August 20, 2019 • 56 mins
This week Bryn tuns five and he’s letting everyone know about it, Beth learns to be selfish, Peter loves rules and Maeven lives life to the fullest in her new pink tracksuit.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
I got welcome to he Knows Parenting. I'm Peter McNerney,
I'm Beth Newell. You just raised your glass sky high
into the air. Bah bah ba, we're drinking. We're heralding
(00:30):
the intro of the wed Knows Parenting podcast for those
of you joining us for the very first time. We
are parents, were married. We're delightful, and we have children
who are three and now five years old. Yes, we
own a five year old. We we got a five
year old. We own him. He's very five. He's very
(00:52):
excited to be five. He wants to let you know
about it. He's been doing kind of like an Oprah
voice about it, or he's like and I'm fine, I'm
entering a room and I'm fine. He's so excited to
be five. And he likes to tell us that it
means that he's getting smarter and stronger and bigger and faster, bigger, stronger, faster.
(01:18):
He's such a big kid. Oh my god, he cannot
wait to tell you how big he is. I tried
to throw that in his face where I was like, well,
if you're a big kid, you'd be ready for bed already.
Didn't work. Yeah, if he was a big kid. I
wouldn't have to wrestle him into not kicking and screaming. Um.
(01:41):
So I was like, I'm going to count to three,
you know what. I counted to three, and he didn't
do it, and so I just turned off the lights
and I left the room and he did not expect
me to do it. Interesting, and then he went and
then he went to sleep. I try that. Um, that's
the worst thing you could do to them. Happily, a
really bad bedtime last night, which was to be expected
(02:02):
because it was his birthday and he was all amped up. Um.
But the night before I threatened to because he wasn't
listening about getting better or something, and then I threatened
to not open his presence the next day. I was like,
I was like, I'll save your presence for your birthday
party in a week. We don't have to open them.
And he was like obviously fighting me. But then at
(02:23):
a certain point he was just like he's like he
could feel He's like do I want to do this? Yeah,
He'll listen, and you know, maybe is still the point
where if you give an ultimatum, she's only seeing the
fact that you're challenging her, and then she will not
be defeated. But Brian will logic through things, especially if
(02:45):
you stay calm, and He's like, she needs she still
has this thing where she needs to like blow off
steam and like be angry for a while and then
she comes crawling back. That's true, they both do. Yeah,
but Brand has more stamina. Um, this is something I
(03:06):
always like, Oh, she's just like Bes in a lot
of ways, because when you get upset, you have some
similar like I'm not going to budge mentality, but you
know what, you know what. I don't know the answer
to that question, but you never come crawling back. That's like,
that's like your things. Well, I think the difference is
(03:29):
that I'm always correct. Okay, so you are more like
Brand than I thought. Um, so, Brian turn five, we did.
I want you to know that I'm my my more
annoying to you holiday tendencies about tradition and making it
(03:53):
perfect and maximum excitement. I'm trying to loosen up about
those things. And one of those things is you're totally
fine with like spreading the presents out. You're like, we'll
do our presence today with them. And then he's party
with a family on Saturday and more friends and in
my brain, I'm like, no, you gotta do all the
presents at the same time. Well, but your logic, you
(04:15):
wanted to wait to have all the presents at his
birthday party next Saturday. And I was like, let's give
him something on his actual birthday so that he feels
like it's his birthday, and then when everyone asks him
about his birthday to take care on Monday, he has
a story to tell about his actual birthday. Um. Also,
he keeps building up this birthday party and claiming that
he's inviting all these people that we haven't invited. So
(04:38):
I know he's going to daycare and being like, you're
coming to my party. It's he's making it seem like
a big party that they're not invited. I'm just not
talking about it with him because I know he's not
going to care. Well. He forced me to let him
write invitations to a couple of his friends, and he
(04:59):
he made me how him spell it out. And his
invitation was the words you are coming to my party.
That you could write invitations he wrote threats. Yeah, just
the entire invitation is just you are coming to my party.
And he wrote this out for like three of his friends.
Who he seems to think are coming to his party
that aren't because the party is just like a few
(05:20):
family members. Well, let's be honest, two of them are
out of town, and we don't like the third one
as much. I wouldn't say we don't like him. I
was no, No, here's the thing. We like him just fine.
But his mother runs daycare, and it is so weird,
and we're about burns about to leave the daycare and
(05:41):
we're not, frankly never going to see them. What you
said to me, You're like, he's never going to see
him again. We don't need to invite. It's there's the
weirdness because of that, And I feel bad for this
kid because his mother runs daycare, so he's always in
this weird dynamic of like feeling like he's at home,
but also with all these other kids, Like, well, he's
(06:03):
about to go to kindergarten too, in which case that
part of his life is over. But I would be
genuinely curious to see how he would interact with Brin
and just a regular friend hang where it's not like
all of this daycare stuff going on that he's been
raised with. That's true, Like, just let him be a kid.
It's fine. I feel like you're being a little discriminatory
(06:25):
for him to him for being the son of the
woman who are on staycare. That is totally why. It's
because of her, it's not because of him. Yeah, you
were like, I want to be done with these people.
I don't want to be around them socially. I'm stressed
around her like I'm breaking the rules all the time
and that like I screw up and I'm like, let's
keep it professional. I understand how you feel because I
(06:46):
have the same anxieties of like this person is mad
at me for not having clothes for my kid, et cetera.
But I do feel like that discomfort I'm worried about
just like leaning into it because it creates like a
class differ frential where you're like, this is the kid
of the woman who works for me. He can't come
to my house. Now. If we loved her, she was great,
(07:08):
we'd be like, let's be friends. Also, you know what,
he's about to go to kindergarten, and like, frankly, we're
not going to hold onto all these friendships with kids
that it's such an effort to see his best friend now,
who don't doesn't go to the same school with him. No,
I just think, you know, maybe if we started to
make some effort to hold onto anyone will make effort
once kindergarten starts. That's the deal too, in two weeks,
(07:32):
I'll start making an effort once these kids out of
our lives. He's not even out of our lives. Maybe
it's gonna keep going to this daycare. Anyway, Brent had
a little birth a daycare birthday, and we sent cupcakes.
I got the cupcakes. We just got the cheapest ones ever. Yeah,
we very lazily sent grocery storebought cupcakes. I'm stop and
(07:56):
shop okay. And then yesterday I made the cupcakes from
a box. Um, nothing fancy because we have Yeah, they're
a way a pie above the cupboards. Because, as you
would imagine, our kids ate at least three cupcakes in
the afternoon on his actual birthday. Yes on his real birthday.
(08:21):
I'm a great mother. I left him on the counter
and I told them they both had one. And then
clearly they were trying to sneak by me, and they
were doing that thing where they're like, um, mommy, go
in the other room, and I was like, I know,
you're gonna have another. I was like, just let's agree
the second one is your last one until after dinner.
And then, I mean, I knew what I was getting
(08:43):
into leaving them out. So then clearly more cupcakes were
taken when I was in the other room, and so
then I had to hide them and appropriate. Yeah, and
then they were just I mean, do you know what
miracle happened tonight? What I made? Um, well, a few things.
I made a a shrimp and broccoli pizza and I
(09:07):
made it just made it up. I didn't see any
broccoli on it. Oh, there's a ton of broccoli on it. Um,
very minimal cheese. Actually you should try. It's good. I
made it up and it turned out well, and the
kids loved it. I thought they were gonna hate it
and I would have to like boil the hot dogs.
But before that, I was making dinner and May even
(09:27):
came in and opened the fridge like she does, and
I always have to be like, no, no snacks. You
can have a banana, you can have fruit or vegetable
before dinner, but nothing else. And I didn't even get
to say that before she saw a yogurt in the
fridge and she goes, Daddy, if I finished all of
my dinner, can I have a yogurt? Oh? That's good.
(09:48):
After after she ate literally like five yogurts in a
day on Saturday, I was like, yeah, you can. The
brain goes, Can I have an ice pop if I
eat out my dinner? I mean, that's what I say
to them all the time. They said it to me,
and I was like yeah. Then they scarfed their dinner
and I gave him a yogurt and an ice pop
and they didn't ask for another one. Well that's what
they were doing that last night they were. I was like,
(10:09):
you have to eat some dinner. Like so I ordered
delivery and they had chicken fingers and I they weren't
really eating it, and I was like, well, I'm not
going to force this on them because they're not hungry.
I'm just gonna let it sit here until they get hungry,
because I know at bedtime they're suddenly going to act
like they're starving. So I was like just waiting. So
then of course at a certain point close to bedtime
(10:30):
they want ice pops and I was like, you have
to eat some of these chicken fingers, and I forced
them to eat a little bit, but they didn't eat much.
But I was like, at least the point has gotten
across that, Like you can't just eat all sugar all day.
Those ice pops are great, thirty five calories. I had
another success, which is that so okay, first of all,
(10:53):
that they're called I recommend them. Well, I'm actually not
going to tell the little story because it's boring, but
I got delivery eight uh apple juice that came with
one of the chicken fingers, and so I only had
one for a dumb reason. They didn't deliver the correct amount,
and I put it in the like the door of
(11:15):
the fridge behind other stuff, and I was like, they
won't see this, But then of course Brin found it.
They want to find this thing that's exactly at their
eye level. Hang so it's like a plastic bottle of appages.
Carries it into the bedroom and he goes, Mommy, what's
this and I was like, Oh, that's a grown up drink.
(11:35):
And he didn't ask any questions. I just took it
and hit it a pie and I was so pleased
because he thinks he can read, but he can't. Um
clock is counting down on that one, though, it's it's
it's chicken fast. Maven is struggling with her letters. She's
(11:57):
finding into it. She'll when Brin's not there, I'll like
do letters with her. She's not struggling. She's just three. Uh. Well,
Brand knew all of his letters before he was three. Yeah,
because he was an only child and you were constantly
coaching him. I'm not worried about her, Okay, but you
said she's struggling. Uh, you're right. Comparatively to Brand, she's
(12:23):
a real idiot. That was sarcastic. That was a joke.
She's a brilliant, totally normal three year old. She's technically
smarter than him. Boy, why do you need that to
be true? So when it comes to letters, that's not true.
I mean they have different strengths, different intelligences. You and
(12:44):
I have different measures of intelligence, right, We're smart and
dumb in different ways. Mm hmm. Men men love for
things to be very like quantifiable by the book, All
men all the same, all men? No, I mean the
(13:08):
system reinforces itself where it perpetuates that certain types of people,
including men, perpetuate the same biases. So traditional education, like memorization,
non creative things are weighed more heavily than other types
(13:30):
of intelligence. Oh, I agree. I agree with that, um totally,
you know. And I was like, I was the kid
who couldn't who was able to read after everybody else. Yeah,
you were an idiot. Maidens. Now that you can read,
you're just trying to lord it over our daughter. And
I'm just like, is man or is she like? Is
(13:53):
she like me? No, she's like me. She's a genius.
She doesn't just doesn't care about your alphabet yet she's
bigger than well. The main point is that she's now
into it, and so she's trying now and she is
she is learning, Like there's something she's been good about
it because I was telling her something. I was trying
to explain W to her the other day when we
(14:14):
were going through this weird little pre K workbook thing
that Brent has, and I was like, this page, you're
supposed to find all the w's W. Here's a W.
There's a W. And she was like, no, that's an M.
And she loves to like fight you on something and
then hold it and then I feel like by the
(14:35):
end of it, she was sort of like W like
she was like taking it in. Yeah, she's doing more
of that, whereas before she would be so excited that
we were giving her the attention that she was just
thinking about how she's going to deliver whatever she's going
to say, and not processing at all what we're actually
asking her. She's just like a time to perform. I
(14:58):
think she's processing it. She's just sort of like, let
me mess with your expectations of learning. Right. Well, Britain
actually gets on board now, we really we read that
workshop book, that workbook, um like Paven, what's this? And
Britain now won't give it away and I'll actually be patient. Well,
(15:19):
I was trying to explain to him that he could
like trace, he could practice the letters in there, and
he was not really getting it. But no, he thinks
it's a bedtime story. We bought. We bought his back
to school supplies, which is very exciting for you. Oh
my gosh, it was emotional. I didn't connect with you.
How emotional I got. Well, it's funny because you your
original plan was that you would take him to stables
(15:40):
because you love back to school supplies. And I was
a little bit annoyed because I love back to school supplies,
and so I did not enjoy the assumption that you
thought that was going to be your thing. Well, that
was my dad's thing, and so that was trying to
be my dad. Yeah, my dad also loves office supplies.
But it I was happy we went together. We all
(16:02):
went together and our kids ran around stables. They had
the time of their lives. And we used a shared
Google note with a checklist. You guys gotta get on
these Googles. These not the notes app in your iPhone.
You can share your notes and you can make checkboxes,
which we mostly used for our grocery list, which has
(16:24):
been pretty good. But this was the most efficient. This
was your very exciting moment, the most efficient school shopping ever.
I didn't have this technology when I was a kid.
We had a piece of paper, a pizza per paper.
I need a number two tanger Tangaroga. And I have
to say the school supply list for Brant, for a
(16:46):
kindergartnener was like a hundred dollars worth of school supplies.
It was more than that. It was so much. They
were like they wanted like twelve a twelve pack of
thick markers, a twelve pack of thin markers. They want
like crayons, No but like it supplies for the whole class,
(17:07):
none of it. I understand that it supplies for the
whole class, but it's a big ask. Like I hope
that they're doing this big ask under the assumption that
like some kids just don't do it. I'm uncertain of that.
I hope so. But I mean, if you if you
don't do it, there's no system in place for them
to be like you have to. That's probably true. It's
(17:29):
just because we didn't do it for prekiing. Well, it
worries me just like that these certain kids getting this
list and their parents being like I have just suddenly
budget like a hundred and fifty bucks for a kindergartener,
Like this is insane, Like it's just not for a
lot of people. That is not sustainable, Like that's not
there's been language and I've been reading, you know, I
(17:51):
have all the kindergarten paperwork, and the system generally seems
to acknowledge that that's different. People have different I mean,
maybe we're like really good marks because they were like
the people who love office supplies will just snatch it
all up. They're gonna get exactly what's on this. They
can't help themselves they love staples. Was the amount on
(18:13):
the page. Look on the shelf and there's only one
smaller and one bigger. You know you're going to get bigger.
I almost got the ten ounces of pure L hand wash,
but it asked for twelve, so instead I got thirty three. Anyway,
the classroom is well stocked, hopefully. I don't know where
(18:34):
they're going to store at all. That was the big
thing in pre k I was like, oh, I didn't
do it the first day and I came in and
I saw that it was just not the stuff was
just jam packed with tissues. Please just bring it in
the middle of the year, and I said I will,
and then I didn't. Oops. We were not good. We
talked about this. We're not the most reliable parents. In
(18:54):
pre k Oh, I was a mystery reader. We've been
over that. I just mean in terms of, like, you know,
sending a photo of our family and that. No, but
there was some family thing where we were supposed to
send like a description of our holidays, and then we
did the worksheet about what our family traditions are. It
was too hard a question I didn't know how to answer.
(19:16):
I was like, I don't know. Christmas and then we
just never did, never did, and then they made a
whole book for the whole class's family was not included.
Our is the only family that was not included. This
(19:42):
next segment is called would you Know? Is where we
present parenting hypotheticals to one another. Should I add a
whispered repeat of the title from now one you know?
I you whispering? That reminded me that may Haven continues
to say, Adsum, I love you, I love you. You
(20:04):
did it to me today. Her love is was now
just overflowing so much that you couldn't not you couldn't
contain all the love she had. It gives something to
be Are you happy with that? Yeah? I melted my heart.
My three year old daughter going, Daddy, I love you.
She's obsessed. I think I I need to make her
(20:25):
like a music playlist of love songs so she has
kind of an outlet for her overwhelming love. Oh my god, Beth,
I heard a song came on random on my phone.
There's a George Harrison's song from the mid seventies that's
like got six words in it, and it's basically just
(20:45):
I love you, but like really drawn out with this
big band and it's like this big, big build up
and then it Christian does with the You. The song
is called You, and I was walking on the train
and it came on and that crescendo of ah, love
love you, and I thought about you, and I got
(21:08):
tiary on the train platform and I almost texted you
the song to say I love you, I'm thinking about you.
I had a similar moment today. I was listening to
Stevie Wonders Knocks Me off my feet, but I sent
it to my best friend and not you. I had
a reason. Sorry. I was like, I'm gonna send this
to you, but then I got to kind of was like,
(21:29):
she won't like this song. Why do you think I
wouldn't like it. I tried to show it to you
because it's like late post beatles, like mid seventies. George Harrison. Yeah,
it's a great, it's a great. It's a really the
song is about nothing other than literally I love you,
and it's just big and emotional. I'm gonna play it
(21:50):
for you on the break. Would you knows? This comes
to us from Eric um Anne of Green Gables Edition. Hi,
Beffan Peter. This summer, my wife and I took a
road trip along with our one and a half year
old son through New England and Canada and listen to
(22:11):
episodes of your podcast. Um Listening to episodes of podcast
was a great way to pass some of the long
stretches in the car. One of our stops was on
Prince Edward Island to visit attractions inspired by Anne of
Green Gables, and I've been thinking hard since then about
how to turn some of the scenarios that Anne found
herself into a would you know scenario. Most of the
(22:36):
things I could think of just seemed a little too
much of a stretch, but one of your topics last
week finally inspired me. Flash forward to when Maven is
twelve years old. Okay, we're into the woods. You knows,
maybe it is twelve years old or so. I'm already
on board with this. I knew you would be. She
goes back into the archives and listens to that episode
(22:57):
of the podcast, and here's to her dismay that her
mother said she didn't trust people with blonde hair. She
races out of the house and happens upon some random
person selling black hair dye quote unquote black hair dye
on the street corner and buys it hair dye for sale,
(23:18):
but when she applies it, it turns her hair a
hideous shade of green. Oh no, you come upon May
even crying in her bed and in dismay at how
her hair looks. What would you say to her? Would
you make her wear to school like that? Give her
a really short haircut, something more creative short hair Beth.
If you need more details, it's chapter in the book.
(23:42):
Thanks for your weekly does entertaining parenting stories. It's given
me lots to look forward to as our little one
grows up. Eric, There's so much I love about this question.
New England, Canada and Green Gables. Um I complete sidebar Mayven.
So I went on this sort of epic trip to
(24:03):
Marshals this week on the weekend. Well, it's kind of
it's not interesting, but I I went to a nearby
stop and chop to go to the coinstar machine to
unloader coins. Then I had some cash, and then I
saw there was some Marshall's next door, and I was like,
what are gonna do with all this cat? I'm going
to snag some deals and so I don't. I'm not
(24:27):
normally in Marshals and things are cheap, and I found
I don't know what to do with myself. This is
like I'm completely derailing from the question, but I'm going
to get back to it. Um. I got some really
epic gifts from Maven, which is one was like a
size six Betsy Johnson dress and pink with a black bow,
(24:50):
which she loves and it's a good look and dress well,
and when you go to Marshals, it's like a dress
that was originally sixty dollars and it's now like twelve
dollars at that sale. And I was like, a twelve
dollar Betsy Johnson dress for my daughter who loves pink.
Yes please. And then I found this was like the
(25:13):
major score for me and Maven, which was an Adidas
track suit in pale pink, pale pink track suit and
she loves it. I was so excited because pale pink
f leisure, I think is like the synthesis of me
and Maven style, where she gets the pink and I
(25:34):
get this sort of like sporty girl vibes. And so
I was like, I don't know, like I think she's
gonna like this because she has another shirt that's sort
of like a similar vibe and she's really into it,
and she was trying to try it on a lot
this weekend, even though it's very hot and it's like
a polyester track suit and it well, I love it
(25:59):
on so many levels because when my sister was little,
she was a huge tomboy. Now uh known lesbian and
she but she so when she was little, she seemed
like a tomboy, which at the time it seemed like
she had just inherited from me as a you know,
(26:20):
the original tomboy of the Newell family. Do you ever
feel jealous that she overshadowed your tomboyhood every day? But
she at one point got this T shirt and shorts
that were printed with a Power Ranger pattern, so it
was like a full Power Ranger outfit, and she was born.
(26:43):
She's born. It was a it was a pink Power
Ranger outfit, and she was obsessed with it and loved it,
which again felt like sort of just a next session
to me because I had similar like sweatsuits that I
wouldn't remove from my body. But she, notoriously we went
to a family reunion and it was like picture night,
(27:05):
and she was wearing this Power Ranger outfit every single day,
and it was like, we're taking photos as a family tonight,
we really need to strangle you into a dress. And
she wouldn't have it, and she insisted, we're not going
to wrestle you into the dress. We're gonna strangle you.
Well we did. My parents did for like my aunt
and uncle's wedding, and so there's there's photos of her
(27:27):
crying at that event. But then by this point I
think they had just sort of given up. It was
probably the same summer or something, and so they so
we have a family photo where everyone's dressed up formally
and my sister is in the pink Power Ranger T
shirt and shorts because they didn't want to fight her anymore. Um.
(27:48):
And this is also like the era where my sister
instead of sucking her thumb, she sucked on her arm,
which is like a really adorable habit. It was like
her forearm, right, like the fatty part of the forum. Yeah,
Like if you held your forum up to your face
and you sucked on the Yeah, the fatty had a
(28:09):
red mark there for years because she had sucked on it.
And even when she got older and stopped sucking it,
sometimes if you tried to pull that skin tat there
would be a bull there. There would be just like
a protrusion of skin because it had been so trained
to be sucked. Um, I hope she's listening. And anyway,
(28:34):
very adorable age for my sister, which now Mayven really
resembles my sister in there shared blondness and love of
pink outfits. So anyway, Mayven looked very cute in the
Adidas track suit and it was very reminiscent of that time,
um speaking of a green Gables. But then, anyway, while
(28:55):
I was at Marshal's, I also found um, like a
hair painting hair chalk thing for kids and you can
put this hair color this very temporary streaks of color
in your hair. And I was like, it's like a
trip to the store where I was like, it's Brine's birthday. Actually, really,
(29:17):
this logic did not make sense to me. Brind should
really be getting stuff for his birthday. But there's so
many things happening that I was like, Maven would love this,
and I've already bought gifts for brand, So I bought
this hair color kit for again very cheap. You can't
beat the deals. And then you wrapped it up and
(29:37):
gave it to Brynch. No. So here's the logic that
was happening. Is the night before Brind's birthday, Saturday night
you were gone, I was left to wrap twenty presents alone.
I was trying to sort them into piles, and then
I was tired and so and I was like, which
one should be for the party, which one should be
for tomorrow? And I got really tired and I was like,
(29:58):
you know what, just start wrapping. So I started rapping
and then I lost track. I totally forgot that one
of them was the hair dye stuff and brit opened
it on his birthday and I was like, oh, yeah,
that's from Maven. But ye, luckily he had no interest
in it. Yeah, he didn't care. Um. That was very
my my Christmas. Every year with some present I'd opened
(30:21):
and there'd be a posted note on it and it's
like Andrew Present number seven. I was like, oh, that's Andrews.
That was like, that's kind of the beauty I think
of wrapping presents now is knowing that your mom and
my mom have had a lot of mom moments where
they don't do presents correctly. They're tired, they're trying to
do presents for everyone. In the family, and so when
(30:43):
I was wrapping presents, I was sort of like, you
know what, it doesn't matter. These people are getting presents.
I'm not worrying about these things. I'll sort them up
after they're wrapped, and I don't know what's in what package.
I don't care anymore. Where I'm tired. It's Saturday night
and I'm wrapping a lot of presents. Beth. I think
(31:04):
that's good for you, because I think you do. You
worry about You don't say it out loud, but you
taking me a long time to realize that you worry
about everybody a lot, and I think sometimes more than
you should. It's hard not to. And I think that's
also your impulse to be like, just give him some presents.
Now you're worried he's gonna be upset for that. I'm like,
(31:27):
and I'm like, I'm not worried about him, but I
think I think he really enjoyed yesterday and it was good,
and now he's going to have a party where he's
inevitably going to be overloaded with stimulation at some point,
and it doesn't make sense to try to give him
every single present on that day when other people are
bringing presents to our house, that's fair. But I also
(31:50):
like with present wrapping is really hard for me because
I'm a virgo and yeah, I love I love to
be particular about details and I love to make things beautiful.
And I went to art school and I know, I
know I could do an amazing job at wrapping presents,
but it doesn't matter. And people are about to throw
(32:14):
the paper away the second they see it. It's true.
So if you have time and it's something you would enjoy,
then get fastidious. But if you don't, then it doesn't
matter it. But like this is like the difference between
you and me and many men is like you're you
have to like remind yourself to consider other people and
(32:34):
aesthetics and things. And I have to talk myself down
from expectations of like taking care of everyone and making
the present perfectly because my impulse is to do it
perfectly and to stress the funk out. Yea, that it's
not I think you're absolutely right. I won't lump all
men into me, but that's no, it's not all men,
(32:56):
but I do think like I do think more men
than women are like what I'm supposed to wrap this?
Like I just say you an Amazon package like its um.
We're learning to be each other in very positive ways.
I think it has brought us much closer together. I've
(33:16):
learned to think more like you, and you've learned to
think more like me. Yeah, I have to constantly tell
myself to be selfish and stop thinking about people. I
don't have to tell myself that at all, It just happens. Well,
I will say, though, like your dad and I share
a birthday. We're both virgos, and we're both, like I think,
very tuned in on holidays and stuff too, like trying
(33:38):
to do this sort of thing. Although in your dad's case,
because he's a man, your mom does a lot of
presents and stuff. But my mom would disagree. My dad
is it was not true when he was my age,
but as he got older he took over the presence, right.
But like your mom, by nature of being a woman
in the state at home mom, she like does the
(33:59):
meal and like a lot of stuff. Your dad doesn't
really think about it. But because your dad and I
have this shared birthday virgo thing, like, we are very
tuned in. And I remember having a conversation with him
in front of like you and your mom where I
was like, I have to remind myself sometimes like that
there it's not that they are thinking of doing the
(34:22):
considerate thing and then ignoring it or deciding not to
do it. It's that it's not occurring to them in
the first place. Something else currently has our focus right,
and what it is I don't know, but that's something
I have to constantly remind myself as I go through
the world, as like a overly sensitive person is like,
(34:44):
because it feels like people are constantly being cruel sometimes
and what this makes a lot of sense. I'm sorry
I interrupted you, but I'm really connecting with like I
think some of not only like recent conflicts, but historically
between us where I would do things and you would
really make me feel like you thought, I like really
(35:07):
deliberately made this choice to be neglect for it took
a long time for me to learn that it wasn't
calculated because it's it's it's so my sister and I
were talking about this because she was talking about a
study where they talked about like they measured like if
you were in a grocery store and you're pushing your
card along, how where are you of like whether your
card is in someone's way or blah blah blah, And
(35:30):
me and my sister are very like constantly aware of
that kind of thing of like the greater good and
how can I help these people around me and blah
blah blah. And it's like it's not necessarily like we're
trying to make a conscious choice to be good people
are what consider it. It's just like we can't help ourselves,
Like that's just the way we're wired. And so it's
(35:52):
hard to understand sometimes that other people are not having
the same level of external stimulation, like they're not picking
up on those things, and so it's not a calculated
move on their part to ignore other people's needs. Well,
it's I think you agree. I agree, although for me
it's not with strangers because that scenario you described, I
(36:15):
am overly aware of strangers and personal space. It's with
people that I that I love that I'm around. Okay,
but we need to get to the question, which was
about turn her hair green. I think, I mean my mind,
though it looks cool, Yeah, in my mind, I think
(36:39):
I would be like wanting to sort of help her
experiment with the color, like either embrace it or try
like another color. Like pink or something wild where it's
just like, you know what, this green could use some pink.
I think those are mixed together. Well, there was something
in the news recently and I can't remember who, but
(36:59):
it was like, um, you know, like gossip magazines were
reporting on like one celebrity mom dyed her kid's hair
and then she got a lot of flack for doing
that because hair dye is supposedly dangerous or whatever. And
then this other celebrity mom was like, hey, I saw
the criticism, so and so I was getting I'm taking
(37:20):
my daughter to the salon to get her hair dyed.
And it's just like when you do like manic panic
like pink blue hair dye, it's not the same level
of like dangerous as certain like very chemical hair dyes,
do you know what I mean? Like I didn't know
any of this at all. Anyway, I can't remember who
(37:40):
the specifics of who this was, but I was like
very into it because I do think like from Maven,
who happens to have very blonde hair that would take
color well unlike my hair dark, my dumb dark hair.
I was like, that's cool, like that she could from
an early age experiment with her look. Um, so I
(38:05):
kind of do hope to like in addition to the
temporary her color we put in this weekend, I would
love to help her experience with this. I don't I
think we would hopefully get to that before this this
incident that the the black market hair dye. Um Um, yeah,
(38:29):
I mean, but I do. I don't like, I don't
think we would get there because I mean, the description
says it's a hideous shade of green. I mean, we
were joking a lot in the last episode, but I
do want to say, like, I have very close blonde friends.
I was being I was joking. You can't backpack all
from this from this very clear stance. Um. I when
(38:50):
my daughter tells me on a daily basis how much
she loves me, I do say it back to her,
and I tell her she's beautiful. Um Um, I don't
tell her she's beautiful well, because she tells me I'm beautiful,
and I feel like I have to return the comment.
Why why do women have to do that for each other?
(39:11):
This is one of those like feminist things where, prior
to having kids, I had more of a staunch take
of like not enforcing beauty norms or whatever. But then
when you have a daughter who's like excited about the
way she looks, it's like, oh, she should love her
appearance and love herself, and this is great. You know,
(39:32):
like you're not like, as much as I want to
dig in and be like, let's not enforce pink culture
or beauty culture or whatever. She's a three year old
who just loves herself and loves colors, and it's like,
you know what, let her have that. We can wait
till she's older, before the world like shakes all of
(39:53):
her joy out of her. You know, well, well, I'm
still not doing it. I want to You're not telling
her she's beautiful. No, I'm telling her she's so cool
and smart and fun I think that's okay, Like she
should also be told she's cool and smart and funny.
Like I just think like if she's like telling me
I'm beautiful, I'm sort of like, yeah, and you're beautiful too.
(40:17):
I think it's different. I think it's a little different
coming from me than coming from you, because it would
I mean, it's creepier if a dad is just like
only talking talking to his daughter about her looks. But secondly,
it's not in my personality to like talk about looks
a lot. So it's clearly not going to be like
(40:38):
there's some people I know, I think who had moms
who like enforced a really like appearance based reinforcement the
idea of themselves, and I don't. I just don't think
I have it in me do that, like, because my
my mom was never really liked that. Like she like
(41:01):
my mom loved to tell me how handsome I was.
I mean, I do think anyone our mom's age was
a little bit like into diet culture and being thin
just because of the culture they lived in. But I
don't like my mom specifically was not like overly obsessed
with my appearance. Well, you turned up great and I'm perfect,
(41:22):
So I would say, whoa Mayven? You did not need
we would have gotten your hair die. You would say, hey, Mayven,
cool green hair. Well, actually, here's the question. If she said, hey,
can I dye my hair black? I'm twelve, would we
say yes, black twelve? I think I would have to
(41:44):
do some research because, like I was saying, the um,
the manic, the man, there's certain hair dyes that are
more temporary, like manic panic hair dye is not a
permanent hair dye, and I think just in terms of chemicals,
I would want to. I guess to do more research
because I'm not, um someone who's well versed in this
(42:06):
kind of thing, but I would. All right, so let's assume,
let's pretend that there's no chemical issue. What if it's
just an aesthetic, like I want to dye my hair, well,
then yeah, I think kids should have autonomy over their
own bodies and be allowed to self express. I always
feel that way, And then I see some people whose
kids that are like I want to I don't want
(42:27):
to get my hair cut, and I just have like
this just mess on their head and it's not even
like long. I don't know, but that kid cut their
hair when I was When I was in fifth grade,
my best friend and I had really long hair, like
down to her butts. And this is what kind of
we had. Rejectress and other people sometimes referred to as
(42:48):
like horse hair girls. But it's just like very long,
unkempt hair. And I finally went. I don't think I
went anywhere. I think my mom just trimmed my hair
and it was not that much shorter, but it was
like halfway at my back and I had a fifth
grade teacher who was like, honestly a real bitch, and
(43:08):
she saw me with my charmed hair and she goes,
you cut your hair, and she said it was so
much relief, thank God. And that's how I knew in
fifth grade my looks were for everyone else's pleasure. Anyway, Eric,
we I guess we'd cut her hair. We cut all
(43:29):
of her hair, cut it off, buzz it off, and say,
next time you think twice before you go to that
creepy guy in the corner for your quote unquote black
hair dye. We didn't really answer a question, but I
hope you enjoyed our answer. This next segment is called
(43:52):
Listeners Want to News. That's where we take questions and
comments from you guys. All right, we got another voice,
now can we just before we move on? UM, I
was wanna say once again how thankful we are for
all of the h This is a very sexy podcast
for parents, and this podcast got me pregnant reviews that
(44:13):
you've read, but I will say no one yet has
written in with a review of our newest request, which
is I believe ouch I love this podcast. Do we
need to give a new prompt? No, that's the prompt.
I still I want at least one ouch. I love
this podcast, um, and then we can go to a
new one. All right, But this is a voicemail from
(44:38):
Andy from Minneapolis. Let's take a listen. Hi back in Peter.
It's Andy. I'm calling for Minneapolis. Having one of those
days where I just dropped my kids off at daycare
and you know those days where you're just like bye,
and then sometimes you go to work and then you
miss them, but then you pick them up and they're
crazy and you didn't need to pick him up early anyways. UM.
(45:03):
So love your show, listen to you guys all the time. UM.
Curious on your po V on tantrums. Um, We've got
a almost four year old and a two year old. Um,
but the four year old tantrums are getting pretty epic.
And there's times, you know where he's gonna take a
(45:25):
T shirt and throw it across the room and it
doesn't go anywhere, and it's kind of adorable and funny. UM.
But then there's like more serious times like legit will
like flip like kids art table not okay, UM, just
with love. UM your p o V. Would you know
is what to do if your kids flipped the table.
I want to let him experience emotions and kind of
(45:47):
support that process. But at the same time, especially when
safety is a concern, what do you do? And like
concrete advice of like what do you say? What do
you do? Maybe a little crowdsourcing from your amazing listeners
and from you guys, much appreciated love the podcast. Wow.
I can just say, first of all, to hear such
(46:12):
the dulcet tones of a of a Minnesota. By the way,
I lived in Minnesota from age tender through high school.
When I get really tired by Minnesota comes out when
I say, Beth, where's my phone? I want to go home? Um,
So I liked. I liked hearing you talk that creepy. Sorry,
(46:36):
go ahead, great question, Andy, I don't Unfortunately, I don't
know that we know the answer to this, because I
feel like we're sometimes struggling with the same thing, which
is that our kids do have these tantrums. I think again,
I've said in recent episodes like I think we have
better boundaries with Maven because she's a second kid where
(46:56):
we see it coming and we're like, hey, none of
this ship, like we've done this before. Maybe none of
this bullshit. But Brand's tantrums have escalated to be more physical,
like she's describing, and it's like Brand will kick and
punch and the some of the advice that I've seen,
(47:19):
I'm blanking on the name of this UM parenting technique
slash guru, but there's a very predominant UM person who
claims that like with toddlers especially, you kind of like
hold their hand and you say, I'm not gonna let
you hit people. I'm not gonna let you hit people,
(47:41):
and you try to stay calm, which is kind of
what I do with Brand, but it feels sort of
below his totally what I do with Bread first and foremost,
like the sooner I see it coming, the first thing
I do is tell myself to turn off all aggression,
and in myself, that's the goal. That's the goal, is
(48:05):
to be like, if I show any aggression back, it's
it's a reward. He is rewarded, and it's escalated and escalation,
and it's going to lead to things where he gets
really upset and then and then they blow up, and
then at the end you come back together and you're like, hey,
I'm sorry, We're good. And in the end he's learned
that he was rewarded for that whole thing. But it's
(48:26):
it is hard now because as he would say, at five,
he's big and strong and you have to physically wrestle
him into kind of a hold. And but honestly, one,
two three magic has stopped these ah for me a
lot of that time, so long as they come and
I'm like, okay, we can't do this. And then if
(48:47):
he doesn't do it, I know he doesn't do what
I want, I ignore it for a little bit and
then I come back and I go, all right, it's
time to do this. And then if he doesn't do
it and he starts to get upset, you know, if
he starts to get aggressive, then it's clear boundaries. It's
being not wavering at all, and like what what what
you're quote unquote threatening again, showing no emotion. It's just okay,
(49:12):
if you keep doing this, you're gonna have to have
some alone time. And then I like walk away from him.
If he gets violent or he throws something, you know,
we go. I take him to his room and then
I closed the door. If he starts throwing stuff, I
go in and I go if you throw any more stuff,
that's dangerous. I'm going to have to hold you, okay,
(49:32):
and then I leave right away. And that's another thing
I've started to do, which is I give him the consequences.
I say, if you do this, I'm going to do this,
and then I leave because if I then stare him
down to be like do you understand, then he's just
getting the aggression part and then he'll try to be defiant. Right.
I try to avoid the like that kind of staring
(49:53):
down or being like are you gonna do what I said? Like?
It just escalates it, and I so I do try
to do that. I have that with him last night
where I was like, you need to put on your
pull up for bed, and then he was like freaking
out and he wouldn't do it, and then I took
off his pants against his will and he was like
flipping out, and then he was like naked from the
(50:15):
waist down and like not putting on his pull up
and I had to just ignore him for a while.
He was like half naked, like sort of processing what
was happening, and he was like May even also had
a moment like this this weekend where she was just
like this happened tonight also by the way, she was
freaking out and she didn't want to do something, and
(50:36):
then she started like trying to tear apart books and
stuff like she's again, this is why I say she's smarter,
is she knows how to like she her brain is
working more quickly in terms of like how can I
really make people mad? And so she's like, I could
(50:57):
tear apart these books and she like, so I have
to like restrain her now, which I hate. Um, And
it's just like it is a real challenge to stay
calm and be like I'm not gonna let you hurt people.
I'm not going to let you break things. Maybe I've
had to go already. If you throw that, you don't
(51:17):
have to take you, you don't have to have some
alone time. And she'll throw something, I go, okay, I'll
go really quick and I'll pick her up and put
her room and leave immediately. And then she'll come back
out in three minutes and I'll ignore her. And that's
the big thing. Also is that when it's over and
they come back, UM, I don't do the like so
what did we learn? I just pretend like it didn't happen.
(51:40):
And now there's no reward for having gone through it,
but maybe it'll come out and I'll just start talking
to her about something else and then and then she's fine, Yeah.
Brent tonight wouldn't put his pull upon, and you know,
he's five, and I'm like, okay, we should maybe start
not doing the pull up. So I'm like, you don't
(52:02):
have to be a pull up if you want, just
go to the bathroom before you go to bed. And
he wouldn't do that, and so I started reading Maven
books and he's like, I need you to do it
for me. I'm like, no, you're five, you can put
it on by yourself. And then I'm like, all right,
I'm gonna count to three and one. And then he
ran to the pull up to start doing it. And
then I started reading the book and then he wouldn't
(52:23):
get in bed, igo bing you gotta get in bed,
and he hadn't put the pull up on, and I say,
if you don't put the pull up on and turning
out the lights and we're going to bed right now,
one to three, and he he thought it was bluffing,
and so I go, all right, could I put into bed?
I try to light We didn't do any books and
then he was on the ground screaming, and I just
left him in there, and after I went back in
(52:45):
twenty minutes later and put on his pull up and
then it weirdly, it worked because he just gave in. Yeah,
it's hard to say. Depending on the day. I don't
they don't have as much discipline with me. Like Bryan.
I was threatening last night, like I was like, if
you don't put your pull up on, I'll just read
(53:07):
these books to Maven, and he was kind of annoyed.
And then I was like, I guess we won't read
your new books that you got for your birthday because
he's been asking for this one book for weeks that
he got for his birthday. And he was sort of like,
I didn't believe me or whatever. And then when I
gave him that cooling off period, I think it finally
(53:28):
said in. Then he was like, I'm gonna miss my
chance to hear this new book. Oh. It's really helped
to say that, Like bedtimes lights out of eight, so
if they're going slow, I go alright, well it's almost
lights out time. So however many books, Oh my gosh.
This morning, Beth, he was getting dressed and I go
I showed him. I introduced the concept of timing him.
(53:50):
I said, I'll time you, and I showed it on
my Apple Watch and I go, get thirty seconds, do it,
and he was so excited and he got dressed. Well,
it took him ten minutes and seconds. Ten minutes also
long because he picked a button down shirt and he
insisted on buttoning all the buttons himself, so that took
eight minutes. He wore the new shirt today. But then
(54:12):
I told him, like, tomorrow, you get to try to
beat your time, and all day he's been talking about it.
He's like, I'm gonna beat time. No, you're gonna beat
your time. He's like, yeah, I'm gonna beat time. I
guess he is at that age I will so I
can't remember if we talked about this slurday, but someone
I know was talking about like tips to prepare your
kids for kindergarten, and they were like, make sure you
(54:36):
tell your kids, like maybe practice eating lunch out of
a lunch box and make sure they can eat within
like fifteen minutes because kids are not giving a lot
of time to eat lunch, blah blah blah. And I
was like, actually, I think we're good because our son
has been getting in trouble at daycare for eating too fast,
and according to Maven, who's reporting back to me, brand's
(54:57):
been in trouble for making it a competition with the
other kids and trying to win, and the people at
daycare have to be like, it's not a competition, you
don't have to race. Well, they're very maybe like to
comment that I eat way too fast. I've always done
before they even start. Well. Great, this has been another
(55:18):
episode of We Knows Parenting. If you'd like to send
us a would you know scenario or some mail, please
email us it we knows Pot at gmail dot com.
You can check us out online at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
our pages, We knows Pod and hey, why not leave
us a review again? The title is oops are No, No,
(55:41):
It's ouch. I love this podcast and then write whatever
the hell you want And you guys can send us
some emails at we knows pot at gmail dot com
look that thing I said at the beginning of this plug,
or leave us a voicemail at three four seven three
eight four seven three nine six. You have a great time.
(56:03):
We'll see you next week. Maybe I
I got welcome to he Knows Parenting. I'm Peter McNerney,
I'm Beth Newell. You just raised your glass sky high
into the air. Bah bah ba, we're drinking. We're heralding
(00:30):
the intro of the wed Knows Parenting podcast for those
of you joining us for the very first time. We
are parents, were married. We're delightful, and we have children
who are three and now five years old. Yes, we
own a five year old. We we got a five
year old. We own him. He's very five. He's very
(00:52):
excited to be five. He wants to let you know
about it. He's been doing kind of like an Oprah
voice about it, or he's like and I'm fine, I'm
entering a room and I'm fine. He's so excited to
be five. And he likes to tell us that it
means that he's getting smarter and stronger and bigger and faster, bigger, stronger, faster.
(01:18):
He's such a big kid. Oh my god, he cannot
wait to tell you how big he is. I tried
to throw that in his face where I was like, well,
if you're a big kid, you'd be ready for bed already.
Didn't work. Yeah, if he was a big kid. I
wouldn't have to wrestle him into not kicking and screaming. Um.
(01:41):
So I was like, I'm going to count to three,
you know what. I counted to three, and he didn't
do it, and so I just turned off the lights
and I left the room and he did not expect
me to do it. Interesting, and then he went and
then he went to sleep. I try that. Um, that's
the worst thing you could do to them. Happily, a
really bad bedtime last night, which was to be expected
(02:02):
because it was his birthday and he was all amped up. Um.
But the night before I threatened to because he wasn't
listening about getting better or something, and then I threatened
to not open his presence the next day. I was like,
I was like, I'll save your presence for your birthday
party in a week. We don't have to open them.
And he was like obviously fighting me. But then at
(02:23):
a certain point he was just like he's like he
could feel He's like do I want to do this? Yeah,
He'll listen, and you know, maybe is still the point
where if you give an ultimatum, she's only seeing the
fact that you're challenging her, and then she will not
be defeated. But Brian will logic through things, especially if
(02:45):
you stay calm, and He's like, she needs she still
has this thing where she needs to like blow off
steam and like be angry for a while and then
she comes crawling back. That's true, they both do. Yeah,
but Brand has more stamina. Um, this is something I
(03:06):
always like, Oh, she's just like Bes in a lot
of ways, because when you get upset, you have some
similar like I'm not going to budge mentality, but you
know what, you know what. I don't know the answer
to that question, but you never come crawling back. That's like,
that's like your things. Well, I think the difference is
(03:29):
that I'm always correct. Okay, so you are more like
Brand than I thought. Um, so, Brian turn five, we did.
I want you to know that I'm my my more
annoying to you holiday tendencies about tradition and making it
(03:53):
perfect and maximum excitement. I'm trying to loosen up about
those things. And one of those things is you're totally
fine with like spreading the presents out. You're like, we'll
do our presence today with them. And then he's party
with a family on Saturday and more friends and in
my brain, I'm like, no, you gotta do all the
presents at the same time. Well, but your logic, you
(04:15):
wanted to wait to have all the presents at his
birthday party next Saturday. And I was like, let's give
him something on his actual birthday so that he feels
like it's his birthday, and then when everyone asks him
about his birthday to take care on Monday, he has
a story to tell about his actual birthday. Um. Also,
he keeps building up this birthday party and claiming that
he's inviting all these people that we haven't invited. So
(04:38):
I know he's going to daycare and being like, you're
coming to my party. It's he's making it seem like
a big party that they're not invited. I'm just not
talking about it with him because I know he's not
going to care. Well. He forced me to let him
write invitations to a couple of his friends, and he
(04:59):
he made me how him spell it out. And his
invitation was the words you are coming to my party.
That you could write invitations he wrote threats. Yeah, just
the entire invitation is just you are coming to my party.
And he wrote this out for like three of his friends.
Who he seems to think are coming to his party
that aren't because the party is just like a few
(05:20):
family members. Well, let's be honest, two of them are
out of town, and we don't like the third one
as much. I wouldn't say we don't like him. I
was no, No, here's the thing. We like him just fine.
But his mother runs daycare, and it is so weird,
and we're about burns about to leave the daycare and
(05:41):
we're not, frankly never going to see them. What you
said to me, You're like, he's never going to see
him again. We don't need to invite. It's there's the
weirdness because of that, And I feel bad for this
kid because his mother runs daycare, so he's always in
this weird dynamic of like feeling like he's at home,
but also with all these other kids, Like, well, he's
(06:03):
about to go to kindergarten too, in which case that
part of his life is over. But I would be
genuinely curious to see how he would interact with Brin
and just a regular friend hang where it's not like
all of this daycare stuff going on that he's been
raised with. That's true, Like, just let him be a kid.
It's fine. I feel like you're being a little discriminatory
(06:25):
for him to him for being the son of the
woman who are on staycare. That is totally why. It's
because of her, it's not because of him. Yeah, you
were like, I want to be done with these people.
I don't want to be around them socially. I'm stressed
around her like I'm breaking the rules all the time
and that like I screw up and I'm like, let's
keep it professional. I understand how you feel because I
(06:46):
have the same anxieties of like this person is mad
at me for not having clothes for my kid, et cetera.
But I do feel like that discomfort I'm worried about
just like leaning into it because it creates like a
class differ frential where you're like, this is the kid
of the woman who works for me. He can't come
to my house. Now. If we loved her, she was great,
(07:08):
we'd be like, let's be friends. Also, you know what,
he's about to go to kindergarten, and like, frankly, we're
not going to hold onto all these friendships with kids
that it's such an effort to see his best friend now,
who don't doesn't go to the same school with him. No,
I just think, you know, maybe if we started to
make some effort to hold onto anyone will make effort
once kindergarten starts. That's the deal too, in two weeks,
(07:32):
I'll start making an effort once these kids out of
our lives. He's not even out of our lives. Maybe
it's gonna keep going to this daycare. Anyway, Brent had
a little birth a daycare birthday, and we sent cupcakes.
I got the cupcakes. We just got the cheapest ones ever. Yeah,
we very lazily sent grocery storebought cupcakes. I'm stop and
(07:56):
shop okay. And then yesterday I made the cupcakes from
a box. Um, nothing fancy because we have Yeah, they're
a way a pie above the cupboards. Because, as you
would imagine, our kids ate at least three cupcakes in
the afternoon on his actual birthday. Yes on his real birthday.
(08:21):
I'm a great mother. I left him on the counter
and I told them they both had one. And then
clearly they were trying to sneak by me, and they
were doing that thing where they're like, um, mommy, go
in the other room, and I was like, I know,
you're gonna have another. I was like, just let's agree
the second one is your last one until after dinner.
And then, I mean, I knew what I was getting
(08:43):
into leaving them out. So then clearly more cupcakes were
taken when I was in the other room, and so
then I had to hide them and appropriate. Yeah, and
then they were just I mean, do you know what
miracle happened tonight? What I made? Um, well, a few things.
I made a a shrimp and broccoli pizza and I
(09:07):
made it just made it up. I didn't see any
broccoli on it. Oh, there's a ton of broccoli on it. Um,
very minimal cheese. Actually you should try. It's good. I
made it up and it turned out well, and the
kids loved it. I thought they were gonna hate it
and I would have to like boil the hot dogs.
But before that, I was making dinner and May even
(09:27):
came in and opened the fridge like she does, and
I always have to be like, no, no snacks. You
can have a banana, you can have fruit or vegetable
before dinner, but nothing else. And I didn't even get
to say that before she saw a yogurt in the
fridge and she goes, Daddy, if I finished all of
my dinner, can I have a yogurt? Oh? That's good.
(09:48):
After after she ate literally like five yogurts in a
day on Saturday, I was like, yeah, you can. The
brain goes, Can I have an ice pop if I
eat out my dinner? I mean, that's what I say
to them all the time. They said it to me,
and I was like yeah. Then they scarfed their dinner
and I gave him a yogurt and an ice pop
and they didn't ask for another one. Well that's what
they were doing that last night they were. I was like,
(10:09):
you have to eat some dinner. Like so I ordered
delivery and they had chicken fingers and I they weren't
really eating it, and I was like, well, I'm not
going to force this on them because they're not hungry.
I'm just gonna let it sit here until they get hungry,
because I know at bedtime they're suddenly going to act
like they're starving. So I was like just waiting. So
then of course at a certain point close to bedtime
(10:30):
they want ice pops and I was like, you have
to eat some of these chicken fingers, and I forced
them to eat a little bit, but they didn't eat much.
But I was like, at least the point has gotten
across that, Like you can't just eat all sugar all day.
Those ice pops are great, thirty five calories. I had
another success, which is that so okay, first of all,
(10:53):
that they're called I recommend them. Well, I'm actually not
going to tell the little story because it's boring, but
I got delivery eight uh apple juice that came with
one of the chicken fingers, and so I only had
one for a dumb reason. They didn't deliver the correct amount,
and I put it in the like the door of
(11:15):
the fridge behind other stuff, and I was like, they
won't see this, But then of course Brin found it.
They want to find this thing that's exactly at their
eye level. Hang so it's like a plastic bottle of appages.
Carries it into the bedroom and he goes, Mommy, what's
this and I was like, Oh, that's a grown up drink.
(11:35):
And he didn't ask any questions. I just took it
and hit it a pie and I was so pleased
because he thinks he can read, but he can't. Um
clock is counting down on that one, though, it's it's
it's chicken fast. Maven is struggling with her letters. She's
(11:57):
finding into it. She'll when Brin's not there, I'll like
do letters with her. She's not struggling. She's just three. Uh. Well,
Brand knew all of his letters before he was three. Yeah,
because he was an only child and you were constantly
coaching him. I'm not worried about her, Okay, but you
said she's struggling. Uh, you're right. Comparatively to Brand, she's
(12:23):
a real idiot. That was sarcastic. That was a joke.
She's a brilliant, totally normal three year old. She's technically
smarter than him. Boy, why do you need that to
be true? So when it comes to letters, that's not true.
I mean they have different strengths, different intelligences. You and
(12:44):
I have different measures of intelligence, right, We're smart and
dumb in different ways. Mm hmm. Men men love for
things to be very like quantifiable by the book, All
men all the same, all men? No, I mean the
(13:08):
system reinforces itself where it perpetuates that certain types of people,
including men, perpetuate the same biases. So traditional education, like memorization,
non creative things are weighed more heavily than other types
(13:30):
of intelligence. Oh, I agree. I agree with that, um totally,
you know. And I was like, I was the kid
who couldn't who was able to read after everybody else. Yeah,
you were an idiot. Maidens. Now that you can read,
you're just trying to lord it over our daughter. And
I'm just like, is man or is she like? Is
(13:53):
she like me? No, she's like me. She's a genius.
She doesn't just doesn't care about your alphabet yet she's
bigger than well. The main point is that she's now
into it, and so she's trying now and she is
she is learning, Like there's something she's been good about
it because I was telling her something. I was trying
to explain W to her the other day when we
(14:14):
were going through this weird little pre K workbook thing
that Brent has, and I was like, this page, you're
supposed to find all the w's W. Here's a W.
There's a W. And she was like, no, that's an M.
And she loves to like fight you on something and
then hold it and then I feel like by the
(14:35):
end of it, she was sort of like W like
she was like taking it in. Yeah, she's doing more
of that, whereas before she would be so excited that
we were giving her the attention that she was just
thinking about how she's going to deliver whatever she's going
to say, and not processing at all what we're actually
asking her. She's just like a time to perform. I
(14:58):
think she's processing it. She's just sort of like, let
me mess with your expectations of learning. Right. Well, Britain
actually gets on board now, we really we read that
workshop book, that workbook, um like Paven, what's this? And
Britain now won't give it away and I'll actually be patient. Well,
(15:19):
I was trying to explain to him that he could
like trace, he could practice the letters in there, and
he was not really getting it. But no, he thinks
it's a bedtime story. We bought. We bought his back
to school supplies, which is very exciting for you. Oh
my gosh, it was emotional. I didn't connect with you.
How emotional I got. Well, it's funny because you your
original plan was that you would take him to stables
(15:40):
because you love back to school supplies. And I was
a little bit annoyed because I love back to school supplies,
and so I did not enjoy the assumption that you
thought that was going to be your thing. Well, that
was my dad's thing, and so that was trying to
be my dad. Yeah, my dad also loves office supplies.
But it I was happy we went together. We all
(16:02):
went together and our kids ran around stables. They had
the time of their lives. And we used a shared
Google note with a checklist. You guys gotta get on
these Googles. These not the notes app in your iPhone.
You can share your notes and you can make checkboxes,
which we mostly used for our grocery list, which has
(16:24):
been pretty good. But this was the most efficient. This
was your very exciting moment, the most efficient school shopping ever.
I didn't have this technology when I was a kid.
We had a piece of paper, a pizza per paper.
I need a number two tanger Tangaroga. And I have
to say the school supply list for Brant, for a
(16:46):
kindergartnener was like a hundred dollars worth of school supplies.
It was more than that. It was so much. They
were like they wanted like twelve a twelve pack of
thick markers, a twelve pack of thin markers. They want
like crayons, No but like it supplies for the whole class,
(17:07):
none of it. I understand that it supplies for the
whole class, but it's a big ask. Like I hope
that they're doing this big ask under the assumption that
like some kids just don't do it. I'm uncertain of that.
I hope so. But I mean, if you if you
don't do it, there's no system in place for them
to be like you have to. That's probably true. It's
(17:29):
just because we didn't do it for prekiing. Well, it
worries me just like that these certain kids getting this
list and their parents being like I have just suddenly
budget like a hundred and fifty bucks for a kindergartener,
Like this is insane, Like it's just not for a
lot of people. That is not sustainable, Like that's not
there's been language and I've been reading, you know, I
(17:51):
have all the kindergarten paperwork, and the system generally seems
to acknowledge that that's different. People have different I mean,
maybe we're like really good marks because they were like
the people who love office supplies will just snatch it
all up. They're gonna get exactly what's on this. They
can't help themselves they love staples. Was the amount on
(18:13):
the page. Look on the shelf and there's only one
smaller and one bigger. You know you're going to get bigger.
I almost got the ten ounces of pure L hand wash,
but it asked for twelve, so instead I got thirty three. Anyway,
the classroom is well stocked, hopefully. I don't know where
(18:34):
they're going to store at all. That was the big
thing in pre k I was like, oh, I didn't
do it the first day and I came in and
I saw that it was just not the stuff was
just jam packed with tissues. Please just bring it in
the middle of the year, and I said I will,
and then I didn't. Oops. We were not good. We
talked about this. We're not the most reliable parents. In
(18:54):
pre k Oh, I was a mystery reader. We've been
over that. I just mean in terms of, like, you know,
sending a photo of our family and that. No, but
there was some family thing where we were supposed to
send like a description of our holidays, and then we
did the worksheet about what our family traditions are. It
was too hard a question I didn't know how to answer.
(19:16):
I was like, I don't know. Christmas and then we
just never did, never did, and then they made a
whole book for the whole class's family was not included.
Our is the only family that was not included. This
(19:42):
next segment is called would you Know? Is where we
present parenting hypotheticals to one another. Should I add a
whispered repeat of the title from now one you know?
I you whispering? That reminded me that may Haven continues
to say, Adsum, I love you, I love you. You
(20:04):
did it to me today. Her love is was now
just overflowing so much that you couldn't not you couldn't
contain all the love she had. It gives something to
be Are you happy with that? Yeah? I melted my heart.
My three year old daughter going, Daddy, I love you.
She's obsessed. I think I I need to make her
(20:25):
like a music playlist of love songs so she has
kind of an outlet for her overwhelming love. Oh my god, Beth,
I heard a song came on random on my phone.
There's a George Harrison's song from the mid seventies that's
like got six words in it, and it's basically just
(20:45):
I love you, but like really drawn out with this
big band and it's like this big, big build up
and then it Christian does with the You. The song
is called You, and I was walking on the train
and it came on and that crescendo of ah, love
love you, and I thought about you, and I got
(21:08):
tiary on the train platform and I almost texted you
the song to say I love you, I'm thinking about you.
I had a similar moment today. I was listening to
Stevie Wonders Knocks Me off my feet, but I sent
it to my best friend and not you. I had
a reason. Sorry. I was like, I'm gonna send this
to you, but then I got to kind of was like,
(21:29):
she won't like this song. Why do you think I
wouldn't like it. I tried to show it to you
because it's like late post beatles, like mid seventies. George Harrison. Yeah,
it's a great, it's a great. It's a really the
song is about nothing other than literally I love you,
and it's just big and emotional. I'm gonna play it
(21:50):
for you on the break. Would you knows? This comes
to us from Eric um Anne of Green Gables Edition. Hi,
Beffan Peter. This summer, my wife and I took a
road trip along with our one and a half year
old son through New England and Canada and listen to
(22:11):
episodes of your podcast. Um Listening to episodes of podcast
was a great way to pass some of the long
stretches in the car. One of our stops was on
Prince Edward Island to visit attractions inspired by Anne of
Green Gables, and I've been thinking hard since then about
how to turn some of the scenarios that Anne found
herself into a would you know scenario. Most of the
(22:36):
things I could think of just seemed a little too
much of a stretch, but one of your topics last
week finally inspired me. Flash forward to when Maven is
twelve years old. Okay, we're into the woods. You knows,
maybe it is twelve years old or so. I'm already
on board with this. I knew you would be. She
goes back into the archives and listens to that episode
(22:57):
of the podcast, and here's to her dismay that her
mother said she didn't trust people with blonde hair. She
races out of the house and happens upon some random
person selling black hair dye quote unquote black hair dye
on the street corner and buys it hair dye for sale,
(23:18):
but when she applies it, it turns her hair a
hideous shade of green. Oh no, you come upon May
even crying in her bed and in dismay at how
her hair looks. What would you say to her? Would
you make her wear to school like that? Give her
a really short haircut, something more creative short hair Beth.
If you need more details, it's chapter in the book.
(23:42):
Thanks for your weekly does entertaining parenting stories. It's given
me lots to look forward to as our little one
grows up. Eric, There's so much I love about this question.
New England, Canada and Green Gables. Um I complete sidebar Mayven.
So I went on this sort of epic trip to
(24:03):
Marshals this week on the weekend. Well, it's kind of
it's not interesting, but I I went to a nearby
stop and chop to go to the coinstar machine to
unloader coins. Then I had some cash, and then I
saw there was some Marshall's next door, and I was like,
what are gonna do with all this cat? I'm going
to snag some deals and so I don't. I'm not
(24:27):
normally in Marshals and things are cheap, and I found
I don't know what to do with myself. This is
like I'm completely derailing from the question, but I'm going
to get back to it. Um. I got some really
epic gifts from Maven, which is one was like a
size six Betsy Johnson dress and pink with a black bow,
(24:50):
which she loves and it's a good look and dress well,
and when you go to Marshals, it's like a dress
that was originally sixty dollars and it's now like twelve
dollars at that sale. And I was like, a twelve
dollar Betsy Johnson dress for my daughter who loves pink.
Yes please. And then I found this was like the
(25:13):
major score for me and Maven, which was an Adidas
track suit in pale pink, pale pink track suit and
she loves it. I was so excited because pale pink
f leisure, I think is like the synthesis of me
and Maven style, where she gets the pink and I
(25:34):
get this sort of like sporty girl vibes. And so
I was like, I don't know, like I think she's
gonna like this because she has another shirt that's sort
of like a similar vibe and she's really into it,
and she was trying to try it on a lot
this weekend, even though it's very hot and it's like
a polyester track suit and it well, I love it
(25:59):
on so many levels because when my sister was little,
she was a huge tomboy. Now uh known lesbian and
she but she so when she was little, she seemed
like a tomboy, which at the time it seemed like
she had just inherited from me as a you know,
(26:20):
the original tomboy of the Newell family. Do you ever
feel jealous that she overshadowed your tomboyhood every day? But
she at one point got this T shirt and shorts
that were printed with a Power Ranger pattern, so it
was like a full Power Ranger outfit, and she was born.
(26:43):
She's born. It was a it was a pink Power
Ranger outfit, and she was obsessed with it and loved it,
which again felt like sort of just a next session
to me because I had similar like sweatsuits that I
wouldn't remove from my body. But she, notoriously we went
to a family reunion and it was like picture night,
(27:05):
and she was wearing this Power Ranger outfit every single day,
and it was like, we're taking photos as a family tonight,
we really need to strangle you into a dress. And
she wouldn't have it, and she insisted, we're not going
to wrestle you into the dress. We're gonna strangle you.
Well we did. My parents did for like my aunt
and uncle's wedding, and so there's there's photos of her
(27:27):
crying at that event. But then by this point I
think they had just sort of given up. It was
probably the same summer or something, and so they so
we have a family photo where everyone's dressed up formally
and my sister is in the pink Power Ranger T
shirt and shorts because they didn't want to fight her anymore. Um.
(27:48):
And this is also like the era where my sister
instead of sucking her thumb, she sucked on her arm,
which is like a really adorable habit. It was like
her forearm, right, like the fatty part of the forum. Yeah,
Like if you held your forum up to your face
and you sucked on the Yeah, the fatty had a
(28:09):
red mark there for years because she had sucked on it.
And even when she got older and stopped sucking it,
sometimes if you tried to pull that skin tat there
would be a bull there. There would be just like
a protrusion of skin because it had been so trained
to be sucked. Um, I hope she's listening. And anyway,
(28:34):
very adorable age for my sister, which now Mayven really
resembles my sister in there shared blondness and love of
pink outfits. So anyway, Mayven looked very cute in the
Adidas track suit and it was very reminiscent of that time,
um speaking of a green Gables. But then, anyway, while
(28:55):
I was at Marshal's, I also found um, like a
hair painting hair chalk thing for kids and you can
put this hair color this very temporary streaks of color
in your hair. And I was like, it's like a
trip to the store where I was like, it's Brine's birthday. Actually, really,
(29:17):
this logic did not make sense to me. Brind should
really be getting stuff for his birthday. But there's so
many things happening that I was like, Maven would love this,
and I've already bought gifts for brand, So I bought
this hair color kit for again very cheap. You can't
beat the deals. And then you wrapped it up and
(29:37):
gave it to Brynch. No. So here's the logic that
was happening. Is the night before Brind's birthday, Saturday night
you were gone, I was left to wrap twenty presents alone.
I was trying to sort them into piles, and then
I was tired and so and I was like, which
one should be for the party, which one should be
for tomorrow? And I got really tired and I was like,
(29:58):
you know what, just start wrapping. So I started rapping
and then I lost track. I totally forgot that one
of them was the hair dye stuff and brit opened
it on his birthday and I was like, oh, yeah,
that's from Maven. But ye, luckily he had no interest
in it. Yeah, he didn't care. Um. That was very
my my Christmas. Every year with some present I'd opened
(30:21):
and there'd be a posted note on it and it's
like Andrew Present number seven. I was like, oh, that's Andrews.
That was like, that's kind of the beauty I think
of wrapping presents now is knowing that your mom and
my mom have had a lot of mom moments where
they don't do presents correctly. They're tired, they're trying to
do presents for everyone. In the family, and so when
(30:43):
I was wrapping presents, I was sort of like, you
know what, it doesn't matter. These people are getting presents.
I'm not worrying about these things. I'll sort them up
after they're wrapped, and I don't know what's in what package.
I don't care anymore. Where I'm tired. It's Saturday night
and I'm wrapping a lot of presents. Beth. I think
(31:04):
that's good for you, because I think you do. You
worry about You don't say it out loud, but you
taking me a long time to realize that you worry
about everybody a lot, and I think sometimes more than
you should. It's hard not to. And I think that's
also your impulse to be like, just give him some presents.
Now you're worried he's gonna be upset for that. I'm like,
(31:27):
and I'm like, I'm not worried about him, but I
think I think he really enjoyed yesterday and it was good,
and now he's going to have a party where he's
inevitably going to be overloaded with stimulation at some point,
and it doesn't make sense to try to give him
every single present on that day when other people are
bringing presents to our house, that's fair. But I also
(31:50):
like with present wrapping is really hard for me because
I'm a virgo and yeah, I love I love to
be particular about details and I love to make things beautiful.
And I went to art school and I know, I
know I could do an amazing job at wrapping presents,
but it doesn't matter. And people are about to throw
(32:14):
the paper away the second they see it. It's true.
So if you have time and it's something you would enjoy,
then get fastidious. But if you don't, then it doesn't
matter it. But like this is like the difference between
you and me and many men is like you're you
have to like remind yourself to consider other people and
(32:34):
aesthetics and things. And I have to talk myself down
from expectations of like taking care of everyone and making
the present perfectly because my impulse is to do it
perfectly and to stress the funk out. Yea, that it's
not I think you're absolutely right. I won't lump all
men into me, but that's no, it's not all men,
(32:56):
but I do think like I do think more men
than women are like what I'm supposed to wrap this?
Like I just say you an Amazon package like its um.
We're learning to be each other in very positive ways.
I think it has brought us much closer together. I've
(33:16):
learned to think more like you, and you've learned to
think more like me. Yeah, I have to constantly tell
myself to be selfish and stop thinking about people. I
don't have to tell myself that at all, It just happens. Well,
I will say, though, like your dad and I share
a birthday. We're both virgos, and we're both, like I think,
very tuned in on holidays and stuff too, like trying
(33:38):
to do this sort of thing. Although in your dad's case,
because he's a man, your mom does a lot of
presents and stuff. But my mom would disagree. My dad
is it was not true when he was my age,
but as he got older he took over the presence, right.
But like your mom, by nature of being a woman
in the state at home mom, she like does the
(33:59):
meal and like a lot of stuff. Your dad doesn't
really think about it. But because your dad and I
have this shared birthday virgo thing, like, we are very
tuned in. And I remember having a conversation with him
in front of like you and your mom where I
was like, I have to remind myself sometimes like that
there it's not that they are thinking of doing the
(34:22):
considerate thing and then ignoring it or deciding not to
do it. It's that it's not occurring to them in
the first place. Something else currently has our focus right,
and what it is I don't know, but that's something
I have to constantly remind myself as I go through
the world, as like a overly sensitive person is like,
(34:44):
because it feels like people are constantly being cruel sometimes
and what this makes a lot of sense. I'm sorry
I interrupted you, but I'm really connecting with like I
think some of not only like recent conflicts, but historically
between us where I would do things and you would
really make me feel like you thought, I like really
(35:07):
deliberately made this choice to be neglect for it took
a long time for me to learn that it wasn't
calculated because it's it's it's so my sister and I
were talking about this because she was talking about a
study where they talked about like they measured like if
you were in a grocery store and you're pushing your
card along, how where are you of like whether your
card is in someone's way or blah blah blah, And
(35:30):
me and my sister are very like constantly aware of
that kind of thing of like the greater good and
how can I help these people around me and blah
blah blah. And it's like it's not necessarily like we're
trying to make a conscious choice to be good people
are what consider it. It's just like we can't help ourselves,
Like that's just the way we're wired. And so it's
(35:52):
hard to understand sometimes that other people are not having
the same level of external stimulation, like they're not picking
up on those things, and so it's not a calculated
move on their part to ignore other people's needs. Well,
it's I think you agree. I agree, although for me
it's not with strangers because that scenario you described, I
(36:15):
am overly aware of strangers and personal space. It's with
people that I that I love that I'm around. Okay,
but we need to get to the question, which was
about turn her hair green. I think, I mean my mind,
though it looks cool, Yeah, in my mind, I think
(36:39):
I would be like wanting to sort of help her
experiment with the color, like either embrace it or try
like another color. Like pink or something wild where it's
just like, you know what, this green could use some pink.
I think those are mixed together. Well, there was something
in the news recently and I can't remember who, but
(36:59):
it was like, um, you know, like gossip magazines were
reporting on like one celebrity mom dyed her kid's hair
and then she got a lot of flack for doing
that because hair dye is supposedly dangerous or whatever. And
then this other celebrity mom was like, hey, I saw
the criticism, so and so I was getting I'm taking
(37:20):
my daughter to the salon to get her hair dyed.
And it's just like when you do like manic panic
like pink blue hair dye, it's not the same level
of like dangerous as certain like very chemical hair dyes,
do you know what I mean? Like I didn't know
any of this at all. Anyway, I can't remember who
(37:40):
the specifics of who this was, but I was like
very into it because I do think like from Maven,
who happens to have very blonde hair that would take
color well unlike my hair dark, my dumb dark hair.
I was like, that's cool, like that she could from
an early age experiment with her look. Um, so I
(38:05):
kind of do hope to like in addition to the
temporary her color we put in this weekend, I would
love to help her experience with this. I don't I
think we would hopefully get to that before this this
incident that the the black market hair dye. Um Um, yeah,
(38:29):
I mean, but I do. I don't like, I don't
think we would get there because I mean, the description
says it's a hideous shade of green. I mean, we
were joking a lot in the last episode, but I
do want to say, like, I have very close blonde friends.
I was being I was joking. You can't backpack all
from this from this very clear stance. Um. I when
(38:50):
my daughter tells me on a daily basis how much
she loves me, I do say it back to her,
and I tell her she's beautiful. Um Um, I don't
tell her she's beautiful well, because she tells me I'm beautiful,
and I feel like I have to return the comment.
Why why do women have to do that for each other?
(39:11):
This is one of those like feminist things where, prior
to having kids, I had more of a staunch take
of like not enforcing beauty norms or whatever. But then
when you have a daughter who's like excited about the
way she looks, it's like, oh, she should love her
appearance and love herself, and this is great. You know,
(39:32):
like you're not like, as much as I want to
dig in and be like, let's not enforce pink culture
or beauty culture or whatever. She's a three year old
who just loves herself and loves colors, and it's like,
you know what, let her have that. We can wait
till she's older, before the world like shakes all of
(39:53):
her joy out of her. You know, well, well, I'm
still not doing it. I want to You're not telling
her she's beautiful. No, I'm telling her she's so cool
and smart and fun I think that's okay, Like she
should also be told she's cool and smart and funny.
Like I just think like if she's like telling me
I'm beautiful, I'm sort of like, yeah, and you're beautiful too.
(40:17):
I think it's different. I think it's a little different
coming from me than coming from you, because it would
I mean, it's creepier if a dad is just like
only talking talking to his daughter about her looks. But secondly,
it's not in my personality to like talk about looks
a lot. So it's clearly not going to be like
(40:38):
there's some people I know, I think who had moms
who like enforced a really like appearance based reinforcement the
idea of themselves, and I don't. I just don't think
I have it in me do that, like, because my
my mom was never really liked that. Like she like
(41:01):
my mom loved to tell me how handsome I was.
I mean, I do think anyone our mom's age was
a little bit like into diet culture and being thin
just because of the culture they lived in. But I
don't like my mom specifically was not like overly obsessed
with my appearance. Well, you turned up great and I'm perfect,
(41:22):
So I would say, whoa Mayven? You did not need
we would have gotten your hair die. You would say, hey, Mayven,
cool green hair. Well, actually, here's the question. If she said, hey,
can I dye my hair black? I'm twelve, would we
say yes, black twelve? I think I would have to
(41:44):
do some research because, like I was saying, the um,
the manic, the man, there's certain hair dyes that are
more temporary, like manic panic hair dye is not a
permanent hair dye, and I think just in terms of chemicals,
I would want to. I guess to do more research
because I'm not, um someone who's well versed in this
(42:06):
kind of thing, but I would. All right, so let's assume,
let's pretend that there's no chemical issue. What if it's
just an aesthetic, like I want to dye my hair, well,
then yeah, I think kids should have autonomy over their
own bodies and be allowed to self express. I always
feel that way, And then I see some people whose
kids that are like I want to I don't want
(42:27):
to get my hair cut, and I just have like
this just mess on their head and it's not even
like long. I don't know, but that kid cut their
hair when I was When I was in fifth grade,
my best friend and I had really long hair, like
down to her butts. And this is what kind of
we had. Rejectress and other people sometimes referred to as
(42:48):
like horse hair girls. But it's just like very long,
unkempt hair. And I finally went. I don't think I
went anywhere. I think my mom just trimmed my hair
and it was not that much shorter, but it was
like halfway at my back and I had a fifth
grade teacher who was like, honestly a real bitch, and
(43:08):
she saw me with my charmed hair and she goes,
you cut your hair, and she said it was so
much relief, thank God. And that's how I knew in
fifth grade my looks were for everyone else's pleasure. Anyway, Eric,
we I guess we'd cut her hair. We cut all
(43:29):
of her hair, cut it off, buzz it off, and say,
next time you think twice before you go to that
creepy guy in the corner for your quote unquote black
hair dye. We didn't really answer a question, but I
hope you enjoyed our answer. This next segment is called
(43:52):
Listeners Want to News. That's where we take questions and
comments from you guys. All right, we got another voice,
now can we just before we move on? UM, I
was wanna say once again how thankful we are for
all of the h This is a very sexy podcast
for parents, and this podcast got me pregnant reviews that
(44:13):
you've read, but I will say no one yet has
written in with a review of our newest request, which
is I believe ouch I love this podcast. Do we
need to give a new prompt? No, that's the prompt.
I still I want at least one ouch. I love
this podcast, um, and then we can go to a
new one. All right, But this is a voicemail from
(44:38):
Andy from Minneapolis. Let's take a listen. Hi back in Peter.
It's Andy. I'm calling for Minneapolis. Having one of those
days where I just dropped my kids off at daycare
and you know those days where you're just like bye,
and then sometimes you go to work and then you
miss them, but then you pick them up and they're
crazy and you didn't need to pick him up early anyways. UM.
(45:03):
So love your show, listen to you guys all the time. UM.
Curious on your po V on tantrums. Um, We've got
a almost four year old and a two year old. Um,
but the four year old tantrums are getting pretty epic.
And there's times, you know where he's gonna take a
(45:25):
T shirt and throw it across the room and it
doesn't go anywhere, and it's kind of adorable and funny. UM.
But then there's like more serious times like legit will
like flip like kids art table not okay, UM, just
with love. UM your p o V. Would you know
is what to do if your kids flipped the table.
I want to let him experience emotions and kind of
(45:47):
support that process. But at the same time, especially when
safety is a concern, what do you do? And like
concrete advice of like what do you say? What do
you do? Maybe a little crowdsourcing from your amazing listeners
and from you guys, much appreciated love the podcast. Wow.
I can just say, first of all, to hear such
(46:12):
the dulcet tones of a of a Minnesota. By the way,
I lived in Minnesota from age tender through high school.
When I get really tired by Minnesota comes out when
I say, Beth, where's my phone? I want to go home? Um,
So I liked. I liked hearing you talk that creepy. Sorry,
(46:36):
go ahead, great question, Andy, I don't Unfortunately, I don't
know that we know the answer to this, because I
feel like we're sometimes struggling with the same thing, which
is that our kids do have these tantrums. I think again,
I've said in recent episodes like I think we have
better boundaries with Maven because she's a second kid where
(46:56):
we see it coming and we're like, hey, none of
this ship, like we've done this before. Maybe none of
this bullshit. But Brand's tantrums have escalated to be more physical,
like she's describing, and it's like Brand will kick and
punch and the some of the advice that I've seen,
(47:19):
I'm blanking on the name of this UM parenting technique
slash guru, but there's a very predominant UM person who
claims that like with toddlers especially, you kind of like
hold their hand and you say, I'm not gonna let
you hit people. I'm not gonna let you hit people,
(47:41):
and you try to stay calm, which is kind of
what I do with Brand, but it feels sort of
below his totally what I do with Bread first and foremost,
like the sooner I see it coming, the first thing
I do is tell myself to turn off all aggression,
and in myself, that's the goal. That's the goal, is
(48:05):
to be like, if I show any aggression back, it's
it's a reward. He is rewarded, and it's escalated and escalation,
and it's going to lead to things where he gets
really upset and then and then they blow up, and
then at the end you come back together and you're like, hey,
I'm sorry, We're good. And in the end he's learned
that he was rewarded for that whole thing. But it's
(48:26):
it is hard now because as he would say, at five,
he's big and strong and you have to physically wrestle
him into kind of a hold. And but honestly, one,
two three magic has stopped these ah for me a
lot of that time, so long as they come and
I'm like, okay, we can't do this. And then if
(48:47):
he doesn't do it, I know he doesn't do what
I want, I ignore it for a little bit and
then I come back and I go, all right, it's
time to do this. And then if he doesn't do
it and he starts to get upset, you know, if
he starts to get aggressive, then it's clear boundaries. It's
being not wavering at all, and like what what what
you're quote unquote threatening again, showing no emotion. It's just okay,
(49:12):
if you keep doing this, you're gonna have to have
some alone time. And then I like walk away from him.
If he gets violent or he throws something, you know,
we go. I take him to his room and then
I closed the door. If he starts throwing stuff, I
go in and I go if you throw any more stuff,
that's dangerous. I'm going to have to hold you, okay,
(49:32):
and then I leave right away. And that's another thing
I've started to do, which is I give him the consequences.
I say, if you do this, I'm going to do this,
and then I leave because if I then stare him
down to be like do you understand, then he's just
getting the aggression part and then he'll try to be defiant. Right.
I try to avoid the like that kind of staring
(49:53):
down or being like are you gonna do what I said? Like?
It just escalates it, and I so I do try
to do that. I have that with him last night
where I was like, you need to put on your
pull up for bed, and then he was like freaking
out and he wouldn't do it, and then I took
off his pants against his will and he was like
flipping out, and then he was like naked from the
(50:15):
waist down and like not putting on his pull up
and I had to just ignore him for a while.
He was like half naked, like sort of processing what
was happening, and he was like May even also had
a moment like this this weekend where she was just
like this happened tonight also by the way, she was
freaking out and she didn't want to do something, and
(50:36):
then she started like trying to tear apart books and
stuff like she's again, this is why I say she's smarter,
is she knows how to like she her brain is
working more quickly in terms of like how can I
really make people mad? And so she's like, I could
(50:57):
tear apart these books and she like, so I have
to like restrain her now, which I hate. Um, And
it's just like it is a real challenge to stay
calm and be like I'm not gonna let you hurt people.
I'm not going to let you break things. Maybe I've
had to go already. If you throw that, you don't
(51:17):
have to take you, you don't have to have some
alone time. And she'll throw something, I go, okay, I'll
go really quick and I'll pick her up and put
her room and leave immediately. And then she'll come back
out in three minutes and I'll ignore her. And that's
the big thing. Also is that when it's over and
they come back, UM, I don't do the like so
what did we learn? I just pretend like it didn't happen.
(51:40):
And now there's no reward for having gone through it,
but maybe it'll come out and I'll just start talking
to her about something else and then and then she's fine, Yeah.
Brent tonight wouldn't put his pull upon, and you know,
he's five, and I'm like, okay, we should maybe start
not doing the pull up. So I'm like, you don't
(52:02):
have to be a pull up if you want, just
go to the bathroom before you go to bed. And
he wouldn't do that, and so I started reading Maven
books and he's like, I need you to do it
for me. I'm like, no, you're five, you can put
it on by yourself. And then I'm like, all right,
I'm gonna count to three and one. And then he
ran to the pull up to start doing it. And
then I started reading the book and then he wouldn't
(52:23):
get in bed, igo bing you gotta get in bed,
and he hadn't put the pull up on, and I say,
if you don't put the pull up on and turning
out the lights and we're going to bed right now,
one to three, and he he thought it was bluffing,
and so I go, all right, could I put into bed?
I try to light We didn't do any books and
then he was on the ground screaming, and I just
left him in there, and after I went back in
(52:45):
twenty minutes later and put on his pull up and
then it weirdly, it worked because he just gave in. Yeah,
it's hard to say. Depending on the day. I don't
they don't have as much discipline with me. Like Bryan.
I was threatening last night, like I was like, if
you don't put your pull up on, I'll just read
(53:07):
these books to Maven, and he was kind of annoyed.
And then I was like, I guess we won't read
your new books that you got for your birthday because
he's been asking for this one book for weeks that
he got for his birthday. And he was sort of like,
I didn't believe me or whatever. And then when I
gave him that cooling off period, I think it finally
(53:28):
said in. Then he was like, I'm gonna miss my
chance to hear this new book. Oh. It's really helped
to say that, Like bedtimes lights out of eight, so
if they're going slow, I go alright, well it's almost
lights out time. So however many books, Oh my gosh.
This morning, Beth, he was getting dressed and I go
I showed him. I introduced the concept of timing him.
(53:50):
I said, I'll time you, and I showed it on
my Apple Watch and I go, get thirty seconds, do it,
and he was so excited and he got dressed. Well,
it took him ten minutes and seconds. Ten minutes also
long because he picked a button down shirt and he
insisted on buttoning all the buttons himself, so that took
eight minutes. He wore the new shirt today. But then
(54:12):
I told him, like, tomorrow, you get to try to
beat your time, and all day he's been talking about it.
He's like, I'm gonna beat time. No, you're gonna beat
your time. He's like, yeah, I'm gonna beat time. I
guess he is at that age I will so I
can't remember if we talked about this slurday, but someone
I know was talking about like tips to prepare your
kids for kindergarten, and they were like, make sure you
(54:36):
tell your kids, like maybe practice eating lunch out of
a lunch box and make sure they can eat within
like fifteen minutes because kids are not giving a lot
of time to eat lunch, blah blah blah. And I
was like, actually, I think we're good because our son
has been getting in trouble at daycare for eating too fast,
and according to Maven, who's reporting back to me, brand's
(54:57):
been in trouble for making it a competition with the
other kids and trying to win, and the people at
daycare have to be like, it's not a competition, you
don't have to race. Well, they're very maybe like to
comment that I eat way too fast. I've always done
before they even start. Well. Great, this has been another
(55:18):
episode of We Knows Parenting. If you'd like to send
us a would you know scenario or some mail, please
email us it we knows Pot at gmail dot com.
You can check us out online at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
our pages, We knows Pod and hey, why not leave
us a review again? The title is oops are No, No,
(55:41):
It's ouch. I love this podcast and then write whatever
the hell you want And you guys can send us
some emails at we knows pot at gmail dot com
look that thing I said at the beginning of this plug,
or leave us a voicemail at three four seven three
eight four seven three nine six. You have a great time.
(56:03):
We'll see you next week. Maybe I
We Knows Parenting News
Hosts And Creators
Beth Newell
Peter McNerney
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