August 26, 2025 • 31 mins
ICYMI: Hour Two of ‘Later, with Mo’Kelly’ Presents – Chris Merrill filling in ‘Later, for Mo’Kelly’ with thoughts on a new report debunking “traditional mid-20th century discipline practices”…PLUS – An in-depth look at the art of being a ‘step-parent’ with Zam Zia, MA LMFT (#106352), PhD Candidate - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app & YouTube @MrMoKelly
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hey there, Chris Merrill in from O Kelly Tonight I.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
AM sixty more stimulating talk alongside Mark Ronner in the
newsroom to Walla Sharp, one of the finest producers, probably
the finest producer I've ever had the opportunity to work with.
And Sam Zea, who is the smartest guy I've ever
had the pleasure to be rated from behind that board.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
So thank you, Sam. It's nice to have you here. Sam.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
For those who are unfamiliar, Sam is actually a licensed
therapist and he's working on his PhD. And I have
some more questions to ask you later on in the
show specifically, and I'm teasing. I had a little ways here,
but coming up at nine o'clock hour, there's a new
show on Hulu that keeps popping up and I recommended
for you, and evidently it wants me to watch virgins
(00:53):
threaten to have sex. So I'm curious about so many
things around that. So we'll talk about the after nine
o'clock still to come this hour. The kid's food is
about to be healthier than anything that we had when
we were going to going to school, So that is
that is coming up in just a moment, speaking of
your kids, how many of us were spanked as children? Actually,
(01:16):
it might bring salmon on this because he was a therapist, Mark,
I'm assuming that you were probably swatted a lot. Yeah,
that's a safe assumption. I got that living daylights kicked
out of me. Yeah, so wala, did you catch some
backhands when you were growing up? No, sir, No, your
parents very non non corporal.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
My father was one time he did spank me all
the way home for not listening to him. I think
that was the onliest time I had to actually be
beaten within an inch of my life.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
But I was out late.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I was out late past you know, street lights coming on,
and yeah, he spanked me literally all the way home.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
But that was it. That was it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
My mom.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
No, I just didn't want to disappoint my mom, so
she never had to so I kept everything on the low.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
She was an whole lot.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah all right, all right, close with your obviously close
with your mom, right, I mean very yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Okay, that's awesome, Sam, you want to jump in on this.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
I avoided it. I was a good kid all the
way through my childhood, and well, I didn't get in
trouble until I was an adult. Man, I got good
a lot. Oh yeah, No, I took calculated risks.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, that's smart. I wasn't that calculated.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
My mother used to say that we had to She
said about every three weeks, that's when she had to
get out the paddle.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And so when I was real little, they used to
use their hands.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
And then as I got older, my mother they were
doing some remodeling at the house, and she asked the
carpenter to make her a wooden paddle using some scrap
wood because she kept breaking wooden spoons off on my
on my butt. That's clever. Was it the kind of
paddle that had the air holes in it? So we'll
go faster? No, And it's it's interesting you say that,
because I've had a lot of people ask me that question.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It did not.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I don't know that that actually works. They hurt, can't.
I can tell you that, I'm sure they do. I
just don't know if the holes actually matter. It's kind
of like it's kind of like, boy, I can swing
this baseball battle lot faster if only it had more
aerodynamic holes.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
The holes do matter? You think I have seen the whole.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I remember in junior I scot I've seen there was
at ed Marshall there was a paddle and that and
those holes they cut back on limbers and they add
this whistle.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Like the whistle I believe, which is intimidating.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Y yeah, very intimidating.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I would love to have seen MythBusters do this one, right.
The MythBusters team is on it. According to the Internet,
they're saying that by drilling holes in the paddle you
can actually inflict a lot more pain on your kids.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We're gonna find out, right, that would have been great.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
And then you know the graphics where they scribble it
all lot on on blueprint paper.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yep. Now we just drill holes.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
And then do a computer animatic of it.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Perfect. That's what I would have loved.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
But whether or not at work, the holes, the psychological
horror effects the child was what that true? That's true
one of my favorite stories. And I'll get to this
in just a minute. Because scientists are now saying old
punishments fall short traditional discipline rooted in the mid twentieth century.
Behaviorist models like rewards, sticker charts, timeouts, or taking away
(04:18):
toys may not just be ineffective, but can also harm
a child's emotional growth. In other words, now they don't
talk about spanking so much in this as much as
they talk about the the carrot versus the stick, the
you know, the reward versus the punishment sort of situation.
All right, one of my favorite stories. So, and I
(04:38):
love telling the story for two reasons. One I get
to embarrass him now, but two it's just semn funny.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And that is my brother was a bedwetter, and so.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
He was probably I'm gonna say he was like four
or five years old, which would have put me in
about seven or eight. And we did something to upset
my parents and we got the pattle. So Mom says,
get me Peter. That was the worst when we had
to go get the paddle. It's kind of like the
old school when they used to say, go go pick
me a switch and the kids had to go pick
their own, you know, weapon for torture. Oh yeah, so
(05:11):
my uh, and I don't remember if it was my
father and my mother that administered this one. My dad
didn't use the paddle very much. He didn't like to
do that. He would only use his hand, but he
used the paddle a few times. I don't remember if
this is one of them, but we had this, my
brother and I. We lived up We lived excuse me.
Our bedrooms were on the second floor, so the kitchen
was on the first floor. Peter Paddle stayed on top
(05:31):
of the refrigerator in the kitchen, and then there was
a staircase. The staircase had a door at the bottom.
It's an old house and it was just it was
a hallway of a staircase. Had a first name, yes,
Peter Paddle, and that's what my mother would say, Go
get me Peter. Oh boy, that was worse. That was terrible.
Damn Yeah. So whatever it was. My brother and I
were doing something that irritated my parents, and I got
(05:52):
to the point where they felt like we deserved this paddling,
and so I had to go first. And it was
just I'm I mean, the terror of knowing it's coming
and then whack and just a.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
You know, whack.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Whack. And it was always three. Mom said, never more
than three, but it was always three. It was never one,
but it was never more than three. She made very clear,
I never hit you kids more than three times. That
was my limit. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
I was like, well, thank goodness, you had the forty
two to do it at least three times.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Mom.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So I'm just I'm crying, my key stories, you know,
beat red, and I'm running up the stairs. You know
how it is when you're a kid and you're trying
to run away from it. It's so painful, and you're
putting your hands on your butt, but it hurts to
move your butt. Anyway, I go and I run up
the stairs and I'm crying, and I get to the top,
and the only thing that made me feel better was
(06:49):
hearing my brother get the punishment as well. So I'm
standing at the top of the stairs and the doors
open at the bottom, and I'm and I just hear whack.
I felt a little better.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
Quack.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I'm feeling even better, quack.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I'm going, all right, my pain's almost gone now, but
it's still hurt.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Do you know something did? What's that? Do you do?
Speaker 5 (07:18):
You need to go more in depth in on this topic.
It seems like there's a lot of pain we got
unpack here right now.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Wait, you're about to get the payoff, all right, all right, okay,
so yeah, we'll do this. We'll do a second segment
here because there is there's there's.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
A lot to unpass. A cry for help.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So I'm at the top of the stairs and I'm
tears streaming down my face. But I feel it a
little better because I just from my brother get punished,
and I'm pretty sure it was his fault that I
got spanked in the first place. And he's whack, whack, whack,
and then so he, uh, they know, get upstairs and
go to bed.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I hear my parents yell, and my brother is at
the bottom of the stairs.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And he said he's crying, and they slammed the door
out go to bed, and they slammed the door at
the bottom of the stairs. And as soon as that
door closes, junk my brother and he looks up at
me and he goes, didn't hurt have my diaper on.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
That's I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
He saw what was coming.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Is that not the worst?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
And I'm I mean wenny bit that I felt better
by knowing that he was suffering was immediately replaced by
the most horrible feeling, like I got all the punishment
out of it.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It was the worst, worst, all right.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Uh, here's what we have to kind. I do want
to I do want to get to this a little
bit further because I do some thoughts on parenting.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I raised three kids. I didn't do a great job.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I've always said I'm not a good parent, but I
think I learned a few things along the way. And
I want to invite Sam and he to help me
unpack some of what I've learned because I was not
able to parent the same way mind work. I'll tell
you why that is in just a few moments. What
I learned and how that was beneficial to me is next.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFIM.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Six to forty more stimulating talk listen anytime on demand
in the iHeartRadio app. So new studies are out now
and neuroscientists are questioning some of the old ways of parenting, in.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Other words, the old carrot and stick.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
If a child does wrong, negative reinforcement, of a child
does right, positive reinforcement. They're saying, basically, kids' brains aren't
really wired to do that. While that may work, the
pevlovine response might work with like dogs, and it might work.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
In the short term.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
The kids don't necessarily learn, their brains don't really put
things together, and it actually could create a bit of
a strain on your relationship with your child and your
child's you know, trust in their parents and that kind
of thing for those that have that are unfamiliar. Sam,
who's our tech director, is actually a therapist. Sam, parenting
is probably the hardest thing I've ever done, and it
(10:00):
is also, I would say, the thing that I'm really
bad at.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Do you share that opinion with quite a few people.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Hardest thing, and I'm terrible at it. I'm a stepfather,
so the kid who was three when I came into
his life, he's twenty six. It lives with me now.
And I love these kids. They're they're my kids. I've
always referred to them as my kids.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
But I'm not. I'm not good at it.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
And I think a lot of that is because as
a stepfather, I had different challenges and so the lessons
that I learned from my parents, whether they were good
or bad, I couldn't apply to rearing my kids.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
So one of the challenges that I had going in
is that the kid's biological father was you know, you know,
divorces get messy and he said, if that, if that
guy ever lays a hand on my kids, I'm calling
you know, DCS or whatever, Protective Services whatever it is,
Permanent child Services, protective whatever they, you know, whatever the
department is.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And so I never I never spanked my kids.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
But as you heard from the last segment, my parents
had a designated paddle for spanking, which I'm sure is
because that's how they were raised as well, right, spanking thing. Yeah,
it created such a challenge for me, and I think
what I realized along the way is that the times
that I wanted to strike the children were the times
(11:16):
that I didn't know any other way. I was so exasperated,
and it forced me to be more creative.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
And you're not a bad parent.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I just feel like I didn't you know, I was
always there for the kids, right, I'm always there And
I hear this.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I've been to therapy before too, and they're like, no,
you're not a bad parent. You know, you didn't beat
your kids. You protected your kids, you fed the kids,
you kept them. But I feel like that's that's the
bare minimum.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
No, but really that's not the people who did get
beat that's the bare minimum.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
No, Like the thing is that we all are the product,
positive or negative of everything we get for bet or
for worse from our parents on both sides, and it's
up to us to find the little things that we
feel like we that they didn't do right, or the
things that they could have improved on, and fix those problems,
(12:14):
stop that pattern from being passed down to the next generation.
And find the things that your parents did well and
keep those things going. Those are the echoes of the
good things that they brought. But you want to make
it so that the negative stuff if you can be
the one to break that spell. I mean, that's the
kind of stuff that gets passed down generation to generation
to generation.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So I was always afraid that the kids would end
up like me, right, because when I was a teenager,
I did some stupid things and and and I got
in trouble, uh, and I ended up rather than doing
hard time, I ended up going to one of those
correctional boot camp things you've probably heard about right where
it's like you could go do time behind bars, or
(12:55):
you could go to this they're in your face. It's
based on like the Marine Corps boot camp. And so
I did that when I was twenty and and it
worked for me, so that I was I was a
real hard ass on my kids when they were young,
because I was just terrified that if they didn't have
the discipline, that they would end up getting in trouble
(13:17):
like I did. And I was just that was my
biggest fear, was that something horrible like that would happen,
that they would make a mistake that would haunt them
for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Well, there's also I don't think I handled it the
best well.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
And that there's also like when we're young parents, there's
so much that's out of control that we tend to
micro manage the things that we can control. Whenever we
have a lot of chaos and things that are out
of control in our lives, we tend to hyper fixate
on the things that we can control. And that's where
people start to become a little bit domineering with parenting
and stuff like that. And it's good that you're recognizing
(13:49):
that because then that means that you're actually taking the
steps to address it and not not fall into that track.
Twenty years too late, Yeah, but it's better late than ever.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Well, I already screwed them up.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Yeah, but your kids are probably old enough now where
you can give them the explanation that parenting a lot
of times just comes down to a series of bad
choices and you're trying to pick the least bad choice
that's good. And you're at that point. At this age,
they're gonna be old enough to understand and they're gonna
get it when you say I'm sorry, I got that wrong,
(14:23):
They're gonna get.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
So that's my concern is that when they become parents,
that they're going to engage in the same patterns that
they learned from me, because that's what they knew. And
I feel like I need to have a heart to
heart with them, you know, ifenever they I'm not a
grandparent yet, but if ever there's a time that they
that that I am a grandparent, I need to pull
them aside and.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Be like, I screwed up and I need you to
be better than I was. Nah.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
You know, Chris, it's interesting because it's my kids are
fifteen and nineteen now. My son is nineteen, and growing
up I wasn't necessarily always hard, but I had very
very clear lines and my son gonna tell you, like,
there aren't many times that my dad had to implement
corporal punishment. But those times that he did were memorable enough,
(15:08):
and they were connected to a tone and an attitude
in a move that let me know moving forward, when
his voice goes to a certain level, then it's time
to stop playing that you're crossing a line and you're
edging yourself into corporal punishment land. But he will also
(15:29):
tell you that my dad is quick to apologize and
quick to let it be known when he is wrong
on any given thing. I am one of those individuals
where my son knows for a fact that if I'm
wrong on something, whether it's something I told him, something
I told him he could not do. I'm the first
one to say, hey, you know what, man, I am sorry.
(15:50):
I led you wrong. This was not right for me
to do X, Y, and Z. Because you have to
have that level of manhood is not just about being
there physically to correct yourself. It's also about being able
to sit there and have those heart hearts and have
those open, honest moments and be able to explain yourself
(16:12):
if you cannot do that. That is where I think
most of us as men feil.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
It models accountability for them.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, well I didn't do that.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Well, you can't now you didn't though you're.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Not dead to them I am.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
They're like, yeah, he's old, now you know what the
tell he's.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
A relationship with my kids. I'm terrible being the one
to pick up the phone and call them, but I
have a I love my kids, My kids love me.
We communicate. It's not like we have a strained relationship
or anything. But I just look back and I just
I'm like, I screwed this up. Plus, everything you're talking
about to Wallaw just seems so emotional and I'd rather
just bury those emotions and pretend that they don't exist.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
No, no, no, no, no, don't bury it. Manly, No
that And here's the problem is that's actually not manly.
You got you gotta be for me, I'm like, I'm
I'm the father that I wanted, not the father that
I had, Right, And that's my model and that that's
how I live my life, and it's how I also
am part of my my children where I want to
(17:13):
be able to be someone that I can always talk
to them, explain my failures and use those as examples
in the moment, but not be afraid to have those
heart to heart gotta And it's never too late, or
it is never too late to just say, hey, I
know we you know, talk and shoot the ish about
the game and this, that or the other. But if
(17:34):
you can't have that heart to heart, there's always gonna
be that wall.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
There's a wall.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
M I think I'm just okay with the wall. It's
probably just okay because if we just shoot the breeze.
I mean that's basically me saying I love you, Sam.
How do I get over that? I love this free therapy.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
By the way, Yeah, no, we should take a break
and get back to it.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Okay, I love this.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Uh that, and what you're feeding your kids is actually
the worst thing you can possibly do to them. I'll
tell you what California is going to do to fix that,
and we'll make you a better parent. Next Chris merril
In from o Kelly CAFI AM six forty. We are
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Mark Ronner.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Are you crying?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on Demand from
KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
California schools are looking at phasing out the ultra processed foods,
which means that the make America Healthy Again liberals.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
This is the only wing of the Liberal party.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
It really agrees with anything you're seeing out of the
Trump administration because it's a lot of the RFK stuff.
I think they're pretty happy about this whole movement to
make America healthy.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
You're going to get rid of the processed foods.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
So that's the latest is that California schools are looking
to get rid of that. I fed my kids such
garbage growing up, just chicken nuggets. Fine, if you'll eat it, fine,
whatever you'll eat. My wife was so good, She's such
a good parent. She always led with love right. I
always felt like that's what made her such a great parent.
(19:05):
Doesn't matter if she did something right or wrong, she
always led with love. And the kids knew. They still
know whatever their mom's doing, whether they like it or
hate it, they know that she's doing it because she
loves them. Right me either, Like, I think he's just
doing it because he's trying to not screw us up,
but he's actually making it worse, which how I always
felt like I was doing with my kids. But it
(19:27):
was also really it's really tough being in being a
step parent because the kids get mad and then they
go tell their dad how awful I was went through
that with all the kids.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I don't want to live with you anymore. We're gonna
live with dad.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
All three of the kids tried that for a short
amount of time and then came back all grass is
always green her and we knew teenagers were gonna do that,
And I have to tell you that was maybe the
most stressful time in my marriage too. And if you've
ever been in a family like this, and I didn't
bring the kids into the family, it's not a blended
family or anything. But I was a step parent who
married the joke as I married an old lady with
(20:03):
three used kids. That was so incredibly difficult because the
kids would use me right. They knew that their their
dad didn't like me because I was the I was
the guy who you know, married his ex wife and
he didn't like that, which I totally get. But they
knew that they could get on his good side by
(20:24):
bad mouthing me. And as teenagers, you know, it's scorched earth,
they'll do whatever they can. So they would say, oh,
we don't want to go back to live with mom.
And Chris, he's terrible. He's mean to us, he yells
at us when we do things wrong. And so then
they all said, well, we want to go live with
dad at some point in their in their adolescence. And
all of them immediately regretted that. But my my wife
(20:47):
used to do this. You're chasing the kids away from me, Sam,
How would you?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
How would you deal with that? I mean, we went
to counseling for this, and I hated it.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
And I'll tell you why I hated it, because I
felt like counseling and that in that period was it
was like going to the husband mechanic.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
My wife found a counselor.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
She said, we're gonna go see this counselor, and then
she would go tell the counselor everything I was doing wrong,
and then the counselor would spend all kinds of time
telling me how wrong I was about everything I did.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Yeah, that's not a balanced approach to couple's therapy.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
So I Withdrew.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I built a man cave and I would come home
from work and I go to the man cave, and
I was basically a complete absent your husband and father,
because why why even try to fight it? Because I
knew the kids were teenagers and manipulating things, and I
knew that my wife was always going to take their side.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Which was the agreement from the day we met.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Kids come first, but I kind of got like, all right,
well you're fourth in line.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Well, it puts you in a vulnerable position where you
really can't You're not in a position to discipline them
because they're the step kids, they're not yours. Right, you
have to be the echo of the parent in that situation,
and you're the person who's the whipping boy within the family.
So anytime something goes wrong with the kids, you're the
(22:05):
person who's at fault.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
So it makes it really hard to be able to
feel confident as a parent with the decisions that you're
making when you're not being an effective echo, when you're
trying to see how much of your voice you can have,
how much of your influence and your discipline and your
(22:27):
approach that you want to have in place. And they
here it was a telling thing when you said they
went to their dad and immediately came back. Oh yeah, yeah,
because for whatever deficiencies you had as a parent, you
were still significantly more effective as a parent. They knew that.
They a lot of times, you know, when we talk
(22:50):
about like loose parenting. The idea is that, oh, we're
not putting strong enough boundaries around the kid, when really
parenting is about having effective boundaries that are safe, that
keep the kids on rails to make sure that they're
not going out of bounds and doing stuff that's going
to get them in trouble.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
And that's what adolescent's rebelligence.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
That's why they absolutely we're going to live with their
dad because he's not gonna make us and your dinner
every night.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
And you don't think that they're taking out their frustration
about how their parents aren't getting along and they don't
they're not together, which what they honestly would love to have,
because that's what every kid wants. Yeah, they're taking out
all of their frustrations directly on you. So it's easy
to feel like you're not being a good parent when
you're dealing with teenagers. At the same time, once they
(23:37):
become adults and that rebellious face kind of fades out
if they happen to become parents. That makes it so
that they slowly understand what I said earlier. Parenting a
lot of times comes down to a series of bad decisions,
and in those moments, you're trying to pick the least
bad choice.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, I just don't think I was good at that.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
Yeah, well a lot of people are good or bad
or not. The thing is, as we get older, we
have accountability.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah that cos I was saying that I need to
and you open and honest with my kids, which means
I have to be vulnerable. And I can be so
much more vulnerable on the radio talking to half a
million people at a time that I can be in
a one on one conversation with my own child.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Yeah, it's easy to talk to It's easier to talk
to public than it is to be like vulnerable with
one person that you know you haven't a direct influence
an impact on. It makes sense.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Because I'm scared that they're going to hurt me.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
You're scared that they're going to reject you, that they're
going to continue to blame you. But really they're going
to understand that, like you're what you're ultimately doing is
like you want them to not follow and you know,
make the same mistakes that you made. Show them what
accountability is. Your parents didn't do that for you. Show
them what that is so that they can understand we're
(24:53):
allowed to make mistakes as long as we own up
to them and try to make amends.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
All right, And just a moment here, I got to talk.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
I got to tell you that as someone, as we
all do this, of course we learned from our parents.
We learned the things that our parents, you know, when
we are in a similar situation, how we handle it,
how we now all of a sudden see our parents
did it right. What I'm starting to recognize that my
parents did right all along, and maybe you've seen the
same thing with your parents when you become a parent.
(25:22):
That is next. I'm Chris Merrill. I am six forty
ian from O'Kelly Tonight.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KIM sixty.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Chris Marrilyn from o kelly to Night KFI AM six
forty more stimulating talk listen anytime on demand on the
iHeartRadio app. I am leaning heavily into the expertise of
our tech director tonight, Sam.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
This is his side gig.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
He is a therapist, and so I'm basically stealing a
free hour from him.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It's just that you get to listen in.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
One of the things that struck me as we were
talking about parenting and how there's such a huge challenge,
especially when you know their step kids. That's one thing
which creates a new strain not only in the relationship
with the children, but also in the marriage and this
sort of thing, but also how raising step kids when
you've got a kind of a vindictive ex husband involved
(26:15):
is a bit of a challenge that I was not
equipped to handle because you know, my parents were together.
I didn't run into that situation, and so a lot
of the a lot of the ways that my parents
parented I wasn't able to use and I was ill
equipped to deal with. Well, if I do this wrong,
they're gonna go to their mom my wife, and say,
(26:40):
Chris is doing this and if he keeps it up,
I'm gonna go live with dad, which of course puts
her at odds with me. Or they would then go
to their dad, who would then call my wife and say,
what is your husband doing to my kids?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
He's blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Nothing anything, nothing ever physical, because he threatened when my
wife and I were dating, if he ever touches my kids,
I'm gonna look, I'm up throw away kill blood. So
it wasn't even worth it. But they I was watching
ted Lasso. Is that on TOOB yet?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Mark? Is Ted Lasso on TB now?
Speaker 5 (27:09):
I think just Apple TV and they've just raised their
price by a third.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So good luck. Yeah, son of a gun.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
I know that's my favorite streaming service because I feel
like the value was always there.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I just don't like that they raised it. Uh.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
There was a There was a poem in the third
season that has been used another TV before too, and
it talks about parenting and it says, they f you
up your mom and dad.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
They may not mean to, but they do.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
They fill you with the faults they had and add
some extra just for you, which is sam. I'm sure
you would agree, as somebody who drills deep into what
makes people who they are as part of your therapy.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
But what I took away.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
From the poem is not that my parents had passed
things along to me. It's that I was passing things
along to my kids, and I was adding a little
extra just for them. In other words, all all of
the faults that I had growing up I passed on
to my kids, and then all of the faults that
I developed as a parent, I passed those on too.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
Well, yeah, you didn't have a roadmap for how to
parent stepchild and full disclosure. I'm raising a step daughter
as well, and so I understand a lot of the frustrations,
especially when you have someone that you know like a
contentious relationship with their biological father. Now, all you can
do as a stepparent is try to encourage both actual
(28:31):
biological parents to have as good a communication with each
other as possible in regards to their kids, because at
the end of the day, both parents love their kids,
and they're both very concerned with how there's you know,
with their safety, how they're being raised when the kids
are not with them, So all you can do is
(28:51):
try to be as good of a conduit for them,
communicating the important stuff to each other.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Saym I got to push back against you a little bit. Please.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Everything you just said makes perfect sense at a perfect world,
but we know darn well that's not always the case.
Sometimes kids are used as pawns in order to try
to exact vengeance on an x that one person feels
is wrong to them.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
Is that your fault, not my fault exactly, that's all.
But the kids are gonna have to deal with their
actual parents not doing good parenting skills. Yeah, that doesn't
fall on you. You're not like the savior coming in trying
to rescue the kids and to save her. You are
the partner and you're trying to do your best to
(29:36):
raise step children. And all you can do is be
an echo of the parent. And if the parents themselves
are having poor not necessarily parenting skills, but co parenting skills,
that's not your fault. All you can do is try
to encourage them to have as good a communication with
each other as possible. But it's not your fault that
(29:56):
they're having a contentious relationship. As far as co parenting goes,
it takes a lot of self defeat. You have to
put a lot of your ego aside in order to
be a good co parent because a lot of times
you're gonna be dealing with someone who has a lot
of rightful and justified frustration towards you, just like you
may have justified frustration towards that other person. But you
(30:20):
have to put a lot of that aside because you
have to prioritize the kids and their needs.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
All right, really good points, Where were you like twenty
years ago when I started.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
This journey, I was raising hell.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I bet you were well.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Listen, I came through the other side. You know, nothing's perfect,
but came through the other side. They're all they're all
in the big twenties, and they're all healthy.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
They're old enough to understand when you sit down and
talk with them. It's just when you feel comfortable, you
should absolutely do it.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I love it all right, guys. That wraps on that Mark.
This is the least Mark has ever spoken.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
On the air.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
I wanted you to get the help you need.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Could it just get really uncomfortable for you when when
we couldn't mask things with humor.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
No, I think that you owe Sam whatever his hourly
rate is. Well, Sam looks like we're out of time.
It's like we're gonna have to go, all right. Chris Merrill, Intromo,
Kelly and I k IF I am six forty. We're
live everywhere the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (31:24):
App as F and kost HD two Los Angeles, Orange
County more stimulating talk
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hey there, Chris Merrill in from O Kelly Tonight I.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
AM sixty more stimulating talk alongside Mark Ronner in the
newsroom to Walla Sharp, one of the finest producers, probably
the finest producer I've ever had the opportunity to work with.
And Sam Zea, who is the smartest guy I've ever
had the pleasure to be rated from behind that board.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
So thank you, Sam. It's nice to have you here. Sam.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
For those who are unfamiliar, Sam is actually a licensed
therapist and he's working on his PhD. And I have
some more questions to ask you later on in the
show specifically, and I'm teasing. I had a little ways here,
but coming up at nine o'clock hour, there's a new
show on Hulu that keeps popping up and I recommended
for you, and evidently it wants me to watch virgins
(00:53):
threaten to have sex. So I'm curious about so many
things around that. So we'll talk about the after nine
o'clock still to come this hour. The kid's food is
about to be healthier than anything that we had when
we were going to going to school, So that is
that is coming up in just a moment, speaking of
your kids, how many of us were spanked as children? Actually,
(01:16):
it might bring salmon on this because he was a therapist, Mark,
I'm assuming that you were probably swatted a lot. Yeah,
that's a safe assumption. I got that living daylights kicked
out of me. Yeah, so wala, did you catch some
backhands when you were growing up? No, sir, No, your
parents very non non corporal.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
My father was one time he did spank me all
the way home for not listening to him. I think
that was the onliest time I had to actually be
beaten within an inch of my life.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
But I was out late.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
I was out late past you know, street lights coming on,
and yeah, he spanked me literally all the way home.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
But that was it. That was it.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
My mom.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
No, I just didn't want to disappoint my mom, so
she never had to so I kept everything on the low.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
She was an whole lot.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah all right, all right, close with your obviously close
with your mom, right, I mean very yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Okay, that's awesome, Sam, you want to jump in on this.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
I avoided it. I was a good kid all the
way through my childhood, and well, I didn't get in
trouble until I was an adult. Man, I got good
a lot. Oh yeah, No, I took calculated risks.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, that's smart. I wasn't that calculated.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
My mother used to say that we had to She
said about every three weeks, that's when she had to
get out the paddle.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And so when I was real little, they used to
use their hands.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
And then as I got older, my mother they were
doing some remodeling at the house, and she asked the
carpenter to make her a wooden paddle using some scrap
wood because she kept breaking wooden spoons off on my
on my butt. That's clever. Was it the kind of
paddle that had the air holes in it? So we'll
go faster? No, And it's it's interesting you say that,
because I've had a lot of people ask me that question.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It did not.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I don't know that that actually works. They hurt, can't.
I can tell you that, I'm sure they do. I
just don't know if the holes actually matter. It's kind
of like it's kind of like, boy, I can swing
this baseball battle lot faster if only it had more
aerodynamic holes.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
The holes do matter? You think I have seen the whole.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
I remember in junior I scot I've seen there was
at ed Marshall there was a paddle and that and
those holes they cut back on limbers and they add
this whistle.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Like the whistle I believe, which is intimidating.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
Y yeah, very intimidating.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
I would love to have seen MythBusters do this one, right.
The MythBusters team is on it. According to the Internet,
they're saying that by drilling holes in the paddle you
can actually inflict a lot more pain on your kids.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We're gonna find out, right, that would have been great.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
And then you know the graphics where they scribble it
all lot on on blueprint paper.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yep. Now we just drill holes.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
And then do a computer animatic of it.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Perfect. That's what I would have loved.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
But whether or not at work, the holes, the psychological
horror effects the child was what that true? That's true
one of my favorite stories. And I'll get to this
in just a minute. Because scientists are now saying old
punishments fall short traditional discipline rooted in the mid twentieth century.
Behaviorist models like rewards, sticker charts, timeouts, or taking away
(04:18):
toys may not just be ineffective, but can also harm
a child's emotional growth. In other words, now they don't
talk about spanking so much in this as much as
they talk about the the carrot versus the stick, the
you know, the reward versus the punishment sort of situation.
All right, one of my favorite stories. So, and I
(04:38):
love telling the story for two reasons. One I get
to embarrass him now, but two it's just semn funny.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And that is my brother was a bedwetter, and so.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
He was probably I'm gonna say he was like four
or five years old, which would have put me in
about seven or eight. And we did something to upset
my parents and we got the pattle. So Mom says,
get me Peter. That was the worst when we had
to go get the paddle. It's kind of like the
old school when they used to say, go go pick
me a switch and the kids had to go pick
their own, you know, weapon for torture. Oh yeah, so
(05:11):
my uh, and I don't remember if it was my
father and my mother that administered this one. My dad
didn't use the paddle very much. He didn't like to
do that. He would only use his hand, but he
used the paddle a few times. I don't remember if
this is one of them, but we had this, my
brother and I. We lived up We lived excuse me.
Our bedrooms were on the second floor, so the kitchen
was on the first floor. Peter Paddle stayed on top
(05:31):
of the refrigerator in the kitchen, and then there was
a staircase. The staircase had a door at the bottom.
It's an old house and it was just it was
a hallway of a staircase. Had a first name, yes,
Peter Paddle, and that's what my mother would say, Go
get me Peter. Oh boy, that was worse. That was terrible.
Damn Yeah. So whatever it was. My brother and I
were doing something that irritated my parents, and I got
(05:52):
to the point where they felt like we deserved this paddling,
and so I had to go first. And it was
just I'm I mean, the terror of knowing it's coming
and then whack and just a.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
You know, whack.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Whack. And it was always three. Mom said, never more
than three, but it was always three. It was never one,
but it was never more than three. She made very clear,
I never hit you kids more than three times. That
was my limit. I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
I was like, well, thank goodness, you had the forty
two to do it at least three times.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Mom.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
So I'm just I'm crying, my key stories, you know,
beat red, and I'm running up the stairs. You know
how it is when you're a kid and you're trying
to run away from it. It's so painful, and you're
putting your hands on your butt, but it hurts to
move your butt. Anyway, I go and I run up
the stairs and I'm crying, and I get to the top,
and the only thing that made me feel better was
(06:49):
hearing my brother get the punishment as well. So I'm
standing at the top of the stairs and the doors
open at the bottom, and I'm and I just hear whack.
I felt a little better.
Speaker 5 (07:03):
Quack.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I'm feeling even better, quack.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I'm going, all right, my pain's almost gone now, but
it's still hurt.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Do you know something did? What's that? Do you do?
Speaker 5 (07:18):
You need to go more in depth in on this topic.
It seems like there's a lot of pain we got
unpack here right now.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Wait, you're about to get the payoff, all right, all right, okay,
so yeah, we'll do this. We'll do a second segment
here because there is there's there's.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
A lot to unpass. A cry for help.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So I'm at the top of the stairs and I'm
tears streaming down my face. But I feel it a
little better because I just from my brother get punished,
and I'm pretty sure it was his fault that I
got spanked in the first place. And he's whack, whack, whack,
and then so he, uh, they know, get upstairs and
go to bed.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
I hear my parents yell, and my brother is at
the bottom of the stairs.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
And he said he's crying, and they slammed the door
out go to bed, and they slammed the door at
the bottom of the stairs. And as soon as that
door closes, junk my brother and he looks up at
me and he goes, didn't hurt have my diaper on.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
That's I love it.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
He saw what was coming.
Speaker 5 (08:18):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Is that not the worst?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
And I'm I mean wenny bit that I felt better
by knowing that he was suffering was immediately replaced by
the most horrible feeling, like I got all the punishment
out of it.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
It was the worst, worst, all right.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Uh, here's what we have to kind. I do want
to I do want to get to this a little
bit further because I do some thoughts on parenting.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
I raised three kids. I didn't do a great job.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
I've always said I'm not a good parent, but I
think I learned a few things along the way. And
I want to invite Sam and he to help me
unpack some of what I've learned because I was not
able to parent the same way mind work. I'll tell
you why that is in just a few moments. What
I learned and how that was beneficial to me is next.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from KFIM.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Six to forty more stimulating talk listen anytime on demand
in the iHeartRadio app. So new studies are out now
and neuroscientists are questioning some of the old ways of parenting, in.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Other words, the old carrot and stick.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
If a child does wrong, negative reinforcement, of a child
does right, positive reinforcement. They're saying, basically, kids' brains aren't
really wired to do that. While that may work, the
pevlovine response might work with like dogs, and it might work.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
In the short term.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
The kids don't necessarily learn, their brains don't really put
things together, and it actually could create a bit of
a strain on your relationship with your child and your
child's you know, trust in their parents and that kind
of thing for those that have that are unfamiliar. Sam,
who's our tech director, is actually a therapist. Sam, parenting
is probably the hardest thing I've ever done, and it
(10:00):
is also, I would say, the thing that I'm really
bad at.
Speaker 5 (10:04):
Do you share that opinion with quite a few people.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Hardest thing, and I'm terrible at it. I'm a stepfather,
so the kid who was three when I came into
his life, he's twenty six. It lives with me now.
And I love these kids. They're they're my kids. I've
always referred to them as my kids.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
But I'm not. I'm not good at it.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
And I think a lot of that is because as
a stepfather, I had different challenges and so the lessons
that I learned from my parents, whether they were good
or bad, I couldn't apply to rearing my kids.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
So one of the challenges that I had going in
is that the kid's biological father was you know, you know,
divorces get messy and he said, if that, if that
guy ever lays a hand on my kids, I'm calling
you know, DCS or whatever, Protective Services whatever it is,
Permanent child Services, protective whatever they, you know, whatever the
department is.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
And so I never I never spanked my kids.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
But as you heard from the last segment, my parents
had a designated paddle for spanking, which I'm sure is
because that's how they were raised as well, right, spanking thing. Yeah,
it created such a challenge for me, and I think
what I realized along the way is that the times
that I wanted to strike the children were the times
(11:16):
that I didn't know any other way. I was so exasperated,
and it forced me to be more creative.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
And you're not a bad parent.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I just feel like I didn't you know, I was
always there for the kids, right, I'm always there And
I hear this.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I've been to therapy before too, and they're like, no,
you're not a bad parent. You know, you didn't beat
your kids. You protected your kids, you fed the kids,
you kept them. But I feel like that's that's the
bare minimum.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
No, but really that's not the people who did get
beat that's the bare minimum.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
No, Like the thing is that we all are the product,
positive or negative of everything we get for bet or
for worse from our parents on both sides, and it's
up to us to find the little things that we
feel like we that they didn't do right, or the
things that they could have improved on, and fix those problems,
(12:14):
stop that pattern from being passed down to the next generation.
And find the things that your parents did well and
keep those things going. Those are the echoes of the
good things that they brought. But you want to make
it so that the negative stuff if you can be
the one to break that spell. I mean, that's the
kind of stuff that gets passed down generation to generation
to generation.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So I was always afraid that the kids would end
up like me, right, because when I was a teenager,
I did some stupid things and and and I got
in trouble, uh, and I ended up rather than doing
hard time, I ended up going to one of those
correctional boot camp things you've probably heard about right where
it's like you could go do time behind bars, or
(12:55):
you could go to this they're in your face. It's
based on like the Marine Corps boot camp. And so
I did that when I was twenty and and it
worked for me, so that I was I was a
real hard ass on my kids when they were young,
because I was just terrified that if they didn't have
the discipline, that they would end up getting in trouble
(13:17):
like I did. And I was just that was my
biggest fear, was that something horrible like that would happen,
that they would make a mistake that would haunt them
for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Well, there's also I don't think I handled it the
best well.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
And that there's also like when we're young parents, there's
so much that's out of control that we tend to
micro manage the things that we can control. Whenever we
have a lot of chaos and things that are out
of control in our lives, we tend to hyper fixate
on the things that we can control. And that's where
people start to become a little bit domineering with parenting
and stuff like that. And it's good that you're recognizing
(13:49):
that because then that means that you're actually taking the
steps to address it and not not fall into that track.
Twenty years too late, Yeah, but it's better late than ever.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Well, I already screwed them up.
Speaker 5 (14:00):
Yeah, but your kids are probably old enough now where
you can give them the explanation that parenting a lot
of times just comes down to a series of bad
choices and you're trying to pick the least bad choice
that's good. And you're at that point. At this age,
they're gonna be old enough to understand and they're gonna
get it when you say I'm sorry, I got that wrong,
(14:23):
They're gonna get.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
So that's my concern is that when they become parents,
that they're going to engage in the same patterns that
they learned from me, because that's what they knew. And
I feel like I need to have a heart to
heart with them, you know, ifenever they I'm not a
grandparent yet, but if ever there's a time that they
that that I am a grandparent, I need to pull
them aside and.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Be like, I screwed up and I need you to
be better than I was. Nah.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
You know, Chris, it's interesting because it's my kids are
fifteen and nineteen now. My son is nineteen, and growing
up I wasn't necessarily always hard, but I had very
very clear lines and my son gonna tell you, like,
there aren't many times that my dad had to implement
corporal punishment. But those times that he did were memorable enough,
(15:08):
and they were connected to a tone and an attitude
in a move that let me know moving forward, when
his voice goes to a certain level, then it's time
to stop playing that you're crossing a line and you're
edging yourself into corporal punishment land. But he will also
(15:29):
tell you that my dad is quick to apologize and
quick to let it be known when he is wrong
on any given thing. I am one of those individuals
where my son knows for a fact that if I'm
wrong on something, whether it's something I told him, something
I told him he could not do. I'm the first
one to say, hey, you know what, man, I am sorry.
(15:50):
I led you wrong. This was not right for me
to do X, Y, and Z. Because you have to
have that level of manhood is not just about being
there physically to correct yourself. It's also about being able
to sit there and have those heart hearts and have
those open, honest moments and be able to explain yourself
(16:12):
if you cannot do that. That is where I think
most of us as men feil.
Speaker 5 (16:18):
It models accountability for them.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, well I didn't do that.
Speaker 5 (16:23):
Well, you can't now you didn't though you're.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Not dead to them I am.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
They're like, yeah, he's old, now you know what the
tell he's.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
A relationship with my kids. I'm terrible being the one
to pick up the phone and call them, but I
have a I love my kids, My kids love me.
We communicate. It's not like we have a strained relationship
or anything. But I just look back and I just
I'm like, I screwed this up. Plus, everything you're talking
about to Wallaw just seems so emotional and I'd rather
just bury those emotions and pretend that they don't exist.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
No, no, no, no, no, don't bury it. Manly, No
that And here's the problem is that's actually not manly.
You got you gotta be for me, I'm like, I'm
I'm the father that I wanted, not the father that
I had, Right, And that's my model and that that's
how I live my life, and it's how I also
am part of my my children where I want to
(17:13):
be able to be someone that I can always talk
to them, explain my failures and use those as examples
in the moment, but not be afraid to have those
heart to heart gotta And it's never too late, or
it is never too late to just say, hey, I
know we you know, talk and shoot the ish about
the game and this, that or the other. But if
(17:34):
you can't have that heart to heart, there's always gonna
be that wall.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
There's a wall.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
M I think I'm just okay with the wall. It's
probably just okay because if we just shoot the breeze.
I mean that's basically me saying I love you, Sam.
How do I get over that? I love this free therapy.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
By the way, Yeah, no, we should take a break
and get back to it.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Okay, I love this.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Uh that, and what you're feeding your kids is actually
the worst thing you can possibly do to them. I'll
tell you what California is going to do to fix that,
and we'll make you a better parent. Next Chris merril
In from o Kelly CAFI AM six forty. We are
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Mark Ronner.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Are you crying?
Speaker 1 (18:14):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on Demand from
KFI AM sixty.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
California schools are looking at phasing out the ultra processed foods,
which means that the make America Healthy Again liberals.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
This is the only wing of the Liberal party.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
It really agrees with anything you're seeing out of the
Trump administration because it's a lot of the RFK stuff.
I think they're pretty happy about this whole movement to
make America healthy.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
You're going to get rid of the processed foods.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
So that's the latest is that California schools are looking
to get rid of that. I fed my kids such
garbage growing up, just chicken nuggets. Fine, if you'll eat it, fine,
whatever you'll eat. My wife was so good, She's such
a good parent. She always led with love right. I
always felt like that's what made her such a great parent.
(19:05):
Doesn't matter if she did something right or wrong, she
always led with love. And the kids knew. They still
know whatever their mom's doing, whether they like it or
hate it, they know that she's doing it because she
loves them. Right me either, Like, I think he's just
doing it because he's trying to not screw us up,
but he's actually making it worse, which how I always
felt like I was doing with my kids. But it
(19:27):
was also really it's really tough being in being a
step parent because the kids get mad and then they
go tell their dad how awful I was went through
that with all the kids.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
I don't want to live with you anymore. We're gonna
live with dad.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
All three of the kids tried that for a short
amount of time and then came back all grass is
always green her and we knew teenagers were gonna do that,
And I have to tell you that was maybe the
most stressful time in my marriage too. And if you've
ever been in a family like this, and I didn't
bring the kids into the family, it's not a blended
family or anything. But I was a step parent who
married the joke as I married an old lady with
(20:03):
three used kids. That was so incredibly difficult because the
kids would use me right. They knew that their their
dad didn't like me because I was the I was
the guy who you know, married his ex wife and
he didn't like that, which I totally get. But they
knew that they could get on his good side by
(20:24):
bad mouthing me. And as teenagers, you know, it's scorched earth,
they'll do whatever they can. So they would say, oh,
we don't want to go back to live with mom.
And Chris, he's terrible. He's mean to us, he yells
at us when we do things wrong. And so then
they all said, well, we want to go live with
dad at some point in their in their adolescence. And
all of them immediately regretted that. But my my wife
(20:47):
used to do this. You're chasing the kids away from me, Sam,
How would you?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
How would you deal with that? I mean, we went
to counseling for this, and I hated it.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
And I'll tell you why I hated it, because I
felt like counseling and that in that period was it
was like going to the husband mechanic.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
My wife found a counselor.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
She said, we're gonna go see this counselor, and then
she would go tell the counselor everything I was doing wrong,
and then the counselor would spend all kinds of time
telling me how wrong I was about everything I did.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Yeah, that's not a balanced approach to couple's therapy.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
So I Withdrew.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
I built a man cave and I would come home
from work and I go to the man cave, and
I was basically a complete absent your husband and father,
because why why even try to fight it? Because I
knew the kids were teenagers and manipulating things, and I
knew that my wife was always going to take their side.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Which was the agreement from the day we met.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Kids come first, but I kind of got like, all right,
well you're fourth in line.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Well, it puts you in a vulnerable position where you
really can't You're not in a position to discipline them
because they're the step kids, they're not yours. Right, you
have to be the echo of the parent in that situation,
and you're the person who's the whipping boy within the family.
So anytime something goes wrong with the kids, you're the
(22:05):
person who's at fault.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yep.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
So it makes it really hard to be able to
feel confident as a parent with the decisions that you're
making when you're not being an effective echo, when you're
trying to see how much of your voice you can have,
how much of your influence and your discipline and your
(22:27):
approach that you want to have in place. And they
here it was a telling thing when you said they
went to their dad and immediately came back. Oh yeah, yeah,
because for whatever deficiencies you had as a parent, you
were still significantly more effective as a parent. They knew that.
They a lot of times, you know, when we talk
(22:50):
about like loose parenting. The idea is that, oh, we're
not putting strong enough boundaries around the kid, when really
parenting is about having effective boundaries that are safe, that
keep the kids on rails to make sure that they're
not going out of bounds and doing stuff that's going
to get them in trouble.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
And that's what adolescent's rebelligence.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
That's why they absolutely we're going to live with their
dad because he's not gonna make us and your dinner
every night.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
And you don't think that they're taking out their frustration
about how their parents aren't getting along and they don't
they're not together, which what they honestly would love to have,
because that's what every kid wants. Yeah, they're taking out
all of their frustrations directly on you. So it's easy
to feel like you're not being a good parent when
you're dealing with teenagers. At the same time, once they
(23:37):
become adults and that rebellious face kind of fades out
if they happen to become parents. That makes it so
that they slowly understand what I said earlier. Parenting a
lot of times comes down to a series of bad decisions,
and in those moments, you're trying to pick the least
bad choice.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Yeah, I just don't think I was good at that.
Speaker 5 (23:57):
Yeah, well a lot of people are good or bad
or not. The thing is, as we get older, we
have accountability.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah that cos I was saying that I need to
and you open and honest with my kids, which means
I have to be vulnerable. And I can be so
much more vulnerable on the radio talking to half a
million people at a time that I can be in
a one on one conversation with my own child.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
Yeah, it's easy to talk to It's easier to talk
to public than it is to be like vulnerable with
one person that you know you haven't a direct influence
an impact on. It makes sense.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Because I'm scared that they're going to hurt me.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
You're scared that they're going to reject you, that they're
going to continue to blame you. But really they're going
to understand that, like you're what you're ultimately doing is
like you want them to not follow and you know,
make the same mistakes that you made. Show them what
accountability is. Your parents didn't do that for you. Show
them what that is so that they can understand we're
(24:53):
allowed to make mistakes as long as we own up
to them and try to make amends.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
All right, And just a moment here, I got to talk.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
I got to tell you that as someone, as we
all do this, of course we learned from our parents.
We learned the things that our parents, you know, when
we are in a similar situation, how we handle it,
how we now all of a sudden see our parents
did it right. What I'm starting to recognize that my
parents did right all along, and maybe you've seen the
same thing with your parents when you become a parent.
(25:22):
That is next. I'm Chris Merrill. I am six forty
ian from O'Kelly Tonight.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KIM sixty.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Chris Marrilyn from o kelly to Night KFI AM six
forty more stimulating talk listen anytime on demand on the
iHeartRadio app. I am leaning heavily into the expertise of
our tech director tonight, Sam.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
This is his side gig.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
He is a therapist, and so I'm basically stealing a
free hour from him.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It's just that you get to listen in.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
One of the things that struck me as we were
talking about parenting and how there's such a huge challenge,
especially when you know their step kids. That's one thing
which creates a new strain not only in the relationship
with the children, but also in the marriage and this
sort of thing, but also how raising step kids when
you've got a kind of a vindictive ex husband involved
(26:15):
is a bit of a challenge that I was not
equipped to handle because you know, my parents were together.
I didn't run into that situation, and so a lot
of the a lot of the ways that my parents
parented I wasn't able to use and I was ill
equipped to deal with. Well, if I do this wrong,
they're gonna go to their mom my wife, and say,
(26:40):
Chris is doing this and if he keeps it up,
I'm gonna go live with dad, which of course puts
her at odds with me. Or they would then go
to their dad, who would then call my wife and say,
what is your husband doing to my kids?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
He's blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Nothing anything, nothing ever physical, because he threatened when my
wife and I were dating, if he ever touches my kids,
I'm gonna look, I'm up throw away kill blood. So
it wasn't even worth it. But they I was watching
ted Lasso. Is that on TOOB yet?
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Mark? Is Ted Lasso on TB now?
Speaker 5 (27:09):
I think just Apple TV and they've just raised their
price by a third.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So good luck. Yeah, son of a gun.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
I know that's my favorite streaming service because I feel
like the value was always there.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I just don't like that they raised it. Uh.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
There was a There was a poem in the third
season that has been used another TV before too, and
it talks about parenting and it says, they f you
up your mom and dad.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
They may not mean to, but they do.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
They fill you with the faults they had and add
some extra just for you, which is sam. I'm sure
you would agree, as somebody who drills deep into what
makes people who they are as part of your therapy.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
But what I took away.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
From the poem is not that my parents had passed
things along to me. It's that I was passing things
along to my kids, and I was adding a little
extra just for them. In other words, all all of
the faults that I had growing up I passed on
to my kids, and then all of the faults that
I developed as a parent, I passed those on too.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
Well, yeah, you didn't have a roadmap for how to
parent stepchild and full disclosure. I'm raising a step daughter
as well, and so I understand a lot of the frustrations,
especially when you have someone that you know like a
contentious relationship with their biological father. Now, all you can
do as a stepparent is try to encourage both actual
(28:31):
biological parents to have as good a communication with each
other as possible in regards to their kids, because at
the end of the day, both parents love their kids,
and they're both very concerned with how there's you know,
with their safety, how they're being raised when the kids
are not with them, So all you can do is
(28:51):
try to be as good of a conduit for them,
communicating the important stuff to each other.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Saym I got to push back against you a little bit. Please.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
Everything you just said makes perfect sense at a perfect world,
but we know darn well that's not always the case.
Sometimes kids are used as pawns in order to try
to exact vengeance on an x that one person feels
is wrong to them.
Speaker 5 (29:15):
Is that your fault, not my fault exactly, that's all.
But the kids are gonna have to deal with their
actual parents not doing good parenting skills. Yeah, that doesn't
fall on you. You're not like the savior coming in trying
to rescue the kids and to save her. You are
the partner and you're trying to do your best to
(29:36):
raise step children. And all you can do is be
an echo of the parent. And if the parents themselves
are having poor not necessarily parenting skills, but co parenting skills,
that's not your fault. All you can do is try
to encourage them to have as good a communication with
each other as possible. But it's not your fault that
(29:56):
they're having a contentious relationship. As far as co parenting goes,
it takes a lot of self defeat. You have to
put a lot of your ego aside in order to
be a good co parent because a lot of times
you're gonna be dealing with someone who has a lot
of rightful and justified frustration towards you, just like you
may have justified frustration towards that other person. But you
(30:20):
have to put a lot of that aside because you
have to prioritize the kids and their needs.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
All right, really good points, Where were you like twenty
years ago when I started.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
This journey, I was raising hell.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I bet you were well.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Listen, I came through the other side. You know, nothing's perfect,
but came through the other side. They're all they're all
in the big twenties, and they're all healthy.
Speaker 5 (30:50):
They're old enough to understand when you sit down and
talk with them. It's just when you feel comfortable, you
should absolutely do it.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
I love it all right, guys. That wraps on that Mark.
This is the least Mark has ever spoken.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
On the air.
Speaker 5 (31:04):
I wanted you to get the help you need.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Could it just get really uncomfortable for you when when
we couldn't mask things with humor.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
No, I think that you owe Sam whatever his hourly
rate is. Well, Sam looks like we're out of time.
It's like we're gonna have to go, all right. Chris Merrill, Intromo,
Kelly and I k IF I am six forty. We're
live everywhere the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (31:24):
App as F and kost HD two Los Angeles, Orange
County more stimulating talk
Later, with Mo'Kelly News
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