June 5, 2018 • 40 mins
Peter and Beth discuss Senator Tammy Duckworth giving birth while in office and a study of how fast women and men change diapers and debate how they would handle their kids trying to touch wild animals. Peter gets the whole family sick before leaving town, the kids learn dirty words.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I got to say, Hi, welcome to We Know His Parenting.
I'm Beth Newell, co founder of Productress, and I'm Peter McNerney,
her husband. We are real life parents, real couple. Oh
(00:24):
my god, it's so real, real comedians kids, We were married.
These are true facts. We have a three and a
half year old and almost two year old, and this
is a podcast where we compare notes on our weekend
parenting and try to figure out what we do and
don't know about how to raise kids. Hi. Hi, It's
been a little while because I was out of town,
(00:45):
and I think that's the big recurring theme on our
podcast is just that we go our separate ways. It's
like a tag team of parenting, and then we regroup
and try to figure out what the hell happened. I've
said this before, and I keep saying, if it weren't
for this pie cast, good God, would I ever see you? Yeah,
like asleep in bed next to you? Cool? Cool cool.
(01:06):
So I went out to Los Angeles for the story
parts Los Angeles, benefit had an incredible time all by
myself without kids, and meanwhile, back at home, what happened?
I I literally have no idea because we didn't talk
the whole time. It was exhausting. So you, um brought
(01:29):
sickness into our lives. Well, I just want to I
just want to claim take responsibility that all illnesses are
my fault. Well this one you were. You were a
patient zero, So I blame you. You commined about being
sick for a couple of days. The next thing I know,
I'm sick. Next thing, I know, our kids are sick.
And we all got sick like the second you left town.
(01:50):
And it was I haven't been sick like this in
a while, Like we get we've been sick all winter,
but this was bad. It was like the stomach thing.
I just didn't want to get out of bed. I
was so tired and done. I got the text. I
was on the plane, about to set my phone to
airplane mode. Then I got the text all of us
are sick. Yeah it was fun. Um, So what happened
(02:11):
was I uh? I had I think I had asked
my sister to babysit that night for some reason, and
she said she was busy. So I was just laying
in bed all day, feeling sorry for myself when they
were at daycare. And finally I was so tired I
worked up the carriage to just like check in with
my sister and see what her deal was, and her
plans had actually been canceled. So then I was like,
come save me. I just I was like, I knew
(02:34):
I had like four more days of this, and I
was like, I need to have someone come help. So
she came, picked up the kids from daycare, helped them
eat dinner. They of course, the woman who runs day
care had told Ali that they were both seeming kind
of thick, which is like a hint to us, like,
maybe don't take them in tomorrow. Yeah, you guys don't
(02:55):
have a great track, right, We should just rename this podcast.
Our kids are sick and we're negligent about taking care
of them. Our kids are constantly sick, and we somehow
still don't know how to deal with it properly. Um,
so they stayed home on Friday. So they stayed home
on Friday. At this point, Ali slept over, which was great.
But then have we had a full week of them
(03:16):
going to daycare every day in months? I think we
did like two weeks ago. It was like a triumph,
and then it's over. It's over. This week might be
the next time yeah, um, Alison left. We were stuck
inside all weekend, like the three of us being all
kind of thick, may even incredibly cranky, just constantly saying
go away, and then like wanting things from you, but
(03:38):
then saying, go away is our new She's my incredibly wonderful,
hilarious daughter who's suddenly thirteen in like the worst most
stereotype of the way, go away. No, I don't want
to it. I know, it's just she keeps saying to Ali,
she's being so many dalli and she kept saying, not you, Ali.
(04:02):
It shouldn't hurt your feeling, but it really hurts my
feelings when she goes go away. She's very much on
the cusp of two. You can feel it in your bones. Well.
And everyone said terrible too, terrible too. Brin was not
a terrible two. He was an incredible too, and then
he hit three. Three to three and a half was
(04:23):
his worst. He was always demanding, Sure, but she is
a turning into a worse two year old than than
he was. So I was stuck inside with them all weekend.
It was not fun. At one point, Bryn tried to
get something off your dresser and pulled the drawer the
bottom drawers out and almost pulled the dresser on top
of himself. Oh wait, so he pulled the bottom drawers
(04:44):
out to step in. I think so, or like one
of them is already out. He was definitely like trying
to get something. So the dresser almost flipped on top
of him. I was like a few feet away, so
I was able to avert it, and I scare him.
I screamed at him. That's what scared him. Um. I
was like, I it was happening. I was like no,
and then I was like explaining, he can't do it,
and so he started crying, which I think is good.
(05:07):
He needs to have some fear of some things. I mean, yes,
because it's not often that I scream at him, and
it's usually a situation like that when he's about to
kill himself. I mean, yeah, that's good. There was just
I was just reading. Uh you know, I think this
is a people know this now. You know you don't smell.
You don't spank your kids because the more you do,
(05:29):
the less it matters and the less effective it is.
Like I don't know, you're saying, some spanking is not spanking.
Don't hit your kids, but save save the screaming for
when it truly matters, because if I screamed at them
as much as my emotions told me to, my my
(05:50):
screams become ineffective when I need them. But then another
thing that happened was Alison left, and then I had
the two for the night, and Maven was really pretty sick,
and I was like, how making to get through this night?
And of course Mayven wasn't sleeping well, like waking up
every second, um, So I brought her into bed with me.
I was like, this is the only way either of
us is going to sleep, and I like surrounded her
(06:12):
with pillows on the bed, moved a pile of dirty
laundry over next to her side of the bed just
in case she fell off, and we finally fell asleep
after like two hours of like fussing. And then wait, wait,
a pile of dirty laundry did you like go into
the hamper to make a mountain of clothes? I mean
we already had a mountain of clothes just sitting very
close to the bed, so I just pushed it over
(06:34):
closer to the bed. So then of course, I like
three am, I wake up to a thump and crying,
and she had fallen off the bed thankfully into the
pile of clothes, um, and she she stopped crying pretty quickly,
so I was like, I think she's okay. But then
obviously I still like paralyzed with the fear and like
(06:54):
adrenaline if that happening. So I put her to bed
in her crib because she was like pretty sleepy at
that point, and she went to sleep. But then of
course I was just sitting there like did I just
concuss her? Like was that a bad move to put
her back to bed? But eventually you can tell, like
when they I mean, I'm also the worst person to
judge because my medium pulses. It's fine, but the kind
(07:17):
of thud, it's like you can hear it, the kind
where you're like this, that's a problem. I mean I
heard it. It sounded bad. I probably would have been like,
it was not a bad one, it's okay. Yeah, I
don't know, she seems fine. Um yeah, that's exhausting. Although
(07:37):
it's hard. It's hard to tell because a two year
old talks like a concussed person to begin with, so
we don't really know. This is a funny joke. Well,
the other thing is that I think when people, when
people get concussions, they're supposed to be sleepy. So if
they're like calm and going to sleep, that's not necessarily
good sly, So we're bad parents and this is them
(08:00):
were great, Well, this is actually the second time that
you've been out of town and this exact thing has
happened and she's fallen out off the bed. The last
time was a year ago. Well, then it's definitely your fault. Well,
but I just feel like at some point I need
to sleep as a person. Well, uh, there is really
(08:22):
something because in the last year or however, you know
when when we had babies, uh, and they were incredibly
dependent on you and breastfeeding. You're the one waking up,
you were the one getting them, and as much as
I wanted to help, there was little I could do.
But in the past year, I get up every single time.
And the result is I know there middle of the
(08:47):
night patterns a little bit better than you do, and
I think I can more easily get them to sleep.
And so when you go in there, it's more of
a novelty for them, and they're like mom is here,
and I think they're less cooperative and then you get
frustrated and then you just throw them in the bed. Well,
I would say it's mostly the latter, which is that
they want me more, not that you know their patterns better.
(09:07):
You're not gonna give me any credit. You're not gonna
give me any putting them to bed skills. I've got
more reps. Baby, give me this one thing. This want
give me credit to say that it's ten of the reason. Yes, fantastic. Meanwhile,
(09:28):
across the country, you're having the time of your life healthy. No,
I was sick the whole time. You know, something that
we talked a lot about in my mom group is
something called the man cold, which is when men get sick,
it's always like a death grip in their minds. Okay,
you know what, you're simultaneously saying, you're such a baby
(09:51):
and also giving me credit for giving you the disease
that that made you unable to get out of bed,
So you can't have it both. That was day one
of me being sick. You were on like day four.
You can't tell me how I feel. And I was
parenting while saying, uh, my whole point of my story
is to actually validate what you're saying. Thank you, thank
(10:12):
you so much. I did feel terrible, um, but it
was still a total vacation in that I could stay asleep.
I was staying with my cousin Jeff and his wonderful
wife Elizabeth, and they were wonderful hosts and they have
a one year old and it was so amazing, interesting,
(10:38):
satisfying to spend them because their daughter, who's one, was
also sick, not super bad sick, but just sick enough
where she wasn't sleeping very well. So in the middle
of the night, I hear a baby cry and immediately
you know, it's my job to get up. And then
the second thought is not my baby, not my problem,
(11:00):
And going back to sleep or just not getting up
was felt so deliciously selfish. But I was like, this
is I feel like I'm getting away with something terrible
and no one's ever going to find out. And they
were there so nice, new or so apologetically. I was
so sorry to woke you up. I'm like, are you
kidding me? Every time she woke me up. It was
(11:22):
a victory because I got to stay in bed. Also,
I completely forgot you being a parent. It's like, I
feel like you have such a short memory where you
know exactly what it's like to have a three and
a half year old, because that's what I have right now.
But spending the weekend with a one year old, I
(11:43):
was like, oh, yeah, this was my whole life one
year ago. And the big thing you forget is that
you can't stop looking at this child because she's she's
like sort of walking. She walks if she wants to,
but really she's like a million miles an hour crawling
and then climbing up. And they got like a big
sort of car that she can sit in that's got
(12:04):
one of those handles on the back that the parent
can push the car. It's her favorite thing, and so
she would constantly climb up into this and then just
stand up in the car, which is obviously not the
most stable thing that's on wheels, and then look over
at us like, huh, you should probably get me down.
And you know, Elizabeth, who was also tired and sick,
(12:25):
is just that like, oh, you don't get to relax
for a second. And then twice either fell out of
the car or climbed up on the couch and fell
because we weren't watching because we were talking to each other,
catching up and you could see the and they were
totally fine, like falls where she fell, and instantly my
impulse is like, wow, that was that was that was fine.
(12:48):
I mean she felt all the way off the couch
and hit her head on the carpet, but it didn't
make a scary sound. It's fine. And of course Elizabeth
feels like a terrible mother when she's like a wonderful
uh mother, and it's that like oh gosh, like embarrassed
in front of me, and I'm like, oh my god,
my daughter's falling off the bed right now. This next
(13:11):
segment is called We Knows Wins. This is where we
share some of our parenting wins for the week. Peter,
I have to Beth, I have too. I couldn't pick
one because they're both so wonderful. So my glorious weekend
away in Los Angeles, nothing to complain about. A Sunday night,
I take the Red Eye, which I'm not a fan
of because I have concluded two Red Eye flights in
the past with vomiting. But it was a little bit early,
(13:34):
so it's nine PM. I got in five pm in
New York, which is two thirty in l A. No
big deal. So I just stayed awake the whole time,
and I watched movies because I can't sleep on planes
hurts my neck, so I was like, I'm gonna stay up,
got an in, gotten a lift, came home just in
time to pick up the kids to take to daycare
(13:57):
because you had a very important meeting that later was
canceled but very important to me. Is like, directly home,
grab the kids, pull them out of bed, get them dressed,
and they sound terrible, and I was like, can I
take I'm sort of waking up, like can I take
these kids at school? They sound sick, and You're like
that they're fine. Well, the thing was that I didn't
(14:18):
sleep at all that night, and you finally came home
to relieve me, and you just kept waking me up
to ask me questions about whether to take them to school,
and I was like I don't care, like I just
want to be asleep right now, and it's like, how
I haven't been with them. I needed some info. So
I decided we have been shamed and embarrassed by daycare
(14:39):
over and over and over, so I'm like, I'm not
going to risk it. So I took them straight to
urgent care. We got there at eight am. Boy, they're
happy as can be to be there. They sound gross,
but they're don't not acting sick. I take them in
and then the doctors like, oh, yeah, they're good to
see you again. Mr McNerney recognized me and my kids
(15:00):
because we live there, and this isn't even our regular doctor.
It's just very close. And he goes, so, I'll go, great,
so can I take them to the daycare? And goes, well,
he can go, but I wouldn't take her yet, and
he prescribes some antibiotics and I go, Okay, I guess
(15:21):
I'm staying home all day after literally zero hours of sleep.
I take to school, I take her home. You're gone,
and I'm like, well, Beth's had a tough weekend. And
immediately my first thought was, I can see if Beth
can come home. I can't do this. I can't be
awake all day with this kid. But I thought about
(15:42):
somebody else other than myself, which was you, and I
decided to not ask you to come home. And uh,
And it was rough. It was a rough morning just
trying to stay awake, but also we every once in
a while higher a clean lady to come and help
us out. Because boy, we hate vacuuming. It's truly the
(16:03):
greatest blessing of our lives, truly the best thing we've
ever done for our relationship. I mean it's like just
we were so broke for like ten years and just
to have someone be able to come in and do that,
it's the best, could not be more greatful. It's the
best money we've ever spent in our lives. I would say, like,
(16:25):
it's better than food, even if you can barely afford
a cleaning lady, if you have kids, if you can
do it like once every few months, it's just delightful.
It might not be the most important expense, but oh
it is. That being said, she was scheduled to come
this morning and it was I was zero sleep. Okay,
(16:48):
what's the wind here, what's the winning? Oh yeah, this
is a good thing. Right before that may even falls
asleep on her own. I'm like, oh, could put her
in bed. Margarita shows up, I go, Hi, you can
clean every room except for this room. I'm going to
go sleep. And I went in there and maybe and
I slept straight for four and a half hours. It
was the greatest gift. You both slept through the whole
(17:10):
cleaning too. Oh yeah, she vacuuming. I don't know. I
mean it looked clean. When I came out, we were
out cold, like Maybne was six sleeping. Yeah, I think
maybe hadn't had like a full night sleep in a
couple of days, so she was ready, which leads me
to victory. We Knows Wins number two, which is something
we didn't realize until forty five minutes ago. Our kids
(17:34):
slept through the whole night last night. That's a I
don't know why I just made a soccer reference. If
there's one thing I love more than having a cleaning lady,
it's getting a full night's sleep. Oh my god, there's
nothing I like more than you getting a full night's sleep.
(17:56):
What are you trying to say that you're perfect? Time?
I love you, Thank you. It was beautiful. The podcast
is over. We've accomplished parenting like the next The next
thing is college, right. This next segment is called We
Knows News News segment. This is where we talk about
(18:20):
a parenting related story in the news and what are
highly original hot take is on it, Beth. So this
is so exciting because I think normally when you see
moms in the news, it's always like people trashing a
mom for doing something to try to survive with kids,
and this is dare you try to survive with kids?
It's always like, look at this bad mom just trying
(18:40):
to get by over here. Um. So this is a
really exciting story, which is Tammy Duckworth has given birth.
Let me find that book. I want to get the
far right. Tammy Duckworth gives birth to a baby girl.
She's the first Senator to have a baby while in office.
And I think I like these headlines. I think are
(19:02):
funny because it makes it sound like she gave birth
in the office, like while she was giving notes on
sending and didn't stop. She's like, can somebody grab that please,
which I mean is practically what she did, because you
know she's getting right back to work. Tammy duck rith is.
I mean, she's so many first but an inspiring woman.
(19:24):
She's a an Iraq War vet. She's a double amputee,
she lost both her legs in the Iraq War. She's
an Asian American woman who is a senator. I think
it's the second Asian American woman in the Senate ever. Yeah,
she was in the she was in the House and
now she's in the Senate. This is her second kid.
(19:44):
She's fifty years old, which I mean having a kid
of fifty impressive. Oh I didn't even realize that. Yeah,
this is her first child. Know, this is her second. Okay,
less crazy. Um, not that it's crazy to have a
baby when you're old, but it is less common, That's
all I'm saying. Yeah, I mean this woman, no matter
how you look at it, is incredibly impressive, and I
think the story is exciting. In addition to that, because
(20:06):
many moms would agree, we need more representation in government,
in media everywhere, not just for women, but especially for
moms because the studies on inequality in the workplace I
think seemed to add up to that the disparities between
men and women are usually amount to uh, the difficulties
(20:27):
that women have in their lives being both caretakers and
advancing in their careers. So we need women like this
who are going to put forward measures. She Tammy duck
With has already authored measures to make sure major airports
offer places for breastfeeding mothers to pump milk. The military
creates the uniform policy on giving personnel time to bond
(20:49):
with their newborn and adopted babies, and to make sure
student parents have on campus child care. Well, it's fascinating
because obviously this has never happened in the in the Senate,
and so it suddenly makes clear how many things in
that particular and very visible workplace have not been thought
(21:11):
of through the lens of like for voting. I was
just reading about this, Uh, the Senate floor. The rules
indicate that there can only be senators, their aids, and
officials on the Senate floor, and a senator can't vote
unless they're physically there, and so technically, you know, she
she's proposing policies that allow her to bring her infant
(21:34):
child to the floor so that she can do her
job and vote, because technically that's against the rules right now,
And I don't think there's been anything that said that
she's been prohibited from doing that, but just the fact
that that has never come up in the entire history. Yeah,
I mean, I'm sure she's getting a lot of heat
because the world is a sexist place and the way
(21:55):
that our government runs everything is very partisan, and people
try to find any way to stifle each other. But
how much would you love to see like c Span
with her on the Senate floor holding the baby, just
doing her job. Yeah, I thought you for someone. I
thought you were going to say a sitcom about a
senator mom, I mean an INCREDI I would watch that sitcom.
(22:17):
It's called Duckworth. Where she is. You know, she's a
double amputee in a wheelchair holding a baby. Uh, she's
Asian American like this is this is that's a show.
It's great and she's just trying to make it work.
It's so cool. I mean, I think it's exciting when
(22:39):
we're at this place where so many women like this
are sort of breaking down barriers, and you know, they're
working ten times as hard as anyone else to make
all this happen. And it's really great. And what I
hope is that they are able to put forth these
measures so that the next women who come around don't
have to work quite so hard. Well, there's a lot
of them, record number of of women running for office
(22:59):
this this year, you know, because of the climate, and
that's my political hot day. Wow, you're really you have
a finger on the pulse of women. This next segment
is called did you know Is? This is a segment
where Peter learns and chairs of parenting or child related facts.
(23:20):
I love facts, Beth. Did you know that the average
dad takes one minute in thirty six seconds to change
a diaper? Where is the average mom takes two minutes
and five seconds. What do you think about that? Because
that was a surprise to me. What are you trying
to say here? I don't know what does that statistics say.
(23:43):
What that says to me is that moms are making
sure they actually got all the poop out of all
the crevices, and they're putting on diaper cream and making
sure the diaper is comfortable. Uh, they're probably put like
actually putting the pants back on, maybe and not just
like letting the kid run around naked afterward. Well, first
of all, our kids won't let us put pants on them.
(24:03):
I'm not going to fight them. This is absolutely true.
What I'm thinking is, look how good I am a
changing a diaper done? Although I think early on I
started reading this and I my brain actually flipped it
because I don't know how to read. Uh, But in
my mind I was like, oh, dad's I picture most dads.
(24:24):
I think average dads changed few divers than moms, and
there's a picture them doing just being more like what
am I doing and taking far more time and using
far more wipes. Um so that this was a surprise
to me that dads were faster, because I feel like
moms would get really good at it and be really fast.
(24:47):
I definitely change diapers. Well no, no, did you think
I changed divers faster than you? M M. I don't know,
and I have never thought about this, that's true. I
would have said you were slow. I would have guessed right.
That would have been my guests, because your mind wanders
and then you're like probably singing a song and looking
out the window. Yeah, you forget why you went in there,
(25:10):
put a diaper on their head. You start changing it
before you realize there's no diapers, and then you gotta
go get more diapers. And then I realized the kids
are at daycare, that I'm losing my mind at home alone,
doing much better, thank you. Anyway, verdict is the women
(25:33):
are better than me. I will say you definitely. I
think you do the cream more than I do. You definitely. I'mlike,
that's fine. I mean I don't I don't like to
do the cream unless they've just had a bath, because
it just then it just feels like I'm rubbing my
hands all over dirty. But yeah, I mean I don't. Yeah,
who likes to stick their finger and your kids, you know,
(25:55):
I just wipe this butt, but if you don't have
to stick your finger in there, but it sounds like
you're doing around. Oh, they really hate it in there
between their butt cheeks, getting getting in there. Although I
will if my kids literally say ow when I'm wiping
their butts, I'm like, well, all right, you said, oh,
(26:15):
I have to put the cream on. Yeah. I mean,
I think compared to other compared to every said, our
kids don't have like the worst like diaper ash or anything.
They got. They got pretty tough skin. That was another thing.
I was in l A. And Elizabeth was like, we
didn't give her a bath that one night and she
was sweaty and I'm word, she has a rash because
of that. I was like, you missed one night I've
taken a bath. Are many people tell me they've bathed
(26:36):
their kids every night? And I can't imagine. Oh my god,
it's like part it's part of a lot of people's routine,
which I guess if it's like if it's foods your
kid and like it's the routine that gets them ready
to go to bed like fine, But for us, if
you have an hour of negotiation to get them into
the job used to get that. Most nights if you
(26:57):
have no routine in your life is pure chaos like
ours is. You do about once a week, maybe twice.
I wouldn't call our lives pure chaos. I mean, it's
a pure kind of chaos. But it's not pure chaos,
you know what I mean. It's a beautiful chaos. It's
a beautiful day. I don't like you too, you don't
(27:21):
like me. That was a terrible joke. That was a
me level bad joan. Why are we here? That made
me love you so much? You know why? Because that
that exposed a level of vulnerability that you don't let
the world see. And I've never been happier. I support
(27:47):
your vulnerability. You can make those jokes. I will laugh
always for the rest of my life. Thank you. Now
it's time for everyone's favorite segment. Would you know? This
is where one of us post it's a hypothetical parenting
situation to the other. And once again I have a
(28:09):
great suggestion from the fine folks on the internet. This
I'm gonna give this one to you, Beth. This one
comes to us from Michelle, who says you're making a
family garden, which is already hard to relate to because
we do not have a garden. We don't have a yard. Okay,
this is gonna require a lot of imagination. We actually
(28:30):
have a lot of cups of dirt right now, because true,
their kids planted some grass at school and then brought
at home and then dumped it on the carpet, and
then I scooped the dirt back into the cup. So
there's no grass anymore. So we have a cup of
dirt alright, So you're making a family garden. The rest
(28:50):
of this is going to be weird in our context.
And your child finds a small snake which he she
grabs and brings to you, how do you do? How
do you deal without making the child scared when they're
not scared and also understand that they there are certain
species of animals out there that can be quite harmful. Well,
(29:14):
maybe I'm just reading too much in your tone, but
the way she's delivering this question, I feel like this
is like a normal thing for Well, no, I don't
think so. The rest of it was this child is
now terrified of snakes because talking to that happened. I
guess my gut. I mean, I think my actual reaction
(29:37):
is that I'd probably be a little bit terrified, and
they would pick up on that immediately. But my attempt
a good parenting idea is you would say something like, Okay,
let's um let the snake go, Let's let him go
back to his home, and uh, you know, well, here's
the in this. It's do we know that it's a
(29:57):
garden snake and that it's not harmful, because then you
can breathe. I mean, I would definitely be a little
freaked out just because the side of a snake would
freak me out. But I think a snake that's small
enough for a kid to pick up is probably harmless.
I don't know where where are we living in Arizona.
If you live there, it's pretty unlikely the kids picked
(30:19):
up a dangerous snake. And I think you would know
with within a few minutes of seeing it. Within a
moment of seeing it, you probably have a good sense
of whether it's poisonous or not, because those little green
snakes are like very clearly you're in a garden. It's
I'm assuming this is a garden snake. Yeah, it's like
probably what I would do. Let's go and then I
(30:44):
try to calm down and go cool, and they would
know something is up and I feel like they did
something wrong, and then uh, no am I If I'm
being honest, I don't. Yeah, that's probably more realistically what
our reaction would be without thinking our brain put it down.
(31:07):
Put that down. I'm going to cite, uh some science
that I don't remember, but it's the movement of a
snake is so hardwired in our brain. That's something out
is like, not the actual idea of like this snake
biting the kids are being poisonants. Just the thought of
seeing a snake in my kid's hand, like just wriggling,
(31:28):
I would that scares me. So you've played it cool.
You've been like, Okay, I'm not gonna theoretically. Theoretically, then
now it's time to explain to this child that some
snakes are dangerous and maybe you shouldn't pick them up.
What do you say, I'm your child, Mommy, I have
(31:48):
a snake. Honestly, I would just say this about all
animals because what's more dangerous, honestly is if they were
picking up like a half alive mouse or something like
an aff a lot well like sometimes there's like an
injured chipmunk or something, and then because they can't get away,
and then you get brabies or you know, that's actually
(32:11):
probably more dangerous, is at least around here. Brinn is
trying so hard to catch a squirrel and I don't
try to. He's not going to catch the squirrel, so
I don't try to stop him. But I also see
parents letting me let him chase the squirrel, and I'm like,
are they going to think? I don't think so they
know they are also aware of physics. The squirrels are
(32:33):
pretty bold in our neighborhood. They let brain get pretty close.
One time, when I was a kid, I told my
mom I was going to catch a squirrel with a
rabbit cage we had, and she was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I go for it because she didn't think I was capable.
And I rigged up a rabbit cage so that I
could pull a string and then the lidwood snapshot, and
I put like peanut butter, bread or something in there,
(32:55):
and I caught a squirrel like in the morning before school,
and then it was going crazy in the cage, and
I went in and told my mom and she didn't
believe me. And it was like very scary to try
to release the squirrel because it was flipping out inside
the cage, so she didn't believe you, and then you
had to go out and release it. Well, she came
(33:16):
out and saw it, but she was like, yeah, right, Um,
I didn't tell you this. Brand got caught by a
squirrel trap a few weeks ago around the back of
the building. Why is there a squirrel trap? Well, I
don't I don't know it was a squirrel trap, but
some kid or somebody had clearly there's a little like
(33:37):
metal cage like the size of a sandwich and a
shallow that's made me think of it anyway, And it
was like propped up by a stick, and some young
person who clearly like set this up as a trap,
and I was like, what is that? And then I
saw Brand walk straight towards it and kicked the stick
with his foot and the trap felt right on his foot.
(33:57):
I was like, brind just got trapped by trap. So anyway,
I guess I would just tell our kids, you know,
like you shouldn't touch wild animals. Yeah, but they wouldn't listen.
It would be ineffective. We don't have good advice, I said, Michelle.
I'm gonna say that you did it right. You should
scare your kids. Yeah, now it's time for we knows
(34:25):
what they're watching. In this segment, we discussed our children's
latest pop culture obsessions. There's a lot, Beth, you have one. Yeah,
so this week we want to talk about letting our
kids watch things that are a little too adults. Um,
way too adults that you know, it's all water frankly,
it's adult TV. Yeah, so um. One thing that happened
(34:49):
this week was I was scrolling through Instagram stories and um,
I was looking at stories for Kim Chi, who is
a very funny drag queen guys. Um and kim she
had an Instagram story that was her I guess backup dancers.
It was like three muscular men within their underwear shaking
(35:10):
their butts and the camera just like the It was
framed as like three butts shaking to a song about
like butts. And so this was happening and May even
kind of wandered over and saw it, and she loved it.
She kept saying again again, and this is one of
the yet another one of those moments where I see
(35:31):
myself in her so much and I love it. You know,
we both love chocolate, we both love food, we both
love not talking to strangers. And that's really the list
I feel like for you, chocolate, not talking to strangers.
But and we like kind of messing with people. So
then this inspired one of my Instagram videos which I
will either this or a Nickelodeon show that I let
(35:52):
them watch that had a lot of potty humor. It
was like a cartoon. And I again had two sick
children all weekend, so I let them watch this really
dirty Nickelodeon show. And so I don't know where she
heard this, but there's an Instagram video on my page
now of maven um stepping on Brin's butt while he's
asleep on the floor. Um, why was he asleep on
(36:14):
the floor? So he boycotted his nap two days in
a row, and then he got really tired and he
fell asleep on the couch and then he heard us
and woke up and got up from the couch. But
then he just laid down next to us while we
were sitting at the table and fell back asleep on
the floor, and so Maven uh I started filming him
asleep on Beflore and Maven said, say cheese, and then
(36:37):
she walked over and put her foot on his butt
and she said booty. She put her foot on his
butt like Captain Morgan claim to claim the land. Yeah,
and she was like booty and then she said big
at booty. I think she's trying to say big fat
booty um. And she kept she kept saying big fat booty.
(36:58):
And I loved it. And I think we as me
and maybe are both the second child, so I think
we both kind of have that mischievous like love of
like messing with this older sibling. She recognized the floor
was hers to take, and she took it quite literally.
I had a little media consumption story of brit uh.
(37:18):
I remember this was last week. Sometime I was watching something,
maybe Silicon Valley, uh. Something was swearing and Britain came
into the room and I was like, oh, how we
turn this off? And I didn't and I was like,
there's not more swearing, and then there was more swearing,
and eventually was like, I'll turn it off. And then,
of course four seconds later Britain just playing by yourself
(37:41):
just goes, why don't you just suck it? And I go,
what would you just say? He looks at me with
a big smile and goes, suck it? Uh, And I
had to do serious talk and I grabbed him by
his shoulder firmly but lightly, and I go, that's not
a good word to say. And he understood. He had
(38:03):
an immediate shame connected with it that I like recognized
and remember feeling when I was little. I remember swearing
and realizing my dad was there and seeing his reaction
and feeling me, oh my god, I should I never
say this again. See, I'm surprised I was effective, because
in my mind, he's still at an age where he
is like if you tell him not to do something,
(38:24):
he wants to do it more So I would have
been like, well, he'll forget this word in three hours.
I'm just not going to say anything. Well, this is
a perfect example where they don't respond to what we say,
they respond to what we do, and it's entirely behavioral.
Because he said it, and I had a genuine like,
oh my god. And so that's what he was reading
is I was suddenly very serious and he was That
(38:46):
made him uncomfortable. The funny thing to me about kids
and languages, Like, in my mind, it doesn't really matter
to me if they're swearing. But then when you start
sending them out into the world to like daycare and stuff,
it's like so embarrassing to have the kid who's just
like swearing or what. Like all of a sudden, you're like,
you see these other people painting a picture for themselves
(39:07):
of like how you have raised this kid. Yeah, I mean,
we talk about farts all day and I'm like, who
cares them? Like, but don't talk about farts outside. I
don't worry about the fart thing because I think he's
hearing it at daycare as much as he's hearing it,
don't sure. Yeah, I would rather him say fart, fart
fart than pocket farget. Yeah. This has been We Knows Parenting.
(39:31):
If you have any parenting related questions or comments about
how badly we're doing over here, yeah judge, please send
them to we knows pod at gmail dot com or
find us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at we knows
pod and uh, let us know how you're doing. Um,
are you freaking out as a parent or are you
nailing it? Please give us tips tell us about you.
(39:54):
Let's get the conversation going. People. We want to hear
your highs and lows, but mostly we want you to
a shortist that you also have lows. Yeah, and so
that we can feel better about ourselves, because that's why
we're doing this validation. Have a great day. We don't
know what time you're listening to this, but we love you. Goodbye.
I got to say, Hi, welcome to We Know His Parenting.
I'm Beth Newell, co founder of Productress, and I'm Peter McNerney,
her husband. We are real life parents, real couple. Oh
(00:24):
my god, it's so real, real comedians kids, We were married.
These are true facts. We have a three and a
half year old and almost two year old, and this
is a podcast where we compare notes on our weekend
parenting and try to figure out what we do and
don't know about how to raise kids. Hi. Hi, It's
been a little while because I was out of town,
(00:45):
and I think that's the big recurring theme on our
podcast is just that we go our separate ways. It's
like a tag team of parenting, and then we regroup
and try to figure out what the hell happened. I've
said this before, and I keep saying, if it weren't
for this pie cast, good God, would I ever see you? Yeah,
like asleep in bed next to you? Cool? Cool cool.
(01:06):
So I went out to Los Angeles for the story
parts Los Angeles, benefit had an incredible time all by
myself without kids, and meanwhile, back at home, what happened?
I I literally have no idea because we didn't talk
the whole time. It was exhausting. So you, um brought
(01:29):
sickness into our lives. Well, I just want to I
just want to claim take responsibility that all illnesses are
my fault. Well this one you were. You were a
patient zero, So I blame you. You commined about being
sick for a couple of days. The next thing I know,
I'm sick. Next thing, I know, our kids are sick.
And we all got sick like the second you left town.
(01:50):
And it was I haven't been sick like this in
a while, Like we get we've been sick all winter,
but this was bad. It was like the stomach thing.
I just didn't want to get out of bed. I
was so tired and done. I got the text. I
was on the plane, about to set my phone to
airplane mode. Then I got the text all of us
are sick. Yeah it was fun. Um, So what happened
(02:11):
was I uh? I had I think I had asked
my sister to babysit that night for some reason, and
she said she was busy. So I was just laying
in bed all day, feeling sorry for myself when they
were at daycare. And finally I was so tired I
worked up the carriage to just like check in with
my sister and see what her deal was, and her
plans had actually been canceled. So then I was like,
come save me. I just I was like, I knew
(02:34):
I had like four more days of this, and I
was like, I need to have someone come help. So
she came, picked up the kids from daycare, helped them
eat dinner. They of course, the woman who runs day
care had told Ali that they were both seeming kind
of thick, which is like a hint to us, like,
maybe don't take them in tomorrow. Yeah, you guys don't
(02:55):
have a great track, right, We should just rename this podcast.
Our kids are sick and we're negligent about taking care
of them. Our kids are constantly sick, and we somehow
still don't know how to deal with it properly. Um,
so they stayed home on Friday. So they stayed home
on Friday. At this point, Ali slept over, which was great.
But then have we had a full week of them
(03:16):
going to daycare every day in months? I think we
did like two weeks ago. It was like a triumph,
and then it's over. It's over. This week might be
the next time yeah, um, Alison left. We were stuck
inside all weekend, like the three of us being all
kind of thick, may even incredibly cranky, just constantly saying
go away, and then like wanting things from you, but
(03:38):
then saying, go away is our new She's my incredibly wonderful,
hilarious daughter who's suddenly thirteen in like the worst most
stereotype of the way, go away. No, I don't want
to it. I know, it's just she keeps saying to Ali,
she's being so many dalli and she kept saying, not you, Ali.
(04:02):
It shouldn't hurt your feeling, but it really hurts my
feelings when she goes go away. She's very much on
the cusp of two. You can feel it in your bones. Well.
And everyone said terrible too, terrible too. Brin was not
a terrible two. He was an incredible too, and then
he hit three. Three to three and a half was
(04:23):
his worst. He was always demanding, Sure, but she is
a turning into a worse two year old than than
he was. So I was stuck inside with them all weekend.
It was not fun. At one point, Bryn tried to
get something off your dresser and pulled the drawer the
bottom drawers out and almost pulled the dresser on top
of himself. Oh wait, so he pulled the bottom drawers
(04:44):
out to step in. I think so, or like one
of them is already out. He was definitely like trying
to get something. So the dresser almost flipped on top
of him. I was like a few feet away, so
I was able to avert it, and I scare him.
I screamed at him. That's what scared him. Um. I
was like, I it was happening. I was like no,
and then I was like explaining, he can't do it,
and so he started crying, which I think is good.
(05:07):
He needs to have some fear of some things. I mean, yes,
because it's not often that I scream at him, and
it's usually a situation like that when he's about to
kill himself. I mean, yeah, that's good. There was just
I was just reading. Uh you know, I think this
is a people know this now. You know you don't smell.
You don't spank your kids because the more you do,
(05:29):
the less it matters and the less effective it is.
Like I don't know, you're saying, some spanking is not spanking.
Don't hit your kids, but save save the screaming for
when it truly matters, because if I screamed at them
as much as my emotions told me to, my my
(05:50):
screams become ineffective when I need them. But then another
thing that happened was Alison left, and then I had
the two for the night, and Maven was really pretty sick,
and I was like, how making to get through this night?
And of course Mayven wasn't sleeping well, like waking up
every second, um, So I brought her into bed with me.
I was like, this is the only way either of
us is going to sleep, and I like surrounded her
(06:12):
with pillows on the bed, moved a pile of dirty
laundry over next to her side of the bed just
in case she fell off, and we finally fell asleep
after like two hours of like fussing. And then wait, wait,
a pile of dirty laundry did you like go into
the hamper to make a mountain of clothes? I mean
we already had a mountain of clothes just sitting very
close to the bed, so I just pushed it over
(06:34):
closer to the bed. So then of course, I like
three am, I wake up to a thump and crying,
and she had fallen off the bed thankfully into the
pile of clothes, um, and she she stopped crying pretty quickly,
so I was like, I think she's okay. But then
obviously I still like paralyzed with the fear and like
(06:54):
adrenaline if that happening. So I put her to bed
in her crib because she was like pretty sleepy at
that point, and she went to sleep. But then of
course I was just sitting there like did I just
concuss her? Like was that a bad move to put
her back to bed? But eventually you can tell, like
when they I mean, I'm also the worst person to
judge because my medium pulses. It's fine, but the kind
(07:17):
of thud, it's like you can hear it, the kind
where you're like this, that's a problem. I mean I
heard it. It sounded bad. I probably would have been like,
it was not a bad one, it's okay. Yeah, I
don't know, she seems fine. Um yeah, that's exhausting. Although
(07:37):
it's hard. It's hard to tell because a two year
old talks like a concussed person to begin with, so
we don't really know. This is a funny joke. Well,
the other thing is that I think when people, when
people get concussions, they're supposed to be sleepy. So if
they're like calm and going to sleep, that's not necessarily
good sly, So we're bad parents and this is them
(08:00):
were great, Well, this is actually the second time that
you've been out of town and this exact thing has
happened and she's fallen out off the bed. The last
time was a year ago. Well, then it's definitely your fault. Well,
but I just feel like at some point I need
to sleep as a person. Well, uh, there is really
(08:22):
something because in the last year or however, you know
when when we had babies, uh, and they were incredibly
dependent on you and breastfeeding. You're the one waking up,
you were the one getting them, and as much as
I wanted to help, there was little I could do.
But in the past year, I get up every single time.
And the result is I know there middle of the
(08:47):
night patterns a little bit better than you do, and
I think I can more easily get them to sleep.
And so when you go in there, it's more of
a novelty for them, and they're like mom is here,
and I think they're less cooperative and then you get
frustrated and then you just throw them in the bed. Well,
I would say it's mostly the latter, which is that
they want me more, not that you know their patterns better.
(09:07):
You're not gonna give me any credit. You're not gonna
give me any putting them to bed skills. I've got
more reps. Baby, give me this one thing. This want
give me credit to say that it's ten of the reason. Yes, fantastic. Meanwhile,
(09:28):
across the country, you're having the time of your life healthy. No,
I was sick the whole time. You know, something that
we talked a lot about in my mom group is
something called the man cold, which is when men get sick,
it's always like a death grip in their minds. Okay,
you know what, you're simultaneously saying, you're such a baby
(09:51):
and also giving me credit for giving you the disease
that that made you unable to get out of bed,
So you can't have it both. That was day one
of me being sick. You were on like day four.
You can't tell me how I feel. And I was
parenting while saying, uh, my whole point of my story
is to actually validate what you're saying. Thank you, thank
(10:12):
you so much. I did feel terrible, um, but it
was still a total vacation in that I could stay asleep.
I was staying with my cousin Jeff and his wonderful
wife Elizabeth, and they were wonderful hosts and they have
a one year old and it was so amazing, interesting,
(10:38):
satisfying to spend them because their daughter, who's one, was
also sick, not super bad sick, but just sick enough
where she wasn't sleeping very well. So in the middle
of the night, I hear a baby cry and immediately
you know, it's my job to get up. And then
the second thought is not my baby, not my problem,
(11:00):
And going back to sleep or just not getting up
was felt so deliciously selfish. But I was like, this
is I feel like I'm getting away with something terrible
and no one's ever going to find out. And they
were there so nice, new or so apologetically. I was
so sorry to woke you up. I'm like, are you
kidding me? Every time she woke me up. It was
(11:22):
a victory because I got to stay in bed. Also,
I completely forgot you being a parent. It's like, I
feel like you have such a short memory where you
know exactly what it's like to have a three and
a half year old, because that's what I have right now.
But spending the weekend with a one year old, I
(11:43):
was like, oh, yeah, this was my whole life one
year ago. And the big thing you forget is that
you can't stop looking at this child because she's she's
like sort of walking. She walks if she wants to,
but really she's like a million miles an hour crawling
and then climbing up. And they got like a big
sort of car that she can sit in that's got
(12:04):
one of those handles on the back that the parent
can push the car. It's her favorite thing, and so
she would constantly climb up into this and then just
stand up in the car, which is obviously not the
most stable thing that's on wheels, and then look over
at us like, huh, you should probably get me down.
And you know, Elizabeth, who was also tired and sick,
(12:25):
is just that like, oh, you don't get to relax
for a second. And then twice either fell out of
the car or climbed up on the couch and fell
because we weren't watching because we were talking to each other,
catching up and you could see the and they were
totally fine, like falls where she fell, and instantly my
impulse is like, wow, that was that was that was fine.
(12:48):
I mean she felt all the way off the couch
and hit her head on the carpet, but it didn't
make a scary sound. It's fine. And of course Elizabeth
feels like a terrible mother when she's like a wonderful
uh mother, and it's that like oh gosh, like embarrassed
in front of me, and I'm like, oh my god,
my daughter's falling off the bed right now. This next
(13:11):
segment is called We Knows Wins. This is where we
share some of our parenting wins for the week. Peter,
I have to Beth, I have too. I couldn't pick
one because they're both so wonderful. So my glorious weekend
away in Los Angeles, nothing to complain about. A Sunday night,
I take the Red Eye, which I'm not a fan
of because I have concluded two Red Eye flights in
the past with vomiting. But it was a little bit early,
(13:34):
so it's nine PM. I got in five pm in
New York, which is two thirty in l A. No
big deal. So I just stayed awake the whole time,
and I watched movies because I can't sleep on planes
hurts my neck, so I was like, I'm gonna stay up,
got an in, gotten a lift, came home just in
time to pick up the kids to take to daycare
(13:57):
because you had a very important meeting that later was
canceled but very important to me. Is like, directly home,
grab the kids, pull them out of bed, get them dressed,
and they sound terrible, and I was like, can I
take I'm sort of waking up, like can I take
these kids at school? They sound sick, and You're like
that they're fine. Well, the thing was that I didn't
(14:18):
sleep at all that night, and you finally came home
to relieve me, and you just kept waking me up
to ask me questions about whether to take them to school,
and I was like I don't care, like I just
want to be asleep right now, and it's like, how
I haven't been with them. I needed some info. So
I decided we have been shamed and embarrassed by daycare
(14:39):
over and over and over, so I'm like, I'm not
going to risk it. So I took them straight to
urgent care. We got there at eight am. Boy, they're
happy as can be to be there. They sound gross,
but they're don't not acting sick. I take them in
and then the doctors like, oh, yeah, they're good to
see you again. Mr McNerney recognized me and my kids
(15:00):
because we live there, and this isn't even our regular doctor.
It's just very close. And he goes, so, I'll go, great,
so can I take them to the daycare? And goes, well,
he can go, but I wouldn't take her yet, and
he prescribes some antibiotics and I go, Okay, I guess
(15:21):
I'm staying home all day after literally zero hours of sleep.
I take to school, I take her home. You're gone,
and I'm like, well, Beth's had a tough weekend. And
immediately my first thought was, I can see if Beth
can come home. I can't do this. I can't be
awake all day with this kid. But I thought about
(15:42):
somebody else other than myself, which was you, and I
decided to not ask you to come home. And uh,
And it was rough. It was a rough morning just
trying to stay awake, but also we every once in
a while higher a clean lady to come and help
us out. Because boy, we hate vacuuming. It's truly the
(16:03):
greatest blessing of our lives, truly the best thing we've
ever done for our relationship. I mean it's like just
we were so broke for like ten years and just
to have someone be able to come in and do that,
it's the best, could not be more greatful. It's the
best money we've ever spent in our lives. I would say, like,
(16:25):
it's better than food, even if you can barely afford
a cleaning lady, if you have kids, if you can
do it like once every few months, it's just delightful.
It might not be the most important expense, but oh
it is. That being said, she was scheduled to come
this morning and it was I was zero sleep. Okay,
(16:48):
what's the wind here, what's the winning? Oh yeah, this
is a good thing. Right before that may even falls
asleep on her own. I'm like, oh, could put her
in bed. Margarita shows up, I go, Hi, you can
clean every room except for this room. I'm going to
go sleep. And I went in there and maybe and
I slept straight for four and a half hours. It
was the greatest gift. You both slept through the whole
(17:10):
cleaning too. Oh yeah, she vacuuming. I don't know. I
mean it looked clean. When I came out, we were
out cold, like Maybne was six sleeping. Yeah, I think
maybe hadn't had like a full night sleep in a
couple of days, so she was ready, which leads me
to victory. We Knows Wins number two, which is something
we didn't realize until forty five minutes ago. Our kids
(17:34):
slept through the whole night last night. That's a I
don't know why I just made a soccer reference. If
there's one thing I love more than having a cleaning lady,
it's getting a full night's sleep. Oh my god, there's
nothing I like more than you getting a full night's sleep.
(17:56):
What are you trying to say that you're perfect? Time?
I love you, Thank you. It was beautiful. The podcast
is over. We've accomplished parenting like the next The next
thing is college, right. This next segment is called We
Knows News News segment. This is where we talk about
(18:20):
a parenting related story in the news and what are
highly original hot take is on it, Beth. So this
is so exciting because I think normally when you see
moms in the news, it's always like people trashing a
mom for doing something to try to survive with kids,
and this is dare you try to survive with kids?
It's always like, look at this bad mom just trying
(18:40):
to get by over here. Um. So this is a
really exciting story, which is Tammy Duckworth has given birth.
Let me find that book. I want to get the
far right. Tammy Duckworth gives birth to a baby girl.
She's the first Senator to have a baby while in office.
And I think I like these headlines. I think are
(19:02):
funny because it makes it sound like she gave birth
in the office, like while she was giving notes on
sending and didn't stop. She's like, can somebody grab that please,
which I mean is practically what she did, because you
know she's getting right back to work. Tammy duck rith is.
I mean, she's so many first but an inspiring woman.
(19:24):
She's a an Iraq War vet. She's a double amputee,
she lost both her legs in the Iraq War. She's
an Asian American woman who is a senator. I think
it's the second Asian American woman in the Senate ever. Yeah,
she was in the she was in the House and
now she's in the Senate. This is her second kid.
(19:44):
She's fifty years old, which I mean having a kid
of fifty impressive. Oh I didn't even realize that. Yeah,
this is her first child. Know, this is her second. Okay,
less crazy. Um, not that it's crazy to have a
baby when you're old, but it is less common, That's
all I'm saying. Yeah, I mean this woman, no matter
how you look at it, is incredibly impressive, and I
think the story is exciting. In addition to that, because
(20:06):
many moms would agree, we need more representation in government,
in media everywhere, not just for women, but especially for
moms because the studies on inequality in the workplace I
think seemed to add up to that the disparities between
men and women are usually amount to uh, the difficulties
(20:27):
that women have in their lives being both caretakers and
advancing in their careers. So we need women like this
who are going to put forward measures. She Tammy duck
With has already authored measures to make sure major airports
offer places for breastfeeding mothers to pump milk. The military
creates the uniform policy on giving personnel time to bond
(20:49):
with their newborn and adopted babies, and to make sure
student parents have on campus child care. Well, it's fascinating
because obviously this has never happened in the in the Senate,
and so it suddenly makes clear how many things in
that particular and very visible workplace have not been thought
(21:11):
of through the lens of like for voting. I was
just reading about this, Uh, the Senate floor. The rules
indicate that there can only be senators, their aids, and
officials on the Senate floor, and a senator can't vote
unless they're physically there, and so technically, you know, she
she's proposing policies that allow her to bring her infant
(21:34):
child to the floor so that she can do her
job and vote, because technically that's against the rules right now,
And I don't think there's been anything that said that
she's been prohibited from doing that, but just the fact
that that has never come up in the entire history. Yeah,
I mean, I'm sure she's getting a lot of heat
because the world is a sexist place and the way
(21:55):
that our government runs everything is very partisan, and people
try to find any way to stifle each other. But
how much would you love to see like c Span
with her on the Senate floor holding the baby, just
doing her job. Yeah, I thought you for someone. I
thought you were going to say a sitcom about a
senator mom, I mean an INCREDI I would watch that sitcom.
(22:17):
It's called Duckworth. Where she is. You know, she's a
double amputee in a wheelchair holding a baby. Uh, she's
Asian American like this is this is that's a show.
It's great and she's just trying to make it work.
It's so cool. I mean, I think it's exciting when
(22:39):
we're at this place where so many women like this
are sort of breaking down barriers, and you know, they're
working ten times as hard as anyone else to make
all this happen. And it's really great. And what I
hope is that they are able to put forth these
measures so that the next women who come around don't
have to work quite so hard. Well, there's a lot
of them, record number of of women running for office
(22:59):
this this year, you know, because of the climate, and
that's my political hot day. Wow, you're really you have
a finger on the pulse of women. This next segment
is called did you know Is? This is a segment
where Peter learns and chairs of parenting or child related facts.
(23:20):
I love facts, Beth. Did you know that the average
dad takes one minute in thirty six seconds to change
a diaper? Where is the average mom takes two minutes
and five seconds. What do you think about that? Because
that was a surprise to me. What are you trying
to say here? I don't know what does that statistics say.
(23:43):
What that says to me is that moms are making
sure they actually got all the poop out of all
the crevices, and they're putting on diaper cream and making
sure the diaper is comfortable. Uh, they're probably put like
actually putting the pants back on, maybe and not just
like letting the kid run around naked afterward. Well, first
of all, our kids won't let us put pants on them.
(24:03):
I'm not going to fight them. This is absolutely true.
What I'm thinking is, look how good I am a
changing a diaper done? Although I think early on I
started reading this and I my brain actually flipped it
because I don't know how to read. Uh, But in
my mind I was like, oh, dad's I picture most dads.
(24:24):
I think average dads changed few divers than moms, and
there's a picture them doing just being more like what
am I doing and taking far more time and using
far more wipes. Um so that this was a surprise
to me that dads were faster, because I feel like
moms would get really good at it and be really fast.
(24:47):
I definitely change diapers. Well no, no, did you think
I changed divers faster than you? M M. I don't know,
and I have never thought about this, that's true. I
would have said you were slow. I would have guessed right.
That would have been my guests, because your mind wanders
and then you're like probably singing a song and looking
out the window. Yeah, you forget why you went in there,
(25:10):
put a diaper on their head. You start changing it
before you realize there's no diapers, and then you gotta
go get more diapers. And then I realized the kids
are at daycare, that I'm losing my mind at home alone,
doing much better, thank you. Anyway, verdict is the women
(25:33):
are better than me. I will say you definitely. I
think you do the cream more than I do. You definitely. I'mlike,
that's fine. I mean I don't I don't like to
do the cream unless they've just had a bath, because
it just then it just feels like I'm rubbing my
hands all over dirty. But yeah, I mean I don't. Yeah,
who likes to stick their finger and your kids, you know,
(25:55):
I just wipe this butt, but if you don't have
to stick your finger in there, but it sounds like
you're doing around. Oh, they really hate it in there
between their butt cheeks, getting getting in there. Although I
will if my kids literally say ow when I'm wiping
their butts, I'm like, well, all right, you said, oh,
(26:15):
I have to put the cream on. Yeah. I mean,
I think compared to other compared to every said, our
kids don't have like the worst like diaper ash or anything.
They got. They got pretty tough skin. That was another thing.
I was in l A. And Elizabeth was like, we
didn't give her a bath that one night and she
was sweaty and I'm word, she has a rash because
of that. I was like, you missed one night I've
taken a bath. Are many people tell me they've bathed
(26:36):
their kids every night? And I can't imagine. Oh my god,
it's like part it's part of a lot of people's routine,
which I guess if it's like if it's foods your
kid and like it's the routine that gets them ready
to go to bed like fine, But for us, if
you have an hour of negotiation to get them into
the job used to get that. Most nights if you
(26:57):
have no routine in your life is pure chaos like
ours is. You do about once a week, maybe twice.
I wouldn't call our lives pure chaos. I mean, it's
a pure kind of chaos. But it's not pure chaos,
you know what I mean. It's a beautiful chaos. It's
a beautiful day. I don't like you too, you don't
(27:21):
like me. That was a terrible joke. That was a
me level bad joan. Why are we here? That made
me love you so much? You know why? Because that
that exposed a level of vulnerability that you don't let
the world see. And I've never been happier. I support
(27:47):
your vulnerability. You can make those jokes. I will laugh
always for the rest of my life. Thank you. Now
it's time for everyone's favorite segment. Would you know? This
is where one of us post it's a hypothetical parenting
situation to the other. And once again I have a
(28:09):
great suggestion from the fine folks on the internet. This
I'm gonna give this one to you, Beth. This one
comes to us from Michelle, who says you're making a
family garden, which is already hard to relate to because
we do not have a garden. We don't have a yard. Okay,
this is gonna require a lot of imagination. We actually
(28:30):
have a lot of cups of dirt right now, because true,
their kids planted some grass at school and then brought
at home and then dumped it on the carpet, and
then I scooped the dirt back into the cup. So
there's no grass anymore. So we have a cup of
dirt alright, So you're making a family garden. The rest
(28:50):
of this is going to be weird in our context.
And your child finds a small snake which he she
grabs and brings to you, how do you do? How
do you deal without making the child scared when they're
not scared and also understand that they there are certain
species of animals out there that can be quite harmful. Well,
(29:14):
maybe I'm just reading too much in your tone, but
the way she's delivering this question, I feel like this
is like a normal thing for Well, no, I don't
think so. The rest of it was this child is
now terrified of snakes because talking to that happened. I
guess my gut. I mean, I think my actual reaction
(29:37):
is that I'd probably be a little bit terrified, and
they would pick up on that immediately. But my attempt
a good parenting idea is you would say something like, Okay,
let's um let the snake go, Let's let him go
back to his home, and uh, you know, well, here's
the in this. It's do we know that it's a
(29:57):
garden snake and that it's not harmful, because then you
can breathe. I mean, I would definitely be a little
freaked out just because the side of a snake would
freak me out. But I think a snake that's small
enough for a kid to pick up is probably harmless.
I don't know where where are we living in Arizona.
If you live there, it's pretty unlikely the kids picked
(30:19):
up a dangerous snake. And I think you would know
with within a few minutes of seeing it. Within a
moment of seeing it, you probably have a good sense
of whether it's poisonous or not, because those little green
snakes are like very clearly you're in a garden. It's
I'm assuming this is a garden snake. Yeah, it's like
probably what I would do. Let's go and then I
(30:44):
try to calm down and go cool, and they would
know something is up and I feel like they did
something wrong, and then uh, no am I If I'm
being honest, I don't. Yeah, that's probably more realistically what
our reaction would be without thinking our brain put it down.
(31:07):
Put that down. I'm going to cite, uh some science
that I don't remember, but it's the movement of a
snake is so hardwired in our brain. That's something out
is like, not the actual idea of like this snake
biting the kids are being poisonants. Just the thought of
seeing a snake in my kid's hand, like just wriggling,
(31:28):
I would that scares me. So you've played it cool.
You've been like, Okay, I'm not gonna theoretically. Theoretically, then
now it's time to explain to this child that some
snakes are dangerous and maybe you shouldn't pick them up.
What do you say, I'm your child, Mommy, I have
(31:48):
a snake. Honestly, I would just say this about all
animals because what's more dangerous, honestly is if they were
picking up like a half alive mouse or something like
an aff a lot well like sometimes there's like an
injured chipmunk or something, and then because they can't get away,
and then you get brabies or you know, that's actually
(32:11):
probably more dangerous, is at least around here. Brinn is
trying so hard to catch a squirrel and I don't
try to. He's not going to catch the squirrel, so
I don't try to stop him. But I also see
parents letting me let him chase the squirrel, and I'm like,
are they going to think? I don't think so they
know they are also aware of physics. The squirrels are
(32:33):
pretty bold in our neighborhood. They let brain get pretty close.
One time, when I was a kid, I told my
mom I was going to catch a squirrel with a
rabbit cage we had, and she was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I go for it because she didn't think I was capable.
And I rigged up a rabbit cage so that I
could pull a string and then the lidwood snapshot, and
I put like peanut butter, bread or something in there,
(32:55):
and I caught a squirrel like in the morning before school,
and then it was going crazy in the cage, and
I went in and told my mom and she didn't
believe me. And it was like very scary to try
to release the squirrel because it was flipping out inside
the cage, so she didn't believe you, and then you
had to go out and release it. Well, she came
(33:16):
out and saw it, but she was like, yeah, right, Um,
I didn't tell you this. Brand got caught by a
squirrel trap a few weeks ago around the back of
the building. Why is there a squirrel trap? Well, I
don't I don't know it was a squirrel trap, but
some kid or somebody had clearly there's a little like
(33:37):
metal cage like the size of a sandwich and a
shallow that's made me think of it anyway, And it
was like propped up by a stick, and some young
person who clearly like set this up as a trap,
and I was like, what is that? And then I
saw Brand walk straight towards it and kicked the stick
with his foot and the trap felt right on his foot.
(33:57):
I was like, brind just got trapped by trap. So anyway,
I guess I would just tell our kids, you know,
like you shouldn't touch wild animals. Yeah, but they wouldn't listen.
It would be ineffective. We don't have good advice, I said, Michelle.
I'm gonna say that you did it right. You should
scare your kids. Yeah, now it's time for we knows
(34:25):
what they're watching. In this segment, we discussed our children's
latest pop culture obsessions. There's a lot, Beth, you have one. Yeah,
so this week we want to talk about letting our
kids watch things that are a little too adults. Um,
way too adults that you know, it's all water frankly,
it's adult TV. Yeah, so um. One thing that happened
(34:49):
this week was I was scrolling through Instagram stories and um,
I was looking at stories for Kim Chi, who is
a very funny drag queen guys. Um and kim she
had an Instagram story that was her I guess backup dancers.
It was like three muscular men within their underwear shaking
(35:10):
their butts and the camera just like the It was
framed as like three butts shaking to a song about
like butts. And so this was happening and May even
kind of wandered over and saw it, and she loved it.
She kept saying again again, and this is one of
the yet another one of those moments where I see
(35:31):
myself in her so much and I love it. You know,
we both love chocolate, we both love food, we both
love not talking to strangers. And that's really the list
I feel like for you, chocolate, not talking to strangers.
But and we like kind of messing with people. So
then this inspired one of my Instagram videos which I
will either this or a Nickelodeon show that I let
(35:52):
them watch that had a lot of potty humor. It
was like a cartoon. And I again had two sick
children all weekend, so I let them watch this really
dirty Nickelodeon show. And so I don't know where she
heard this, but there's an Instagram video on my page
now of maven um stepping on Brin's butt while he's
asleep on the floor. Um, why was he asleep on
(36:14):
the floor? So he boycotted his nap two days in
a row, and then he got really tired and he
fell asleep on the couch and then he heard us
and woke up and got up from the couch. But
then he just laid down next to us while we
were sitting at the table and fell back asleep on
the floor, and so Maven uh I started filming him
asleep on Beflore and Maven said, say cheese, and then
(36:37):
she walked over and put her foot on his butt
and she said booty. She put her foot on his
butt like Captain Morgan claim to claim the land. Yeah,
and she was like booty and then she said big
at booty. I think she's trying to say big fat
booty um. And she kept she kept saying big fat booty.
(36:58):
And I loved it. And I think we as me
and maybe are both the second child, so I think
we both kind of have that mischievous like love of
like messing with this older sibling. She recognized the floor
was hers to take, and she took it quite literally.
I had a little media consumption story of brit uh.
(37:18):
I remember this was last week. Sometime I was watching something,
maybe Silicon Valley, uh. Something was swearing and Britain came
into the room and I was like, oh, how we
turn this off? And I didn't and I was like,
there's not more swearing, and then there was more swearing,
and eventually was like, I'll turn it off. And then,
of course four seconds later Britain just playing by yourself
(37:41):
just goes, why don't you just suck it? And I go,
what would you just say? He looks at me with
a big smile and goes, suck it? Uh, And I
had to do serious talk and I grabbed him by
his shoulder firmly but lightly, and I go, that's not
a good word to say. And he understood. He had
(38:03):
an immediate shame connected with it that I like recognized
and remember feeling when I was little. I remember swearing
and realizing my dad was there and seeing his reaction
and feeling me, oh my god, I should I never
say this again. See, I'm surprised I was effective, because
in my mind, he's still at an age where he
is like if you tell him not to do something,
(38:24):
he wants to do it more So I would have
been like, well, he'll forget this word in three hours.
I'm just not going to say anything. Well, this is
a perfect example where they don't respond to what we say,
they respond to what we do, and it's entirely behavioral.
Because he said it, and I had a genuine like,
oh my god. And so that's what he was reading
is I was suddenly very serious and he was That
(38:46):
made him uncomfortable. The funny thing to me about kids
and languages, Like, in my mind, it doesn't really matter
to me if they're swearing. But then when you start
sending them out into the world to like daycare and stuff,
it's like so embarrassing to have the kid who's just
like swearing or what. Like all of a sudden, you're like,
you see these other people painting a picture for themselves
(39:07):
of like how you have raised this kid. Yeah, I mean,
we talk about farts all day and I'm like, who
cares them? Like, but don't talk about farts outside. I
don't worry about the fart thing because I think he's
hearing it at daycare as much as he's hearing it,
don't sure. Yeah, I would rather him say fart, fart
fart than pocket farget. Yeah. This has been We Knows Parenting.
(39:31):
If you have any parenting related questions or comments about
how badly we're doing over here, yeah judge, please send
them to we knows pod at gmail dot com or
find us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at we knows
pod and uh, let us know how you're doing. Um,
are you freaking out as a parent or are you
nailing it? Please give us tips tell us about you.
(39:54):
Let's get the conversation going. People. We want to hear
your highs and lows, but mostly we want you to
a shortist that you also have lows. Yeah, and so
that we can feel better about ourselves, because that's why
we're doing this validation. Have a great day. We don't
know what time you're listening to this, but we love you. Goodbye.
We Knows Parenting News
Hosts And Creators
Beth Newell
Peter McNerney
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.