November 27, 2018 • 56 mins
For Thanksgiving the whole family manages to fly across the country (and back) without getting into (too many) fights or meltdowns. Only after they return home does a week’s worth of meltdowns happen in a single night sending Peter into a rage spiral moments before recording this episode. As he calms down, Peter and Beth confuse the difference between community and regional theater, debate when it’s appropriate to use bribery cookies and then apologize profusely for insulting people with a hyphenated last names in the previous episode. WE’RE SORRY!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hello, and welcome to we know his parenting. I'm Peter
McNerney and Lowell. We are married, we've got kids. Therefore,
Brin and two and a half Mayven and boy did
I just have a crappy night with my kids? Can
I vent? Is this a safe space? Tell us what happened?
(00:33):
I'm just so full of what I could only describe
as rage um and it's incredible. I'm sick. You can
hear it in my voice. Not terrible, just an annoying, heavy,
don't want to do anything kind of sick. So Brannan Maven.
We're on vacation all week. We just got back, and
there's no daycare this week because this is quote unquote
(00:55):
winter break, which is the last week in November. I
don't know why. I so we have an alternate daycare
situation this week. There's none of this matters. I went
to go pick them up from a news place. Well,
I think it is relevant because I think they're a
little stressed out because things are different, vacation time zone
has changed. I go to pick them up, it's raining
(01:20):
really hard, and I was like, well, I better bring brains,
boots and umbrella. So I grabbed an umbrella and I
grabbed brians boots. That's fun to say, bring Britain's boots.
I go to the place, I realized I've forgotten brings
umbrella in the house. So I'm like, okay, I can
just carry Maven and Britain at close to me. I
go up into the house. He doesn't want to leave, uh,
(01:41):
And he's refusing and he's not saying anything. He's not budging,
and so the woman there who runs it basically bribes
him out the door by giving Maven Oreo cookies. Uh,
and he goes, you can share this with Brin and
then he's like, but she meant these are cookies for you,
and then he just freaks out, thinking he's not getting cookies,
(02:04):
and so she's like, oh, it's okay. Here is a
full pack of Oreo cookies for both of you. You know,
we're talking six Oreo cookies each. And I'm like, well,
what do you say, Brandon, and he goes nothing, I
don't want to say anything. And I was like, I'm
not going to push the politeness because he's finally got
his boots on. So we go downstairs. I parked down
(02:27):
the street. It's pouring rain and I say, Britain, let's go.
We gotta run, and I try to hold him close
to me, get the umbrella over him, and I'm carrying
Maven and none of this is protecting Britain. And he
is soaking wet and he starts whining and I feel bad,
but I have to make him run. So I'm like,
come on, come on, come on. He's trying to talk
to me. I can't hear him because it's too loud
(02:48):
the rain. Get him in the car. It's fine. We
get in with the whole time, Use saying I didn't
want to say goodbye because I love my friends, and
I was like, well, that's the weetest thing I've ever heard.
Dramatic though He's like, I love my friends, I didn't
want to say goodbye. I'm like, that's okay, but maybe tomorrow.
(03:09):
Why don't you tell her thank you for the oreos?
So we get we park. You know, we live in
a co op building and parked on the street. It's
pouring rain, and so I'm trying to give use my
tactic of giving Burnt a job. So I go, Brent,
now I'm going to need your help because you're a
big boy. So I want you to sit in the
(03:30):
front seat, and here's your backpack. And I'm gonna go.
When I say go, I'm gonna go out and I'm
gonna get Maven. When I opened the door, you need
to jump out. We need to go as fast as
we can. He goes run and I'm like, well, we're
gonna walk fast. And we talked about the speed of running,
and he's like, okay, I'm ready. And I jump out
and I go around and I get Maven. I dropped
(03:51):
the umbrella. The wind blows it into the busy street.
I dropped Maven into the grass. I run into the
busy street, almost get hit by a car, grab the umbrella,
which then gets blown inside out. I bring it back in.
I stepped fully in a giant puddle. May even screams.
I fixed the umbrella. I pick Maven up and I
(04:13):
have her in my arm, holding the umbrella in the
same arm. I opened the door and I go, all right, Bryan,
time to go. Zero movement on brand And I know
that when you push him he digs in his heels.
But it is storming and it is raining stuff like,
brend I really need you to go, I really need
you to go. Get out of the car and I'm
I'm he's not moving. He's looking at me scared because
(04:33):
he knows I'm gonna get upset, and I'm saying, I
don't want to get angry, brand I'm trying not to
be angry, but I really need you to move, buddy,
I need you to help me. And he won't move,
and then I go, you want your or your cookies?
No cookies, you don't get out of the car. I
rapid fire all of my tactics, but of course I'm
so aggressive and stressed that he's just paralyzed and not moving,
and I get so mad and I and then I finally,
(04:57):
after asking him twelve times ago, I'm gonna count to
three and then I'm gonna grab you one, two, and
then he jumped out of the car. I was like,
oh my god, that worked. Get out of the car.
We start going. I grabbed his hand. Halfway there, he
decides he doesn't want to walk anymore. He let's go
in my hand. He gets nailed by more rain, and
I go, we have to go, and I grab him
by the hand and I pull him and he starts crying.
(05:19):
And I know that it's bad, but I have to
keep moving. We get to the door, he starts harrumping
and screaming. I go inside. I have to grab him
by his jacket. I have to hold Carrie, Maven and
an umbrella in one arm. And then the only way
I can carry Bren is to grab him basically by
like his his collar, like the front of his jacket.
(05:40):
With one hand, I grab his jacket and squeeze, and
I picked him up like a bouncer threatening somebody against
the wall. Picked him not by his collar, not his collar,
but the front of his jacket, like like the middle
of his clothing. Yes, by like the middle of his
chest jacket, just a full handful of jacket. And are
(06:01):
both the most dramatic people I know. I knew of
you together to jumping together. I miss my friends. We
get up here crying, and then and then I'm like
I who doesn't understand He All he knows is that
I am angry and I'm just trying to leave him alone.
(06:21):
I throw him in the room. I don't throw him.
I put him in his room. He's sobbing, like so
pathetically and like vulnerable, and I feel terrible, But I
have to stay away from him because I want to
murder him, and I finally just calmed down and mayven.
Of course, when it is just happy as a clam.
She's just going, I've got oreos and shoving them into
(06:44):
her mouth. No one got orios. You took them away. Well,
I said, you have to eat dinner before you eat
six oreos and then Brandon's dinner. But I had to,
I had to put I threatened so many times. I said,
if you don't go, no cookies. So the whole time
they've been walking home, they've had not a single oreo. No,
(07:07):
they don't have an all night because I put my
foot down. Do you feel like you want no? I
feel like everybody lost, and I feel like I want
to break everything in here. You think you could have
just like let the metis before dinner and then been inside. No,
because while I was in the car, I already told
him TV and cookies were off the table. You just
(07:29):
are dealt a bad hand and you have to play
the cards you have. I played the cards and I
stuck with my choice. You're bluffing. I was not. That
is the thing. I never bluff. You bluff. I did
not bluff. I wish that I had bluffed and just said,
fine having cookies. You know what I'm gonna say about
this whole situation. You're gone. You don't know what I'm
(07:53):
gonna say. Okay, I already hate it, but go ahead.
It's mercury retrograde, right See. You didn't know. I didn't
know I hated that much. Um. And it felt like
it especially kicked up today because I on at nearly
the exact same time tonight. I was riding home on
the train and the UH train was stopped and I
(08:17):
was about to leave his station where like only a
stop or two away from home nor the Metro North train.
I'm sitting there with my hands and all of a sudden,
I hear like a thunk, and this someone had clearly
like hit the ground, and all these people are like
looking in one direction. I can't see because it's like
behind a seat. But this old guy like stands up
(08:39):
off the floor and then keeps walking towards the door,
and this guy like kind of grabs him to try
to hold him up and be like, are you trying
to get off here at this stop? Because he wants
to make sure that guy knows what he's doing, and
like it's not a health problem. Or something, and the
guy kind of like shook him off and kept walking,
and then the women next to me were like, he's drunk,
and it was like a really drunk guy. And then
(09:02):
I think it was my first instinct in that situation
because I've heard before that people with disabilities sometimes appear
as though they're drunk or if they're having a seizure
or something. You want to make sure you're not just
like scoffing at a person on the side of the road,
thinking it's like, I mean, you should care about drunk
people too, obviously, but you know, um, it's not like
so anyway, the um so, my instinct was to like
(09:24):
question them saying that. But then the way the man
like pushed off and like watched out of the train
really assuredly, I was like, oh, he's definitely drunk. Um
So anyway, and the woman we're talking about how he like,
I think he like brushed against one of them trying
to leave or something, or like slumped onto them, and
they thought he was like trying to grope them at first,
so they were like just really confused. Um. Anyway, then
(09:46):
he gets off the train and the train, uh, they say,
there's like a medical emergency, even though the guy had
like like one of the guys got out of the
train and watched him walk away, like he went to
the end of the platform. So it wasn't either they
misinterpreted what was happening and word got to a conductor
somewhere or there was simultaneously like two different events holding back.
(10:09):
This train was really weird um anyway, and then we
stopped and started. It was just like a classic train scenario.
That's what Brendan Maven were like two drunk idiots on
a train tonight. And that's when Marcy retrograde is. It's
things going haywired to reveal weaknesses in the system. Well,
(10:32):
the system was rock solid tonight. Everything I did was
the right choice. The rain just sped things up and
exacerbated the tensions. And in the end, I'll tell you
what Brnn is. Brin is gonna remember And because we
went over it, why I got mad? That's the thing
(10:53):
you never that's here's here's a here's the real lesson
from it. And this is the lesson on over and over,
which is the second you show aggression and to your children,
they become blind to why you're mad. All they especially
if they're this little, all they know is you're mad,
and they don't want that, and then they don't learn
anything from it. It's true, but there I'll admit there's
(11:15):
sometimes when I get aggressive, consciously knowing I don't want
to do it, but it's sort of the quickest way
out of a stand still like that where I actually
he's so stubborn at that point, and I know it's
just going to hold off for like an insane amount
of time, and like there are things that pressures at
play where it might need to move it along. And
if he burst into tears and breaks down, I know
(11:38):
we're closer to reconciliation than if like, well, there's just
sometimes there's just no time for it and he needs like, well,
you know what, I'm realizing my mom would blow up
and I quickly learned to not be scared of it
because I was used to it. But if my dad
ever exploded, it was terrifying because it was so rare,
(12:00):
and I think, I'm your dad, Your your dad. If
you scream at Britain, well, because I don't like doing it,
I'm like, you're forcing me to yell. Now, this is
not my natural state. There's like no part of me.
It's scary. It's the scariest thing I've ever seen. Because
we shouldn't have to get to that. People should listen.
(12:20):
I don't want to pay the picture that I blow
up all the time. I'm very in control. I think
our podcast listeners are very familiar with how you dominate
VOCALI I don't know what you eat. Anyway. That was
all of that was just tonight. The big thing that
happened was Thanksgiving. We we flew across the country. I
(12:42):
have to say, I think you're built up in the
last episode because a lot of people in your family
were like, thank you for making this trip out here,
when actually our flight there was very um pretty smooth.
Oh it was so great. I have virtually no complaints.
I just didn't really know what to expecting into this
kind of travel weekend because like I said, I hadn't
done it before. And they LaGuardia was like running smoothly
(13:06):
when we got there, and that was good. We did
travel on the too busiest travel days of the year
and but they were prepared for it. Yeah, and no delays. Well.
The big The big thing though, is Brennan Mayven were champs. Well, yeah,
it's I mean anything, anything they did to wine was
nothing compared to the last time we both traveled. Yeah,
it's much better than Brand's like hour long airplane screen
(13:30):
fest that I've experienced. And he The thing is they
can kind of keep themselves entertained now, so it's not
as bad. But then they're also just like rolling all
over the floor and like licking every airport. We just
we really let Britain in the gate on the airplane everywhere.
They're just like, let me press my mouth all over
(13:51):
this zeka Like yeah, and you just have to kind
of be like, zeke a hell hole. Don't put your
mouth on an ez hell. I will say the airport
is covered in ziggle holes. But the I think, so far,
(14:12):
so good. They're not sick, thank god. Well they were
already sick. They were sick. Weren't that sick, not that sick.
But they've been good for a week. They were getting
over something. They're fine. Um. Yeah, so this airplane travel
was pretty good. I was really really tired going into
the flight home, and just from being around people NonStop
and like having to watch our kids like a hawk
(14:32):
within like a not quite babyproofed environment. I was so
incredibly relieved because Maven slept for the entire flight home
and it was perfect, and Brin watched two hours of
Ben ten. This is the benefit, Listen, we don't let
them play with our phones hardly ever, like don't let
(14:53):
them touch it's starting to become a thing that brain
keeps getting ahold of people's phones. And it's like, yeah,
well yeah, but the fact we don't give them phones
meant that we're on the plane, I give him my
phone with his shows and headphones, and he locks in
and he he every second is looking at this thing. Yeah,
maybe when you need it. Maybe I was doing this
(15:14):
thing where she'd have like a movie playing on the
phone and then she just keep tapping the screen to
pull up the menu of like pausing it, and like
then she tapped the screen to remove that part. Like
she just clearly is like, look at me holding a phone. Yeah,
that's that age too. Were like Brian is over the
novelty of the touch screens in some ways, like he's
(15:37):
actually more interested in the content now. Ah. He loves Benten,
loves that Benton. Yeah, he loves to pretend to transform
into those of you never seen Benton Ben as a
boy with a wristwatch lets him transform into tend different aliens.
I just say it's getting increasingly for me like a
game of telephone to see what he's watching on TV.
(15:58):
Because and this is not a good parenting move at all,
But I never stay in the room when he's watching
TV because that's the only time I can be left alone.
So I'm always trying to get other stuff done. And
he is telling me about these shows by role playing
as the characters, and it's really hard to tell what
he's making up and what's from the show. And he
(16:20):
keeps transforming into different aliens. And he was like the
fire alien, cannon bolt, uh, stink something, stink fly, stink fly.
I guess it's like a stinky fly or something. I
don't understand how they're also aliens. I don't fully understand
the premise. I think there are creatures from other planets
(16:42):
that he transformed the body sharing. Maybe it's the quantum
leap situation. I literally haven't watched a single frame of
this show. It's I understand why kids like it. It's
a lot better than a lot of the stuff that
he likes. Yeah, anyway, he's very entertainment it I gotta
say tonight, it was worse than anything that happened in
(17:03):
the whole past week and included for me, I am
so angry. Ah well, yeah, I'm gonna leave my anger here,
thank you for enduring it, and I'm gonna in this
next sasion section bring my full recovered positivity. Also, I'm
(17:24):
drinking scotch. I want to say the the the your
relaxation level on vacations is much lower than mine. In general,
my relaxation levels are lower because you mean higher. I'm
more relaxed, You're more relaxed. You Sorry, I phrased that badly. Yes,
(17:49):
I think early on, early on vacations, that was a
big you would get much more stressed because I'd be
even more relaxed, and there'll be more danger years to
watch because our kids were younger, and you would be
more stressed. And I think we've both adjusted. One. I
take much more responsibility and to you also, I think
(18:09):
it seems to me are like taking things in stride. Well,
here's the thing. I have to constantly remind myself to
leave because if I unless unless I go lay down
to take a nap, or I go for a run
or do something that I'm wearing physically away from everyone,
and like you and the kids, there's no way I
(18:30):
can get a second to relax on the whole trip,
because as soon as I enter a room where you
and other people are watching the kids, let's just say
me and other mcnerneys, who are also all speaking at
full volume at the same time. Yeah, you're well, you're yeah,
you're loud, and that's fine. But then with our kids,
like you, if you have another person in the room,
(18:51):
you're like, oh, I'm on stage right now, and you're
going to performer mode, and you're like, I have to
participate in this. I gotta be a part of it.
And so you're not watching your kids. And so even
when I'm like, hey, can you keep an eye on
the kids, it's like I'll start to walk away and
you're like yeah, and you just like your eyes are
glued to something else or someone else, and I can
(19:12):
tell you're like literally not watching our kids, like wander
towards a hot stove. I really can't pay attention to
more than one thing at a time. Well, most humans
in general, that's true. Yeah, You're you're shifting between you
don't attempt to focus on the important thing, which is
just like at least every over generalized because I make
a real effort and I do a great job. Mostly
(19:35):
make a hundred percent effort if I leave the room,
and you know, is your actual responsibility, and even then
you don't always well even when you're gone. I'm like,
they're fine. I'm mostly paying attention because I'm wondering if
Beth is watching me. Pay attention not mostly a little
bit of me. Mostly I'm paid. I'm worried about the
safety of my children. Boy, it helps that they are
(19:57):
old enough to not murder themselves. Every sing camp sort of.
I think we did great. I hear you, I love you, goodbye.
Now it's time for you know what they said? Ah,
(20:20):
this is where we normally we play a game of guests.
What was a real quote from our kids? But there
were so many great quotes from this weekend, and I
think we already know what they are, so I want
We're just just gonna pick our favorite thing that was
said by our children this past week on vacation. Um,
and unpack it. You're gonna go first so that I
(20:41):
can cough aggressively off Mike. Ready, Oh that cold go ahead? Okay, Um?
The thing that may have been said that was literally
the funniest joke of the whole week is is she
was sitting behind you, is looking at your bald head,
(21:06):
and she said, look at daddy's head, it looks like
a butt. And then she laughed herself and it was
so funny. I repeated it to the room and then
everyone started laughing, and then she got very embarrassed and
started start crying. A few people heard it at first
(21:26):
she was playing to the room. Yeah, it was loud.
Look at daddy's head, it looks like a But that's
something that I think is much different about her as
a two and a half year old is she's like
her humor is showing in especially in this environment there's
other people around. She's not like just quiet. Yeah, oh boy,
(21:50):
it was a great We didn't talk about this at all,
but it was a great trip. They spent the week
with their cousins who lived in Chicago, who are one
and three and eight nine. Uh and Mayven just like
building relationship. I said this for I feel like both
Brand and Mayven there social skills at vocabulary. It seems
(22:15):
to like jump by leaps and bounds. When they spend
the week with their cousins, are with a bunch of adults,
like on vacations. It's either that or that's the week
in which we have time to catch up on their
development and we notice it. Yeah, it's hard to say
which of the two it is, because, yeah, you're spending
a lot of time with them and they're just saying
(22:35):
a lot of funny things, and like because they're in
a new environment, they're just picking up on so much
more and like noticing things and commenting on them, and
that you also have to constantly distract them. So it
just means like taking time to do something that I
probably should do more often, which is just pointing things
out to them and being like that's a clock or
like you know, like explaining how things work. Well, don't worry,
(22:57):
that's all I do with them all day long. I
know that's I don't feel pressured to do it on
a regular basis because I know you've got it fairly covered.
But when we're in those environments, I'm like, oh, I
need to like focus their energy so they're not like
climbing the walls. Yeah, um, are you ready for mine?
Mine is a full exchange. So brit was we went
(23:20):
to a party at my brother's house for all of
our family and his my sister in law's family. And uh,
he has a niece on that side who's eleven, so
she's the oldest of all all the cousins on both sides.
So there's like a ton of cousins running around. And
(23:42):
she was in a room with brand excuse me, gross,
she's in her room with Brin and they're talking. I
walk in and she's and uh, Britain is going, um,
Brandon is just my short name. My long name is
Bryn William McNerney, but I like to go by my
(24:03):
short name, which is Brand, b r y At and Bryn.
And she's like, wow, you're pretty funny. Huh you know
a lot of words. And I go, oh, yeah, this
guy talks all the time. And then goes, h yeah,
I talk um all over the world. We go really
goes yeah, I get twenty dollars a word. We're like,
(24:25):
oh yeah, and he goes, yeah, twenty is too much.
He's so funny. And I still don't really know how
much he knew it. He was saying, but you like
it all sounded correct, you know, like it sounded It's
a very weird specific because people do get paid by
(24:46):
the word for certain things. It's it's very bizarre. Yeah,
I don't know. I think you said I can pay
twenty for one word. Word. He really I call it
uncle Brynn. He goes into that mode where he just
sort of sounds like your uncle who has the scotch
in his hand and he's had like three or four. Yeah,
(25:08):
and he loves to repeat a fart joke to the
room really loud. Yeah, I did, I talk all over
the world. I get twenty dollars to works as too much.
Tell you that right now. My long name is Bryn
William McNerney. Oh can I quickly mentioned another thing that
happened to that party, which was really really great because
there's a lot of kids, a lot of like running around.
It's like really nice to see them all together. So
(25:30):
you're our nephew who is ten. He planned an escape
room in the basement, which I don't think he participated
in this, but he had he had been wanting to
do one the other day before, so then clearly he
had time to sit down and really think about this
and make one in the basement. I think his cousin
helped and like it was very elaborate and impressive and
(25:53):
like logical, but then it also was clearly made by
like ten and eleven year olds who were like struggling
to sort of figure out how this was supposed to work,
and they like, we're leaving clues, and they'd like referenced
things you could tell they kind of had adult help,
but not like fully. And they had things where you
would find pieces of paper and piece them together that
was supposed to sort of spell out a phrase that
(26:13):
was your clue, but it didn't. The clues didn't actually
make sense, like it's hard to say, because they had
one that they would be like Maryanne was here, and
it would be like a reference to the original owner
of the house, but then it was just like something
in the room that you, as someone who didn't live there,
(26:34):
didn't know about, so like you wouldn't there's no way
you would get it. And then they would have clues
that were like three eyes are here, and then you're like, oh,
that's actually a great clue. There's happened to be three
bulls eyes sprap pin it on the wall. And then
they're like no, no, no, that that's not that it
references something else, and they would like have to constantly
(26:54):
kind of explain it to us, but it didn't like
fully add up, and then they like your you aren't
he want to saying your because he was your nephew
before he was ours, I believe, but he um our
nephew was uh like really anxious about the Escape Room networking.
So if we would ponder a clue for more than
(27:15):
like five seconds, he would always go, um, it's over.
It's only in this general area, and he'd start getting
us more clues because he didn't want this game to
go badly and he's such a sweet, like nerdy kid.
It was really released here. I feel real bad. I
was like brushing him off. I was like, listen, I'm
alternate number one, but I gotta watch these kids. I
(27:35):
was really glad I got to do it because it
was actually just really funny to do. Like it was
like I just happened to wander down there when they
were starting, and I was like holding Maybn the whole time,
and then may even so they made us do it
in the dark, so it's like a dark basement, and
so everyone had their cell phone lights on, so I
turned mine on and then my may Haven wanted to
(27:57):
hold the phone. So then it was just really adorable
because is like two year old Maven is wandering around
in a dark facement, like pointing up phone light at things,
like acting like she's solving the clues, and it was
just like very funny to see all these kids like
running around better. Nothing was like take this seriously, boy,
(28:19):
I would try. I would have those ideas as a
kid all the time, but I would there would be
no follow through. Yeah, let's do it. I found in
my parents house. I have all these books that I
made um in elementary school, and I designed the cover
to be a big drawing the title, and then I
have the first page and a drawing, and then the
second page would just be a drawing, and then the
(28:40):
third page would be the beginning of a drawing, and
then it would be ten blank pages. And that was
every book I ever created, which is why I now
I am an improviser. Yeah. This next segment is called
we Knows what They're Watching, and we talked about some
media that our children are consuming. So this weekend we
(29:04):
were with your parents. Your mom very kindly got us
tickets to a local community theater production of Shrek. It's
not a community theater. It's regional theater. I don't know
the difference regionals real theater, and how is it more real?
There's a budget and there's like professional actors. Community theater
(29:26):
theater has no budget. It's not budget this professional actors.
There's equity actors. The first community theater is like, hey,
I'm going to sign up and being a play down
at the town hall. I mean it sounds like a
designation you heard from a very insecure acting professor. There
is a major difference regional theater and community theater. If
(29:50):
I learned nothing else from my four years as a
theater major, it's the difference. Whatever you need to feel
important at the end of the day, Yeah, this is
about me. Regional theater. We're gonna get so many emails
about UM. Regional theater just means not Broadway. Okay, okay,
(30:11):
So it's a very nice theater. You guys wouldn't believe
the production value. I said, it was a very nice theater.
UM and our kids loved it. It It was a little
confusing for our kids at first because they just didn't
understand what yeah sharked the music. Our kids didn't understand
(30:32):
what it meant to go see a show, and your
your mom made the mistake of showing for in a
YouTube video like a trailer for the show before the show,
when he was already excited to go, and then the
trailer had the trailer had like a dragon in it,
which I think just for some reason, his four year
old brain was just like, Nope, I don't like that.
(30:54):
I don't like Well, what I think it was is
like the video does not make it clear that there's
an audience, and like he didn't understand that aspect of it.
So he's like, you're gonna hang out with his monster.
He's like, I do not want to do that. Anyway.
Something set him off and he like because but he
clearly just the whole time didn't understand what was going
to happen. So it wasn't until after we saw it
(31:15):
that he was like, I liked that. I had to
wait with him in the parking lot and it took
fifteen minutes of him screaming and me slowly walking towards
the point we're just going to check out the lobby.
He had to be bribed, and you're very smart brother
secretly handed him a small cup of ice cream to
get him into the car. So that we could just
(31:35):
get out of there and get to the show, and
we bribed him all the way there. Yeah. Um, anyway,
and he goes, I like that play. Do you think
it was funny? He no, Well, and whenever there's anything scary,
that's all they want to talk about. So they're both like,
that was scary. I was scared of the dragon, and
(31:55):
so when I asked me about the place, she was like,
I was scared. But then later she was like, I
want to see the scary so she made me play
her videos of the play on the phone. Afterwards, I
was like, you clearly like this. Um, you want to
hear my quick review of the play? Um? No, are
(32:19):
you afraid I'm gonna hurt my mom's feelings? Yes, okay,
I think my kids loved it, and I was glad
I went because they loved it. But it was unbearable.
I love you, mom, Thank you for buying his tickets.
(32:40):
I can't. I can't end this segment yet because I
know a bunch of listeners have seen Trek the Musical
and you loved it, and that's totally valid. There's no
such thing. There's no objective definition for good art. It's
totally subjective. If you loved it, I mean it was
great for you. I just hate in it anyway. Thanks
(33:05):
for joining me here in Peter's Corner where I review
regional theater productions. Guys, don't email us about theater. Do
not email us about trek the music we don't know. Well,
I don't know anything about regional theater clearly, so just yeah,
and I do. The actors did a great job. We
(33:29):
know exactly what we're talking about. I just I was
happy that my kids were having fun. Can we just
say it's a very fart heavy musical and that was
the best part. Our kids were a huge fan of that.
The fart song really got them. Duh. And this has
been whatever this segment was called. Okay, This next segment
(33:55):
is called Listeners Want to Knows. It's where we take
questions and comments from our listen nurse. Um, so we have.
We had a little bit of an inflammatory discussion on
the last episode. You know, really, I will I just
wanted to service sing when we were discussing this segment
in particular, which was about hyphenated last names. We were
(34:17):
just having fun and don't really have that strong of
an opinion about what you choose your kid's names to be.
I really feel like this is the first that well,
you know, we obviously hurt some people's feelings, and yeah,
people us and we sort of went again against our
unofficial motto. We have a philosophy that we may not
(34:39):
have articulated, which is that, like if anything else, we
don't advocate a right way to do anything. No. If
if you ask my actual take on hyphenated last names,
it's that people should do whatever they want to do.
It's their kid, in their decision. What I was responding
to in the last episode was that particular their listeners question.
(35:02):
So I was trying to give advice to that person
what I thought would work best for them. But I
don't really overall care what anyone names their kids. Well,
I was definitely the more dismissive one, as I think
I I accused hyphenated last name as parents of deferring
the decision. Yeah, okay, so you read you're going to
(35:22):
read some of the comments we got based off of
the last episode. Well, yeah, so there's different viewpoints on
this and these they're all great, But I just want
to say, for those people that have decided to hyphenate
last names. That was the right choice for your family.
We made a different choice here that was a right
choice for our family. UM, And sometimes I don't think
(35:48):
through an opinion before it comes out of my mouth. Alright,
ready for this, I'm gonna go through these, um real quick.
So this comes to us from Julie, Hie, your and Beth.
Just listen to your you're all getting mugs for Christmas
episode and wanted to respond to the email at the end,
I myself took my husband's last name because it was
shorter than mine and it was important to him. I
(36:10):
do know a pretty neat solution that is for sure
not for everyone, but a solution. Nonetheless, my cousin and
her husband merged their last names together and created a
new one that only consists of three letters. I thought
i'd share this neat solution too long hyphenated last names. UM.
That is like that to me feels like the most
(36:34):
hippie progressive sort of like just let's let's create something new.
I don't hate that decision, but it's also just not
for me, like it's it seems confusing to explain, do
you know what any like? I just don't want to
have to like my entire goal with this, and obviously
it's not other people's goals and it doesn't have to be.
Is just efficiency, Like I just I don't want to
(36:55):
be I don't want to have I mean that thing
I'm dealing with about my last name on a regular basis.
And that is the argument for let's all, let's all
take the husband's last name. Well, no, that's not the argument.
The argument originally was that men owned their wives. But okay,
but I mean everyone keeping the same but they're all complicated.
(37:18):
In my mind, it's like, none of them are so
complicated you can't deal with it, So do do it's
in your heart? Well And also, I think part of
my fear of high A last names was that the
kid might just struggle with like spelling and getting that
whole thing out. And then like if I had known
I was having Brit, I would realize that he loves
saying his three names out loud NonStop, and it's like
(37:40):
not going to be appreci him four more names. Yeah,
so whatever, here's another one. Um. I love this though.
Thanks for putting on such an encouraging it on its podcast.
I know it's not easy, but I'm glad you do
it still don't normally I don't normally have time to email.
We're traveling on Thanksgiving holiday. Kids just fell asleep, husband
(38:01):
has taken a turn at the wheel, and you're writing
an email and not throwing up. I can't type in
the car. She didn't write that. I just said that. Uh,
this is Lindsay continuing on. I just finished listening to
the episode where you're talking about last names. I thought
you'd find it interesting to know how Latin Americans handle
last names. We lived there for a few years. At first,
(38:23):
I was very confused because they had spaces for two
last names on forms and documents, and kids had different
last names than both their parents when you were born.
When you are born, you get your dad's last name
and your mom's first name. No hyphens, just two last names.
When a couple gets married, there are no there's no
(38:44):
name change. It makes it very easy to trace your
ancestry when filling out forms and countries that only have
one last name, you just use your first last name.
You may already know this, but it was mind blowing
for me the first time and made me wish the
system was built into our cold her as well. Thanks
for such a great podcast, lindsay, I have heard that,
(39:04):
but I heard something like that, and I feel like
it's very slightly between different South American countries. But it's
like a similar thing to that. Yeah, yeah, my, I
mean again, it's a it's a little bit of the
hyphenated last name philosophy. Yeah. Well, that's why my original
(39:25):
personal philosophy is just like, to hell with the whole thing.
You can have your dad's last name, because the whole
thing at some point breaks down. If you're trying to
create like any sort of clear information, you can't. You
can't obviously can just can't keep name adding names generation
unless you're like a Windsor, and then you can just
(39:48):
keep going. I guess, and I little care I was
born in Windsor. Did you know that? I didn't know that.
That's I wish I hadn't brought it up because of that.
You should know because you're my wife. Um Buckingham Palace
in the background from my window at Princess Margaret's Hospital
asked me about it. Um. Anyway, here's another one, Uh,
(40:12):
Peter meth I just want to say your show gets
better and better every week, and I continue to count
myself among your biggest fans. Onto my point, uhs about surnames,
I'm skipping ahead a little. I agree with the stance
that the kids could just take the mother's surname. The
(40:33):
listener who wrote the email indicated that her husband was
against that. Another option, What about this? What if they
made the child's first name the mother's surname, and the
child's surname the same as the father's. For example, if
her surname is ah Okay and his is Bernard Hopkins,
(40:53):
the kid's name would be Okay Bernard Hopkins. You actually
saw the surname, You actually saw the names, and you
would know if that would be an awful cruel name.
But it could work in theory, right uh. Also regarding
the discussion about what a pain it is to have
a hid hypnad last name, I recently watched a YouTube
(41:14):
video about a woman who moved to Mexico from Ukraine.
She has had the hardest time with paperwork because the
Mexican bureaucratic paperwork system is built the norm is that
at least to have at least two surnames. Administrators couldn't
figure out what to do with her since she only
had one. Maybe having a hyphenaid last name will become
(41:35):
less and less of a big deal as the world
becomes more globalized, or at least with the increasing Latin
population in the US. Thank you. This is Katie from Georgia.
It's interesting actually hearing all these perspectives. Um there, we
were talking to our sister in law this weekend, who
is Bosnian and her dad is from I'm going to
(41:57):
get this wrong, Serbia, whereas he he immigrated there right
from our new reck kind of you don't know the answer,
Well there was anyway, So he she was warning Yugoslavia.
So he's not from the area, and so they can't
listen to this episode? Now why not because I have
to admit that I don't remember that where her dad's from.
(42:20):
It's okay, she'll understand. Her mom's from Montenegro. Okay, maybe
that's what I'm thinking of. But but her dad's also
not from Bosnia. Well there was no Bosnia. Okay, Well
he's not from that area of the world. He's from
slightly anyway. Let me talk so the um So, anyway,
(42:44):
he moved to a different area, or his father did,
and it was less Muslim and in order to be
nationalized in the country of Bosnia. I believe he dropped
the we're gonna have to apologize to race, so we're
totally butchering this story. But anyway, he had to drop
(43:04):
the sort of Muslim indicators in his name, which was Hashimi, right, yeah,
but Ashimovic. So they dropped the age and they changed
it in order to be more nationalized and so but
he this is recently enough in history that his living
relatives have a different last name than him that live
(43:25):
in different countries. That's right, Well, it's like the mcnerney's um.
But I think it's just an interesting thing of like,
I mean, you can try as hard as you want
to cling to these names or whatever, but like we
just kind of don't have as much control over these
things as we think we do. Yeah, boy, yeah, we're
gonna have to call my sister in law. Sorry. Um, yeah,
(43:52):
I think that. My mom always told us, like, so
two out of four there's four boys in our family,
and my oldest brother and my youngest brother have my
mom's maiden name as their middle name, and weirdly the
other two of us don't. And and what she is,
but the recently said like she wished that she had
given us her her last name as our middle names.
(44:15):
But that's like what I kind of love about the
whole thing is like, like I'm saying, I think none
of this really means anything, like it all works itself out,
and I can't imagine your brother's by any other name.
But the way that your mom named you is admittedly
she has said just very scattershot decisions across the board.
It was always like her in a hospital bed being
(44:36):
like hmmm Sam, or like, well, yeah, my brothers Sam.
He's going to be Matthew. And then the woman next
to her had named her baby Matthew in the delivery
room and she goes, well, we can't use that now, yeah,
which is just like such a funny thing, but like
it sounds to her like the way she tells all
of your naming stories. It was just sort of like,
(44:58):
I don't know, your dad wanted to and then I
didn't like that, and then we just kind of settled
on this, and it's just like no, like I mean,
it doesn't matter. I mean, unless you name your child
like shit hole, they're going to be fine. It really
doesn't matter. But you all of our hang ups about
this name stuff is just not a good predictor of
(45:19):
what's going to matter in the future, because when we
were naming kids, I remember you saying, like you've always
said you hate your name Peter because you had an
embarrassing nickname off of it. But that nickname is so unpredictable.
Oh yeah, and that happened. But that was like two
days of my life. Can we say, what the name
Petrie the portable potty? Petrie the portable potty, which is
(45:40):
not something a kid would naturally think of with the
name Peter. Clearly you just everyone thinks that everyone has
their name has been made fun of in some way
or another. Um, all right, I'm going to read an
email now. This is the last one. UM, this one
made me feel bad. Um. Hi, Beth and Peter. I've
(46:04):
been listening since episode one aired, and I've got a
lot of joy from your work. Thanks for sharing so
much of your family life with us. I just gave
birth to my second child three weeks ago and it's
been tough for a lot of reasons. Then, as I'm
listening to your most recent episode, you both start condemning
hyphenated last names with a fervor that surprised and disappointed me.
(46:26):
My husband and I gave our kids both of our
last names. I didn't want the last name linked to
either family to be severed at this point. If when
our kids have kids at their own, they will probably
have to drop one or both of our names, this
is fine with us, and we plan to let our
kids know that. My feeling is that there's no ideal
solution to the last name question, in uh erasure will
(46:47):
inevitably happen. Both my husband and I wanted to pass
on our names, so hyphenated her name seemed like the
best choice for our family. Also, as an elementary school teacher,
has never been a problem having a child hyphenated surname.
You literally have to say, write an extra name. Moreover,
it helps me recognize both parents via their last name.
Your show generally does a great job of empowering families
(47:08):
to make choices that work for them. We last names
are clearly not your preference. I don't think our kids
will be hurt by their this choice. I don't think
we're weird for making this decision, like you were doing
the best we can to honor each of our expectations
for our children and our family. Thanks for taxing time
to read this, Uh, Eliana, I'm so sad that we
(47:29):
triggered someone with a two week gold. I've already written
her back because that was very thoughtful. Yeah, And I
was like, as soon as the episode was over last time,
I was like, boy, what if I was somebody that
gave my kid a hypen the last name? Yeah, I
probably wouldn't have liked that. I mean at the time,
I felt like we're taking a hardline stance kind of
(47:51):
ingest Like I didn't really feel as strongly about it
as we portrayed. But um, I hope she listens to
this episode, but it is. It was a great reminder
that in general, you know that again, we we really
believe that there's no right way and we certainly don't
(48:11):
know and we're trying to we're trying to have to
take a hard stance and that thing we've had, no
we have we haven't actually had to experience. Yeah, I mean,
in general, I can't say enough. We really feel at
the end of the day that everyone's going to make
their own decisions based on their own uh experiences, environment anxieties.
(48:35):
You do what you gotta do, it does it doesn't matter.
And I'll tell you what if you had been like,
I want our kids to have my last name, which
didn't happen. We never had the conversation. I don't know
what I would have done. Maybe I would have been like, well,
let's hyphenate them for you know, in a selfish way.
(48:55):
Maybe I would have. Yeah, it's really it's just a
personal preference on my part that like I've really just
pictured myself having a conversation like ten thou times for
the rest of my life where I explained to people
the high findal last name and like like why and
I was just like, I don't I want to do that.
(49:17):
But it's but you know, I don't really care what
other people do. It's it's line. Well, anyway, thank you
everyone who wrote in. Uh, that was all very very
interesting and humbling and a good reminder and not be
such a jerk about things. So thank you all. Yeah.
I I appreciated all these thoughtful responses, and there were more,
(49:40):
and I'm sorry I can't get to all of them. Um,
I want to read just one more thing before we're done,
and this is completely unrelated, UM, but I want to
read this and then give everyone a homework assignment. Hey,
this is from Sophie, did you knows your voices don't
match your face? I just started listening to your podcast
(50:00):
We Knows Parenting. I assumed it was that one during
my morning job. I'm around uh episode twelve, and until
today have never seen your faces. I had a cheeky
peek at your insta and then to eyeball emojis. Uh.
So similarly to when you read a book. Similar to
when you read a book when you can only imagine
(50:22):
what the characters look like in your head, That's what
I've done with hearing your voices. And my conclusion is
that I've spent the last few weeks thinking Rob Delaney
and christ and wigg have been talking. And I'm sure
you get it a lot, or maybe it's just me
being an ignorant stereotyping English twit. But Peter in particular
sounds exactly like Rob Delaney, and now I can't imagine
(50:44):
anything else when I listen, I don't hear that. But well,
of course you were not going to agree. Other people
might Uh nobody. You never said to somebody, hey, this
I met this guy looks just like you and you
show him the picture. No one has ever been like, yeah,
that looks like me. Don't you think though that now
that she brings it up that Rob Delaney and Kristin
Wake should do a movie together or something like about us. No,
(51:07):
I'm talking about them. She mentions that we sound like them,
as like she's picturing that pair in her head, who,
to my knowledge, never worked together. And I think if
they want to do a movie movie together, I will
write it. I'm down, I'll figure it out. Part of
why I think he doesn't sound like you is like
(51:28):
he's from Massachusetts, You're have this Midwestern thing going on. Well,
Sophie is English, so she thinks all of us. Okay,
I mean Rob Dlane and I don't sound hugely dissimilar,
but you're from Boston and so yeah, I guess maybe
(51:49):
I'm going to finish this lovely email. Sorry, your faces
are lies. I mean no offense by this, by the way,
I just thought you'd like to know or not, sorry
if so. Any who, I love the podcast Guys Flexing
arm emoji. I have a one and a half year
(52:10):
old son who can uh so can respectfully relate to
at least some of your daily family drama. All the best, Sophie.
Sophie from Shropshire. Um, so here's my homework assignment. If
you also have not this is very self indulgent. But
(52:33):
if you also have not taken the time to look
up what are beautiful things until now? Because we're having
our new photos come out, which are really going to
show you, guys, how beautiful we are, how great we look.
We did just take new pictures, so we're gonna have
new artwork. Um, but until that's released, don't look up.
(52:53):
Don't look us up. You ask the listeners for the
most gratuitous information, like you didn't even you haven't heard
what I've been asking yet. You're going to ask them
if they look, if they if we look like they
expected us. No, I'm not, That's not what I'm I'm
gonna say. I want you to uh examine how you
(53:13):
have pictured us in your heads, like Sophie did, and
I want you to write in and tell us who
you have cast subconsciously like the same thing. And that's
still very gratuitous thing to request it, Sure is, Sure is.
And you know why I'm asking because I want to know.
I love Rob Delaney and I'm very happy with the
(53:35):
casting of him as me. So right in, who have
you been picturing and disappointed were you? Aren't you happy
with your choice? I mean, yeah, I guess that makes
sense as the name choice for me, although again I
feel like she's from a slightly different part of the
country than me. But yeah, I mean, if someone had
(53:57):
been like Peter you I pictured Paul Gma, I might
I might be like I don't want to be Paul
Ganti for you know, selfish reasons. I mean, I love
Paul mat I'd like to apologize to Paul Gimi for
that called for dig anyway, A thousand apologies to anyone
(54:18):
who was offended by our discussion last week about I
haven't needed last names. We really support your choices and
we love you guys for listening. Oh my god, literally
this second I got another email about baby last name,
and all I saw and the first sentence was my husband.
I had a very long argument. We have time to
(54:41):
read those No, we don't have time, guys. I'm gonna
read it. Maybe we'll talk about it next week. We
feel a lot of time when I fined last Yeah,
I hope we're all satisfied now. Yeah, Well, it clearly
it brings up a lot of feelings in people. Um,
oh boy, this is I started this podcast so upset,
and now I feel great because I love you, Beth,
(55:02):
my wife, and all of our listeners who are telling
us we're great or telling us that we've made them sad.
We appreciate all of us. So thank you. This has
been We knows Parenting. Please hit up up, please please
(55:23):
hit up. Hit us up on a website we knows
Parenting dot com. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram at we
knows Pod. You can send us an email at we
knows pot at gmail dot com. Send us some advice,
a question, a story. Please will you write us a
review and leave us a rating? Boy? It helps one subscribe,
(55:48):
um if you would. And uh check out our instagrams
and all that new artwork coming soon. Uh? Do you
guys also know that we're now owned by Heart Radio.
Did you know that, Beth I did? Yeah, it's pretty exciting.
Awkward ending by h
Hello, and welcome to we know his parenting. I'm Peter
McNerney and Lowell. We are married, we've got kids. Therefore,
Brin and two and a half Mayven and boy did
I just have a crappy night with my kids? Can
I vent? Is this a safe space? Tell us what happened?
(00:33):
I'm just so full of what I could only describe
as rage um and it's incredible. I'm sick. You can
hear it in my voice. Not terrible, just an annoying, heavy,
don't want to do anything kind of sick. So Brannan Maven.
We're on vacation all week. We just got back, and
there's no daycare this week because this is quote unquote
(00:55):
winter break, which is the last week in November. I
don't know why. I so we have an alternate daycare
situation this week. There's none of this matters. I went
to go pick them up from a news place. Well,
I think it is relevant because I think they're a
little stressed out because things are different, vacation time zone
has changed. I go to pick them up, it's raining
(01:20):
really hard, and I was like, well, I better bring brains,
boots and umbrella. So I grabbed an umbrella and I
grabbed brians boots. That's fun to say, bring Britain's boots.
I go to the place, I realized I've forgotten brings
umbrella in the house. So I'm like, okay, I can
just carry Maven and Britain at close to me. I
go up into the house. He doesn't want to leave, uh,
(01:41):
And he's refusing and he's not saying anything. He's not budging,
and so the woman there who runs it basically bribes
him out the door by giving Maven Oreo cookies. Uh,
and he goes, you can share this with Brin and
then he's like, but she meant these are cookies for you,
and then he just freaks out, thinking he's not getting cookies,
(02:04):
and so she's like, oh, it's okay. Here is a
full pack of Oreo cookies for both of you. You know,
we're talking six Oreo cookies each. And I'm like, well,
what do you say, Brandon, and he goes nothing, I
don't want to say anything. And I was like, I'm
not going to push the politeness because he's finally got
his boots on. So we go downstairs. I parked down
(02:27):
the street. It's pouring rain and I say, Britain, let's go.
We gotta run, and I try to hold him close
to me, get the umbrella over him, and I'm carrying
Maven and none of this is protecting Britain. And he
is soaking wet and he starts whining and I feel bad,
but I have to make him run. So I'm like,
come on, come on, come on. He's trying to talk
to me. I can't hear him because it's too loud
(02:48):
the rain. Get him in the car. It's fine. We
get in with the whole time, Use saying I didn't
want to say goodbye because I love my friends, and
I was like, well, that's the weetest thing I've ever heard.
Dramatic though He's like, I love my friends, I didn't
want to say goodbye. I'm like, that's okay, but maybe tomorrow.
(03:09):
Why don't you tell her thank you for the oreos?
So we get we park. You know, we live in
a co op building and parked on the street. It's
pouring rain, and so I'm trying to give use my
tactic of giving Burnt a job. So I go, Brent,
now I'm going to need your help because you're a
big boy. So I want you to sit in the
(03:30):
front seat, and here's your backpack. And I'm gonna go.
When I say go, I'm gonna go out and I'm
gonna get Maven. When I opened the door, you need
to jump out. We need to go as fast as
we can. He goes run and I'm like, well, we're
gonna walk fast. And we talked about the speed of running,
and he's like, okay, I'm ready. And I jump out
and I go around and I get Maven. I dropped
(03:51):
the umbrella. The wind blows it into the busy street.
I dropped Maven into the grass. I run into the
busy street, almost get hit by a car, grab the umbrella,
which then gets blown inside out. I bring it back in.
I stepped fully in a giant puddle. May even screams.
I fixed the umbrella. I pick Maven up and I
(04:13):
have her in my arm, holding the umbrella in the
same arm. I opened the door and I go, all right, Bryan,
time to go. Zero movement on brand And I know
that when you push him he digs in his heels.
But it is storming and it is raining stuff like,
brend I really need you to go, I really need
you to go. Get out of the car and I'm
I'm he's not moving. He's looking at me scared because
(04:33):
he knows I'm gonna get upset, and I'm saying, I
don't want to get angry, brand I'm trying not to
be angry, but I really need you to move, buddy,
I need you to help me. And he won't move,
and then I go, you want your or your cookies?
No cookies, you don't get out of the car. I
rapid fire all of my tactics, but of course I'm
so aggressive and stressed that he's just paralyzed and not moving,
and I get so mad and I and then I finally,
(04:57):
after asking him twelve times ago, I'm gonna count to
three and then I'm gonna grab you one, two, and
then he jumped out of the car. I was like,
oh my god, that worked. Get out of the car.
We start going. I grabbed his hand. Halfway there, he
decides he doesn't want to walk anymore. He let's go
in my hand. He gets nailed by more rain, and
I go, we have to go, and I grab him
by the hand and I pull him and he starts crying.
(05:19):
And I know that it's bad, but I have to
keep moving. We get to the door, he starts harrumping
and screaming. I go inside. I have to grab him
by his jacket. I have to hold Carrie, Maven and
an umbrella in one arm. And then the only way
I can carry Bren is to grab him basically by
like his his collar, like the front of his jacket.
(05:40):
With one hand, I grab his jacket and squeeze, and
I picked him up like a bouncer threatening somebody against
the wall. Picked him not by his collar, not his collar,
but the front of his jacket, like like the middle
of his clothing. Yes, by like the middle of his
chest jacket, just a full handful of jacket. And are
(06:01):
both the most dramatic people I know. I knew of
you together to jumping together. I miss my friends. We
get up here crying, and then and then I'm like
I who doesn't understand He All he knows is that
I am angry and I'm just trying to leave him alone.
(06:21):
I throw him in the room. I don't throw him.
I put him in his room. He's sobbing, like so
pathetically and like vulnerable, and I feel terrible, But I
have to stay away from him because I want to
murder him, and I finally just calmed down and mayven.
Of course, when it is just happy as a clam.
She's just going, I've got oreos and shoving them into
(06:44):
her mouth. No one got orios. You took them away. Well,
I said, you have to eat dinner before you eat
six oreos and then Brandon's dinner. But I had to,
I had to put I threatened so many times. I said,
if you don't go, no cookies. So the whole time
they've been walking home, they've had not a single oreo. No,
(07:07):
they don't have an all night because I put my
foot down. Do you feel like you want no? I
feel like everybody lost, and I feel like I want
to break everything in here. You think you could have
just like let the metis before dinner and then been inside. No,
because while I was in the car, I already told
him TV and cookies were off the table. You just
(07:29):
are dealt a bad hand and you have to play
the cards you have. I played the cards and I
stuck with my choice. You're bluffing. I was not. That
is the thing. I never bluff. You bluff. I did
not bluff. I wish that I had bluffed and just said,
fine having cookies. You know what I'm gonna say about
this whole situation. You're gone. You don't know what I'm
(07:53):
gonna say. Okay, I already hate it, but go ahead.
It's mercury retrograde, right See. You didn't know. I didn't
know I hated that much. Um. And it felt like
it especially kicked up today because I on at nearly
the exact same time tonight. I was riding home on
the train and the UH train was stopped and I
(08:17):
was about to leave his station where like only a
stop or two away from home nor the Metro North train.
I'm sitting there with my hands and all of a sudden,
I hear like a thunk, and this someone had clearly
like hit the ground, and all these people are like
looking in one direction. I can't see because it's like
behind a seat. But this old guy like stands up
(08:39):
off the floor and then keeps walking towards the door,
and this guy like kind of grabs him to try
to hold him up and be like, are you trying
to get off here at this stop? Because he wants
to make sure that guy knows what he's doing, and
like it's not a health problem. Or something, and the
guy kind of like shook him off and kept walking,
and then the women next to me were like, he's drunk,
and it was like a really drunk guy. And then
(09:02):
I think it was my first instinct in that situation
because I've heard before that people with disabilities sometimes appear
as though they're drunk or if they're having a seizure
or something. You want to make sure you're not just
like scoffing at a person on the side of the road,
thinking it's like, I mean, you should care about drunk
people too, obviously, but you know, um, it's not like
so anyway, the um so, my instinct was to like
(09:24):
question them saying that. But then the way the man
like pushed off and like watched out of the train
really assuredly, I was like, oh, he's definitely drunk. Um
So anyway, and the woman we're talking about how he like,
I think he like brushed against one of them trying
to leave or something, or like slumped onto them, and
they thought he was like trying to grope them at first,
so they were like just really confused. Um. Anyway, then
(09:46):
he gets off the train and the train, uh, they say,
there's like a medical emergency, even though the guy had
like like one of the guys got out of the
train and watched him walk away, like he went to
the end of the platform. So it wasn't either they
misinterpreted what was happening and word got to a conductor
somewhere or there was simultaneously like two different events holding back.
(10:09):
This train was really weird um anyway, and then we
stopped and started. It was just like a classic train scenario.
That's what Brendan Maven were like two drunk idiots on
a train tonight. And that's when Marcy retrograde is. It's
things going haywired to reveal weaknesses in the system. Well,
(10:32):
the system was rock solid tonight. Everything I did was
the right choice. The rain just sped things up and
exacerbated the tensions. And in the end, I'll tell you
what Brnn is. Brin is gonna remember And because we
went over it, why I got mad? That's the thing
(10:53):
you never that's here's here's a here's the real lesson
from it. And this is the lesson on over and over,
which is the second you show aggression and to your children,
they become blind to why you're mad. All they especially
if they're this little, all they know is you're mad,
and they don't want that, and then they don't learn
anything from it. It's true, but there I'll admit there's
(11:15):
sometimes when I get aggressive, consciously knowing I don't want
to do it, but it's sort of the quickest way
out of a stand still like that where I actually
he's so stubborn at that point, and I know it's
just going to hold off for like an insane amount
of time, and like there are things that pressures at
play where it might need to move it along. And
if he burst into tears and breaks down, I know
(11:38):
we're closer to reconciliation than if like, well, there's just
sometimes there's just no time for it and he needs like, well,
you know what, I'm realizing my mom would blow up
and I quickly learned to not be scared of it
because I was used to it. But if my dad
ever exploded, it was terrifying because it was so rare,
(12:00):
and I think, I'm your dad, Your your dad. If
you scream at Britain, well, because I don't like doing it,
I'm like, you're forcing me to yell. Now, this is
not my natural state. There's like no part of me.
It's scary. It's the scariest thing I've ever seen. Because
we shouldn't have to get to that. People should listen.
(12:20):
I don't want to pay the picture that I blow
up all the time. I'm very in control. I think
our podcast listeners are very familiar with how you dominate
VOCALI I don't know what you eat. Anyway. That was
all of that was just tonight. The big thing that
happened was Thanksgiving. We we flew across the country. I
(12:42):
have to say, I think you're built up in the
last episode because a lot of people in your family
were like, thank you for making this trip out here,
when actually our flight there was very um pretty smooth.
Oh it was so great. I have virtually no complaints.
I just didn't really know what to expecting into this
kind of travel weekend because like I said, I hadn't
done it before. And they LaGuardia was like running smoothly
(13:06):
when we got there, and that was good. We did
travel on the too busiest travel days of the year
and but they were prepared for it. Yeah, and no delays. Well.
The big The big thing though, is Brennan Mayven were champs. Well, yeah,
it's I mean anything, anything they did to wine was
nothing compared to the last time we both traveled. Yeah,
it's much better than Brand's like hour long airplane screen
(13:30):
fest that I've experienced. And he The thing is they
can kind of keep themselves entertained now, so it's not
as bad. But then they're also just like rolling all
over the floor and like licking every airport. We just
we really let Britain in the gate on the airplane everywhere.
They're just like, let me press my mouth all over
(13:51):
this zeka Like yeah, and you just have to kind
of be like, zeke a hell hole. Don't put your
mouth on an ez hell. I will say the airport
is covered in ziggle holes. But the I think, so far,
(14:12):
so good. They're not sick, thank god. Well they were
already sick. They were sick. Weren't that sick, not that sick.
But they've been good for a week. They were getting
over something. They're fine. Um. Yeah, so this airplane travel
was pretty good. I was really really tired going into
the flight home, and just from being around people NonStop
and like having to watch our kids like a hawk
(14:32):
within like a not quite babyproofed environment. I was so
incredibly relieved because Maven slept for the entire flight home
and it was perfect, and Brin watched two hours of
Ben ten. This is the benefit, Listen, we don't let
them play with our phones hardly ever, like don't let
(14:53):
them touch it's starting to become a thing that brain
keeps getting ahold of people's phones. And it's like, yeah,
well yeah, but the fact we don't give them phones
meant that we're on the plane, I give him my
phone with his shows and headphones, and he locks in
and he he every second is looking at this thing. Yeah,
maybe when you need it. Maybe I was doing this
(15:14):
thing where she'd have like a movie playing on the
phone and then she just keep tapping the screen to
pull up the menu of like pausing it, and like
then she tapped the screen to remove that part. Like
she just clearly is like, look at me holding a phone. Yeah,
that's that age too. Were like Brian is over the
novelty of the touch screens in some ways, like he's
(15:37):
actually more interested in the content now. Ah. He loves Benten,
loves that Benton. Yeah, he loves to pretend to transform
into those of you never seen Benton Ben as a
boy with a wristwatch lets him transform into tend different aliens.
I just say it's getting increasingly for me like a
game of telephone to see what he's watching on TV.
(15:58):
Because and this is not a good parenting move at all,
But I never stay in the room when he's watching
TV because that's the only time I can be left alone.
So I'm always trying to get other stuff done. And
he is telling me about these shows by role playing
as the characters, and it's really hard to tell what
he's making up and what's from the show. And he
(16:20):
keeps transforming into different aliens. And he was like the
fire alien, cannon bolt, uh, stink something, stink fly, stink fly.
I guess it's like a stinky fly or something. I
don't understand how they're also aliens. I don't fully understand
the premise. I think there are creatures from other planets
(16:42):
that he transformed the body sharing. Maybe it's the quantum
leap situation. I literally haven't watched a single frame of
this show. It's I understand why kids like it. It's
a lot better than a lot of the stuff that
he likes. Yeah, anyway, he's very entertainment it I gotta
say tonight, it was worse than anything that happened in
(17:03):
the whole past week and included for me, I am
so angry. Ah well, yeah, I'm gonna leave my anger here,
thank you for enduring it, and I'm gonna in this
next sasion section bring my full recovered positivity. Also, I'm
(17:24):
drinking scotch. I want to say the the the your
relaxation level on vacations is much lower than mine. In general,
my relaxation levels are lower because you mean higher. I'm
more relaxed, You're more relaxed. You Sorry, I phrased that badly. Yes,
(17:49):
I think early on, early on vacations, that was a
big you would get much more stressed because I'd be
even more relaxed, and there'll be more danger years to
watch because our kids were younger, and you would be
more stressed. And I think we've both adjusted. One. I
take much more responsibility and to you also, I think
(18:09):
it seems to me are like taking things in stride. Well,
here's the thing. I have to constantly remind myself to
leave because if I unless unless I go lay down
to take a nap, or I go for a run
or do something that I'm wearing physically away from everyone,
and like you and the kids, there's no way I
(18:30):
can get a second to relax on the whole trip,
because as soon as I enter a room where you
and other people are watching the kids, let's just say
me and other mcnerneys, who are also all speaking at
full volume at the same time. Yeah, you're well, you're yeah,
you're loud, and that's fine. But then with our kids,
like you, if you have another person in the room,
(18:51):
you're like, oh, I'm on stage right now, and you're
going to performer mode, and you're like, I have to
participate in this. I gotta be a part of it.
And so you're not watching your kids. And so even
when I'm like, hey, can you keep an eye on
the kids, it's like I'll start to walk away and
you're like yeah, and you just like your eyes are
glued to something else or someone else, and I can
(19:12):
tell you're like literally not watching our kids, like wander
towards a hot stove. I really can't pay attention to
more than one thing at a time. Well, most humans
in general, that's true. Yeah, You're you're shifting between you
don't attempt to focus on the important thing, which is
just like at least every over generalized because I make
a real effort and I do a great job. Mostly
(19:35):
make a hundred percent effort if I leave the room,
and you know, is your actual responsibility, and even then
you don't always well even when you're gone. I'm like,
they're fine. I'm mostly paying attention because I'm wondering if
Beth is watching me. Pay attention not mostly a little
bit of me. Mostly I'm paid. I'm worried about the
safety of my children. Boy, it helps that they are
(19:57):
old enough to not murder themselves. Every sing camp sort of.
I think we did great. I hear you, I love you, goodbye.
Now it's time for you know what they said? Ah,
(20:20):
this is where we normally we play a game of guests.
What was a real quote from our kids? But there
were so many great quotes from this weekend, and I
think we already know what they are, so I want
We're just just gonna pick our favorite thing that was
said by our children this past week on vacation. Um,
and unpack it. You're gonna go first so that I
(20:41):
can cough aggressively off Mike. Ready, Oh that cold go ahead? Okay, Um?
The thing that may have been said that was literally
the funniest joke of the whole week is is she
was sitting behind you, is looking at your bald head,
(21:06):
and she said, look at daddy's head, it looks like
a butt. And then she laughed herself and it was
so funny. I repeated it to the room and then
everyone started laughing, and then she got very embarrassed and
started start crying. A few people heard it at first
(21:26):
she was playing to the room. Yeah, it was loud.
Look at daddy's head, it looks like a But that's
something that I think is much different about her as
a two and a half year old is she's like
her humor is showing in especially in this environment there's
other people around. She's not like just quiet. Yeah, oh boy,
(21:50):
it was a great We didn't talk about this at all,
but it was a great trip. They spent the week
with their cousins who lived in Chicago, who are one
and three and eight nine. Uh and Mayven just like
building relationship. I said this for I feel like both
Brand and Mayven there social skills at vocabulary. It seems
(22:15):
to like jump by leaps and bounds. When they spend
the week with their cousins, are with a bunch of adults,
like on vacations. It's either that or that's the week
in which we have time to catch up on their
development and we notice it. Yeah, it's hard to say
which of the two it is, because, yeah, you're spending
a lot of time with them and they're just saying
(22:35):
a lot of funny things, and like because they're in
a new environment, they're just picking up on so much
more and like noticing things and commenting on them, and
that you also have to constantly distract them. So it
just means like taking time to do something that I
probably should do more often, which is just pointing things
out to them and being like that's a clock or
like you know, like explaining how things work. Well, don't worry,
(22:57):
that's all I do with them all day long. I
know that's I don't feel pressured to do it on
a regular basis because I know you've got it fairly covered.
But when we're in those environments, I'm like, oh, I
need to like focus their energy so they're not like
climbing the walls. Yeah, um, are you ready for mine?
Mine is a full exchange. So brit was we went
(23:20):
to a party at my brother's house for all of
our family and his my sister in law's family. And uh,
he has a niece on that side who's eleven, so
she's the oldest of all all the cousins on both sides.
So there's like a ton of cousins running around. And
(23:42):
she was in a room with brand excuse me, gross,
she's in her room with Brin and they're talking. I
walk in and she's and uh, Britain is going, um,
Brandon is just my short name. My long name is
Bryn William McNerney, but I like to go by my
(24:03):
short name, which is Brand, b r y At and Bryn.
And she's like, wow, you're pretty funny. Huh you know
a lot of words. And I go, oh, yeah, this
guy talks all the time. And then goes, h yeah,
I talk um all over the world. We go really
goes yeah, I get twenty dollars a word. We're like,
(24:25):
oh yeah, and he goes, yeah, twenty is too much.
He's so funny. And I still don't really know how
much he knew it. He was saying, but you like
it all sounded correct, you know, like it sounded It's
a very weird specific because people do get paid by
(24:46):
the word for certain things. It's it's very bizarre. Yeah,
I don't know. I think you said I can pay
twenty for one word. Word. He really I call it
uncle Brynn. He goes into that mode where he just
sort of sounds like your uncle who has the scotch
in his hand and he's had like three or four. Yeah,
(25:08):
and he loves to repeat a fart joke to the
room really loud. Yeah, I did, I talk all over
the world. I get twenty dollars to works as too much.
Tell you that right now. My long name is Bryn
William McNerney. Oh can I quickly mentioned another thing that
happened to that party, which was really really great because
there's a lot of kids, a lot of like running around.
It's like really nice to see them all together. So
(25:30):
you're our nephew who is ten. He planned an escape
room in the basement, which I don't think he participated
in this, but he had he had been wanting to
do one the other day before, so then clearly he
had time to sit down and really think about this
and make one in the basement. I think his cousin
helped and like it was very elaborate and impressive and
(25:53):
like logical, but then it also was clearly made by
like ten and eleven year olds who were like struggling
to sort of figure out how this was supposed to work,
and they like, we're leaving clues, and they'd like referenced
things you could tell they kind of had adult help,
but not like fully. And they had things where you
would find pieces of paper and piece them together that
was supposed to sort of spell out a phrase that
(26:13):
was your clue, but it didn't. The clues didn't actually
make sense, like it's hard to say, because they had
one that they would be like Maryanne was here, and
it would be like a reference to the original owner
of the house, but then it was just like something
in the room that you, as someone who didn't live there,
(26:34):
didn't know about, so like you wouldn't there's no way
you would get it. And then they would have clues
that were like three eyes are here, and then you're like, oh,
that's actually a great clue. There's happened to be three
bulls eyes sprap pin it on the wall. And then
they're like no, no, no, that that's not that it
references something else, and they would like have to constantly
(26:54):
kind of explain it to us, but it didn't like
fully add up, and then they like your you aren't
he want to saying your because he was your nephew
before he was ours, I believe, but he um our
nephew was uh like really anxious about the Escape Room networking.
So if we would ponder a clue for more than
(27:15):
like five seconds, he would always go, um, it's over.
It's only in this general area, and he'd start getting
us more clues because he didn't want this game to
go badly and he's such a sweet, like nerdy kid.
It was really released here. I feel real bad. I
was like brushing him off. I was like, listen, I'm
alternate number one, but I gotta watch these kids. I
(27:35):
was really glad I got to do it because it
was actually just really funny to do. Like it was
like I just happened to wander down there when they
were starting, and I was like holding Maybn the whole time,
and then may even so they made us do it
in the dark, so it's like a dark basement, and
so everyone had their cell phone lights on, so I
turned mine on and then my may Haven wanted to
(27:57):
hold the phone. So then it was just really adorable
because is like two year old Maven is wandering around
in a dark facement, like pointing up phone light at things,
like acting like she's solving the clues, and it was
just like very funny to see all these kids like
running around better. Nothing was like take this seriously, boy,
(28:19):
I would try. I would have those ideas as a
kid all the time, but I would there would be
no follow through. Yeah, let's do it. I found in
my parents house. I have all these books that I
made um in elementary school, and I designed the cover
to be a big drawing the title, and then I
have the first page and a drawing, and then the
second page would just be a drawing, and then the
(28:40):
third page would be the beginning of a drawing, and
then it would be ten blank pages. And that was
every book I ever created, which is why I now
I am an improviser. Yeah. This next segment is called
we Knows what They're Watching, and we talked about some
media that our children are consuming. So this weekend we
(29:04):
were with your parents. Your mom very kindly got us
tickets to a local community theater production of Shrek. It's
not a community theater. It's regional theater. I don't know
the difference regionals real theater, and how is it more real?
There's a budget and there's like professional actors. Community theater
(29:26):
theater has no budget. It's not budget this professional actors.
There's equity actors. The first community theater is like, hey,
I'm going to sign up and being a play down
at the town hall. I mean it sounds like a
designation you heard from a very insecure acting professor. There
is a major difference regional theater and community theater. If
(29:50):
I learned nothing else from my four years as a
theater major, it's the difference. Whatever you need to feel
important at the end of the day, Yeah, this is
about me. Regional theater. We're gonna get so many emails
about UM. Regional theater just means not Broadway. Okay, okay,
(30:11):
So it's a very nice theater. You guys wouldn't believe
the production value. I said, it was a very nice theater.
UM and our kids loved it. It It was a little
confusing for our kids at first because they just didn't
understand what yeah sharked the music. Our kids didn't understand
(30:32):
what it meant to go see a show, and your
your mom made the mistake of showing for in a
YouTube video like a trailer for the show before the show,
when he was already excited to go, and then the
trailer had the trailer had like a dragon in it,
which I think just for some reason, his four year
old brain was just like, Nope, I don't like that.
(30:54):
I don't like Well, what I think it was is
like the video does not make it clear that there's
an audience, and like he didn't understand that aspect of it.
So he's like, you're gonna hang out with his monster.
He's like, I do not want to do that. Anyway.
Something set him off and he like because but he
clearly just the whole time didn't understand what was going
to happen. So it wasn't until after we saw it
(31:15):
that he was like, I liked that. I had to
wait with him in the parking lot and it took
fifteen minutes of him screaming and me slowly walking towards
the point we're just going to check out the lobby.
He had to be bribed, and you're very smart brother
secretly handed him a small cup of ice cream to
get him into the car. So that we could just
(31:35):
get out of there and get to the show, and
we bribed him all the way there. Yeah. Um, anyway,
and he goes, I like that play. Do you think
it was funny? He no, Well, and whenever there's anything scary,
that's all they want to talk about. So they're both like,
that was scary. I was scared of the dragon, and
(31:55):
so when I asked me about the place, she was like,
I was scared. But then later she was like, I
want to see the scary so she made me play
her videos of the play on the phone. Afterwards, I
was like, you clearly like this. Um, you want to
hear my quick review of the play? Um? No, are
(32:19):
you afraid I'm gonna hurt my mom's feelings? Yes, okay,
I think my kids loved it, and I was glad
I went because they loved it. But it was unbearable.
I love you, mom, Thank you for buying his tickets.
(32:40):
I can't. I can't end this segment yet because I
know a bunch of listeners have seen Trek the Musical
and you loved it, and that's totally valid. There's no
such thing. There's no objective definition for good art. It's
totally subjective. If you loved it, I mean it was
great for you. I just hate in it anyway. Thanks
(33:05):
for joining me here in Peter's Corner where I review
regional theater productions. Guys, don't email us about theater. Do
not email us about trek the music we don't know. Well,
I don't know anything about regional theater clearly, so just yeah,
and I do. The actors did a great job. We
(33:29):
know exactly what we're talking about. I just I was
happy that my kids were having fun. Can we just
say it's a very fart heavy musical and that was
the best part. Our kids were a huge fan of that.
The fart song really got them. Duh. And this has
been whatever this segment was called. Okay, This next segment
(33:55):
is called Listeners Want to Knows. It's where we take
questions and comments from our listen nurse. Um, so we have.
We had a little bit of an inflammatory discussion on
the last episode. You know, really, I will I just
wanted to service sing when we were discussing this segment
in particular, which was about hyphenated last names. We were
(34:17):
just having fun and don't really have that strong of
an opinion about what you choose your kid's names to be.
I really feel like this is the first that well,
you know, we obviously hurt some people's feelings, and yeah,
people us and we sort of went again against our
unofficial motto. We have a philosophy that we may not
(34:39):
have articulated, which is that, like if anything else, we
don't advocate a right way to do anything. No. If
if you ask my actual take on hyphenated last names,
it's that people should do whatever they want to do.
It's their kid, in their decision. What I was responding
to in the last episode was that particular their listeners question.
(35:02):
So I was trying to give advice to that person
what I thought would work best for them. But I
don't really overall care what anyone names their kids. Well,
I was definitely the more dismissive one, as I think
I I accused hyphenated last name as parents of deferring
the decision. Yeah, okay, so you read you're going to
(35:22):
read some of the comments we got based off of
the last episode. Well, yeah, so there's different viewpoints on
this and these they're all great, But I just want
to say, for those people that have decided to hyphenate
last names. That was the right choice for your family.
We made a different choice here that was a right
choice for our family. UM, And sometimes I don't think
(35:48):
through an opinion before it comes out of my mouth. Alright,
ready for this, I'm gonna go through these, um real quick.
So this comes to us from Julie, Hie, your and Beth.
Just listen to your you're all getting mugs for Christmas
episode and wanted to respond to the email at the end,
I myself took my husband's last name because it was
shorter than mine and it was important to him. I
(36:10):
do know a pretty neat solution that is for sure
not for everyone, but a solution. Nonetheless, my cousin and
her husband merged their last names together and created a
new one that only consists of three letters. I thought
i'd share this neat solution too long hyphenated last names. UM.
That is like that to me feels like the most
(36:34):
hippie progressive sort of like just let's let's create something new.
I don't hate that decision, but it's also just not
for me, like it's it seems confusing to explain, do
you know what any like? I just don't want to
have to like my entire goal with this, and obviously
it's not other people's goals and it doesn't have to be.
Is just efficiency, Like I just I don't want to
(36:55):
be I don't want to have I mean that thing
I'm dealing with about my last name on a regular basis.
And that is the argument for let's all, let's all
take the husband's last name. Well, no, that's not the argument.
The argument originally was that men owned their wives. But okay,
but I mean everyone keeping the same but they're all complicated.
(37:18):
In my mind, it's like, none of them are so
complicated you can't deal with it, So do do it's
in your heart? Well And also, I think part of
my fear of high A last names was that the
kid might just struggle with like spelling and getting that
whole thing out. And then like if I had known
I was having Brit, I would realize that he loves
saying his three names out loud NonStop, and it's like
(37:40):
not going to be appreci him four more names. Yeah,
so whatever, here's another one. Um. I love this though.
Thanks for putting on such an encouraging it on its podcast.
I know it's not easy, but I'm glad you do
it still don't normally I don't normally have time to email.
We're traveling on Thanksgiving holiday. Kids just fell asleep, husband
(38:01):
has taken a turn at the wheel, and you're writing
an email and not throwing up. I can't type in
the car. She didn't write that. I just said that. Uh,
this is Lindsay continuing on. I just finished listening to
the episode where you're talking about last names. I thought
you'd find it interesting to know how Latin Americans handle
last names. We lived there for a few years. At first,
(38:23):
I was very confused because they had spaces for two
last names on forms and documents, and kids had different
last names than both their parents when you were born.
When you are born, you get your dad's last name
and your mom's first name. No hyphens, just two last names.
When a couple gets married, there are no there's no
(38:44):
name change. It makes it very easy to trace your
ancestry when filling out forms and countries that only have
one last name, you just use your first last name.
You may already know this, but it was mind blowing
for me the first time and made me wish the
system was built into our cold her as well. Thanks
for such a great podcast, lindsay, I have heard that,
(39:04):
but I heard something like that, and I feel like
it's very slightly between different South American countries. But it's
like a similar thing to that. Yeah, yeah, my, I
mean again, it's a it's a little bit of the
hyphenated last name philosophy. Yeah. Well, that's why my original
(39:25):
personal philosophy is just like, to hell with the whole thing.
You can have your dad's last name, because the whole
thing at some point breaks down. If you're trying to
create like any sort of clear information, you can't. You
can't obviously can just can't keep name adding names generation
unless you're like a Windsor, and then you can just
(39:48):
keep going. I guess, and I little care I was
born in Windsor. Did you know that? I didn't know that.
That's I wish I hadn't brought it up because of that.
You should know because you're my wife. Um Buckingham Palace
in the background from my window at Princess Margaret's Hospital
asked me about it. Um. Anyway, here's another one, Uh,
(40:12):
Peter meth I just want to say your show gets
better and better every week, and I continue to count
myself among your biggest fans. Onto my point, uhs about surnames,
I'm skipping ahead a little. I agree with the stance
that the kids could just take the mother's surname. The
(40:33):
listener who wrote the email indicated that her husband was
against that. Another option, What about this? What if they
made the child's first name the mother's surname, and the
child's surname the same as the father's. For example, if
her surname is ah Okay and his is Bernard Hopkins,
(40:53):
the kid's name would be Okay Bernard Hopkins. You actually
saw the surname, You actually saw the names, and you
would know if that would be an awful cruel name.
But it could work in theory, right uh. Also regarding
the discussion about what a pain it is to have
a hid hypnad last name, I recently watched a YouTube
(41:14):
video about a woman who moved to Mexico from Ukraine.
She has had the hardest time with paperwork because the
Mexican bureaucratic paperwork system is built the norm is that
at least to have at least two surnames. Administrators couldn't
figure out what to do with her since she only
had one. Maybe having a hyphenaid last name will become
(41:35):
less and less of a big deal as the world
becomes more globalized, or at least with the increasing Latin
population in the US. Thank you. This is Katie from Georgia.
It's interesting actually hearing all these perspectives. Um there, we
were talking to our sister in law this weekend, who
is Bosnian and her dad is from I'm going to
(41:57):
get this wrong, Serbia, whereas he he immigrated there right
from our new reck kind of you don't know the answer,
Well there was anyway, So he she was warning Yugoslavia.
So he's not from the area, and so they can't
listen to this episode? Now why not because I have
to admit that I don't remember that where her dad's from.
(42:20):
It's okay, she'll understand. Her mom's from Montenegro. Okay, maybe
that's what I'm thinking of. But but her dad's also
not from Bosnia. Well there was no Bosnia. Okay, Well
he's not from that area of the world. He's from
slightly anyway. Let me talk so the um So, anyway,
(42:44):
he moved to a different area, or his father did,
and it was less Muslim and in order to be
nationalized in the country of Bosnia. I believe he dropped
the we're gonna have to apologize to race, so we're
totally butchering this story. But anyway, he had to drop
(43:04):
the sort of Muslim indicators in his name, which was Hashimi, right, yeah,
but Ashimovic. So they dropped the age and they changed
it in order to be more nationalized and so but
he this is recently enough in history that his living
relatives have a different last name than him that live
(43:25):
in different countries. That's right, Well, it's like the mcnerney's um.
But I think it's just an interesting thing of like,
I mean, you can try as hard as you want
to cling to these names or whatever, but like we
just kind of don't have as much control over these
things as we think we do. Yeah, boy, yeah, we're
gonna have to call my sister in law. Sorry. Um, yeah,
(43:52):
I think that. My mom always told us, like, so
two out of four there's four boys in our family,
and my oldest brother and my youngest brother have my
mom's maiden name as their middle name, and weirdly the
other two of us don't. And and what she is,
but the recently said like she wished that she had
given us her her last name as our middle names.
(44:15):
But that's like what I kind of love about the
whole thing is like, like I'm saying, I think none
of this really means anything, like it all works itself out,
and I can't imagine your brother's by any other name.
But the way that your mom named you is admittedly
she has said just very scattershot decisions across the board.
It was always like her in a hospital bed being
(44:36):
like hmmm Sam, or like, well, yeah, my brothers Sam.
He's going to be Matthew. And then the woman next
to her had named her baby Matthew in the delivery
room and she goes, well, we can't use that now, yeah,
which is just like such a funny thing, but like
it sounds to her like the way she tells all
of your naming stories. It was just sort of like,
(44:58):
I don't know, your dad wanted to and then I
didn't like that, and then we just kind of settled
on this, and it's just like no, like I mean,
it doesn't matter. I mean, unless you name your child
like shit hole, they're going to be fine. It really
doesn't matter. But you all of our hang ups about
this name stuff is just not a good predictor of
(45:19):
what's going to matter in the future, because when we
were naming kids, I remember you saying, like you've always
said you hate your name Peter because you had an
embarrassing nickname off of it. But that nickname is so unpredictable.
Oh yeah, and that happened. But that was like two
days of my life. Can we say, what the name
Petrie the portable potty? Petrie the portable potty, which is
(45:40):
not something a kid would naturally think of with the
name Peter. Clearly you just everyone thinks that everyone has
their name has been made fun of in some way
or another. Um, all right, I'm going to read an
email now. This is the last one. UM, this one
made me feel bad. Um. Hi, Beth and Peter. I've
(46:04):
been listening since episode one aired, and I've got a
lot of joy from your work. Thanks for sharing so
much of your family life with us. I just gave
birth to my second child three weeks ago and it's
been tough for a lot of reasons. Then, as I'm
listening to your most recent episode, you both start condemning
hyphenated last names with a fervor that surprised and disappointed me.
(46:26):
My husband and I gave our kids both of our
last names. I didn't want the last name linked to
either family to be severed at this point. If when
our kids have kids at their own, they will probably
have to drop one or both of our names, this
is fine with us, and we plan to let our
kids know that. My feeling is that there's no ideal
solution to the last name question, in uh erasure will
(46:47):
inevitably happen. Both my husband and I wanted to pass
on our names, so hyphenated her name seemed like the
best choice for our family. Also, as an elementary school teacher,
has never been a problem having a child hyphenated surname.
You literally have to say, write an extra name. Moreover,
it helps me recognize both parents via their last name.
Your show generally does a great job of empowering families
(47:08):
to make choices that work for them. We last names
are clearly not your preference. I don't think our kids
will be hurt by their this choice. I don't think
we're weird for making this decision, like you were doing
the best we can to honor each of our expectations
for our children and our family. Thanks for taxing time
to read this, Uh, Eliana, I'm so sad that we
(47:29):
triggered someone with a two week gold. I've already written
her back because that was very thoughtful. Yeah, And I
was like, as soon as the episode was over last time,
I was like, boy, what if I was somebody that
gave my kid a hypen the last name? Yeah, I
probably wouldn't have liked that. I mean at the time,
I felt like we're taking a hardline stance kind of
(47:51):
ingest Like I didn't really feel as strongly about it
as we portrayed. But um, I hope she listens to
this episode, but it is. It was a great reminder
that in general, you know that again, we we really
believe that there's no right way and we certainly don't
(48:11):
know and we're trying to we're trying to have to
take a hard stance and that thing we've had, no
we have we haven't actually had to experience. Yeah, I mean,
in general, I can't say enough. We really feel at
the end of the day that everyone's going to make
their own decisions based on their own uh experiences, environment anxieties.
(48:35):
You do what you gotta do, it does it doesn't matter.
And I'll tell you what if you had been like,
I want our kids to have my last name, which
didn't happen. We never had the conversation. I don't know
what I would have done. Maybe I would have been like, well,
let's hyphenate them for you know, in a selfish way.
(48:55):
Maybe I would have. Yeah, it's really it's just a
personal preference on my part that like I've really just
pictured myself having a conversation like ten thou times for
the rest of my life where I explained to people
the high findal last name and like like why and
I was just like, I don't I want to do that.
(49:17):
But it's but you know, I don't really care what
other people do. It's it's line. Well, anyway, thank you
everyone who wrote in. Uh, that was all very very
interesting and humbling and a good reminder and not be
such a jerk about things. So thank you all. Yeah.
I I appreciated all these thoughtful responses, and there were more,
(49:40):
and I'm sorry I can't get to all of them. Um,
I want to read just one more thing before we're done,
and this is completely unrelated, UM, but I want to
read this and then give everyone a homework assignment. Hey,
this is from Sophie, did you knows your voices don't
match your face? I just started listening to your podcast
(50:00):
We Knows Parenting. I assumed it was that one during
my morning job. I'm around uh episode twelve, and until
today have never seen your faces. I had a cheeky
peek at your insta and then to eyeball emojis. Uh.
So similarly to when you read a book. Similar to
when you read a book when you can only imagine
(50:22):
what the characters look like in your head, That's what
I've done with hearing your voices. And my conclusion is
that I've spent the last few weeks thinking Rob Delaney
and christ and wigg have been talking. And I'm sure
you get it a lot, or maybe it's just me
being an ignorant stereotyping English twit. But Peter in particular
sounds exactly like Rob Delaney, and now I can't imagine
(50:44):
anything else when I listen, I don't hear that. But well,
of course you were not going to agree. Other people
might Uh nobody. You never said to somebody, hey, this
I met this guy looks just like you and you
show him the picture. No one has ever been like, yeah,
that looks like me. Don't you think though that now
that she brings it up that Rob Delaney and Kristin
Wake should do a movie together or something like about us. No,
(51:07):
I'm talking about them. She mentions that we sound like them,
as like she's picturing that pair in her head, who,
to my knowledge, never worked together. And I think if
they want to do a movie movie together, I will
write it. I'm down, I'll figure it out. Part of
why I think he doesn't sound like you is like
(51:28):
he's from Massachusetts, You're have this Midwestern thing going on. Well,
Sophie is English, so she thinks all of us. Okay,
I mean Rob Dlane and I don't sound hugely dissimilar,
but you're from Boston and so yeah, I guess maybe
(51:49):
I'm going to finish this lovely email. Sorry, your faces
are lies. I mean no offense by this, by the way,
I just thought you'd like to know or not, sorry
if so. Any who, I love the podcast Guys Flexing
arm emoji. I have a one and a half year
(52:10):
old son who can uh so can respectfully relate to
at least some of your daily family drama. All the best, Sophie.
Sophie from Shropshire. Um, so here's my homework assignment. If
you also have not this is very self indulgent. But
(52:33):
if you also have not taken the time to look
up what are beautiful things until now? Because we're having
our new photos come out, which are really going to
show you, guys, how beautiful we are, how great we look.
We did just take new pictures, so we're gonna have
new artwork. Um, but until that's released, don't look up.
(52:53):
Don't look us up. You ask the listeners for the
most gratuitous information, like you didn't even you haven't heard
what I've been asking yet. You're going to ask them
if they look, if they if we look like they
expected us. No, I'm not, That's not what I'm I'm
gonna say. I want you to uh examine how you
(53:13):
have pictured us in your heads, like Sophie did, and
I want you to write in and tell us who
you have cast subconsciously like the same thing. And that's
still very gratuitous thing to request it, Sure is, Sure is.
And you know why I'm asking because I want to know.
I love Rob Delaney and I'm very happy with the
(53:35):
casting of him as me. So right in, who have
you been picturing and disappointed were you? Aren't you happy
with your choice? I mean, yeah, I guess that makes
sense as the name choice for me, although again I
feel like she's from a slightly different part of the
country than me. But yeah, I mean, if someone had
(53:57):
been like Peter you I pictured Paul Gma, I might
I might be like I don't want to be Paul
Ganti for you know, selfish reasons. I mean, I love
Paul mat I'd like to apologize to Paul Gimi for
that called for dig anyway, A thousand apologies to anyone
(54:18):
who was offended by our discussion last week about I
haven't needed last names. We really support your choices and
we love you guys for listening. Oh my god, literally
this second I got another email about baby last name,
and all I saw and the first sentence was my husband.
I had a very long argument. We have time to
(54:41):
read those No, we don't have time, guys. I'm gonna
read it. Maybe we'll talk about it next week. We
feel a lot of time when I fined last Yeah,
I hope we're all satisfied now. Yeah, Well, it clearly
it brings up a lot of feelings in people. Um,
oh boy, this is I started this podcast so upset,
and now I feel great because I love you, Beth,
(55:02):
my wife, and all of our listeners who are telling
us we're great or telling us that we've made them sad.
We appreciate all of us. So thank you. This has
been We knows Parenting. Please hit up up, please please
(55:23):
hit up. Hit us up on a website we knows
Parenting dot com. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram at we
knows Pod. You can send us an email at we
knows pot at gmail dot com. Send us some advice,
a question, a story. Please will you write us a
review and leave us a rating? Boy? It helps one subscribe,
(55:48):
um if you would. And uh check out our instagrams
and all that new artwork coming soon. Uh? Do you
guys also know that we're now owned by Heart Radio.
Did you know that, Beth I did? Yeah, it's pretty exciting.
Awkward ending by h
We Knows Parenting News
Hosts And Creators
Beth Newell
Peter McNerney
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