November 20, 2018 • 49 mins
Bryn starts waking up early to secretly watch South Park while everyone else is still asleep. The kids impress Beth with their intuitive grasp of a new social media app. Bryn has a full meltdown after being denied the opportunity to destroy a full shelf of pottery at an arts and crafts store. Beth and Peter learn about parental leave in the Czech Republic, lambast hyphenated last names, prepare for a cross country flight on the busiest travel day of the year and then accidentally reveal that all four grandparents are getting kid painted mugs for Christmas. Instead of editing it out of the recording, they decide to leave it in to see if their parents still listen to the podcast.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hello, and welcome to We Knows Parenting. I'm Peter McNerney.
We are parents. We've got kids there, two and a
half and four. It their names are Maybeen in Britain.
That's it. That's all you need to know. That's what
you guys anyway. Um, so I just want to say,
we're recording um the most again, the most last minute
(00:35):
we've ever done. You don't have to tell them this
every time. Yeah, well that's always the mental state of
men right when we start. Just know that anytime we're
recording this podcast, we are under extreme duress. Send help.
We hope for this to be a soothing experience for you.
It is not at all for us. Oh gosh, I
(00:57):
like it. Um, that's been my whole life is it
doesn't matter. I mean, it's true for a lot of people.
It doesn't matter how much time you have. I will
start when I have just enough time left to do it,
and then that's how I operate. So I have to complain.
So there you go. I was out having a drink
(01:18):
with a friend while Peter was sitting here panicking. I
was great, look do you see how clean this place is?
You were, um playing video games. They seme, no, I wasn't.
I haven't in like two weeks. That's such a lie.
I have to just for the listeners, I have to
share that. On Saturday, Peter told me that he would
(01:38):
be having a phone free day. I'm ready to defend this,
but keep going, very very triumphantly declared. He said, I'm
just saying it out loud. I'm not going to look
at my phone today. I'm just going to be here,
he implied he was going to be present two minutes later.
Don't tell me what I implied. That's all you can say,
very literally what I said, which was that, okay, even
(02:00):
as later I walk in the living room, you're staring
down at your Nintendo Switch playing focused for I want
to say you played for hours. Um, I did play
for hours. It was a lazy Saturday. But I also
watched my kids because it was a lazy game. Uh.
(02:20):
But the reason I didn't look at my phone was
not because I didn't want to look at screens because
my phone makes me crazy. But a game. I can
hunker down in a game and I focus on one thing,
and that's so much better than looking for new random
crap on my phone. Everything I get anxious. Looking at
my phone game makes me feel kind of crazy too,
though it's not some people, but for me, it's soothing, meditative. Anyway,
(02:44):
Peter really went off the grid that day. Oh boy,
I didn't look at my phone for like seven hours.
Felt great. Anyway, Why are we talking about this? Uh?
God knows, God knows. I've never said that in my life.
I'm gonna start saying that God knows. God knows. I try.
(03:06):
I'll tell you. The big thing gets stuck out for
me this week? Or were we talking about something that
I just remember anymore? Guys, it's very late. We're not
cut out for this. That's been drinking. How many drinks
did you have? I'm on my second drink right now.
You're out of control. It's more than just the hour.
Just yeah, that's true. So I want to look ahead
(03:28):
first this week because on Wednesday there's a very big
thing happening, which is we are traveling. We are flying
in an airplane with our two children to Chicago on
the busiest travel day of the entire year. Not only
is it insane that we're traveling with kids on the
busiest travel day of the year. I have never in
my life bet at an airport during Thanksgiving. I don't
(03:51):
you've never been in an airport drink Thanksgiving? Where would
I go my family? Have we never gone to my
house for Thanksgiving? No? We don't. The first time when
you're our parents host Thanksgiving? They've done it in Massachusetts. Wow,
that's really nice of them. Yeah, not this year maybe,
or at least when they posted that we have attended.
I don't think, well, you know what we're going to
(04:12):
get on this plane. We've we got four seats in
a little square, behind each in front, behind each other,
all the way the back of the plane. I don't
talk with Brin today by getting excited on the plane.
And I also put the idea in his head that
we have to stay in our seats. Then we can't
kick the seat in front of us. You know. Okay,
(04:33):
here's what I'm going to predict. This flight will go
off without any major headaches, but this tension and stress
of the entire ordeal will make me nearly unraveled by
the end. And um, and I'm saying this now. When
we arrive in Chicago, I am going to leave you
(04:54):
with our kids and your mom, walk into a room
and sit quietly for at least five minutes of myself.
Oh sure, I was I expected to be more than
five minutes. Yeah, maybe more than five minutes. Well, um,
I think that I'm going to be real confident and
common in control, and then I'm going to start fueling
your stress, and then I'm going to get real stressed,
(05:15):
thinking I don't want to make Beth more stressed, and
that fear didn't make you more stressed. Did we tell
listeners about last week when you were telling me we
were going to be late to a location when you
did not know the location we were going to. I
don't think we told the listeners that. Um. Well, anyway,
(05:36):
it was a half hour of Peter pestering me saying
we were going to get late, and then as we
left our front door, I realized he did not actually
know the address of where we're going to seat there before.
It was a reasonable mistake. And I live in fear
of ever having to tell you hurry up, because that
has never gone well in my life. I feel half
an hour the podcast and everyone's is so bored. Anyway,
(06:03):
I love my wife tremendously and uh, um, we're gonna
get on a plane and I know last time we're
on a plane, Britton um screamed for thirty five minutes,
you're hurting me while I held his seatbeltong as he
tried to wiggle out. And that was the worst flight
we ever had with him, And I'm predicting we ever
had with them was when I flew solo with Brin
(06:25):
alone and he screamed for a full hour of the flight.
That was the flight right before the last one. So um,
I predict Britain is gonna be great and then Maven's
gonna do her revenge screaming thing that she does now. Yeah,
I don't know. They've been pretty good lately. Yeah they
could be good. And I think they're old enough now
(06:48):
where we can, if necessary, to distract them with like
candy or something, whereas in the past their bodies are
just too tiny to consume that much candy. Candy is
going to be a terrible idea. Yeah, you're right, but
like a cookie or it's we can't do, like a
super sugary thing is going to make it worse in
the long run. But yeah, we gotta be ready with snacks.
(07:10):
Like this weekend, we we had a really fun family
outing that did involve a major meltdown with bread because
we didn't feed him on time. I didn't give many
liquid all morning. Uh, And we went to the pottery
store to paint some mugs for Grandma and Grandpa, Nena
and Granddad for Christmas. I guess now they know now
(07:33):
they they don't listen to the podcast, do they? They do?
But I don't know how on time they are with
their listens. All right, this will be a test. This
is how we find out if our parents listen to
the podcast when they opened their presence on Christmas morning. Well,
now they know that we're amazing planners who figured out
(07:54):
their presence in November. I'm not going to edit this out.
Recording too late for me to edit that out. Okay, anyway,
So I had the wonderful idea to think, what's something
they could truly treasure from their grandchildren and be at
least slightly useful. And I thought a painted mug. So
(08:15):
we went to the local pottery place where you paint mugs,
and Bryn flipped out as usual, not as usual, worse
than normal. He's just like he needed food. Yeah, well
he's also dehydrated because our kids didn't get any beverage
that day. That's true. I I've already blamed myself for
it before you could. Okay, Well, anyway, he had he
(08:41):
desperately wanted to play with all of the fired pottery
that people had carefully made for themselves, the shelf where
that you come to pick up you're done. He wanted
to be able to touch all of it and play
with it. And he freaked out and then he just
fell into no mode where there is nothing that will
(09:03):
be the thing he wants. And he was just like
very angry at you for the rest of the time.
And then he literally went outside and then he was like,
I'm going to go back in. I was like, all right,
he's not with you. I was like, all right, but
you have to go sit at the table with mommy.
I will. I have to say that man is such
a painter, and she loves it, and she's really focused
(09:24):
and like she's trying to get results. Um, she's just
like she's like she like clearly wanted a plan of
like what we're painting, and like she's like checking in
on like she like kept trying to hand the paintbrush
back to me and like I don't know, she's very
(09:46):
careful about it. Whereas Britain only got excited when I
let him write his name on given away the presence
even more now when it was about him, he was
area into it. Yeah, you inexplicably have made a mug
for your mom that says Brand on it. She's gonna
(10:07):
love it. Mom. You're gonna love it because you won't
forget who made it for you. Fantastic, It was fun,
It was It was good, not a disaster. He didn't
break anything. You know. What I was actually really excited
about is that he had a huge meltdown and we
you and I kept it together, you know, like we
(10:30):
I think that can stress us out and we get
on each other's nerves, uh in those situations, and we
kept her cool and we got well, you get on
my nerves when you escalate it' I'm aware, and you
get my nerves when you cave. Anyway, what else is
going on? Brenad can read ladies and gentlemen, ding ding ding.
(10:52):
It's a bold claim. Brand can read it. He. I mean,
we're in bed and we're sounding out words and it's
a him come true as comes come cruel sort of read.
I mean, I think here's what I mean for our
listeners who don't know what you're talking about. He can't read.
(11:12):
I mean, he can read some things, um, But what
I'm so excited about is a real man's plainer. Is
that my son likes it's when I explained some things
to him, and we love to explain things to our kids.
It's your greatest strength, as apparent. Thank you? Was that
a compliment? It's certainly something that I don't want to
(11:34):
spend time doing. Like I like reading books with them sometimes,
but like other times, I'm like, I don't enjoy repeating
information to people over and over and over again. It's
not fun for me. Oh my god, I love it
so much. We read where he does a great job
of reading, and a lot of it he knows it.
But then he'll get towards he doesn't know, and we
(11:56):
sound it out, and I'm taking the approach of not never.
I don't ever underestimate his ability to understand something. So
I'm explaining, you know, ease at the end of words,
they're silent and they make other vowels say their name.
We learned what vowels were today, and maybe he's not
picking it all up, but I repeat it and I
(12:17):
keep explaining so long as he is interested. He'll burn
out sometimes and I'll try to let it go. But
I was so surprised how long he's interested in knowing
what th H sounds like, what the I n G
sounds like? And I mean, I didn't I have talked
about this before. I can still barely read, and he's
(12:39):
interested And that's novel to me. Oh so that's happening. Yeah.
He has that one book, Hello, Hello, that he's been
obsessed with for a while. And what's nice is it
has that page where it matches the number of the
animal to the animal. And then because he's kind of
(13:03):
looking back and forth trying to find the animal, I
think he is learning to pay attention to like what
the words mean big time. We that was one of
the books. We read it tonight. Something I explained to
him that I thought I was going to go over
his head was that there are certain words, uh, there
(13:23):
are multiple words to have the same sound like two.
There are three meanings of the word too, and I
had written examples of all of them in his books
we were reading, and I was like to like, give
this to you, this is too silly. The number two,
and I kept repeating it and I saw him get
it and like his face being like a weird why
(13:45):
wouldn't they do that? I'm like, I love, I love this,
you love giving him facts that he's then going to
repeat at adults and everyone at school. He repeats him
to Maven twenty minutes later, he like, well, he mostly
scolds may even the way I scold him. Fantastic. So
(14:07):
what else is happening this week? I would just say
everyone should go check out movie crash with a very
own how stuff works Chuck Bryant. I'm on an episode
of that and he was super fun. He's a lovely man.
That's my mid mid show plug. Wow. Yeah, check it out.
(14:27):
Everybody that's on that chart shoot too. I have been
on a different episode. Um, okay, So here's another thing
that happened this week. So I think we talked last
week about how I bought this cheap car at CVS
for brand. Do we talk about that? Okay? Uh? This
week he held it up to his head while it
(14:49):
was on and got his hair caught in it and
then spinning wheels in the spinning wheels and he was
like crying trying to get out. It wasn't that bad
getting it out, but it did rip out a chunk
of his air and then it was caught in the
wheel and like now I think the car doesn't work
as well because it's all like haired up. So that's
(15:12):
where we're at. Well, it's about as long as I
would expect that toy to last. Yeah, I know, it
was unfortunate. It was really not good for the environment
that purchased. And now it's time for we knows what
they're watching. This is where we discussed our children's current
(15:34):
pop culture or media obsession. What do you got? Well,
I had a couple of things I want to talk
about for this segment, but the first one is um
On Saturday last week, my sister slept over and when
I woke up in the morning, Brin was watching TV
in front of her sleeping body on the couch and
(15:58):
he was watching and at the sort of South Park
that he found through the Hulu app on our phone.
And then since then we've had another incident where he
stumbled onto South Park and we I woke up in
the morning and found him watching it again just by himself. Yeah,
and unfortunately, I think he started to develop sort of
like a bad boy affinity for it, like he knows.
(16:21):
Now he's not supposed to watch it. And he'll say,
because I've explained to him that's a grown up show.
That's like, it looks like a cartoon, but it's a
grown up show. And he's like, south Park is a
grown up show. And then it's a reasonable confusion. Yeah,
but he like, but he knows there's bad language, Like
he knows. And here we were asking about the episode
(16:43):
and what happened and he said something about fire farts.
So it's like just appealing to his like core level.
What do you say, the angry boy had fire farts? Oh?
He yeah, he said like the fat boy or something
like that. Did you say fat boy? I forget. I
think he did it. Boy. That's oh boy, it's that's
(17:04):
not an appropriate show. No, it's a bad show for
kids to watch. On many levels, I think we did
a good job of making it seemed important that he
knew that was not appropriate, and he could he was
a reacting way. That was encouraging that he at least
knows that it's not appropriate. Yeah, and that's sort of
more important to me that he seems to know that
(17:26):
that's not something you should be like openly talking about
but I don't believe that he wouldn't put it on
again if we weren't in the room. Oh yeah, I
had a log out of a profile that's would make
it harder for him to find. We got to really
figure out the parental controls of this. Well, the thing is,
(17:49):
I'm married to someone who keeps deleting apps like Amazon
and YouTube so that my son can't watch harmless kids
videos because my husband just happens to dislike those. I
would rather he watched endless south Park, then endless repeating
mindless YouTube videos created by Yeah, god forbid, he learns
(18:12):
about colors and numbers. He's not learning how many studies
have to read. There's no learning that happens. It's dangling keys.
He's getting dumber anyway, It's not it's shows made for kids.
That's no, it's not. Oh my god, that's all The
segment only ever, just becomes me reeling on YouTube. Another
(18:33):
thing I want to talk about, well, I want to
say before you move on, just in terms of that
language of South Park. The other week this it was
snowing and it was terrible driving, and we're in dangerous
driving editions, and this guy has dipped past me and
I had the kids in the car, and without thinking,
I said, what funk are you doing? Oh? God, he
(18:53):
knows fun? Now, yeah, he goes daddy, Daddy said a
bad word, and I was like, uh, I like, you
are right, I should not have done that. I talked
through it, but I'm like, how does how does he
know that? I mean, he probably knows every bad word. Well,
he walked in the other day and when I was
watching a movie and write and when someone said, like,
(19:14):
what the funx So now he's heard the same phrase
like twice in the same week, and he's like, this
is very exciting. It's a very memorable word. Anyway, what
is the other thing that they're watching? So the other
thing I wanted to talk about is this app um
called Marco Polo that my friends and I haven't using,
(19:34):
which is your whole life right now? It's just it's
not my whole life. It's just it's been a really
nice alternative to social media because I can connect with
a small group of people I know and love to
explain how it works. Marco Polo? Is you it? I
think it stinks with the context on your phone, So
beware if you have people in your contact that you
(19:55):
don't want contact you, contacting you on an apathy of
your phone number, they you will pop up in their
thing and they might send you a message. But anyway,
it's you can send short videos to people. You just
hit record, and if they happen to have the app
open and that conversation open, they could sort of hear
you talking live and you can send videos back and
(20:16):
forth and sort of have ongoing conversations with each other.
So it's like video walkie talkie. So um. And of
course my sister invited my mom onto this app and
it's no longer a safe space, but we've been trading
video that we've been training videos with my mom now
(20:39):
and like brand and may even send videos. And you
can alter the sound of your voice on the app,
so you could send like a really high pitched, like
squeaky Chipmunk's voice like it'll so so the kids like
it because they want to listen back to themselves talking
with a funny voice. Honestly, That's why I like it. Yeah,
and it's good for grandparents because I like, we're not
(21:03):
very good at FaceTime. It's just hard to schedule it
and think of it at the right moment and like
when your kids are sitting still for like two minutes
a day. So this allows you to sort of send
videos when you have the moment to do that, and
then your grandparents can reply whenever and you know, uh,
you don't have to like schedule it. And so Brin
(21:26):
has been doing that and he's into it, and he's like, again,
he's such a performer, so he like immediately it's like
he knows like YouTube like vloggers speak, and he's like
he immediately turns it on. He's like, Hi, I'm here
in my living room with my mom and my sister
and um, we're just watching some TV. Like he just
(21:48):
suddenly is like a performer. He's like the host of
the show. Um, he's copying what everyone else is doing. Yeah,
He's like, here's what's happening. Welcome to my live stream. Anyway,
So he was sending videos of my mom and then
he scrolled back through the conversation in the app again
(22:11):
Marco Polo app where my mom had sent me a
video earlier and she had been like hey, Ali and
Beth with my sister. She was like I'm just you know,
doing this around the house and wrapping some Christmas presents,
and here's brents stack and she starts paying the camera
over and I'm sitting next to burn while he's watching this,
(22:32):
and I like grabbed the phone from him and his
eyes light up and he was like presence, my presence,
and he like so then he was like he fully
understands what just happened. Yeah, he knew. He was like
processing all of it, and then I I had it
was like a man hunt for my phone for the
rest of the day. He and now anytime he's in
(22:54):
that app, he's like waiting for my guard to drop
and like for me to get distracted, and suddenly he's
like swiped backwards. In the conversations like it's Jane and
maybe too, like they're both just like scary smart with
these apps because they just don't question it at all,
Like maybe we'll pick up my phone and she's like,
(23:15):
I'm looking for domatic Casita video, their favorite YouTube video. Boy.
I listened to Bryan saying all of to himself quietly
in the corner that boy knows Spanish. They were going
to sleep the other day and I they were both
being really difficult, so I laid down in bed with
(23:36):
them and Bryan. As he's laying there in bed, it
just starts counting to a hundred quietly. He felt like whispering,
and he was like sixty six seven, sixty eight, sixty nine,
and then whenever he gets to the next ten likes
stop and thinking about it goes. I'm so proud. This
(24:09):
next segment is called did you know? That? Is where
we share parenting facts. So this one actually comes to
us from a listener, uh, from whom I have learned
something interesting. Um. So it's part question and part sharing
something we didn't know. So here we go. Hello, Beth
and Peter. My name is Annie and I live in
(24:29):
the Czech Republic and my husband, Uh with my husband
and our eighteen month old daughter. I'm just give ahead
a little bit, a little bit, a little bit anyway,
I wanted to give you a peek into how um
it works parent to leave that is here in Czech
Republic because the difference with our country's really often surprises me.
(24:51):
So did you know people use the the segment titles?
It makes me very happy? Be did you know? We
have two kinds of leave? One goes after another. First
is a maternity leave about half a year period that
starts six to eight weeks before the do date and
(25:12):
lasts about six months. You get a monthly payment that
is calculated based on how much money you made in
the last twelve months. After that you can start. After that,
you can start a uh parental leave. You can decide
which parents stays home with your child, and you can
choose for how long two to four years and then
three exclamation points they do so. Uh So, an amount
(25:39):
of two h forty thousand check crowns, which is about
U s dollars, is divide divided into this period, meaning
that the shorter the period is, the more money you
get every month. Uh So, the longer it is, the
less you get these months um but the same total
no matter how much time you take off. If you
(26:00):
give birth to another child while on parent to leave,
the first parent to leave terminates instantly without paying you
out the rest, and you start your maternity leave again.
That is also why most couples try to plan their
pregnancies so the second child is born roughly three years
after the first one. Although either parent can stay home,
it is rare that the dad that the dad for
(26:23):
the dad to be the one, and therefore women often
stay at home with kids for five years and more.
This is making it really hard for me to go
back to work and back to normal life. Looking for
a new job is even harder because although it is
illegal to refuse to hire somebody because they have small children,
it happens quite often because nobody wants to put up
with their employees staying home with sick kids. Dad's on
(26:45):
parent to leave Austin often face criticism from their friends,
usually male ones, and it's hard for them to connect
socially because there is just not enough male parents on
the parent to leave to make a community, and they
don't feel come bole and an all female group of parents.
By the way, literally translated from check, parental and maternity
(27:06):
leave is called parental and maternity vacation. Ha ha uh.
Skipping ahead, are we lucky? Are we lucky to have
such a support from government in society or is it
killing us from the inside? Would you like that kind
of social politics and support in the US of Annie? Wow,
(27:26):
there's so much to unpack there. That's crazy. I mean,
that's so nice. It is so nice. Uh, but it's
I mean, it's it's two to four years. No, but
it's optional. They're not forcing it on you. That's the
thing I think with so many of these feminist type issues,
(27:47):
historically they get categorized as like an either or, and
like giving people the option of birth control isn't forcing
it on anyone, the same thing as like giving the
option of gay marriage. No one was ever shoving gay
marriage down anyone's throw. Is just a lot fortunate me
to get gay married. Yeah, They're just allowed. So it's like,
no one. People don't need to take the full four
(28:08):
years or whatever, And I think a lot of people
would choose not to, which is fine, But it's a
great option to have because that is a vulnerable age
for children and someone needs to be taking care of
them pretty closely. Like these these sort of policies like
parental leave and universal pre k and stuff. I just
wish people would understand the value they would have on
(28:30):
society long term, regardless of whether you personally are affected
by them or not. It would. It's just like, it's
a difficult time for people financially and otherwise, and if
you can provide them with support systems, it's like you're
going to have a more stable class of all ships.
Rise Um, Yeah, well, what's fat I mean what's fascinating
(28:56):
there obviously, like if if the people you're surrounded, I
if there's not other men taking this time, that's a
hard thing. That's the type of thing that doesn't change overnight.
You know, that's a that's a cultural issue. And like,
how do you like you know? How do you you know? Again,
(29:17):
we live, we live in an area where, like I
have a fair most of the couples we know with kids, Um,
you're just as likely to see dad's doing those things. Uh,
just as likely as I was just about to adjust it,
more so than than most of the world. I guess so.
(29:43):
But I mean, I think the thing that this article
speaks to you that I think it's really interesting is
that not an article to an email email? Sorry. Uh.
The thing that she's talking about that I think is
really interesting is that the we have this idea in
the United States that we're like the most progressive and
(30:05):
that we're the most evolved country, and in some respects
we are excelling, and in a lot of other ways
we're still following falling behind, especially as such a developed country,
and the fact that we don't provide these things in
our society is pretty backwards compared to other developed nations
(30:25):
and the like our maternal maternity, our our maternal health
in this country and maternal survival rates for childbirth are
really crazy compared to other developed nations. And it's it's
just really insane that we're not putting more resources behind
these things that are so preventable and so uh a
(30:47):
part of life. Like, it's just we have this weird
idea in this country that you know, parenthood is very optional,
and you know, to some extent it is a choice
we make to become parents. But this is like a
way society is going to continue to be whether we
like it or not. People are going to keep having
other human beings. Uh, and we could be helping out
(31:09):
with that. What do you think? So if we had
these options, Uh, what do you how do you think
that would have changed our lives? What? What would you
have done? Well? I mean the fact that it's paying
out money. It's really hard to speak to because of
the nature of our jobs and because I don't know
the ins and outs of how this actually works or
(31:31):
how it might be interpreted in our society. Because my
job running my own company is essentially sort of like
a freelance endeavor and it's like up to me to
make a living out of that, and so it doesn't
really pay into like Social Security, and I don't receive
benefits from it, and so I didn't don't and we're
(31:52):
making no money before we had kids, so them giving
us them out we made would be basically right. So like,
I don't if this, if something like this, we're in
lunched in this country, I think it would be a
lot of hurdles to jump through before I would see
that money under my current circumstances, I don't know what
it would look like. Um, but we also, I think
would go, uh, we're just that we would go a
(32:14):
little crazy if we didn't have those creative outlets. Oh well, no,
I mean here's the thing. I think everyone has a
different level, Like it's the same way. I don't know.
We're all in a spectrum in regards to so many
different things. So the points just like a collection of spectrums, right,
(32:34):
But like, I mean, I would want to get back
to work at some point. I think the the speed
at which I was trying to get back to work
and my expectations about like how reasonable they were with
my with Brian, with our first kid, it was just
like I feel in retrospect, like I was so uneducated
(32:58):
on the severity of having a newborn and recovering from childbirth,
and you know, it was explained to me in detail
throughout pregnancy by our home birth midwives, who I'm really
grateful for and like people trying to be realistic with
me about what that recovery would look like. But I
(33:19):
do think it's insane that the average person going into
pregnancy is not necessarily aware of those realities. Well, I
want to add, I want to read something I actually
skipped over from her email because it was sort of
a separate point, but it's very much what you're talking about.
Um Annie wrote, enjoy your show very much, and I
wanted to thank you, especially to Beth for talking so
honestly about giving birth in the afterbirth period. I remember
(33:42):
people telling me how giving birth hurts, but then you
have a baby and it's all good. Nobody mentioned all
of the sweat, hormonal madness, breastfeeding struggle, and overall feeling
like you're gonna die. So when that hit me, I
felt like a total failure until I talked to my friends,
also mothers of very small children, who said that they
had similar problems. Made me wonder if we forget so
(34:05):
fast or if it's just so taboo to feel anything
else but happiness after having a baby. Yeah, And I
think it also plays into our society loves to sort
of discuss everything in clinical terms and like slap a
label on it as part of the problem, and then
we're like potentially treating the symptoms of a problem where
(34:27):
we don't actually know what's happening. So, you know, we
throw around things like postpartum depression, which which are very
real and horrible, but we don't talk about how. You know,
maybe if you weren't so sleep deprived for like six
months straight, you wouldn't have postpartum depression, and maybe you
could have preventative measures in place, or support system or
(34:48):
realistic expectations about what your you know, output was going
to be during those months, then you wouldn't be having
these like mental and physical health crisis is that lot
of people are having in the wake of having children,
because I think so much of it is like childbirth
and all of that. There's this picture of this beautiful
(35:11):
thing and uh, you know, like the Instagram culture of
this curated life, and then I think the more people
see and hear other people that are like, we don't know,
we're a mess. It's terrible, and it's different for different
for different people and in different ways, and that not everything,
(35:31):
not all polished. Part of depression fits one model. There's
an infinite Also, like in other countries like France, they
have this sort of built in um like physical therapy
for women's vaginas built into their national healthcare. So a
lot of people have birth injury people. So after you
(35:54):
give birth, you know, everything's torn apart. Basically you're blown
open and your muscles in your vagina are weakened. And
that sounds like, oh that, I don't know, that's just
a joke to be made about huge vaginas or orgasms
or whatever. But at the end of the day, those muscles,
(36:15):
your pelvic floor is like holding your organs inside. It's
preventing you from peeing yourself when you sneeze. It's doing
a lot of work that is like fundamental to your
physical health and strength and recovery. And in our country,
you know, people don't like to talk about vaginas, so
we just kind of ignore it. And when women complain
(36:35):
about pain, we say, oh, yeah, yeah, you're recovering and
we don't always look into it. And in places like France,
they literally will do physical therapy and like like strength
training for women's vaginas to make sure that they're recovering properly,
and they understand it as a part of a woman's health.
(36:56):
We I was about to make the worst joke UM,
and I'm not going to just know that it's based
off of saying we uh send into a year jokes
that you think I was gonna make or what the
funny appropriate joke is UM or something, But it's just
(37:20):
like a both of what we're talking about hashtag we
know south Park. This next segment is called Listeners want
to Know What's where we take some comments and questions
from our listeners. Listeners want to nose anyway? This is great,
(37:41):
Bethew ready. Subject line of this email help feminist household
in crisis. Hi, Peter and Beth. I first want to
admit that I am one of those married but childless
people who listens to your show as a kind of
voyeuristic research endeavor. And you have thoroughly convinced me that
I want this next partisan all caps one baby and
(38:04):
one baby only. So thanks sincerely for that clarity onto
my question. My husband and I are very liberal people.
We would describe ourselves as espousing socially progressive and feminist
feminist ideals. Um When we got married, I didn't change
my last name, partly because of not wanting to participate
(38:27):
in the history of the identity erasure of married women,
and partly because his last name is already hyphenated. Because
my in laws are also progressive feminists and gave their
kids hyphenated last names. This is the most feminist family
I've ever heard of. Continue, changing my last name to
his would mean that I have a new pre hyphenated
(38:49):
last name where neither of my names was mine to
begin with, which seems to negate the original point. This
hasn't been a problem until we started contemplating what we
would do visa of the last names when we have
a kid. Giving the kid my husband's already hyphenated last
name puts them out in the world with a convention
that implies to everyone that their last name is a
(39:12):
combination of their parents names, which it wouldn't be. Trying
to triple hyphenate our names feels borderline cruel, especially since
our names matched together sounds like a fungus or or
a fatal medical condition. Uh, she wrote with the names
are I'm not allowed to read it online on but
(39:32):
it's it is no joke, sounds fatal. I'm just gonna
let Beth read it. Where is it? Oh? Yeah, okay um.
I feel like the simplest decision would just, uh would
just be to have the kids take my last name
(39:55):
by My husband insists that feeling like a family is
important to him. I care less about all of us
having the same last name, and more about what will
be easiest to avoid confusion and headaches for our future
future kid. I have broached tentatively the idea that if
having a family name is so important to him, my
(40:15):
husband could change his to mind, which he did not like. Surprise, surprise. Additionally,
when I think about the rare situation in which having
the same last name actually does matter, like proving next
to kin quickly in an emergency situation, it seems like
those scenarios more often fall on mom to deal with,
(40:36):
especially if she is a primary caregiver. Maybe that's not
really a thing, but I have crazy fantasies of showing
up to a hospital at some after some accident at school,
and not being permitted to see my kid because our
names don't match and I didn't think to bring a
birth certificate or whatever. So, Peter and Bath, what do
(40:58):
what do? If you mean, what do I do? Why
did you do what you did? And what would make
you do? What would you do in our situation? Make
up a new name, forced a long, confusing string of
names on our progeny. Try to convince my husband that
my forward letter last name is the easy way out. Help,
(41:19):
Thanks and love, Hannon, I have an answer. Okay, I
think she's right. The kids get her last name. Hyphenated
names are insane. I put all of the blame on
his parents hyphenating your last name. I understand the logic.
It's irrelevant because if her names were hyphenated, you would
(41:41):
just be like, oh hey, the kids will get his
last name. So the fact that he brought too many
names into this equation means she gets the last name.
Her argument makes sense. I you know what, I think.
I agree with you, but I woult to say, like,
if you hyphenate your kid's last name, you're just putting
off the decision because you can't hold onto these names forever.
(42:05):
They're all meaningless. You did matter your child, and now
he has to make the decision that you are a
decision for this, and my decision for I kept my
last name in marriage because it seemed logistically easier. I
have a name, I have an identity. I don't want
to change my website or my email. I have a life.
(42:27):
When it came to choosing our kids last name, I
feel that they should not have hiphenated last names. I
think that's confusing and a burden to give children, and
it will haunt them for their whole lives, haunt them.
I worked in a school um like a We worked
at a private school, and I worked in the nurses office,
and I would go through files of kids and the
(42:50):
hyphenated names are cumbersome and confusing, and I just imagine
these kids having to fill a million things out all
the time, and it's always a headache, and it's like,
who is winning? Why is this helping anyone? You've just
deferred the decision for a generation. I'll tell you like
how it happened, because we never talked about it. I
(43:15):
heard somebody ask you are you keeping your name? And
you said yeah, like the kids can to have his name.
I'm keeping my name, And that was the moment I
found out we were going to name our kids mcnerny. Yeah,
I mean, for whatever reason, I just didn't care. I don't,
I don't know, I'm I mean, I'm like, selfishly, I'm
really grateful that you don't care. I think as a man,
(43:38):
you need that ego boost. And I'm just sort of
above it. Well, you know, because I've thought about it theoretically,
where my values in my moral compass would say if
you were like, we should name our kids Newell, I
have no argument, no good argument as to why. The
argument I go to is like the genealogy research I've done,
(44:00):
there's just systematic, there's rules. But I'm like, I hear
myself saying that. I'm like, well, that's not really a
good reason. It doesn't really there is no real good argument.
If there was an even way to split it that
wasn't also a logistical nightmare, I would do it. But
you can't. These hyphenated names are too many names. I
don't think it's worth it. And you know, some people
(44:23):
will give their kids like a combination name of their
two last names or something, and I'm like, that's confusing.
No one ever knows whose kids. These kids are I
I will say, like one thing to be aware of
with this is that I agree with what she's saying
actually about shutting up at the hospital, because one thing
I've heard with people who do weird things with their
kids last names is that if you're going through customs
(44:45):
or trying to get on an airplane and it appears
that the kid is not yours or people feel like
questioning it, like that's that's when it becomes a little confusing.
And I think it's like can be avoided, like you
bring ideas or passports or whatever. But yeah, I think
it is becoming less than the less of an issue.
Like people are just so much more used to parents,
(45:08):
you know, usually the mom having But I think that
when it comes to things like getting through customs, when
where it gets confusing, isn't another one of those things
where it's like the race of the kid versus the
race of the parent, and like do they do they
have reasonably that this parent is stealing a kid basically,
and that so you have to sort of like factor
(45:31):
in like the prejudices that might be going on. But
that is a surmount surmountable problem. I think you being
come like don't give up your name for that because
you can just know if we're gonna fly somewhere international,
maybe bring a birth certificate, like that's something you can do. Well,
(45:52):
you would have a passport, so you'd probably fine. But
I think it's just that yeah, proving, Yeah, proving parented. Yeah,
I guess the person interview at all. Um, Yes, so
we have Uh, there's no there's no right answer to this,
but I think in her case, she has the right answer,
(46:12):
and it's that she gets to give them her last name.
Uh yeah, because boy, giving you know, giving them a
hyphenated last name is weird. But also what if it's
do you de hyphenated and just pick one of them?
And so you're now the grandparents are going to be
says like, her last name is four letters. It's a good,
(46:35):
simple last name. She has the more ethnic of the
two names. I believe, um for lack of a better word,
And did you say that to mean interesting? Would I
have to go back? Don't? Non white? Isn't her what
is his last name? Oh? Boy, I don't. I couldn't
(46:56):
confidently tell you what any of them marks that maybe
one of the hyphenated Okay, well, anyway, her last name
is Asian, and I think that's a more interesting last
name to pass on as well. I don't know that
it is. It very well could be. I mean, anyway,
you don't know that it's Asian. I don't know that
it is fairly certain that it is Um. But her
(47:18):
name is well, yeah, I think she has an Irish
first name. We don't know. We don't know anyway. Um,
she's right, the kids that her name. End of story,
gavel knock knock. It's really easy for me to sit
back here and be like, yeah, buddy, just give him
(47:40):
your wife's name. Would I do that? Oh gosh, I'm
so glad you never put me in that situation. Parenting
is hard. This has been another episode of We Knows Parenting.
You can find find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. We
(48:02):
Knows Pod is our name in those places. We Knows
Parenting dot Com is our website where you can buy
some merch um. Please rate, review, and subscribe to this
podcast on iTunes. That will really help us out. You
can also send us questions on our website or go
(48:24):
email us at we Knows Pod at gmail dot com,
or you can leave us a voicemail, which would be
really fun for us to plan the podcast at three
four seven, three eight, four seven three six And again
I'll say, check out a movie crush this week where
I was lucky enough to be a guest. And uh, also,
(48:45):
I want to say those who keep asking we should
plug it every episode, but uh, Mates of State, they
wrote an incredible song that opens our show. Check them out.
They're incredible. Guys, have an incredible Thanksgiving. Everything is incredible, incredible.
Goodle m
Hello, and welcome to We Knows Parenting. I'm Peter McNerney.
We are parents. We've got kids there, two and a
half and four. It their names are Maybeen in Britain.
That's it. That's all you need to know. That's what
you guys anyway. Um, so I just want to say,
we're recording um the most again, the most last minute
(00:35):
we've ever done. You don't have to tell them this
every time. Yeah, well that's always the mental state of
men right when we start. Just know that anytime we're
recording this podcast, we are under extreme duress. Send help.
We hope for this to be a soothing experience for you.
It is not at all for us. Oh gosh, I
(00:57):
like it. Um, that's been my whole life is it
doesn't matter. I mean, it's true for a lot of people.
It doesn't matter how much time you have. I will
start when I have just enough time left to do it,
and then that's how I operate. So I have to complain.
So there you go. I was out having a drink
(01:18):
with a friend while Peter was sitting here panicking. I
was great, look do you see how clean this place is?
You were, um playing video games. They seme, no, I wasn't.
I haven't in like two weeks. That's such a lie.
I have to just for the listeners, I have to
share that. On Saturday, Peter told me that he would
(01:38):
be having a phone free day. I'm ready to defend this,
but keep going, very very triumphantly declared. He said, I'm
just saying it out loud. I'm not going to look
at my phone today. I'm just going to be here,
he implied he was going to be present two minutes later.
Don't tell me what I implied. That's all you can say,
very literally what I said, which was that, okay, even
(02:00):
as later I walk in the living room, you're staring
down at your Nintendo Switch playing focused for I want
to say you played for hours. Um, I did play
for hours. It was a lazy Saturday. But I also
watched my kids because it was a lazy game. Uh.
(02:20):
But the reason I didn't look at my phone was
not because I didn't want to look at screens because
my phone makes me crazy. But a game. I can
hunker down in a game and I focus on one thing,
and that's so much better than looking for new random
crap on my phone. Everything I get anxious. Looking at
my phone game makes me feel kind of crazy too,
though it's not some people, but for me, it's soothing, meditative. Anyway,
(02:44):
Peter really went off the grid that day. Oh boy,
I didn't look at my phone for like seven hours.
Felt great. Anyway, Why are we talking about this? Uh?
God knows, God knows. I've never said that in my life.
I'm gonna start saying that God knows. God knows. I try.
(03:06):
I'll tell you. The big thing gets stuck out for
me this week? Or were we talking about something that
I just remember anymore? Guys, it's very late. We're not
cut out for this. That's been drinking. How many drinks
did you have? I'm on my second drink right now.
You're out of control. It's more than just the hour.
Just yeah, that's true. So I want to look ahead
(03:28):
first this week because on Wednesday there's a very big
thing happening, which is we are traveling. We are flying
in an airplane with our two children to Chicago on
the busiest travel day of the entire year. Not only
is it insane that we're traveling with kids on the
busiest travel day of the year. I have never in
my life bet at an airport during Thanksgiving. I don't
(03:51):
you've never been in an airport drink Thanksgiving? Where would
I go my family? Have we never gone to my
house for Thanksgiving? No? We don't. The first time when
you're our parents host Thanksgiving? They've done it in Massachusetts. Wow,
that's really nice of them. Yeah, not this year maybe,
or at least when they posted that we have attended.
I don't think, well, you know what we're going to
(04:12):
get on this plane. We've we got four seats in
a little square, behind each in front, behind each other,
all the way the back of the plane. I don't
talk with Brin today by getting excited on the plane.
And I also put the idea in his head that
we have to stay in our seats. Then we can't
kick the seat in front of us. You know. Okay,
(04:33):
here's what I'm going to predict. This flight will go
off without any major headaches, but this tension and stress
of the entire ordeal will make me nearly unraveled by
the end. And um, and I'm saying this now. When
we arrive in Chicago, I am going to leave you
(04:54):
with our kids and your mom, walk into a room
and sit quietly for at least five minutes of myself.
Oh sure, I was I expected to be more than
five minutes. Yeah, maybe more than five minutes. Well, um,
I think that I'm going to be real confident and
common in control, and then I'm going to start fueling
your stress, and then I'm going to get real stressed,
(05:15):
thinking I don't want to make Beth more stressed, and
that fear didn't make you more stressed. Did we tell
listeners about last week when you were telling me we
were going to be late to a location when you
did not know the location we were going to. I
don't think we told the listeners that. Um. Well, anyway,
(05:36):
it was a half hour of Peter pestering me saying
we were going to get late, and then as we
left our front door, I realized he did not actually
know the address of where we're going to seat there before.
It was a reasonable mistake. And I live in fear
of ever having to tell you hurry up, because that
has never gone well in my life. I feel half
an hour the podcast and everyone's is so bored. Anyway,
(06:03):
I love my wife tremendously and uh, um, we're gonna
get on a plane and I know last time we're
on a plane, Britton um screamed for thirty five minutes,
you're hurting me while I held his seatbeltong as he
tried to wiggle out. And that was the worst flight
we ever had with him, And I'm predicting we ever
had with them was when I flew solo with Brin
(06:25):
alone and he screamed for a full hour of the flight.
That was the flight right before the last one. So um,
I predict Britain is gonna be great and then Maven's
gonna do her revenge screaming thing that she does now. Yeah,
I don't know. They've been pretty good lately. Yeah they
could be good. And I think they're old enough now
(06:48):
where we can, if necessary, to distract them with like
candy or something, whereas in the past their bodies are
just too tiny to consume that much candy. Candy is
going to be a terrible idea. Yeah, you're right, but
like a cookie or it's we can't do, like a
super sugary thing is going to make it worse in
the long run. But yeah, we gotta be ready with snacks.
(07:10):
Like this weekend, we we had a really fun family
outing that did involve a major meltdown with bread because
we didn't feed him on time. I didn't give many
liquid all morning. Uh, And we went to the pottery
store to paint some mugs for Grandma and Grandpa, Nena
and Granddad for Christmas. I guess now they know now
(07:33):
they they don't listen to the podcast, do they? They do?
But I don't know how on time they are with
their listens. All right, this will be a test. This
is how we find out if our parents listen to
the podcast when they opened their presence on Christmas morning. Well,
now they know that we're amazing planners who figured out
(07:54):
their presence in November. I'm not going to edit this out.
Recording too late for me to edit that out. Okay, anyway,
So I had the wonderful idea to think, what's something
they could truly treasure from their grandchildren and be at
least slightly useful. And I thought a painted mug. So
(08:15):
we went to the local pottery place where you paint mugs,
and Bryn flipped out as usual, not as usual, worse
than normal. He's just like he needed food. Yeah, well
he's also dehydrated because our kids didn't get any beverage
that day. That's true. I I've already blamed myself for
it before you could. Okay, Well, anyway, he had he
(08:41):
desperately wanted to play with all of the fired pottery
that people had carefully made for themselves, the shelf where
that you come to pick up you're done. He wanted
to be able to touch all of it and play
with it. And he freaked out and then he just
fell into no mode where there is nothing that will
(09:03):
be the thing he wants. And he was just like
very angry at you for the rest of the time.
And then he literally went outside and then he was like,
I'm going to go back in. I was like, all right,
he's not with you. I was like, all right, but
you have to go sit at the table with mommy.
I will. I have to say that man is such
a painter, and she loves it, and she's really focused
(09:24):
and like she's trying to get results. Um, she's just
like she's like she like clearly wanted a plan of
like what we're painting, and like she's like checking in
on like she like kept trying to hand the paintbrush
back to me and like I don't know, she's very
(09:46):
careful about it. Whereas Britain only got excited when I
let him write his name on given away the presence
even more now when it was about him, he was
area into it. Yeah, you inexplicably have made a mug
for your mom that says Brand on it. She's gonna
(10:07):
love it. Mom. You're gonna love it because you won't
forget who made it for you. Fantastic, It was fun,
It was It was good, not a disaster. He didn't
break anything. You know. What I was actually really excited
about is that he had a huge meltdown and we
you and I kept it together, you know, like we
(10:30):
I think that can stress us out and we get
on each other's nerves, uh in those situations, and we
kept her cool and we got well, you get on
my nerves when you escalate it' I'm aware, and you
get my nerves when you cave. Anyway, what else is
going on? Brenad can read ladies and gentlemen, ding ding ding.
(10:52):
It's a bold claim. Brand can read it. He. I mean,
we're in bed and we're sounding out words and it's
a him come true as comes come cruel sort of read.
I mean, I think here's what I mean for our
listeners who don't know what you're talking about. He can't read.
(11:12):
I mean, he can read some things, um, But what
I'm so excited about is a real man's plainer. Is
that my son likes it's when I explained some things
to him, and we love to explain things to our kids.
It's your greatest strength, as apparent. Thank you? Was that
a compliment? It's certainly something that I don't want to
(11:34):
spend time doing. Like I like reading books with them sometimes,
but like other times, I'm like, I don't enjoy repeating
information to people over and over and over again. It's
not fun for me. Oh my god, I love it
so much. We read where he does a great job
of reading, and a lot of it he knows it.
But then he'll get towards he doesn't know, and we
(11:56):
sound it out, and I'm taking the approach of not never.
I don't ever underestimate his ability to understand something. So
I'm explaining, you know, ease at the end of words,
they're silent and they make other vowels say their name.
We learned what vowels were today, and maybe he's not
picking it all up, but I repeat it and I
(12:17):
keep explaining so long as he is interested. He'll burn
out sometimes and I'll try to let it go. But
I was so surprised how long he's interested in knowing
what th H sounds like, what the I n G
sounds like? And I mean, I didn't I have talked
about this before. I can still barely read, and he's
(12:39):
interested And that's novel to me. Oh so that's happening. Yeah.
He has that one book, Hello, Hello, that he's been
obsessed with for a while. And what's nice is it
has that page where it matches the number of the
animal to the animal. And then because he's kind of
(13:03):
looking back and forth trying to find the animal, I
think he is learning to pay attention to like what
the words mean big time. We that was one of
the books. We read it tonight. Something I explained to
him that I thought I was going to go over
his head was that there are certain words, uh, there
(13:23):
are multiple words to have the same sound like two.
There are three meanings of the word too, and I
had written examples of all of them in his books
we were reading, and I was like to like, give
this to you, this is too silly. The number two,
and I kept repeating it and I saw him get
it and like his face being like a weird why
(13:45):
wouldn't they do that? I'm like, I love, I love this,
you love giving him facts that he's then going to
repeat at adults and everyone at school. He repeats him
to Maven twenty minutes later, he like, well, he mostly
scolds may even the way I scold him. Fantastic. So
(14:07):
what else is happening this week? I would just say
everyone should go check out movie crash with a very
own how stuff works Chuck Bryant. I'm on an episode
of that and he was super fun. He's a lovely man.
That's my mid mid show plug. Wow. Yeah, check it out.
(14:27):
Everybody that's on that chart shoot too. I have been
on a different episode. Um, okay, So here's another thing
that happened this week. So I think we talked last
week about how I bought this cheap car at CVS
for brand. Do we talk about that? Okay? Uh? This
week he held it up to his head while it
(14:49):
was on and got his hair caught in it and
then spinning wheels in the spinning wheels and he was
like crying trying to get out. It wasn't that bad
getting it out, but it did rip out a chunk
of his air and then it was caught in the
wheel and like now I think the car doesn't work
as well because it's all like haired up. So that's
(15:12):
where we're at. Well, it's about as long as I
would expect that toy to last. Yeah, I know, it
was unfortunate. It was really not good for the environment
that purchased. And now it's time for we knows what
they're watching. This is where we discussed our children's current
(15:34):
pop culture or media obsession. What do you got? Well,
I had a couple of things I want to talk
about for this segment, but the first one is um
On Saturday last week, my sister slept over and when
I woke up in the morning, Brin was watching TV
in front of her sleeping body on the couch and
(15:58):
he was watching and at the sort of South Park
that he found through the Hulu app on our phone.
And then since then we've had another incident where he
stumbled onto South Park and we I woke up in
the morning and found him watching it again just by himself. Yeah,
and unfortunately, I think he started to develop sort of
like a bad boy affinity for it, like he knows.
(16:21):
Now he's not supposed to watch it. And he'll say,
because I've explained to him that's a grown up show.
That's like, it looks like a cartoon, but it's a
grown up show. And he's like, south Park is a
grown up show. And then it's a reasonable confusion. Yeah,
but he like, but he knows there's bad language, Like
he knows. And here we were asking about the episode
(16:43):
and what happened and he said something about fire farts.
So it's like just appealing to his like core level.
What do you say, the angry boy had fire farts? Oh?
He yeah, he said like the fat boy or something
like that. Did you say fat boy? I forget. I
think he did it. Boy. That's oh boy, it's that's
(17:04):
not an appropriate show. No, it's a bad show for
kids to watch. On many levels, I think we did
a good job of making it seemed important that he
knew that was not appropriate, and he could he was
a reacting way. That was encouraging that he at least
knows that it's not appropriate. Yeah, and that's sort of
more important to me that he seems to know that
(17:26):
that's not something you should be like openly talking about
but I don't believe that he wouldn't put it on
again if we weren't in the room. Oh yeah, I
had a log out of a profile that's would make
it harder for him to find. We got to really
figure out the parental controls of this. Well, the thing is,
(17:49):
I'm married to someone who keeps deleting apps like Amazon
and YouTube so that my son can't watch harmless kids
videos because my husband just happens to dislike those. I
would rather he watched endless south Park, then endless repeating
mindless YouTube videos created by Yeah, god forbid, he learns
(18:12):
about colors and numbers. He's not learning how many studies
have to read. There's no learning that happens. It's dangling keys.
He's getting dumber anyway, It's not it's shows made for kids.
That's no, it's not. Oh my god, that's all The
segment only ever, just becomes me reeling on YouTube. Another
(18:33):
thing I want to talk about, well, I want to
say before you move on, just in terms of that
language of South Park. The other week this it was
snowing and it was terrible driving, and we're in dangerous
driving editions, and this guy has dipped past me and
I had the kids in the car, and without thinking,
I said, what funk are you doing? Oh? God, he
(18:53):
knows fun? Now, yeah, he goes daddy, Daddy said a
bad word, and I was like, uh, I like, you
are right, I should not have done that. I talked
through it, but I'm like, how does how does he
know that? I mean, he probably knows every bad word. Well,
he walked in the other day and when I was
watching a movie and write and when someone said, like,
(19:14):
what the funx So now he's heard the same phrase
like twice in the same week, and he's like, this
is very exciting. It's a very memorable word. Anyway, what
is the other thing that they're watching? So the other
thing I wanted to talk about is this app um
called Marco Polo that my friends and I haven't using,
(19:34):
which is your whole life right now? It's just it's
not my whole life. It's just it's been a really
nice alternative to social media because I can connect with
a small group of people I know and love to
explain how it works. Marco Polo? Is you it? I
think it stinks with the context on your phone, So
beware if you have people in your contact that you
(19:55):
don't want contact you, contacting you on an apathy of
your phone number, they you will pop up in their
thing and they might send you a message. But anyway,
it's you can send short videos to people. You just
hit record, and if they happen to have the app
open and that conversation open, they could sort of hear
you talking live and you can send videos back and
(20:16):
forth and sort of have ongoing conversations with each other.
So it's like video walkie talkie. So um. And of
course my sister invited my mom onto this app and
it's no longer a safe space, but we've been trading
video that we've been training videos with my mom now
(20:39):
and like brand and may even send videos. And you
can alter the sound of your voice on the app,
so you could send like a really high pitched, like
squeaky Chipmunk's voice like it'll so so the kids like
it because they want to listen back to themselves talking
with a funny voice. Honestly, That's why I like it. Yeah,
and it's good for grandparents because I like, we're not
(21:03):
very good at FaceTime. It's just hard to schedule it
and think of it at the right moment and like
when your kids are sitting still for like two minutes
a day. So this allows you to sort of send
videos when you have the moment to do that, and
then your grandparents can reply whenever and you know, uh,
you don't have to like schedule it. And so Brin
(21:26):
has been doing that and he's into it, and he's like, again,
he's such a performer, so he like immediately it's like
he knows like YouTube like vloggers speak, and he's like
he immediately turns it on. He's like, Hi, I'm here
in my living room with my mom and my sister
and um, we're just watching some TV. Like he just
(21:48):
suddenly is like a performer. He's like the host of
the show. Um, he's copying what everyone else is doing. Yeah,
He's like, here's what's happening. Welcome to my live stream. Anyway,
So he was sending videos of my mom and then
he scrolled back through the conversation in the app again
(22:11):
Marco Polo app where my mom had sent me a
video earlier and she had been like hey, Ali and
Beth with my sister. She was like I'm just you know,
doing this around the house and wrapping some Christmas presents,
and here's brents stack and she starts paying the camera
over and I'm sitting next to burn while he's watching this,
(22:32):
and I like grabbed the phone from him and his
eyes light up and he was like presence, my presence,
and he like so then he was like he fully
understands what just happened. Yeah, he knew. He was like
processing all of it, and then I I had it
was like a man hunt for my phone for the
rest of the day. He and now anytime he's in
(22:54):
that app, he's like waiting for my guard to drop
and like for me to get distracted, and suddenly he's
like swiped backwards. In the conversations like it's Jane and
maybe too, like they're both just like scary smart with
these apps because they just don't question it at all,
Like maybe we'll pick up my phone and she's like,
(23:15):
I'm looking for domatic Casita video, their favorite YouTube video. Boy.
I listened to Bryan saying all of to himself quietly
in the corner that boy knows Spanish. They were going
to sleep the other day and I they were both
being really difficult, so I laid down in bed with
(23:36):
them and Bryan. As he's laying there in bed, it
just starts counting to a hundred quietly. He felt like whispering,
and he was like sixty six seven, sixty eight, sixty nine,
and then whenever he gets to the next ten likes
stop and thinking about it goes. I'm so proud. This
(24:09):
next segment is called did you know? That? Is where
we share parenting facts. So this one actually comes to
us from a listener, uh, from whom I have learned
something interesting. Um. So it's part question and part sharing
something we didn't know. So here we go. Hello, Beth
and Peter. My name is Annie and I live in
(24:29):
the Czech Republic and my husband, Uh with my husband
and our eighteen month old daughter. I'm just give ahead
a little bit, a little bit, a little bit anyway,
I wanted to give you a peek into how um
it works parent to leave that is here in Czech
Republic because the difference with our country's really often surprises me.
(24:51):
So did you know people use the the segment titles?
It makes me very happy? Be did you know? We
have two kinds of leave? One goes after another. First
is a maternity leave about half a year period that
starts six to eight weeks before the do date and
(25:12):
lasts about six months. You get a monthly payment that
is calculated based on how much money you made in
the last twelve months. After that you can start. After that,
you can start a uh parental leave. You can decide
which parents stays home with your child, and you can
choose for how long two to four years and then
three exclamation points they do so. Uh So, an amount
(25:39):
of two h forty thousand check crowns, which is about
U s dollars, is divide divided into this period, meaning
that the shorter the period is, the more money you
get every month. Uh So, the longer it is, the
less you get these months um but the same total
no matter how much time you take off. If you
(26:00):
give birth to another child while on parent to leave,
the first parent to leave terminates instantly without paying you
out the rest, and you start your maternity leave again.
That is also why most couples try to plan their
pregnancies so the second child is born roughly three years
after the first one. Although either parent can stay home,
it is rare that the dad that the dad for
(26:23):
the dad to be the one, and therefore women often
stay at home with kids for five years and more.
This is making it really hard for me to go
back to work and back to normal life. Looking for
a new job is even harder because although it is
illegal to refuse to hire somebody because they have small children,
it happens quite often because nobody wants to put up
with their employees staying home with sick kids. Dad's on
(26:45):
parent to leave Austin often face criticism from their friends,
usually male ones, and it's hard for them to connect
socially because there is just not enough male parents on
the parent to leave to make a community, and they
don't feel come bole and an all female group of parents.
By the way, literally translated from check, parental and maternity
(27:06):
leave is called parental and maternity vacation. Ha ha uh.
Skipping ahead, are we lucky? Are we lucky to have
such a support from government in society or is it
killing us from the inside? Would you like that kind
of social politics and support in the US of Annie? Wow,
(27:26):
there's so much to unpack there. That's crazy. I mean,
that's so nice. It is so nice. Uh, but it's
I mean, it's it's two to four years. No, but
it's optional. They're not forcing it on you. That's the
thing I think with so many of these feminist type issues,
(27:47):
historically they get categorized as like an either or, and
like giving people the option of birth control isn't forcing
it on anyone, the same thing as like giving the
option of gay marriage. No one was ever shoving gay
marriage down anyone's throw. Is just a lot fortunate me
to get gay married. Yeah, They're just allowed. So it's like,
no one. People don't need to take the full four
(28:08):
years or whatever, And I think a lot of people
would choose not to, which is fine, But it's a
great option to have because that is a vulnerable age
for children and someone needs to be taking care of
them pretty closely. Like these these sort of policies like
parental leave and universal pre k and stuff. I just
wish people would understand the value they would have on
(28:30):
society long term, regardless of whether you personally are affected
by them or not. It would. It's just like, it's
a difficult time for people financially and otherwise, and if
you can provide them with support systems, it's like you're
going to have a more stable class of all ships.
Rise Um, Yeah, well, what's fat I mean what's fascinating
(28:56):
there obviously, like if if the people you're surrounded, I
if there's not other men taking this time, that's a
hard thing. That's the type of thing that doesn't change overnight.
You know, that's a that's a cultural issue. And like,
how do you like you know? How do you you know? Again,
(29:17):
we live, we live in an area where, like I
have a fair most of the couples we know with kids, Um,
you're just as likely to see dad's doing those things. Uh,
just as likely as I was just about to adjust it,
more so than than most of the world. I guess so.
(29:43):
But I mean, I think the thing that this article
speaks to you that I think it's really interesting is
that not an article to an email email? Sorry. Uh.
The thing that she's talking about that I think is
really interesting is that the we have this idea in
the United States that we're like the most progressive and
(30:05):
that we're the most evolved country, and in some respects
we are excelling, and in a lot of other ways
we're still following falling behind, especially as such a developed country,
and the fact that we don't provide these things in
our society is pretty backwards compared to other developed nations
(30:25):
and the like our maternal maternity, our our maternal health
in this country and maternal survival rates for childbirth are
really crazy compared to other developed nations. And it's it's
just really insane that we're not putting more resources behind
these things that are so preventable and so uh a
(30:47):
part of life. Like, it's just we have this weird
idea in this country that you know, parenthood is very optional,
and you know, to some extent it is a choice
we make to become parents. But this is like a
way society is going to continue to be whether we
like it or not. People are going to keep having
other human beings. Uh, and we could be helping out
(31:09):
with that. What do you think? So if we had
these options, Uh, what do you how do you think
that would have changed our lives? What? What would you
have done? Well? I mean the fact that it's paying
out money. It's really hard to speak to because of
the nature of our jobs and because I don't know
the ins and outs of how this actually works or
(31:31):
how it might be interpreted in our society. Because my
job running my own company is essentially sort of like
a freelance endeavor and it's like up to me to
make a living out of that, and so it doesn't
really pay into like Social Security, and I don't receive
benefits from it, and so I didn't don't and we're
(31:52):
making no money before we had kids, so them giving
us them out we made would be basically right. So like,
I don't if this, if something like this, we're in
lunched in this country, I think it would be a
lot of hurdles to jump through before I would see
that money under my current circumstances, I don't know what
it would look like. Um, but we also, I think
would go, uh, we're just that we would go a
(32:14):
little crazy if we didn't have those creative outlets. Oh well, no,
I mean here's the thing. I think everyone has a
different level, Like it's the same way. I don't know.
We're all in a spectrum in regards to so many
different things. So the points just like a collection of spectrums, right,
(32:34):
But like, I mean, I would want to get back
to work at some point. I think the the speed
at which I was trying to get back to work
and my expectations about like how reasonable they were with
my with Brian, with our first kid, it was just
like I feel in retrospect, like I was so uneducated
(32:58):
on the severity of having a newborn and recovering from childbirth,
and you know, it was explained to me in detail
throughout pregnancy by our home birth midwives, who I'm really
grateful for and like people trying to be realistic with
me about what that recovery would look like. But I
(33:19):
do think it's insane that the average person going into
pregnancy is not necessarily aware of those realities. Well, I
want to add, I want to read something I actually
skipped over from her email because it was sort of
a separate point, but it's very much what you're talking about.
Um Annie wrote, enjoy your show very much, and I
wanted to thank you, especially to Beth for talking so
honestly about giving birth in the afterbirth period. I remember
(33:42):
people telling me how giving birth hurts, but then you
have a baby and it's all good. Nobody mentioned all
of the sweat, hormonal madness, breastfeeding struggle, and overall feeling
like you're gonna die. So when that hit me, I
felt like a total failure until I talked to my friends,
also mothers of very small children, who said that they
had similar problems. Made me wonder if we forget so
(34:05):
fast or if it's just so taboo to feel anything
else but happiness after having a baby. Yeah, And I
think it also plays into our society loves to sort
of discuss everything in clinical terms and like slap a
label on it as part of the problem, and then
we're like potentially treating the symptoms of a problem where
(34:27):
we don't actually know what's happening. So, you know, we
throw around things like postpartum depression, which which are very
real and horrible, but we don't talk about how. You know,
maybe if you weren't so sleep deprived for like six
months straight, you wouldn't have postpartum depression, and maybe you
could have preventative measures in place, or support system or
(34:48):
realistic expectations about what your you know, output was going
to be during those months, then you wouldn't be having
these like mental and physical health crisis is that lot
of people are having in the wake of having children,
because I think so much of it is like childbirth
and all of that. There's this picture of this beautiful
(35:11):
thing and uh, you know, like the Instagram culture of
this curated life, and then I think the more people
see and hear other people that are like, we don't know,
we're a mess. It's terrible, and it's different for different
for different people and in different ways, and that not everything,
(35:31):
not all polished. Part of depression fits one model. There's
an infinite Also, like in other countries like France, they
have this sort of built in um like physical therapy
for women's vaginas built into their national healthcare. So a
lot of people have birth injury people. So after you
(35:54):
give birth, you know, everything's torn apart. Basically you're blown
open and your muscles in your vagina are weakened. And
that sounds like, oh that, I don't know, that's just
a joke to be made about huge vaginas or orgasms
or whatever. But at the end of the day, those muscles,
(36:15):
your pelvic floor is like holding your organs inside. It's
preventing you from peeing yourself when you sneeze. It's doing
a lot of work that is like fundamental to your
physical health and strength and recovery. And in our country,
you know, people don't like to talk about vaginas, so
we just kind of ignore it. And when women complain
(36:35):
about pain, we say, oh, yeah, yeah, you're recovering and
we don't always look into it. And in places like France,
they literally will do physical therapy and like like strength
training for women's vaginas to make sure that they're recovering properly,
and they understand it as a part of a woman's health.
(36:56):
We I was about to make the worst joke UM,
and I'm not going to just know that it's based
off of saying we uh send into a year jokes
that you think I was gonna make or what the
funny appropriate joke is UM or something, But it's just
(37:20):
like a both of what we're talking about hashtag we
know south Park. This next segment is called Listeners want
to Know What's where we take some comments and questions
from our listeners. Listeners want to nose anyway? This is great,
(37:41):
Bethew ready. Subject line of this email help feminist household
in crisis. Hi, Peter and Beth. I first want to
admit that I am one of those married but childless
people who listens to your show as a kind of
voyeuristic research endeavor. And you have thoroughly convinced me that
I want this next partisan all caps one baby and
(38:04):
one baby only. So thanks sincerely for that clarity onto
my question. My husband and I are very liberal people.
We would describe ourselves as espousing socially progressive and feminist
feminist ideals. Um When we got married, I didn't change
my last name, partly because of not wanting to participate
(38:27):
in the history of the identity erasure of married women,
and partly because his last name is already hyphenated. Because
my in laws are also progressive feminists and gave their
kids hyphenated last names. This is the most feminist family
I've ever heard of. Continue, changing my last name to
his would mean that I have a new pre hyphenated
(38:49):
last name where neither of my names was mine to
begin with, which seems to negate the original point. This
hasn't been a problem until we started contemplating what we
would do visa of the last names when we have
a kid. Giving the kid my husband's already hyphenated last
name puts them out in the world with a convention
that implies to everyone that their last name is a
(39:12):
combination of their parents names, which it wouldn't be. Trying
to triple hyphenate our names feels borderline cruel, especially since
our names matched together sounds like a fungus or or
a fatal medical condition. Uh, she wrote with the names
are I'm not allowed to read it online on but
(39:32):
it's it is no joke, sounds fatal. I'm just gonna
let Beth read it. Where is it? Oh? Yeah, okay um.
I feel like the simplest decision would just, uh would
just be to have the kids take my last name
(39:55):
by My husband insists that feeling like a family is
important to him. I care less about all of us
having the same last name, and more about what will
be easiest to avoid confusion and headaches for our future
future kid. I have broached tentatively the idea that if
having a family name is so important to him, my
(40:15):
husband could change his to mind, which he did not like. Surprise, surprise. Additionally,
when I think about the rare situation in which having
the same last name actually does matter, like proving next
to kin quickly in an emergency situation, it seems like
those scenarios more often fall on mom to deal with,
(40:36):
especially if she is a primary caregiver. Maybe that's not
really a thing, but I have crazy fantasies of showing
up to a hospital at some after some accident at school,
and not being permitted to see my kid because our
names don't match and I didn't think to bring a
birth certificate or whatever. So, Peter and Bath, what do
(40:58):
what do? If you mean, what do I do? Why
did you do what you did? And what would make
you do? What would you do in our situation? Make
up a new name, forced a long, confusing string of
names on our progeny. Try to convince my husband that
my forward letter last name is the easy way out. Help,
(41:19):
Thanks and love, Hannon, I have an answer. Okay, I
think she's right. The kids get her last name. Hyphenated
names are insane. I put all of the blame on
his parents hyphenating your last name. I understand the logic.
It's irrelevant because if her names were hyphenated, you would
(41:41):
just be like, oh hey, the kids will get his
last name. So the fact that he brought too many
names into this equation means she gets the last name.
Her argument makes sense. I you know what, I think.
I agree with you, but I woult to say, like,
if you hyphenate your kid's last name, you're just putting
off the decision because you can't hold onto these names forever.
(42:05):
They're all meaningless. You did matter your child, and now
he has to make the decision that you are a
decision for this, and my decision for I kept my
last name in marriage because it seemed logistically easier. I
have a name, I have an identity. I don't want
to change my website or my email. I have a life.
(42:27):
When it came to choosing our kids last name, I
feel that they should not have hiphenated last names. I
think that's confusing and a burden to give children, and
it will haunt them for their whole lives, haunt them.
I worked in a school um like a We worked
at a private school, and I worked in the nurses office,
and I would go through files of kids and the
(42:50):
hyphenated names are cumbersome and confusing, and I just imagine
these kids having to fill a million things out all
the time, and it's always a headache, and it's like,
who is winning? Why is this helping anyone? You've just
deferred the decision for a generation. I'll tell you like
how it happened, because we never talked about it. I
(43:15):
heard somebody ask you are you keeping your name? And
you said yeah, like the kids can to have his name.
I'm keeping my name, And that was the moment I
found out we were going to name our kids mcnerny. Yeah,
I mean, for whatever reason, I just didn't care. I don't,
I don't know, I'm I mean, I'm like, selfishly, I'm
really grateful that you don't care. I think as a man,
(43:38):
you need that ego boost. And I'm just sort of
above it. Well, you know, because I've thought about it theoretically,
where my values in my moral compass would say if
you were like, we should name our kids Newell, I
have no argument, no good argument as to why. The
argument I go to is like the genealogy research I've done,
(44:00):
there's just systematic, there's rules. But I'm like, I hear
myself saying that. I'm like, well, that's not really a
good reason. It doesn't really there is no real good argument.
If there was an even way to split it that
wasn't also a logistical nightmare, I would do it. But
you can't. These hyphenated names are too many names. I
don't think it's worth it. And you know, some people
(44:23):
will give their kids like a combination name of their
two last names or something, and I'm like, that's confusing.
No one ever knows whose kids. These kids are I
I will say, like one thing to be aware of
with this is that I agree with what she's saying
actually about shutting up at the hospital, because one thing
I've heard with people who do weird things with their
kids last names is that if you're going through customs
(44:45):
or trying to get on an airplane and it appears
that the kid is not yours or people feel like
questioning it, like that's that's when it becomes a little confusing.
And I think it's like can be avoided, like you
bring ideas or passports or whatever. But yeah, I think
it is becoming less than the less of an issue.
Like people are just so much more used to parents,
(45:08):
you know, usually the mom having But I think that
when it comes to things like getting through customs, when
where it gets confusing, isn't another one of those things
where it's like the race of the kid versus the
race of the parent, and like do they do they
have reasonably that this parent is stealing a kid basically,
and that so you have to sort of like factor
(45:31):
in like the prejudices that might be going on. But
that is a surmount surmountable problem. I think you being
come like don't give up your name for that because
you can just know if we're gonna fly somewhere international,
maybe bring a birth certificate, like that's something you can do. Well,
(45:52):
you would have a passport, so you'd probably fine. But
I think it's just that yeah, proving, Yeah, proving parented. Yeah,
I guess the person interview at all. Um, Yes, so
we have Uh, there's no there's no right answer to this,
but I think in her case, she has the right answer,
(46:12):
and it's that she gets to give them her last name.
Uh yeah, because boy, giving you know, giving them a
hyphenated last name is weird. But also what if it's
do you de hyphenated and just pick one of them?
And so you're now the grandparents are going to be
says like, her last name is four letters. It's a good,
(46:35):
simple last name. She has the more ethnic of the
two names. I believe, um for lack of a better word,
And did you say that to mean interesting? Would I
have to go back? Don't? Non white? Isn't her what
is his last name? Oh? Boy, I don't. I couldn't
(46:56):
confidently tell you what any of them marks that maybe
one of the hyphenated Okay, well, anyway, her last name
is Asian, and I think that's a more interesting last
name to pass on as well. I don't know that
it is. It very well could be. I mean, anyway,
you don't know that it's Asian. I don't know that
it is fairly certain that it is Um. But her
(47:18):
name is well, yeah, I think she has an Irish
first name. We don't know. We don't know anyway. Um,
she's right, the kids that her name. End of story,
gavel knock knock. It's really easy for me to sit
back here and be like, yeah, buddy, just give him
(47:40):
your wife's name. Would I do that? Oh gosh, I'm
so glad you never put me in that situation. Parenting
is hard. This has been another episode of We Knows Parenting.
You can find find us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. We
(48:02):
Knows Pod is our name in those places. We Knows
Parenting dot Com is our website where you can buy
some merch um. Please rate, review, and subscribe to this
podcast on iTunes. That will really help us out. You
can also send us questions on our website or go
(48:24):
email us at we Knows Pod at gmail dot com,
or you can leave us a voicemail, which would be
really fun for us to plan the podcast at three
four seven, three eight, four seven three six And again
I'll say, check out a movie crush this week where
I was lucky enough to be a guest. And uh, also,
(48:45):
I want to say those who keep asking we should
plug it every episode, but uh, Mates of State, they
wrote an incredible song that opens our show. Check them out.
They're incredible. Guys, have an incredible Thanksgiving. Everything is incredible, incredible.
Goodle m
We Knows Parenting News
Hosts And Creators
Beth Newell
Peter McNerney
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