August 21, 2018 • 60 mins
This week Peter and Beth reveal how the notorious Brown Cow Birthday Cake turned out. Peter wonders if explaining the concept of death to Bryn was a good idea. Beth shares an article about how dads are more likely to seek advice on the internet anonymously. As a result, Peter definitely does NOT get super defensive about the implications and what follows ISN’T the the most intense and genuinely emotional debate that Beth and Peter have ever had on the podcast. I don’t care what you’ve heard. That’s simply NOT true. I’m NOT… I mean PETER... is NOT defensive.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
I got Hello, welcome to We Know His Parenting, The
parenting podcast posted by Real Life Parents. I'm Beth Nowell
and I'm Peter McNerney. We are married, we're parents. We've
(00:22):
got kids that are two years old and tomorrow most
four years old. Tomorrow Brin turns four, and UM, I'm
gonna say I'm pretty excited we got the cow cake
situation sorted out. Yeah, the cow cake is definitely a
brown cow, as you insisted. That'll show him. I went
(00:47):
in after really vilifying that woman last week. I went
in and realized like, oh, this is a very nice woman,
and uh we we patched it up. Why did you
go back in to pay for it? I went in
the middle a week to pay for it. But you
picked it up yesterday. Yeah, I picked it up. You
gave it a peek. It looked okay, Yeah, I glanced
(01:09):
at it. It's um. I didn't realize until I got there,
what treacherous um task it is to try to like
transport a cake somewhere without ruining it. And so they said,
put on a flat surface. I put in the trunk
and it was fine. But just walking across the street
one way, carefully carrying the cake. By the time I
(01:30):
put it down in the car, it was already smushed
on one side. Like I didn't there was There's no
way to transport a cake that's in like a flimsy
little white What I was originally planning was to get
the cake this morning on the way to school with
the kids, and I think that it would not have
(01:52):
survived Brennan maven Co traveling situation. Yeah. No, this was
good because I gave it to daycare yesterday day as
we were as they were leaving, and I was like,
get this cake away from me before our kids destroy it,
and they took it. As a result. This morning, I
just took Brendan maybe into school and they're going to
celebrate Brin's birthday at at daycare. And uh, we got
(02:17):
there a little bit early, so sometimes we sit out
front and wait five minutes because I don't want to
be obnoxious and going too early. And so I'm sitting
there talking to like, bryn you know, tomorrow is tomorrow
you turned four, and he goes, no, I turned four
on Thursday. By the way, he doesn't he doesn't ever
say yesterday. He says the day that yesterday was. He's
(02:38):
really into the day's the week now. But in his offense,
this birthday thing is very confusing because you've been talking
about it. And he had got a cake at my
family union, and he at the family union and he
turned to my sister when the cake came out and
he goes, Ali, you didn't get me a present for
my birthday. So she felt horrible, but she's like, it's
not your birthday yet, but here's a cake. Happy birthday. Yeah,
(03:00):
And then now we're like talking about this cake and
we're I was trying to explain to him yesterday. I
was like, I we have the cake today, but you're
going to eat the cake tomorrow at daycare and then
Saturday is your actual birthday. And I said, Lucas is
coming over and he was like, so we're gonna eat
the cow cake on Saturday with Lucas And I was like,
well no, because you'll have already eaten the cowcake at daycare.
(03:23):
That was like, maybe we'll get you something else, and
he was like okay, Mommy, okay, and then he I
guess he thought I didn't hear him, so it goes mommy.
I said, okay. Uh. He really wanted to make sure
I knew he was okay with a second tree. I'm
I just want you to know I am definitely fine
if you want to give me more cake. I'm down
(03:43):
with the compromise him to that, Well, what he interpreted
from that conversation was that he turned four yesterday on Thursday,
and he is for his birthday is not tomorrow. But
I think that was just him being disagreeable. It was
him being so disagreeable, and then I was like, okay,
and then I just started being silly to distract him
because I could see he was about to go to
(04:04):
a super stubborn place. And then uh, the somebody else
arrived at daycare and they started going in. I go, okay, great,
I can be a little early. Somebody else is here,
so I pulled them out. And so we're going in
the same time as another family and Brin comes in
and the women are in Steakcare goes Brin, today's your birthday,
(04:27):
and the other one goes Britain, it's your birthday today,
and Britain goes, yes, today is my birthday. It's funny.
What was that whole conversation about Thursday? When I handed
them the cake? Yesterday, all the kids were in the
front lawn of daycare and Brin was like, you're all
going to get to have a piece of my cow cake,
(04:48):
and he was like so proud. He was like I
am the King and you will get your cake. I'm
just remembering now, being not that young, but those sort
of like five six seven probably birthday parties, and I
remember preparing my mom my mom through some pretty great
(05:10):
like lo fi birthday parties like make your own Sunday's,
uh homemade games and stuff. And I remember prepping for
those birthday parties with my mom and putting out the
bowls of the activities and stuff and then just being like, okay,
it's all set. People are arriving, and I write now
I just think memory of opening the door for the
(05:30):
first friend and being like, welcome to my party, and
that exact feeling of giving them the grand tour. Yeah,
it's like, this is my day and I'm your humble host. Um.
I love my birthday. The other thing that happened this
week is and my sister and I took the kids
to play Land, which is a very small little amusement
(05:51):
park nearby UM, which was very exciting for brand and
it was so jealous You always do this though. If
I tried to plan something on a weekend or try
to motivate you to bring the kids somewhere fun, you're
always like, no, let's just lay on the couch. And
then when I do these things with my sister when
(06:13):
you're working, you're always act jealous, as though you weren't
invited along. Well, I will say, it has been a
long time since you've been like, hey, let's do a thing,
and I say no, I don't do that. I am
real lazy on the weekends. But if you're like, we
should go somewhere, it's been a long time since I've
(06:34):
said no. I've asked to go to the beach at
least four times this summer when you said, now you
know what, you really just got me there. But I've
in those situations I've suggested something else because I sort
of hate the beach. You haven't suggested something else. We've
gone out. I'll do better and I'm very aware. Okay, Anyway,
(06:54):
we went to land. Um. It was amazingly hot. Um,
but he's finally at the age where that I feel
like that's prime. He was loving it. But we made
the mistake of getting on this ride at the beginning,
that's like sort of the equivalent of like a teacups thing,
but the seats beIN around and it was like as
the first ride choice, it was really bad because my
(07:16):
sister and I were immediately nauseous with the kids, and
I was just going, oh God, this is going to
be a lot and it's so loud. And then we
found some other rides or less nausea inducing. But it's
also like a little bit of a weird thing. Maven
is like just a little too short and young for things,
so you have to go on with her as an adult,
(07:38):
which is fine, except that some of the rides don't
really have great seating to share with a kid and
an adult. So there is one ride where you drive
like trucks around and for Brin to sit in the
cabin of the truck, he had to be alone. So
I just decided to skip out on that because Maven
seemed tired anyway, she didn't not because of the timing
(07:58):
of this trip, so like trying to just like shoot
her away. So my sister took him on that and
that was very exciting for him. I saw the video.
I've never seen a prouder trucker. He was so proud.
He's like, I'm driving this and no one is helping me. Yeah,
He's like, I'm driving a real truck. He's like, do
you see this fast? Like I'm trying to truck. So then, oh,
(08:21):
and then there was a live performance by a teenage
boy dressed as like, I guess, like the Candy Man
or something. He's saying he's sang this song like the
Candy Man can Billy Wonka, And then he did he
performed like a live like. It was sort of like
a morality play where there's two puppets as Handel and Gretel,
(08:42):
and they were annoyed because they're supposed millennial parents were
always trying to feed them kale and healthy foods. Like
they literally said, our millennial parents always wanted to eat
kale and avocados. And then and they're like, we just
want to eat candy. So then it's like this whole
thing where it's pre recorded. The teenage boy was the
(09:06):
only one singing, doing the lide performance very enthusiastically, I
have to say, he was really committed in really a
strong performer. And the puppets are prerecorded audio to a track,
so there's just someone behind their flapping the puppets, mouths
open throughout, and the picture of that person being the
(09:27):
opposite level of enthusiasm as the teen and he's just
an old guy who, somehow with two puppets on his hand,
still has a cigarette in his mouth. Yeah. But so
there's like a series of songs where these kids go
and eat all this candy and they're loving it, but
then they get stomach aches and then they make jokes
that sort of allude to it being like a hangover. Um.
(09:47):
And then they go back to their parents and they're like,
sort of like their parents, They're like, oh, we never
want to candy again, and their parents are like, we
decided to give you a treat. We're going to make
a gluten free blah blah free cake. And it's just
like the it's just like such a weird, dumb character.
I really do want to know who wrote this. Um
(10:09):
sounds like a baby boomer or a gen xer. Yeah,
I don't know, UM, but it's really funny to think
of like millennial parents in my mind is still like
a brand new thing. But it's but we're past that point,
Like there's a you know what, I mean, I mean
sort of. I don't know. We are on the older
(10:32):
end of millennial parents, which feels like new to us.
But in the rest of the country people are having
kids much we live in an area people have babies later. Yeah, anyway,
it was so here's the craziest part of story is
We're in the park and Brent's starting to get into
the game areas, and I'm like, we've got to get
out of here because I can tell, like the kids
(10:54):
are getting tired. It's over stimulating. And so I had
i'd this log ride, one of those ones where you
go inside into like dark tunnels, and I was like
trying to figure out if the kids were old enough,
and I figured out they Maven was like tall enough
or whatever, and I was like, this is definitely going
to be probably too scary for them, but it looks
(11:15):
so cool and dark in there compared to being hot outside,
and also like it's on the it's like on the
way out. So I was like, maybe we can just
get this done. So we take them in there, there's
animatronic trolls. Their kids are like immediately pretty scared, and
they were talking about it for a while. Yeah, and
they were like so they were pretty scared, and then
(11:39):
they it gets to like scarier parts. There's like a
dragon and the like. It starts with like nice dwarves,
which is still pretty scary, but then these scary trolls
come out and Brennan Maven are terrified and one of
the trolls has like a water gun that he's shooting
at us, which Brin did not like. And by the
end of the ride, Maven was like pressing her head
(12:01):
against me, trying to like hide in my arms, and
bryn was putting his hands on his ears and terror
and they were so scared. And then we got out
and may Haven immediately brightened up, like it was sort
of like they it was like one of those things
that was like so terrified to them that I think
(12:21):
in her mind she was like will this ever end?
Am I going through die here? So yeah, she got
out and I think she was like it's over. She
was like smiling, and I was like, may Haven, are
you really happy it's over? And she was like yeah.
And then um Brin was like kind of mad at
us and he was like that was too scary. I
didn't like it. So the benefit of this was they
(12:44):
were both lightly traumatized, and I was able to convince
them to leave. I was like, you guys want to
go home, and they were like yeah. It really is
a good way to scare your kids out of the
Amazement Park when you need to leave, and them in
to leaving. So then we get in the car and
my sister and I were trying to lighten the mood
for Brennan. We were like, that was so crazy. When
(13:07):
that troll was spraying at us, we were both we
were like, what the heck is going on here? We
were trying to make it seem like funny and weird,
and so Brend immediately picked up on it and started
changing his story and was like, yeah, it was crazy
in there, and he was like he was like I
said to that troll, hey, stop that troll, and like
(13:28):
he like changed it where he was like really brave
and like annoyed at the troll, which is so funny
because he was like cowering in fear when we were
in the ride. So it all worked out well. Good
job he's had nightmares ever since. He hasn't. This next
(13:49):
segment is called we Don't Know as it's where we
share a perplexing or defeating parenting moment. All right, I
got one. This one's about death. Um, so we are
reading a book. We've read this book a bunch. There
wasn't an old woman who swallowed a fly? And we
have lots of fun fun with this book in bed.
(14:10):
We do a lot of singing like maybe, yeah, well maybe.
Each time I turned the page, I do it longer
where I go there wasn't an old lady who's wallowed
a fly. I don't know why she's swallowed the fly.
Perhaps she'll die, Okay, so that's where the death comes in.
And then she swallows the spider to catch the fly.
(14:31):
Blah blah blah blah. It's a very fun book. By
the end we get maybe and I go the longer
and longer each time there it wasn't ol lady's allw
to fly. It's really fun. And the last one goes,
wasn't a lady who swallowed a horse? And then the
page turns in abruptly goes she died, of course, And
then you flip the page and says, moral never eat
(14:52):
a horse. And there's a picture of a gravestone because
maybe and pointed out to me and one of them
was like a door and I was like, yeah, I'm
not going to correct you on that. Well, I guess,
but I did not not correct well now, Brendon said,
Brent said, what's that? And I go quick calculation in
(15:14):
my mind, I'm like, do I want to get into this?
And like he asked me, I go, that's a grave
stone and he goes, what's that. I'm like, that's they
buried the old lady because she's dead, and he goes huh.
And then I'm I'm like, I'm just keeping it light,
just in factual. I'm like, yeah, you know how you
watch those videos with the skeletons in the graveyard? That's
(15:35):
a graveyard. Yeah. And then I said something that he
can they connected with him. I was like, yeah, the
old lady, she's buried in the ground and then that's
then you become a skeleton. He goes huh. And then
I was like, all right, I think that's enough. All right, great,
And then it took me back like I remember when
(15:56):
I was little. I remember my mom talking about death,
and I in retrospect, I really appreciate the way she
handled it, which is very factual and very light, which
is and she would always I didn't get I mean,
we went to church, but my mom never said to
me like, oh, you die and you go to heaven
and it's great, there's nothing to worry about. She would
(16:17):
literally just go, yeah, well when you die, like what happens.
She goes, well, we don't know, you know, you die
and and uh, we don't know, and there's nothing you
can but deal. I don't I don't know. I would
have to look into this, but I feel like developmentally,
there's our kids are not in an age to comprehend
(16:38):
any of that. Well, that's why I didn't go that
far into it. Yeah, but I mean just I'm husband
to get into any of it right now because I
think it's just like confusing, like because they they love
to say things like you're dead, and like play games
at daycare where they're like trying to kill each other
or whatever, and it's like it's I just don't want
(17:00):
to get into it because I don't want to give
weird weight to those games that they're playing because they
have no context for what they're saying. Yes, I mean,
I remember being very young and like fully grappling with
the question of death, and I remember being totally terrified
in bed and unable to stop thinking about it and
(17:21):
like rationalizing it. Wait, this is after you just said
you love the way your mom handled it. You're now
like this is old. This is a little older. I
remember thinking about it, but I don't think there's any
way around that, you know, unless you're Yeah, I'm just saying,
let that happen at an age when they're old enough
to like sort of process it and not like people. Yeah,
(17:45):
I mean, I don't know, but it's also, boy, this
is gonna be the same thing with like sex, which
is also something I have found moments or that I'm avoiding. Well.
I also we had some listeners feedback on we were
talking about discussing race with your kids, and I like
one of those I don't remember we're gonna talk about that,
but I think you I agree those things should be discussed.
(18:08):
I just think our son is barely four years old,
and he won't have any idea what we're talking about,
and then we just have a little kid who's repeating
weird things to other people. I did think that that, like,
you know what, he's probably gonna go to school and
be like, you know, we get buried in the ground
to become dancing skeletons. Yeah, I do want to say.
I think it's I'm impressed that our kids have sort
(18:31):
of come full circle this year on Loving Dia Day,
Los Marto's Imagery and Escalitos for almost an entire year now,
and now we're coming back around to Halloween and it's
going to be relevant again. But they've kept the flame.
They kept, They've kept that that ball in the air.
This this Halloween, I think is going to be the
(18:52):
first like monumentous, momentous, monumentous, monumental or momentous Halloween for
Brin where he knows exactly what he's getting into. He's
going to get his costs in the anticipation the candy. Yeah,
I think Mayven will turn a corner two because her
love of candy is so strong, but her fear of
(19:13):
people was also very strong. Last year mayven Halloween. Last
year it was she got the first piece of candy
and she's like, well, this is a jackpot. I'm done.
She's like, just let me eat this. I don't want
to talk to anyone. Let me slowly eat this one
piece of chocolate for an hour. And then Brinn realized
I can get more, I can get more, and he
(19:34):
was on a mission. Yeah. Well he was also like, oh,
I get to go talk to people and tell them
what I'm wearing. Great. Um So anyway, actually I want
to hear from people about your Ah, this is potentially
very heavy, but your death conversations with with kids? Um,
(19:56):
I mean boy, So, I mean don't know if I
can get into this, but like you know, when I was,
there's people obviously, there's little kids that have to deal
with like actual immediate death in their family, and that's
like a huge thing that people you can't screw it around.
And to the point of, like our conversation about race,
(20:18):
a similar thing that like a lot of people have
the luxury to not talk about these things, and there's
plenty of people that have to that have to like
address this with a small child, and I can't even
begin to imagine that conversation. H But I think overall
(20:41):
this is a bit of a left turn. Kids kids
can handle those conversations a bit more than I think
most people. And I know myself personally, uh give them
credit for sometimes and I feel myself it's more about
me going, oh I'm nervous about this, then it is
(21:02):
them not being able to deal with it. Um that
felt true when I said it. I don't know if
it is. But no, no, no, that makes sense. I think.
I just I don't know. Maybe I'm overly, overly concerned
with what my kids are going to say at daycare.
But like if, for example, one of our kids grandmothers died,
(21:23):
we might say something to daycare and be like, his
grandmother died, he went to a funeral this week, just
like let you know why. He might be saying some
things so they can be like emotionally aware or whatever.
But in Britain would be the kid that would explain
it to everybody. Yeah, And I think that's fine. Obviously
you would talk it through, but like I think you
(21:44):
out of that context, I just worry about, like what
kind of crazy stuff he's going to start telling other
kids and then their parents have to hear from them
their concerns and just you know what, I'm excited for
the challenge. Okay, this next segment is called did you Knows?
(22:07):
This week, Beth has some exciting or interesting parenting facts
that she's learned that she's going to share. It's no
longer just my segment. She's gonna I'm no longer man splaining. Okay,
getting some woman's splaining. This is it's not a good job.
You know. This is not so much a fact as
(22:27):
a conversation, because um, I'm a woman and he h.
This is an article sent to me called how new
Fathers use social media to make sense of their roles
on a website called The Conversation dot com. Um. But
it's sort of just talking about how dad's historically don't
(22:50):
have as much of a model for father for like
being active fathers, because they normally worked and the wife
would stay at home, and so they feel they'll feel
out of place on the playground or in like Facebook
parenting groups and things like that. So this is talking
about how dads are sort of figuring it out on
the internet and looking for community online, and it was
(23:11):
saying how I think I was saying, how while moms
were more attracted to things like Facebook groups and different things,
dads tend to go to places like Reddit where they're anonymous,
they can post questions anonymously. And I thought that was
really interesting that. Um, that makes sense to me. It
(23:33):
makes perfect sense, and I understand the impulse. But it's
also funny to me because it's like a tangible example
of this, like sort of emotional detachment. A lot of
men have like this inability to discuss their feelings and
issues and be vulnerable. And I think I can see
(23:54):
a lot of reasons why you would want to be
anonymous online for certain problems. But I all, I think
sometimes in doing so, you're robbing yourself of a certain
vulnerability and like a certain type of assistance that you
could be getting by connecting with people directly as yourself. Maybe,
(24:16):
but I mean, I mean, I don't, I don't. I
don't utilize any of that. I'm like, And it's probably
speaks to the same thing where I'm like, who are you?
I don't, I don't wanna, but I don't want you to.
I don't want you to know about me, and I
have a podcast about parenting. But this is like the
(24:37):
male thing of like wanting like a very concrete, blanket
answer that applies to everyone and going on Reddit and
debating like in this abstract way. Like the example of
given this article is like custody stuff, and like I
think you know, when you do something anonymously online and
then you leave out all the context of like who
(24:57):
you're divorcing, and like it's so easy to pay this
like like very biased picture of what's going on and
have all these people weighing and be like, yes, you're correct,
this is the correct way to proceed. Whereas in my
mom groups, what I like is that people can present
a very personal issue they're having with their family or whatever,
(25:18):
and then we all know the ongoing context of how
this person has been treating them or whatever is going on,
and we can be like, hey, I don't like sometimes
the answer is not an answer. The person just needs
emotional support, and we're like, it's really shitty that you're
going through this right now. But everything you're saying right now,
(25:39):
I'm like, that's the last thing that I want to
hear from some stranger about. And I was like, but
that's why I'm saying getting from someone in a Facebook
group that you kind of know. But I'm I'm I
bet dad's online and I'm not a part of this
community for probably these same reasons where I'm just like,
(25:59):
that's none of your business us. Again, I don't, again
total hypocrite because I'm doing this podcast, but I bet
there's a lot more like hey, and I think this
is in this article that like dad's groups. There's a
bit more of that sort of like d I y stuff,
like here's some some like baby hacks. But these things
(26:21):
as opposed to it's not about it's not looking for validation,
it's looking for tips, you know what I mean. No,
but here's my issue with that is that men pretend
that they don't need emotional support, but then they will
only they do need emotional support, but they choose to
only get it from the woman in their lives. So
(26:42):
then they dump all of this onto the like one
woman in their life who's supposed to talk them through
their emotions and be their therapists and listen to all
their problems, whereas women are I've said this before, but
like women are more likely to go to therapy, they're
more willing to talk to their friends. They they create
a community to deal with these issues that like everyone has,
(27:07):
and then they get they don't burden their partners with
like every little emotional problem they have, But then women
are burdened with their partners issues. Plenty of that is
valid and me there this is where you get down
to and like I know exactly what you're gonna say
about it, Like this is there's a societal and like
(27:29):
a hardwired difference between men and women in terms of that,
like which bleeds into all a ton of these statistics,
which is women are far more aware of this social
network and like people needing each other and are and
are better reaching out like that, and men stereotypically are
more singularly focused. I mean, some of it is hardwired,
(27:52):
but I think also a lot of it is just societal.
And I's telling that because it's that like caveman cave woman.
A woman, if you're going to reproduce, that's a commitment
of eighteen years, where a man it's just like sex,
that's it. And that puts women's minds have developed way
more to think about what is the effect of this,
What is my social network? Who's going to support me?
(28:14):
And so that is that exists, no, but here's and
then on top of that, society has been built from
that to exacerbate the difference. But here's the thing is
the inability of men to be vulnerable is what leads
to a lot of extreme issues in our country, which
(28:36):
is like this is like this is literally where like
the m R. A s, the the the domestic violence,
the shootings. This is a product of men having nowhere
to go to connect and be emotionally vulnerable and admit
(28:56):
their pain, and they like there's statistics behind Like no,
I'm I'm on board with all of that, but like,
like I listen, I really like this podcast um that's
has a kind of dumb name. It's called Dharma Punk's NYC.
But it's this guy who's a Buddhist and a psychologist
and he is very big in the attic community, and
(29:18):
he talks about how you know when people a lot
of times their addiction is a product of trying to
suppress emotions that they have nowhere to They have no
outlet for, so they are not sharing their emotional issues anywhere,
and so they bury them with substance abuse. And I
think we can all relate to like stuffing our face
with the food or some substance or whatever. But what
(29:41):
happens is they go to AA meetings or whatever. They're
able to share their issues and they have this community
of people. And men do this too. They go to
a and they a lot of times, they're not a
lot of times, but sometimes they're able to stop drinking.
And they'll do this for like ten any years whatever,
and then at some point they think that they're cured
(30:04):
and they were like, I don't have to go to
these meetings anymore. I've been doing this for twenty years.
And what happens is that they stopped going to the
meetings and then they like almost immediately will relapse because
they're no longer sharing their emotions in a safe space
and they people need that connection, but men are given
less opportunity to have it, and they also isolate themselves
(30:28):
sometimes based on this internalized idea that they're not supposed
to be vulnerable. Mm hmm. I'm of course taking this
all in and relating it to myself and uh, I
think compared to a lot of people, I'm very open
(30:48):
and and uh not afraid to be vulnerable, but like
I definitely also there's something in me. There's something in
me that says like I don't want to put my
chid on anybody else, but I don't think, like, are
you vulnerable? And since we have close friends that you
could text and be like, wow, I didn't get this
(31:08):
audition and I'm feeling really weird about it, Like I
you're like, I'm taking this too hard on a core
emotional level, and I just need to say this to someone. Yeah,
I have two friends like that, and I call them
more than you because they I have two friends that
also are people that need to uh work things out
(31:32):
out loud, and I'm one of those people. And you're
somebody that internalizes and listens to everything that people say
to you, and you take it so it can be
overwhelming when I come in and I'm thinking I'm processing
out loud and I think it over it over, like
you short circuit because it's like so much, and then
(31:53):
you resent me for feeling things because you feel everything
I feel. So I have two friends that I go
to to like vent long term because they do it
to me. And we both sort of listened to saying
that you don't share those things with no I do.
But you also have like you tolerated for such a
(32:16):
I don't have a low tolerance for emotional confession. I
have a low tolerance for meaningless chit chat. Oh you
just That's exactly why I don't want to share, Okay,
But like if I run and if I meet like
a stranger at a party, like someone is telling this
story but like they met someone at a party in
this woman immediately was like, so I'm going through a
(32:38):
divorce blah blah blah. If I meet someone like that,
I'm locked in because I'm like, this is interesting. Someone
telling me about the downfall of the relationship I'm fascinated by,
Like they're getting into it. This is great. This is
someone being real. This is why my best friend I
connect with her so strong is I. I met her
like twice I I asked to come pick her brain
(33:02):
when she was pregnant, and I got to her apartment
and she was like, I feel like crap, my bones hurt.
Like she got into it, and I was like, this
is someone I can connect with. What I hate is
when people want to list the like boring details of
their day to day, like like every little nuance of
(33:24):
things that don't get at the truth of who they
are and how they're feeling. Oh boy, oh boy. That's
that's really hard not to take incredibly personally because all
I heard in that is people with horrible ship going
on who like are open about it. You connect, you know,
it doesn't have to be horrible. I also enjoy it
(33:47):
if someone is like people in like big pain who
are like very open and have like heavy ship going up. No,
I just gravitate towards emotional honesty. I couldn't meet someone
like Milarly I friends with that were like the first
time I met them, there would be like I love
this painter, I'm so in this thing is like I
(34:08):
love what this person is doing like they You've also had, uh,
some people in your life that like are very like
I was to say, broken people, but like awkward people
that you can tell they're in pain and you feel
responsible for them, and you feel their pain and you
feel guilty for them, and then after a while you
(34:30):
realize like, oh, this person is a huge burden and
they like can't take care of themselves and you have
to like cut them out of your life. No, that
has happened. I'm not saying it hasn't. I just think
that that's not always the case with the people I'm
attracted to do. There's there's there's one instance that happened recently.
We didn't talk about it, but we were in we
(34:50):
met this woman who had a very tragic thing that
happened to her, uh, and we sat down like, hi,
nice to meet you. You know, we have a podcast,
and then she just launched into her like very tragic
story and my immediate reaction is like, I smell crazy
because like this you should not you don't know me.
(35:12):
Why are you sharing all of this right now? But
you got into it and you listened and you connected
with this person. She was doing an appearance on a
show to specifically talk about that issue. Also, here's what
Here's what drives me crazy is that the tragic occurrence
she had is literally exactly something that's happened to me,
(35:34):
and you wanted to gloss over it, and you like,
she was saying something and you pick a detail out
of that of like I live in California and you're like, oh, California,
I was there recently, And I'm like, this woman just
admitted to us the topic because I was so uncomfortable.
But that's what I'm talking about is people connecting over
shared vulnerability. Literally what happened to You're ignoring social boundaries.
(35:58):
I was like, this is not an appropriate to tell me.
She was tublicizing a project specifically about that, and I
connected with it as something that had happened to me.
That people. Here's when something like that has happened to you,
people never want to talk about it. They always try
to look the other way and change the topics, and
it's so frustrating because you never feel seen and people
(36:19):
always treat you like you're a bummer, and people at
their core need to be able to talk about these things.
But behaviorally, tragedy aside, that was a woman if you
became friends with her would drive you nuts and you'd
have to friend break up with her. She was behaving
and like not picking up social cues of the people
(36:42):
around her. Tragedy aside, I don't think. I don't know
that I would have wanted to be friends with that person,
but she What I will say about her handling of
it is that I felt like maybe she hadn't fully
processed it yet. So yes, it was a little weird
that way she was talking about it, But at the
same time, my wanting to talk to her was like
(37:02):
to be like, yes, that's happened to me, and yes
that's an issue, and sort of like in that moment,
help her process a little bit. But I have grown
enough as a person that I'm not going to like
take that on and try to be friends with her
and solve it all for her. Well to your point, um,
and I think to validate a lot of what you've said,
(37:23):
it's like my reaction to that, you know, is coming
from a place of like a selfish like I'm uncomfortable.
I don't want to engage in this, and a second part,
which is like I would never do this to to
like publicly painted picture of that, like I want people
to feel sorry for me. I mean like that's like
I would never want to project that image, and I'm
(37:45):
terrified of projecting that. I don't. Like, No, I'm not
saying that's what she's doing. I'm saying I avoid being
vulnerable on day to day level because if the second
I'm like, if someone's like, how's it going, and I'm like, well,
I had a rough time with this instantly, I'm like
(38:07):
distancing is like why these problems persist, Like I feel
like I just I just don't want to do that
to people. But it's okay, it's impossible to discuss without
getting into it. But this woman had someone close to
her die from opiate overdose, and your attitude of being like, hey,
can we not talk about this here? Is like this
(38:27):
is why you know, but this is why the opiate
addiction crisis continues, is that people just want to brush
it aside and they don't want to openly talk about
it as if it's something that's actually affected them and
they want to. Like, addiction in general, we don't deal
with well in this country because people don't want to
get into the actual details of how it affects people
(38:47):
and how much they are a prisoner to it, and
like with the emotional core of what's happening there and
the shame and guilt and all of it. And it's
just incredibly harmful attitude to have and be like, hey,
can you not talk about that right now? We'll see
what you're saying. It's like that makes me sound terrible,
or it's like, oh, I'm not I'm not brushing this
(39:09):
topic under the rug. I'm reacting to a like a
person that is not like respecting the social boundaries of strangers. No,
but that's she was doing an appearance on a shop
with me. I'm just sitting next to her on the
couch and and it's but it's but when you're sitting
(39:30):
next to someone in a green room couch and you're like, hey,
what are you here for? She can't not say that, Well,
I didn't see I'm the type of person, for better
or maybe worse, where I'm like I'm I go to
auditions and I'm with a bunch of have that kind
of problem you don't understand. But I'm also reacting to
that sort of like level of of self promotion, which
(39:52):
maybe is a fault of mine, where I'm like, I'm
never gonna be like, Hey, here's who I am, Here's
what's up with me. I think if you can see
actors that in auditions all the time, they're like, hey,
what I've done this same thing. Though, like you, it's like,
just I hear what you're saying. If you had to
(40:13):
walk through the world, you have a very privileged life,
if you had to walk through the world with the
secret shame. This woman has no secret shame. She's a
public figure, and it's like talking about it, that's great.
I'm just saying, how awkwardly she No one who has
experienced this does not have secret shame of trying to,
(40:37):
like trying to, over the course of years, coach a
family member out of an addiction that they can't themselves
fix or do anything about, and then feeling like they
couldn't have the feeling like they're supposed to save this
person and they can't. That's like there's no way, she's
not carrying an extreme amount of guilt and other emotions
(40:58):
that you that you do not comprehend. So the tiny
fraction of that that you're experiencing in the room that
you're like trying to brush off is like you didn't,
you didn't. She was not putting that much discomfort on
you proportionately to what she's experienced. Of course not. But
I was just like, what a fucking weirdo. Okay, well,
(41:20):
I mean disagree with you on that. Okay. If she
was talking about any other topic that wasn't heavy, what
I still have been like, Oh, I don't want to
get the whole point is that the topic is heavy.
What if she's talking about a race issue, it would
be inappropriate to brush that off. If she's talking I'm
not brushing off her topic. Oh god, this is heated.
(41:43):
This is heated. I just think it's such a weighty
thing that like the fact that we don't want to
look at these issues on the news and therefore like
refused to deal with them, Like that's a problem, the
fact that But what am I going to do? But
I'm saying about being willing to be emotionally vulnerable, is
that so many of the women and moms I know
(42:05):
are willing to look at things like ice and share
there there their incredible sadness online and call their representatives
and try to do something about it, whereas the men
I know just don't say a word. Here's another thing,
So this is also speaks the difference between you and
me because you really really strongly connect with this Facebook
(42:30):
group and this this this is not any you think
this is general male female is. But you don't do
that in real life. You do not with me. Maybe
it's because you try to brush it off like you
did with this woman. I mean there you are the
(42:52):
most guarded person I know. But if there's something about
that social community that makes you more comfortable, Doly I
literal really bring up things like this to you and
then you do what you did to this woman, which
is like you find the one thing about it that's
relatable to you, which is kind of a means of
brushing off the weight of the original concern. So it's
(43:16):
like if someone's trying to open up to you and
you're like, yeah, I know I've had a problem like that.
I stub my toe the other day, it's like they're
not gonna feel comfortable continuing to unload. My brain just
(43:36):
short circuited entirely. I'm getting very I know that, Like,
I can't engage in this conversation anymore because I'm at
I met a hundred percent emotional. I just want to
acknowledge that, and like, I know you You're gonna tell
me why I am that way, and it's going to
(43:57):
make me more emotional. Like, and you can't just say
that I don't connect emotionally with people because I text
friends and communicate all day face to face. That's what
but I'm what I'm saying is that that distance of
the screen. No, But I talked to my friends too
and say the same things. Well, I can only do
it that way. I have to connect with the faith
(44:20):
and like the idea of talking to a faceless group
of people. All I'm thinking about is who the hell
these characters? And I create characters that I don't like
and it takes me and maybe it's because of everything
you're talking about. It takes me more time to know
that it's a safe space. And I think that there's
(44:44):
plenty of like the societal expectations of how a man
should behave and how I was raised that guarded thing
that makes me feel like, well, I don't I don't
trust that me being vulnerable is going to be received. Well,
it's going to be read is how obnoxious I am.
And so it takes a lot, and there's very few
(45:05):
people that I will be up for. But conversely, it's
easier for me if I'm feeling very angry or emotional,
It's easier for me to text you exactly how I'm
feeling than it is for me to try to tell
it to you in person, because you will try to
dominate the conversation and brush it aside or try to
(45:26):
make it right very quickly without actually hearing what I'm
trying to say. So that's why I prefer writing it out,
because that sometimes feels like the only way to actually communicate. Well,
this is this is a huge difference between us, because
to me, I'm like, your face says more to me
(45:46):
than any of than your words do. I'm not you,
this is just processing differently. You're saying that. But then
if I was like sitting in front of you, like
very angry at you, you would see my face, you
would take get incredibly personally, and then on an emotional level,
all you would be thinking, is Beth is mad at me?
I want this to end and not be thinking about
(46:07):
why I was not. You know what, You're right, that's true.
It's a hard to present true. And I've learned that.
I mean, this has been the hardest thing in the
world for me to do, which is to have an
emotional reaction and go your emotional emotional emotional, your emotional,
which means that you have attention blindness. You can only
(46:29):
see the thing that made you upset, and the larger
context is currently invisible to you. And you have to
shut up, and you have to go away, and you
have to be okay with the idea that maybe I'm
letting Beth quote unquote win, which which like is nobody wins,
and go away and let all of this drain from
(46:51):
my body so that I can regain my full field
division to see what's going on and begin to understand.
And and boy, that's what's happening right now. It's just
like I had a second as I was about to
fucking flip over this chair, and I couldn't articulate. I
couldn't even think why. I don't remember why. I'm glad
(47:13):
we're all witnessing this because this is this like that
mode of like I'm so angry and I just want
to win, and it's as if somebody is handing me
binoculars and now I'm looking at the topic through binoculars.
Just at this one point that's just like I want
to kill this thing and I just completely forget what's
around it, right, I mean, but I think not too
(47:37):
probably upset you again, But that that goes back to
me earlier point, which they think is that men are
less likely to feel that processing their emotions is their problem,
and they want to put it on someone, usually a woman,
to process it for that. But I don't. I don't.
I don't want anyone to do with my stuff. I
(47:59):
need to set out loud and go away. But the
emotions have to get processed somewhere otherwise we end up
with active shooters. Okay, I'm gonna go kill somebody. Okay,
well no, no, I understand that, I understand it. Uh okay, anyway, okay, anyway.
(48:21):
The original article was how new fathers use social media
to make sense of their roles. Don't use it, don't
trust strangers. Boy. This was like thirty five minutes of talking.
So we're gonna have to wait. Whatever you're listening to
now is definitely an edited down. Oh god, you're going
to cut it all my points? No, I'm not. Uh,
you want to edit it, go ahead, but boy, okay,
(48:45):
all right, this was a lot to unpack. I want
to hear from people. Um here's the chance. Here's the
challenge for our listeners. Okay, if you are if you
reacted to this the way Iowa I did, you're probably
only a man, but not necessarily um or if you're
a woman, whatever side of this you gravitated too, If
(49:08):
you got emotional about this, I want you to do
an exercise. And this is something I am that there's
not a strong gender divide on this is well, I
assume that there is, but I also don't want to
assume if you had a strong emotional reaction to this.
I want you to, um do an exercise with me.
This is what I try to do, which is give
(49:31):
it some time and come back to this. And I
want you to write in or call in and tell
me what you learned about the other side of this,
find the lesson on the other side, the thing that
you want to reject, what in it is valid, and
don't give me why it's wrong, Give me why it's right.
(49:53):
And I want to hear people asking for people and people.
This is a This is a debate class exercise where
I'm giving you the counter argument that you don't stand by,
and I want to hear what you might be able
to pull from the side that you don't want to accept.
Does that make sense? That's what I'm gonna do. I
challenge you listeners to do the same and share. Oh
(50:15):
we're getting through it, Beth. I love you with all
my heart. I love you to all Right. Now it's
time for listeners. Want of those now we haven't. We've
had a lot of listener mail in the past few weeks.
We haven't gotten too so I want to throw out
a few and just talk about them. First of all,
(50:37):
we got an email from our favorite listener, Barbe. We
talked about Barbe recently. Barb wrote in we Love Barb,
We love Barbe, and she out I love has started
signing her emails Barbe with an exclamation point. He also
signs like from cubicle Land. She lives in Cubic Land,
(50:58):
um u um and here's from Barbed. She wrote a
few things, but this is the one that I gravitated
towards She listened to our episode talking about Brent on
the airplane, screaming, you're hurting me. Um So, she says,
we live here in Pennsylvania, but I'm originally from Saskatchewan.
(51:20):
We flew home in last year from my sister's wedding
where I was a bridesmaid and my son was a
ring bear. We flew Air Canada, and the only international
flight out of Harrisburg is this dinky little Air Canada
flight on a twenty seater plane to Toronto. This is fine,
the whole plane is This is fine. The whole plane
is terrifying. It sounds like it's going to fall apart.
(51:41):
So you kind of sit down, close your eyes and
spend an hour and a half praying to any God
that will listen that they don't find your bodies. In
like Michigan, they don't even have a door between the
seats of the cabin and the cockpit. Yep, you look
right out the front of the plane. The pilots are
also the flight attendants, so I might son and husband
have the front row seats A one and two. There's
(52:03):
only one seat on each side of the plane. I'm
four rows back my son has his tablet, but he's
excited that the pilots. What the pilots are doing. However,
that's only interesting for takeoff, and he loses his interest
pretty quick and resorts to drawing on his tablet. Every
time he draws something, he would hold it up and
holler back at be Hey, mommy, do you like my picture?
(52:25):
He had to holler because the plane was loud. But
there's twenty people on the plane too, and they all
had to see his drawings. And it got to the
point where everyone would give him a big thumbs up
for every picture he drew, and he thought it was
great having twenty people weighing in on his art. I
was like, oh man, he's gonna think he's Picasso. Cheers Barb.
(52:46):
I can see Brin doing that proudly to everyone, because
though he's not the artists of the two, he does okay,
but maybe in his more advanced really impressed me. Like
a voice go and she started drawing faces with circle
eyes and a mouth, and I was like, blown away,
(53:07):
it's really impressive for her age. Um, she's also very
good with scissors. Apparently, they say a daycare brand when
when he we applied to pre K and we asked
daycare to fill out a thing about him. They like
grade him on certain skills, and he had perfect scores
on everything except like hand eye coordination. It was like, fine,
(53:29):
more motor skills or something like that. There's like one below.
It's like once again, he's exactly you, and Maven is
exactly me because she's grade and scissors, but you're better.
You know, we have a lot of proof around, including
paint lines around this apartment, the proof that you're better
at that the night. If there's one thing I'm good at,
its scissors. Yeah, there's anything you're good at, it's drawing
(53:53):
painting in a straight line. If Rinda that an airplane,
that would be my worst nightmare. Uh. When I was
little and we go to the store and my if
my mom ever yelled across the store for me, Hey, Peter,
remember being a blockbuster And she's like, Peter, where are you?
And you would like duck, and I ducked down below
the shelves and like quietly, like a ninja, rushed to
(54:17):
her so that she would stop. But it wasn't till
I got to her. I was like, yeah, I'm here,
but I'm still that way less so because I'm a
man and I can't be vulnerable in front of people.
Come on, anyway, here's another email, aready? Um? So this
We had a couple of really interesting emails from our
conversation about race. We talked about when is an appropriate
(54:39):
time to talk about race and all the sidal implications
attached to that with your child, and we we left
that conversation going like, we don't know, we'll we'll sort
of hit it when we think he understands. Um um.
And here's this one woman, Rachel wrote in and said, um,
she has a son who's three and a half years old,
(55:01):
and he's definitely aware that people are different colors. My
husband is from India, and so he knows that mommy
is white and then Papa is brown. He calls himself
both depending on when you ask him. And I just
leave it there. It seems to me the best course
of action is to say, yes, people are different colors.
I have a tattoo, so I told him that you
can add color to your body as well, which he
finds really cool. I normalized the idea that it is
(55:24):
a way to identify people, but it isn't adding that
political bias that people seem to want to avoid talking
about little kids like to use simple categories to help
order their world, and color is a great way to
do that. I'm taking the approach that if he asks
me more questions about the differences between people, uh, that
is when I will explain it because he is showing
(55:45):
an interest and wanting to understand. Hopefully that helps. I
don't know, ha, Rachel, Yeah, I think we had another
listener said something similar that was sort of like a
way you can talk about it with young kids is
like if they ask you just be like, yes, I'm
pople are this color, some people are that color. I
think that makes sense. I at the risk of sounding
(56:06):
like I'm trying to skirt the conversation, I think if
a kid brings it up like that and says something
about your skin color, I think it makes perfect sense
to respond. I just think if you're like taking a
very small child, like we haven't sitting them down to
have this conversation out of the blue, it's going to
result in some sort of weird thing on the playground
where they're trying to like label other kids, you know
(56:28):
what I mean. Like it's like, yeah, it's like I
talked about death because Brendon goes, what is this, where's
the old lady? Um? Yeah, for sure, and this is
very much talking about sort of the factual component of
of race that you look people look differently, and uh,
it's being okay to acknowledge that. Obviously, it's great. I'm
(56:51):
sure there's got to be some sort of book out
there or resource that that says exactly what developmentally is
appropriate for different ages. Um. Yeah. Actually reminded me if
we got some emails about that. Um, some stuff I
still need to dig into. But here's this is another
email that was great from Chloe. Um. I really like,
did you guys even touched on the topic of talking
(57:12):
about race with your kids. I just wanted to make
a point that it is a privilege to decide that
you don't have to talk to your kid about race,
even though they are still young. For children and parents
of color, not addressing race is a luxury that they
do not have for safety reasons, particularly which seems while
(57:33):
it seems like a scary topic to touch on, I
don't believe it's something to be left until the last minute.
And I hope they turn out okay. This is an
excellent point. No that's a great point. I still just
have to keep saying our son is just barely turns
for though, and it's like, yeah, I don't want to
leave this conversation the last minute, but I also don't
(57:54):
think it would make sense to have with him right
now out of the blue. Yeah. But but the big
thing is reckoning. I sing you know that particularly like
if you are black parents in this country, not exclusively,
but like that that is a conversation that's probably the
needs to happen in certain circumstances for safety reasons. And
(58:18):
I know I've talked to parents people of color who
you know, relationship with the police, they have to talk
to their kids differently about And we have the great
luxury of not worrying about that. And that's like we
don't have to explain it to him right now because
I don't think he'll understand. But there's no danger in
that for us. And that is a privilege and something
(58:42):
I did not consider at all until I got this email. Um,
so thank you, Chloe. That was great. Thank you all right,
thanks so much for listening. This has been another episode
of we know as parents ing. Uh. If you'd like
(59:02):
to submit a question or share story, give some advice
or suggestion impossible parenting hypothetical for our would you Know segment.
You're welcome to email us at we knows pot at
gmail dot com or leave a voicemail at three four
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Instagram at we knows pod um. Our website we Knows
(59:25):
Parenting dot com also has all of this information, along
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you give us a good review and you write something
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(59:49):
you guys so much. We love you. Have a wonderful day.
Good Bye bye
I got Hello, welcome to We Know His Parenting, The
parenting podcast posted by Real Life Parents. I'm Beth Nowell
and I'm Peter McNerney. We are married, we're parents. We've
(00:22):
got kids that are two years old and tomorrow most
four years old. Tomorrow Brin turns four, and UM, I'm
gonna say I'm pretty excited we got the cow cake
situation sorted out. Yeah, the cow cake is definitely a
brown cow, as you insisted. That'll show him. I went
(00:47):
in after really vilifying that woman last week. I went
in and realized like, oh, this is a very nice woman,
and uh we we patched it up. Why did you
go back in to pay for it? I went in
the middle a week to pay for it. But you
picked it up yesterday. Yeah, I picked it up. You
gave it a peek. It looked okay, Yeah, I glanced
(01:09):
at it. It's um. I didn't realize until I got there,
what treacherous um task it is to try to like
transport a cake somewhere without ruining it. And so they said,
put on a flat surface. I put in the trunk
and it was fine. But just walking across the street
one way, carefully carrying the cake. By the time I
(01:30):
put it down in the car, it was already smushed
on one side. Like I didn't there was There's no
way to transport a cake that's in like a flimsy
little white What I was originally planning was to get
the cake this morning on the way to school with
the kids, and I think that it would not have
(01:52):
survived Brennan maven Co traveling situation. Yeah. No, this was
good because I gave it to daycare yesterday day as
we were as they were leaving, and I was like,
get this cake away from me before our kids destroy it,
and they took it. As a result. This morning, I
just took Brendan maybe into school and they're going to
celebrate Brin's birthday at at daycare. And uh, we got
(02:17):
there a little bit early, so sometimes we sit out
front and wait five minutes because I don't want to
be obnoxious and going too early. And so I'm sitting
there talking to like, bryn you know, tomorrow is tomorrow
you turned four, and he goes, no, I turned four
on Thursday. By the way, he doesn't he doesn't ever
say yesterday. He says the day that yesterday was. He's
(02:38):
really into the day's the week now. But in his offense,
this birthday thing is very confusing because you've been talking
about it. And he had got a cake at my
family union, and he at the family union and he
turned to my sister when the cake came out and
he goes, Ali, you didn't get me a present for
my birthday. So she felt horrible, but she's like, it's
not your birthday yet, but here's a cake. Happy birthday. Yeah,
(03:00):
And then now we're like talking about this cake and
we're I was trying to explain to him yesterday. I
was like, I we have the cake today, but you're
going to eat the cake tomorrow at daycare and then
Saturday is your actual birthday. And I said, Lucas is
coming over and he was like, so we're gonna eat
the cow cake on Saturday with Lucas And I was like,
well no, because you'll have already eaten the cowcake at daycare.
(03:23):
That was like, maybe we'll get you something else, and
he was like okay, Mommy, okay, and then he I
guess he thought I didn't hear him, so it goes mommy.
I said, okay. Uh. He really wanted to make sure
I knew he was okay with a second tree. I'm
I just want you to know I am definitely fine
if you want to give me more cake. I'm down
(03:43):
with the compromise him to that, Well, what he interpreted
from that conversation was that he turned four yesterday on Thursday,
and he is for his birthday is not tomorrow. But
I think that was just him being disagreeable. It was
him being so disagreeable, and then I was like, okay,
and then I just started being silly to distract him
because I could see he was about to go to
(04:04):
a super stubborn place. And then uh, the somebody else
arrived at daycare and they started going in. I go, okay, great,
I can be a little early. Somebody else is here,
so I pulled them out. And so we're going in
the same time as another family and Brin comes in
and the women are in Steakcare goes Brin, today's your birthday,
(04:27):
and the other one goes Britain, it's your birthday today,
and Britain goes, yes, today is my birthday. It's funny.
What was that whole conversation about Thursday? When I handed
them the cake? Yesterday, all the kids were in the
front lawn of daycare and Brin was like, you're all
going to get to have a piece of my cow cake,
(04:48):
and he was like so proud. He was like I
am the King and you will get your cake. I'm
just remembering now, being not that young, but those sort
of like five six seven probably birthday parties, and I
remember preparing my mom my mom through some pretty great
(05:10):
like lo fi birthday parties like make your own Sunday's,
uh homemade games and stuff. And I remember prepping for
those birthday parties with my mom and putting out the
bowls of the activities and stuff and then just being like, okay,
it's all set. People are arriving, and I write now
I just think memory of opening the door for the
(05:30):
first friend and being like, welcome to my party, and
that exact feeling of giving them the grand tour. Yeah,
it's like, this is my day and I'm your humble host. Um.
I love my birthday. The other thing that happened this
week is and my sister and I took the kids
to play Land, which is a very small little amusement
(05:51):
park nearby UM, which was very exciting for brand and
it was so jealous You always do this though. If
I tried to plan something on a weekend or try
to motivate you to bring the kids somewhere fun, you're
always like, no, let's just lay on the couch. And
then when I do these things with my sister when
(06:13):
you're working, you're always act jealous, as though you weren't
invited along. Well, I will say, it has been a
long time since you've been like, hey, let's do a thing,
and I say no, I don't do that. I am
real lazy on the weekends. But if you're like, we
should go somewhere, it's been a long time since I've
(06:34):
said no. I've asked to go to the beach at
least four times this summer when you said, now you
know what, you really just got me there. But I've
in those situations I've suggested something else because I sort
of hate the beach. You haven't suggested something else. We've
gone out. I'll do better and I'm very aware. Okay, Anyway,
(06:54):
we went to land. Um. It was amazingly hot. Um,
but he's finally at the age where that I feel
like that's prime. He was loving it. But we made
the mistake of getting on this ride at the beginning,
that's like sort of the equivalent of like a teacups thing,
but the seats beIN around and it was like as
the first ride choice, it was really bad because my
(07:16):
sister and I were immediately nauseous with the kids, and
I was just going, oh God, this is going to
be a lot and it's so loud. And then we
found some other rides or less nausea inducing. But it's
also like a little bit of a weird thing. Maven
is like just a little too short and young for things,
so you have to go on with her as an adult,
(07:38):
which is fine, except that some of the rides don't
really have great seating to share with a kid and
an adult. So there is one ride where you drive
like trucks around and for Brin to sit in the
cabin of the truck, he had to be alone. So
I just decided to skip out on that because Maven
seemed tired anyway, she didn't not because of the timing
(07:58):
of this trip, so like trying to just like shoot
her away. So my sister took him on that and
that was very exciting for him. I saw the video.
I've never seen a prouder trucker. He was so proud.
He's like, I'm driving this and no one is helping me. Yeah,
He's like, I'm driving a real truck. He's like, do
you see this fast? Like I'm trying to truck. So then, oh,
(08:21):
and then there was a live performance by a teenage
boy dressed as like, I guess, like the Candy Man
or something. He's saying he's sang this song like the
Candy Man can Billy Wonka, And then he did he
performed like a live like. It was sort of like
a morality play where there's two puppets as Handel and Gretel,
(08:42):
and they were annoyed because they're supposed millennial parents were
always trying to feed them kale and healthy foods. Like
they literally said, our millennial parents always wanted to eat
kale and avocados. And then and they're like, we just
want to eat candy. So then it's like this whole
thing where it's pre recorded. The teenage boy was the
(09:06):
only one singing, doing the lide performance very enthusiastically, I
have to say, he was really committed in really a
strong performer. And the puppets are prerecorded audio to a track,
so there's just someone behind their flapping the puppets, mouths
open throughout, and the picture of that person being the
(09:27):
opposite level of enthusiasm as the teen and he's just
an old guy who, somehow with two puppets on his hand,
still has a cigarette in his mouth. Yeah. But so
there's like a series of songs where these kids go
and eat all this candy and they're loving it, but
then they get stomach aches and then they make jokes
that sort of allude to it being like a hangover. Um.
(09:47):
And then they go back to their parents and they're like,
sort of like their parents, They're like, oh, we never
want to candy again, and their parents are like, we
decided to give you a treat. We're going to make
a gluten free blah blah free cake. And it's just
like the it's just like such a weird, dumb character.
I really do want to know who wrote this. Um
(10:09):
sounds like a baby boomer or a gen xer. Yeah,
I don't know, UM, but it's really funny to think
of like millennial parents in my mind is still like
a brand new thing. But it's but we're past that point,
Like there's a you know what, I mean, I mean
sort of. I don't know. We are on the older
(10:32):
end of millennial parents, which feels like new to us.
But in the rest of the country people are having
kids much we live in an area people have babies later. Yeah, anyway,
it was so here's the craziest part of story is
We're in the park and Brent's starting to get into
the game areas, and I'm like, we've got to get
out of here because I can tell, like the kids
(10:54):
are getting tired. It's over stimulating. And so I had
i'd this log ride, one of those ones where you
go inside into like dark tunnels, and I was like
trying to figure out if the kids were old enough,
and I figured out they Maven was like tall enough
or whatever, and I was like, this is definitely going
to be probably too scary for them, but it looks
(11:15):
so cool and dark in there compared to being hot outside,
and also like it's on the it's like on the
way out. So I was like, maybe we can just
get this done. So we take them in there, there's
animatronic trolls. Their kids are like immediately pretty scared, and
they were talking about it for a while. Yeah, and
they were like so they were pretty scared, and then
(11:39):
they it gets to like scarier parts. There's like a
dragon and the like. It starts with like nice dwarves,
which is still pretty scary, but then these scary trolls
come out and Brennan Maven are terrified and one of
the trolls has like a water gun that he's shooting
at us, which Brin did not like. And by the
end of the ride, Maven was like pressing her head
(12:01):
against me, trying to like hide in my arms, and
bryn was putting his hands on his ears and terror
and they were so scared. And then we got out
and may Haven immediately brightened up, like it was sort
of like they it was like one of those things
that was like so terrified to them that I think
(12:21):
in her mind she was like will this ever end?
Am I going through die here? So yeah, she got
out and I think she was like it's over. She
was like smiling, and I was like, may Haven, are
you really happy it's over? And she was like yeah.
And then um Brin was like kind of mad at
us and he was like that was too scary. I
didn't like it. So the benefit of this was they
(12:44):
were both lightly traumatized, and I was able to convince
them to leave. I was like, you guys want to
go home, and they were like yeah. It really is
a good way to scare your kids out of the
Amazement Park when you need to leave, and them in
to leaving. So then we get in the car and
my sister and I were trying to lighten the mood
for Brennan. We were like, that was so crazy. When
(13:07):
that troll was spraying at us, we were both we
were like, what the heck is going on here? We
were trying to make it seem like funny and weird,
and so Brend immediately picked up on it and started
changing his story and was like, yeah, it was crazy
in there, and he was like he was like I
said to that troll, hey, stop that troll, and like
(13:28):
he like changed it where he was like really brave
and like annoyed at the troll, which is so funny
because he was like cowering in fear when we were
in the ride. So it all worked out well. Good
job he's had nightmares ever since. He hasn't. This next
(13:49):
segment is called we Don't Know as it's where we
share a perplexing or defeating parenting moment. All right, I
got one. This one's about death. Um, so we are
reading a book. We've read this book a bunch. There
wasn't an old woman who swallowed a fly? And we
have lots of fun fun with this book in bed.
(14:10):
We do a lot of singing like maybe, yeah, well maybe.
Each time I turned the page, I do it longer
where I go there wasn't an old lady who's wallowed
a fly. I don't know why she's swallowed the fly.
Perhaps she'll die, Okay, so that's where the death comes in.
And then she swallows the spider to catch the fly.
(14:31):
Blah blah blah blah. It's a very fun book. By
the end we get maybe and I go the longer
and longer each time there it wasn't ol lady's allw
to fly. It's really fun. And the last one goes,
wasn't a lady who swallowed a horse? And then the
page turns in abruptly goes she died, of course, And
then you flip the page and says, moral never eat
(14:52):
a horse. And there's a picture of a gravestone because
maybe and pointed out to me and one of them
was like a door and I was like, yeah, I'm
not going to correct you on that. Well, I guess,
but I did not not correct well now, Brendon said,
Brent said, what's that? And I go quick calculation in
(15:14):
my mind, I'm like, do I want to get into this?
And like he asked me, I go, that's a grave
stone and he goes, what's that. I'm like, that's they
buried the old lady because she's dead, and he goes huh.
And then I'm I'm like, I'm just keeping it light,
just in factual. I'm like, yeah, you know how you
watch those videos with the skeletons in the graveyard? That's
(15:35):
a graveyard. Yeah. And then I said something that he
can they connected with him. I was like, yeah, the
old lady, she's buried in the ground and then that's
then you become a skeleton. He goes huh. And then
I was like, all right, I think that's enough. All right, great,
And then it took me back like I remember when
(15:56):
I was little. I remember my mom talking about death,
and I in retrospect, I really appreciate the way she
handled it, which is very factual and very light, which
is and she would always I didn't get I mean,
we went to church, but my mom never said to
me like, oh, you die and you go to heaven
and it's great, there's nothing to worry about. She would
(16:17):
literally just go, yeah, well when you die, like what happens.
She goes, well, we don't know, you know, you die
and and uh, we don't know, and there's nothing you
can but deal. I don't I don't know. I would
have to look into this, but I feel like developmentally,
there's our kids are not in an age to comprehend
(16:38):
any of that. Well, that's why I didn't go that
far into it. Yeah, but I mean just I'm husband
to get into any of it right now because I
think it's just like confusing, like because they they love
to say things like you're dead, and like play games
at daycare where they're like trying to kill each other
or whatever, and it's like it's I just don't want
(17:00):
to get into it because I don't want to give
weird weight to those games that they're playing because they
have no context for what they're saying. Yes, I mean,
I remember being very young and like fully grappling with
the question of death, and I remember being totally terrified
in bed and unable to stop thinking about it and
(17:21):
like rationalizing it. Wait, this is after you just said
you love the way your mom handled it. You're now
like this is old. This is a little older. I
remember thinking about it, but I don't think there's any
way around that, you know, unless you're Yeah, I'm just saying,
let that happen at an age when they're old enough
to like sort of process it and not like people. Yeah,
(17:45):
I mean, I don't know, but it's also, boy, this
is gonna be the same thing with like sex, which
is also something I have found moments or that I'm avoiding. Well.
I also we had some listeners feedback on we were
talking about discussing race with your kids, and I like
one of those I don't remember we're gonna talk about that,
but I think you I agree those things should be discussed.
(18:08):
I just think our son is barely four years old,
and he won't have any idea what we're talking about,
and then we just have a little kid who's repeating
weird things to other people. I did think that that, like,
you know what, he's probably gonna go to school and
be like, you know, we get buried in the ground
to become dancing skeletons. Yeah, I do want to say.
I think it's I'm impressed that our kids have sort
(18:31):
of come full circle this year on Loving Dia Day,
Los Marto's Imagery and Escalitos for almost an entire year now,
and now we're coming back around to Halloween and it's
going to be relevant again. But they've kept the flame.
They kept, They've kept that that ball in the air.
This this Halloween, I think is going to be the
(18:52):
first like monumentous, momentous, monumentous, monumental or momentous Halloween for
Brin where he knows exactly what he's getting into. He's
going to get his costs in the anticipation the candy. Yeah,
I think Mayven will turn a corner two because her
love of candy is so strong, but her fear of
(19:13):
people was also very strong. Last year mayven Halloween. Last
year it was she got the first piece of candy
and she's like, well, this is a jackpot. I'm done.
She's like, just let me eat this. I don't want
to talk to anyone. Let me slowly eat this one
piece of chocolate for an hour. And then Brinn realized
I can get more, I can get more, and he
(19:34):
was on a mission. Yeah. Well he was also like, oh,
I get to go talk to people and tell them
what I'm wearing. Great. Um So anyway, actually I want
to hear from people about your Ah, this is potentially
very heavy, but your death conversations with with kids? Um,
(19:56):
I mean boy, So, I mean don't know if I
can get into this, but like you know, when I was,
there's people obviously, there's little kids that have to deal
with like actual immediate death in their family, and that's
like a huge thing that people you can't screw it around.
And to the point of, like our conversation about race,
(20:18):
a similar thing that like a lot of people have
the luxury to not talk about these things, and there's
plenty of people that have to that have to like
address this with a small child, and I can't even
begin to imagine that conversation. H But I think overall
(20:41):
this is a bit of a left turn. Kids kids
can handle those conversations a bit more than I think
most people. And I know myself personally, uh give them
credit for sometimes and I feel myself it's more about
me going, oh I'm nervous about this, then it is
(21:02):
them not being able to deal with it. Um that
felt true when I said it. I don't know if
it is. But no, no, no, that makes sense. I think.
I just I don't know. Maybe I'm overly, overly concerned
with what my kids are going to say at daycare.
But like if, for example, one of our kids grandmothers died,
(21:23):
we might say something to daycare and be like, his
grandmother died, he went to a funeral this week, just
like let you know why. He might be saying some
things so they can be like emotionally aware or whatever.
But in Britain would be the kid that would explain
it to everybody. Yeah, And I think that's fine. Obviously
you would talk it through, but like I think you
(21:44):
out of that context, I just worry about, like what
kind of crazy stuff he's going to start telling other
kids and then their parents have to hear from them
their concerns and just you know what, I'm excited for
the challenge. Okay, this next segment is called did you Knows?
(22:07):
This week, Beth has some exciting or interesting parenting facts
that she's learned that she's going to share. It's no
longer just my segment. She's gonna I'm no longer man splaining. Okay,
getting some woman's splaining. This is it's not a good job.
You know. This is not so much a fact as
(22:27):
a conversation, because um, I'm a woman and he h.
This is an article sent to me called how new
Fathers use social media to make sense of their roles
on a website called The Conversation dot com. Um. But
it's sort of just talking about how dad's historically don't
(22:50):
have as much of a model for father for like
being active fathers, because they normally worked and the wife
would stay at home, and so they feel they'll feel
out of place on the playground or in like Facebook
parenting groups and things like that. So this is talking
about how dads are sort of figuring it out on
the internet and looking for community online, and it was
(23:11):
saying how I think I was saying, how while moms
were more attracted to things like Facebook groups and different things,
dads tend to go to places like Reddit where they're anonymous,
they can post questions anonymously. And I thought that was
really interesting that. Um, that makes sense to me. It
(23:33):
makes perfect sense, and I understand the impulse. But it's
also funny to me because it's like a tangible example
of this, like sort of emotional detachment. A lot of
men have like this inability to discuss their feelings and
issues and be vulnerable. And I think I can see
(23:54):
a lot of reasons why you would want to be
anonymous online for certain problems. But I all, I think
sometimes in doing so, you're robbing yourself of a certain
vulnerability and like a certain type of assistance that you
could be getting by connecting with people directly as yourself. Maybe,
(24:16):
but I mean, I mean, I don't, I don't. I
don't utilize any of that. I'm like, And it's probably
speaks to the same thing where I'm like, who are you?
I don't, I don't wanna, but I don't want you to.
I don't want you to know about me, and I
have a podcast about parenting. But this is like the
(24:37):
male thing of like wanting like a very concrete, blanket
answer that applies to everyone and going on Reddit and
debating like in this abstract way. Like the example of
given this article is like custody stuff, and like I
think you know, when you do something anonymously online and
then you leave out all the context of like who
(24:57):
you're divorcing, and like it's so easy to pay this
like like very biased picture of what's going on and
have all these people weighing and be like, yes, you're correct,
this is the correct way to proceed. Whereas in my
mom groups, what I like is that people can present
a very personal issue they're having with their family or whatever,
(25:18):
and then we all know the ongoing context of how
this person has been treating them or whatever is going on,
and we can be like, hey, I don't like sometimes
the answer is not an answer. The person just needs
emotional support, and we're like, it's really shitty that you're
going through this right now. But everything you're saying right now,
(25:39):
I'm like, that's the last thing that I want to
hear from some stranger about. And I was like, but
that's why I'm saying getting from someone in a Facebook
group that you kind of know. But I'm I'm I
bet dad's online and I'm not a part of this
community for probably these same reasons where I'm just like,
(25:59):
that's none of your business us. Again, I don't, again
total hypocrite because I'm doing this podcast, but I bet
there's a lot more like hey, and I think this
is in this article that like dad's groups. There's a
bit more of that sort of like d I y stuff,
like here's some some like baby hacks. But these things
(26:21):
as opposed to it's not about it's not looking for validation,
it's looking for tips, you know what I mean. No,
but here's my issue with that is that men pretend
that they don't need emotional support, but then they will
only they do need emotional support, but they choose to
only get it from the woman in their lives. So
(26:42):
then they dump all of this onto the like one
woman in their life who's supposed to talk them through
their emotions and be their therapists and listen to all
their problems, whereas women are I've said this before, but
like women are more likely to go to therapy, they're
more willing to talk to their friends. They they create
a community to deal with these issues that like everyone has,
(27:07):
and then they get they don't burden their partners with
like every little emotional problem they have, But then women
are burdened with their partners issues. Plenty of that is
valid and me there this is where you get down
to and like I know exactly what you're gonna say
about it, Like this is there's a societal and like
(27:29):
a hardwired difference between men and women in terms of that,
like which bleeds into all a ton of these statistics,
which is women are far more aware of this social
network and like people needing each other and are and
are better reaching out like that, and men stereotypically are
more singularly focused. I mean, some of it is hardwired,
(27:52):
but I think also a lot of it is just societal.
And I's telling that because it's that like caveman cave woman.
A woman, if you're going to reproduce, that's a commitment
of eighteen years, where a man it's just like sex,
that's it. And that puts women's minds have developed way
more to think about what is the effect of this,
What is my social network? Who's going to support me?
(28:14):
And so that is that exists, no, but here's and
then on top of that, society has been built from
that to exacerbate the difference. But here's the thing is
the inability of men to be vulnerable is what leads
to a lot of extreme issues in our country, which
(28:36):
is like this is like this is literally where like
the m R. A s, the the the domestic violence,
the shootings. This is a product of men having nowhere
to go to connect and be emotionally vulnerable and admit
(28:56):
their pain, and they like there's statistics behind Like no,
I'm I'm on board with all of that, but like,
like I listen, I really like this podcast um that's
has a kind of dumb name. It's called Dharma Punk's NYC.
But it's this guy who's a Buddhist and a psychologist
and he is very big in the attic community, and
(29:18):
he talks about how you know when people a lot
of times their addiction is a product of trying to
suppress emotions that they have nowhere to They have no
outlet for, so they are not sharing their emotional issues anywhere,
and so they bury them with substance abuse. And I
think we can all relate to like stuffing our face
with the food or some substance or whatever. But what
(29:41):
happens is they go to AA meetings or whatever. They're
able to share their issues and they have this community
of people. And men do this too. They go to
a and they a lot of times, they're not a
lot of times, but sometimes they're able to stop drinking.
And they'll do this for like ten any years whatever,
and then at some point they think that they're cured
(30:04):
and they were like, I don't have to go to
these meetings anymore. I've been doing this for twenty years.
And what happens is that they stopped going to the
meetings and then they like almost immediately will relapse because
they're no longer sharing their emotions in a safe space
and they people need that connection, but men are given
less opportunity to have it, and they also isolate themselves
(30:28):
sometimes based on this internalized idea that they're not supposed
to be vulnerable. Mm hmm. I'm of course taking this
all in and relating it to myself and uh, I
think compared to a lot of people, I'm very open
(30:48):
and and uh not afraid to be vulnerable, but like
I definitely also there's something in me. There's something in
me that says like I don't want to put my
chid on anybody else, but I don't think, like, are
you vulnerable? And since we have close friends that you
could text and be like, wow, I didn't get this
(31:08):
audition and I'm feeling really weird about it, Like I
you're like, I'm taking this too hard on a core
emotional level, and I just need to say this to someone. Yeah,
I have two friends like that, and I call them
more than you because they I have two friends that
also are people that need to uh work things out
(31:32):
out loud, and I'm one of those people. And you're
somebody that internalizes and listens to everything that people say
to you, and you take it so it can be
overwhelming when I come in and I'm thinking I'm processing
out loud and I think it over it over, like
you short circuit because it's like so much, and then
(31:53):
you resent me for feeling things because you feel everything
I feel. So I have two friends that I go
to to like vent long term because they do it
to me. And we both sort of listened to saying
that you don't share those things with no I do.
But you also have like you tolerated for such a
(32:16):
I don't have a low tolerance for emotional confession. I
have a low tolerance for meaningless chit chat. Oh you
just That's exactly why I don't want to share, Okay,
But like if I run and if I meet like
a stranger at a party, like someone is telling this
story but like they met someone at a party in
this woman immediately was like, so I'm going through a
(32:38):
divorce blah blah blah. If I meet someone like that,
I'm locked in because I'm like, this is interesting. Someone
telling me about the downfall of the relationship I'm fascinated by,
Like they're getting into it. This is great. This is
someone being real. This is why my best friend I
connect with her so strong is I. I met her
like twice I I asked to come pick her brain
(33:02):
when she was pregnant, and I got to her apartment
and she was like, I feel like crap, my bones hurt.
Like she got into it, and I was like, this
is someone I can connect with. What I hate is
when people want to list the like boring details of
their day to day, like like every little nuance of
(33:24):
things that don't get at the truth of who they
are and how they're feeling. Oh boy, oh boy. That's
that's really hard not to take incredibly personally because all
I heard in that is people with horrible ship going
on who like are open about it. You connect, you know,
it doesn't have to be horrible. I also enjoy it
(33:47):
if someone is like people in like big pain who
are like very open and have like heavy ship going up. No,
I just gravitate towards emotional honesty. I couldn't meet someone
like Milarly I friends with that were like the first
time I met them, there would be like I love
this painter, I'm so in this thing is like I
(34:08):
love what this person is doing like they You've also had, uh,
some people in your life that like are very like
I was to say, broken people, but like awkward people
that you can tell they're in pain and you feel
responsible for them, and you feel their pain and you
feel guilty for them, and then after a while you
(34:30):
realize like, oh, this person is a huge burden and
they like can't take care of themselves and you have
to like cut them out of your life. No, that
has happened. I'm not saying it hasn't. I just think
that that's not always the case with the people I'm
attracted to do. There's there's there's one instance that happened recently.
We didn't talk about it, but we were in we
(34:50):
met this woman who had a very tragic thing that
happened to her, uh, and we sat down like, hi,
nice to meet you. You know, we have a podcast,
and then she just launched into her like very tragic
story and my immediate reaction is like, I smell crazy
because like this you should not you don't know me.
(35:12):
Why are you sharing all of this right now? But
you got into it and you listened and you connected
with this person. She was doing an appearance on a
show to specifically talk about that issue. Also, here's what
Here's what drives me crazy is that the tragic occurrence
she had is literally exactly something that's happened to me,
(35:34):
and you wanted to gloss over it, and you like,
she was saying something and you pick a detail out
of that of like I live in California and you're like, oh, California,
I was there recently, And I'm like, this woman just
admitted to us the topic because I was so uncomfortable.
But that's what I'm talking about is people connecting over
shared vulnerability. Literally what happened to You're ignoring social boundaries.
(35:58):
I was like, this is not an appropriate to tell me.
She was tublicizing a project specifically about that, and I
connected with it as something that had happened to me.
That people. Here's when something like that has happened to you,
people never want to talk about it. They always try
to look the other way and change the topics, and
it's so frustrating because you never feel seen and people
(36:19):
always treat you like you're a bummer, and people at
their core need to be able to talk about these things.
But behaviorally, tragedy aside, that was a woman if you
became friends with her would drive you nuts and you'd
have to friend break up with her. She was behaving
and like not picking up social cues of the people
(36:42):
around her. Tragedy aside, I don't think. I don't know
that I would have wanted to be friends with that person,
but she What I will say about her handling of
it is that I felt like maybe she hadn't fully
processed it yet. So yes, it was a little weird
that way she was talking about it, But at the
same time, my wanting to talk to her was like
(37:02):
to be like, yes, that's happened to me, and yes
that's an issue, and sort of like in that moment,
help her process a little bit. But I have grown
enough as a person that I'm not going to like
take that on and try to be friends with her
and solve it all for her. Well to your point, um,
and I think to validate a lot of what you've said,
(37:23):
it's like my reaction to that, you know, is coming
from a place of like a selfish like I'm uncomfortable.
I don't want to engage in this, and a second part,
which is like I would never do this to to
like publicly painted picture of that, like I want people
to feel sorry for me. I mean like that's like
I would never want to project that image, and I'm
(37:45):
terrified of projecting that. I don't. Like, No, I'm not
saying that's what she's doing. I'm saying I avoid being
vulnerable on day to day level because if the second
I'm like, if someone's like, how's it going, and I'm like, well,
I had a rough time with this instantly, I'm like
(38:07):
distancing is like why these problems persist, Like I feel
like I just I just don't want to do that
to people. But it's okay, it's impossible to discuss without
getting into it. But this woman had someone close to
her die from opiate overdose, and your attitude of being like, hey,
can we not talk about this here? Is like this
(38:27):
is why you know, but this is why the opiate
addiction crisis continues, is that people just want to brush
it aside and they don't want to openly talk about
it as if it's something that's actually affected them and
they want to. Like, addiction in general, we don't deal
with well in this country because people don't want to
get into the actual details of how it affects people
(38:47):
and how much they are a prisoner to it, and
like with the emotional core of what's happening there and
the shame and guilt and all of it. And it's
just incredibly harmful attitude to have and be like, hey,
can you not talk about that right now? We'll see
what you're saying. It's like that makes me sound terrible,
or it's like, oh, I'm not I'm not brushing this
(39:09):
topic under the rug. I'm reacting to a like a
person that is not like respecting the social boundaries of strangers. No,
but that's she was doing an appearance on a shop
with me. I'm just sitting next to her on the
couch and and it's but it's but when you're sitting
(39:30):
next to someone in a green room couch and you're like, hey,
what are you here for? She can't not say that, Well,
I didn't see I'm the type of person, for better
or maybe worse, where I'm like I'm I go to
auditions and I'm with a bunch of have that kind
of problem you don't understand. But I'm also reacting to
that sort of like level of of self promotion, which
(39:52):
maybe is a fault of mine, where I'm like, I'm
never gonna be like, Hey, here's who I am, Here's
what's up with me. I think if you can see
actors that in auditions all the time, they're like, hey,
what I've done this same thing. Though, like you, it's like,
just I hear what you're saying. If you had to
(40:13):
walk through the world, you have a very privileged life,
if you had to walk through the world with the
secret shame. This woman has no secret shame. She's a
public figure, and it's like talking about it, that's great.
I'm just saying, how awkwardly she No one who has
experienced this does not have secret shame of trying to,
(40:37):
like trying to, over the course of years, coach a
family member out of an addiction that they can't themselves
fix or do anything about, and then feeling like they
couldn't have the feeling like they're supposed to save this
person and they can't. That's like there's no way, she's
not carrying an extreme amount of guilt and other emotions
(40:58):
that you that you do not comprehend. So the tiny
fraction of that that you're experiencing in the room that
you're like trying to brush off is like you didn't,
you didn't. She was not putting that much discomfort on
you proportionately to what she's experienced. Of course not. But
I was just like, what a fucking weirdo. Okay, well,
(41:20):
I mean disagree with you on that. Okay. If she
was talking about any other topic that wasn't heavy, what
I still have been like, Oh, I don't want to
get the whole point is that the topic is heavy.
What if she's talking about a race issue, it would
be inappropriate to brush that off. If she's talking I'm
not brushing off her topic. Oh god, this is heated.
(41:43):
This is heated. I just think it's such a weighty
thing that like the fact that we don't want to
look at these issues on the news and therefore like
refused to deal with them, Like that's a problem, the
fact that But what am I going to do? But
I'm saying about being willing to be emotionally vulnerable, is
that so many of the women and moms I know
(42:05):
are willing to look at things like ice and share
there there their incredible sadness online and call their representatives
and try to do something about it, whereas the men
I know just don't say a word. Here's another thing,
So this is also speaks the difference between you and
me because you really really strongly connect with this Facebook
(42:30):
group and this this this is not any you think
this is general male female is. But you don't do
that in real life. You do not with me. Maybe
it's because you try to brush it off like you
did with this woman. I mean there you are the
(42:52):
most guarded person I know. But if there's something about
that social community that makes you more comfortable, Doly I
literal really bring up things like this to you and
then you do what you did to this woman, which
is like you find the one thing about it that's
relatable to you, which is kind of a means of
brushing off the weight of the original concern. So it's
(43:16):
like if someone's trying to open up to you and
you're like, yeah, I know I've had a problem like that.
I stub my toe the other day, it's like they're
not gonna feel comfortable continuing to unload. My brain just
(43:36):
short circuited entirely. I'm getting very I know that, Like,
I can't engage in this conversation anymore because I'm at
I met a hundred percent emotional. I just want to
acknowledge that, and like, I know you You're gonna tell
me why I am that way, and it's going to
(43:57):
make me more emotional. Like, and you can't just say
that I don't connect emotionally with people because I text
friends and communicate all day face to face. That's what
but I'm what I'm saying is that that distance of
the screen. No, But I talked to my friends too
and say the same things. Well, I can only do
it that way. I have to connect with the faith
(44:20):
and like the idea of talking to a faceless group
of people. All I'm thinking about is who the hell
these characters? And I create characters that I don't like
and it takes me and maybe it's because of everything
you're talking about. It takes me more time to know
that it's a safe space. And I think that there's
(44:44):
plenty of like the societal expectations of how a man
should behave and how I was raised that guarded thing
that makes me feel like, well, I don't I don't
trust that me being vulnerable is going to be received. Well,
it's going to be read is how obnoxious I am.
And so it takes a lot, and there's very few
(45:05):
people that I will be up for. But conversely, it's
easier for me if I'm feeling very angry or emotional,
It's easier for me to text you exactly how I'm
feeling than it is for me to try to tell
it to you in person, because you will try to
dominate the conversation and brush it aside or try to
(45:26):
make it right very quickly without actually hearing what I'm
trying to say. So that's why I prefer writing it out,
because that sometimes feels like the only way to actually communicate. Well,
this is this is a huge difference between us, because
to me, I'm like, your face says more to me
(45:46):
than any of than your words do. I'm not you,
this is just processing differently. You're saying that. But then
if I was like sitting in front of you, like
very angry at you, you would see my face, you
would take get incredibly personally, and then on an emotional level,
all you would be thinking, is Beth is mad at me?
I want this to end and not be thinking about
(46:07):
why I was not. You know what, You're right, that's true.
It's a hard to present true. And I've learned that.
I mean, this has been the hardest thing in the
world for me to do, which is to have an
emotional reaction and go your emotional emotional emotional, your emotional,
which means that you have attention blindness. You can only
(46:29):
see the thing that made you upset, and the larger
context is currently invisible to you. And you have to
shut up, and you have to go away, and you
have to be okay with the idea that maybe I'm
letting Beth quote unquote win, which which like is nobody wins,
and go away and let all of this drain from
(46:51):
my body so that I can regain my full field
division to see what's going on and begin to understand.
And and boy, that's what's happening right now. It's just
like I had a second as I was about to
fucking flip over this chair, and I couldn't articulate. I
couldn't even think why. I don't remember why. I'm glad
(47:13):
we're all witnessing this because this is this like that
mode of like I'm so angry and I just want
to win, and it's as if somebody is handing me
binoculars and now I'm looking at the topic through binoculars.
Just at this one point that's just like I want
to kill this thing and I just completely forget what's
around it, right, I mean, but I think not too
(47:37):
probably upset you again, But that that goes back to
me earlier point, which they think is that men are
less likely to feel that processing their emotions is their problem,
and they want to put it on someone, usually a woman,
to process it for that. But I don't. I don't.
I don't want anyone to do with my stuff. I
(47:59):
need to set out loud and go away. But the
emotions have to get processed somewhere otherwise we end up
with active shooters. Okay, I'm gonna go kill somebody. Okay,
well no, no, I understand that, I understand it. Uh okay, anyway, okay, anyway.
(48:21):
The original article was how new fathers use social media
to make sense of their roles. Don't use it, don't
trust strangers. Boy. This was like thirty five minutes of talking.
So we're gonna have to wait. Whatever you're listening to
now is definitely an edited down. Oh god, you're going
to cut it all my points? No, I'm not. Uh,
you want to edit it, go ahead, but boy, okay,
(48:45):
all right, this was a lot to unpack. I want
to hear from people. Um here's the chance. Here's the
challenge for our listeners. Okay, if you are if you
reacted to this the way Iowa I did, you're probably
only a man, but not necessarily um or if you're
a woman, whatever side of this you gravitated too, If
(49:08):
you got emotional about this, I want you to do
an exercise. And this is something I am that there's
not a strong gender divide on this is well, I
assume that there is, but I also don't want to
assume if you had a strong emotional reaction to this.
I want you to, um do an exercise with me.
This is what I try to do, which is give
(49:31):
it some time and come back to this. And I
want you to write in or call in and tell
me what you learned about the other side of this,
find the lesson on the other side, the thing that
you want to reject, what in it is valid, and
don't give me why it's wrong, Give me why it's right.
(49:53):
And I want to hear people asking for people and people.
This is a This is a debate class exercise where
I'm giving you the counter argument that you don't stand by,
and I want to hear what you might be able
to pull from the side that you don't want to accept.
Does that make sense? That's what I'm gonna do. I
challenge you listeners to do the same and share. Oh
(50:15):
we're getting through it, Beth. I love you with all
my heart. I love you to all Right. Now it's
time for listeners. Want of those now we haven't. We've
had a lot of listener mail in the past few weeks.
We haven't gotten too so I want to throw out
a few and just talk about them. First of all,
(50:37):
we got an email from our favorite listener, Barbe. We
talked about Barbe recently. Barb wrote in we Love Barb,
We love Barbe, and she out I love has started
signing her emails Barbe with an exclamation point. He also
signs like from cubicle Land. She lives in Cubic Land,
(50:58):
um u um and here's from Barbed. She wrote a
few things, but this is the one that I gravitated
towards She listened to our episode talking about Brent on
the airplane, screaming, you're hurting me. Um So, she says,
we live here in Pennsylvania, but I'm originally from Saskatchewan.
(51:20):
We flew home in last year from my sister's wedding
where I was a bridesmaid and my son was a
ring bear. We flew Air Canada, and the only international
flight out of Harrisburg is this dinky little Air Canada
flight on a twenty seater plane to Toronto. This is fine,
the whole plane is This is fine. The whole plane
is terrifying. It sounds like it's going to fall apart.
(51:41):
So you kind of sit down, close your eyes and
spend an hour and a half praying to any God
that will listen that they don't find your bodies. In
like Michigan, they don't even have a door between the
seats of the cabin and the cockpit. Yep, you look
right out the front of the plane. The pilots are
also the flight attendants, so I might son and husband
have the front row seats A one and two. There's
(52:03):
only one seat on each side of the plane. I'm
four rows back my son has his tablet, but he's
excited that the pilots. What the pilots are doing. However,
that's only interesting for takeoff, and he loses his interest
pretty quick and resorts to drawing on his tablet. Every
time he draws something, he would hold it up and
holler back at be Hey, mommy, do you like my picture?
(52:25):
He had to holler because the plane was loud. But
there's twenty people on the plane too, and they all
had to see his drawings. And it got to the
point where everyone would give him a big thumbs up
for every picture he drew, and he thought it was
great having twenty people weighing in on his art. I
was like, oh man, he's gonna think he's Picasso. Cheers Barb.
(52:46):
I can see Brin doing that proudly to everyone, because
though he's not the artists of the two, he does okay,
but maybe in his more advanced really impressed me. Like
a voice go and she started drawing faces with circle
eyes and a mouth, and I was like, blown away,
(53:07):
it's really impressive for her age. Um, she's also very
good with scissors. Apparently, they say a daycare brand when
when he we applied to pre K and we asked
daycare to fill out a thing about him. They like
grade him on certain skills, and he had perfect scores
on everything except like hand eye coordination. It was like, fine,
(53:29):
more motor skills or something like that. There's like one below.
It's like once again, he's exactly you, and Maven is
exactly me because she's grade and scissors, but you're better.
You know, we have a lot of proof around, including
paint lines around this apartment, the proof that you're better
at that the night. If there's one thing I'm good at,
its scissors. Yeah, there's anything you're good at, it's drawing
(53:53):
painting in a straight line. If Rinda that an airplane,
that would be my worst nightmare. Uh. When I was
little and we go to the store and my if
my mom ever yelled across the store for me, Hey, Peter,
remember being a blockbuster And she's like, Peter, where are you?
And you would like duck, and I ducked down below
the shelves and like quietly, like a ninja, rushed to
(54:17):
her so that she would stop. But it wasn't till
I got to her. I was like, yeah, I'm here,
but I'm still that way less so because I'm a
man and I can't be vulnerable in front of people.
Come on, anyway, here's another email, aready? Um? So this
We had a couple of really interesting emails from our
conversation about race. We talked about when is an appropriate
(54:39):
time to talk about race and all the sidal implications
attached to that with your child, and we we left
that conversation going like, we don't know, we'll we'll sort
of hit it when we think he understands. Um um.
And here's this one woman, Rachel wrote in and said, um,
she has a son who's three and a half years old,
(55:01):
and he's definitely aware that people are different colors. My
husband is from India, and so he knows that mommy
is white and then Papa is brown. He calls himself
both depending on when you ask him. And I just
leave it there. It seems to me the best course
of action is to say, yes, people are different colors.
I have a tattoo, so I told him that you
can add color to your body as well, which he
finds really cool. I normalized the idea that it is
(55:24):
a way to identify people, but it isn't adding that
political bias that people seem to want to avoid talking
about little kids like to use simple categories to help
order their world, and color is a great way to
do that. I'm taking the approach that if he asks
me more questions about the differences between people, uh, that
is when I will explain it because he is showing
(55:45):
an interest and wanting to understand. Hopefully that helps. I
don't know, ha, Rachel, Yeah, I think we had another
listener said something similar that was sort of like a
way you can talk about it with young kids is
like if they ask you just be like, yes, I'm
pople are this color, some people are that color. I
think that makes sense. I at the risk of sounding
(56:06):
like I'm trying to skirt the conversation, I think if
a kid brings it up like that and says something
about your skin color, I think it makes perfect sense
to respond. I just think if you're like taking a
very small child, like we haven't sitting them down to
have this conversation out of the blue, it's going to
result in some sort of weird thing on the playground
where they're trying to like label other kids, you know
(56:28):
what I mean. Like it's like, yeah, it's like I
talked about death because Brendon goes, what is this, where's
the old lady? Um? Yeah, for sure, and this is
very much talking about sort of the factual component of
of race that you look people look differently, and uh,
it's being okay to acknowledge that. Obviously, it's great. I'm
(56:51):
sure there's got to be some sort of book out
there or resource that that says exactly what developmentally is
appropriate for different ages. Um. Yeah. Actually reminded me if
we got some emails about that. Um, some stuff I
still need to dig into. But here's this is another
email that was great from Chloe. Um. I really like,
did you guys even touched on the topic of talking
(57:12):
about race with your kids. I just wanted to make
a point that it is a privilege to decide that
you don't have to talk to your kid about race,
even though they are still young. For children and parents
of color, not addressing race is a luxury that they
do not have for safety reasons, particularly which seems while
(57:33):
it seems like a scary topic to touch on, I
don't believe it's something to be left until the last minute.
And I hope they turn out okay. This is an
excellent point. No that's a great point. I still just
have to keep saying our son is just barely turns
for though, and it's like, yeah, I don't want to
leave this conversation the last minute, but I also don't
(57:54):
think it would make sense to have with him right
now out of the blue. Yeah. But but the big
thing is reckoning. I sing you know that particularly like
if you are black parents in this country, not exclusively,
but like that that is a conversation that's probably the
needs to happen in certain circumstances for safety reasons. And
(58:18):
I know I've talked to parents people of color who
you know, relationship with the police, they have to talk
to their kids differently about And we have the great
luxury of not worrying about that. And that's like we
don't have to explain it to him right now because
I don't think he'll understand. But there's no danger in
that for us. And that is a privilege and something
(58:42):
I did not consider at all until I got this email. Um,
so thank you, Chloe. That was great. Thank you all right,
thanks so much for listening. This has been another episode
of we know as parents ing. Uh. If you'd like
(59:02):
to submit a question or share story, give some advice
or suggestion impossible parenting hypothetical for our would you Know segment.
You're welcome to email us at we knows pot at
gmail dot com or leave a voicemail at three four
seven seven three nine six. UM. You've ht us on Twitter, Facebook,
Instagram at we knows pod um. Our website we Knows
(59:25):
Parenting dot com also has all of this information, along
with some T shirts. Take a look at that buy
some funny shirts. Um. Also, maybe this is the week
you give us a good review and you write something
about grate review. Subscribe, especially this our most contentious and
emotional episode. UH tell us that you love us. Thank
(59:49):
you guys so much. We love you. Have a wonderful day.
Good Bye bye
We Knows Parenting News
Hosts And Creators
Beth Newell
Peter McNerney
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