4. Bring Me Up, Scotty!

Space travel is a past, present, and future sport. Join us as we venture through our upbringings and dissect how our past influences our present. 

 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Down on the cap. I hear me the same. Let's
go to the mission one. I'm trying to down that
ready for ding a theme for launching Welcomed in our

(00:31):
Own World. You know that theme song doesn't get any
less sicker as much as I hear it. It just
gets better every time I hear it. You think, so,
I think so maybe we should change it up here
and there? What do you think? I'm so dun like
a scar one, like all alla weeds. Oh yes, the
show we live in tiny boxes there you go? What

(00:52):
does that go? Little boxes on the hill side? Yeah?
What else? But I'm just saying, like they did out
of the show, it was great. Well, welcome back to
in our own world. If you've been here with us
for the journey up until now, thank you and I'm sorry.
And it's just the beginning. Oh my gosh, you guys

(01:14):
have no idea. Oh boy, we have a lot to
talk about speaking of. You know, part of entering our universe,
our world, is that we try to be very true
to the things that we speak about in our real world,
in our real day to day lives and bring them
to you, because especially the things that have value that
we've learned a lot from and you know, we've been

(01:35):
together almost six years. This year it will be six years. Right. Wow, Wow,
it's right in December. Anybody's curious wants to send us
flowers Jesus. December such a tough month because the fifth
is ms birthday, the thirteenth anniversary, then Christmas Jim right

(01:55):
after Amber's birthday. I can't Amber's gems sister. Yeah, but anyway, So, Um,
something that we talked about a lot, and that we've
talked about a lot is our upbringings, not only how
they've affected our lives individually, but how they've contributed to
some of the dynamics in our relationship. And um, I

(02:17):
don't know. I think there's a lot of value in
not doing a complete deep dive, because I don't know
if we'd come out of that one, but kind of
doing a brief overview of, you know, some of the
things that have made it challenging or made it easier,
some of the things that we've learned from each other too. Yeah.
I think that we started dating at the beginning of

(02:39):
our adult life, or sort of the beginning of our
adult life, and we're still in the beginning, but we've
learned that adulting is really just a lot of unlearning
um and looking back at your childhood with more loving
and understanding, but also critical eyes like hey, you know what,
what the heck was that critical? And also forgiving, because
I can tell from my perspective, you know, like I

(03:03):
idolized my parents. I still do, you know, I look
at them as heroes. They can do no wrong, and
that kind of does your parental unit in any form
a disservice, because we're all just human beings. And if
you think about it, though, I feel like most parents
do that up to a certain extent. I mean like
they provide their children with the concept that like they

(03:26):
are the one all be all of their life, and
for a while, I mean, you are. But then there's
a transition there that that has to take place. It's
the mother bird pushing the baby bird out of the nest.
And sometimes it's difficult, but not any less necessary. I
think it's it's very important. I also think that you know,

(03:47):
a lot of the things that we analyze about our childhood.
You know, I can tell you when I go to
have children, I will apply a lot of you know,
my analysis of my childhood onto how oh I am
as a parent. I feel like, if you're a responsible parent,
you do and you do so consciously. And I think
that that's something that you and I are both doing

(04:09):
together in our own way and sort of holding a
mirror up to each other throughout the process, which is
difficult but healing because you know, through your eyes, I'm
learning about myself and I know that, at least I
think through my eyes, you're learning about yourself. And like
I mentioned, there's a loving part to it, and it's

(04:30):
like the part of your childhood that you want to
apply to your children, the things that I'm sure you
recognize in me and that you're like, oh, hell no,
you're that's not going to go on with my kids.
And same thing with you, you know, yeah, I mean,
what do you do you remember the first thing? Like,
what was your first memory of your childhood? You remember?
Right now? I remember just what came to mind is

(04:53):
one day I was at my grandma's house, and I
spent a lot of time there because my mom was
so young when I was born. She was nineteen well
she was eighteen technically when she gave birth, but she's
also an August baby. So two weeks later, nineteen um
and I remember being with my grandma and for some reason,
and I'm still this weird, I love to eat jello
with salt crack like Saltine's. Oh, And I would sometimes,

(05:19):
you know, like eat the jello and then eat the cracker,
but then sometimes I just like break it up and
put it in my jell And I just remember being
like three years or four, like eating jello, and my
Grandma's just as happy as can be. Mm hmmm. I
like that, except the disgusting combination of food that's gross. Yeah,
do you still crave that? No? Thank God for small fingers.

(05:42):
Do you remember the first time that you encountered like
turmoil or something that brought you stress in your childhood?
And I don't remember it, but I know what it was,
and it's when my parents were getting divorced, so okay,
so rather yeah, I mean right before that, I think

(06:03):
they probably were having trouble. And I remember like a
couple of nights of my dad like sleeping in my room,
you know, but I don't And I think I probably
said something was wrong and I just didn't know how
to vocalize in it anyway, And I don't remember it
like that. I just know there was turmoil in that moment,

(06:23):
and I just remember being happy my dad was sleeping
with me. Yeah. Well, so right there, we've already said
two things. Number one, you said your mom had you
when she was nineteen, right, And also you your parents
divorced when you were young. My parents have been together

(06:43):
over forty years. And also I have a forty two
year old brother. I know my parents are in their sixties.
My mom is forty six. For reference, your mom my
mom six is four Oh okay, one more year, yeehaw.
But they're very close in age, and I think that

(07:05):
they're very different. They're very different despite being close in age. No, yes, yes,
But I also think that the generation that you come from,
that you come from, influences how you raise your children.
You know, like my grandma, she didn't kiss my grandpa
until they were married. Even when they left the church
after their wedding, she had her mom ride with her

(07:27):
in the car because they hadn't legally signed the paper yet.
And do you think that your parents being divorced like
influenced who you are? Yeah? Yeah, but there is some
value value. I feel like being you know, watching like

(07:48):
my friends around me. I mean I had some I
had a lot of friends who were divorced, I mean
my best friends growing up. Unfortunately they lost their dad,
so their mom was also a single mom. Even even still,
like I guess, not having like the ideal nuclear family situation.
I put it in an air quote because I do
think it's all crap. But not having that when I

(08:09):
was younger show to me or brought some kind of
toughness out of me, brought like a little bit of
you know, I wasn't my in a in a bad way.
My innocence was sort of robbed of the world. I
never thought that the world was all rainbows and butterflies, right,
obviously couldn't have been. But that's a blessing, Like in disguise,

(08:31):
it's a blessing in disguise because it's tough. But I
feel so prepared for life. Not obviously completely you know,
devoted to the fact that I'm come from divorced parents,
but I feel like I can pretty much withstand anything
that I need that I want to. I think, for example,

(08:52):
from my perspective, right, you know, I heard somebody tell
me the other day something that I'll never forget, which
is incredible. She said, you know, you have to if
you put a lot of weight. It's his quote in Spanish,
but I don't remember it exactly, so I'm gonna paraphrase
probably butcher it. But like if you put a lot
of weight on your children's back, that's the only way

(09:14):
that their feet will be firmly on the ground, you know,
and metaphors metaphorically. Metaphorically obviously that means the more responsibility
and the more pressure in a sense, you know, healthy
pressure that you put on your children, then as you say,
they'll be more prepared for the world, will be more
grounded and understand what's really going on here. You know,

(09:35):
from my perspective, my parents had a very difficult childhood.
You know, my mom had a sick dad, Her mom
worked a bunch of jobs. He was a political prisoner.
Then they had to move and my dad, at first,
you know, he had a great childhood in Cuba, but
obviously when everything happened with the government, you know, and
they had to flee, Um, my dad had to leave

(09:58):
his family behind. My dad had to leave his family behind,
and there were times when he was literally sleeping under
a truck. He didn't have a dollar. He was playing
accordion just to eat dinner. You know, that's something that
I'm never going to understand to an extent. Like you said,
the way that you're thankful for some of the hardships
that you had in your childhood, I had almost a

(10:18):
picture perfect childhood, and obviously I would hear about the
you know, stories from my parents and my family about
all the hardships they had endured. But I have to
be honest, I still to this day kind of feel
a little bit guilty and tried to place my emotions
because I never wanted for nothing, you know, coupled with
the fact that my parents are very successful entertainers and

(10:43):
because of all that, all the all the hardship that
they suffered. They made it very clear, you know, we
want you guys to have the best life. You know,
I want to do the same thing. I don't think
my kids to have my childhood. I think it's a
beautiful thing, and I think that I thanked them every
day for the childhood and life that I had, and
I wouldn't change it for the world. However, I'm not

(11:03):
gonna lie. The more that you coddle and take care
of your kids when they do get to the real world,
it's a steeper learning curve. Yeah, and there are certain
things learning all at once, first throughout a long period
of time. Well yeah. And I also feel like, no
matter how successful you are as an individual, right, uh,

(11:27):
it's going to be like a personal mission of mine
to teach my kids how to be self sufficient and independent. Also,

(11:52):
you know, because of the fact that my parents are
in the entertainment industry and everything, I got to have
incredible experiences that a lot of people don't get to
have in their lifetime that I got to have before
I was the age of eight or nine years old,
traveling the world and you know, seeing incredible concerts and
having experiences that people work their entire life for, you know.

(12:16):
And luckily, my parents are extremely down to earth people
and always remember where they come from, whereas I've seen
that some other people in the industry are not, you know,
and it makes me sad and it makes me worry,
And especially when I see celebrities kids now in the
public eye in the world that we're growing up in,

(12:39):
you know, I worry for them. I I feel for
them because this is the craziest world we've ever been in.
When it comes to social media, and things like that.
I think that if you don't learn from a young
age to implement things in your life that you don't
want to do, yes, that's when it becomes really difficult

(13:02):
in your adult life. Because I had a entire peanut
gallery of people cheering me on and doing all the
things creative, wonderful, fun things that I wanted to do,
and when it came to the dirty work, you know,
they were all like, all right, you know, don't worry
about that. You know, you just do what you need
to do because you need to focus on this, which
is I appreciated and contributed to the musician and the

(13:25):
artists that I am today. But I do fall short
in a bunch of other areas because I feel like
the stuff that you have to do as a kid
with stuff that you liked, yeah, I mean I loved it.
It's not like it wasn't difficult work in its own
but it was all stuff that I was interested in.
And a part of life is knowing how to face

(13:48):
and deal with things that you're not interested in. In
my adult life, that contributed to me having a lot
of anxiety and sometimes with people in my life, there's
a disconnect because for example, even my dad, how can
you understand something like anxiety when you've been sleeping under
a truck. When you're a kid, you've built, you know,

(14:08):
your life from nothing. You know, you deal with difficulty
after difficulty, and then your kid, who has been taken
care of from the moment she's born, now she's anxious.
So yeah, I feel sometimes I feel guilty, I feel stupid.
But that's also another reason why I wanted to have
this conversation, because for me, the value is realizing that

(14:30):
perspective is everything and you have to have empathy for
yourself while also being self aware. Right. You know, my
mom was growing up as I was growing up. She
was a freaking kid. You know, I think about all
the time. I told her, just this morning goes like
I think back to the fact that you were nineteen
when I was born. I'm like, how how? But I
have the advantage of, you know, I feel like I

(14:54):
since I never idolized my parents to an unrealistic degree,
I felt way more secure in being myself a lot
sooner than most people I grew up with, Like I
like like the majority of people because I wasn't condled,
because I kind of had to grow up really fast.

(15:15):
I it was me from a very early age. You
know what else, um, I think influences how you grow up.
And you can agree or disagree your siblings. Oh my god,
whether you have siblings or not, you know how far
apart in age you are. Because my brother and I

(15:35):
are fifteen years apart, and I'm four years from my sister,
and then eleven years from the youngest, and then Peter,
my stepbrother. He's three and a half years older than
I am. So there was My house was always I
always had somebody. Usually it was Amber, my writer or
die uh, but sometimes it was Peter. And I feel

(15:56):
like that is also unnecessary experience. I am so against
single child households. You have no idea. Only child syndrome
is really real. It's really real. Just the mere concept
of having to split something that you really really want
and really really care for, even if it's a whatever,
right it it compares you. Yeah, though I never I

(16:20):
never thought the world revolved around me. In fact, I
think my mom went a little too far, I would
like to say, because when it was my birthday, she
would also get a gift for my sister. Oh yeah,
because she was like, I don't want them to get
you a gift. I'm sure she did, but of course
I don't remember that. I remember my sister getting a
gift on my birthday. I really think. Also, like, as

(16:42):
you get older and you see people around you that
at your age in the role of parents. I can
tell you that was freaky for me. At first It's like, oh,
my god, children having children, and then you really, wait
a minute, we're adults. But I don't think so. I
think that when your parents were children having children, and
our our generation and children having children, like we're actually children. Yeah,

(17:06):
we have to be. Our generation is way more immature,
which is fine because you know, easy for us to say,
we can't knock each other up. I know. I'm so
happy about that. By the way, I think, I think
that you would have already knocked me off. Hey, hey,
now the children are listening. I really hope the children
won't listen to our podcast like a rug. I know

(17:29):
you would, Thank God. Wobbly and Ship. Also, like that's
another thing about you know, your upbringing in life, like
we tried to shields kids from things like death and hardship.
Can the more that I've grown up like the things

(17:49):
that have taken me out. The hardest have been lost
and death and even I feel like in a lot
of Latin families even just the concept of letting go,
even if material possessions, you know, Like I remember my godmother.
I was talking to her the other day, I love you, Lenny,
no shout out um, And she's like, oh my god.
You remember when you were a kid and I would

(18:11):
come to your you know, your closet because you were
so deeply inside of it. Oh wow. I kind of
set that one up, didn't I. But um, yeah, I
mean I would hang out in my closet a lot.
M hmm. Interesting, I still do a recorded realization. I

(18:32):
would even in my diaper, like I would use it
in the in the closet. Wow. Oh. Anyway, So I
was talking to my god Rellas like, remember when I

(19:07):
used to go to clean out your closet with you,
and you'd be like, they would be empty pen caps
all over that didn't have any pens attached, and she
tried to throw them out and I'd be like, no,
I need those pangs. She's like, Mama, what do you
mean you need the pen caps? They don't have pens
attached to them. Wait, are you talking about the hoarding, yes,

(19:30):
like I okay, but I know that you laugh in
ha ha, And yes, I don't need three million T
shirts even though there are many uses in many occasions
where I can wear them. But you were she would
see her face right now, y'all, you wear the same
clothes all the time. What are you talking about that
you wear the same clothes on topic? And on topic

(19:53):
people listening right now, we can't talk about this. Go ahead,
congratulation accomplished, not very slight making. Okay, back to the
thousand T shirts and the pen caps that you don't
need because hoarding is hereditary. What I might be original,
the original point which what I was saying is that

(20:13):
even in a very subconscious way, I feel like a
lot of Latin families. Depending on your story and where
you come from, you know, we've lost a lot and
that comes with this psychological need to like hold on
to certain things and emotional attachment an immigrant unhealthy unhealthy things.

(20:33):
And I feel like those subconscious little things transfer over
to larger things in your life, like for example, you
saw it firsthand. I have a really difficult time with
loss and grief. Well, I think humans naturally do, right,
but that's my point. But I think that's like a
cultural you know, a cultural thing, because different cultures look

(20:55):
at death differently. You remember Captain Fantastic. I love gem
and I saw this movie Captain Fantastic. You should go
checknot recommend it more, not recommend parents parents to be children.
And it's obviously an overexaggerated metaphor in a way, but
it's honestly, it's very powerful and it has really impactful messages. Really,

(21:17):
I mean, I feel like it's impacted us a lot
because we talk about it. Yeah, it's which there's these
kinds of conversations that we haven't. By the way, self
awareness about these kinds of things is necessary and is
the road to incorporating it into the new version of
who you are instead of fighting yourself. Like I feel
like up until like my mid twenties, which I'm in

(21:40):
the latter half now. But you know, you when you
decide to change or you decide to analyze certain things,
that change can happen overnight. You know, and you say, well,
you say that all the time. I do. I do.
Change is a decision, Thank you. That means a lot
to me. It's true. I feel like we teach each
other a lot of things. I'm glad to hear that,

(22:01):
because I feel like you had a lot of value
to my life, that you teach me a lot of
lessons that I wouldn't have learned without you. So thank you.
Thanks baby too. I'll never thank you enough for teaching
me how to write that pogo stick? That's sounds so dirty? What? What?
What is wrong with you? Today? I was literally picturing
me on a pogo stick. We just went to circ

(22:24):
I was like, Okay, you just keep going. Lord here
I am saying, so you're so lovely. Yeah, anyway, And
I think it's interesting that you and I come from
so so different backgrounds in so many ways, but I
have so many similarities despite them, and want for a

(22:49):
lot of the same things despite them. And you know,
maybe that's the nature versus nurture argument, like how much
of it is you and how how much of it
is your upbringing? And there's there's value in having a
partner who had such a different experience, because I think
that that's what's allowed us to look back on our

(23:11):
upbringings and have gratitude for certain things that we experienced
and also release certain things that we feel don't serve
who we are and who we want to be in
this world. It's it's something that grow through what you
go through. Yeah, you have to embrace the growth, um,
because you're always better for it at the end. Anyway,

(23:31):
I think, no matter how hard it is to face
yourself and and acknowledge where your pains and your frustrations
and your bad habits come from you, you can do
it so lovingly towards yourself and towards the influence that
brought that behavior to your life. Anyway, Embrace the change.

(23:53):
Embrace strange. Don't you worry a thing about room is lame? No, well,
just layman strange, don't rhyme, but okay, embrace the change.
Tough to rain, nothing is impossible, and you've got your strange.

(24:14):
Oh no, okay last one, third type of charm. Okay three,
Embrace the change. Respect your name, Take down little sheep
and it was cooking on a bank. Extram out Thank
God incrementally words, Oh my gosh, wow. Well, thank you

(24:43):
for coming with us on this journey. Uh. It's not
always easy, but always necessary. I feel to have these
kinds of conversations. We encourage that you have them with yourself.
We encourage that you have them with your loved ones.
Um there's always something to learn, all right, Earthlings, Thank
you so much for flying with us today. We can't
wait to have you on board next week. And if

(25:05):
you want some fun extra content, follow us on in
our own World part on Instagram. This is a Moonflower
production in partnership with I Hearts Michael Duda podcast Network.
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