December 12, 2018 • 50 mins
Justin talks with pediatrician Dr. Jay Sutay about Holidays, How Big Should You Go For Christmas, and why cold medicine is no good for kids younger than 6.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
Listen to listen to that. ThankGod Chase that. Hello and welcome to
(00:37):
the Dad Podcast. I am yourhost, Justin Worsham with us again as
he is every month, is ourvery own resident pediatrician, stand up comedian,
all around good guy, Doctor Jaysute. How are you on the
spine day? Doctor Jay? I'mdoing terrific, justin. How about yourself?
I am excellent? We are we'reboth experiencing technical difficulties in our computer.
(01:00):
The laptop that I usually run thepodcast through in the studio now is
the email Uh software won't open,and so the links that I usually would
go check to so that we couldtalk about the fantastic articles that doctor Jay
has found are unavailable. Yeah,it's ridiculous. Maybe something's going on out
(01:21):
there, maybe is it? Doyou are you are you comfortable diagnosing computer
viruses? Is that part of yourdegree and or uh, you know area
of study? You know? Uh? I tell kids all the time,
you can't get HPD or herpies throughthe computer. It's not that kind of
virus. Okay, good oh man? And to h to add it all
(01:47):
to just on top of everything,and my my wife and I are having
a mild disagreement. Um, justabout life in general. I'm sure you
definitely can remember these days as aguy who's divorced. Have to do with
Christmas travel plan. I wish itwas more like the stereotypical thing, to
be honest, but it has moreto do with, um, what's the
(02:10):
I guess it has more dugeous lifelike I here's the thing. Well,
we'll talk about it for a briefmoment, but I don't think it's worth
wasting everybody's time about. But ummy, I walk through life trying to
get a lot of shit done.I've talked about it before that my love
language is acts of service, right, so that's what I do. And
(02:30):
um, And so the unfortunate partabout being married to somebody whose love language
is acts of service when your lovelanguage is not acts of service like most
love languages in relationships we are speakingdifferent languages, is that there's a lot
of like, well, why aren'tyou doing this for me? You know
kind of a thing. It's hard. It's I unintentionally put my wife in
(02:53):
a in a bad spot where everyonce in a while we have to have
a state of the union type situationwhere I say, well, let me
tell you about what you're not doing. Oh boy, oh boy. Yeah,
it's Marry Christmas, Happy New Year. So yeah about that. So
(03:14):
let me tell you that my girlfriend'slove language, which is a little better.
And we are both on the samepage because a couple of weeks ago,
we're sitting standing out on the backporch enjoying a cigarette and it was
cold out. So she came uplast night and when I got home from
work, she had already put ittogether. I now have one of those
(03:34):
gigantic propane heating element sources on myporch so we can comfortably enjoy a cigarette
without being chilled. Look at that. Look at that. And she's she's
flying me down with her to Miamifor her family's New Year. So I'm
going to go to Miami for fourdays. I'm not sure how that'll go,
but I'm getting on a plane.They're making me do it. So
(03:57):
you're going, you're going to spendChristmas in Miami. That's sounds wildly awesome.
Not Christmas. Not christ Oh mybad? Did if I said Christmas
for New Year's Eve twenty eighth tothe first? No, you probably said
New Year's Eve. And I'm I'mmildly distracted, to be honest, because
I'm also trying to find my adcopy. So you're going there just for
New Year's Eve? Are you stayinghome for the holiday for Christmas to be
with the daughters. Yeah, they'llcome up Christmas Day in the morning,
(04:23):
and then I'll go down to Milfordto see my girlfriend and her family in
the evening. Usually I get tojust stuff my face and sit on my
ass. Everybody comes to me,but not this year. Not this year.
Do the suits have any kind oflike traditions, the like a family
type thing or well, since myfamily was destroyed seven and a half years
(04:46):
ago, a lot of the traditionshave fallen by the wayside. But tradition
they I mean, they get togetherwith their mom and that side of the
family, see their cousins and stuffon Christmas Eve, but they both come
home the more morning. At ChristmasEve, we go out to a diner
that we like to go to andhave like a Christmas Eve breakfast together and
they go down stay over with theirmom and then come back Christmas morning around
(05:13):
eleven and then Christmas Day begins.So that's that's kind of that. My
sister comes up Christmas Day and uh, well, prior to my girlfriend,
I would spend Christmas Eve down playingthe slot machinetes at the mohegan Son.
So oh really that was how youwould You would go down there playing slots.
Well, I sent the kids totheir you know, same with Thanksgiving.
Yeah, holidays are to be aroundyour family and your cousins. You
(05:35):
don't get to see him. Thenwhen you're older, you never see him,
So enjoy it while you can.So when I had nothing going on,
I go to the casino. It'snot crowded, you get good parking
on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. It'ssad, but it's something to do that's
awesome. We we do, wedo the we always flip with the holiday
(05:56):
and I don't remember. Um,it's not like it's not about the Oh
I found it. I think Ifound what I was on before. Sim
It's not about the how do Isay, it's not about the traveling.
Traveling never seems to be an issuefor us, at least, It's always
about other stuff like just I don'tknow that. My mom once told me
that, you know, you getto a certain point where you don't want
(06:18):
you're gonna want to stay home forthe holidays, but we weren't there.
I mean, we had a lotof holidays where we were both working,
especially when I was in radio andNatalie was at the bank all the time,
where my parents would come down staywith us, and then Christmas morning
they would get up, we'd haveChristmas Morning here, and then they would
take the kids for the entire winterbreak. So I don't have a lot
to necessarily, you know, getstressed about that I can remember, but
(06:41):
I do remember early on in ourrelationship it was always kind of it seemed
that was my perception, but maybeit's tilted because I it was my family.
But I think my wife would agreeis that, you know, it
seemed kind of chill and relaxed atmy place, but they're always seemed tension
when we'd go over to her parents'plays. And so I came up with
the idea of saying, well,we're gonna flip. We're gonna flip holidays,
and we're gonna start now, becausethen we can let the fates decide
(07:05):
who gets the first Christmas with thebaby, and if it became too much
of an issue, then we wouldsplit it. But the way it shook
out was that my in laws gotthe first Thanksgiving, my parents got the
first Christmas, and everybody seemed okaywith it. We might have dipped by
because they were living closer to eachother if memory serves around Christmas. But
I don't know. It's just sofunny that you're you're right. You want
(07:27):
this time to be kind of likehanging out. You'd like for it to
be extended cousins, And I feellike there are more of us listening to
this that find this time to bemore stressful and hectic than they do find
it to be magical and rewarding.Does that make sense? Well, I'll
tell you. Until last night,I thought I was done getting Christmas presents
for my girlfriend. But now Ihave this gigantic keating element on my back
(07:50):
forward, So I gotta go backto the well, I gotta attack out
a few other things, you know, and times are wasted. Yeah,
it doesn't work for it because I'mnot a big gift guy either. Like
so I like with the kids,right, My family thankfully does like a
thing where it's always about the kidsaround around Christmas time. But but when
(08:11):
do they stop being kids? Minortwenty five and twenty seven and they expect
gifts. You know, I likethat I'm going to be married in a
year, and I get they sendme links to things on Amazon and other
websites as they're Christmas list, andas far as they're concerned, it's it's
just a shopping list for me,not something for me to to pick through
(08:33):
an pick a couple of items topurchase, or so when they're open in
the presence, they'll say, oh, I didn't get the pair of sneakers
that I asked for. Oh that'sinteresting, I see that's what your visa
gift card. How do you thinkit would go down, doctor j Do
you think your kids would obviously stillI mean, honestly, tell me the
(08:56):
truth in your this is not thereality. This is in your perception,
doctor Jay. If you were tonot purchase anything at all for your daughters
around Christmas time, Uh, doyou think that that would so would end
their love for you? Or wouldit be like hey, are you okay?
Like are you sick? Like?What? Do you think their honest
reaction would be no judgment at allif you think that just to put the
(09:20):
list of everything that I've given tothem money wise or gift wise throughout the
year and put it in a boxand wrap it and just say Christmas is
all year for your dad. Here'swhat you got last year, you know,
like you get the credit card statement. The one who sends me to
list and wines about not getting thingson the list. I loaned a sizeable
(09:43):
bit of money for her and herfiance to purchase a home last spring.
I say Christmas was taken care of, but apparently not. Yeah, yeah,
you just send dollars for a depositfor the photographer for the wedding.
Here's your goddamn Christmas. But allabout the kids. But when we're still
talked at twenty five and twenty seven, Yeah, and the and the fiance's
(10:05):
the poor bastard. His birthday ison Christmas, so he gets screwed out
of a one of the other picket. You know, he's not getting two
gifts at Christmas. He's getting theChristmas and Birthday gift all wrapped into one.
Well, you'll excuse me if Itake a moment to provide a word
for one of our sponsors here.But I think if you want something else
(10:26):
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(10:46):
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I get excited. I've always beenimpressed about how the kids like this food
(11:11):
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(11:31):
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On the West coast, you canget vegetarian Mediterranean, and that's just
(11:52):
I know that there's a family one. Uh what else? You get eighteen
recipes to choose from each week,so you get to pick one. All
of the recipes take about thirty minutesto make. They even if you're looking.
This is what I think the keyis for sun Baskets and why they
came to us at the Dad Podcastis because if you're the person making all
the meals for the family, youhave to realize that you get in a
(12:13):
rut right where you're just like whatam I going to make? The kids
don't like everything. But what you'redoing is you're displacing this onto somebody else.
Like what I literally do is theygo what's for dinner? I go,
oh, We're having a sun basketand I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes
the kids go oh man, andit's mostly because they want to go out
right. But when I do makewhen I do make the sun baskets.
What ends up happening is I givethem the little portions and that and I
(12:37):
help them make it. If thekids don't have homework. There's a little
section in the cookbook where it sayskids can and it tells the things that
they can do while you're cooking themeal. And it's great. I know
it sounds super sappy and super cheesy, but it's because it works. When
you're in there, you get tohang out talk with a kid, they're
learning a little bit about cooking,they're seeing what you do, and when
they're involved in the cooking process.I'm sure a ton of you would agree
(12:58):
with this, they're more likely totry the food. Even if it's something
that they traditionally don't like, theywill at least take a bite. They
have something to do with making it. They're going to eat it. Yeah,
correct, And even you would agree, Doctor Jay is that if you
could get that bite and then andthe stars do a line, they like
it. They're like, oh,this is good. And I think psychologically
they're more likely to enjoy it whenthey when they've seen the ingredients and everything
that's gone that's gone into it.And three weeks. You occupy their time
(13:22):
so they're not up your ass whileyou're cooking perfectly, said doctor Jay.
That's great. Oh man, Ishould add you do all these live reads
before with me, Doctor Jay.What I like about to listen. One
other thing is it's a different situationat my house. It's one sad,
lonely man sitting over a stove cookingfor thirty minutes and then eating a dinner
(13:43):
for a family, family for itself. Well, you get a situation,
but it works. You tweak yourorder. You could tweak it to where
it's just a meal for at leasttwo. Uh. And what's nice about
it is it's so healthy. Ittrusts me. The meals are so healthy
that even if if you ate foodfor two, it's not like you're you're
gonna be in blimping out because it'sall like it's there's a ton of ship
(14:05):
me kale. Yes, there's theyhave the packageale. I don't know.
You know, I recently got ashipment and it was the recipe. What
they do is they make adjustments onthe recipes if the ingredients have been recalled,
and they they give you a noteand stuff all that. Yeah,
yeah, they did send me iceberglettuce. I had a chicken larb and
(14:26):
I've this is the third time I'vehad the chicken larb, and to be
honest, I do not like theThai fish sauce that comes with it.
So what I did was I replacedthe Thai fish sauce with either some soy
or also a healthy option as cocoaaminos. It's uh, it's it's like
soy sauce or worces sauce, butit's made with coconut proteins and it's really
good and your kid chicken larb isreally good. That's just what the Thai
(14:52):
land people want. But anyway,point is check out sun Baskets. I
like it because at least three mealsthat week, you know, are gonna
be healthy, you know, aregonna expand your kid's palette. Go to
sunbasket dot com slash Dad podcast forthirty five dollars off your first order.
Again, sunbasket dot com slash DadPodcast thirty five dollars off your first order.
Thank you, doctor Jay. Uh. Well, while we're on this
(15:13):
holiday kick of talking about the holidaysand how stressful they are, you found
this interesting article which I think isa good microcosm of what America is today.
What I like about the headline ofit is says mom traversy like controversy,
but with moms. The montroversy ishow many Christmas presents should you give
(15:35):
your kids? And it didn't reallygo into a lot of research. It
was more kind of anecdotal stuff wherethey talked about like different They have a
table which had the age of thechildren. Did it give age specificity?
It broke it down by our group? But I didn't see zero there.
Should it should be a townward slopingline graph, is what you're saying.
(15:56):
Yes, that's what I'm saying.That's what I'm asking. Oh I forgot
to say this while you're talking aboutit, But then we'll go back to
the articles. My brother in lawhas a great way philosophy about this.
What he does is he says,you will get presents from Santa as long
as you believe in Santa. Andso it's this fun, playful game to
do it where you know, thekids start turning thirteen fourteen, and they'll
be talking to each other and they'llsay, no, Santa's not real,
(16:18):
and he goes, what's that?They go, I love that's right.
Your father isn't going out shopping foryou. But and here's the thing.
What I find interesting is that thevery person listening to this right now,
I realize this and recently that Italk to the people listening, but very
rarely do people listen to podcasts ingroups. But my point is, the
(16:41):
person listening to this right now hasto there's going to be some kind of
representation of either side of this spectrumor in the middle. But like,
there's a woman who said that Christmaswas a big deal when she was growing
up, so she continues the tradition. She has a five and two year
old and she estimates that each kids, each of her kids receive twenty gifts.
(17:02):
Twenty gifts, Yeah, I wouldsay as far as the suite girls
at that age, because Christmas wasa big deal for me, I'd say
that's probably pretty close. Yeah,my kids used to get which is why
I haven't been able to wean themoff the tea. Yeah, you gotta
(17:22):
be careful once they start getting aboutfour or five and they remember. And
it's it's interesting because my wife andI do it. We've always been I
think pretty good about it. Weonly do two to three gifts each.
And what we do is we tryto figure out, like because we got
two kids, and you know,even though I grew up with a stepbrother
and stepsisters, there's so much olderthan I am, and so are my
wife's siblings that it's really hard,I think for us, and not really
(17:45):
hard, but you know what Imean, like really hard. I'm constantly
thinking a perspective right now, Likeit's okay to say really hard justin but
it's difficult to figure out, likehow to make it fair. So kind
of what we've done is if somebodyseems to have a really big want,
like whatever, something that they wouldreally like, then we kind of use
that to set a budget. Butwe always keep our budget around seventy five
to one hundred dollars each kid.And and here's why. And I'm sure
(18:10):
I tell the story every year.And if so I fifty dollars Apple watch
I bought for my daughter was alittle pricey hack, it would be for
the Worshams. It would be forthe Worshams. And here's what I think
it. But it's like even thiswoman who's talking about twenty gifts, that's
not a big deal to her becauseshe that's you know, that's the that's
her perspective, right, that's allshe knows. She's a she's a blind
(18:32):
baby tiger. Of them are books. That's terrific, right, exactly.
That's the thing. See, weall we all say, oh, ten
to twenty or twenty gifts each.We don't know. Maybe maybe the ten
of those are individually wrapped candy itemsin the stocking, right, and then
it's ten like box gifts. Wealways in our minds, we go,
she's been in like ten those aregot to be at least twenty dollars each.
We don't know, We don't know, And the only reason that you
(18:53):
would do because that's so what's fascinating. The person listening to this is either
going, yeah, that's normal andthey're laughing at me and my cheap skateways
of spending seventy five dollars to onehundred for three gifts, right, or
they're going that's insane, like whydo why do people do that? And
it's because it's all what we grewgrew up with, right. It's either
you grew out a budget with mygirls. I said a budget, yeah,
(19:15):
and I try to keep it even. But if I'm not even I
even it out at the end withthe visa gift card, you know what
I mean, that's what I spentthat way. I know I'm spending the
same amount on both of them,because trust me, these two bitches will
get a calculator figure it out forthemselves if I go so well. And
(19:36):
it's funny because the we Here's whyI'm not big on the gifts. I
think is that when my when Iwas young and my parents first got divorced,
my mom went whole hog around Christmastime. Like literally, I had
the entire It was probably at leasta twelve to fifteen foot long hallway that
was stacked three boxes high with presents. There were robots, remote control cars,
(19:56):
like so much stuff that I canliterally all reever. Oh gosh,
Nintendo stuff like my mom was alwaysreally good at that. You don't count
them, No, I did not. I did not get solved, although
I'd get the occasional like shirt andsweater for mom, but she was always
good about making that. What No, go ahead, let me, I'll
(20:18):
finish up after you. I justhad a question, I thought, oh
so, But the point was isthat first year my dad couldn't afford anything
because of the divorce, like hekept the house and so he had to
buy her out of the house.And I'm sure there was a retirement and
while you well, you know,yeah, you know how it goes,
so yeah, but that was alsothe year that memory serves, we had
just read the Polar Express or somewhereat school, and so I thought it
(20:41):
would be cool if I was becauseI was doubting Santa and is whether or
not he was real. So Iasked Sanna if I could just have a
piece of his sleigh bells for Christmas, just so I would know he's real.
And then I didn't really need anythingelse, and my dad had got
me a couple of cars, andI will never forget for the rest of
my days when I picked up thatsmall box and it jingled, and I
(21:03):
lost my damn mind. And thennow as a father, I'm ringing my
sleigh bells. Oh that's cool,that's awesome, that's great. I think
actually I have mine in here,because um I recently last Christmas. I
wonder if I took him. Ihope I took him back it. Nope,
they're right here. Uh, theseare those same bells. All it
is I'm looking at it is literallya piece of leather, like a strap
(21:26):
of leather with five three five bellsI think, and one of the bells
has fallen off for the past thirtyyears plus. Yeah. So when I
when I got Rodney, you,I have it hung on the back door,
and I was trying to teach himto, you know, bell with
(21:48):
his nose to yeah and uh yeah, that never worked. Sleigh bells are
still on the back door a yearround. But he just barks at me
when he wants to go out nowso, and there is nothing good about
this dog's bark. He has themost ear piercing, the high pitched bark,
and you just want to punch somethingto say. But it always seems
(22:08):
like a good idea on paper untilyou start realizing that they're like, we
have a dog that scratches, andyou're like, oh, that's great because
it's not barking. But then youthere's there's also an annoyance of hearing the
scratching every time it wants to come, and carrying the door and regaining I
had to put a little like metalplate on the outside of the door because
she gets you bet you last houseI had one of those. That was
(22:30):
Stanley's way of letting me know.He would go to the door and scratch
at it, which is such aconvenience, you know what I mean,
when you have a dog that knowshis bladder and how long it takes Yep,
it's great. But so anyway,so I opened these bells and it
was such a big thing. Theother part of why gifts I think aren't
a big deal for me. AndI don't honestly say this to say that
I think I'm better because left's giftsand afore I'm more wholesome, like he
(22:53):
could easily be argued that this isjust a I'm cheap and it's just a
way of rationalizing my frugalness in myscrooge like ways. But but my dad,
but you pass that on to yourkids too, so they'll they'll also
see Christmas as a h you know, a more traditional type of Christmas.
You know, we got with theover abundance of of of gifts that I
(23:18):
feel like each year it's up tome to bow before my daughters and place
the gifts in front of them liketheir royalty offering to the gods. Hey
did you do you do you everhave anybody that would like buy you something
that requires batteries, and then theyalso wrap the batteries. Yes, yep,
(23:40):
yeah that isn't that the most horriblething, because what are you going
to do? Yopa, the firstthing it's batteries, you know, thanks,
thanks Grandma for the back film fora camera, Thanks Grandma, you
know yeah, and you know youget a camera somewhere in the pile.
You know, no mystery it isthat you're right. There is no upside
to wrapping the batteries. I guessthe traditional move is that you gotta either
(24:03):
have the batteries and then deliver themonce all the presents are done, because
then then it's like, oh,I got all these presents, but we
don't have any D batteries, right, and then you get to come out
and go all but do we boomand make it rain? Then I buy
the multi pack of all different batterieswhen the kids were little, because you
never know, right, like Igot the same I mean, it's it's
(24:25):
hilarious. It's Santa Claus in aphone booth. It's a snow globe,
but it has a motor in itand a light to make the snow move
around all the time. Yeah,so I buy two of them. I
buy two of them, one forme and one I was going to give
to Aunt. Larry already gave itto Aunt. I give her a goddamn
snow globe. She brings me afurnace for my back porch. But all
(24:45):
besides the point and too from thesame place order him at the same time.
They come from the same delivery inthe same box. He opened up
the bottom where the batteries are twodifferent set up. One's double A one
C h. What do you makeof that? Yeah, do you make
(25:06):
of that? That's that's an exactitem. But the battery pack at the
bottom is different. And you don'thave seed batteries in your house, traditional
you really don't. You side togo out and by god damn C batteries.
How does a little snow globe needC batteries too? Like? Or
is it bigger? And it's likeit's like ten inches tass Okay, that's
a little bit bigger the size ofus of a it's it's a it's a
(25:27):
little phone booth that says Merry Christmas, and Sanna's in there. I don't
know why, because nobody knows whata goddamn phone booth is anymore? So
where do you come down? AndI know that there's lots of things that
fall into the pediatrician purview, likelike psychology, like counseling and stuff,
But where do you come to?This is an interesting thing that I've talked
(25:48):
about this on the show before,and I recently did a segment on Gary
and Shannon about a psychologist. Ithink I'm gonna talk about it. Actually
on a later episode of this showis a psychologist broke down why you should
not lie to your kids about Santa. And but the reason I bring it
up is that when I was talkingto another parent about this, they brought
(26:10):
up this thing that I think comesaround Facebook every year, which is everybody
needs to kind of do the sociallyconscious thing of saying no big gifts from
Santa, right because what you don'twant to have the kid and we don't
think about it, right because there'sa winter break, but you don't want
to just go back to school.Oh what did Santa bring you? Oh?
He got me a PS four andan oculus And what did you get?
Oh, I got a remote controlcar for that's like three inches like
(26:33):
or you know what I mean,or he got me some candy, like,
because everybody's financial situation is different,so you always make the big gift,
like if you were going to theApple watch, that comes from you,
from you, and then maybe thevisa gift card comes from Santa.
Kind of a thing, right,And we used to do that actually when
the kids were little, we justpile everything under the tree and we would
(26:56):
have on the tags from Santa andthen there were you know, things that
were from mom and dad too underthe tree. So um, you know,
it was a little a little likethat, and I think that's a
good thing to do. Um.Now, I hope my daughters in their
twenties know that everything comes from me, even what they get from their mother,
because I'm paying for it. Ilike cynical doctor Jay around the holidays.
(27:22):
That's a lot of fun. Yeah, and I remind them of it.
That's what it's, you know,who to go to. I mean,
I look all right, see I'mone of those dads. Unfortunately,
both of my daughters when they gottheir UH savings and checking account, I
was signed on with them. Sowhen I checked my bank balances, their
bank balances pop up as well.And my panic that my twenty seven year
(27:45):
old has eight dollars and eighty centsin her checking account. Yeah, oftentimes
I ended up throwing a honey theirway, just because I don't want them
to get stuck paying thirty seven bucksbecause they're overdrawn. Wow, that's a
good dad, man, That isa good good dad. You're saying.
You know what, it's fun mydaughter. My daughter's paying me back the
money that I loaned them to putdown on the house. And she started
(28:07):
it, and we would go andyou know, every month she gives me
an amount that will be paid offprobably when I'm ninety, but whatever.
She has been doing it consistently,and this past end of the month she
did it as well. But thentwo days later said, Dad, can
I take my two hundred dollars back? I'm going to run short on other
things. So I figured a coupleof weeks later, she get a couple
(28:30):
of paychecks, she paid me backthe two hundred she gave me that I
sent back to her, and shesaid, oh, no, I thought
we were just going to skip thismonth. No, you're not skipping any
goddamn months. The Bank of Jaydoes not skip months. This is an
interesting concept that I don't know happensin the father son dynamic, but I
(28:51):
bet you it happens all the timeand the father daughter dynamic, and that
I'm listening to this, and allI could think about is how difficult you
are may their future husband's life.And here's what I mean when you have
a borderline, and it's not somethingwe see in civilization, when you have
somebody who's a hardcore mama's boy ora mom who's like just on top of
everything, and there's no way thattheir wife could keep up with everything that
(29:15):
that young man's mother did for them, right, And so it's just this
constant like expectation of like, oh, well, this is what my or
my mom made it this way,you know what I mean. Like,
I feel like there's lots of examplesof that. I don't but it's hard
to see when it's the other wayaround, when dad is always taking care
of things financially. But do youthink because you got one that's engaged,
do you think that in the modernera of man? Right this this is
(29:37):
a mid twenties I'm guessing your oldgentleman who's about to write your daughter,
he is he doesn't wrestle with likegreatest generation doomsday man who's like, no,
I will provide for your daughter.I will show you that I'm worthy
of taking care of her in herhand in marriage. Like he's like,
oh cool, bonus. It's likeit's like bonus awry because dad's a doctor.
(30:03):
Right. Well, I try notto do that often, but I
think you know you have just likeyou're response, they're going to cut your
phone off if you don't pay yourbill every month. It's another responsibility and
letting her get by that one timewith me expecting when she got her next
paycheck she'd pay me, but shewas just skipping a month that that isn't
what it's all about in real life. So I'm gonna make her pay double
(30:27):
next month to make up for whatshe didn't pay this month. But do
you think, and you're at all, do you think that he's he's got
a tough road to home because hehas to take care of her and keep
her in the lifestyle of which sheis accustomed as a divorce man is well
aware. Well, I don't.All I know is the day I got
(30:47):
married, I stopped getting Christmas presentsand like a check from my dad every
once in a while, so youknow I'm here, they know I'm here.
If it's catastrophic, I'm always goingto help them. But you know,
she's she's this third grade school teacherwith the masters. I mean she's
paying off the master's degree now.Because I said I would pay for college,
(31:08):
I didn't say anything about secondary education, so graduate school. But but
I mean, they both, youknow, they both make under a hundred
thousand dollars a year, and youknow, probably between the two of them
they probably pull in one hundred andfifty thousand, and they have reasonable mortgage
payments, and you know, theykeep their bills low and everything, and
(31:30):
you know, financially it should befine. And the amount of money I'm
taking from them every month is it'sreally a small amount. I'm trying to
stretch it out over five or sixyears for them, so it's not a
big deal, but it's something thatyou got to pay. And then my
other daughter, the twenty five yearold that's living with me, she tells
me the other day, you're gonnalove this justice, she tells me,
(31:52):
Dad, I paid off one ofmy credit cards and I cut it up
into little pieces and I threw itinto garbage, and I said, that's
great, hunt, I said,so, how much do you have on
your other credit cards? How muchmore do you have to go to pay
them off? She told me twelvethousand dollars on a credit card, which
she's paying like the minimum for everymonth. And I'm like, I paid
(32:15):
for four years of college out ofmy own hard ear and money, my
sweat, blood and tears, soyou wouldn't graduate from college with death.
And you're telling me you got twelvethousand dollars on your credit card and you're
paying like twenty eight percent interest onit. You are a freaking idiot.
Yet we should paid off one,We should paid off the one. I
(32:37):
said, I would throw those.I would take your credit cards with those
balances now and I would throw themaway, don't ever use them again for
anything, and just pay for soI only had except for when I was
paying for college and I had touse a lot of smoking mirrors. I
never had a balance on my creditcard. I would pay my credit card
(32:58):
every month. But after the divorce, two kids in college, you know
I needed a little bit. Butdid I ever pay a bit of interest?
No? I kept bumbling up andputting it on a new credit card.
That had had eighteen months of nointerest, so it was good.
It was good to have a lotof credit then because I could roll it
and then pay it off without interest. I have eighteen months to pay it
(33:20):
off, and it worked. Youknow, I was able to to do
it without them having any loans orme having any loans. But then to
just what the what the hell areyou buying that? You know, first
of all, she lives here sincelast April. Okay, she's not even
paying rent anymore. Yeah, shouldbe banking it. If if I had
the time and opportunity, I'd beworking two jobs and I'd be living home
(33:45):
and I'd be banking the money.But it's hard, right, It's hard
to get that perspective install like,to instill it in their brain because until
they've done it. This is whyI'm such a huge advocate for UH and
I again, I I'm not judgingin any way, shape or form anyone
because I have not done this yetso mostly but even when I have done
(34:07):
it, I'm sure it will haveits own shortcomings. But is the the
idea of trying to get that kidout of the house when they're eighteen?
Like, Because as much as it'snot yep, yep. And that's the
thing. It's like you said,as soon as you got married, the
Christmas gifts stop coming and everything.Is that that reminded me is that there
was we moved out. We've beenmoved out for probably I want to say,
(34:28):
three to six months, and allof a sudden I started putting tuned
together. I was like, howare you putting gas in your car?
Like asking my wife and go,oh, my parents gave me a gas
card and I was like, youknow, we live on our own,
Like you gotta you gotta separate fromthem. This is this is we're growing
up, man, we gotta wegotta do it. Because but see I
was explaining it to her because itwas kind of important to me. But
(34:50):
it was also because I always knewthat was part of the deal when I
grew up, like as my dadconstantly my mind. You know that's too
it people get married is people allgrow up in different ways, and you
know, you got to know howthe person you're marrying is with, you
know, money and credit cards andthat before you say I do. Fortunately,
you know the X was pretty frugalduring the marriage, but really,
(35:14):
you know, tipped into the theassets after so you know, it's it's
tough. And you know, youget married, everything your your your spouse
is uh debt, debt is yourdebt now, so it's crazy. It's
crazy, you know. And andwhen you get divorce, your spouse is
debt is your debt too because you'rethe only one making money right so,
(35:37):
uh, you know it's like tobe getting divorced and having to write a
checkout to your soon to be anex wife's attorney. That's pretty bad.
I would imagine like you're paying theguy who just howes you for her for
half of what you are. That'sgreat, exactly, that's great. Uh,
(35:57):
here's the thing, let's talk alittle. As anytime money comes up,
I always recommend that people go checkout The Total Money Makeover by Dave
Ramsey. It changed my finances andmy life. You could read the book
in an afternoon if you skip allof the like kind of the testimonials like
and just get to the information.He also has a podcast, which is
a great thing to listen to whileyou're doing it. It keeps you motivated,
(36:19):
keeps you going. But I wouldnot be as financially comfortable as I
am now if it weren't for that, and I'm not. Trust me,
I'm not financially independent by any stretchof the imagination. I would strongly encourage
everybody to continue. They're paid subscriptionof the show, because it ain't paying
my bills. But I wish youheard about the fire movements by r Oh
yeah, still independence, retire early, Yes, yeah, that's what the
(36:42):
twenty sumpans are doing now. They'rebanking their money so they don't have to
work after fifty Yep, yep,you can do it me, I missed
out on the fire. Oh yeah, we'll see. That's That's what I'm
trying to build now is I'm hopingreal estate can help me get to a
point where I can retire, buildup in a passive income to higher in
the next ten years and then.But I can't imagine if I'm doing this
(37:04):
podcast for twenty years. I hopeI don't have to stop. But we'll
see. The point is, damnit, at some point you better make
some money off it. So peoplesign up for the podcast, right,
Okay, we got to take careof justin here. Well, if they're
listening at this point, they've alreadysigned up. But done with college kids
college in the future. Help thisman. No, they know, they
know I have paid a dime formy kids college education. I'm actually,
(37:25):
you know, it's funny. Myson has recently changed. He no longer
wants to be a professional football player. Now he wants to work at Marvel
with comic books, which so I'mI'm wrestling with this idea of I don't
want to be too much of that. Dad. I'm using quotes to where
I'm directing him. But what I'mtrying to teach him about is saying,
well, if you if comic booksare what you want to do, instead
(37:45):
of trying to get a job whereyou work for saying Marvel, Like,
maybe get a job as a youngkid working in a comic book store to
see if you could cultivate a businessof your own or something along those lines.
Some classes on graphic design and dothat. Yes, he's got to
get into the industry, right,goddamn colored pencils for Christmas stuff? Yeah
right, get him gets pad andsome pencils for Christmas. Well, I'm
(38:09):
a good daddy. You know youdon't start that. Those skills you're never
gonna be you listen, everybody,but those kind of skills if you're born
with or you're not. I haveno abilities like that. I can paint
a beautiful picture by with my words, but I cannot do anything artistic in
that manner. He's pretty good.I mean, obviously he's young, so
(38:30):
he's got a lot to a longway to go. But I think what
he might actually be interested in thewriting or but I think what he really
likes is just the culture of it. So that's why there's a local comic
book shop like there is everywhere thathe's you know, a big fan of
So as a gift to him,I bought a membership there. It costs
only it's only twenty five bucks forthe year, and he gets a discount
(38:50):
on the comics. He buys allhis own comics with his money, and
he gets a pull miss so wheneverthe new ones come out, they set
it aside and he loves it.So Mike told him today, I said,
you know what you should do isas you get a little older,
you should volunteer to come in andhelp Jay out at the store. Like
to not go in there expecting money, but say hey, can I just
be around this and I go andyou can learn about the business side and
learn more about comics and get kindof an inside perspective by working with him.
(39:15):
But hey, I had I havemy own regular comic bookstore. I
haven't been there quite as often sinceI had a clothes teenage daughters because I
couldn't afford him. But I wasthere every Wednesday afternoon when the new comics
came in. It was like myWednesday afternoon routine was to be hanging out
into Comics Book Score waiting for thenew ones to commit. As an adult,
(39:36):
I did that. That's awesome.I think it's great. Like,
you know, a lot of peoplelike I'm not gonna lie, there's a
lot of guys in there that fitthat nerd stereotype where it's like I've been
in there on a Tuesday afternoon andthey're there, and I've been there on
a Thursday night and they're also there, Like you know, like they just
kind of hang out there and youkind of wonder, like how do you
pay the bills? But I'll trynot to get too much on all.
(39:57):
I can tell you I kind ofI kept out during the Pokemon phase because
there were more little kids in thecomic bookstore buying Pokemon cards and all that
stuff. Then there were geeks lookingat comic books. It really the whole
collectible thing in the late nineties kindof took over, so it was a
whole different environment. Then. Yeah, it's interesting because there are That's what
(40:20):
I thought when I was in there, that there were more adults than there
were ever children, Like easily mykids are usually the only kids in that
space when when they're at the comicbookstore. Hey, let's let's shift gears
a little bit and talk a littlescience, because I am fascinated to get
your take on this other article thatyou see. You have a luncheon.
I do have a luncheon, butI'm gonna well, you tell me if
(40:42):
this is not enough time. Ifigured we could spend about ten minutes on
this. Uh is? But thankyou? Is the over the counter cough
medicine. This to me is reallyreally interesting. Is that there seems not
a new study, right, tellme if I'm wrong. There's a new
paper, and a paper means thata doctor has either an opinion or if
they form some kind of like independentstudy on their own, but maybe doesn't
(41:04):
don't have like thousands of people thatthey've tried this on. Is that fair
to say. Right, So apaper is like an editorial from a doctor
based on there, so you couldqualify this, or it could be you
know, the paper could be commentingon a study that's been done and just
you know, uh, they havethe data from the study and they're given
their opinions. So okay, well, and I hope I don't want to
cause alarm with parents, but Ido, so you know, take this
(41:27):
for what you will, and we'llget doctor J to officially weigh in on
this. But basically, what they'resaying is that, which I don't think
is new information, but that overthe counter cold medicine is not good for
kids under six, which is thestandard rule as it is, right,
Yes, yeah, I say fourto six if they're if they're recommended it,
you can you can get vibe.It's more of a weight thing than
(41:49):
anything else. But yes, Iwould say I'm comfortable recommending it kids over
six, but I usually recommend youknow, honey, and you know,
throat lozenges and humidifier and nasal suctionand stuff. We use those contraptions.
Now what you could, yeah,suck from you you like a straw,
(42:10):
Suck your own kids out of theirnose. No, I haven't seen it
where they have a little catch basketin the middle. Oh god, I
don't trust it. Oh god,Oh, I don't know why that made
me that they that made me gaga little bit. Not necessarily the snot
because I've been snotted on and I'msure some of it. Lots of things
(42:30):
have been in my mouth. Let'suse that as a drop, right.
But then the idea that the ideaof just drinking out of your kid's head
is the part that made me agas Yep, yep, yep. I
believe always usable sup the bulb suckerthat we had great success with even well
into like where they're three or fouryears old. I use that thing and
they hate it too. That's thebest part because you can use that to
(42:52):
threaten them that you'll use it ifthey don't figure out how to blow.
Yeah, it's so funny. You'reright, because I do. I have
to get the blue thing true.But what's interesting is is that I and
my question for you to give everybodythe kind of the explanation, is that
the ingredients that are in these coldmedicines, it turns out that they don't
(43:16):
really have enough of effect on theactual sinuses or nasal cavity might be a
way to describe it. But theyalso come with a great risk of damaging
or causing harm to say the intestines. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah,
And also that some of the medicines, the ones that can contain the
(43:37):
dextermatoraphan, I mean, kids canget a buzz on dextromathoraphan. It can
also cause visual disturbances and hallucinations ifyou take too much of it. So
you know, the cost is therebecause something is either needing to come out
of your lungs or something is drippingdown your throat that we want to keep
out of your lungs. So thecost is physiologically. It's doing what it's
(44:00):
supposed to be doing. Why arewe suppressing it? And that's the thing
is that the uh, the ideaas a parent is that you're always seeking
quiet, and so the colu dosomething for them. Your kid is sick,
you want to do something for themto make them feel better, when
what makes them feel better is threeto five days. Yeah, and uh.
(44:20):
This article also quotes what you toldus already about honey. It says
there's some evidence to back the ideaof honey for a cough. One review
of studies found that when it comesto treating coughing and kids, honey was
probably using quotes better than a placeboand maybe no better or worse than dextrama
thorphin. And if you lose uselocal honey and your kid has allergies,
(44:43):
it'll help to desensitize them to someof the spring and fall allergens that float
around. Wow, because the beehoney, if it's local, it's going
to have all the local blooming pollenin it. And it's a good way
to build up resistance to allergies.And so is this article intended to do
under a year? Though right,use honey under a year? It does
(45:04):
say that it says that you well, let me scroll down to that part.
It says, just be sure younever give honey to kids younger than
one year old. There's a slightchance that honey could cause potentially fatal botulism
in babies that young, but oncethey hit age one, there's stomach acid
is strong enough to eliminate the riskposed by the sweetener. Bernstein set so
that that doctor Wigs agrees with you. Doctor, I'm sorry, yes,
(45:25):
yeah, that's important. I shouldhave said that sooner, but yeah,
one and up, honey is greatand kids don't like the texture of honey,
so you put it in a littlewarm tea or something whatever. It
just it seems to help. Anddicks on the feet in the back and
running a humidifier and an extra pillowand you know that's that's you know what
(45:47):
you gotta do. And maybe youget fever control with tail and all or
advil that's taken in the right dosesand the right time in between, you
know, harmless. But again,the fever is your bodies are spots too
an infection, and the heat ispart of the killing process for whatever it
is that's causing your your fever.So you know too you want to be
(46:07):
comfortable, but you know, thefever isn't The height of the fever is
not necessarily correlating with the severity ofthe illness either. So um, you
know, I think we worry aboutthree temperatures. You feel all right,
you're a little warm, and cheese, you're burning up. Those are the
three temperatures. And my question toyou about this is that is this article
(46:31):
intended more to be like for parentswho have say a four year old and
they're like, yeah, it's fine, just give him like half a dose.
Or is it kind of alluding tothe fact that maybe even after six
because it doesn't really I don't seehow age has a difference in this,
that maybe even after six there isn'ta lot of benefit to say, a
cough medicine. Well, I mean, do you take the like tailanoil,
(46:54):
cloth and cold or add will coldand flu when you're sick. Big thing
is I will take a muddle throughthe day. I take a decongestent.
But mainly what I do is Itake about six thousand milligrams of vitamin C
and drink a ton of water.Like that's my go to. But if
you have to go to work andyou don't want to be sniffling and you
(47:15):
don't want to have a fever becauseyou gotta get up and you got to
go to work, uh, youtake that alurs but you know it makes
it helps you get through. Imean, I'd be lying to you if
I didn't say that. I've gota big box of admal cold and flew
right up on my counter there.Sometimes you know, I get I get
exposed to everything. My my mything is I never get sick, like
(47:37):
I never get a fever. ButI have to settle that I'm going to
have a baseline congestion three hundred andsixty five days a year that never changes,
never gets better, never gets worse. So I never get like an
illness. I never have to liein bed with a fever. It's a
good year. Since thats has Yourimmune system is like a crucible h it's
(47:58):
wrapped up big times. Yeah.The so, so, your your thing
is is that this is probably morejust to say, hey, if your
kid's not under six, don't evendon't even try it, than it is
to say that there's no real benefitto cold medicine. Right, And you
know, my my spiel is theother the things I said, the honey,
the vix, the humidifier, proppingup the head and sucking out the
boogies and making sure they stay hydrated. You know, you don't have to
(48:22):
worry about your kid eating when they'resick, but they got to drink,
and they got to drink not justwater, but water, you know,
sugared water, kool Aid, gatorade, opsicle stuff like that, just so
not only yeah, you want tokeep their hydration up you want to make
sure that they don't get low bloodsugar, because they can have that happen
if they're not eating for a dayor two. But they'll live without eating
(48:45):
for a day or two. Theyjust eat sugar and water. Yeah all
right, Well, excellency, nailthe duck and a good stomach bug is
better than going to the gym twicea week. So that's very true.
It's it always seems like a femininethought to me, But I'd be lying
if I didn't say, like,if I go for I'm like, oh
man, this is gonna be sogreat. It's so easy to lose weight.
(49:07):
But it always comes right back.Yes, yeah it does. And
you know when I when I to, I always blow a vessel in one
of my eyes. So next weekor a half, it looks like I
was in a street fight and you'rea little gray, little baggy eyes.
Yeah. That's good times. That'sgood times for everybody. All right,
Well, we're gonna we're gonna callit there because I do I have to
(49:28):
go. I have a lunch meetingand uh the due to technical difficulty and
uh my mild merrilto difficulty, wegot a late start. Thank you,
as always doctor Ja do over forget. You can follow doctor J at doctor
J Sute on Twitter. You couldalso check out stand up Pediatrician dot com
to find out if he's coming toa city near you. If you are
in the Northeast area, especially visitingfamily around the holidays maybe or something like
(49:52):
that, look to see if youcan go catch a doctor J show.
Uh, it's a it's a goodtime and I'm obviously a big fan,
and so is everybody listening. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
I wish you would, Mary,Mary. I don't know when this
is gonna air, but all ofthe staying frosty people out there, Merry
(50:14):
Christmas and a happy New Year toyou as well, doctor Jay and to
everybody listening. But yeah, thisis going to go out immediately and I
think that's it. And you know, check this the description for all the
links for doctor J, all thesocial media stuff for for the Dad podcast,
shoot me an email show at theDad podcast dot com. YadA,
YadA, YadA. All this tosay on behalf of the fantastic stand of
(50:34):
Pediatrician Doctor J suite. This isjust a warship saying, hug your kids,
hump your loved one and stay frosty. My friends,
Listen to listen to that. ThankGod Chase that. Hello and welcome to
(00:37):
the Dad Podcast. I am yourhost, Justin Worsham with us again as
he is every month, is ourvery own resident pediatrician, stand up comedian,
all around good guy, Doctor Jaysute. How are you on the
spine day? Doctor Jay? I'mdoing terrific, justin. How about yourself?
I am excellent? We are we'reboth experiencing technical difficulties in our computer.
(01:00):
The laptop that I usually run thepodcast through in the studio now is
the email Uh software won't open,and so the links that I usually would
go check to so that we couldtalk about the fantastic articles that doctor Jay
has found are unavailable. Yeah,it's ridiculous. Maybe something's going on out
(01:21):
there, maybe is it? Doyou are you are you comfortable diagnosing computer
viruses? Is that part of yourdegree and or uh, you know area
of study? You know? Uh? I tell kids all the time,
you can't get HPD or herpies throughthe computer. It's not that kind of
virus. Okay, good oh man? And to h to add it all
(01:47):
to just on top of everything,and my my wife and I are having
a mild disagreement. Um, justabout life in general. I'm sure you
definitely can remember these days as aguy who's divorced. Have to do with
Christmas travel plan. I wish itwas more like the stereotypical thing, to
be honest, but it has moreto do with, um, what's the
(02:10):
I guess it has more dugeous lifelike I here's the thing. Well,
we'll talk about it for a briefmoment, but I don't think it's worth
wasting everybody's time about. But ummy, I walk through life trying to
get a lot of shit done.I've talked about it before that my love
language is acts of service, right, so that's what I do. And
(02:30):
um, And so the unfortunate partabout being married to somebody whose love language
is acts of service when your lovelanguage is not acts of service like most
love languages in relationships we are speakingdifferent languages, is that there's a lot
of like, well, why aren'tyou doing this for me? You know
kind of a thing. It's hard. It's I unintentionally put my wife in
(02:53):
a in a bad spot where everyonce in a while we have to have
a state of the union type situationwhere I say, well, let me
tell you about what you're not doing. Oh boy, oh boy. Yeah,
it's Marry Christmas, Happy New Year. So yeah about that. So
(03:14):
let me tell you that my girlfriend'slove language, which is a little better.
And we are both on the samepage because a couple of weeks ago,
we're sitting standing out on the backporch enjoying a cigarette and it was
cold out. So she came uplast night and when I got home from
work, she had already put ittogether. I now have one of those
(03:34):
gigantic propane heating element sources on myporch so we can comfortably enjoy a cigarette
without being chilled. Look at that. Look at that. And she's she's
flying me down with her to Miamifor her family's New Year. So I'm
going to go to Miami for fourdays. I'm not sure how that'll go,
but I'm getting on a plane.They're making me do it. So
(03:57):
you're going, you're going to spendChristmas in Miami. That's sounds wildly awesome.
Not Christmas. Not christ Oh mybad? Did if I said Christmas
for New Year's Eve twenty eighth tothe first? No, you probably said
New Year's Eve. And I'm I'mmildly distracted, to be honest, because
I'm also trying to find my adcopy. So you're going there just for
New Year's Eve? Are you stayinghome for the holiday for Christmas to be
with the daughters. Yeah, they'llcome up Christmas Day in the morning,
(04:23):
and then I'll go down to Milfordto see my girlfriend and her family in
the evening. Usually I get tojust stuff my face and sit on my
ass. Everybody comes to me,but not this year. Not this year.
Do the suits have any kind oflike traditions, the like a family
type thing or well, since myfamily was destroyed seven and a half years
(04:46):
ago, a lot of the traditionshave fallen by the wayside. But tradition
they I mean, they get togetherwith their mom and that side of the
family, see their cousins and stuffon Christmas Eve, but they both come
home the more morning. At ChristmasEve, we go out to a diner
that we like to go to andhave like a Christmas Eve breakfast together and
they go down stay over with theirmom and then come back Christmas morning around
(05:13):
eleven and then Christmas Day begins.So that's that's kind of that. My
sister comes up Christmas Day and uh, well, prior to my girlfriend,
I would spend Christmas Eve down playingthe slot machinetes at the mohegan Son.
So oh really that was how youwould You would go down there playing slots.
Well, I sent the kids totheir you know, same with Thanksgiving.
Yeah, holidays are to be aroundyour family and your cousins. You
(05:35):
don't get to see him. Thenwhen you're older, you never see him,
So enjoy it while you can.So when I had nothing going on,
I go to the casino. It'snot crowded, you get good parking
on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. It'ssad, but it's something to do that's
awesome. We we do, wedo the we always flip with the holiday
(05:56):
and I don't remember. Um,it's not like it's not about the Oh
I found it. I think Ifound what I was on before. Sim
It's not about the how do Isay, it's not about the traveling.
Traveling never seems to be an issuefor us, at least, It's always
about other stuff like just I don'tknow that. My mom once told me
that, you know, you getto a certain point where you don't want
(06:18):
you're gonna want to stay home forthe holidays, but we weren't there.
I mean, we had a lotof holidays where we were both working,
especially when I was in radio andNatalie was at the bank all the time,
where my parents would come down staywith us, and then Christmas morning
they would get up, we'd haveChristmas Morning here, and then they would
take the kids for the entire winterbreak. So I don't have a lot
to necessarily, you know, getstressed about that I can remember, but
(06:41):
I do remember early on in ourrelationship it was always kind of it seemed
that was my perception, but maybeit's tilted because I it was my family.
But I think my wife would agreeis that, you know, it
seemed kind of chill and relaxed atmy place, but they're always seemed tension
when we'd go over to her parents'plays. And so I came up with
the idea of saying, well,we're gonna flip. We're gonna flip holidays,
and we're gonna start now, becausethen we can let the fates decide
(07:05):
who gets the first Christmas with thebaby, and if it became too much
of an issue, then we wouldsplit it. But the way it shook
out was that my in laws gotthe first Thanksgiving, my parents got the
first Christmas, and everybody seemed okaywith it. We might have dipped by
because they were living closer to eachother if memory serves around Christmas. But
I don't know. It's just sofunny that you're you're right. You want
(07:27):
this time to be kind of likehanging out. You'd like for it to
be extended cousins, And I feellike there are more of us listening to
this that find this time to bemore stressful and hectic than they do find
it to be magical and rewarding.Does that make sense? Well, I'll
tell you. Until last night,I thought I was done getting Christmas presents
for my girlfriend. But now Ihave this gigantic keating element on my back
(07:50):
forward, So I gotta go backto the well, I gotta attack out
a few other things, you know, and times are wasted. Yeah,
it doesn't work for it because I'mnot a big gift guy either. Like
so I like with the kids,right, My family thankfully does like a
thing where it's always about the kidsaround around Christmas time. But but when
(08:11):
do they stop being kids? Minortwenty five and twenty seven and they expect
gifts. You know, I likethat I'm going to be married in a
year, and I get they sendme links to things on Amazon and other
websites as they're Christmas list, andas far as they're concerned, it's it's
just a shopping list for me,not something for me to to pick through
(08:33):
an pick a couple of items topurchase, or so when they're open in
the presence, they'll say, oh, I didn't get the pair of sneakers
that I asked for. Oh that'sinteresting, I see that's what your visa
gift card. How do you thinkit would go down, doctor j Do
you think your kids would obviously stillI mean, honestly, tell me the
(08:56):
truth in your this is not thereality. This is in your perception,
doctor Jay. If you were tonot purchase anything at all for your daughters
around Christmas time, Uh, doyou think that that would so would end
their love for you? Or wouldit be like hey, are you okay?
Like are you sick? Like?What? Do you think their honest
reaction would be no judgment at allif you think that just to put the
(09:20):
list of everything that I've given tothem money wise or gift wise throughout the
year and put it in a boxand wrap it and just say Christmas is
all year for your dad. Here'swhat you got last year, you know,
like you get the credit card statement. The one who sends me to
list and wines about not getting thingson the list. I loaned a sizeable
(09:43):
bit of money for her and herfiance to purchase a home last spring.
I say Christmas was taken care of, but apparently not. Yeah, yeah,
you just send dollars for a depositfor the photographer for the wedding.
Here's your goddamn Christmas. But allabout the kids. But when we're still
talked at twenty five and twenty seven, Yeah, and the and the fiance's
(10:05):
the poor bastard. His birthday ison Christmas, so he gets screwed out
of a one of the other picket. You know, he's not getting two
gifts at Christmas. He's getting theChristmas and Birthday gift all wrapped into one.
Well, you'll excuse me if Itake a moment to provide a word
for one of our sponsors here.But I think if you want something else
(10:26):
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I get excited. I've always beenimpressed about how the kids like this food
(11:11):
because it's it's healthy food and it'snot like mac and cheese type healthy like
a healthy version of mac and cheese. Although I'm sure that they have that.
They do have a family menu optionwhere they sun baskets dot Com.
What you do is you go tosunbasket dot Com. It's not with a
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(11:31):
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I know that there's a family one. Uh what else? You get eighteen
recipes to choose from each week,so you get to pick one. All
of the recipes take about thirty minutesto make. They even if you're looking.
This is what I think the keyis for sun Baskets and why they
came to us at the Dad Podcastis because if you're the person making all
the meals for the family, youhave to realize that you get in a
(12:13):
rut right where you're just like whatam I going to make? The kids
don't like everything. But what you'redoing is you're displacing this onto somebody else.
Like what I literally do is theygo what's for dinner? I go,
oh, We're having a sun basketand I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes
the kids go oh man, andit's mostly because they want to go out
right. But when I do makewhen I do make the sun baskets.
What ends up happening is I givethem the little portions and that and I
(12:37):
help them make it. If thekids don't have homework. There's a little
section in the cookbook where it sayskids can and it tells the things that
they can do while you're cooking themeal. And it's great. I know
it sounds super sappy and super cheesy, but it's because it works. When
you're in there, you get tohang out talk with a kid, they're
learning a little bit about cooking,they're seeing what you do, and when
they're involved in the cooking process.I'm sure a ton of you would agree
(12:58):
with this, they're more likely totry the food. Even if it's something
that they traditionally don't like, theywill at least take a bite. They
have something to do with making it. They're going to eat it. Yeah,
correct, And even you would agree, Doctor Jay is that if you
could get that bite and then andthe stars do a line, they like
it. They're like, oh,this is good. And I think psychologically
they're more likely to enjoy it whenthey when they've seen the ingredients and everything
that's gone that's gone into it.And three weeks. You occupy their time
(13:22):
so they're not up your ass whileyou're cooking perfectly, said doctor Jay.
That's great. Oh man, Ishould add you do all these live reads
before with me, Doctor Jay.What I like about to listen. One
other thing is it's a different situationat my house. It's one sad,
lonely man sitting over a stove cookingfor thirty minutes and then eating a dinner
(13:43):
for a family, family for itself. Well, you get a situation,
but it works. You tweak yourorder. You could tweak it to where
it's just a meal for at leasttwo. Uh. And what's nice about
it is it's so healthy. Ittrusts me. The meals are so healthy
that even if if you ate foodfor two, it's not like you're you're
gonna be in blimping out because it'sall like it's there's a ton of ship
(14:05):
me kale. Yes, there's theyhave the packageale. I don't know.
You know, I recently got ashipment and it was the recipe. What
they do is they make adjustments onthe recipes if the ingredients have been recalled,
and they they give you a noteand stuff all that. Yeah,
yeah, they did send me iceberglettuce. I had a chicken larb and
(14:26):
I've this is the third time I'vehad the chicken larb, and to be
honest, I do not like theThai fish sauce that comes with it.
So what I did was I replacedthe Thai fish sauce with either some soy
or also a healthy option as cocoaaminos. It's uh, it's it's like
soy sauce or worces sauce, butit's made with coconut proteins and it's really
good and your kid chicken larb isreally good. That's just what the Thai
(14:52):
land people want. But anyway,point is check out sun Baskets. I
like it because at least three mealsthat week, you know, are gonna
be healthy, you know, aregonna expand your kid's palette. Go to
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Again, sunbasket dot com slash DadPodcast thirty five dollars off your first order.
Thank you, doctor Jay. Uh. Well, while we're on this
(15:13):
holiday kick of talking about the holidaysand how stressful they are, you found
this interesting article which I think isa good microcosm of what America is today.
What I like about the headline ofit is says mom traversy like controversy,
but with moms. The montroversy ishow many Christmas presents should you give
(15:35):
your kids? And it didn't reallygo into a lot of research. It
was more kind of anecdotal stuff wherethey talked about like different They have a
table which had the age of thechildren. Did it give age specificity?
It broke it down by our group? But I didn't see zero there.
Should it should be a townward slopingline graph, is what you're saying.
(15:56):
Yes, that's what I'm saying.That's what I'm asking. Oh I forgot
to say this while you're talking aboutit, But then we'll go back to
the articles. My brother in lawhas a great way philosophy about this.
What he does is he says,you will get presents from Santa as long
as you believe in Santa. Andso it's this fun, playful game to
do it where you know, thekids start turning thirteen fourteen, and they'll
be talking to each other and they'llsay, no, Santa's not real,
(16:18):
and he goes, what's that?They go, I love that's right.
Your father isn't going out shopping foryou. But and here's the thing.
What I find interesting is that thevery person listening to this right now,
I realize this and recently that Italk to the people listening, but very
rarely do people listen to podcasts ingroups. But my point is, the
(16:41):
person listening to this right now hasto there's going to be some kind of
representation of either side of this spectrumor in the middle. But like,
there's a woman who said that Christmaswas a big deal when she was growing
up, so she continues the tradition. She has a five and two year
old and she estimates that each kids, each of her kids receive twenty gifts.
(17:02):
Twenty gifts, Yeah, I wouldsay as far as the suite girls
at that age, because Christmas wasa big deal for me, I'd say
that's probably pretty close. Yeah,my kids used to get which is why
I haven't been able to wean themoff the tea. Yeah, you gotta
(17:22):
be careful once they start getting aboutfour or five and they remember. And
it's it's interesting because my wife andI do it. We've always been I
think pretty good about it. Weonly do two to three gifts each.
And what we do is we tryto figure out, like because we got
two kids, and you know,even though I grew up with a stepbrother
and stepsisters, there's so much olderthan I am, and so are my
wife's siblings that it's really hard,I think for us, and not really
(17:45):
hard, but you know what Imean, like really hard. I'm constantly
thinking a perspective right now, Likeit's okay to say really hard justin but
it's difficult to figure out, likehow to make it fair. So kind
of what we've done is if somebodyseems to have a really big want,
like whatever, something that they wouldreally like, then we kind of use
that to set a budget. Butwe always keep our budget around seventy five
to one hundred dollars each kid.And and here's why. And I'm sure
(18:10):
I tell the story every year.And if so I fifty dollars Apple watch
I bought for my daughter was alittle pricey hack, it would be for
the Worshams. It would be forthe Worshams. And here's what I think
it. But it's like even thiswoman who's talking about twenty gifts, that's
not a big deal to her becauseshe that's you know, that's the that's
her perspective, right, that's allshe knows. She's a she's a blind
(18:32):
baby tiger. Of them are books. That's terrific, right, exactly.
That's the thing. See, weall we all say, oh, ten
to twenty or twenty gifts each.We don't know. Maybe maybe the ten
of those are individually wrapped candy itemsin the stocking, right, and then
it's ten like box gifts. Wealways in our minds, we go,
she's been in like ten those aregot to be at least twenty dollars each.
We don't know, We don't know, And the only reason that you
(18:53):
would do because that's so what's fascinating. The person listening to this is either
going, yeah, that's normal andthey're laughing at me and my cheap skateways
of spending seventy five dollars to onehundred for three gifts, right, or
they're going that's insane, like whydo why do people do that? And
it's because it's all what we grewgrew up with, right. It's either
you grew out a budget with mygirls. I said a budget, yeah,
(19:15):
and I try to keep it even. But if I'm not even I
even it out at the end withthe visa gift card, you know what
I mean, that's what I spentthat way. I know I'm spending the
same amount on both of them,because trust me, these two bitches will
get a calculator figure it out forthemselves if I go so well. And
(19:36):
it's funny because the we Here's whyI'm not big on the gifts. I
think is that when my when Iwas young and my parents first got divorced,
my mom went whole hog around Christmastime. Like literally, I had
the entire It was probably at leasta twelve to fifteen foot long hallway that
was stacked three boxes high with presents. There were robots, remote control cars,
(19:56):
like so much stuff that I canliterally all reever. Oh gosh,
Nintendo stuff like my mom was alwaysreally good at that. You don't count
them, No, I did not. I did not get solved, although
I'd get the occasional like shirt andsweater for mom, but she was always
good about making that. What No, go ahead, let me, I'll
(20:18):
finish up after you. I justhad a question, I thought, oh
so, But the point was isthat first year my dad couldn't afford anything
because of the divorce, like hekept the house and so he had to
buy her out of the house.And I'm sure there was a retirement and
while you well, you know,yeah, you know how it goes,
so yeah, but that was alsothe year that memory serves, we had
just read the Polar Express or somewhereat school, and so I thought it
(20:41):
would be cool if I was becauseI was doubting Santa and is whether or
not he was real. So Iasked Sanna if I could just have a
piece of his sleigh bells for Christmas, just so I would know he's real.
And then I didn't really need anythingelse, and my dad had got
me a couple of cars, andI will never forget for the rest of
my days when I picked up thatsmall box and it jingled, and I
(21:03):
lost my damn mind. And thennow as a father, I'm ringing my
sleigh bells. Oh that's cool,that's awesome, that's great. I think
actually I have mine in here,because um I recently last Christmas. I
wonder if I took him. Ihope I took him back it. Nope,
they're right here. Uh, theseare those same bells. All it
is I'm looking at it is literallya piece of leather, like a strap
(21:26):
of leather with five three five bellsI think, and one of the bells
has fallen off for the past thirtyyears plus. Yeah. So when I
when I got Rodney, you,I have it hung on the back door,
and I was trying to teach himto, you know, bell with
(21:48):
his nose to yeah and uh yeah, that never worked. Sleigh bells are
still on the back door a yearround. But he just barks at me
when he wants to go out nowso, and there is nothing good about
this dog's bark. He has themost ear piercing, the high pitched bark,
and you just want to punch somethingto say. But it always seems
(22:08):
like a good idea on paper untilyou start realizing that they're like, we
have a dog that scratches, andyou're like, oh, that's great because
it's not barking. But then youthere's there's also an annoyance of hearing the
scratching every time it wants to come, and carrying the door and regaining I
had to put a little like metalplate on the outside of the door because
she gets you bet you last houseI had one of those. That was
(22:30):
Stanley's way of letting me know.He would go to the door and scratch
at it, which is such aconvenience, you know what I mean,
when you have a dog that knowshis bladder and how long it takes Yep,
it's great. But so anyway,so I opened these bells and it
was such a big thing. Theother part of why gifts I think aren't
a big deal for me. AndI don't honestly say this to say that
I think I'm better because left's giftsand afore I'm more wholesome, like he
(22:53):
could easily be argued that this isjust a I'm cheap and it's just a
way of rationalizing my frugalness in myscrooge like ways. But but my dad,
but you pass that on to yourkids too, so they'll they'll also
see Christmas as a h you know, a more traditional type of Christmas.
You know, we got with theover abundance of of of gifts that I
(23:18):
feel like each year it's up tome to bow before my daughters and place
the gifts in front of them liketheir royalty offering to the gods. Hey
did you do you do you everhave anybody that would like buy you something
that requires batteries, and then theyalso wrap the batteries. Yes, yep,
(23:40):
yeah that isn't that the most horriblething, because what are you going
to do? Yopa, the firstthing it's batteries, you know, thanks,
thanks Grandma for the back film fora camera, Thanks Grandma, you
know yeah, and you know youget a camera somewhere in the pile.
You know, no mystery it isthat you're right. There is no upside
to wrapping the batteries. I guessthe traditional move is that you gotta either
(24:03):
have the batteries and then deliver themonce all the presents are done, because
then then it's like, oh,I got all these presents, but we
don't have any D batteries, right, and then you get to come out
and go all but do we boomand make it rain? Then I buy
the multi pack of all different batterieswhen the kids were little, because you
never know, right, like Igot the same I mean, it's it's
(24:25):
hilarious. It's Santa Claus in aphone booth. It's a snow globe,
but it has a motor in itand a light to make the snow move
around all the time. Yeah,so I buy two of them. I
buy two of them, one forme and one I was going to give
to Aunt. Larry already gave itto Aunt. I give her a goddamn
snow globe. She brings me afurnace for my back porch. But all
(24:45):
besides the point and too from thesame place order him at the same time.
They come from the same delivery inthe same box. He opened up
the bottom where the batteries are twodifferent set up. One's double A one
C h. What do you makeof that? Yeah, do you make
(25:06):
of that? That's that's an exactitem. But the battery pack at the
bottom is different. And you don'thave seed batteries in your house, traditional
you really don't. You side togo out and by god damn C batteries.
How does a little snow globe needC batteries too? Like? Or
is it bigger? And it's likeit's like ten inches tass Okay, that's
a little bit bigger the size ofus of a it's it's a it's a
(25:27):
little phone booth that says Merry Christmas, and Sanna's in there. I don't
know why, because nobody knows whata goddamn phone booth is anymore? So
where do you come down? AndI know that there's lots of things that
fall into the pediatrician purview, likelike psychology, like counseling and stuff,
But where do you come to?This is an interesting thing that I've talked
(25:48):
about this on the show before,and I recently did a segment on Gary
and Shannon about a psychologist. Ithink I'm gonna talk about it. Actually
on a later episode of this showis a psychologist broke down why you should
not lie to your kids about Santa. And but the reason I bring it
up is that when I was talkingto another parent about this, they brought
(26:10):
up this thing that I think comesaround Facebook every year, which is everybody
needs to kind of do the sociallyconscious thing of saying no big gifts from
Santa, right because what you don'twant to have the kid and we don't
think about it, right because there'sa winter break, but you don't want
to just go back to school.Oh what did Santa bring you? Oh?
He got me a PS four andan oculus And what did you get?
Oh, I got a remote controlcar for that's like three inches like
(26:33):
or you know what I mean,or he got me some candy, like,
because everybody's financial situation is different,so you always make the big gift,
like if you were going to theApple watch, that comes from you,
from you, and then maybe thevisa gift card comes from Santa.
Kind of a thing, right,And we used to do that actually when
the kids were little, we justpile everything under the tree and we would
(26:56):
have on the tags from Santa andthen there were you know, things that
were from mom and dad too underthe tree. So um, you know,
it was a little a little likethat, and I think that's a
good thing to do. Um.Now, I hope my daughters in their
twenties know that everything comes from me, even what they get from their mother,
because I'm paying for it. Ilike cynical doctor Jay around the holidays.
(27:22):
That's a lot of fun. Yeah, and I remind them of it.
That's what it's, you know,who to go to. I mean,
I look all right, see I'mone of those dads. Unfortunately,
both of my daughters when they gottheir UH savings and checking account, I
was signed on with them. Sowhen I checked my bank balances, their
bank balances pop up as well.And my panic that my twenty seven year
(27:45):
old has eight dollars and eighty centsin her checking account. Yeah, oftentimes
I ended up throwing a honey theirway, just because I don't want them
to get stuck paying thirty seven bucksbecause they're overdrawn. Wow, that's a
good dad, man, That isa good good dad. You're saying.
You know what, it's fun mydaughter. My daughter's paying me back the
money that I loaned them to putdown on the house. And she started
(28:07):
it, and we would go andyou know, every month she gives me
an amount that will be paid offprobably when I'm ninety, but whatever.
She has been doing it consistently,and this past end of the month she
did it as well. But thentwo days later said, Dad, can
I take my two hundred dollars back? I'm going to run short on other
things. So I figured a coupleof weeks later, she get a couple
(28:30):
of paychecks, she paid me backthe two hundred she gave me that I
sent back to her, and shesaid, oh, no, I thought
we were just going to skip thismonth. No, you're not skipping any
goddamn months. The Bank of Jaydoes not skip months. This is an
interesting concept that I don't know happensin the father son dynamic, but I
(28:51):
bet you it happens all the timeand the father daughter dynamic, and that
I'm listening to this, and allI could think about is how difficult you
are may their future husband's life.And here's what I mean when you have
a borderline, and it's not somethingwe see in civilization, when you have
somebody who's a hardcore mama's boy ora mom who's like just on top of
everything, and there's no way thattheir wife could keep up with everything that
(29:15):
that young man's mother did for them, right, And so it's just this
constant like expectation of like, oh, well, this is what my or
my mom made it this way,you know what I mean. Like,
I feel like there's lots of examplesof that. I don't but it's hard
to see when it's the other wayaround, when dad is always taking care
of things financially. But do youthink because you got one that's engaged,
do you think that in the modernera of man? Right this this is
(29:37):
a mid twenties I'm guessing your oldgentleman who's about to write your daughter,
he is he doesn't wrestle with likegreatest generation doomsday man who's like, no,
I will provide for your daughter.I will show you that I'm worthy
of taking care of her in herhand in marriage. Like he's like,
oh cool, bonus. It's likeit's like bonus awry because dad's a doctor.
(30:03):
Right. Well, I try notto do that often, but I
think you know you have just likeyou're response, they're going to cut your
phone off if you don't pay yourbill every month. It's another responsibility and
letting her get by that one timewith me expecting when she got her next
paycheck she'd pay me, but shewas just skipping a month that that isn't
what it's all about in real life. So I'm gonna make her pay double
(30:27):
next month to make up for whatshe didn't pay this month. But do
you think, and you're at all, do you think that he's he's got
a tough road to home because hehas to take care of her and keep
her in the lifestyle of which sheis accustomed as a divorce man is well
aware. Well, I don't.All I know is the day I got
(30:47):
married, I stopped getting Christmas presentsand like a check from my dad every
once in a while, so youknow I'm here, they know I'm here.
If it's catastrophic, I'm always goingto help them. But you know,
she's she's this third grade school teacherwith the masters. I mean she's
paying off the master's degree now.Because I said I would pay for college,
(31:08):
I didn't say anything about secondary education, so graduate school. But but
I mean, they both, youknow, they both make under a hundred
thousand dollars a year, and youknow, probably between the two of them
they probably pull in one hundred andfifty thousand, and they have reasonable mortgage
payments, and you know, theykeep their bills low and everything, and
(31:30):
you know, financially it should befine. And the amount of money I'm
taking from them every month is it'sreally a small amount. I'm trying to
stretch it out over five or sixyears for them, so it's not a
big deal, but it's something thatyou got to pay. And then my
other daughter, the twenty five yearold that's living with me, she tells
me the other day, you're gonnalove this justice, she tells me,
(31:52):
Dad, I paid off one ofmy credit cards and I cut it up
into little pieces and I threw itinto garbage, and I said, that's
great, hunt, I said,so, how much do you have on
your other credit cards? How muchmore do you have to go to pay
them off? She told me twelvethousand dollars on a credit card, which
she's paying like the minimum for everymonth. And I'm like, I paid
(32:15):
for four years of college out ofmy own hard ear and money, my
sweat, blood and tears, soyou wouldn't graduate from college with death.
And you're telling me you got twelvethousand dollars on your credit card and you're
paying like twenty eight percent interest onit. You are a freaking idiot.
Yet we should paid off one,We should paid off the one. I
(32:37):
said, I would throw those.I would take your credit cards with those
balances now and I would throw themaway, don't ever use them again for
anything, and just pay for soI only had except for when I was
paying for college and I had touse a lot of smoking mirrors. I
never had a balance on my creditcard. I would pay my credit card
(32:58):
every month. But after the divorce, two kids in college, you know
I needed a little bit. Butdid I ever pay a bit of interest?
No? I kept bumbling up andputting it on a new credit card.
That had had eighteen months of nointerest, so it was good.
It was good to have a lotof credit then because I could roll it
and then pay it off without interest. I have eighteen months to pay it
(33:20):
off, and it worked. Youknow, I was able to to do
it without them having any loans orme having any loans. But then to
just what the what the hell areyou buying that? You know, first
of all, she lives here sincelast April. Okay, she's not even
paying rent anymore. Yeah, shouldbe banking it. If if I had
the time and opportunity, I'd beworking two jobs and I'd be living home
(33:45):
and I'd be banking the money.But it's hard, right, It's hard
to get that perspective install like,to instill it in their brain because until
they've done it. This is whyI'm such a huge advocate for UH and
I again, I I'm not judgingin any way, shape or form anyone
because I have not done this yetso mostly but even when I have done
(34:07):
it, I'm sure it will haveits own shortcomings. But is the the
idea of trying to get that kidout of the house when they're eighteen?
Like, Because as much as it'snot yep, yep. And that's the
thing. It's like you said,as soon as you got married, the
Christmas gifts stop coming and everything.Is that that reminded me is that there
was we moved out. We've beenmoved out for probably I want to say,
(34:28):
three to six months, and allof a sudden I started putting tuned
together. I was like, howare you putting gas in your car?
Like asking my wife and go,oh, my parents gave me a gas
card and I was like, youknow, we live on our own,
Like you gotta you gotta separate fromthem. This is this is we're growing
up, man, we gotta wegotta do it. Because but see I
was explaining it to her because itwas kind of important to me. But
(34:50):
it was also because I always knewthat was part of the deal when I
grew up, like as my dadconstantly my mind. You know that's too
it people get married is people allgrow up in different ways, and you
know, you got to know howthe person you're marrying is with, you
know, money and credit cards andthat before you say I do. Fortunately,
you know the X was pretty frugalduring the marriage, but really,
(35:14):
you know, tipped into the theassets after so you know, it's it's
tough. And you know, youget married, everything your your your spouse
is uh debt, debt is yourdebt now, so it's crazy. It's
crazy, you know. And andwhen you get divorce, your spouse is
debt is your debt too because you'rethe only one making money right so,
(35:37):
uh, you know it's like tobe getting divorced and having to write a
checkout to your soon to be anex wife's attorney. That's pretty bad.
I would imagine like you're paying theguy who just howes you for her for
half of what you are. That'sgreat, exactly, that's great. Uh,
(35:57):
here's the thing, let's talk alittle. As anytime money comes up,
I always recommend that people go checkout The Total Money Makeover by Dave
Ramsey. It changed my finances andmy life. You could read the book
in an afternoon if you skip allof the like kind of the testimonials like
and just get to the information.He also has a podcast, which is
a great thing to listen to whileyou're doing it. It keeps you motivated,
(36:19):
keeps you going. But I wouldnot be as financially comfortable as I
am now if it weren't for that, and I'm not. Trust me,
I'm not financially independent by any stretchof the imagination. I would strongly encourage
everybody to continue. They're paid subscriptionof the show, because it ain't paying
my bills. But I wish youheard about the fire movements by r Oh
yeah, still independence, retire early, Yes, yeah, that's what the
(36:42):
twenty sumpans are doing now. They'rebanking their money so they don't have to
work after fifty Yep, yep,you can do it me, I missed
out on the fire. Oh yeah, we'll see. That's That's what I'm
trying to build now is I'm hopingreal estate can help me get to a
point where I can retire, buildup in a passive income to higher in
the next ten years and then.But I can't imagine if I'm doing this
(37:04):
podcast for twenty years. I hopeI don't have to stop. But we'll
see. The point is, damnit, at some point you better make
some money off it. So peoplesign up for the podcast, right,
Okay, we got to take careof justin here. Well, if they're
listening at this point, they've alreadysigned up. But done with college kids
college in the future. Help thisman. No, they know, they
know I have paid a dime formy kids college education. I'm actually,
(37:25):
you know, it's funny. Myson has recently changed. He no longer
wants to be a professional football player. Now he wants to work at Marvel
with comic books, which so I'mI'm wrestling with this idea of I don't
want to be too much of that. Dad. I'm using quotes to where
I'm directing him. But what I'mtrying to teach him about is saying,
well, if you if comic booksare what you want to do, instead
(37:45):
of trying to get a job whereyou work for saying Marvel, Like,
maybe get a job as a youngkid working in a comic book store to
see if you could cultivate a businessof your own or something along those lines.
Some classes on graphic design and dothat. Yes, he's got to
get into the industry, right,goddamn colored pencils for Christmas stuff? Yeah
right, get him gets pad andsome pencils for Christmas. Well, I'm
(38:09):
a good daddy. You know youdon't start that. Those skills you're never
gonna be you listen, everybody,but those kind of skills if you're born
with or you're not. I haveno abilities like that. I can paint
a beautiful picture by with my words, but I cannot do anything artistic in
that manner. He's pretty good.I mean, obviously he's young, so
(38:30):
he's got a lot to a longway to go. But I think what
he might actually be interested in thewriting or but I think what he really
likes is just the culture of it. So that's why there's a local comic
book shop like there is everywhere thathe's you know, a big fan of
So as a gift to him,I bought a membership there. It costs
only it's only twenty five bucks forthe year, and he gets a discount
(38:50):
on the comics. He buys allhis own comics with his money, and
he gets a pull miss so wheneverthe new ones come out, they set
it aside and he loves it.So Mike told him today, I said,
you know what you should do isas you get a little older,
you should volunteer to come in andhelp Jay out at the store. Like
to not go in there expecting money, but say hey, can I just
be around this and I go andyou can learn about the business side and
learn more about comics and get kindof an inside perspective by working with him.
(39:15):
But hey, I had I havemy own regular comic bookstore. I
haven't been there quite as often sinceI had a clothes teenage daughters because I
couldn't afford him. But I wasthere every Wednesday afternoon when the new comics
came in. It was like myWednesday afternoon routine was to be hanging out
into Comics Book Score waiting for thenew ones to commit. As an adult,
(39:36):
I did that. That's awesome.I think it's great. Like,
you know, a lot of peoplelike I'm not gonna lie, there's a
lot of guys in there that fitthat nerd stereotype where it's like I've been
in there on a Tuesday afternoon andthey're there, and I've been there on
a Thursday night and they're also there, Like you know, like they just
kind of hang out there and youkind of wonder, like how do you
pay the bills? But I'll trynot to get too much on all.
(39:57):
I can tell you I kind ofI kept out during the Pokemon phase because
there were more little kids in thecomic bookstore buying Pokemon cards and all that
stuff. Then there were geeks lookingat comic books. It really the whole
collectible thing in the late nineties kindof took over, so it was a
whole different environment. Then. Yeah, it's interesting because there are That's what
(40:20):
I thought when I was in there, that there were more adults than there
were ever children, Like easily mykids are usually the only kids in that
space when when they're at the comicbookstore. Hey, let's let's shift gears
a little bit and talk a littlescience, because I am fascinated to get
your take on this other article thatyou see. You have a luncheon.
I do have a luncheon, butI'm gonna well, you tell me if
(40:42):
this is not enough time. Ifigured we could spend about ten minutes on
this. Uh is? But thankyou? Is the over the counter cough
medicine. This to me is reallyreally interesting. Is that there seems not
a new study, right, tellme if I'm wrong. There's a new
paper, and a paper means thata doctor has either an opinion or if
they form some kind of like independentstudy on their own, but maybe doesn't
(41:04):
don't have like thousands of people thatthey've tried this on. Is that fair
to say. Right, So apaper is like an editorial from a doctor
based on there, so you couldqualify this, or it could be you
know, the paper could be commentingon a study that's been done and just
you know, uh, they havethe data from the study and they're given
their opinions. So okay, well, and I hope I don't want to
cause alarm with parents, but Ido, so you know, take this
(41:27):
for what you will, and we'llget doctor J to officially weigh in on
this. But basically, what they'resaying is that, which I don't think
is new information, but that overthe counter cold medicine is not good for
kids under six, which is thestandard rule as it is, right,
Yes, yeah, I say fourto six if they're if they're recommended it,
you can you can get vibe.It's more of a weight thing than
(41:49):
anything else. But yes, Iwould say I'm comfortable recommending it kids over
six, but I usually recommend youknow, honey, and you know,
throat lozenges and humidifier and nasal suctionand stuff. We use those contraptions.
Now what you could, yeah,suck from you you like a straw,
(42:10):
Suck your own kids out of theirnose. No, I haven't seen it
where they have a little catch basketin the middle. Oh god, I
don't trust it. Oh god,Oh, I don't know why that made
me that they that made me gaga little bit. Not necessarily the snot
because I've been snotted on and I'msure some of it. Lots of things
(42:30):
have been in my mouth. Let'suse that as a drop, right.
But then the idea that the ideaof just drinking out of your kid's head
is the part that made me agas Yep, yep, yep. I
believe always usable sup the bulb suckerthat we had great success with even well
into like where they're three or fouryears old. I use that thing and
they hate it too. That's thebest part because you can use that to
(42:52):
threaten them that you'll use it ifthey don't figure out how to blow.
Yeah, it's so funny. You'reright, because I do. I have
to get the blue thing true.But what's interesting is is that I and
my question for you to give everybodythe kind of the explanation, is that
the ingredients that are in these coldmedicines, it turns out that they don't
(43:16):
really have enough of effect on theactual sinuses or nasal cavity might be a
way to describe it. But theyalso come with a great risk of damaging
or causing harm to say the intestines. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah,
And also that some of the medicines, the ones that can contain the
(43:37):
dextermatoraphan, I mean, kids canget a buzz on dextromathoraphan. It can
also cause visual disturbances and hallucinations ifyou take too much of it. So
you know, the cost is therebecause something is either needing to come out
of your lungs or something is drippingdown your throat that we want to keep
out of your lungs. So thecost is physiologically. It's doing what it's
(44:00):
supposed to be doing. Why arewe suppressing it? And that's the thing
is that the uh, the ideaas a parent is that you're always seeking
quiet, and so the colu dosomething for them. Your kid is sick,
you want to do something for themto make them feel better, when
what makes them feel better is threeto five days. Yeah, and uh.
(44:20):
This article also quotes what you toldus already about honey. It says
there's some evidence to back the ideaof honey for a cough. One review
of studies found that when it comesto treating coughing and kids, honey was
probably using quotes better than a placeboand maybe no better or worse than dextrama
thorphin. And if you lose uselocal honey and your kid has allergies,
(44:43):
it'll help to desensitize them to someof the spring and fall allergens that float
around. Wow, because the beehoney, if it's local, it's going
to have all the local blooming pollenin it. And it's a good way
to build up resistance to allergies.And so is this article intended to do
under a year? Though right,use honey under a year? It does
(45:04):
say that it says that you well, let me scroll down to that part.
It says, just be sure younever give honey to kids younger than
one year old. There's a slightchance that honey could cause potentially fatal botulism
in babies that young, but oncethey hit age one, there's stomach acid
is strong enough to eliminate the riskposed by the sweetener. Bernstein set so
that that doctor Wigs agrees with you. Doctor, I'm sorry, yes,
(45:25):
yeah, that's important. I shouldhave said that sooner, but yeah,
one and up, honey is greatand kids don't like the texture of honey,
so you put it in a littlewarm tea or something whatever. It
just it seems to help. Anddicks on the feet in the back and
running a humidifier and an extra pillowand you know that's that's you know what
(45:47):
you gotta do. And maybe youget fever control with tail and all or
advil that's taken in the right dosesand the right time in between, you
know, harmless. But again,the fever is your bodies are spots too
an infection, and the heat ispart of the killing process for whatever it
is that's causing your your fever.So you know too you want to be
(46:07):
comfortable, but you know, thefever isn't The height of the fever is
not necessarily correlating with the severity ofthe illness either. So um, you
know, I think we worry aboutthree temperatures. You feel all right,
you're a little warm, and cheese, you're burning up. Those are the
three temperatures. And my question toyou about this is that is this article
(46:31):
intended more to be like for parentswho have say a four year old and
they're like, yeah, it's fine, just give him like half a dose.
Or is it kind of alluding tothe fact that maybe even after six
because it doesn't really I don't seehow age has a difference in this,
that maybe even after six there isn'ta lot of benefit to say, a
cough medicine. Well, I mean, do you take the like tailanoil,
(46:54):
cloth and cold or add will coldand flu when you're sick. Big thing
is I will take a muddle throughthe day. I take a decongestent.
But mainly what I do is Itake about six thousand milligrams of vitamin C
and drink a ton of water.Like that's my go to. But if
you have to go to work andyou don't want to be sniffling and you
(47:15):
don't want to have a fever becauseyou gotta get up and you got to
go to work, uh, youtake that alurs but you know it makes
it helps you get through. Imean, I'd be lying to you if
I didn't say that. I've gota big box of admal cold and flew
right up on my counter there.Sometimes you know, I get I get
exposed to everything. My my mything is I never get sick, like
(47:37):
I never get a fever. ButI have to settle that I'm going to
have a baseline congestion three hundred andsixty five days a year that never changes,
never gets better, never gets worse. So I never get like an
illness. I never have to liein bed with a fever. It's a
good year. Since thats has Yourimmune system is like a crucible h it's
(47:58):
wrapped up big times. Yeah.The so, so, your your thing
is is that this is probably morejust to say, hey, if your
kid's not under six, don't evendon't even try it, than it is
to say that there's no real benefitto cold medicine. Right, And you
know, my my spiel is theother the things I said, the honey,
the vix, the humidifier, proppingup the head and sucking out the
boogies and making sure they stay hydrated. You know, you don't have to
(48:22):
worry about your kid eating when they'resick, but they got to drink,
and they got to drink not justwater, but water, you know,
sugared water, kool Aid, gatorade, opsicle stuff like that, just so
not only yeah, you want tokeep their hydration up you want to make
sure that they don't get low bloodsugar, because they can have that happen
if they're not eating for a dayor two. But they'll live without eating
(48:45):
for a day or two. Theyjust eat sugar and water. Yeah all
right, Well, excellency, nailthe duck and a good stomach bug is
better than going to the gym twicea week. So that's very true.
It's it always seems like a femininethought to me, But I'd be lying
if I didn't say, like,if I go for I'm like, oh
man, this is gonna be sogreat. It's so easy to lose weight.
(49:07):
But it always comes right back.Yes, yeah it does. And
you know when I when I to, I always blow a vessel in one
of my eyes. So next weekor a half, it looks like I
was in a street fight and you'rea little gray, little baggy eyes.
Yeah. That's good times. That'sgood times for everybody. All right,
Well, we're gonna we're gonna callit there because I do I have to
(49:28):
go. I have a lunch meetingand uh the due to technical difficulty and
uh my mild merrilto difficulty, wegot a late start. Thank you,
as always doctor Ja do over forget. You can follow doctor J at doctor
J Sute on Twitter. You couldalso check out stand up Pediatrician dot com
to find out if he's coming toa city near you. If you are
in the Northeast area, especially visitingfamily around the holidays maybe or something like
(49:52):
that, look to see if youcan go catch a doctor J show.
Uh, it's a it's a goodtime and I'm obviously a big fan,
and so is everybody listening. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
I wish you would, Mary,Mary. I don't know when this
is gonna air, but all ofthe staying frosty people out there, Merry
(50:14):
Christmas and a happy New Year toyou as well, doctor Jay and to
everybody listening. But yeah, thisis going to go out immediately and I
think that's it. And you know, check this the description for all the
links for doctor J, all thesocial media stuff for for the Dad podcast,
shoot me an email show at theDad podcast dot com. YadA,
YadA, YadA. All this tosay on behalf of the fantastic stand of
(50:34):
Pediatrician Doctor J suite. This isjust a warship saying, hug your kids,
hump your loved one and stay frosty. My friends,
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