a, I don't know.

0:09:32 Eli: Sure. Yeah, it present truces are an excellent part of the relationship. And they're also very fun to break. You're like, it's like, it's October, and you're like, okay, look, we're doing Christmas. Okay, we're doing It's October now. Do you have three minutes to buy me a nice present between now and New Year's Eve? Yeah, I can do that. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool.

0:09:43 Thomas: Yes. Yes.

0:09:57 Tom: I love giving. I I'm, the exact opposite, I absolutely adore giving gifts. That's my favorite. Like, no, I would never in a million years agree to a present truce because I would, there's, it wouldn't last. I, I create holidays. I will literally just be like, yeah, it's uh been a thousand days since such and such, so here's uh this present I got you, like, I just, I don't care. Like, I just, I love, I'll take every opportunity to celebrate people. Like, I love doing it.

0:10:11 Eli: Yeah.

0:10:17 Thomas: That's nice. Well, I love that a lot better than holidays that the man decides, you know, fucking society decides that we have to do. I like those ones. I would, I would rather have a self-created holiday. That's awesome. I like that Tom.

0:10:33 Tom: I get an enormous amount of joy out of it. It's funny because I'm the only one on this show whose dad is still alive, and I won't see my dad for Father's Day. I'll send him cheese. For Father's Day, I just send my dad a box of, like, cheese from Wisconsin.

0:10:41 Thomas: Braggy yeah see that's ideal

0:10:42 Eli: Right but he won't open it, he throws it in the garbage. This might not be for me. Blam. Oh,

0:10:49 Thomas: Actually, if somebody just sent me a box of cheese, yeah.

0:10:51 Tom: Yeah, he will open the cheese. God damn it. I think he I will.

0:11:00 Thomas: It's good callback.

0:11:01 Tom: I will, sleep. In Hayley will get me a present and a card that usually says something like, you know, I'm sorry I had kids and I'll forgive her for another year, and then, you know, we'll we'll move on with the day so that

0:11:01 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:11 Thomas: Am an absolute sucker for anything the kids make me. Um, one million percent. I used to, you know, I used to do the joke and I'll still joke about it like, "Oh, this shit is not worthy of the fridge." Like, cause a lot of what they make sucks, you know, I'm not going to lie. But even when I'm joking about that, I'm still treasuring it for my entire life. And I want to lock it in a safe and keep it for like every single scrap of paper they do at 40 times a day. I love it. And so the daycare, I fucking, the heroes that are at daycare just do so many things like this, like for every holiday, you know, they'll have them make something. They'll have a little project for Mother's Day and Father's Day. They have them make cards and stuff. And it's so cute. I love it. That's all I need. I really, it's the best.

0:11:16 Eli: Yeah, yeah.

0:11:17 Tom: Shit is sweet as hell. Yeah, it's terrible, normal

0:11:53 Eli: Our sitter, because Anna and I were, oh God, I'm about to, I'm about to Heath it and describe the timeline, how dare I, uh, but Anna and I were out this weekend for the Toronto live show, it was just the two of us, uh, and it was Mother's Day, uh, and our sitter, uh, who was watching Max over the weekend with grandma, had him make little, foot footprint art with him for Mother's Day, so it was waiting for Anna when she got home, and she just adored it, she lost her mind over it.

0:12:01 Tom: Oh,

0:12:20 Thomas: For example, right now at my desk, as I'm recording, I have a little piece of paper. Phoebe also can use scissors now, which is, which is cool. That's a big unlock of technology for kids. It's a cutout, oddly shaped thing that it kind of looks like a cell, you know, like with a little mitochondria bullshit, you know, like a diagram of a cell. And she handed this to me one one day and she was like, here data, that's your donut. And I was like, okay. And I just, I will keep this donut at my desk forever. I will. I told she almost took it the other day. I was like, don't you fucking take my donut. God damn it. Do not take my donut.

0:12:54 Thomas: I'm keeping that forever. God, I love it. There's ah, they're the best.

0:12:54 Tom: Do you guys save everything that they make, are you still

0:13:00 Thomas: It's that's actually fundamentally impossible. Like they make, we would need dump trucks of stuff.

0:13:00 Tom: Yeah you can't do it. I was gonna ask like, there's, yeah, you've got to throw some of that shit away, it's just your house you'll be like a crazy hoarder person, full of tiny little scrappy art projects.

0:13:04 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. You, you do do well, and a good.

0:13:13 Tom: Projects, yeah,

0:13:13 Thomas: Percentage of their early quote-unquote art is the daycare, somebody will print off a, page of a whatever, like a cartoon character or whatever it is, you know, coloring book page, and they'll just with one color of pen or crayon just across it. Like it's it's and it's yeah, it doesn't even matter what the shape on the page was, they're just over the the whole thing.

0:13:23 Tom: Yeah, They'll mull it they will mull it,

0:13:27 Eli: Right scribble all over it, yeah. They're

0:13:35 Thomas: We don't need to keep that. That's yeah.

0:13:36 Eli: Just redacting the turkey from Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving.

0:13:41 Tom: They printed out the whole Muller report and they just, we just went over it, Just one.

0:13:45 Thomas: They would redact it better than those old people that messed up the PDF one.

0:13:49 Eli: Exactly. So what we do, we have a system, right? Which is that most of the stuff, like I said, goes away. My son, NFT makers have nothing on my son because my son, we put him in art class too early. All the old kids were in art class and the way they start art classes, they go circle, circle, circle, circle, dot, dot, dot, which is the only part my son can do, and it is therefore the only part my son will do, so he will go through an entire pad of drawing paper in a day just to circle, circle, dot, dot, dot, great, next painting, circle, circle, dot, dot, dot, next painting, circle, circle, dot, do you want to use a different color, get the fuck out of here, dad, circle, circle, dot, dot, dot, and I'm like, okay, why don't you do circle, circle, dot, dot, dot on the same paper, I already did that one, what the fuck is wrong with you, circle circle dot dot dot

0:14:12 Thomas: He's Yep. Yep. Yep. That's

0:14:41 Tom: See my stepdaughter is, she's like a remarkably, like a scary good artist, artist, um, and she also has decided that literally everything in our home is a medium for that art, so you try to throw something in the garbage, it gets pulled out of the trash. Rocks get brought in from outside, random sticks will appear here.

0:14:52 Thomas: Great. Oh, that's so awesome. Okay. That's, that's a regular kid thing. My kids do that too, actually. I'll just have a big rock in my house.

0:15:02 Tom: It's but everything is everything is being saved. Yeah, everything is being saved because she's going to do something with it, like every box, every scrap of paper, that, and it's, it is overflowing, it is like there are gonna be like, we're gonna start to try to move that shit, we're gonna find like flattened cats pressed between the boards of just

0:15:22 Eli: Yeah, mm-hmm.

0:15:22 Thomas: Great. Yeah. Cats are a great medium. They, that

0:15:23 Tom: God, yeah, she would draw with the cats if she could, it's unreal.

0:15:27 Thomas: Reminds me of a good, this is something that also I'm sure Eli, if you don't already have the, I'm sure you already have this, but it starts at a certain age where, you know, there's the, uh, like the tumblers or whatever, the Instagrams, that's just like, my kid is having a tantrum about something stupid essentially. And they're like, what's the thing? And that can be, abusive, but also a lot of it is genuinely, they just have tantrums over the funniest things. And it's like, it's, I, it is funny to not in front of them, but later laugh at how stupid that was.

0:15:28 Tom: Yeah,

0:15:41 Eli: Yes.

0:15:53 Eli: Right, it yeah, is very funny to, I saw a tweet that was like, my husband just went down the stairs when my daughter wanted to go down the stairs first. Please be with us in this difficult time.

0:15:53 Thomas: Oh, totally. I've that exact thing yeah meltdown it's meltdown, you can't do anything about it. That one of the, what reminded me of it is the first time I didn't realize they were doing the stick thing, and what happened was I was unloading them out of the car and I see this stick in my car, and I was like, oh, must have just, fucked, you know what, there's a stick in my car, must have fallen, you know, or some random shit, like somehow there's stick, I just, without thinking, I'm like, oh, there's a stick, throw it, and then that was Arlo's stick, like you don't understand that was Arlo's

0:16:27 Eli: Oh, no,

0:16:28 Tom: Yeah outrageous outrageous

0:16:28 Thomas: Child

0:16:28 Eli: That was his wand from Ollivander. Of course, yeah.

0:16:29 Thomas: Child. Yeah. And he was, he was just dead. Arlo. Oh, my kids can have the best meltdown. They're so good at it. They just, the tears. I noticed it this morning when Arlo had a meltdown, they literally can cry. Like it's raining. Like the tears like drop. I don't know if it's a genetic gift or if all kids have this, but like they were dropping, like it's a sprinkler. It's incredible, makes it all the more funny when it's just because I threw a stick over there, like you could just go get it, like it's not even, yeah,

0:16:44 Tom: Yeah

0:16:50 Eli: Yeah, yeah, the tough thing, and like everyone tells you, like, hey, look, just so you know, if you don't validate this stick tantrum and like get down and love them and make them feel safe, they're they're gonna do heroin, they're gonna inject heroin right into their fucking dick vein, don't crack. So I laugher at everything, have to be like, yeah buddy, you can't pull that book out from the stack, wow, that does seem frustrating. My, my son, so my son is still pre-verbal, but he does a new thing which is a rage scream, it's not a tantrum it's just a rage scream it's the funniest thing in the universe, and I can't laugh because he'll just be like tugging at a book in his stack of books, and then he'll like right

0:17:03 Thomas: Yeah oh my god yeah it is oh

0:17:05 Tom: I oh I I didn't

0:17:39 Eli: Like he's trying to wake someone up in the, the abyss, and I've just got to be like, yeah, you got it buddy, I believe in you.

0:17:47 Tom: Know that, you can't laugh, I mean, like laugh at, or just laugh, like, I mean, I like maliciously laugh at them my

0:17:53 Eli: Hair

0:17:53 Thomas: My we're humans you might laugh a little, yeah yeah

0:17:54 Eli: You can't

0:17:55 Tom: Kids are gonna do so much heroin my kids are gonna, I might, I was on the phone, I was at work or something, I don't remember where the fuck I was, I was on the phone with Hayley one time, and she, was she just hears this blood curdling scream of imminent danger and and peril, and she just takes off running, and I'm like, what the hell is that, what's going on, and I'm on the other end of the phone, and I'm I am absolutely like I'm on edge, every, the whole world drops away, and all I'm doing is like listening for like any clue as to what's going on, and then she starts laughing, Aislinn saw

0:17:55 Eli: If you laugh in the same state, heroin

0:18:20 Thomas: Yeah wow

0:18:27 Eli: Yep

0:18:27 Tom: Two grasshoppers fucking, so there's a grasshopper on, now, these grasshoppers were in the driveway, and she wanted to also go in the driveway, and was so beside herself with terror at a grasshopper conjoined to another grasshopper, mid-coitus, that she screamed as if an axe murderer was embedding its blade between her fucking shoulder blades at that very moment, moment. And there's no way not to laugh at that, you're, you're in, mortal terror because grasshoppers are fucking, that's good stuff, I will buy the heroin.

0:18:46 Thomas: Yeah I I think as long as you show some understanding as you're finding it funny, it's okay, there's a, a difference between like maliciously uh, yeah, well, you might get him down to cocaine is what I'm saying, like, yeah, from from maybe not heroin

0:19:02 Eli: Mm-hmm heroin that's

0:19:10 Tom: Okay all right, my kids are fucking hopeless then, I don't know, I, I shouldn't bother I shouldn't bother with all the rest of it. At this point for Father's Day, I thought it would be, we, we, um, talk a lot about our experiences being parented and parenting, I thought, out for Father's Day, it would actually be a nice opportunity, um, to, to just do a little bit of reflection on our dads and talk about some things that we really loved and appreciated about our dads.

0:19:16 Thomas: Yeah I

0:19:17 Eli: I

0:19:39 Thomas: Think if you and I, Tom, are required to talk about things we like about our dads, Eli should have to say things he didn't like, yeah yeah we should have Eli

0:19:43 Eli: Should have shit on my dad for this episode

0:19:45 Tom: You should shit on your dad, oh, we should go flipsies

0:19:46 Eli: Father's

0:19:47 Thomas: Will have to say why his dad wasn't good

0:19:50 Eli: Day episode shit on your day and you

0:19:53 Tom: So who wants to start, who wants to talk about that, I'll I'll talk, I, well, this occurred to me while I was driving, um, and I was thinking about this record, I was thinking about this show, and I was like, God, God, man, my dad might be really hurt if he listened to this show, because it sounds sometimes like, yeah, right. It sounds like, but, but I got to say, like my dad, first of all, I have, up until the moment of four or five years ago when, when Haley and I got together, I have had pretty universally negative experiences with women, and all of the positive experiences that I've had with people in my life have always come from men.

They've come from male friends, and they've come from my dad. And my dad, for the faults that he has for being human, my dad became like permanent custodial parent, literally with 24 hours of notice. So with 24 hours of notice, he said, yeah, the kids need somewhere to go. They need somewhere to stay right now. Put them on an airplane. Bring them here to Chicago. I know they don't have any clothes. They don't have coats. They don't have toys. I don't have beds.

0:19:56 Eli: Go, Oh, you've got, is it because of the ongoing Twitter poll?

0:20:55 Tom: My kitchen is torn up because I'm remodeling it. Does not matter. Put them on an airplane. I'll sort it all out. Out. He's single. We get put on an airplane. We get, pushed we across the country from Florida to Chicago in February. And my dad is that guy. My dad figures shit out. He is the most steady, reliable man I've ever met. I admire him so much for it. My dad in all of the years of my life, never once raised his voice. I've never seen him raise his voice. Not ever. He's never ever yelled across the room. My dad doesn't need to, he hasn't ever done it. My dad's reliable. If he says he's going to be someplace, he is a hundred percent of the time. Like you could set a fucking watch to my dad.

0:21:42 Tom: He's never disappointed anyone that I've ever known.

0:21:42 Thomas: Wow you could set a watch to my dad not being at a place, I don't know how that would work

0:21:47 Tom: Yeah. So like, I know, like I, like I've said some things about my, like my dad's a strict guy and he's, but that strictness, it bears a lot of fruit. Like it really does. It has borne a lot of fruit. Like my dad, if my dad says like, I'll be there at three, he's going to be there at 245. He will never be there at 301. If he says he's going to do something a hundred percent of the time it gets done and never isn't, there's never been an exception. He's like this incredibly honorably man.

0:22:13 Thomas: And I think the key there is that he actually did what he said, you know, like, because my dad was incredibly strict, but also did not care about the example you set through your actions, I think, is is the point. I don't think as a parent you can just like, like, you be shitty and then say the right things your kids should do, and then that will somehow work, like they will really model after what you do.

0:22:17 Tom: Yeah. Yeah.

0:22:36 Thomas: And I feel like that's the key. Like the fact that your dad was that guy, it really came across. Whereas, you my dad wasn't that guy.

0:22:43 Tom: Yeah. My, my dad's all or nothing behavior is mostly like, I've, I've focused on the show a few times, like on the nothing portion of the program, but most of the time it's all, like, most of the time his commitment is complete, and it's total. My dad would never listen to this show, but he would never say I'll listen and then not listen. If I asked him, he would just say, no, I'm not going to listen to that, that's not for me, and that's it, like, like, he's exactly who he says he's going to be 100% of the time, it's, it is incredibly like open and transparent and reliable, like he doesn't want to talk about something, he's just say like, that's not something we talk about, and it's that you always know exactly where you stand, and there's never any confusion, and there's never any like hemming or hawing or obfuscation, my dad doesn't do little white lies, like none of that, he's just like, hey, this is exactly who I am, and I'm going to be 100 every time, and I've, I admire the hell out of my dad for that.

0:22:44 Eli: Absolutely.

0:23:09 Thomas: Yeah.

0:23:39 Thomas: Eli, do you want to shit on your dad?

0:23:41 Tom: Should shit on your dad, dude.

0:23:43 Eli: No, because I know my mom, my mom will start with this episode. My mom will be like, I'm going to start with a nice Father's Day episode. And then my mom will just show up panting to my house with an ax this evening being like, for this, for this, I sent you to podcasting college. Uh, I'll tell a Father's Day story, which I like because I always get to praise my dad, and I I am very, very pleased to do it, but I'll tell, I'll tell a story that I like, that I think squeezes in about the only time I absolutely nailed a Father's Day present, because I think we can all agree that Father's Day presents are the worst of like, like of the nationally recognized holidays, Father's Day presents are the ones where they're just like, I don't know, dads don't want anything, thing, getting him a tie, right, like when

0:23:53 Tom: Oh my god

0:24:29 Thomas: Ties. Yeah.

0:24:29 Tom: I get a Tie: every year.

0:24:31 Thomas: My dad did not wear ties, there was no, a tie would have been a hilarious gag gift to give my dad, yeah

0:24:38 Eli: But There's this age where, like, we're from like seven until dad dies, you just get him like, you know, a pen, and he's got to be like, "Oh, one of the many things that I have." And especially when you're seven, like, maybe he gave you the money to pay for it, right? It's Allowance, so he bought himself a pen. You know, and you got the cheapest one because you're seven and you're like, "I only got nine dollars, I'm spending one on him." So, but one year in, like, high school I absolutely nailed it.

So, to completely date myself here, when I was, um, in high school, that's when the iPod Nano came out, and this was long before Apple Watch was, you know, a dream in Steve Jobs's eye, but they did sell watch bands that you could put an iPod Nano on. Um, and so I got my dad an iPod Nano. I, my dad was obsessed, with with iPods, the right notion that you could take all the music in his Collection and put it on a box the size of a quarter of a piece of toast and he could play it for out, like I might

0:24:57 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:25:46 Eli: As well Have Just been Like Yeah Might I as well have just been like, "Hey dad, I got your hover boots."

0:25:46 Thomas: And You Could Butter It And eat It too. Yeah.

0:25:50 Eli: Like, for from The moment they came out until the day he died, my father was like, "This is the coolest thing ever." So iPod Nano came out, I knew he wouldn't have heard of it, so I got him a Nano. I loaded his entire collection onto it, because again, back then you had to, like, plug it into iTunes and then select all the album. I loaded his entire music collection onto it. Fun, weird side fact about my dad, by the way, he used to lift, he lifted every day, lifted weights every day to Melissa Etheridge. Yep. Come, come to My, he's like, his literal pump up song was come to my window. Was that where, come to my window. And I'd be like, Oh, dad's benching. All right. Good for him. Get it, dad.

0:25:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:19 Tom: Come Through My window

0:26:26 Thomas: Interesting. Wow.

0:26:33 Eli: Get it. So I got him an iPod Nano without him knowing about it. I got the largest watch band I could find. And when I showed him what it was, he's, he literally spent the entire day walking around the house going, "This is so cool. This is so cool." There's no, and he, it was way too small because watch bands never fit my father, so he had, like, he was very clearly cutting, he Had a purple hand, he was walking around the house, you know, like some kind of pirate about to get surgery done on him. Uh, but he wore that iPod Nano literally everywhere for the rest of his natural life, for The rest of his life he wore that iPod Nano and and talked about it constantly, like, like, we would be at dinner and he would, months, months, years later, and he'd be like, "Man, that iPad Nano, this is so cool. That was such a great gift. Thank you so," like, it was just,

0:26:55 Thomas: Wow. Wow.

0:27:24 Thomas: That's awesome. I wish for comedy's sake that you had gotten a Microsoft Zune and that's all he ever talked about. And people are like, that thing sucks. There's no, nobody uses that anymore. You can't even get support for it.

0:27:31 Eli: All he needed.

0:27:32 Tom: Actually, Eli, go back and retell that story with a Zune. Just yeah, There you go.

0:27:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:27:36 Eli: But it's a Zune, right, exactly. We'll do a cleaner take.

0:27:38 Tom: Yeah.

0:27:39 Thomas: Don't- now- I feel bad. I don't think I've ever had that kind of gift giving experience with anybody. That's that's a rare one right there. That's really good. I've been on the receiving end of that last year. Lydia knocked it out of the park. Here's problem with Father's Day and gift- well, any holiday and gift giving is, now that I have money, I just- if I need something, something, then I get it for myself and nothing.

And like, the thing that doesn't work is trying to find someone's hobby and get a thing, because you'll you'll find their hobby, but they know their hobby way better than you, so you'll buy like the wrong thing, you know, like- that's constantly what it is, really difficult. But last year- I- I'm gonna get to my- I have a really funny story about my dad, but while I'm on the topic, uh, shout out to Lydia who fucking nailed it last year. I've gone through a couple hockey bags, they take a beating. They carry a lot of stuff. They got to be big. They got to be whatever. One, I lost a cat piss. Incidentally, that was back

0:27:59 Tom: Yeah.

0:28:32 Thomas: In the day when we still lived in an apartment, I would set it outside on the little deck area. And you every neighborhood cat was like, oh, that's a, hey, we're all pissing on Thomas's hockey bag. Get over here. This is awesome. Just riddled with with piss. And the thing about cat piss is there's no way to get rid of it. Scientists still haven't figured out a way. If a cat pisses on like the Pentagon, they'll have to move the Pentagon. Okay.

0:28:32 Eli: You hate to see it.

0:28:55 Thomas: We can't have the Pentagon anymore. We'll have to, not even that plane did it. They're like, we can rebuild. But like if one cat had pissed on that same spot, they'd be like, we're leaving.

0:28:49 Eli: Nope. Yeah, absolutely.

0:29:03 Thomas: We can build a new Pentagon.

0:29:03 Eli: It's how they destroy the black boxes inside of planes. They dick it, dump it in caspis, and then...

0:29:07 Tom: Just Piss On Them

0:29:06 Thomas: So I lost one to that. I lost a few others just buying the wrong one that didn't work out. And then last year, I have no idea how or why or what. But Lydia decided, took it upon herself, I guess, to like, cause she, I think she knew I, my I, latest one was kind of not working and maybe it was breaking. I don't remember. And, she did some research and found the best fucking hockey bag to the point where I'm like your dad, Eli, like every single time I pack my hockey shit, I'm like this bag fucking rules.

0:29:33 Tom: What?

0:29:33 Thomas: I want to listen to my Microsoft Zune and pack my hockey bag. It's so good. It's amazing. It's like the best quality product. I can't even describe it. So much of the shit that's made nowadays is cheap, crap made in some factory with child labor that pays nothing for the, you know, there's a lot of cheaply made shit in the world. And then when you find like an actual good thing, it's like you love it that much more. So Lydia. It was amazing. I still treasure it every day, every day. I'm like, this is every hockey day. Anyway, I'm like, this is the greatest bag ever. But were we supposed to say like good things about it?

0:30:07 Thomas: No. So, you know, I can't remember if I already said this or if I just said this in conversation with you guys, but like, have been a little worried about, giving the, like a too negative a picture of my upbringing. You my dad, again, never physically, well, one, one time kind of physically abused me, but it wasn't, I had it coming. So, yeah, I kind of deserved it, frankly.

0:30:25 Eli: No, you didn't. Just real quick. Yeah, I was going to say.

0:30:26 Tom: Were You wearing

0:30:27 Thomas: I was I was being shitty to my sister for the millionth time. Anyway. Not physically abusive for the time. Not any more physically abusive than expected. No, but really not.

0:30:33 Eli: Except for that one time. That

0:30:39 Thomas: Like one one time.

0:30:40 Eli: Was his epitaph, too, by the way. In anyone's wondering.

0:30:42 Tom: Right.

0:30:41 Thomas: Yeah, he really was. He was like because my dad was really not physical as a person. Like he was, he couldn't, we you even had very little physical interaction in that way. I think I mentioned that before, but anyway, um, there was a lot of good times. My dad would just make us laugh. He was so fucking funny and he would make us laugh all the time. And it was also, the problem with that is also he would roast us all roast isn't the right word. Cause roast sounds more delightful than what it was. You know, he would constantly, his language was sarcastically insulting everybody at all times.

So like that, that was the downside of that sense of humor, but also like he was genuinely funny. We had a lot of really like just dying, laughing moments. So if I had to say something positive, it's that. And also there was a weird way in which my dad had a little bit of Tom's dadness to him in certain ways. Like if something was a responsibility, he would do it. He, you know, he built our whole house by himself, essentially. He, there are certain things that he would take it upon himself. And it's a quality that I like. And I think some people don't have, and it confuses me where like, if something comes down to you, you you just do it.

0:31:08 Eli: Oh,

0:31:49 Thomas: You know, like if there's, if it's like, oh, there's this thing that I have to do. Too, I don't have the language in me to be like, oh man, I don't want it. You know, like I don't mean casual, whatever, like, oh, I got it. Yeah. If there's a major important thing is my responsibility, I'm just like, oh, well, I just do it then. You know, I've never gotten behind on a credit card in my life. Like I just will find a way I owe that money at that time. And, you know, some of this is privilege, obviously. But like even when I fucking made dick, like I would I keep track of everything. Like it was like, I know I have to keep track of this because I owe this money at this time. Just stuff like that where it's like other people would be like, oh, I forgot and I didn't want to pay it. So I just like didn't pay it for months. And then it maxed out. I'm like, I don't I can't even understand that. That's not comprehensible to me.

0:32:00 Tom: It Literally Doesn't Matter.

0:32:37 Eli: How the turntables have turned. So this is actually a really interesting contrast from the the usual dynamic of your two dads sucking and my dad being awesome, because my dad had terrible, crippling ADHD um that he rarely took medication for because he did not remember to and forgot, forgot bills all the time. Forgot, not nothing vital, right? Like he never left me at school in the rain or anything, but the the conversation in my house constantly was, "David, did you pay the phone bill?" "Yes." "Did you?" "I'm gonna, I, I, I called them and what happened?" "They're, they're closed." "They're closed for" uh, Easter?

It's June, it's a very late Easter, they're all Greek Orthodox. So, so they can't, my, my, and yeah, exactly. And so that, that was my dad. And who is it me now? Luckily, again, and I think I've talked about this before, I'm surrounded by smart people who mean that like, and again, talking about privileges, that like, there's never been major consequences for that. But when you talk about like paying a credit card bill, cause you owe them. No, you don't. It's just paper. What? Cause they sent you, they sent me an email. I think people send me emails all the time. Get the fuck out of here, I cannot

0:33:32 Thomas: Yeah, Jesus still hasn't risen. It's a long rising this year. Oh, man.

0:34:03 Eli: Tell you how many bills, how many like 32 dollar bills have gone to collect debt collection in my life.

0:34:09 Thomas: Collections. Yeah.

0:34:12 Eli: Every medical bill, I literally, I had to now automate all of our doctor's offices because every bill would come to collection because they'd call me and and they'd be like, we're outside your house in a helicopter.

0:34:23 Thomas: There's a helicopter.

0:34:25 Eli: Right. Give us $13.

0:34:26 Thomas: Give us the 32.

0:34:29 Eli: Yeah, exactly. And I'm just like, eh, I'll get to it. Get to it when I get.

0:34:32 Thomas: Well, I don't want to give the wrong impression. So I also have pretty bad ADHD. I have realized about myself. It's it's kind of been enlightening because if it is an externally imposed deadline, I I will find a way that I have the huge resistance thing where it's like, what do they call it? Executive dysfunction where I can't I have a hard time starting things. But what I do is I wait long enough to where I have to I'm in a panic state because it's so late, you know, like the deadline is that and then that jump starts my brain to get to that point and then I will achieve the thing. What I cannot do and what I imagine Tom's dad to be like brilliant at, I bet, is self-imposing deadlines. That is something I cannot do. If it is something that's like an elective thing or like a thing that I do need to get done, but not really, I cannot be like, I need to do this thing by Saturday. It's, I can't, it

0:35:23 Tom: Dad, and I are the same way. Like, the deadline of everything is now. Like, I'm the same way as my dad like, yeah, my dad and I share the same work ethic, which is I'm actually, I'm not great at deadlines. I mean, I've never let, I've never missed the deadline of anything ever, but like, I I I can't imagine, but

0:35:27 Thomas: Yeah, I'm not like that. I am not like that.

0:35:38 Thomas: I'm not great at deadlines. I'm a hundred percent never missed one in my entire life. Not great at it.

0:35:43 Tom: It's not to say I don't procrastinate. I do, I will procrastinate in the sense that I'm always overbooked. And my dad, I think was always overbooked too.

0:35:51 Thomas: My weaknesses are that I care too much. I work too hard.

0:35:53 Eli: Is that I work too hard?

0:35:56 Tom: So, well, my, my dad, a lot of times had three jobs. So like, like, everything was do it. My dad would always tell us the same thing is like, if you see something has to be done, do it right now. Just absolutely right now. Like, why would you walk past dishes that that have to be done. Just do the dishes.

0:36:11 Tom: My dad would never lay on his ass and watch TV if there was work that had to be done of any kind ever.

0:36:05 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, man. That's interesting. Dang.

0:36:19 Tom: And it actually is only in the last handful of years that I'm able to relax.

0:36:21 Thomas: Can they make that into a drug that I could? Yeah.

0:36:24 Eli: We got to grind up Tom's dad and snort him.

0:36:24 Thomas: Yeah. If we could do that, that's a drug I need. But here's the weird thing. I do have that with something. I'm trying to think of what it is little like things around the house. If it's like, oh, here's a thing that that I need to do right now. I always do it and I get a little, little mad at Lydia for not doing stuff. Like, I don't know what the difference is. I think it's, it's that if it's like a thing that we need to continue, then yes. If it's like an elective thing, like, oh, we should, you know, I should straighten up the yard over here sometime to make it look better. That is so hard for me to do. Like, I just can't, cause it doesn't matter really. It's like a thing we should do. Those those are tough for me.

0:37:01 Tom: I used to have a problem where if I went to bed, up until the last five or six years, I would go to bed and I would mentally review my day. And I would feel like if I didn't do enough to earn, I used to have this idea that you had to earn your rest at the end of the day. So if I went to bed and I was like, I really didn't get enough done, I would get up and go find something to do and go do some more because I didn't, I did, I not like the idea that I hadn't. And I think I come, I think I come at that from from my dad who just he was a force of nature. He just worked and

0:37:02 Eli: So,

0:37:21 Thomas: Jesus Christ.

0:37:28 Eli: Yeah, sorry. Alright, yeah, Tom, I can't hear you over the scratching of our therapist listener's pencils. Can you say that? Just, they're writing so loudly and so hard in all their notebooks.

0:37:38 Thomas: You did not earn the right to rest in the day.

0:37:39 Tom: I I just, I, it was just an idea I always, I always, always had It's like all

0:37:46 Eli: That's something a bad guy in a sci-fi novel announces over a loudspeaker, Tom. Make sure you have earned your day's rest. From Mark Lahr the Magnificent.

0:37:46 Tom: Right

0:37:53 Thomas: Yeah. And yeah. And work will set you free. Yeah.

0:37:58 Tom: It's, yeah, it's, and I, I really only abandoned that since Hayley and I got together, like, I really only let that go since Hayley and I have been together, like, she's helped me kind of realize, like, I could just relax today, like, I could just relax for like a whole bunch of hours in a row, like. Like, that's something that I would not, like, it would make me very uncomfortable to do.

0:38:07 Thomas: Wow.

0:38:17 Thomas: Eli, do you have the attention to ADD or anything like that?

0:38:17 Eli: See, no, I have none of that. None of that.

0:38:21 Thomas: Okay. I, that's what I thought because you are so so good at your job. Like you script writing, like you just get that shit done.

0:38:27 Eli: Yeah, I'm the opposite, which is that all the stuff that's, like, having hard, because it's why people who have trouble understanding ADD don't understand that, like, executive dysfunction is a real thing. Because so many times people are like, ah, you're just lazy, and it's like, no, executive dysfunction's a real thing. And as someone with executive function who is otherwise a massive piece of shit, I demonstrate that principle, right?

0:38:29 Thomas: Wow.

0:38:50 Eli: If I had executive dysfunction, I would do nothing. Thing but the mine is the opposite of Thomas's in that I'm not participating in society or culture, so if my wife or my friends or my internal job needs something easy, easy breezy, I can do it while kicking my son and listening to Bluey, like I'm all good, all at the same time. But they're like, tax day is April whenever the fuck it is. And I'm like, yeah, that's what you said.

0:38:50 Thomas: No, it's hard, dude. Oh, well, I mean, either. Yeah.

0:39:14 Thomas: Wow.

0:39:15 Eli: I'm not playing. Have the best way I could describe it is this. Have you ever been playing like cowboys and or like cops and robbers with your friends, and then there's one kid hanging out who's not playing, and so you're like, I've got you. I'm resident. Oh no, I'm not playing, I'm just like hanging out with you guys. That's how I am participating in culture, is that everyone else is like, oh well, tax day's coming up, and I'm like, maybe, I don't know, we'll see.

0:39:16 Thomas: I

0:39:39 Tom: Yeah.

0:39:40 Eli: I, I have literally three full-time professionals whose job it is to make sure that I don't just fucking forget to do that.

0:39:41 Thomas: That's amazing. Oh, because I have the classic pattern of I can't start the task that I know is going to be involved in certain ways. And it's I can't describe why it's not that interesting, but it's not everything and it's not nothing. It's certain tasks that are, I can't, I can't describe what it is. Maybe people who know more about this kind of know what I mean, but what I'll do is once I can break that fucking barrier, like once I can either through sheer procrastination until the deadline or whatever, something that gets my stress chemicals enough to overcome that executive dysfunction, then I go into opposite mode, which is I will do every single thing in the world. Once I get on the thing, once I can get over that hump, I can do anything. I'll finish my taxes for the next 10 years. I'll guess what it's going to be.

0:40:34 Thomas: I'll go into the future and figure it out and do it. It's so frustrating. I don't remember how we got onto this. I guess talking about our dads and what they could or couldn't do. But yeah, no, that's a real tough challenge. I am so envious of your executive function. Man, that would be a game changer if I had that. No, it's it is not at all, I know self-deprecating humor, but it is not. If people had any idea behind the scenes, the amount of writing that you can do, the speed you can do it, it's incredible.

0:40:48 Eli: Wasted on the bus.

0:41:00 Eli: It's Yeah, very funny because I'll sometimes forget to do ads or sketches. And then we all share jobs where you guys occasionally watch me write and I'll like, wait, give me a second. And then I'll just bang out a sketch as I'm talking. I'll just be like, okay. And then Cecil falls down the well. Got it. What movie did you see?

0:41:11 Tom: Yep.

0:41:14 Thomas: It's incredible it's incredible. Oh, oh, I wanted to tell the Father's Day, here's the funny, you know, I can't be a day of talking about my dad without it being negative in some way, um, because he was so fucking weird. He was a narcissist and the weirdest guy. He had, had terrible self-esteem, which I get, I understand, but it manifested in the weirdest ways that this is not my story, but my brother's, um, but it's, it's worth telling because my brother, uh, at a certain point, cause he's six years older than me. Um, and so he had the ability to like, actually, you know, get the money to buy the stuff at this time.

I never, you know, cause I was a kid, I had no money. I didn't really buy gifts or whatever. So he, uh, one year he tried to get my dad for some reason, I guess we were still on good terms, everybody. Buddy. He tried to get my dad a really good gift for either his birthday or Father's Day. I can't remember which, but it doesn't really matter, but same thing. And he tried really hard. He got it. It was like his first, it was my brother's first year of like having a job, you know, when

0:42:10 Eli: Sure.

0:42:10 Thomas: You're like 18 or whatever, you know, he's like, "I'm going to spend this money for some reason on my dad." And my dad is the worst ever at receiving a gift. He made no effort to show appreciation or anything, he opens it, he has to, do I wish, it's hard to communicate, he constantly has to downplay any of that stuff at all times, you know, and like it's almost like presents aren't there, you know, they have to be forced to him and then he'll kind of open it and then joke about, "Oh, it's nothing, it's whatever," like he has to, he would have to downplay all of that for weird, uh, psychological reasons that it's hard to articulate, but it makes sense to me.

And so he did that with my brother's, you know, really nice gift that he tried hard with. And so my brother was like, "All right, well, never doing that again." And so the following year he just didn't get him anything because it's like, "He doesn't give a shit, what does it matter." And my dad was like mad about it, so my dad was that level of shitty that he had, but like, it's such a weird broken mentality. Like he couldn't, my dad could not show gratitude for anything because then that would mean like, some he owed someone something, or like, someone, you know what I mean? Like it was, he no one could ever have anything on my dad, pathologically. Like

0:42:10 Eli: Yeah. Yeah.

0:43:20 Thomas: So there could never be.

0:43:21 Eli: It was, it's a power thing.

0:43:22 Thomas: So, yes. And so, but then it was funny because when the next year came and he did get a gift, he was like upset about it. It was just, it's, he had no awareness of that. God, it's unbelievable.

0:43:33 Eli: Buddy of mine has a similar story, which is that his dad had like an old Chevy or whatever fucking car is nice that he was always going to fix up and he fixed it up for him. And he was just a shitty dad and he fixed it up for him. He like got a mechanic. When he became a mechanic, he like went and secretly fixed up his his dad's old and revealed it to him I think it was for a birthday, not for Father's Day, and his dad was like, probably doesn't work, and he was like, no, it worked. I've I've changed and but they literally had a moment where he was like, dad, put the key in the car and turn it on. And he wouldn't, he would not do it to the point that he literally, it was, it was like one of the last times they spoke, where he was like, what the fuck, I've

0:43:39 Thomas: Wow. Oh my God. That's totally. Yeah.

0:43:53 Tom: Yeah. Jesus. What?

0:44:13 Thomas: Oh

0:44:13 Eli: Been out here for like 16 hours cleaning this fucking. And he was just like, no, no. Yeah, it was the craziest.

0:44:14 Thomas: My God. God, makes sense to me.

0:44:17 Tom: That's Unbelievable. What?

0:44:22 Eli: Yeah. Okay, I have a question for our Father's Day-tacular, which is, what is the moment that you were proudest of yourself as a dad?

0:44:22 Tom: God.

0:44:26 Thomas: Oh, I am happy to start this off. This is a thing that, there are undoubtedly better moments than this, but this is one where I just, I felt really proud because it was a thing that I feel like I easily could have not done or, or someone else might've not done. So when, we had Phoebe and then, uh, Arlo, can't I remember if I've told all this, maybe I did in the first episode, but Arlo was a bit unexpected. Expected. The weird thing about, childbirth you is like, you don't really have a period for a while after that. And it's kind of unclear when you need to worry about birth control and we kind of spaced on it.

And then lo and behold, another child was born, uh, was conceived rather. Uh, bit of a surprise, but, uh, but a welcome one, very you welcome one. And so Phoebe, that means that Phoebe was about, I don't know, a year and nine, a year and and a half year, nine months when Arlo was finally born, something like that. Arlo was breastfeeding. You know, for the first, I don't several months, they're just glued to mom most of the time, you know, like they just that's just how it works. Like they they dad can do very little often. I'm sure that varies a little bit. But at least in my experience, when you're breastfeeding, there's no like they just want their mom. There's nothing the fuck you can do.

0:45:35 Thomas: I can't, that's perfect word for it. The milkless vice president.

0:45:35 Eli: Yeah, Mike Birbiglia calls it the milkless vice president.

0:45:39 Tom: Yeah, that is I, that is Perfect.

0:45:44 Thomas: And but Lydia started doing, a you little bit of the, the pump and the save in the bags. There's, that's a whole thing that if, if you don't have experience with it, it will sound probably disgusting and weird to you. But when you're in that world, you're like, yeah, we need the milk. Fuck it. Get the milk, pump this milk. We need this, put it in this bag. We're going to save this shit. So she was able to do her first, time away from the baby, which is always a major thing.

When Like they're infants, if you all is going according to plan, like mom you is with them all the time. Like there's not a lot of, you know, there's not a lot of opportunity to leave because they're so tiny. They need you all the time. But then you hit that age maybe, uh, where, uh, you, you you can go first time out. And so I told Lydia, I was like, just go out. I'll figure it out. You've got them. You've, you've milked yourself. You've got the milk in the bags, in the fridge. I will prepare, do all that bottle shit. You know, you gotta do all this stuff, the warming, the whatever.

0:46:30 Thomas: I was like, go do it. Or. Uh, I was going to be watching Arlo for the first time, totally by myself because he was so tiny, you know? And, I'm watching doing, him, having a great time. And then he needs to eat, infant you signal when they, they are fucking hungry. And I was like, all right, got this. And so I go to get the bottles prepped and mind you, this is the first time because he's so tiny. So all all the shit was like in storage still, you know, it was like up and no, cabinets.

Cause we saved it. We, you know, washed it all and then stored it from Phoebe. And I'm preparing this thing. And at a certain point, I don't know how, but my mind was like, oh, remember that when Phoebe hit a certain age, you had to change the bottle top to a higher flow because once they're bigger, they can suck down more milk from those things. And so I remember to specifically go find the lower flow infant ones and like change that because Arlo's and like, I don't know why, but I was so proud of myself.

0:47:22 Thomas: I was like, that is such an easy thing to forget. Like you just, the bottle's the bottle. You put the thing on the fucking thing, give it to the kid. Somehow I remembered that like a year ago I had changed these bottle tops to the Phoebe ones and I was just so proud of myself for in the moment when a baby's screaming at me to get, you know, food because his mom's not there and I'm trying to heat the milk and do all the shit that I remembered to get the infant flow one and it just stuck in my mind of it. I was so proud of myself and I never shared it with anybody, so I'm, I'm glad I got to share it with you guys so that somebody can be like, "Thomas, that's totally normal fucking thing that any idiot could do."

0:47:54 Tom: It is not. I don't think that's totally, no, I would, I would 100% have just been like, "Bottle, milk, baby." Yeah. Baby be fucking waterboarding itself with fucking breast milk. Like, I don't know, he's drinking too fast, he's bad at it.

0:48:00 Eli: Yeah. Yeah. No.

0:48:05 Thomas: I know. And I had to do like, I had to use a microscope to figure out which ones it, it wasn't like there was a box that said, these are the big ones. And you know, yeah.

0:48:13 Eli: They're not labeled. You got to look at the nipple, like, head on and be like three dots.

0:48:16 Thomas: You gotta like suck it for yourself and be like, that

0:48:19 Eli: We could do an entire episode on just the insanity that is bottle feeding, like warm it, the bottle warmer as a device, which is like, you got to put, use this for 10 seconds, if you use it for 11 seconds, you'll scald your baby's tongue and it'll use heroin for the rest of its slime. If you stop looking yeah a lot of it stuff

0:48:23 Thomas: Oh God. Totally.

0:48:35 Thomas: So many things result in your baby using heroin. Can I give a pro tip on that? Do not waste your fucking time with a bottle warmer. I'm telling you. And like it, it If you keep whatever the shit is, if it's the milk, or if you mix the formula in these, the little plastic bags, that's the best way to do it because you can even pop those in the freezer. You grab it out of the freezer. It's a frozen solid milk thing. If you run that under hot water for long enough. You can just feel that it's the temperature you want and then pour it into the bottle rather than like you put it in the bottle and then you have to put the bottle in this warmer that like takes forever. Or like you say, you go too much and you can't feed the kid. We tried the bottle warmer a little bit and never, I was like, this is not as good as just warming it under warm water when you have it in the plastic bag because you can feel the temperature. Pro tip. Dad tip. It's way better.

0:48:41 Eli: Wish

0:48:44 Tom: We didn't, I didn't even have one.

0:49:26 Tom: And that's actually why, they're before they invented the bottle warmer, there were no babies. So it's, uh, yeah, it's, it's a necessary I think about that shit all the time. It's like, here's all this shit that everybody thinks is so necessary.

0:49:29 Thomas: Yeah. I know. How much of this stuff? Yeah. Yep.

0:49:37 Tom: And you're like, really? Because you got to plug it in.

0:49:39 Thomas: That was invented in 1997.

0:49:40 Eli: I Think.

0:49:41 Thomas: That can't be that important. There's no fucking way.

0:49:41 Tom: Right. Yeah, get the fuck out of here. There's 7 billion of us. 7 billion.

0:49:45 Eli: A lot I think there were a lot of dead babies that we all just were like, oh, that's that sudden infant death syndrome you all

0:49:51 Thomas: Oh, that's true. Okay. That's true, actually. When it comes to that, like follow all the fucking directions on the sudden infant test. No, that's 100% true. But there's a bunch of other little things.

0:49:58 Eli: That's me My mom and I have very rarely had the moment of like, uh, you did parenting wrong thing, and because my mom was an incredible mom, but the one moment of it that we had is when I was explaining swaddling and putting it on the back, she was like, oh god, we just put you in there with a blanket. And I was like, cool, they, they smother when you do that. And she was like, no, no, they don't. You're here. And I was like, I mean, statistically, sometimes they smother me.

0:50:05 Thomas: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, you

0:50:23 Tom: Sometimes they do. What I do is I put them in a pillow fort on their bellies from day one.

0:50:23 Thomas: Do not use a blanket yeah No,

0:50:29 Eli: Right.

0:50:29 Tom: Yeah, about 3%. The tough ones make it out. The Spartans, they make it out. You put them on their shield.

0:50:30 Thomas: That is actually really interesting. I'm pretty sure, didn't they basically suss that all out where it did turn out to be that in one way or the other, like, they thought it was this like syndrome, and it's not or

0:50:42 Eli: It's really tough. Some I, of it is too smart for me. Also, it's also hard.

0:50:47 Eli: Cause like some of it's like that lady fucking killed her baby. And then she brought it to the hospital and was like, like, there's, there's some writing that is interesting that again, Again, I'm not smart enough to interpret it. I'm just like, killing babies of the 20th century. Holy fuck, people did it a lot. So, yeah, that's certainly a part of it. Okay, my proudest moment I'll go with the easy one, which is that, you know, we didn't expect Anna to need a C-section, I've told the story of Big Chungus other places, but, you know, they sort of came in, they were like, hey, hey, your kid is, you know, wrapping the cord around his neck and doing a really good bit right now, but his heart rate is lowering.

And we were like, ah, we're not so sure about a C-section. They were like, okay, we'll keep an eye on it, and then we can talk later. And they walked out of the room, and 14 seconds later, they came in, and they were like, hey, it's way low, it's way low, it's way low, let's talk about it now. And we were like, okay, do a C-section. But it meant a much longer recovery time for Anna. Um,

0:50:43 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah, oh, Yeah,

0:51:41 Tom: Right.

0:51:41 Eli: And What, what I am proud of and what, what she, she would brag about, she brags about me with this, is that my wife did not change our baby's diaper for the first month he was alive, right? Of all the stuff that dad can't do, I could change the diapers, so I literally, she did not change a diaper for the first month our baby was alive. Um, and then finally, you know, when she was fully recovered, she was like, like, I literally don't think I've changed a diaper. You have to let me do one. And I was like, no, no, I got it.

I also, just on a personal level, when she woke up, I woke up, especially early in. Not because I think it's wrong not to wake up, but it's actually some of the sweetest parenting moments we shared is when she would do the night feed, because we did a night feed with him until pretty much he was weaned. We would text while she was feeding him, right? He would be asleep while he was feeding. And so we would text, right, I would make her like ASCII art, you know, that stuff where it's like a dog, and but it's made all out of letters and numbers and stuff. Um, that was a really, really wonderful moment of connection that we

0:51:42 Tom: Right.

0:51:54 Thomas: Yeah this

0:52:43 Eli: Got to have, but

0:52:44 Thomas: Is so true to you, you, Eli, because you're exactly not supposed to do that so that you can get some fucking sleep, but you're like, no, my wife's up, I need to be up, I have to do this, like, what you're supposed to do is like alternate so one of you can at least not die during that time

0:52:57 Eli: Yeah they needed the IRS to tell me to go to stay awake, and then I would have been like MasterCard have MasterCard call me up and tell me to stay awake.

0:53:00 Thomas: Yeah You owe 32 sleeps tapes, like, damn it.

0:53:12 Eli: No,

0:53:13 Tom: All right. So I was thinking about this. It's funny because with, with my oldest, with Finn, I felt really competent. Most of the time, I think I've said this before. I felt really, really competent. From Like day one, I, I, I very much was involved. I was changing the first many, many diapers. I did a lot of the driving him to preschool, getting him up in the morning. I took him every weekend early. Like I, like he and I were buddies and I felt very competent as as a parent with him. And then my, my second was, um, very, very colicky. He had some eating problems. Um, he was breastfed exclusively.

So the only thing to comfort him was, was being breastfed. So for the first 14 months, no exaggeration, I did not hold my second son at all when he was awake because he would scream if it was anyone but his mom.

I mean, there so I went from this place of feeling very, very competent and then realizing that all that competence was bullshit and it was just that I got lucky with an easy kid and then I got unlucky with a very difficult kid that had some had some issues with the second kiddo so I was thinking about like what is like and I and I I hesitate to say this but I think the thing that I'm most proud of parenting wise as a dad is actually the blog that I write to the boys I blog I write a blog to my boys and I've I've written 30 some entries in it I've got another probably 15 or 20 that are sort of mapped out to write and eventually turn that into a book and then I'll give to the boys and I don't know if I'll do anything else with it but I'm definitely going to print it out and give it to the boys and... there's so much that I want to tell the kids about just how to fucking be alive in the world and

0:53:42 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Really?

0:54:05 Thomas: It's just luck. Yeah.

0:54:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:54:46 Tom: How to think about being good men and how to like navigate difficult ideas and in relationships with themselves and their feelings and others in their lives. And I write about that. I think about it. I think about it. I write about it. And I think like, man, I don't know if I'm getting any of the rest of it right. I don't know if I'm modeling the right behaviors. I don't know if I'm there enough for them. I don't know if I'm putting in the time the way I need to put in the time.

I could be getting all of that wrong, but I'm hoping that at the very least I've got this so that if I get fucking struck by lightning tomorrow, there's something Something that they can look back on and be like, all right, time and effort was put in to this. And I think that blog is probably the best thing that I've done for the boys, for any of the kids. It's funny, I thought about it as for the boys, but I think most of it will relate as well to my stepdaughter. Her. And I've thought about maybe writing one for her, which might have some separate topics as well. But I think that's probably the thing as a parent I'm most proud of,

0:55:18 Thomas: Yeah.

0:55:45 Thomas: And that's so cool because like you say, I think of that from time to time where I'm like, what if I, you know, my plane goes down and, And like that, it is hard to properly communicate. Like what I would want my kids to know if that happened is that is how much I thought about them and cared about them every day. And leaving something like that, Tom, is so cool because they would be able to see it? Whereas like for me, I haven't, I haven't written anything. I don't know. I've talked about them a lot. Maybe they would see that, but I always worry, like, what if they didn't know, you like that's my biggest fear. Like what if my kids didn't know how much I love them? That's my ultimate fear. And I, uh, so hopefully, hopefully, hopefully the plane lands, I think is the best plan, but

0:55:51 Tom: As Right. Yeah. Yeah. I

0:56:23 Thomas: I love your, I love your blog.

0:56:23 Tom: Know sometimes I'm not good

0:56:24 Thomas: That's it's great.

0:56:24 Tom: At it. I will tell you, there are times when I know I'm like, God, I don't want to play Legos. I don't. I don't want to play Legos. I'm so fucking bored playing Legos and I bet you can tell that I'm just I'm just crawling out of my skin. 45 minutes into playing Legos

0:56:37 Thomas: Well, it's hard to keep up because like kids have no limits. Like it's, it's amazing. It's the coolest thing about them. And it's also, it is really hard because they, they could just play the thing forever. And as an adult, you're like, all right, let's do one rep of like, okay, hide and peekaboo. And you're like, all right, we've done that. And they're like, no, I want to do that 48,912 more times. The same thing. Like, no, don't, you don't even need to change it. Like just the exact same thing. And as adult, your adult brain is just like, I can't, I cannot do that. Don't.

0:56:39 Tom: No forever Yep. Yeah. Yes, Right. I, I worry about that. It's like, hey, do you want to watch another movie? And I'm like, I, I don't. And I'll just tell, like, I'm at a place now where the kids will be like, you know, buddy, I'm sorry, I can't, I can't, I've got something else I've got to do. And sometimes that thing I've got to do isn't actually all that important. It's just like, like I've got to carve out some time to do other things and to, and to spend with other people and to meet other obligations. So, I hope I really do. I hope that like at some point they'll look back and they'll have this blog and they'll have all these pages and they'll be like, all right, some Cats in the Cradle shit. Like maybe he didn't play with me as much as I want him to play with me. Cause there's no way to do that. There's a, I, I could give 23 hours a day to these kids and they would want 24. I cannot possibly play with them enough. I can't. But you know, I.

0:57:52 Thomas: Let the perfect be the enemy of the good, Tom. That if you do play with them a certain amount, it will make it, it will make a big difference. There was a, my dad just didn't ever, and we would, there would be times where it'd be like, this, play this board game with us, like come on. Like when we were a little older too, where it's stuff that like he could play. And I can remember the one to maybe two times my dad participated in something like that. Like that's how significant it was to me is like, oh my God, this celebrity, we got, you'll never guess who we booked for

0:57:52 Tom: Yeah. I don't I don't

0:57:54 Eli: Sure.

0:58:10 Tom: Right.

0:58:24 Tom: See,

0:58:24 Thomas: This board game. We booked our own fucking dad. It was mind blowing and it shouldn't be like that. Like it'll, it should, you know, it should be meaningful, but like, it shouldn't be so rare that, and I'm not saying you're doing this Tom, but like, that's just the other end of it is like, when you don't play with them at all, it makes it, they remember, they know that, you know, just

0:58:42 Tom: I don't know now, You're kind of selling me, I'm doing it very, very infrequently.

0:58:46 Thomas: Once.

0:58:46 Tom: Because then they'll remember it

0:58:47 Thomas: Yeah.

0:58:46 Eli: I Was gonna say yeah if you're a good dad, they don't fucking care how many, many times you played the monkey board game or whatever the fuck it is. If you play it once, that's

0:58:50 Tom: Right or

0:58:51 Thomas: Could be true. I think we've gotten the conclusion on our father's day special that we should all be bad fathers and that way our kids will remember us. Okay.

0:59:01 Eli: Right. Yep. We're wrapping it up or and they'll remember us while they do heroin all all right, gentlemen, before we go, important question on this Father's Day. What do you call somebody with no body and no nose? Nobody knows. Thank

0:59:03 Tom: They'll do heroin

0:59:05 Thomas: While they're doing heroin. One.

0:59:23 Tom: What's that? No that

0:59:28 Thomas: I actually liked that one. That's the first one I've liked.

0:59:29 Tom: Was pretty good Oh.

0:59:31 Clip: If you're hearing this, that means you're a patron and you're also incredibly good looking. So thanks for supporting the show and enjoy this extra dad story of the week.

0:59:40 Eli: You and So my son recently learned to, uh, get up onto the couch. He would he needed help, but now he can do it entirely on his own. Um.

0:59:48 Thomas: Big moment.

0:59:48 Eli: I try not to be on my phone around him. I'm really bad about that. But I've been trying not to be around my phone, so I keep a book I like around. And if I'm not doing work, because I work in the living room, then

0:59:57 Thomas: And you have the cutout in the book where the phone goes like that.

0:59:59 Eli: Right. I actually have used that trick before, where I've just been like, I'm most TikTok. Um, but I, I was sitting there reading a book, uh, and wasn't really thinking about it, you know, I was just sort of watching him. He was playing and doing his usual thing because my son just goes through his giant pile of books all day, just like, Flipping through the pages even though he can't read yet, and next book. Um, so I'm sitting there, I'm reading the book, I get a little bit lost in it, and I feel like a little on my side, right. And my son has climbed up onto the couch next to me and is scooching himself onto my lap for the first time in his entire life, and I loved it so much, and it was one of those things where I was like, like my son's just having like a casual snuggle. I can't begin to weep and be like,

1:00:17 Thomas: Yep. Oh. Oh. So sweet. Oh. It's the best No,

1:00:41 Tom: That's

1:00:49 Thomas: You can, you can, it's

1:00:50 Eli: Fatherhood, right? I have to not turn this into a terrible thing for him. But yeah, I just sort of got to put my arm around my son, plopped him a little bit over my leg. And we sat there reading with him in my lap, you know, me reading my book, him reading his for like 45 minutes. It was so wonderful.

1:01:00 Thomas: The best. Oh. No better.

1:01:10 Eli: So wonderful.

1:01:10 Tom: That's terrific, that's great story. All

1:01:13 Thomas: Experience, can I do that with you too, Eli? I'll sidle, over to you.

1:01:15 Eli: Yeah, absolutely. You better.

1:01:22 Clip: Wanna meet sexy dilfs in your area? Email thedads at dearoldads.com or better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle and the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite dilf, Tom Smith, who also wrote and recorded the intro music which is used with his permission. This podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved.